Missing Important Days

My friend Deanna died two years ago this November. She died at the age of thirty-six, of breast cancer that had metastasized to her bones (and finally, to her liver...) She and I talked a lot about missing anniversaries for "the sad stuff..." We both had a tendency to "forget" them. Her mother had died (melanoma, metastasized to the brain... ain't it a kick how genetically inclined the C-Monster is?) just a few months before I met Deanna, and year after year, she would "forget" the anniversary of her death. But a few days or weeks later, she'd find herself crying for no reason. Except, of course there really was a reason after all.

I haven't missed the anniversary of my friend's death. That's next month. But I have let the first of the month pass by without a thought several times since William died. I let Infant Loss Awareness day pass by without a mention. Why?

Deanna always wondered, too... why did she do that?  

I think I know. Because it hurts too much to remember.

It's hard enough to have a day every month - the first day of every month - where William is so close to the surface of my thoughts and the center of my heart it's hard to breathe without pain. To have a day when I'm supposed to remember them all... all of the lost babies... how is one person supposed to hold that?

I was catching up on reading blogs today, and I must have made that sound, the one that's common around here anymore, a sighed, frowning "Awwww." When my husband asked me, "What?" I showed him the picture of a daddy holding his lost baby, M. looked, frowned, and made the same sound. "Awwww... another one..."

It wasn't a question. We both knew what we were looking at. We knew the looks on the faces - they had been our own. It's so universal, this pain, this experience. It's a picture from an alternate reality, somehow superimposed over what should have been. There's Daddy, holding his son, Mama looking on, and you can see it on their faces, what should have been. She's proud, look at how she looks at her son... she can't help but see the beauty of her baby. Daddy holds his future in his arms, smiling strangely for the camera, but you can't smile in this situation without pain. There is a smile there, but instead of joy, there is sorrow.

Now times that by ten... by ten thousand... by a hundred thousand...

We're all the same, our hearts cracked open before the world, raw and bleeding. And it doesn't stop. It never stops. Babies keep dying. Hearts get broken. Dreams smashed. Again. Again. Again. Our own pain compounded, over and over. Impossible pain times infinity.

It's no wonder that I didn't light a candle, that I kept my breath shallow and my tears checked. It hurts too much to remember my son... your son... your daughter... 

But today I'm crying. Today I'm feeling them anyway, all of them, the lost souls, each light gone out. Today I'm breathing deep, heaving, cleansing sobs and wondering why I bother to fight it... it's going to come anyway. The pain comes like the tide, like babies dying, unstoppable.

I am helpless. It hurts to much to remember. And I can't help but remember.

What I think my friend, Deanna, didn't realize (and me, with her...) is that when we allow ourselves to remember... especially when we are connected, remembering together... somehow... when we are all united in this pain... there is some sort of comfort in it.

I didn't light a candle on October 15 this year. But I felt the love and light from those who did. Even in the dark hole I'd dug to hide in, I felt it. And I was grateful.

Maybe next year... maybe next year I'll be brave enough to light a candle.

Saddled

I used to love this season - the crisp fall air, trips to the cider mill, picking apples and the changing leaves. I loved it so much I named my first daughter after this season, the one she was born into.

But this year, I can't stand it. I look at the bright, bold colors of each leaf throwing off its chlorophyl, beautiful and brilliant in their final dying, and all I can see is death. Everything is dying. Cornstalks that, just a few months ago, stretched into endless green fields now sway in the autumn wind, yellowed and faded, simply husks. It's all fading away, and while I once gloried in the beautiful, dazzling display of autumn's end, now all it does is remind me.

It reminds me of William, and his death. I wish I'd seen him in those last moments, been able to look into his eyes, feel his last breath. If I had to lose him, why couldn't I have held him in those last moments? Why does the universe have to keep dangling things in front of me, a carrot before the horse, and yanking it away at the last moment? Almost there...you've almost made it... yet over every hill is just another mirage.

The universe says, you can carry your baby for nine months, but he'll die before you ever get to hold him. The universe says, sure, fine, you'll get pregnant again and get to ride that elated wave for a few days...before it all ends in more pain and blood. 

Always pulled up short, just shy, never quite reaching any sweet destination.

Does the horse eventually catch on? Does she just stop in the middle of the field? Does she turn and leave that impossible carrot dangling?  I am harnessed, the bit a cold, steel reminder in my mouth. There is no other way, that's what my body says, what my head screams.

I want that carrot.

I want my "fuck you" to the universe.

But what I really want is William back.

It's a callous and cold thought: "I went through all that for NOTHING!?" But it's my feeling and it's real. How many times did I say, heavy and dragging with my belly distended with William, "I'm never doing this again!"

