Another Look at Comfort

I've been thinking more about comfort. I know when I'm at the absolutely depths, or at least as close to them as I can get without actually being back to the day my daughter died, I just can't comfort myself. I suppose that's why my house was filled with people for days on end. They knew I couldn't find comfort, could barely find the bathroom in the morning, so they came to make sure that at least I ate and drank.

Anyway, I was able to think of a few things. As one of the comments mentioned, my younger daughter does continue to be a source of comfort for me. As she gets older, she's no longer completely dependent on me. She asks for and is comfortable with other peopleother people, and even asks to see particular people. But that doesn't mean we aren't connected anymore. After my last post, I was completely down for a couple of days. I honestly couldn't figure out what would bring me out of it.

Then one night, I was home alone after putting my daughter to bed. She was in her crib for 5 or 10 minutes, then stood up absolutely distraught. She sometimes does fuss, and it almost always means she has a wet diaper. Other times, I'll sing her one more song and she's fine. But that night, nothing I did seemed to help. I kept asking her what she wanted and she just kept getting upset. After a while, I put her back in the crib, which seemed OK, but then I started to leave and she again started crying. I never did figure it out, but I did eventually leave her there and she fell asleep.

The next day, she was with the nanny all day. When the nanny left, she told me that even though another little boy was with them, my daughter had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. It occurred to me that she might somehow be reflecting my feelings. I hadn't been talking much either for 3 days by then. So I pulled myself out of it. I still can't stand the idea that I might negatively affect her.

And I started thinking of other comforts. After my daughter's memorial, our house was quiet. My brother stayed a few days after everyone left, and then we escaped to a vacation house owned by friends. At some point, we found ourselves back in the now-quiet house with just a small baby who slept a lot. But all the debris of the people who'd been there was left behind, so we started cleaning. We cleaned and cleaned. Then a friend of mine visited for a week. After she left, we cleaned some more. The cleaning went on until I went back to work, I believe, except for about a week when we flew across the country to visit my parents.

Another thing I did a lot was watch TV. I don't watch much TV, especially during the day. But at that time, I watched a LOT. I tried renting movies, but you never know what you might see in a movie, and I didn't know what would upset me. So I started watching HGTV--Home and Garden TV, along with cooking shows. That's about as inocuous (and in many ways, irrelevant) as you can get. I watched people remodel homes, shopping for homes, shopping for their first homes, getting homes ready to sell.

So these are two things I've done a bit of recently--excessive cleaning and watching cooking shows. It's funny how they numb and soothe my mind.

Here's one other thing I find oddly comforting. I bought my daughter this toy in early November. I honestly find it cute and hilarious. It's even funnier when she dances around with it.

It's the little things, I suppose. Other people just can't always be there for you. Life gets in the way of some of the things that provide us comfort. I'm hoping that posting these things, I might remember then when I really need them.