Not bacterial pneumonia after all, a rare and severe allergic reaction that filled their lungs with pus and nearly killed them. They are still in ICU but their lungs are getting stronger every day. The darkness of losing them starts to ease back to a terrifying memory. Doctors argue about the best timing for the next surgery. We talk cautiously about a holiday. We pencil in the tomorrow’s plans and roll with the changes. Startle at every new symptom. Look at our tired family and friends through eyes full of gratitude.

Poppy has been buffered from a lot of the intensity of the last week, but she’s still aware of changes and loss. She had a meltdown yesterday and I shut myself down so I didn’t meltdown with her and could be patient and firm. Then found myself slipping into the horrific depression that’s been biting at me and my heart broke.

A few days ago my whole future, Poppy’s life, and all the memories of me and knowledge of me that only Rose has nearly fell into the dark and I’d have given anything to just have them survive. How the indescribable relief of their life can exist alongside such bleak emptiness I can’t fathom. It’s not the screaming blackness of grief, it’s a greylands of disconnection. It felt like something else fell out of my world instead. Poppy left trying to connect with an empty parent. Me trying to find a sense of self and hope in my own emptiness. Undo that shutdown and coax feeling back. Talk soothingly to myself. Try to make sense of the triggers. Sit near people I love and find a sense of connection. Pieces of myself like tiny lights in the dark, winking on and off in tiny constellations. Everything fragmented.

I want nothing more in the world than to bring Rose home and share a life, yet living that life is so confusing. I can sit in the hospital and read and rub feet, I am familiar with that role. Here in exactly the life I want so much for them. I have to work hard to anchor myself to the moment and not get lost. These are good people around me. A morning pushing Poppy on the swings is something to treasure. There’s a lightness of heart I don’t have, numbness layered over terror and rage. I feel unseen and I don’t know how to make myself visible or if that’s even a good idea. I feel heartbroken by life. I just want my people alive, I’ll deal either else we have to. This is a truth.

I want a good life for us, and I’m not sure what that is, or how to do it. Also a truth. I’ve worked so hard to get here, with a home, family and work, with a loving community, and yet. I’m so exhausted and so lost from myself. How can it be so hard to live the life I’m so desperate to protect? Is that autism or just exhaustion? How can I feel like this when the news is actually, incredibly, unfathomably good? I want to go back to yesterday when I was lit with energy, indescribable relief.

I eased myself back into existence, soothing the disconnection. Shutting down my feelings to parent has to be a temporary thing, but I seem to get stuck there. I keep reaching out. I find moments to cry.

I just want Rose home and to hold on and be held onto. Nothing makes sense in my head. I can’t do this on my own.