Closure or so I thought..

For 3 months I thought that designing and ordering Nathan's memorial headstone would bring closure for me or some sort of peace..sounds crazy huh. In fact the designing part brought me some sort of odd happiness. Giving my baby something beautiful with his name and things he loved on it. Something he can be known by other than just some piece of paper the funeral home left to mark the place he lays. I did give him something simple when in the beginning I had a flamboyant design in mind with huge light sabers that would at night light up. I think I went back to the drawing board 3-4x's cause nothing felt like him. He was a simple,reserved child who didn't require a whole lot and he deserves to be remembered as such not some showy art piece. What I ended with was what I think something rather beautiful that has all the things that he was and what he loved on it, but also in the end it didn't bring me the closure I thought it would. I put off for 3-4 days actually taking the check up to the monument place because of what the realization it would bring. I had complete feelings of dread and not that happy feeling I had while in the design process. The realization of how final this was and the fact that this is IN DEED real..heck its in stone now isn't it. Plain as day. Nathan Garrett Dennis March 22, 2004-June 16, 2012 if that doesn't place something final on it I don't know what does. Its a place of complete HELL! At least now he has something beautiful to mark his place instead of piece of paper that's now turned brown and wrinkled due to time and weather. This at least will weather well and hold up for at least 20 yrs or more. WOW did you read that... 20 YRS or MORE! I look at that and think really? I have.. it will hold till I'm 50. I can't even process being 50 and not having that baby I gave birth too 8 yrs ago. Today as I was doing laundry I began to cry. As I was trying to remember Nathan and my mind had a major blockage and I couldn't. Yes its been 3 months and I have FORGOTTEN my son. If I didn't have pictures I'd swear I'd always had just 2 kids. He doesn't seem real for some reason and I have to remind myself every day that he in deed was. I imagine I'll have to this everyday for the rest of my life. Not sure what kind of life that is, but I can tell you I'll fight to keep remembering what I can till there is no heart beat left in me. Support group is going ok for me I've been 2x and the first time felt like to much, but I wanted to give it another shot so I went Tuesday as its only the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month. I won't go into detail ever about the folks in there but I will share the Ahh Haa moments I have while I'm in attendance. This past week I've been asked several times how many children I have by random folks I've made contact with and most times I just say 2. As saying I have 3 leaves me open to giving information I'm not sure I can divulge. The reason for that is simple I'm not sure how I feel about telling strangers I have a son that died and I'm not sure how they will in turn receive the information. In turn it may cause me to become highly emotional, but in group someone made comment that the same thing happened to her this past week and she made the choice to say say exactly how many children she'd given birth to. She wanted to acknowledge that she indeed had 3 children When her middle son passed she didn't stop being his mother. She'll always be his mother. WOW!!! That hit me HARD! Telling people I IN FACT have 3 children keeps Nathan somewhat alive just as talking about him would. I want people who knew him to keep talking about him. From what they tell me at about 3 months people usually stop. I beg you please never stop talking about him. It is one way he stays alive for us. But when strangers ask I will now say I have 3 children and keep the acknowledgement that I do have another child. He's just in another place for now. As I look back on what I thought would bring a small bit of closure this step of marking my sons space I wonder if I'll ever really have ANY closure....