mommicked

i bet we've been together for a million years

2012-01-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

I've been mulling over the questions about family posed by the Glow contributors. I haven't finished mulling but, alas, January is almost over. The muddle below is what passes for my response-

Here's my alternate theory...

I picture them all in a drab waiting room with shoddy overhead lighting and molded plastic chairs. The doors all have that wire mesh glass like you'd see at a junior high school. Actually, it looks almost exactly like the area outside my junior high principal's office (not that this law abiding citizen ever spent much time at the principal's office).

This is the anteroom to the Great Beyond, brought to you by a childhood with plenty of TV watching. New arrivals take a number and wait for it to be called. A nebbishy guy in an ill-fitting suit takes your ticket, gives you a once-over decides if you dissolve into the cosmos, go on to your afterlife, or get sent back to occupy a new body until you've earned your pass. In one corner there's an electronic crawler announcing the numbers and the upcoming destinations for the detached souls.

My Dad was never good at waiting. He'd drive 20 miles out of his way to avoid sitting in traffic even though it saved no time because it felt less like waiting. His last words to us before he lapsed into unconsciousness were, "let's get going."

I imagine him taking his ticket and pacing around, ignoring protocol and approaching the 'decider' behind the counter. He'd shove his way to the front and ask if there wasn't some way to make the process go faster. "Nope. Usually takes a decade or so. Why don't you have a seat and watch the announcements," they'd say. He'd scowl in reply and stalk back to the seating area.

A whole year he waited and then he saw it. His daughter's name on the crawler. Her baby waiting to be born. Too perfect! We can double down.

I can see him running toward the counter and jumping over it, leaping through the doorway. Back to his family.

The decider didn't even look up. He just shrugged one polyester-clad shoulder and heaved a small sigh. It happens all of the time and they always come back.

Some things can't be rushed.

****

I can't really think about R and grief and family without thinking about my Dad. When he died I felt like the universe had punched me in the stomach so hard that I doubled over. Then, not quite two years later, while I was still bent over catching my breath, the universe decided to finish the job by kneeing me in the face.

The punch in the gut was a surprise. And though the universe has an impressive knee, that second blow to the face wasn't a surprise. I'd already lost my trust. I'd also already learned the ways that you have to toughen up when you're grieving a loss. Two years of that awesome post-death advice that everyone loves to dispense (because they learned so much when their cats died). I was tired of being sick and tired.

When the universe took my daughter I barely made a peep.

It's one thing to listen to people compare Dad to a dead cat. He'd probably think it was sort of funny. But I knew that I'd have to remove everyone who made similar comments about R from my friend list forever. And, at least a small part of me suspected that I'd recover eventually and would still like to have some friends. So, once that initial wave of mind-obliterating sadness and terror passed, I focused on C and barely spoke about R.

Friends and neighbors would come to visit and I'd greet them at the door, hands full with some contrived task. Given that I had a newborn and a 24-hour pumping schedule, it wasn't too hard to run them off. If they stayed, I talked about C or the trumped up chore that was consuming me or the weather. Some of them would persist and sneak in a story about cat grief. But I never started it because I was damned if I was going to cry in front of these people who wanted to pretend to understand.

Judging from the confused looks on their faces when I stonewalled them, I can tell that they wanted to talk about her. They probably needed to talk about her. But I needed silence and the complete lack of doubt and regret that goes with it.

Sadly, I extended the same silent treatment to my family.

After Dad died, it had also been two years of long, depressing phone conversations with my mom and two years of logistical work filling the hole that he left. The initial burst of togetherness that his death brought to our family wasn't sustainable. At first we treated grief like any other challenge. We'd work hard. We'd be gracious. And it would pass.

But it doesn't pass. You say the words at the funeral and send the thank you notes. You remember the good times. You smile through the tears. You help Mom with the paperwork and the home repairs. But it's hard work. And it's neverending work. And I knew that I didn't have the energy to get back in the trenches with my family and go through the same drill again. Frenzied togetherness followed by the collective realization that this is forever, followed by the sad, silent hopelessness that drives everyone deep inside of themselves to contemplate the temporary nature of existence.

And the anger. And the theories about what we could/should/would have done differently. And the cold, creeping onset of acceptance that feels more like defeat.

I'd thought that I was bringing a ray of light back to our family. The first grandchild born after his death and, glory hallelujah, there were going to be two of them! That would put an end to this tragic mess.

When I remember that brief feeling of victory over death and misery...man, does it sting.

I would have been more than glad to celebrate with my family but I couldn't run out to meet the sadness I'd caused them head-on.

****

C is very much my Dad's granddaughter. When they brought her to me for the first time, wrinkled and red and angry, I laughed at the resemblance. Looking at the pictures later, my aunt said that it reminded her of Dad's look of suppressed rage during our mid-80's family trip to Epcot. R was too swollen with fluid during her 12 days of life to get a good look at her features but I know that it was there too. T's eyes and build and hair but Dad's scowl and Dad's smile.

It extends beyond the smile all the way down into her where her personality is stamped into the center of each cell. When C is in a hurry (and she's always in a hurry) she claps her hands together just like Dad used to when he coached my tee-ball team--CLAP Let's go! CLAP CLAP.

Death had been trying to catch Dad for years before he finally succumbed. Sophomore year of high school spent home sick with unexplained internal bleeding, a car accident and a traumatic brain injury at 16, countless subsequent car wrecks, a horrible, yet hilarious, run-in between a vacuum cleaner and his necktie. He'd already had his last rites twice by the time he actually died but somehow he'd always spring back, you know, like a cat.

By August 14, 2007, I'd been holding my breath for weeks waiting for that final, fateful sonogram that would show us that C's heart had stopped beating. But, somehow she hung on. When the doctor reached in and yanked her out from under my ribcage he said, "Oooo. This one's feisty!"

They both remind me of him. One for his exuberant, insistent life. The other for his hard death.

****

We got a stocking for R this year at Christmas. I think it was the first time that we ever acknowledged her existence so openly and purposefully at a family event.

There was no memorial service for her. We couldn't work out the logistics with T's family and, in my reluctance to spare the energy required for collective grieving, I didn't force the issue on my family's behalf. She doesn't have a gravesite that people can visit or decorate for various holidays.

It's not that we ignore R or pretend she didn't exist. We include a spare candle for her on C's birthday cake and we talk about her with C and the other kids in the family. T and I are both happy to answer questions about her. But I think we're both concerned about the possible negative reaction if we forced her on our family members.

But C thought that it was ridiculous that our dead guinea pigs had stockings while R didn't. You've already seen a demonstration of C's hardheadedness and, honestly, it's hard to argue with that logic. So, I bought R a stocking.

My mom followed suit and retrieved the stocking she had purchased for R before she was born from the closet.

