The Book of Me

Anyone can have it.   I go through most days not realizing I suffer until a day like today.  To most it may sound ridiculous, but our dog Charlie was spayed today. Surgery.  Seeing her drugged up then puke was a trigger. My mind immediately went back to Xavier.  The vivid memories of bringing him home after surgeries. He puked … a lot and wouldn’t stop and it only made his head pound more after brain surgery. I see myself holding a wash cloth on his head and a bucket in front of him as I dial 911. I was alone and there was no way I could leave him in the backseat while I drove him to emerg.  He was in so much pain. I was scared so scared but at the time I couldn’t let my emotions out. I never did in the moment. I only acted.  Maybe I wasn’t compassionate enough during those times as I suppressed the pain. But now I feel it.  I am sobbing in the bath tub trying not to think about this experience but it won’t stop playing in my head. I feel my breathing get heavier and the emotions I sho

Grief is forever.  Grief is forever.  Grief is forever. You get that yet. I am still trying to accept this myself. Today is the 11th anniversary of Xavier’s tumour diagnosis and I am still crying at the thought of us rushing him to McMaster hospital for emergency brain surgery.  Some years this day and those that follow go by without a thought. Other years like 2021, it is a painful time of remembrance.  I picture my sweet little baby laying on an operating table for 12 hours. His tiny fingers and toes limp with anesthesia under bright surgical lights. That moment I last kissed his soft round head before it was cut apart. The trauma lives within me.  Xavier has been gone almost four years now and over a decade since his diagnosis. But I still grieve. I grieve the day that changed our family’s life forever. I grieve the life he should have lived had he not had cancer and the life my daughter, his twin should have lived.  Maybe it’s PTSD but I can still feel the pain and the fear of this