William's First Un-Birthday

Pictures of what we did on William's first "unbirthday," as M. calls it.

William's cake

Z&D playing at the park where we'll do the balloon release

By the water

Writing messages on our balloons

Ready to let them go

Off they go!

D. - reluctant to let it go...

M. getting his tattoo

Almost done!

All done!

My tattoo - William's hand, actual size

My heart in his hands...

My Dear Sweet William

My dear sweet William...

There aren't words to tell you how much we miss you. I wish we were gearing up for a crazy, hectic one-year-old's party, something that would disrupt your whole routine and make you good and cranky and more than ready for your usual nap. I want that child, the boy turning one who would be taking his first toddling steps toward a lifetime of walking away.

I wanted to be the one to let go first.

I took your memory box down today from the shelf for the first time in six months. I said, the day we knew you were dead - the day you were born - that I didn't want to be that woman, the one who had a cardboard box instead of a baby. But I am that woman, and I have a box instead of a son. I have pictures and a stuffed bear and a blanket. There are drops of your blood on the little outfit you wore and I smelled it, hoping to find any lingering scent of you, but there was none. I left my tears there. Your DNA and mine.

I found the lock of your hair, so dark and fine and beautiful. It's the thing I cherish most, that reminds me, yes, you were here, you were alive inside me, floating in a waiting darkness. You heard my voice, were rocked to sleep by my movements, and felt my love, thick as blood and pouring through that lifeline, the one that failed us both. You were here, and then you were gone.

I can't tell you not to pull the dog's ears or listen to you talking to yourself in that sweet baby-babble in your crib across the hall in the morning. I can't complain that you're growing out of everything so FAST and how running after a little one at forty is a lot more tiring than it is at twenty. I can't give you anything, anymore. I had one shot - that oblivious nine months you spent in my belly - and it's past.

You will forever be my future-child, a projection on the screen of my mind. I don't turn that movie on daily anymore, like I once did. But days like today - your first year! - I imagine you forward, and I probably will do it until I, too, am gone. Your first smile, your first words, your first steps, your first birthday. Your first lost tooth, your first skinned knee, your first day of school, your first heartbreak.Your first date, your first car, your graduation, your wedding. But I know, I will never have those firsts. It's all a mind-movie, a bit of future-projection to help ease my presently aching heart of the heaviness of past regret.

I will never know or have you again. You are just paper and wisps and ash.

But I can still close my eyes and feel you. I held the weight of the world in my arms the day you were born, and you...just barely a five-pound bundle of bittersweet love. Your skin was as soft as flower petals, your mouth a little rosebud. I remember those things. Your spine was perfection - I felt it with my hand, every groove, just like the string of pearls we'd seen on the screen. Your fingers were long and delicate. They were my hands, not your father's. I remember the wet smell of your birth, the doctor asking, "Do you want to see your son?" and reaching my arms out because yes, yes, of course I wanted you, I'd never wanted anything more. I remember rocking you and sobbing and asking you, "What happened, baby? What happened?" As if you could open your eyes and tell me. I remember the blood that ran in a trickle out of your nose that I wiped delicately away with the edge of the blanket like I would have wiped your tears had you been born alive.

And I remember most how much I loved you, how much that feeling consumed me.

It still does.

Today would have been your first birthday, and for me, there's not a lot of "happy" in it. But there is a lot of love. I may not be able to kiss your forehead and wish you happy birthday today, but my love for you knows no bounds. There are no edges to it; there is no end. I know you felt it, when you were inside of me, how loved and wanted you were - and just like I know my love crossed that placenta-barrier and fed you, like the blood in my veins...I know it crosses over to wherever you are now.

I love you, William, today on your first birthday and every day.

This Time Last Year

This time last year, my baby was already dead inside me, but I didn't know it. 
Now my baby is dead and I can't unknow it.

This time last year, I had an empty nursery.
Now, too, I have an empty nursery. 

This time last year the skies were blue and the sun was shining and spring was coming... 
Right now the skies are blue and the sun is shining and spring is coming... 

This time last year I had hope. I didn't know that in just a little over twenty-four hours, my midwife wouldn't be able to find my baby's heartbeat. 

But still, a part of me knew - our little mommy group had lost one precious life already, but I told myself it couldn't happen again. Lightning couldn't strike twice. But I was afraid. My usually active baby had slowed down so much... but this was labor, pre-labor, I told myself, it would be over soon...

