My heart

I regurgitated most of yesterday's blog in my therapist's office today.

I think I'm beginning to understand how they work, these head doctors. She validates my feelings, but doesn't necessarily give me any answers. Either because she doesn't have any or because she wants me to come to my own conclusions as part of my healing journey.

I get that. I do. But I wouldn't mind a few concrete yes's and no's every now and then. I'm starting to wonder if anyone actually has any. Or if maybe I already have more answers than she does and just don't know it.

The only thing she'll come right out and give me an answer to is the, "Am I crazy?" query. So far it's always been a resounding NO. That's good. That's what I want to hear.

I suppose the idea is to get me to work through everything, with her as my travel guide. And yeah, I guess it wouldn't do any good to sit there and have someone tell me what to think and how to feel, particularly if I'm not thinking or feeling what that person thinks I should.

As she said, I'm grieving the way that's right for me, so how can that be wrong?

This just feels like such a long, daunting process. And I don't know where it ends.

She seems to want me to consider separating the love I have for my babies with the sorrow I feel at their loss.

It's a fabulous idea, but I might as well sit down and figure out the formula for cold fusion while I'm at it. I haven't got a clue where to begin.

It's easier to separate sorrow from love when you had time with the person you're mourning; when you have memories to comfort you. When all you know of someone is what they looked like on a home pregnancy test and how they felt kicking you from the inside out, it's a little harder to find that blessed comfort.

So much of my babies is sorrow. It just is. And yes, love too. Immeasurable love. But I just don't see how the two can ever be untangled. I don't see them as separate entities.

Therapist lady has her work cut out for her.

She asked me where I hold my sorrow. I said I carry it in my heart and wear it like a cloak. When she asked what would happen if I took it out of my heart, presumably to store it elsewhere, I felt a protective rush of panic and told her no, it had to stay there.

We both looked a little startled.

She asked why it needed to stay there, and I told her it's because it's mine. I held my hands over my actual heart and told her, "It's mine. It needs to stay here."

As though I was protecting my children. As though they physically need me to hold the sorrow of their loss that closely to me. As though their lives somehow depend upon it.

Maybe I'm just hanging on because the truth is they don't need me.

As a mother, there's nothing more heartbreaking than that.

Except knowing it.