Running Away

I want to run away.


I found a great job opportunity for my husband in Barrow, Alaska. That’s about far enough, I think, don't you?

William's Birth Story 2: Deliver Me

"Can I have an epidural?" That's the first thing I said. Actually, the first thing I asked for was a c-section. Me, the woman who's had four natural births, who avoids medication and medical intervention if at all possible. I wanted them to cut me open. Apparently, that wasn't an option. Something about recovering from major abdominal surgery. Like I cared.

I was horrified that they wanted me to have this baby now. Now? Were they serious? I was going to have to labor and push out my dead child? Were they high? Insane? Just sadistic and cruel? What?

"Can I have an epidural NOW?"

"You mean - before we even induce you?" The nurse blinked at me.

"I've been contracting for days. Believe me, I'm already in pain."

"Let me check you first."

So I let her. And irony of all ironies... I was 6-7 centimeters and 85% effaced... I was more than halfway there already.

"Do you still want the epidural?"

I shook my head and sighed. What was the point? All they'd need to do was give me a little pitocin, and he'd be here. Oh my god. My baby... my baby... the sweet, precious baby I'd been waiting to see and hold, he would be here... and he would lifeless, dead. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I couldn't even begin to.

"We're going to move you down here, at the end of this hall, away from..."

She didn't have to tell me. This wasn't a joyous occasion. I was already in another world, separate from all the other mothers who were giving birth to babies who would open their eyes, wail, and take their first breath. I wasn't one of those anymore.

And so we went, my husband on the phone the whole way, trying to find someone to come and be with our children. We wanted them to see their baby brother, to hold him, say goodbye... but I didn't want them there for the birth. Not like this. Not like this. And all I kept hearing was his explanation, one person after the other, "I'm calling because... because the baby died... and we need someone to..."

I turned to my midwife and said, "I wish people would stop saying that out loud."

"What?"

"Stop saying he died."

She just squeezed my hand. I think she knew the level of denial I was functioning at. I had to...what else could I do? Both of my children were there. I couldn't collapse, I couldn't fall apart. And I still had work to do. One more thing. I had to bring my baby's body into the world and hold him for the first and last time.

I had never wanted to give birth in the hospital again, but here I was, putting on the hospital gown, getting up on the bed, holding my wrist out for the bracelet, the starting of the I.V. Four sticks and several large bruises later - I still have one on my arm the size of a deck of cards - the pitocin was turned on.

Our niece-in-law, S., arrived to be with the kids. She came in with tears in her eyes and I almost couldn't look at her. She hasn't had a baby yet - I'm sure it won't be long before they do (of course, I've been thinking that since they got married a few years ago...) but she adores kids. Ours love her - she plays with them, delights in them. She's a born mother - or nanny!

She went out to the waiting room, where our midwife had them corralled for the moment while I labored. And still, the contractions weren't that horrible. No worse than they'd been for days. The nurse asked when I started active labor, and I just looked at her.

Officially, active labor is labor after 4 cm. But I had no idea. No idea at all. To me, this didn't feel "active." It had never felt "active," and I realized... it was because he was gone. He was going, going, gone, and none of this labor was actively bringing my baby to me. It was just bringing me his body, an empty shell of what he could have been.

The doctor was kind - much kinder than I expected, given that we had planned a home birth, but here we were, in her delivery room. They took blood, urine, ran all sorts of tests, and everything was coming back negative. No infection, my blood pressure was perfect, no signs of...anything. I'd had all the early ultrasounds and tests done, too. The baby had been fine, perfect, no anomalies.

She broke my water, and I stared, horrified, at the meconium. So thick, so much. There was hardly any water left - and the mucus on her hand when she showed me her glove was a thick, curd-like orange color, and there was so much of it... what had happened? What could possibly have happened? For the first time I was really afraid... afraid of seeing him, of what he would look like.

She wanted me to try to push - I was at about 9cm, just a lip of cervix now. I'd pushed past that before, at least twice with two other babies. I was sure I could, and the pain and pressure now that the baby was lower was becoming unbearable. Besides...I wanted it over. I really just wanted it to end.

So I pushed.

"You're strong!" she remarked. "You're moving him right down."

God, that was hard. Hearing it, doing it. Flat on my back, I pushed, hard, harder, hard as I could, but I was pushing uphill. Impossible.