We filled ours with baby items to be donated to a local shelter. My mom filled hers with special gifts for C and her other two granddaughters.

Since we're raising the girls in an amoeba style of full-family parenting, it felt right to include my nieces in this new tradition.

C and my nieces were completely silent when my mom gave them their gifts from R's stocking. Imagine a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, and an 8-year-old silent on Christmas morning. The only thing I could hear was the shutter of my brother's camera as he took a hundred or so pictures and the rustle of wrapping paper underfoot as his wife moved closer to get a better angle for the video footage. Finally, a productive outlet for this complicated grief, four-and-a-half years in the making.

****

Sometimes I think that I never would have survived if I had been in C's situation. I feel so floppy and beaten anymore.

But then I remember the years of competing with my brother for everything and insisting that that it didn't hurt when he punched me in the arm. I remember the way I have to suppress my urge to rush things. I look in the mirror and see Dad's smile and Dad's scowl.

The feisty apple never falls far from the feisty tree.

C had T's hair and eyes and build but, my smile and my scowl.

My hard-headedness.

****

Given their relief at finding a way to remember R, I suppose I could think that it was an asshole move to give my family the grieving stiff arm for so many years. But, I don't feel like an asshole.

I think of all of the harsh words that weren't exchanged and don't have to be taken back or hugged out and I feel almost vindicated.

After twisting and turning and going to great lengths to avoid the issue, we've arrived together at something that feels right for the kids and healing for the adults. I drove an extra 20 miles but I've avoided so many red lights.

And some things truly cannot be rushed.

****

So, there you have it. My thoughts on the birth/death/life/grief/family interface. I'm just going to wrap it up with this video that reminds me of C and me and me and Dad. A tribute to impatient kids and parents everywhere.

Noise

2012-01-23T09:58:00.001-08:00

There's a guy who works at the newsstand where I sometimes buy a pack of gum on my way in to work. He won't give me my change until I look him in the eye.

Somewhere deep in my grouchy, little soul, I applaud this practice. We ought to see each other. See each other. Love each other.

But at 7AM, I can barely stand myself much less anyone else.

The reassembling process has become more efficient with time but not really any easier.

Emerge from the primordial ooze of sleep.

Remember that I am a wife.

Remember that I am a mother.

Mother.

Baby.

Is the baby breathing?!?

Yes, the baby is breathing.

Not a baby anymore either. That's good.

Baby...

The other baby.

Oh my god! One of the babies died!

My daughter died.

Everyone dies.

And existence is just a happy accident anyway.

In fact, compared to the vast sweep of time and space, my entire lifetime is just a blink.

And if I take the long view--the geological time view--we will be apart for hardly any time at all.

Snooze a couple more times.

Wade back into the ooze of wakeful human-ness.

Take shower.

Walk dog.

Catch train.

Remember all of those other things that are supposed to be important...

...buy gum...

Why can't Mr. Eye Contact realize that I've assimilated the entire human experience already this morning? I've swept aside our differences. I've demoted my daughter and placed her unbearably short life back in its place as not-the-worst-thing-that-has-ever-happened-to-anyone-ever-ever-ever.

Even though I think he's being a presumptuous shitbird, I celebrate Mr. Eye Contact. His continued existence, our continued joint existence, is a glorious thing. Whatever struggles he may be having right now are important to me. But I haven't even had coffee yet.

The people at the coffee stand don't force me to look at them.

Just saying.

****

I read an article a couple of weeks ago about bird songs. Apparently birds in urban settings tend to sing in a different register than their rural brethren in order to be heard over traffic and the general bustle of city life. I'm assuming this is also why Philadelphians (including yrs trly) sound like we're trying to shatter glass or convene a pod of helper dolphins when we speak to each other.

The implications are pretty heavy for birds. Birdsong is a learned behavior that has everything to do with mating. The researchers who supplied the source material for the article speculate that the changes in songs could impact mating choice so drastically that it could lead to speciation. I'd put an exclamation point at the end of that sentence but it would be way too nerdy.

On the human side of things it also seems akin to working out internal noise. Think of all of the stereotypes and assumptions that you have to wade through to even begin to have a real conversation with another person. What would it be like if we could just understand each other or if we had the tools to at least try? Is Mr. Eye Contact an oppressive dick or is he onto something?

****

My internal voice barks orders at me all day long. Everybody has problems! Nothing is guaranteed! No one said it would be easy! Vada a bordo!

I robot my way through it. Take shower. Walk dog. Catch train. Get paycheck. Assure that C will not have to worry about you. Make it as easy as you can for her. Fix it.

Fix it.

So many paths up the mountain and this is the one that made the most sense?

Entrust her daily care and nurturing to someone else.

She'll be happy when college is paid and we are able to take awesome vacations. Someday she won't even notice that her sister is gone. Soon she'll stop asking when I'm going to grow another baby. Next Christmas she won't look for a new sister under the tree.

The cashier thinks that I don't look at him because I believe he isn't worthy of my time. If I wasn't in such a goddamn hurry with trying to fix the unfixable, we could grab coffee and and I could share many opinions about worthiness.

But I don't have time and he's an asshat for making me think about all of this shit before coffee.

Buy gum anyway.

Look for a different newsstand.

who do you think you are?

2011-11-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

Note: I should mention that this post owes a heavy debt to a conversation I had over the weekend with Angie who is one of the most upright citizens I know.

Last week I accidentally tipped the pizza delivery guy $14. It's not worth going into the mechanics of how you accidentally hand $14 to someone. If you've seen American money, you'll know how easy it is to mix up those bills. But, the thing that's been bugging me is the split second that I considered asking him to give it back.

It wasn't a particularly long drive from the pizza place to my house. It wasn't a complicated order. But, driving is always dangerous and rolling up to a stranger's house and knocking on the door is no small thing.

Do I really think that I deserve that $14 more than the pizza guy does?

I could go off on a tangent about capitalism and the free market and how it isn't really free at all but, I'll spare you my opinions about the 'science' of economics. We're all so tangled up in the quantification of each other and the debt that we clamor to gain from the mortgage lenders. It's just not even worth going down that road.

The point is that I stood there in my doorway, looking at someone's precious son and considered telling him that he isn't worth $14.

****

Every post that I've written on this blog has been about the same thing.

Nothing.

More specifically, I know nothing. About anything. Including myself.

And, maybe, that's everything anyone needs to know.

****

I think I've mentioned before that I work for a government agency. Without disclosing too many details, I'll tell you that the agency that I work for is much maligned by the press, elected officials, TV newscasters, and pretty much anyone who's up on current events. We do too much. We don't do enough. We compress dollar bills into emery boards that we use to sharpen our horns and hooves before riding out to tromp all over the American dream.

