Finding Your Happy Place

Sometimes, when I lay in bed at night, I can't sleep. It's not for want of trying but I just can't get my brain to turn off. It feels like its whirring and a million bad thoughts keep rushing through my mind....the scan appointment where we were told there were tumours in William's heart, the moment the needle was injected into my stomach, the physical pain I felt. Along side all of these thoughts are the endless questions which I keep going over....did he feel any pain? did we do the right thing? would it have been better to have him here, even with all of his medical problems than feel the pain I feel now at his loss?

In the weeks after William was born, I spent many a night lying awake in bed until 4 or 5am with all of these thoughts and the only way I would get to sleep would be to go downstairs and watch tv until I fell asleep on the sofa through exhaustion.

In the past, my pre-William days, if I couldnt' sleep I would think of my Happy Place and it would relax my mind and enable me to drift off. My Happy Place would either be the day of our wedding - in particular the moment I walked through the doors of the church on the arm of my Dad and saw my husband-to-be waiting at the end of the aisle for the first time or it would be us on the beach at Mnemba, the island we went to for our honeymoon.

Since losing William, I haven't been able to think of or access these Happy Places in the same way. I don't know why but part of me thinks it is because those memories relate to the old me. The me before all this. Before my heart was broken. I'l never be that same me again and so somehow I can't connect in the same way with that girl on her wedding day, or the girl on the beach. She is gone.

So, I needed a new Happy Place. One that related to the new me and which related to a new happy memory in the post-William days.  Those of you who have been through this will appreciate that in the immediate days and months after you lose your longed for baby, the happy days are few and far between. For me, it took leaving the country and getting away from my real life for me to be able to be able to find a new Happy Place.

A few months after we lost William and just before my tumour surgery my husband and I flew to Las Vegas. We felt like we needed a break and wanted to go somewhere which was as far away from our real life as possible.  I'd been to Vegas twice before and although I have no idea about gambling, I love the place. It reminds me of a grown up Disneyland for adults. It's somewhere where, no matter what is going on in your real life, you can't help but feel a little happy.

On our first night in Vegas we headed down to the Bellagio to watch the fountains outside the hotel....you know the ones...in the Ocean's Eleven movie.  Every time I go to Vegas I become obsessed with these fountains. They are just so beautiful to watch and can't help but make you feel happy and uplifted.

There are about 24 different pieces of music they play at different times of day and on the evening we first watched them, the song of choice was Time To Say Goodbye.

As we watched the fountains, tears streamed down my face as I thought about how poignant it was that this should be the piece of music they should play.  It also felt so right to be watching something so beautiful as I thought about saying goodbye to my beautiful son.  I felt sad to know that this really was goodbye, but at the same time, I felt happy - like my heart had swollen and was filled with pure love for my little boy.  It was in this moment that I found my new Happy Place.

When I think back to it now it only reminds me of how beautiful William was and how much I love him. It's not a sad memory, but a happy one and it makes me feel like he is settled and at rest. So now, when I can't sleep I picture these fountains in my mind and it relaxes my mind. All of the awful thoughts which once engulfed my mind when I thought about losing William are now overshadowed by this special memory of me saying goodbye to him as I watched something so beautiful.

And so what is the point of this post? Well if you have trouble sleeping like me or have moments where awful thoughts fill your mind and you can't think straight, then I would urge you to try and find your Happy Place.  It may take you a while to figure out what it is, you may even need to leave the country to find it, but rest assured you will.