"I need to be up," I gasped as that contraction ended. "Hands and knees. Something else. I'm pushing uphill."

"Any position you want," the doctor said, and I almost laughed. How many OBs said that, I wondered. Not many. I turned around, waited for the next contraction, thinking gravity would help. This push would be different. But no...

No matter how hard I pushed, he wasn't coming, He was hardly moving. What was wrong? They kept telling me he wasn't very big. He'd only measured on ultrasound at 33 weeks...a tiny baby. I'd birthed a nine pounder, and he slid out like a fat, greased trout, easy enough. What was wrong?

"I'm still pushing uphill!" I gasped, shaking my head, turning around in the bed.

"It's okay," the doctor assured me, taking off her gloves. "Let's give you another twenty minutes, let the rest of the cervix open up..."

That was around nine-thirty, I think. That was the last time I looked at the clock. The contractions came harder, closer. This was labor. This was what I remembered. The baby's head, I felt his head, moving down, opening me, impossibly huge. The pain was incredible. Worse than any birth I'd ever had. I screamed.

"No, nononononono!" I didn't want this. I didn't want to be doing this, I didn't want to be here. "Please, someone help. Make it stop!"

My husband let me squeeze his hand as I felt my body begin to push. The baby was moving, he was coming, but it was slow and it hurt like hell.

"I should have had the epidural!" I remember saying that. I remember saying I didn't want to do it. I remember telling them I couldn't do it, that he wasn't coming, that he would never come. I said I couldn't push him out. I meant it. Not just that I didn't want to, but that I was physically incapable of this feat. It was like a bowling ball stuck between my legs, a rock, a boulder, impossible to move.

I remember saying, "Oh baby, baby, I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry, baby..."

And then I told them to get the doctor. "I want it out. Now!"

"Are you ready?" she asked, and I pushed. I pushed into and past the searing pain between my legs, I pushed until I thought I would split in half - I remember saying that out loud. My whole world was cracking wide open, and I was being torn apart from the inside out. It wasn't like any of my other births. It wasn't anything close.

This was something else, not a birth at all. This was a delivery, in the truest sense of the word, an execution, a function. I was doing it, and I was doing it all. There was no squirmy, wiggling baby helping me, arching his back, turning his head, negotiating his way into the world. It was all me, because what I was bringing into the world wasn't my baby anymore. My baby was gone.

And then he was here, his head out, then the shoulders, god so painful, so impossible, I couldn't do it, but somehow I managed, and the doctor was asking, "Do you want to see your son?"

And I held out my arms, and said, "Yes, give him to me," and they put him on me and I cradled him close, lifeless and still but so precious, so perfect.

I rocked him, such a tiny baby, like his sister had been, just a peanut, and whispered, "Oh baby, baby, what happened? What happened, baby?"

"He looks like me," M. said, and he was crying. 

And he did.

"But he has my mouth." I touched it, a perfect red rosebud, and that's when I cried, when I saw that little mouth that would never open for the nourishment of my breast, and saw his eyelashes, sooty black against his cheek, and knew I would never see them open.

This was our baby, William George, with all that thick, dark hair, and those long, delicate fingers. This was who had grown and moved inside of me, up until... when? Twelve hours ago? Twenty- four? He had been conscious, aware. He heard my voice. Did he know how much he was loved? Did he feel it? Does love pass through the placenta?

I held him, and I cried, and I knew he was gone from me, and nothing could bring him back again.

The Sun Also Rises

I wish I could have been here this morning before sunrise.

I'm not Jewish. I'm not anything, really. Spiritual more than religious. I guess I'm really just a spiritual mutt.

But meaningful religious ritual is often moving to me, and on this day, I could have sat for hours by the wailing wall with the believers, honoring the sun returning to its position at the moment the universe was created, according to the Hebrew faith, 5,769 years ago.

It returns to that position only once every twenty-eight years.

Today, I could have used that conscious reminder. M. opened the curtains this morning for the first time in a week. I was surprised to see it - the sun's up. It's still shining. There really is still light in the world. Tomorrow, there will be a full moon pulling the tides and it won't be the last. The cycles continue, the world keeps moving, round and round.

Of course I wish my William could have seen the sun come up today... and twenty-eight years from today... and twenty-eight years after that. At least twenty-eight years after I was gone from here. I wish his place in the cycle had been longer, that his time spent here in this world had been more than the short life he had in my womb.