If I delivered pizzas on behalf of my employer, I think 25% of Americans would grudgingly tip me $1, 25% would have no idea what I was talking about, 25% would tell me to get fucked and slam the door in my face, and 25% would open fire.

Of course, I already said that I know nothing. Maybe none of that would happen. Maybe the ones who slam the door are right. Maybe my colleagues and I are doing more harm than good.

Like I said. I know nothing.

****

I think I've also mentioned that I live in Pennsylvania, the home of Rick Santorum (aka Rick Santorum), Vince Fumo, and now, the illustrious crew up at Penn State who unleashed this guy on the world.

Let me pause for a moment while I hang my head and emit many forlorn sighs.

I just don't have the words.

****

Every day we hold those around us in our hearts and judge their worth. The pizza guy. Those good for nothing government employees. The neighbor with his neat-as-a-pin yard.

Maybe you've managed to rise above the urge to judge. If so, kudos. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Here in Pennsylvania we're deep into the business of judging at the moment. A group of grown men got together and determined that ensuring the welfare of a little boy wasn't worth damaging the 'reputation' of a heralded institution. This apparently happened upwards of 20 times. The fact that a large group of adults managed to put 20 little boys on a scale and determine that they were collectively worth less than one man, just because he happened to be one of their own, is deeply troubling.

Even worse than the fact that it happened is that it's not terribly surprising.

Yet, the newspaper comments sections are full of outrage and declarations. If-I-knew-that-kids-were-being-molested-in-my-workplace/neighborhood/parish/state/country/planet-I'd-do-something.

Having been a child and having worked with children in my former life, I believe that you could walk into any elementary school cafeteria right now, ask the kids which grown-ups are sexual predators, and get a pretty good response rate.

Cast back into your memories of childhood a little bit. I can think of three adults that the other kids would talk about right off the top of my head. All three of them were in prison by the time I reached adulthood.

I could probably go to any major city in the world right now and ask a cab driver to take me to a child prostitute.

Anyone could get this information and take action to protect these kids.

I don't know. Maybe the comments sections of newspaper websites is where all of the upright citizens and child advocates hang out. But, if we're all so shocked and outraged, why aren't we doing more? What are we doing with our time and resources that is so much more important than protecting children from those who want to hurt them?

What am I doing?

How can I do better?

Resting in Peace

2011-10-27T03:42:00.001-07:00

Out here in the 'burbs, yardwork is close to religion. The state of your lawn is treated as a proxy for the state of your soul and the judgments handed down are decidedly Old Testament in nature.

The neighbor two doors down has his routine set in stone. I don't even think the man has to rake. The leaves are simply too afraid to sully his perfect grass and his perfect brick walk. The pansies are already in for the winter, planted exactly 12 inches apart at the base of a beautifully maintained dogwood. His yard is the culmination of all things that are possible by noon on a Saturday and everything that I have deemed 'unimportant.'

Our yard demonstrates a decided lack of devotion to the fine art of yardwork and, possibly, character defects that are long past the point of remediation.

T and I like it this way. We don't let the grass get a foot-and-a-half high or anything but we sure as hell aren't going to spray carcinogens around to control the weeds. Sporadic raking is our form of rebellion. We have bigger issues than the lawn.

We held out until this past Sunday, when the state of the yard had reached a point somewhere below our pathetic standards.

C entertained herself by playing in the leaves and pointing out that we'd be able to play sooner if we worked faster and took fewer breaks. Too smart by half, that daughter of mine. She wanted me to hurry up and finish so that we could walk to the cemetery at the end of the street.

C is beyond excited about Halloween. She wants to hear scary stories and watch scary movies. She's been talking about ghosts (ghost-ehz) and graveyards for weeks.

"The dead people are sleeping in there," she confides as we drive past our neighborhood cemetery, "but you won't put me in the ground when I die."

For better or worse, T and I have just decided to give it to her straight about death. I'm not a huge believer of telling kids the truth about everything. There's something to be said for blissful ignorance but, we don't have much choice in the matter. It's a virtual death parade around here and she spends the day with her older cousins and their theories about the afterlife while I'm at work.

Naturally, she's curious about her sister and her grandfathers and I don't think I'd be doing her any favors by answering her questions with lies. But it's just so dismaying to listen to her wrestle with such big issues in her raspy little voice. She can't even figure out if you pronounce it 'death' or 'deaf' but she sure knows what it is.

As we walked, we talked about the weather and the autumn leaves...and death. "R can fly, " she told me, "and when I die, I'll fly away too." I kicked at the fallen leaves and fretted about her emotional development. Am I raising her to be sort of creepy with all of this talk about death/deaf? Was this her idea or mine?

A few of the perfectly maintained yards we passed were tricked out for Halloween. Pumpkins, light-up pumpkins, fake spiderwebs on the boxwoods. Fake headstones artfully placed in the shrubs. I silently added another item to my list of things that make me feel like a social misfit--wrong political leanings, shabby lawn, takes four-year-old, possibly death-obsessed daughter to visit graveyard yet, finds headstone decorations offensive

The graveyard is old by American standards, founded in 1776 by the Lutherans. Despite the age it was just as tidy as the yards of the living. I quirked a judge-y eyebrow at the neatly trimmed grass. Do we really have to impose our freakish opinions about lawn care on the dead too? Unless the cemetery residents are imposing our local brand of fastidiousness from beyond the grave. Why push the daisies up when you could be pulling them back down instead?

"There are a lot of babies," C noted after I'd read a few of the inscriptions. She sounded surprised, and maybe a little relieved, to find out that other families had dead babies too.

Truthfully I felt a little relieved too. Who needs to fit in with the living neighbors when there are all of these families with dead babies right down the street?

We walked down the rows looking for the oldest marker but many of the stones were worn down by time and weather. There were many familiar names, the founding families of our town, names I remember from childhood.

Once we found the oldest grave, a revolutionary war soldier, we set out searching for the newest.

I was surprised to see how recent it was. 1961. I was even more surprised to see that it was my neighbor's infant daughter. The neighbor from two doors down with the perfect lawn that I was passing judgement on a few paragraphs ago. His grave and his wife's are there waiting for them, the last two spots to be filled.

When will I learn?

Somewhere

2011-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have a memory of my dad. The Phils on TV with Harry K calling the game, a summer breeze through our open back door and the smell of rain on hot asphalt. We used to sit together on the couch and eat oranges. He'd hold each wedge up to the light to check for seeds and hand it over to me. I was allowed a few sips of his beer, a completely un-ironic PBR. Anything with a blue ribbon has to be good

I picture him in a small house on the water with a big porch. Fishing tackle piled by the door. A cold beer and a bag of pretzels. Harry K died last year so he can listen to him call the game again. Some of the players are the same as they were when I was a kid too thanks to death, that crazy motherfucker.

