About Last Night

About last night. I feel like I've been in a car crash and I'm still trying to recover from it. I don't even know why it was so bad. I've been in a similar situation before and breezed through it but last night I just couldn't do it.

I couldn't listen to people's bullshit small talk. I don't care that your children are getting married (two days after the anniversary of Freddie's death. Not that anyone mentioned it. God forbid we actually speak about him), I don't care that your children are "doing it properly" (shame on me for having sex before marriage), I don't care that you're moving to Chelsea to live the fantastic life I'll never have. I don't fucking care.

Then the cherry on the cake came. Don't get me wrong, I still love children. I love being around them. It's one of the few things in life that still makes me happy. It's the conversation that follows that I hate. Every comment stabs me like a knife. It's like I'm starving to the point where I'm almost gone and people are tormenting me with food...waving it in my face to remind me what I don't have.

"Look at his hair, I can't believe he's so blonde!" No one is ever going to talk about Freddie's hair, no one would ever think to ask what it was like. For the record I remember it distinctly. We were shocked when he came out as when mixed with blood (yeah, yeah it's gross. I know) he looked ginger. Chloe, the midwife even commented "looks a bit strawberry blonde to me!". After he was cleaned up though it was apparent it was a very light, mousy brown. Still a shock as I was very dark and very hairy when I was born. So much so that my mum asked the doctor if there was something wrong with me. She was swiftly informed "no, she's just very hairy". I also remember visiting him in the chapel of rest. He had a thicker patch of hair to the back of his head in tiny, intricate curls. They were perfect. He is perfect. Anyway, I'm just angry that Freddie's hair will never be discussed. I could talk for hours about every inch of him but no one cares about the dead baby. An alive one is always better for a topic of conversation.

"Last time we saw him, he was just a baby!" Freddie should have been there. He should have been the baby this time. He should have been there, stealing all the attention but he's not. Just the awkwardness of his absence. A great big empty whole. Ironically there was an empty chair as someone got the numbers wrong but that cut me even deeper. To me it represented Freddie.

I just sat and watched Mattie's dad play and engage with his nephew and I couldn't take it anymore. Everywhere I looked I felt anger. How am I supposed to be happy and join in with meaningless and boring conversation? How am I supposed to just not talk about Freddie because I might make other people feel awkward?

I'm tired of pretending I'm OK. Pretending my son didn't exist. Pretending I didn't spend 15 hours in hospital in agony. Pretending I'm coping. Just pretending.

How does anyone live through this? It's honestly beyond me.