In a land far away...

Once upon a time I wrote a blog... only everyone wrote a blog back then and we called that blog xanga. And it was a lot of fun. And then that school year ended, and some people got mad about something no one remembers now, and then homework started getting harder and then we stopped posting very frequently... and then not at all for months and months if not years. And now, one of the last great xanga-ers is probably going to hang up her xanga, so I got a little sentimental and went back to mine... Yes, It's still there. I was surprised, too. If you want to see it, go to http://shinywhite.xanga.com/weblog/ I actually posted on my xanga in the weeks following Nathan's diagnosis... I didn't remember that. So much is a blur. A little less than a month after his diagnosis I wrote this:

"I just want him home.... I want him smiling and playing too many computer and video games.... I want him being completely goofy just to make me laugh... I want to snuggle up against him when it gets cold and for him to complain about how much I screw up the covers when I sleep... I just want normal back sooo much."

I feel like that was written so long ago... It was almost exactly a year and a half ago. I read it and I think about how young and naive I sound... and then I think that I wasn't sounding naive... I just didn't know what was coming. And I'm so glad, cause I don't think I would have stopped crying, then, and that would have been such a waste of his time.

I started to read the blog of a guy who was going through ALL who died earlier this week. I read a blog post and a half before I started shaking and saying (outloud to myself), "I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this." The things he wrote took me back to Barnes... to the blood count charts... to all the fear and hope and desperation and waiting, and I just couldn't. I just couldn't. I said on Facebook that it's like post traumatic stress disorder.... I don't know enough about that disorder to say that it is for sure... and I don't at all mean to cheapen it  for those people who are experiencing the diagnosed condition... but there should be a condition for recovering caretakers... something to explain to others... to ourselves why specific medical terminology can trigger flashbacks, shortness of breath, and tears.

oh yeah-- there is a condition- grief.