And then it was over. Forever over and now I relive it all, over and over.


My grief has grown less sharp around the edges over this past year, like a knife blade worn dull from use. I cut myself with a butter-knife nowadays. That's progress, isn't it?

This time last year I was oblivious. Today, I wish I still was.

Today, I am spending a gorgeous spring afternoon sitting in the dark and watching movies about the holocaust and crying.

Maybe I just want to be reminded - there are worse horrors. I didn't have to choose - who should die, my son or my daughter? My son didn't know that he was going to die - he didn't suffer (please, god, let that last be true...) and he isn't suffering anymore.

Or maybe I just want to see fear and hopelessness and the pain of loss mirrored a million times on a million faces. Maybe then I can recognize my own face in the mirror - who is this woman who has aged exponentially in the past year, who fell down a rabbit hole, who crossed over to the other side and hasn't managed to find her way back through hell...?

Who is she? Who am I?

This time last year, I thought I knew.

Now, I don't think I'll ever know.

Gifts

I am blessed to have such amazing, generous, thoughtful women in my life. I will burn the candle they sent for William's first birthday on April 1... to honor them remembering him... 

Thank you for not forgetting. 

Thank you for holding him in your hearts, even if I can't hold him in my arms. 

It means more than I could ever possibly say.

Unfolding

I should be planning a first birthday party.

Instead, I'm planning a memorial/remembrance day of sorts. It's hard for me to call it a "birthday party." Birthdays are celebrations. I'm not celebrating. I'm mourning. Still, nearly a year later, still mourning. Forever-mourning, I imagine. I never wanted to be this woman.

My children, even the older ones, want to take part, so on April 1, the day William was born, we will go the park and do a balloon release. I'm bringing helium balloons and Sharpies - we can each write a message (or for the littles, draw a picture).

Then it's on to get our memorial tattoos. We are both getting his handprint - mine will be actual size, in black, over my heart. Just where his little hand would have rested when he was nursing. Just where I hope another little future-baby's hand will rest again some day. I fantasize about that image a lot, and hope I'm not just dreaming. M's will be his own handprint, in black, on his forearm, and William's handprint, in blue, in the center.

After that, it's dinner and cake. Yes, I know, it's not a birthday party, but I ordered a cake anyway. The tattoo place is an hour away - but fortuitously, it's right around the corner from the bakery that made our wedding cake. I am ordering a mini replica of our wedding cake for our 10 year anniversary (coming up this July) and decided to get a cake for William.

He should be smashing frosting in his hair on that day... I wonder if all that dark hair would have stayed? So many things I'll never know.

The woman who took my cake order had tears in her eyes when I handed her the copy of his little handprint, the one I wanted on the cake. They had just celebrated her daughter's first birthday. "You never know, do you?" she said, shaking her head. I used to be on that side of motherhood, I thought. I remember. How sad. How awful. How can you cope? I would just die...

Why did her daughter live and my son die? More useless questions with no real answers.

M. is making a memorial shelf for William's things - his picture, the cedar box with his ashes, etc.

And we have started trying again, after a two month break getting my body back to some sort of balance. I hope we have succeeded. I can feasibly take a test on what would have been William's first birthday. It would be so apropos... what a beautiful gift, to know I was carrying new life on that day.

And of course, a cruel joke if things go the other way. April Fool's. Again.

And as usual, there's nothing to do but let it unfold. 

Simple Question

The U.S. Census.

"How many people were living in your house on April 1, 2010?"

It's a simple question.

And it reduced me to tears.

April 1, 2010 would have been William's first birthday.

There's a little "Dora the Explorer" ad on the census website that says, "Children count too!"

But I can't write my son's name and birthdate down.

He doesn't count.

He was never counted.

Beautiful Damned

It never ends.

One mama puts her sweet, funny, healthy three-year-old boy with a little cold to bed one night only to wake up and find him dead in his bed. Another mama rocks and sings to her nine month-old baby girl and watches her die of leukemia in her arms.

They're never safe. It's never okay. They fall. They get run over by cars. They start driving cars and get into accidents. Every single baby that we mamas birth is going to die. We're all dying, every single moment.

The potential for tragedy is endless.

If life weren't so damned beautiful, I'd really question the point of it all.