right where I am: 2014

Ailis Evelyn - 7 years, 1 month, 8 days
Noah Griffin - 4 years, 10 months, 21 days

Last time I wrote for this linkup I had no idea that a brand new baby boy had only days before begun making his determined way into my life. Throughout those long months, even as my belly grew and despite his constant movement, I did not really think it was possible until the night I finally held him in my arms, all grey and slimy and completely, utterly calm. Fingers curling and uncurling, as theirs never did, eyes open and alert, as theirs never were.

I marked Lissie's day in my heart only this year, my head and my hands being mostly full of her new brother. I expect Noah's will be the same. A little extra kindness for myself, a little extra softness for those around me. A grateful heart.

I love you, my babies. Always have, always will.

I am homesick for their faces. It would be the greatest gift imaginable to know their voices, to hear them speak just once. To feel their hands in mine. To have patted their backs and smoothed their hair and kissed their cheeks, as I do for their brother. The one who stayed. The one who lived. There are moments when the distinction crushes me, but I am ever resilient.

I am asked all the time if Hunter is my first. Sometimes I hesitate, but I always say yes. I call him Biggest, because he is. They never got to be so big. But it's ok. He is not his brother or his sister, and I don't need him to be. He is himself and he is perfect. He is just exactly right. In my mind's eye, the ghosts of his siblings trail him wherever he goes. And they are just exactly right, too. I know and I believe they know: right now, we are each where we need to be.





Previous years' posts: 2011: part 1, 2011: part 2, 2012, 2013
Join in here: still life with circles

Happy Birthday, No-No

Right Where I Am: 2013

Ailis - almost 6 years / Noah - almost 4 years

I don't track days anymore. I have to stop and count on my fingers, now, to be sure of the years that have passed. Ah, they would be so big! Kindergarten, for Lissie, can you imagine...?!

Alas, I cannot.

They have made me a mother but I am deprived of the experiences that make up the stories that make you friends on the outside. Prison terminology seems appropriate to me; babyloss is too much like a life-long sentence for the wrongfully accused, or maybe involuntary committal to a psych ward. Except there is no release for good behavior, no cure, and even if you escape, finally, on a rainbow, there's still a part of your life that almost no one will ever be truly comfortable hearing about unless they've been there too.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.*

My heart is changed. It contains more than I ever thought possible. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and through its transformation I became half time-lord, half human, all whole. I have gained a perspective that is dizzying and grounding at once. The universe fits inside of me. Profound and simple and holy and profane. There is room for you too, and in you too.

Mama, mama, be calm. We know how to wait. We are not afraid.
Be calm, mama. We'll wait.

My children are extraordinarily zen. They cannot teach, but I can learn. I suppose that's rather zen in itself.

Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.**

Peace. Love. Light.

I am not broken, and neither are you.



*You do not have to be good, Mary Oliver
**Xenocide, Orson Scott Card

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You can read my previous years' posts here: Right Where I Am 2011 (Part I)(Part II) & Right Where I Am 2012, and link up with us on still life with circles.

thankful

I ended up having a really fantastic weekend. I think what made it great, despite my heavy feelings, was how loved and supported I felt by the people around me. My boyfriend, my cousin, my aunt, my sister. My friendly readers. Everyone was extra gentle and kind, and a surprising number of people took the time to actually make sure to tell me that they were thinking of me and Noah and to show me that I was important to them. Thank you.

----------

After the race on Saturday I spent the rest of the long weekend with P, just bumming around and enjoying the time off work. We talked about a lot of important things, which has made us closer, and I also got to meet a couple more of his friends. He has the coolest friends you guys.

I am definitely in the exact right relationship at the exact right time. I love my life right now.

Love you, miss you, wish that I could kiss you.
Happy Birthday, Noah.

tomorrow

is

approaching

like

a

tsunami.

remembering forgetting

They are not very important, and they are the most important. Nothing has ever been so important. But why should anyone remember, except for me? Why should anyone be remembered, who is not here anymore, who is not right in front of your face right now?

I remember, but not because I should. I remember because it is a thing that happened, and remembering is a thing that humans do. There is no moral attached. There is no redeeming, no higher connotation to remembering. We do it because we do it.

You can't remember something unless you forgot it for a moment. We forget the things that are not right in front of our faces. And sometimes we even forget those things too.

In my dream, he has a red coat.

In my dream, he has a red coat. A red coat, and a striped scarf, and tiny black mittens and tall green boots.

I lift him out of his car seat, and he cheers and wraps his arms around my neck. He is big enough to walk, but I love the smell of him, love the way he rests his cheek ever so briefly on my shoulder, love how his hand wanders into my hair, despite the mittens. And so I carry him. Because I can.

