Right Where I Am: 2012

I saw the invitation from Angie on Thursday morning, and I've been attempting to write this post ever since. Opening, rewriting, saving, staring, deleting, closing. Where the hell am I, anyway?

Ironic, that this call to write comes hot on the heels of my decision to stop tracking the days since they died. It was making me feel sad, and stagnant, so I traded the tickers in my sidebar for simple memorial buttons. And I had no twinges about it.

Will you judge me very harshly if I say I don't miss them like I used to? Not that I don't miss them--of course I do. But it's not the same as it used to be.

I don't look around and see where they're not. I don't resent my space or my nice clothes or my paychecks spent only on me. I don't obsess about how big they would be or what milestones they would have achieved by now. I don't worry that total strangers can't have the faintest idea whether I'm a mother or not. That they might look at me and see just another fairly pretty twenty-something who seems to mostly have her shit together. I think the reason I don't worry about that anymore is because I've realized that it actually is who I am now. I've realized I'm not fooling anyone, including myself... because it's no longer a lie.

I've got necklaces and initials. I've got two boxes of baby clothes in the back of my closet. I've got their pages on my blog, and indelible ink on my left thigh: two little doves I designed myself. My wrists are bare, but if I didn't know better, I'd swear their names were written there too. An invisible list. Indelible in its own way.

S has seen my tattoo, and the pictures that hang by my bed. He hasn't asked who they are, and I haven't told. I will, eventually. But not yet. We've been seeing each other for two months; long enough that I realized yesterday it will hurt if we break up. The thought made my stomach drop. It means I'm invested now, you see.

My babies often cross my mind, but for the most part tend to move on quickly. A smile and a nod--they get it. Mama's busy. And anyway, they've got time. They understand forever. They know we've got all the time in the world.

I feel like they each took a piece of my heart with them, when they left. That it is with them, that piece, wherever they are. Always. Except they didn't leave behind a hole, as I first thought. Clever thieves! They filled that small but gaping space with eternity instead. I simply didn't recognize it right away, couldn't sense the shape of it, was confused by its unfamiliar weight. I did not know, at first, that what I thought was lonely emptiness was really the vast wholeness of all things.

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Last year's posts: Lissie. No-No.

right where I am [part 2]

No-No: 1 yr, 8 mos

Ah, my son. My son.

There is a certain little boy who frequently visits the store where I work, with his mother and grandmother. He is roughly the same age as Noah would be, had he lived. He is also the same color: coffee with cream. Delicious. Gorgeous. Just what I always wanted. A year ago, looking at him made my chest cave in. (One day I literally had to hide, crouching behind my cash register, choking on dry sobs.)

He's toddling now. I saw him last week, holding on to his mama's finger and grinning like crazy over his latest accomplishment. I wanted to scoop him up and kiss him all over his sweet face. I wanted him to be mine. But he's not. He's not my Noah.

No one else could ever be my Noah. My special boy.

I would give anything to have my baby back. To look into his eyes, and see the whole of my universe suspended there. To hear his stories, told in his own unique voice. To feel the solid weight of him in my arms. To watch him grow. It is a fool's dream. I know that nothing I could ever give would suffice. I understand that I am helpless and -- unexpectedly, mysteriously -- my helplessness doesn't make me angry anymore. Every day, I forgive myself a little more for being unable to save him. The self-hatred that had hardened like a lump of obsidian in my ribcage is slowly chipping away.

I don't know about tomorrow, or the day after that, but this is where I am right now. Right now I can say, with a delicate confidence: It is so. It is sad. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It is long. It is the most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with -- and I have dealt with a lot. I am a champion. I am a mother. I am afraid. I hurt. I lose. I win.

It is simple. It is hard. It is so... it is so... it is so.


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right where I am [part 1]

Lissie: 3 yrs, 11 mos

I'm almost to her day, Lissie's Day, again. I've been thinking about her a lot, but I haven't been that sad. Not yet anyway. There are other things, occupying my attention right now; happier things, more urgent things. And I don't feel guilty about this, as I would have once. I recognize that I need to embrace happiness when I can.

My grief has changed, recently, as grief does. I've moved away now, for good, from the "this can't actually have happened" phase: the phase where I keep expecting that maybe, just maybe, there not only really is an alternate universe where my children didn't die, but that one day I might wake up in it. Sucks to be you, version of myself that I switched with! Ha!

Yeah. Probably not going to happen.

I guess you would call it acceptance. My baby died. She doesn't need me anymore. She's not coming back. No matter how much I cry, no matter how much love for her I hold in my heart, no matter how many times I say her name... she's not coming back to me.

But she was here, for a little while. She was here, right here inside of me, as close as one person can be to another. She was here and I got to know her, even if it was just a teeny tiny bit, just the smallest sliver of knowledge. I got to be connected, however tenuously, to a bright-burning spark of life and glory. I got to give her a name. That was my privilege, my honor. And it's a beautiful name, for a beautiful girl -- a girl who simply couldn't stay. A girl I have to continually learn to let go of.