These are his things. At least they're the things that I think of as his. His things that were our things and, I guess, are now my things even though I like to think we still share them. Somewhere.

C has a few things. A few of the same things as my dad, in fact. We sit on the couch together and eat pears. I let her have a few sips of beer. I play music that he liked on the car stereo so that she can sing along. His things, my things, and now her things through some combination of nurturing and genetics.

I suppose C came into the world with some things but it feels like she was an empty vessel waiting to be filled. At first, T and I did most of the filling but she's starting to branch out on her own. Favorite songs that I don't know. Favorite games that she learns from her friends. For now our shared things hold her tightly in our little family orbit but, eventually, the weight of her other things will pull her away.

We have some toys and books that were intended for R stored in a dusty box along with a snipping of hair and a faint impression of her foot. We say that these are her things but they really aren't. She arrived empty and departed the same. Thingless.

I used to think death was her thing. Or maybe I thought her death was my thing. Or maybe that death was just such a substantial thing that it would hold us both in its orbit forever. Nothing or all things? It's so hard to tell from here.

My under-occupied brain has created some things for her. I imagine that she's quieter than C. She is wise beyond her years. Despite the fact that my daughters share 100% of their genes and sit at the tail end of two noisy, sarcastic, opinionated families, I envision R as infinitely serene, beyond the concerns of worldly existence. Here, C cackles hysterically at fart jokes while R smiles gently in appreciation of C's laughter. Somewhere.

****

I wrote most of this post a couple of weeks ago while I was eating leftover crab bisque from the Still Life 365 open house. That's right, y'all, if you arrive early and stay late, you get to take home leftovers. And, Angie can cook just as well as she writes.

At the open house there was some crazy hijinks with an errant water gun, stories about koala encounters, an 85 lb dog that tried to curl up in my lap, old friends, new friends, people who seem like friends even though we'd never met before. The rainbow babies that I'd hoped for so hard while staring at my computer screen were up and walking around looking just as wonderfully ridiculous as toddlers always look.

It was all so ordinary and easy. But it wasn't like the ordinariness of my life before. This was hard-won ease, a collective decision to share a burden or to set it down all at once. It's a challenging maneuver that takes a village (or at least one Angie-like person) but, once death doesn't have to be the thing, other things rush in to fill the space.

****

The objects piled in R's memory box have never really felt like they had anything to do with her. Some day I'll pass them along to C and she can decide whether she needs physical reminders of R's brief stay on this side of the somewhere.

R never chose a favorite color or favorite song. She'll never arrive home with her pockets full of interesting things she found on the playground. But she wasn't empty when she arrived and she wasn't empty when she departed.

We all have a space where we keep other peoples' things. We can use it to store things that we learn from them or just to remember and appreciate them. R's life and her death have expanded this space for me, my internal somewhere. The people I've met because of her. The kindness they show each other. The way that they continue to enjoy and appreciate the world that they shared with their children so briefly. These are her things. And, because of her, they are my things. The things that we share. Somewhere.

Multiples and Chickens of Responsibility

2011-09-23T04:19:00.000-07:00

Our hot water heater died last night. It may have been a suicide judging from the dazzling hale of pinkish sparks and flame that erupted from the wiring. The fire burned a hole right through the top of the tank. I took an invigorating ice cold shower this morning.

Yesterday, I wrapped up 2 weeks worth of clerical windsprints for a presentation that my boss's, boss's, boss requested and then interrupted to (basically) tell my co-worker that she had looked especially hot at the happy hour held the previous evening. But, she worked hard to look hot and I still killed the presentation.

Rain is threatening my weekend plans. But my associates and I have developed a decent back-up.

Last night we ate fast food for dinner so that I could have enough time to bake homemade banana muffins for C's preschool class.

Overall it seems like a draw, like I'm managing to keep it even but I'm worn out. I want the keys to a fenced enclosure in some remote corner of Pennsylvania where I can howl and growl and chase bunnies around in a bramble until I feel human again. In and out of days and all of that.

Sometimes I feel like a piece of me died with R, the piece that knew how to proceed, how to get things done. The remaining parts are trying to make up for the deficiency but this isn't really their thing. My brain wheels spin fruitlessly in the face of any obstacle and I devolve into a snarling beast.

Or maybe I gained parts and they're crowding out the real me. A new version of myself popped up in the middle of R's burnt remains but there was also this other new version of me that was born with C and R and the original me is still hanging around. The post-birth version, Number 1, avoided destruction through sheer force of happiness. She believes that the world is one hundred times more amazing than old/original me had ever realized. After all, Number 1 snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the form of a baby who was surely a goner. The post-death version, Number 2, believes that nothing will ever be ok ever again and that nothing was probably ever really ok anyway. She melts in the face of other peoples' certainty. Number 2--let's just say that the name works on multiple levels.

They both have the same motto--'Now I get it.' (or Iam ego adepto is according to google translator). They are both insufferable, both opinionated. And they are at war with each other.

I suppose everyone's multi-faceted. Each twist in your life slices a little piece off of the surface of your reality until this extended metaphor comes to its natural end and we're all walking around sparkling like masterfully cut gems. That's probably mostly true, right?

What about a twist that spins you a full 180 and then another 180 two weeks later?

The force of it has split me in two and I devote most of my energy to holding the halves together or at least hiding my unseemly crack from public view.

Number 1 thought this morning's cold shower was a hoot. She decided to add more fun and shave her legs. Number 2 figured that we were at least slowing the death of the planet by burning fewer fossil fuels and, truthfully, we probably deserve the discomfort of a cold shower anyway. I warned you that they both suck.

They both think they're the smartest thing in the room. They both completely devoted to bringing me around to the truth and guiding me towards the proper path up the mountain even though I have no desire to climb the mountain. Some days I just want to give over, set them loose, and let the chips fall as they may but I know that it would result in some ugly chips in some painful places. So, off we go, zig-zagging down the road, wasting time and energy on an argument that will never be resolved.

Number 1 and Number 2 are blind to everything beyond my internal world. They can't see that growing up isn't easy for anyone. It doesn't turn out the way you expected in all of the best/worst ways possible. In the case of parenthood, you get this itch and, in order to properly scratch it, you have to make a whole new person. How could that possibly come off without a hitch? It can't. At some point every mother will have to confront a mess in her child's life, no matter how short that life is, and feel the chickens coming home to roost.

It's gotten to the point where they've forgotten why things went amiss in the first place. Number 1 remembers that R lived and she thinks that's almost as miraculous as everything that's happened in C's entire life. Number 2 remembers that R died and she just knows that that other shoe is gonna drop right on C. They can't see that all of this is really just one thing. They can't see that good and bad are also twins.

I think I'll prevail eventually. I'll amass enough evidence to convince Number 1 that we don't have to force happiness into the void that R left behind to crowd out the regret. Number 2 will glance up from the black hole of her navel and see that fretting about things beyond our control is a waste of time.