It is cold here. Our breath leaves us as wispy white ghosts, making us giggle. We whisper together excitedly as we walk up to the apartment, and knock, and wait to be let in. My brother whips open the door and we are welcomed with that enveloping enthusiasm that never ceases to startle and amaze and comfort me. My brother is all enthusiasm, all quick movement and noise and taking up space and I absolutely adore him for it. Noah hides his face, feigning shyness--but we all know better. Soon enough he is laughing and playing and running around with R, and they are ridiculously cute together, and it is good, it is so, so good, and we are happy.

We are so ridiculously happy.

----------

Sometimes I wonder if this is happening, right now, in some alternate universe. I hope it is happening. I hope it happens again and again and again. I hope there is a place where my baby is alive. Live, baby! Live, my darling. Live and be happy. Play with your cousin and grow and live and be happy.

And you too, other me. I hope you can live, and be happy. Just like in my dreams.

friendly ghosts

Work is just that, isn't it, and taking more out of me than I ever knew it could. My words are scarce, even inside my own head, all echoes and whispers and fragments of things that almost are and then are not. What words I do have are saved for them, for my dearest, my friendly ghosts.

bits and pieces

There is nothing left, nothing
but a box and
another, smaller box
which
contain

bits and pieces
ribbons, lace
cards and letters

the teeniest, tiniest
things:

brown monkey shoes
stripey shirts
a hat
a blanket
a book
a dress

all that is left
of the two of you, and
who I hoped
you'd be.

concise

My posts are often short. I cannot go on at length, for what is left to say? I cannot tell you of their darlingness, their splendidness. Their precious, precious hearts. I cannot tell you.

I cannot tell.

I miss my baby.

I cried today. I haven't cried in awhile.
I miss him so much.

a hole in the world

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

little tiger

I miss you, my baby, my darling son. I miss you.
Sweet dreams, my love.

mercy

One month.


Oh, mercy.


I am coming undone.

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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journal

I'm trying to brace myself for the summer's coming grief. But it's hard to do -- and probably fruitless, really -- since I have no idea what it's going to look like this time around. So maybe I will try instead to simply let go of any kind of expectations I find myself developing, and just take the days as they come.

I know I'm stronger now. I've also had time to settle into my new environment. I miss my family still; but I've gotten used to not seeing them every day. It doesn't hurt so much anymore. And I guess with every year that goes by, in the same way, I get used to not seeing my kids every day, too. The ache will always be there; I'm not ever going to forget. And I will always think of them as my babies... But I also know that they are so much more than just my babies.

They are more than their tiny, unfinished bodies ever were. They are themselves. And while the flesh that housed them for so short a time is gone, and they could not stay here without it, they were always more than that, and what is essential about them still exists. I really do believe that. They are a part of my story, and a part of my heart. They have shaped me as a person, and will continue to shape me as a mother.

I'm so sorry you never got to meet them.
They were impossibly lovely.

I will always be sorry that their siblings won't get to know them, too. That my third child will have all the trials and priveleges and common personality traits of a first. Firstborn, though not first borne. But I hope I can do a decent job of integrating Ailis and Noah into our lives, and that their names will be associated with joy and inclusiveness, familiar and sweet, instead of pain or sadness or separation.

I am beginning to subscribe more and more to the idea of neutrality; the idea that things and events simply Are, and it's what we do with and during and after them that matters.

And so I think I'll not say again that Ailis "should" be here or Noah "should" be here. It is too strong a word, and it hurts too much. And I think, perhaps, it takes away a little from the honor and the rights of the child who comes next.

(The one reason I can think of to be grateful not to have had a subsequent pregnancy immediately after my losses is that I do not have the confusion of bearing a child that "would not exist had the other not died." I'm not sure that I believe in that line of reasoning at all, and I hope it wouldn't have troubled me... but it is good to have the clarity that time and distance can bring.)

I choose to believe that everything that was ever essential about my children is now a part of everything I see. That they are reunited with the universe, and so are not really gone, as nothing that was ever here can ever really be completely gone. Stardust. We are all stardust. We are all made of the same stuff, and always were, and always will be.

So in the future, I will look at my children -- the ones who stay inside the fragile tents of their human bodies, the ones who grow and change and speak and reveal to me, little by little, their specific intricacies; and I will smile and I will love and I will drink them in. But I will also look at the sunshine and the dustmotes and the green growing things and the ocean and the stars... and I will smile at them, too. I will fling my arms wide, and embrace what I may of the vastness of the universe, and all that I love that dwells within it, until I am reunited as well.

For what is to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

be still my heart

I can't stop thinking about how big he isn't.
I miss you, baby. I miss you so much I can hardly move.

deeply loved

What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all
that we love deeply becomes a part of us. --Helen Keller



Happy Valentine's Day, my sweets!

every little thing I do, I do for you