Pokemon, I choose you.

Yesterday was the worst day that I have had in a long time. I guess not a LONG time, because he has only been gone for a month... but sometimes it feels like the days last years, and sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday that I held him in my arms.

The night before last Todd and I made the big move. We did not go through our nightly routine of blowing up the air mattress and fixing a bed on the living room floor. Instead we each grabbed our DS, a pillow and blanket from the pile of bedding we had down here and marched purposefully upstairs... to our room, to our bed... to the bed that our baby last lay in.

We took our games so that we could play until we fell asleep. A large part of sleeping down stairs for me has been to not only avoid the flashbacks I have every time I walk into that room, but also to use the TV down here to keep my mind from drifting too far towards the sadness and upsetting thoughts that seem to be trying to overwhelm me. I am playing Pokemon, and it helps. It doesn't take much thought and is nice and repetitive so that I can play it till I am nearly blind with exhaustion.

Falling asleep wasn't bad. Waking up was.

I opened my eyes and at the same moment my chest opened up and the shattered pieces of my broken heart blew from my ribcage, like dry autumn leaves in a burst of wind. All the breath went out of me and a sob caught in my throat. I felt frozen in my own mind. I relived it all, in slow motion, in fast forward, in reverse, on repeat. It might have been seconds or hours that I lay there, stuck in my misery. It could have been days for all I could tell.

I walked through the door and looked to him on the bed, watching his little body for the steady rise and fall that had been there the last time I had looked in on him. I looked for the gentle shift of the lines on his little stripped dino onesie that I loved so much. I watched for the natural signs of life that I had seen an hour ago. I looked for breath. There was none.

I feel like my heart should have stopped right then and there. My heart and my breath and my whole world should have ended with his. I shouldn't be sitting here writing, and crying, and feeling anything while my baby, my sweet little tiny baby, is gone. I shouldn't have been lying in the bed he last slept in, I shouldn't be remembering things and feeling things and being sad, or horrified, or miserable, or whatever words you can put to the grief that I felt.

But I am. And I was. So I reached up to the DS that had fallen from my hands as I drifted to sleep, and through my tears I began another Pokemon battle. I let myself feel sad as I played, but I let the game fade into my mind and the images fade out. It was super effective.

All of yesterday was tainted with sadness. I should have realized that it was the four week mark, but I didn't. I am trying not to kick myself for that today. Even if I didn't acknowledge it as the four week mark, my whole body felt it. Tears were in my eyes, or fighting to be there, every minute of the day, and my chest felt tight with grief from wake up till sleep.

Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott, Pokemon Black and White 2 Starters.

I hope today is better, but if not, I can always call on Lucario, Onix and Magnemite to help me through the day. And maybe help me through tomorrow. And maybe help me through every day for a while. Maybe I'll even catch 'em all.