But I can't stop the sun from shining like a grieving Demeter, freezing everything in my mourning shroud. My body reminds me... my milk is drying up. My bleeding is slowing. My uterus contracts, slowly pulled back to its previous size. I am part of this cycle, turning on my own axis as our planet spins, and it moves around the sun, and the world goes on...

And in my heart, I know... it's all sacred and worth honoring, every moment, not just this year, one in twenty-eight. Every moment, every second, every precious breath.

I'm wishing for a wailing wall today, a solid place to settle, a touchstone, a cool place to rest the hot, wet press of my cheek and mourn this unbelievably painful, bittersweet journey of being human.

William's Birth Story 1: Finding Out

William would have been a week old today if he'd been alive the day I pushed him into the world. My due date. We'd been anticipating this date for nine months. He lived inside of me for three-quarters of a year. I held him in my womb for three seasons. Spring seems like such a perfect time for birth, when everything is coming alive. Now, for me, everything feels dead, and my baby is dead, and the last thing I want to do is watch the world come to life again.


I keep thinking, I should have known. The worst thought is wondering if I did know. Did I ignore my instincts and intuitions? I think I did. I was so tired...so tired, so much in pain. I'd been laboring at night for five days, all night long having contractions that hurt like hell, but by morning, they'd be gone.


I called my midwife two days before our scheduled appointment on Wednesday April 1, and told her about this unusual labor pattern. It was very strange for me - very strange. My body didn't labor this way, I said. When labor starts for me, contractions begin, get longer, stronger and closer together, and then the baby comes. My labors have never stalled, never been what they call "prodromal." I've never had false labor. Four babies, and never.

It can happen, she said. Stay hydrated, get lots of rest. She did this with several of her babies, she said. Weeks, sometimes. I cried after I got off the phone. Weeks? I couldn't stand weeks of this. I was exhausted to the point I thought I was starting to hallucinate. Every time I tried to rest, take a nap, the contractions would start again. So ironic.

That evening, before my husband came home, I felt William stir. Usually an active baby, he'd be quiet the past few days. My midwife said they slowed down at the end, and I knew it was true. Maybe labor really was coming, I told myself. It would be over soon. When I felt him - a flurry of activity, lots of wiggling, squirming, I was so relieved. There was my little man! Thank goodness... in the back of my mind, I'd been wondering. Was he okay? How was he handling all this awful pre-labor stuff?

That night, I had more contractions. Up again, exhausted. I slept the next afternoon for a good three hours. So tired. I could barely get up to make dinner. Everything hurt. This couldn't go on much longer. I had a midwife appointment the next day, and was considering asking her to give me something to get these contractions to either a) go away or b) get productive enough to bring the baby!

I finally got almost a full night's sleep on Tuesday. I didn't know why the contractions stopped that night, but I was grateful. Wednesday dawned, and I was glad I had a midwife appointment. We'd hear the heartbeat today, and all the crazy anxiety and worry would disappear, and maybe I'd even be holding him by the next day, if we could get the contractions moving again.

We did all the usual things. I peed on the stick - perfect pee. Blood pressure? Perfect. Measuring 37 weeks. (I was officially 39 weeks...) We'd determined he wasn't going to be a moose like his brother (a nine pounder!) so I wasn't surprised. My first two had been in the seven pound range, and that's about what we expected.

I told my midwife about my concerns... he'd been moving less. I hadn't slept because of this strange labor pattern. And I was anxious. A mother on one of my mommy boards had lost her baby just a few days ago - stillborn. Gone, with no explanation. Gone at full term. It was anathema to me. Impossible. That just shouldn't happen.

And then she put the doppler to my belly, and I knew. I hoped - I held my breath and listened - but there was nothing. She found my heartbeat, several times. The sound of the placenta. Whoosh - whoosh - whoosh. But there was no galloping racehorse sound of my little man's heart. I looked over at my husband and shook my head, mouthing, "He's gone." I knew. I just knew. I couldn't believe it, even as I said it, but I knew.

She tried and tried. She moved him around, felt where he was in my belly. She shifted him easily from one side of my belly to the other, and I looked at her and saw the same thing in her eyes. No baby moved that easily. He'd always fought to stay right where he was, comfortable with his back on my right side instead of my left. I never could move him, even if I tried.