Eventually they will behave. Eventually they will believe in my motto, which, like all good mottos, comes from a Bruce Springsteen song, 'It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.'

Ideally this will happen in October.

Here's Bruce to sing you out in his full 80's glory.

And the Winner is....

2011-09-02T02:59:00.000-07:00

....Hope's Mama! And in my excitement yesterday I may have accidentally asked her to box up her head and send it to me so I could check the fit on her hat.

But really, I promise that I'm exactly who I say I am and not a sadistic, serial-killer/knitter.

Thank you all for participating and for your comments. Even about guys who drop the kids off on the running trail instead of at the pool (m, I may knit you a blindfold...or maybe some adult-diapers for the needy...can't decide). This was exactly what I needed to kiss August good-bye for another year. I should do this sort of thing more frequently.

Since there are only 7 of you and your comments were so awesome, I feel like I should knit for everyone but I think my husband might catch on that I'm neglecting the quilt I promised him when we got engaged...12 years ago. Oh, the challenges of small-time bloggery!

Happy weekend, all! Take care.

Might as Well Enjoy It: An R Day Giveaway!

2011-08-29T05:26:00.001-07:00

I compose most of these posts in my mind while walking my dog. You may have surmised that I have a very strange looking dog. If you read some of that mess about all of my bad parenting, you may be thinking, "No one's dog is that strange looking." But truly, last week another dog who appeared to be a cross between a dachsund and a bloodhound stopped in his tracks and gawked at my dog as if he'd never seen anything so grotesque. Or perhaps he just felt accompanied for the first time in his doggy life...

The vet thinks corgi and lab but I know there's some bull terrier or boxer in there too. He's short and stocky with excellent just-floppy-enough ears that bring to mind a bat in flight. From my perspective on our walks it actually looks more like a bat trying to take flight while holding a 65 lb burrito dipped in chocolate and rolled in magnetized iron filings.

Thanks to our exceedingly wet August, the dog has mosquito bites in his nether regions. I've lost some sleep this week fretting about earthquakes and hurricanes and the 4th anniversary of R's death but, nothing prevents sleep like an itchy dog. Especially an itchy dog who is about 4 inches too long from shoulder to tail and 2 inches too short in the leg to reach his own itchy ass. The unproductive licking! The whining! The scratch of nails on wood floor! If I thought he'd leave, I'd set him free.

And now you're thinking, "I didn't come to this blog to read about itchy dog asses."

This morning the dog attempted to escape his itch. Head-down, ears unfloppy, hunched inward with his front legs moving faster than his hind legs--like many of us in our lowest moments, the dog attempted to outrun his own ass.

The worst parts of ourselves are the hardest to flee, aren't they?

But it gave me an idea. Two ideas, actually. First, I'm going to get some anti-histamines for the dog. Second, and more importantly, I'm going to purge all of the ick of August from this blog with a giveaway.

In honor of R, I'm going to knit something for a randomly selected commenter. If you'd like to participate, just leave a comment below before 11:59 PM EST on August 31 and I'll enter you in the drawing.

The winner can choose from the following: a pair of socks, a hat, a neckwarmer, or a pair of mittens.

Just leave a comment with your preferred choice and preferred color/color combo and I'll throw your name in the hat. If you're feeling more chatty, tell me about your dog or what you're trying to outrun these days.

Don't be shy! Even if you're just stopping by, feel free to join in the fun.

4 Years Later

2011-08-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

R's day is Friday but I have to work that day and then we have some houseguests arriving in the evening, so...

I guess that says it all right there. Work and houseguests.

After four years, August 26 has been sucked back into the amorphous blob of ordinary days.

I'd like to think that my co-workers remember her and that my houseguests still care but that would be unrealistic. Even amongst the other members of this club, no one can remember all of the details about someone else's baby--wrong dates, genders, names.

Here, however, there's always respect. There is always understanding.

Your friends and family who haven't lost a baby think that imagining is the same thing as knowing but, it's not. There's nothing theoretical about R's death or the deaths of any of these other babies. This ain't no thrill ride. We aren't standing at the edge of the cliff looking down and wondering how it would feel to fall into space. We aren't clinging to the side, thanking our lucky stars for the near miss and promising to be better people in the future. We have already fallen and are grappling our broken way back up to the top. The brokenness is unappealing. If you've only had to wonder what it feels like, you can still imagine that the experience is at least somewhat beautiful or rewarding. It's better to wonder how it feels than to have someone tell you that it's a neverending festival of suck. Yeah. No one wants to hear that.

This doesn't mean that friendship and hospitality are out of the question but, you know, it takes some concentration and lowered expectations. It requires gaining some comfort with extended, uncomfortable silences. It requires forgiveness.

Forgiving is the gold standard, isn't it? Have you forgiven yourself yet? I'm not sure that I have. It's no small thing, forgiving. I'll likely work at it the rest of my life. But, I know that it's where I'm headed. It has to be. And, if I can forgive myself for letting R die, if I can forgive myself for all of the envy and anger in my heart, I can forgive my friends for forgetting her. I can forgive them for not understanding. I can even forgive them for not trying to understand.

When R died, it was almost like a new version of my self was born, a grasping, needy, undisciplined little person. Sound familiar?

How would I want to raise R if she were still here? Would I teach her to be bitter and self-concerned? Would I try to teach her patience and understanding, the discipline of kindness and forgiveness?

It's sort of an invalid question. If she had lived I'd still be skipping down the primrose path, gloriously ignorant of loss and misery. No one, including me, would expect me to learn a damn thing from the experience. But that isn't what happened. She died and took a good share of what I believed to be true with her. For four years I've been working on gathering new truths.

I'll keep it small this week. Small, simple truths for her short life. She's gone and I miss her and I love her.

Dispatches from Level 4

2011-08-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I needed C out of the way while I worked on 4th birthday extravaganza preparations. I decided that she might like to see some video footage of herself as a baby so, I loaded up a DVD, parked her on the couch, and ran upstairs to organize the spare room. Within minutes I heard her crying hysterically.

The trip down the stairs took approximately 2 seconds which, strangely, was enough time to imagine all of the ways she could have maimed herself with common household objects. But, when I got to the living room, she was safe and sound on the couch, right where I'd left her. When I asked her what was wrong she said that she missed being a baby.

As I hugged her and helped her to calm down I shook my head at how different she is from me. I can't remember ever wishing to be a baby. Childhood was about catching up and keeping up with my big brother and my older cohorts. Then I heard the pilot's voice hissing, "She knows. You ruined her babyhood. She doesn't want to remember it. She wants a do-over."

