Words I now understand

It's very hard to find the time around Izzy to write my blog. She's keeping me busy (which is, of course, a good thing) and hates it when I'm on my computer. By the time I've spent a good hour on her night-time routine (teeth, bed, she reads a bit to me, I read a bit to her, cuddles and a good chat), I am too pooped to even think about writing. 

Izzy also hates to see me crying. I'm actually crying less now as I'm so occupied with Izzy and feeling more able to get on with the mundane everyday time-filling tasks of life such as turning the laundry, cleaning and even cooking. But I do still burst into spontaneous tears several times a day and today as I started weeping in the car (the thinking place), Izzy started tutting and sighing which infuriated me. Oh God, how I hate all these intense, conflicting emotions that have the power to take control of me and turn me into someone I don't even recognise.

In fact, now that I have written that, it's truer to say that I have turned into someone different forever. I wear a constant sad face, I walk sadly, I find joy in nothing. But I have to try for Izzy's sake. That's what will keep me going, walking this journey of time as each day takes me further away from 'then'. The waves still come and go and have their peaks and troughs, but there seems to be more space between them and they are certainly less violent. (And will hopefully become less so now that my psychiatrist has prescribed me anti-depressants as a short-term crutch.)

We've all read the words in romantic novels; words such as 'yearning' and 'longing' and 'heartache' or 'heartbreak'. Well now I understand them all. My heart literally does feel 'heavy' and the force of the feeling of longing to hold my son again is so strong it sometimes feels like my heart will push itself out of my chest. I don't know why it feels like my heart is being pushed or pulled from my body, but that's exactly what I feel pretty much all the time. It's like an ache that is always there, it may ebb and flow according to current external influences and distractions, but it's always there in the background.

Missing. That's another word. I am missing William enormously. He is missing from our lives. He who was the constant, the glue that stuck us all together, the fourth corner in our square. Izzy is at school all day and one day a week at her dad's, as well as for half the school holidays, so although we miss her when she's not here, we're used to it, but William was always here. I share Izzy, but William was mine - we did everything together. It sounds selfish to say 'mine' and not 'ours' but he was still at the stage where he was an extension of me. He was only just becoming a little boy with a sense of self, of ego. He was just on the point of separation from me in both the psychological and physical sense, with his place booked to do mornings at nursery school.

I'm not saying Olivier didn't have a role - he did and he is a great father (note 'is' - you don't stop) - he did bath-times and often fed William and we shared bedtimes, sometimes me, sometimes Olivier, so William got books in both languages. And the couple of times I came to the UK with Izzy, Olivier looked after William around work (when in the daytimes William had the love of his grandparents (English and French) as well as a childminder) for a week at a time. He loved it!!

William was so loved by everyone around him. We must be careful not to forget the feelings of Isabelle, of William's grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts and extended family, of my and Olivier's long-time friends, who all adored him and whose depth of loss is also immensely profound. Our little guy never knew the meaning of words such as 'bad', 'mean' or even 'punishment' (although he did have a touch of the mischievous in him!). He was taken at the age where he had done no harm, and no-one had done him any harm. His life was short, but it was perfect.