"Should we go to the hospital?" I suggested.

"Just to see what's going on," she said. "It's an old doppler. Maybe the batteries..."

Right.

It was a comedy of errors, getting to the hospital. No one knew how to get there. I'd Mapquested a different hospital, a little further south, but my midwife didn't want to go to that one. I called the hospital three times for directions, and got three different ways to get there from three different people. Finally got through to labor and delivery, and they said to come straight up. We parked, and my husband took my daughter's hand, and I took my son's and we walked across the lot and into the hospital.

"Is the baby dead, Mom?" My seven-year-old daughter, our baby-lover, who had been anticipating this birth more than anyone, I think. "I don't want the baby to be dead."

"We don't know, honey," her dad said, pushing the "up" button on the elevator. "We're going to find out."

They were ready for us. I settled myself on a gurney in triage. We were all there - my husband, my children, my midwife - listening. The nurse used the monitor first, pressing it around in different areas on my belly. She picked up my heartbeat just fine. But nothing else.

"Maybe some more goop," she said, squirting more gel on my belly. Still nothing. Then she tried the doppler. "These are a little stronger."

And still. Silence.

"Is the baby dead, Mom?"

"I'll have them order an ultrasound," the nurse said, handing me a towel to wipe my stomach.

"Is there any chance that the ultrasound is going to show something different, if we can't hear the heartbeat with that?" my husband asked.

"Not much of one," I answered him myself.

The nurse nodded, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't until the ultrasound, though, that it was official. I watched them - three nurses and the ultrasound tech - because I couldn't see the screen. Everyone else could, of course, but not me.

It was my husband who said, "There's no movement." But he didn't have to tell me. I saw it in those women's eyes - the sorrow and horror showed on every one of their faces, the same feeling I'd had two days ago, when I heard about another baby's death, when I'd been standing outside looking in.

Now I wasn't anymore. At some point, between then and now, I'd crossed over into another world, and now they were looking in at me.

"It's not the answer you were hoping for," one of them said.

I shook my head. "I didn't expect..."

And I hadn't. Of course I hadn't. Hoped, yes. Prayed. Wanted to believe. But expected? No.

"Is the baby dead, Mom?"

"Yes," I nodded and held my arms out and my daughter fell into them, sobbing.

"I don't want him to be dead!"

"I don't either," I whispered, rocking her, holding on. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I didn't throw up. I didn't pass out. I didn't kick the ultrasound machine off its stand. I just rocked my daughter and whispered, "It's gonna be okay."

But I never once believed it.

Justice

I have a very short attention span right now. I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing for very long. I turned on the television, looking for some distraction, but I can’t watch anything I used to, especially when I’m alone during the day. Cooking shows? Feh. I have no interest in food. A Baby Story on TLC? Well… that one’s obvious.

I finally settled on, apparently, what is the afternoon “judge show” station. Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Alex. I like these guys. Pain and suffering presented, and justice metered out with the bang of a gavel. There’s something soothing about that.

I wish things were really so simple.

Bits and Pieces

M. and I have to grieve in bits and pieces.

As much as I hate time right now, I want time. Nothing is more comforting to me right now than being in his arms. There is no one else who can possibly come close to understanding this pain, and my whole body relaxes the moment he touches me. For four days, we were cocooned together in our grief, and I had no idea how painful it would be alone.

He went back to work yesterday, and I think it was the longest day of my life. I forgot how to do things. I stood in the kitchen at the sink, staring at my filthy floor, looking at the dishes there, and forgot how to do them. I literally couldn't remember. The kids went outside to play in the snow (snow! in April!) and came in soaking wet, saying, "Mom, put my stuff in the dryer, can we have hot chocolate?" and I thought, "Dryer? Huh?" What was that? And faced with wet snow pants and a dryer, I just stood there, blinking at it, trying to remember, how does this work again?

My midwife came and it was just more pain. I sat on the couch where I'd found out my baby was dead - the place where I laid for all my prenatals, anticipating the strong, steady beat of his little heart, and this time, just not finding it - and we talked about the weather (snow!) and her latest birth (a beautiful waterbirth... yeah... wish I'd had one of those...) I sat there and wondered what she was thinking. Did she blame herself? Did she wonder, like I did, what if she'd come over when I called her two days before about my strange out-of-pattern prodromal labor? Would we have heard his heartbeat then?