I'm never doing this again... 

Careful what you say.

Today, M. said, "If we're not pregnant this time, maybe we should just stop trying."

I couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. That horse can't imagine not trodding onward, heading for that dangling carrot. There is nothing else in her field of vision - it's all orange, all the time. For me, it's like that. All baby, all the time. How can I stop? How can I say no?

The truth is, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of making that choice. I'm afraid of losing the hope, the possibility that I might... just... reach... that... carrot.

But I'm more afraid of who I might become if there is no rainbow at the end. I have glimpsed that woman, and she isn't pretty. She is bitter, angry, resentful, cynical... If there is no hope, I'm afraid that I will become her, that the worst of the things I have been since William's death will become crystalized like ice shards in my chest, replacing what used to be my heart.

I don't want to be that woman. I want to have hope, I want to believe.  I want to keep pursuing that carrot...even if it is an impossible dream, a mirage. Even if.

Phantom Pain

I know a bit about flesh-eating bacteria. M. had it, following an abscessed tooth. He spend two weeks in the hospital, half of it in the ICU. It's very scary stuff, and usually, it kills you. He was lucky.

So was this woman.

But there is some very, very small part of me that looks at that first paragraph: 

A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.

And thinks... but her baby is alive.

Would I choose being a quadruple amputee over having birthed a dead baby? Yeah. I would. In a heartbeat. But we don't get to choose, do we? Life just hands us these things, here you go, this is yours now, like it or not.

Are we supposed to say "Thank you?" Are we supposed to "learn something" from these horrific experiences? Is this some sort of competition to see who can carry the most pain? Or does the person who experiences the least pain win?

I can't fathom a world that leaves one woman's arms aching for her missing baby, and another woman's missing arms unable to hold her live one.

They say you have phantom pain for years after you lose a limb. Can you imagine? A part of you severed, removed, taken, stolen away. Gone, but still, you can somehow feel it...your own secret torment, a torturous ghost reminding you every moment of what you've lost.

Honestly...I think I know exactly how she feels.

Six Months

William is still inside me, stuck, a lump in my throat I can't get past.

Today he feels unreal.

Did I really kiss the cooling forehead of my dead baby six months ago today? Did I really hand him back to a nurse? Did I give him to her, as if he were an empty plate and she a waitress clearing what was no longer needed from the restaurant table?

Here, we're done with this, you can have it now.

Was that me? Was that my son?

It couldn't be. If something so horrible, so heinous, so impossible had really happened to me, I'm sure I would never have given him away. I'm certain I would never have handed him over and gone home and watched American Idol and wondered why I couldn't breathe as I laid there in the dark and wished it all away.

If something so unbelievable had happened to me, I'm sure I would have died. I'm sure I couldn't have survived such a loss. I'm sure I would have slit my wrists or been locked in a padded room or been put on serious medication to keep myself from falling apart.

And if something like that, something so unthinkable, had happened to me once, and I managed somehow to make it through, I'm certain that another loss would truly crush me. Even the smallest potential of life, gone in an unexpected rush of blood and tissue, would surely bring me to my knees. I would spend days, weeks, months, completely incapacitated, unshowered, undone.

I did laundry today. I washed dishes. I wrote a poem. I washed one child's face and kissed another's boo-boo.  How is any of that possible?

You're so strong. A rock. I would have died. I couldn't have handled it. I don't know what I would have done.

No. No, you don't. You don't know what you'll do, when you look into the dark, gaping, bloody mouth of your dead son and see the abyss looking back at you. You think you'll go crazy. You think you'll die. You think you will come undone.

But the horror isn't the reality of death, no bigger than a sack of sugar in your arms... the horror is in the living. The horror comes six months later, when you realize you're living your life, still shopping and cooking and laughing and typing and breathing and trying. And failing.

I wish I'd died. Or I wish I had been utterly shaken and changed and transformed into some sort of selfless human tribute to the precious lost life of my sweet, perfect baby.

But I am, still, and that's all. I didn't shatter, I didn't collapse, I didn't rise from the ashes of my dead son like a glorious phoenix. Six months later, I'm just here, and nothing much has changed, aside from the gaping hole in my chest I feel every minute but no one else can see. 

Game Over

I took a pregnancy test again, just because I'm crazy and like to see that reassuring line getting darker. Besides, I have a million of the things, and I wouldn't need them anymore... right?

So I peed on a stick one more time and waited to see the magic-line...

But there was no line.

Not even the faint line I'd seen a few days before. No line at all.

Stark. White. Nothing.

