The High Road.

Today is the last day of my weird three day vacation. Due to scheduling conflicts (Evil Manager needs me to start working on Thursdays) I was schedule to work only four days this week. Because I usually have Tuesday and Thursdays off my three days ran back to back this week and it has been pretty great. I needed the rest.

On Monday I had a colossal breakdown. I was watching the trailer for a movie called Rabbit Hole, a film about a young couple dealing with the death of their toddler son, and I lost it. I can't describe it any other way.

I am struck by this grieving process. It just doesn't end. Some days I am totally okay. I can say his name. See his face. And remember the touch of his little baby feet without any problems. And other days, I can't without breaking out into hysterics. That is what happened on Monday. I came across the trailer again (I saw it a while back and made a mental note to watch it when it came out in theaters) but as soon as The High Road by Broken Bell starts playing, I am beside myself with grief.

I cried to the point of wanting to throw up. I cried to the point of yelling into my pillow. And by the time I made it to work, I was exhausted by my grief. I was exhausted, and angry and sad.

The movie is based on a play by the same name, and from thumbing through it at work, the movie follows the script exactly. Becca and Howie are dealing with the accidental death (and subsequent grief) of their four year old son Danny (of all names) very differently. Becca appears cold and indifferent, quickly removing items of Danny's life from their home. Howie is struggling to preserve every memory of Danny, and grieves alone by himself. Together their grief leads them down very different paths, threatening to distill their marriage and life.

It's been two years but the grief over my own Danny's death opens up like a fresh wound so easily, I wonder how me and my family made it through the few days after he died. I don't remember crying (hell, I even made a few posts afterwards). I remember having to make sure my brother was okay and that my mom was okay. I remember being asked to write something nice on his funeral page.

I remember being disconnected, like things were happening around me but not to me. I remember having to be strong because everyone and thing around me was soooo quiet. I mostly remember my mom crying, especially when it came time to delete his photo from the screensaver. It was too hard for her to get on the computer with his face staring back at her. She asked me quietly to do it for her, because she couldn't bring herself to. And with a click, he was gone.

With a click.

And then I was gone. It was a few weeks before graduation and we had to pull it together well enough to get me across the stage and finally to board the train to new york. July 2008 seems like a huge blur, re-reading the posts from them is so weird. I sound so disconnected and aloof, as if a pet bird died instead of my nephew. I am angry at myself because of this. Sometimes I am angry that I didn't stay with my family for a few more months, instead of moving up here a month after he died.

I am not an angry person. It is am emotion that I rarely have. But I feel caught in the middle of the several stages of grief. I am beyond bargaining. I am just mad and angry that we will forever have to go on without him here. That we were given a sneak peak at his life only to have it taken away.

So of course on Monday, having watched the trailer for this movie, feelings of sadness, anger and disbelief washed over me. It was if suddenly I'd been pulled away the currents by grief . Not that it is ever really gone but that day it was...overwhelming. Marie thinks the grief will always feel worse around the holidays. And she is right. It will.

But it also has to do with something I have not talked about on this blog. My brother has been dating a girl for about a year and a half now and they are expecting a baby this spring. I know my responsible, safe sex having brother. His girlfriend is uber nice, I met her this summer and she played Rock Band with Morgan and I. We are facebook friendly and she checks on me from time to time just to say hey.

And now she is pregnant, with a baby and I am...scared. I am excited for her and my brother and my mom. But I am scared. I am already losing concrete senses of Danny, and now there is a new baby coming. A boy who they have decided to name Elliot.

Outside of pictures and videos, the particulars of Danny are fading away due to time and his absence. He would have been three this year. He would have developed a personality; including a particular laugh, smile, manner of speech. But because he is no longer here, those things that would have created a firmer impression of him, for me, don't exist. And all i have are these fleeting memories of baby stares and sleep face.

And I am afraid of forgetting him. He will always be my first nephew. He will always be the one who got away. And I don't want to feel like he is being replaced. I don't want to feel like he is being erased by my dumb hands clicking him away.

And though everything else this week has been amazing, the grief has sort of over shadowed that and put me in a weird place. I feel bare and scrubbed down to the soft fleshy part of the skin that doesn't react well to direct sunlight or air. And I plan on seeing Rabbit Hole and buying the play because I am still grieving and struggling to understand his death. I still in a weird way struggling to understand our lives sense it.