Mornings are the Worst

I’ve always been a morning person.  Mornings were always my favorite time of day, especially on weekends.  Saturday mornings were spent cuddling with the boys, followed by a hearty meal of homemade pancakes or waffles and sometimes bacon (Dan’s favorite food).  

Mornings are Hell now.  Each night, I have normal dreams.  For 8 hours, my mind forgets the trauma I’ve experienced.  Everything is fine and dandy in my dreams. I guess I should be thankful that I actually sleep, because I definitely didn’t sleep much at all the first few nights after Jameson died.  Nowadays, I sleep fairly well, all things considered. I seem to wake up either around 1 AM or around 4 AM. Either way, I usually fall back asleep eventually.

Regardless of when I wake up, nothing can prepare me for the horrible, sudden realization that my son is gone.  I can’t even explain the feeling. Because my dreams are normal, I wake up and there is a split second where I feel like life is good and normal and I’ve forgotten about my reality.  And then it hits. I remember. It’s like my mind springs awake. Jameson is gone. This nightmare I am living is real.

I repeat this pain every single morning.  Day after day after day. There is no relief from it.  I think what makes it so excruciating is going from happiness and a feeling of a normal life to it trashing down into the truth that my life is forever changed.  My happy, healthy 9 year old boy is gone. He’s not sleeping in the next room over. He’s not curled up in his blankets. He’s not clinging onto his ratty old stuffed kangaroo, “K-Roo,” that he’s had since the day we brought him home from the hospital as a baby.  He’s not about to tiptoe into the bedroom and crawl onto the bed for hugs and kisses. He’s not in the house at all.

His bedroom door is closed, like a vault.  It’s like a room that I’m too afraid to step into.  Will I be brave enough to go into it without feeling intense pain?  Or will I crumble into a mess on the floor beside his bed, pleading to God to hear his voice just one more time or give him one more hug?

Mornings are the worst.  It’s a time of day when there are no distractions.  During the day, friends call. They invite me for lunch or for a walk.  I work on my garden. I can collect my thoughts and comfort myself by lunch time. In the mornings, it’s just me and my thoughts.  All I have is the darkness of the early morning, my memories of Jameson, and my mind that wants to constantly replay the horror of finding Jameson that morning in his bedroom.  The blank look on his face as he lay limp on the floor as Dan did CPR will haunt me forever. Jameson left in the morning. Mornings are the worst.

Please pray for the me in the mornings.  It helps. Sometimes, when I’m lucky, I wake up in horror, but quickly am able to feel calm.  I think it’s all of our friends and family that are praying.

Please keep praying for mornings.  Mornings are the worst.