I wondered... did I blame her? Was I looking for someone to blame? I certainly blamed myself. I was in prodromal labor for five days. Did that exhaust him? I was certainly exhausted, and it was totally out of my pattern, like my body was persistently trying to tell me, "something's wrong, something's wrong."

I played mind games, trying to tell myself he was okay - they slow down at the end. He's tired from all the labor. I'm so tired, I'm not noticing him moving as much. He's changed position and I can't feel him as much. He's getting bigger (ha - little 5lb peanut) and not able to kick as hard. I didn't follow my intuition. I didn't go get a NST. I didn't rent a doppler. I thought of these things. I did call my midwife. On a day I know he was alive. But I decided to wait until we had our appointment on Wednesday. I mean... it was only a few days... and labor seemed to be coming...

And I had a flurry of activity I remember, too. I was so reassured by it. THERE you are, William. Thank god, where have you been, baby? Whew, you scared Mommy. And then it was over, and for a while, everything was fine in my head. But the movement didn't come again that way. Not like that. Contractions did. Things I thought were movements. Phantom kicks, maybe. But not like that. I think they were the last moments he was alive, and I didn't know.

And now I wonder if he suffered, am haunted by that thought. Was he in pain? Please, god, let it have been quick and painless. Please let him have just gone to sleep. Please don't let those last few moments have been a struggle for my sweet little baby boy. Was I rejoicing in it, in that movement, at the moment of his death?

If I let myself think about that too long, I'll go insane. I won't just forget how the dryer works, I'll forget my own name, my very existence.

The only thing that helps is having M. here holding me. This morning - his late day, he doesn't go in until eleven am - he held me while I cried, and I held him while he cried, and we talked and talked about our sweet little boy and how much we missed him and I told him I wanted him to stay home. Not today... but tomorrow. And Friday, for the weekend. I just... I needed time. I needed time with him, I needed that space to mourn, to be held not looking at a clock, knowing the alarm was going to go off, and he was going to have to leave for work. I need more than just bits and pieces.

He agreed. I think he needs it, too.

Of course, getting his employer to agree was another story. I don't understand sometimes how people can be so callous, so removed. M. is a psychologist, and he works primarily with addicts. He's incredibly gifted and good at what he does. Everywhere he has been or goes, people remember and ask for him. He still has people coming to the place he works now asking to work with him. The place he's in now is run like a sales department, and he hates that part of it, but he still remains in the top three "sellers." (I know... it's health and human services and the powers that be treat it like they're selling used cars... it's surreal...)

When he asked for the time off, they wanted to deny him. This is after yesterday, when they said, "You let us know, whatever you need..." Apparently, EXCEPT for time off to be with his family? I think I'm entering the Kubler-Ross "anger" phase of grief today, because if his boss had been in front of me in that moment, there wouldn't have been much left of him when I was done.

Time Limits

Some of the lessons I'm learning along this journey...

There is no end to suffering. Mine, yours, everyone's. There are no rules. Bad things don't happen in threes. Bad things do happen to good people. And they do keep happening, even if you think they shouldn't. Just because something bad happens to you, doesn't mean something else bad isn't going to happen in the near future. There are no limits on the amount of bad things that can happen to a person.

Two days before my baby was born still, another mother on one of my "due date clubs" announced that her baby was dead at birth. I told my midwife this story, actually, the day of my prenatal appointment, and how sad and horrified I was by it. How unimaginable. She nodded, sympathized, said, "It does happen sometimes, but it doesn't happen often." In the 500+ births she's attended, she'd only ever experienced six stillborn babies. It seemed like a small statistic as she put the Doppler to my belly and we listened for his heartbeat.

And then I became a statistic.

Two babies gone in the space of two days. It couldn't be true. Not possible, even, statistically. Could it? Later, my midwife would say, "When you told me that story, I thought the baby would be fine. It couldn't happen twice..."

Oh, yes it could. Because 12,000 babies are stillborn worldwide every day. Of the roughly 300,000 born that day, 12,000 of them will be born dead.

I never looked at the darker side of that particular stat before. In fact, one of my affirmations during my births was always, "I can do this. I am birthing with 300,000 other women today, and we can do it."

I did birth with them... but I didn't take my baby home afterward like the majority did.