I don't even have a clear enough recollection of C's babyhood to help her relive it. Without any other children to compare I can't say how normal or abnormal it was but, I can tell you that we never experienced that feeling of undiluted joy. The joy was there but it was trapped under an ocean of panic, despair, and soul-numbing terror. Judging from the smiling, laughing mom in the video, I did a reasonable job of damming it up but it took a lot of effort. I had to split my energy between feeling the joy and holding back the everything-other-than-joy.

Those last two posts sound like such a fucking pity-party or maybe one of those celebrations of the ‘bad-mommy’ that seem so common these days. That wasn’t the intent. I have genuine regrets about my parenting and I can’t escape the feeling that C’s been short-changed.

The truth is that I would like a do-over. It doesn’t even need to include a different outcome for R. I’m past that. I just want another chance to focus on C entirely now that I know how to separate the happy from the sad.

****

When I was younger, I lived in a cinderblock dorm steps from the Atlantic Ocean. At night I’d leave the windows open and listen to the waves as I fell asleep. With enough practice I could picture the size and shape of the breakers and guess the weather conditions based on the volume of the crash.

The great, beating heart of the planet. The soothing sound of certainty. 9.86 m/s/s. The water piles up, hangs in the air for just a moment, and then falls back to Earth. More reliable than clockwork.

I suppose anything could happen in that pause. The water could get stuck. It could shoot up into the sky like a great fountain, causing Newtown and Cavendish to roll over in their graves. But, it doesn’t, does it?

Or maybe it does but hardly anyone sees it.

What if you saw it?

Would you carry-on as if nothing strange had happened?

****

Sometimes I forget just how close it was for her.

During one of her gymnastics classes earlier in the summer, the other mothers were comparing birth stories featuring ‘tiny’ 6 lb. babies.

These conversations make my entire body clench, sort of like that wabbly feeling you get in your knees if you stand close to the windows in a skyscraper. Are they going to ask me? Will I tell the truth? I hope they ask. I hope they don’t ask. Go ahead, ask me…

She’s in the high-performing track in the class with the other kids who have mastered the basic skills. Given that T is built like an acrobat/spelunker and C is his tiny clone, this is really no surprise but, I still have to fight the urge to cackle maniacally.

She keeps up in school. The OT cleared her of any debilitating motor-skill delays. She has enough attitude to float the entire Pacific fleet. She talks constantly, punctuating her grand schemes with jazz hands, leaps, and twirls. Our conversations are full of magical baby ponies named Rainbow Flower Heart.

Four years after all of that death, despair, and mayhem, it’s just a normal girl-world and I’m just a normal mom/pony handler/evil pony-capturing wizard.

Normal, except for the constant refrain in my head--how close we came to missing all of this, how quickly it could all end.

****

I don’t have a good wrap-up for this post. The birthday party was a ton of fun, even the Barbies (and the Barbie pool and the Barbie veterinary clinic and the Barbie pre-school). I just wanted to take a break from ‘August’ and the general feeling of despair that permeates this blog to focus on C, just C, and to celebrate how far she’s come and how happy she makes me.

Trying - Part II

2011-08-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

It's happening at the end of our street as we speak. The pond and springhouse are leveled. The barn and house will be disassembled and salvaged rather than bulldozed. But, still, the last of the homestead that spawned my neighborhood will be gone all the same. The deer and the ducks seem unimpressed by the sign touting the arrival of luxury townhomes. Funny. They would probably have a better shot at getting approved for a mortgage than any of the people who will come looking.

I suppose it's easy to look back and think that things used to be simpler. My instinct is to believe that simpler is better but it's probably not true. Once upon a time there was probably a girl who lived in that house and she probably spent her nights listening to the frogs chirping away in the pond and wishing that they could be replaced by the hiss of a highway that would take her away from her dreary life.

The old me, the pre-babies/baby me, seems so superior from this angle. Boy, was she ever high and mighty. She got things done. She went to town council meetings and had opinions about...everything. And what a mother she was going to be!

I was cleaning up my bookmarks folder on our old PC the other day and I came across all of these pages I'd marked before the girls were born. The twin parenting stuff stung a little but, it was the super hippi-fied pages about 'green' baby products and the dangers of disposable diapers that stuck on the jagged edges of my mind. I had such firm ideas about the kind of mother I'd be and I don't think I held to a single one of them.

The contents of that house are sold, baby. The house itself is bulldozed into oblivion. And the absolute impossibility of a return to some alternate version of the past has settled in its place.

I used whatever diapers would stay on her scrawny, little rump. I bought mass-produced toys from mass-produced stores that specialize in mass-produced human-rights violations. I went back to work. I let her eat store-bought baby food.

And it goes on. She's well-versed in Sponge-Bob and the Bieber. On her last day of preschool this year I hit and killed a bird while driving her to McDonald's to celebrate. It bounced across my hood and right up over the roof of the mini-van that we use to transport our family of three. Dead bird. McDonald's. Mini-van.

Things change and we're forced to let go of our expectations. But, with all of the stuff I've let go in the spirit of unburdening myself, I should be able to levitate right up out of this chair. And I might as well seeing as I apparently don't care about much other than getting mine these days.

I look at all of the cheap, plastic crap she's accumulated and I want to tell her how horrible it is. I want to explain that we need to give some stuff up and live with less so that others can have more. But the words can't find my way out of my mouth.

What is it that C doesn't know about horrible things? She's already given up a twin sister, an adequate gestation, a small wedge of the field of vision in her left eye.

Some of her best memories were plowed under before she even saw them.

What can I tell her about sacrifice and acceptance? What impact could a couple of Barbie dolls possibly make on this unholy mess anyway?

Birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions. Dammit.

****

They say that god says that death shall have no dominion. It sure doesn't feel that way, does it? R's death. My dad's death. T's dad's death. I feel dominated, like I can't ever get a full, deep breath.

According to the Alliance of Tired Bromides (TM), death is supposed to remind us that nothing lasts forever. Except death which, from the perspective of the living, does, in fact, last forever. It doesn't really matter whether you walk or whether you speed along in luxury sedan. This here is a one-way street into the unknown, folks.

But, they're sort of right, aren't they? The end of one set of possibilities necessarily gives birth to another. And,no matter whether you're attached to a plastic toy or an overly rigid set of principles, you're going to have to let go sooner or later.

****

This Saturday, while the machines remove the last traces of the past from one end of my street, I'll sit at the other swallowing down all of my regret and sadness right along with the Barbies and the cake. There will be games and laughter and a smiling four-year-old. And that's all that really matters for now.

Trying

2011-07-31T03:30:00.000-07:00

Inside the shopping bag it's all lavender and frighteningly disposable. The bizarre proportions and gigantic eyes made sense for Ariel who was, after all, a creature of the deep, but, I can't figure out why Rapunzel would need to see in the dark...or how she could possibly eat with such a tiny mid-section.

