Why Cleaning Is So Painful
I should be cleaning instead of writing this blog post. I have been avoiding cleaning our house for weeks. When it gets really bad, I do the bare minimum in order for it to not feel too uncomfortable. The truth is, I hate being inside my house. Every room, ever corner, ever closet holds reminders of the little boy who is missing from our lives. Even though it's been over three months since he's lived in this home, cleaning up still holds such painful reminders. My heart breaks as I put something away in the coat closet and see his blue fleece jacket. I feel crushed when I happen upon an old school paper and have to put it away. I'll find a random lego from one of his sets or I'll help Rhys put his lunchbox on top of the fridge. Jameson's lunchbox is missing, collecting dust in a cabinet somewhere.
And sometimes it is the stupidest, most disconnected things that bring reminders, things that have little connection to Jameson. An outsider wouldn't see any connection at all, but to me, it's just as painful as the obvious reminders. Rhys had a cold a few weeks ago and when he gets sick, he usually needs breathing treatments from his nebulizer (I was hoping he would've outgrown this, but it's still an issue for him any time he gets sick). I hadn't put the nebulizer away. It's been sitting on the end table by the couch ever since the morning we used it. Just a few minutes ago, I unplugged it and put it away back in its box. Putting away medical equipment or medicine reminds me of the night Jameson got sick. It seems so silly for this to upset me. I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it. Jameson passed so quickly that he didn't spend any time in a hospital or receive really any medicine....except for one thing. When he first came into our bedroom and told us his stomach hurt, he asked for some children's tylenol. I was sure he just had a stomach bug (even right up until we found him in his room the next morning, we didn't know anything was seriously wrong). I used one of those little plastic measuring syringes to give him a little bit of children's tylenol. It's such a loose connection to the nebulizer sitting on the end table, but it still hurts.
By the time I go to put something away in the coat closet and see Jameson's blue fleece jacket that he wore pretty much every day, I've had enough. His soccer cleats and shin guards sit in a basket on the floor of the closet, still dusty from the field. Behind them, his snow boots that he wore during the snow storm in December. I feel phsyical pain in my heart, like I could collapse from the heartache. I want to scream out, "He should still be here! Where is my little boy? Why isn't he here?" It's just so unfair.
I need a break from this torture of cleaning the house. But I'll go back to it in a few minutes. I'll try to carry on because I know that if I can get it cleaned up, maybe it won't be so uncomfortable and depressing to live inside it, with clutter everywhere and the floors dirty and dusty. I won't feel like I need to hide on the screened porch or out in the garden to escape the pain.
And sometimes it is the stupidest, most disconnected things that bring reminders, things that have little connection to Jameson. An outsider wouldn't see any connection at all, but to me, it's just as painful as the obvious reminders. Rhys had a cold a few weeks ago and when he gets sick, he usually needs breathing treatments from his nebulizer (I was hoping he would've outgrown this, but it's still an issue for him any time he gets sick). I hadn't put the nebulizer away. It's been sitting on the end table by the couch ever since the morning we used it. Just a few minutes ago, I unplugged it and put it away back in its box. Putting away medical equipment or medicine reminds me of the night Jameson got sick. It seems so silly for this to upset me. I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it. Jameson passed so quickly that he didn't spend any time in a hospital or receive really any medicine....except for one thing. When he first came into our bedroom and told us his stomach hurt, he asked for some children's tylenol. I was sure he just had a stomach bug (even right up until we found him in his room the next morning, we didn't know anything was seriously wrong). I used one of those little plastic measuring syringes to give him a little bit of children's tylenol. It's such a loose connection to the nebulizer sitting on the end table, but it still hurts.
By the time I go to put something away in the coat closet and see Jameson's blue fleece jacket that he wore pretty much every day, I've had enough. His soccer cleats and shin guards sit in a basket on the floor of the closet, still dusty from the field. Behind them, his snow boots that he wore during the snow storm in December. I feel phsyical pain in my heart, like I could collapse from the heartache. I want to scream out, "He should still be here! Where is my little boy? Why isn't he here?" It's just so unfair.
I need a break from this torture of cleaning the house. But I'll go back to it in a few minutes. I'll try to carry on because I know that if I can get it cleaned up, maybe it won't be so uncomfortable and depressing to live inside it, with clutter everywhere and the floors dirty and dusty. I won't feel like I need to hide on the screened porch or out in the garden to escape the pain.
2018: Jameson wearing his favorite blue jacket that I bought him last fall.
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