I told myself it was a faulty test. I would take another one tomorrow and it would be fine, nice and dark, and all the crazy-talk in my head about losing this baby would go away.

But now I'm bleeding.

And there is no more baby.

M. is installing a new stove today. Well, a new-to-us stove, bought from Craig's List after a power surge last week fried the control board in ours. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. He came into the bathroom, all frustrated and sad, where I was staring at that snow-white test, and said to me, "I think I just lost us $175."

I looked at him and said, "I just lost us a baby. I win."

And we all lose.

Game over.

YES!

I imagined what it would be like.

I fantasized about it, frankly, like a dieter with my jaw wired shut, obsessing about mountains of rich, gooey chocolate. What would be it like?

I thought about it. I did. A lot.

But I didn't know it would feel like this.

YES!

There's not a hint of "NO!" in me. No hesitation, no turning away. Is there fear? Yes. Anxiety? Yes. But I'm still saying "YES!" I can't help it. I've smiled so much my face hurts. I smiled through tears all day yesterday, after taking two tests and reassuring M. that yes, it was a line, it didn't matter how faint. I couldn't stop smiling as I told the kids: "You're going to be a sister (or a brother) again!" and seeing their faces light up like it was Christmas morning.

I didn't wait. I didn't keep my secret longer than a few moments, suspended, like my breath, waiting to be let out. Because every single moment is precious. This little bundle of cells is the oak in the acorn already, burrowing into the soft, nurturing home where it will grow and (please, god) bloom and be birthed sometime at the end of May or beginning of June... But that time is a long way off. Three seasons to go, although it's growing autumn-cool even now.

All I have is this moment, right now, cradling the potential of life in my womb. How can I not honor that? I have so much love for this baby already. I can't hold back, I can't say "No, I won't love you, not yet, not until I know." Because if William taught me anything (and oh, my sweet baby boy, you've taught me so very much) it's that we can never, ever know. This moment is all we have, and time stands still in our hearts.

My heart's steady rhythm brings life in every moment, and its beat is saying nothing but "Yes. Yes. Yes!"

Variations on a Theme

The first dream I had about William wasn't too long after he died. I dreamed he was born alive, but then he died. In my arms, he breathed his last breath, and I sobbed and sobbed... and then, shockingly, he came back to life in my arms. He gasped and opened his eyes, and my heart burst with joy. Then he died again, just as suddenly as he had woke, he was gone. That was a heartbreaking dream.

The next dream I remember was a month or so later. In this one, he was born alive, warm and wiggling, crying and thrashing, he was placed in my arms, and then he died. His eyes went wide - eyes I never saw open, but I saw them clearly in my dream. He was in pain, something was being taken, and then he was, taken. Gone. Another heartbreaking dream.

The next dream I had about him was a few weeks ago. William was stillborn, they said, and they sent him to the morgue. But he wasn't dead. They discovered he was alive, and they gave him back to me. I carried him around, wrapped in his newborn blanket, and showed him to my sisters, my mother. "How is it possible?" they asked as they cooed over him. I don't know, I said. A miracle. Indeed. That was a miraculous dream. Until I woke up.

Just last night, I dreamed I was pregnant, very pregnant, hugely pregnant. My midwives were looking for a heartbeat and they couldn't find one. Finally, they gave up, shaking their heads. The baby was gone. Gone. This baby wasn't William, it was another baby, a different baby, my rainbow baby, and this baby, too, was gone. I sobbed and keened, wailed and writhed... and then, the baby moved. I stopped, holding completely still, holding my breath. It couldn't be. Could it? But there it was again... and again... and again! My baby was alive! My midwives felt my belly, frowning, sure it was my imagination, but there was a bottom, a foot pushing, clearly pushing outward... a miracle!

In those early dreams, the baby died. Even if he was alive for a moment, ultimately, he slipped away. In the latter two, at least, the danger is clear, but life prevails. My early dreams left me with feelings of loss, regret, guilt, sadness. My latter two dreams, though... I woke with a feeling of hope.

Hope.

It's something I haven't felt in long time. Something, I think, I haven't dared to feel. Especially consciously. I keep "Hope" at arms length when I'm awake. But when I'm sleeping...for some reason I can't consciously fathom...my subconscious is clearly making room for it. I don't know why, and I'm afraid to ask what role "hope" might play in my life, in my future.

Awake, I don't dare think. I don't dare hope.

But when I'm asleep...when I cross over into the place where thinking stops and images and feelings hold sway...things are changing. The landscape, once barren and burned black, has started to show small signs of spring.

Hope is a thing with feathers...  in my dreams, I think, I just might be learning to fly.