Now that we're back in the bosom of my family, we're more plastic and made in China than we ever intended to be. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I wonder what happens to you if you live too long with no intentions.

C's birthday is always fraught with tension for me. I think I manage it well but it's hard to focus on the here and now with all of those 'what-ifs' crowding in with the crepe paper and tacky decorations. When I was pregnant I worried about treating my daughters as individuals--turns out death is no obstacle to certain parenting tendencies.

Luckily, in the midst of my crisis about mindless parenting, consumerism, and birthdays for dead daughters, I happened across this story.

Like all 36-year-old women born and raised in the Philly 'burbs, I find that Wendell Berry* can always explain how I'm feeling so much better than I can myself. Go figure.

*Mr. Berry is not paying me to endorse him...or acknowledging me in any way for that matter since we don't know each other or anything. But, I'm sure he'd like me if he just gave me a chance...

Home Again

2011-07-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

In my mind he's perpetually 19-years-old, staring down at a pile of metal bits and figuring out how to resolve them back into the track of a sherman tank.

I didn't actually know him then. I wouldn't even exist for another 35ish years.

Maybe this is how everyone in my generation pictures their grandfathers who fought in the war. All that mayhem and the miracle that they survived long enough to ensure our existence is worth remembering and examining closely.

A couple of years ago I had the distinct impression that the world had flipped 180 degrees and left my grandfather stranded in my place and time. Gadgets that his formerly clever hands couldn't manipulate. Grandkids who drove German and Japanese cars with no trace of guilt. His wife, two of his brothers, and a son-in-law dead. A new roof on his house that would undoubtedly outlast him. Even so, he was still always solidly, reliably present.

In a few hours I'll be at his funeral but I can't quite believe he's gone.

++++

We were out of town when he died, in Kentucky for T's dad's funeral and the second wedding for T's best man. A parade of family, friends, and transitions of the toughest and most joyful variety.

Road trips always leave me feeling a little dislocated from reality but this one brought the drifting feeling to a whole new level. It's not just the standard time suspension that comes with 10 days of suitcase living, the world actually changed, sort of profoundly, while we were moving.

Before leaving Kentucky, we packed our spare suitcase with T's father's unneeded clothes and a flag folded over the expended shells from the 21-gun salute. More items will arrive in the mail shortly. While on the road back to PA, my mom called and said that I should hurry-up and get to Pop's house to claim any items I may want--apparently I have to race my brother and cousins to the choicest mementoes. I feel a little strange about detaching these objects from their homes. There's something so clear and definite about R's particular brand of gone-ness that made everyone else in my family seem hyper-present or super-alive. Even though T's dad and Pop were sick, even though they'd both been labeled terminal, I still wasn't convinced that they would die and I'm still not convinced that they'll stay that way. They both have so many people and things anchoring them to this world--how could they possibly leave? How could we possibly take their stuff? They might still need it.

If I sit still and concentrate, I can bring them back. I don't need objects to remember them. I can smell them and feel their skin, remember their voices and laughter. Among adults there just seems to be a smaller gap between corporeal existence and remembrance. The pile of ashes that used to be T's dad, my grandfather's body that we'll bury today, they're both still more alive to me than R ever was.

++++

Pop grew up with 7 siblings in a tiny house, married and raised 2 daughters in a less tiny house about 30 minutes from his childhood home. He retrieved and repaired tanks in the war. He was a mailman. He grew excellent tomatoes. He was a constant presence at his grandkids' and great-grandkids' t-ball games and dance recitals. He loved a good water fight on the beach. He kept his basement stocked with groceries and never let any of the 'kids' leave without taking at least a couple of cans of vegetables or boxes of macaroni.

There was nothing flashy or grand about his life. He was solid, reliable, game, and good-natured. He loved his family without reservation.

Shortly after R died, Pop told me that he talked to her and my grandmother every night as he drifted off to sleep. He believed that they were together and that he would see them again.

I hope he's right.

Makes the World Go 'Round

2011-06-22T05:28:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine used to work as an accountant in state government. She had a colleague who'd grown up in the circus. His parents were acrobats and, naturally, expected him to follow in their footsteps. But, alas, he heard a different siren song. He trained and performed until he reached adulthood and then ran away to join the bureaucracy.

Other people are a mystery.

Today is my ninth wedding anniversary (true to form, T had to remind me). Sometimes I still wake up in the morning and look over at T and wonder how this stranger got into my house and my life. Eleven years ago I didn't even know him and now we make all of our decisions together and there's a tiny, female copy of him getting under foot while I wash their dishes and underwear.

How much do you have to know about someone else before you can say that you know him or her?

****

I'm still working my way through all of the "Right Where I Am" posts from Angie's project last week. In between my despairing Scarlett-O'Hara-at-the-train-depot moments, I feel like I'm wrapped up in something greater than the sum of its parts, an extended Aha! moment shared amongst a bunch of strangers.

But these bloggers are still strangers. They're still mysteries.

For all I know, they kick puppies or refuse to give up seats to old ladies on the subway or cheer for the Mets between posts.

But somehow, I feel like the darkest, most desolate corner of another person is all you really need to know anyway.

****

Last week Jennifer Boylan came and spoke at my workplace as part of our LGBT special emphasis program. You can follow the link there to learn more about her story. The short version is that she's a transgendered woman who started out life as a man. That sentence may have been redundant. I probably could have said transsexual and gotten the point across. Anyway, she spoke for about an hour on the general topic of gender identity and issues of unity and civil rights for the transgendered community.

While I didn't grow up as a member of an actively bigoted family, I've never really gone out of my way to learn about transgendered folks. How many times have I tossed off a joke about transgendered people over the course of my life without even thinking about it? As the wife of a self-described hillbilly, I understand that we are more accepting of jokes about some segments of society than others. Yokels and women trapped in male bodies are probably somewhere on the edge of the political correctness frontier.

As she spoke, my mind wandered toward my own experience as a social misfit. When I first started looking for other people who had experienced babyloss I had a bit of a hang-up about my circumstances. Even though my newborn daughter had died, I was still wandering around with her identical twin. I was one of those women who made the 100% babylost duck down the aisle at the grocery store or turn and walk in the other direction. I looked...clueless...lucky...normal.

Perhaps I'm all of those things. I'm willing to concede on the 'clueless' part--I mean, we're all clueless about some things. And I've already been over the 'lucky' part. Normal is where I get stuck.

If I were normal I'd probably have more than one kid. I wouldn't cringe when I see my dead daughter's name in print at the grocery store. I'd laugh at jokes about long-lost twins or people who seem to have been separated at birth.

Then again, I suppose it's normal to have something that sets you slightly apart from everyone else, a sore spot that gets casually prodded by friends, co-workers, TV commentators day in and day out.