In the U.S., the stillbirth statistic drops to about seventy babies a day. Which means that seventy other mothers lost their child on the day I lost mine. Seventy.

I wish I could be with those seventy women. I wish we had a wailing wall to rock and cry and scream our grief to. I wish we could hug each other, soak each other's clothes with tears and milk for our dead babies in our mourning. I don't want to be a statistic. But here I am, living with the fact that bad things happen, no one is protected or charmed. There is no circle I can draw around myself or my family to keep them from harm. There were seventy other women who birthed with me on the day I pushed out my son, seventy mothers who wanted all the things I wanted - to cradle their child as they took their first breath and came fully into our world - seventy other mothers who screamed or cried or sat stunned in numb and shocked silence as their dream was shattered.

And there was nothing any of us could do about it.

Kali will have her way. There is no fighting a storm. I can rail and rage, but it's a futile effort. I'm punching clouds. The goddess of death and destruction... is also the goddess of time and change. And the longer I live, the more I understand how woven together they are. Everything dies. Everything disappears, decays, degenerates, disintegrates. I can't keep it from happening, and I can't choose. It's not up to me.

Last night, M. drove my oldest son, B., home. B. lives about forty minutes away with his biological dad, and although I usually take him, I was too sore and full of milk to do it. M. left with the promise that he would stop at the store for cabbage (relief for my aching breasts) and call me and ask me what I wanted him to bring home for dinner, since neither of us was in any condition or mood to cook.

I lost myself again in reading stillbirth stories online - a recent, obsessive torture, like sticking your tongue into the place a pulled tooth used to be - and when I glanced at the clock, it had already been an hour and a half. Where was my husband? Why hadn't he called?

I picked up my cell phone and pressed redial. He didn't answer - it went to message. I left one. Even if he didn't have a signal, his phone should tell him I called. I waited fifteen minutes. Tried again. Still no answer. I called my son's phone. No answer. I texted him - "call me." He never ignores a text. No one called me back.

I started calling my husband on redial - over and over. And over. Always the same - message. I listened to his voice, and thought, "What if that's the last time I hear it?" And I knew it was possible. Thoughts of "the universe couldn't be that cruel" were just rationalizations. I knew it wasn't so - the universe could be as cruel as it wanted to. I could lose my baby, and five days later, lose my husband and son in a car accident. Because bad things happen. They happen over and over. Time marches on, and I can't stop it or control it or make everything okay.

Panicked now, I dialed and sobbed, sobbed and dialed, the rising fear that I would lose all of it, everything and everyone I cared about, closing my throat. My baby was dead. Who was next? My husband? My son? Me? What did Kali have in store for us today? Tomorrow? A year from now? Ten? Twenty?

It rang, and rang, and I knew, an empty, hollow silence was all the answer I would ever get. Kali doesn't tell her secrets, and only time would tell me anything. I hated time. I wanted to stop it, turn it back, make it fold in on itself, like a blanket, and put it in my closet for safekeeping. My heart doesn't know any time. My heart holds it all at once - every sweet, precious thing - and it knows no limits.

"Hello?" He finally answered. In the middle of the store picking up cabbage, he didn't get any reception. I could barely hear him through the static, but when we hung up, I collapsed on the bed and cried in relief. Not today, then. Not today.

But I couldn't stop. I cried for all that would be consumed in the course of time. Every mother, every child... I cried for all of us, for those seventy mothers who birthed a dead baby on the day my son was born, for the seventy who were giving birth to their dead baby this very day, already four days into my mourning, for every person who had ever lost a child, a mother, a father, brother, sister...

I screamed in the face of the stark, consuming aspect of our reality and its voracious appetites, and heard only the empty echo of my own choked tears. I cried for my sweet, lost baby boy, who was probably already ashes, his tiny rosebud mouth, soft fat cheeks, and long, delicate fingers just a memory in his mother's mind, captured now for anyone else only on a fragile piece of paper for however many generations it might last.

One of the things I keep hearing, in a long list my head keeps making of things never to say to a grieving mother, is "Time heals all wounds."

No it doesn't. Time is unbelievably cruel. Time is Kali, all dark skin and wild eyes, knife drawn and ready to take away another minute, another hour, another day, another year. Time erases.

But my heart, as long as it's beating, knows no time.