Nicole: Sometimes, I Just Miss Him

Losing my son has brought all sorts of feelings.  There's sadness, and lots of it. Sometimes it's a gentle thought about how he should be here, sometimes it's a bigger rush of grief - a tidal wave that threatens to overwhelm me.  There's guilt too - oh, masses of guilt.  All the things I should have done, would have done, if I'd known what was about to happen.  If I hadn't been so pliable, so calm and willing to believe the medical staff.  There's anger too - at the hospital, at myself, and (unfairly, probably) at the people who say truly stupid things in their attempt to make me feel better.  At the people who won't talk about him at all, and those who haven't supported me.

But sometimes, I just miss him.  It's there in the background all the time of course.  A nagging feeling of something missing - the things I can do because he's not here, and the things I don't do and never will. Sometimes the missing him is huge, like I could drown in it.  It can be sparked by walking into the room that was all decked out ready for him, now crammed with junk.  By seeing a friend's child who would be the same age, an age  Xander will never reach.  By spotting that cool superhero top his dad would have wanted to buy for him. 

Sometimes, there's no catalyst.  The missing him hits me like a bolt out of the blue.  I feel suspended in it, and it can last minutes, hours or days.  I've come to accept that missing him will last all of my life - whatever turns my life takes, whatever else I gain or lose, the feeling of missing him will never stop.  It's been hard to accept that, but I now know that the amount I miss him is equal to the love I feel for him.  Huge.  Universe-sized. Limitless. Infinite.