Her story is permanently intertwined with mine. She'll not be forgotten; I don't worry about that. Being dead does not make her more important to me than if she had lived, and if she had lived she would not be more important to me than she is now, dead. She's my daughter, I loved her, I love her still. The memory of her is tied to me like a balloon tied to my wrist. I don't need to grasp at it; I already know it's there. It moves when I move. We are connected.

Even if I let go, we are still connected.


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I remember

I remember lying on the dock in the middle of the night with some of my very best friends in the world, staring up at the stars, feeling infinite.

I remember the magic of phosphorescence glittering in the air and in the water.

I remember being up all night, begging Noah to stay with me.
I remember when I knew for sure that he had gone.

I remember the smell of the schoolyard in the fall.

I remember feeling different from every other person I ever met, and never being quite sure why. (But I know why, now.)

I remember so many things I wish I could forget...

I remember being lost in the grocery store when I was four years old, and that my mum didn't even notice I was missing. I remember how utterly unruffled she was, both before and after my return, and my despair at this confirmation that it didn't much matter to her where I was or what happened to me at any given time.

I remember playing Barbies with Danni. I remember her dollhouse was so much nicer than mine, because her grandma was so much richer than mine.

I remember dancing. I remember when I realized I was good at it. Even better, maybe, than my best friend, who (I had thought) was always better at everything.

I remember morning sickness, and I remember when it stopped.

I remember blood.

I remember my first vision of Lissie, breathtaking in its vividness and clarity: a tiny spark of pure Life inside my belly, content, whole, peaceful, filled with laughter and light. (Even though her body was barely formed, she was already so clearly herself.) I remember my awe of her; of her perfection, her completeness, her uniqueness, so separate from me and my anxiety and my fear and my scars.

I remember the day I forgave myself for being my parents' daughter, and understanding for the first time how meaningless that connection was for my future and my personhood. And in turn, how my daughter was her own self as well, and her father's issues and my issues had nothing to do with who she was as a person either -- and that we both would be okay.

I remember riding my bike home in summer twilights, the sound of tires crunching on gravel and the wind rustling through the fields, the smell of corn and raspberries heavy on the air.

I remember the fair.

I remember the ER.

I remember tears, and laughter too, and promising to be friends forever; and I also remember when I first realized that forever was not as long as we always imagined it would be.


Inspired by Alana.

hope

My baby sister is coming to visit me.




She will arrive the day after my birthday, but the date is mostly coincidental. It's not about me. Really it is a mental health break for her, from school, from the bleak winter landscape of the Pacific Northwest, from the drama of our dysfunctional family members... from life.



I love my sister. It's still hard for me to see her sometimes; but it's getting better. I hope that one day, we can spend time together and it will just be good, without any effort. I hope that one day we can forget, even for a little while, the horrors we've endured. I hope that one day, when I look at her, I no longer see the little girl I tried so hard -- in vain -- to save.

I hope.




I think already our relationship is not so strained as it once was. There are a lot of unspoken hurts, old wounds, memories of circumstances way outside of our control. There are tears yet to be shed. But there is life yet to be lived, too. There are lunches to be had, and coffee dates. There are flights to book and visits to look forward to. There are plans to be made. There are weddings and baby showers, and watching our kids grow up; kids who like themselves, and eachother -- because we taught them how, as we're teaching ourselves.

And that's what gives fuel to this strange new hope I have: the knowledge that every day we each are growing stronger and more whole -- and believing, against all odds, that the effort cannot help but pay off in the end.

turn, turn, turn

The lazy heat of summer lingers here, during the day, though the calendar declares it to be mid-September and certainly the beginning of fall. Most nights are cooler now. And the gentle breezes, when they blow, send newly brittle yellow leaves skipping and skittering across the sun-warm stones of our back patio with a delightful, raspy sound. The smell of them, of autumn leaves, is magic; I would fill my whole house with it if I could.

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Summertime is when I moved here, so as long as it is summer, my move is still new. But in the fall, this can be where I live; where I work and play and cook and read. Where I put pictures up on the wall. Where I think about making new friends. This can be where I remember my babies freely, without old ties, old guilt; without worrying about what anybody thinks. I can assimilate them more fully into my everyday life. I can relax. I can love who I am; all of who I am. I can explore what it means to belong.

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Summer's end means the grueling anniversaries of my children's deaths have passed by, too. The tickers on my sidebar keep counting the days, but right now the numbers don't floor me like they did. It's been a year, it's been three years. The months will go by, the seasons will continue to change, the years will keep piling up, and my kids will still be just as gone. I know there will be times when I feel myself suddenly in the grip of it again: the helpless hopelessness, the grief. But for now there is some slight reprieve. I just miss them. I will always miss them. They will always be a part of me.



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a toast

Here's to the ignorant, obnoxious, complacent mothers, whose pregnancies go completely according to plan. May you never have the slightest idea what the hell I am talking about.

And here's to the rest of us. The wounded ones. Our online community like a Vet Hall filled with amputees; we sit in untidy circles, telling our traumatic stories over and over, wishing every time that they weren't ours to tell. But my dears, you tell them beautifully, truly. You tell those awful stories so very well.

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My drink is gone, now. I guess it's time for bed.