The count

So I’m just assuming other parents do it: a random headcount of your children throughout the day just confirming where they are and that they’re ok. It’s a split-second thought we all have multiple times a day without even realizing it. Emmy-school (check), John-napping (check) Cecilia-with me (check) Ian-where the fuck is Ian? Ian’s not here! Is Ian in ok? He’s not at school, he’s not at the hospital, he’s not on a walk with his nurse…. Oh yeah, he died. He’s never going to be here again.

I didn’t realize before that this was something I did a dozen times a day. Now, a dozen times a day, I get a punch in the face that my kid is missing. A dozen times a day I go through the fear of not knowing where he is, then remembering exactly where he is. A dozen times a day, a montage of his life, his accident, his death, flash before my eyes. A dozen times I picture holding his body. Yes, AT LEAST 12 times a day I have that horrific, disgusting, unnatural thought in my mind. Just the thought of it probably makes you want to vomit. But, I just blink a few times, breathe, and try to get my bearings.

But getting my bearings can often take a little longer than my 3 second whirlwind, missing kid, thought process. Sometimes it can take a few days. I actually have to look around, absorb the sounds, the smells, the colors. I have to make sure everything is real. I have to reprocess what a sound means now in a world that not relative to Ian. A beep is just a beep, it’s not a monitor I instantly need to tend to. The color orange of a prescription bottle no longer reflects a pill that could stop a seizure. The smell of hand sanitizer doesn’t mean a hospital stay anymore. It’s not the same world, because, surely, it can’t be. There’s no possible way that I live in a world without 4 kindergarten graduations. Without 4 goodnight kisses. Without 4 birthday parties a year. The count is still, and will always be wrong.