When R died I turned inward. I dismissed other peoples' problems. I stopped caring. It's taken a long time but I feel like I've turned things around. Instead of fixating on my internal monologue, I wonder about the hidden pain and grief carried by others and how I contribute to it, how I can help.

In terms of LGBT issues, I feel like I'm on the right side of things. Consenting adults should be able to marry each other and share benefits regardless of the numbers of X's and Y's in the equation. But there's a gap between being accepting of something in theory and being actively aware of it in fact.

This wasn't a huge 'come to Jesus' moment for me. It was more like sanding a rough edge. I will be more thoughtful. I will be more considerate. I won't take cheap shots at something that I don't understand.

As part of her spiel, Ms. Boylan read an essay about a conversation with her son, a teenager entering his final year of high school. In the episode she describes, they're talking about his future and his post-college plan to move to Australia and develop anti-venom for some type of snake that I can't remember.

The story included a repeating punchline about a mother's theoretical reaction to the death of a child.

Ms. Boylan is a very witty and charming storyteller and the line got a huge laugh out of the audience. Well, most of the audience.

Presumably the take-home message was something about letting people be themselves and live their dreams. I, however, came away with the new knowledge that I can now share space with a transsexual and still feel like the oddest person in the room.

But I promise that that will be my last joke about transsexuals.

Right Where I Am: 3 years, 9 months, 12 days

2011-05-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Normally I wouldn’t bother with the days. Honestly, I had to do math on my fingers to come up with the months, but, it just happens to be the 26th. R died on the 26th and she lived for 12 days. So…

In the days immediately after R’s death, T vowed to make time every 26th to remember her. Implicit in this plan was his predicted inability to ever be happy on the 26th day of any month ever again. Judging from his grateful smile as I sent him off to work with a travel mug full of hot coffee, the plan didn’t take. I never bought into the plan, mostly because I couldn’t imagine any greater degree of sadness than I was feeling every minute of every day already. R was gone. C was in the NICU. Everything felt fragile and uncertain.

It still feels this way for a few minutes each day. My thoughts of R are like background noise or wallpaper. They’re always present but I don’t actively monitor them. After all, some things stay exactly where you left them. But, the memories still fly into the foreground at least once a day, unbidden, a freak wave splashing over the bow, leaving me shocked and spluttering, questioning the certainty of anything in my life.

Here are some of those moments from the past 24 hours along with other thoughts I had while contemplating ‘right where I am’.

While Peering Hopelessly into my Closet

It’s hot and sticky here in the mid-Atlantic. I’m finding that my wrinkle-proof, working-mom wear is making me a little too sweaty on my daily walk to the commuter train but I can’t figure out what else I should wear. The new girl at work, who speaks of fabulousness as a glorious island nation that I too could inhabit if I’d just use the right navigational equipment, mentioned that she’d purchased her chic linen pants (size 2) on sale at Banana Republic. I’d check it out but I prefer the “Frumpy Barista” collection at Penney’s for the elastic hidden in the waistband of most pants.

Stores are full of sparkly, flowy, brightly-colored clothes for summer and I can’t imagine wearing any of them. I don’t feel sparkly anymore and flowy is terrible on the playground. I can’t see the point of smart, sporty clothes that can go from office to rooftop happy hour.

I need something that says I’m no longer a frivolous person who uses precious brain cells on wardrobe development. A cloak or a monastic robe might work but, it needs to be stain resistant and have a skort built-in for the playground. The statement would probably be undermined by lollipops and princess stickers adhering to the hem anyway.

Looks like it’s going to be mom-slacks and cardigans for another few months.

While Driving

I dropped C off at daycare earlier today and almost smashed into a carful of teenagers making an ill-advised left turn. 21 years and a few months ago my brother was almost killed in a similar situation at the same intersection.

Luckily he escaped with a concussion and a neck sprain. A few months later, we sat the kitchen table and I helped him turn the incident into a compelling essay for his college applications. I’m not sure that a 6’2” varsity football player and home run derby champion needs to write a slam bang essay to get into college but it’s certainly a better ending to the story than what could have been. How would my life have been different if my brother had died or become an invalid that night? He was riding in a car with 2 other boys who only had one sibling. I was friendly with all of them. What would that have been like if we’d all become instant only children?

We had a tearful night last night. C’s cousins (the ones who wouldn’t exist if my brother had died) stopped by just long enough to set up an elaborate game of house/school/doctor. The 8-year-old had just prepped C for surgery and the 6-year-old was setting up the post-operative tea party when my SIL announced that they had to go home for baths and bedtime. It was hard to catch all of the words during C’s ensuing meltdown (C inherited my tendency to hyper-ventilate when crying) but I made out that she’s lonely and jealous that her cousins get to go everywhere together.

As we sat and tried to calm her down, T shot me a look over her head. You know the look I’m talking about. Well, maybe those of you who conceive easily don’t. It was the look that says hey-we-can-skip-the-Barry White-because-you-seem-to-be-infertile-now-but-maybe-we-should-discuss-our-other-options---sexily. I answered with the look that says, “Nope.”

I’m happy with our life right now. At least I feel like everything we have going on is manageable. I can see all of the ways that another child would be earth-shatteringly awesome and I can see all of the ways it could be heartbreaking. The awesome just doesn’t outweigh the heartbreak…yet…maybe not ever.

But, it does hover there in the back of my mind. What would it be like if we added a brother or sister for C?

Or, as I skidded toward a carful of oblivious children this morning, what would it be like if that new sister or brother died in some horrible manner?

While Playing with C

I can talk about R without getting even remotely teary or emotional now. This area has a nice, thick callus and I feel good about that callus. I remember sitting and rocking for hours with infant C and wondering how she would stand growing up with this hollow shell that called itself ‘mommy.’ I didn’t resolve to get over it or be strong for C’s sake. I figured that I’d always be sad and C would have a great career as a memoirist after she grew up and escaped.

But that’s not really how it’s turning out. We function just like any other family with one child and two parents who work full-time outside the home. C and I sit on the floor coloring together in the evenings while I assuage my guilt about spending so much time apart and the laundry piles up and the bacteria colonizing my bathroom threaten to devour the entire house.

Maybe I’d be more super-mom-ish if I didn’t grant myself the space to enjoy these small pleasures with my surviving daughter but that seems like the road to ruin for any mom. I can almost allow myself to think that grief has improved me in some ways. Of course, I probably would have improved in some ways as the mother to twin girls as well.

C recently started drawing more recognizable objects during our coloring sessions. First it was faces and stick figures. Then she started adding yellow hair and blue eyes to make them look like her. Yesterday she drew herself and then a copy of herself. She asked if I could draw some strawberries and a pear for R.

“R likes strawberries and pears, just like I do,” she explained and then she started telling crayon-R about all of the other things they could do together if they both lived here with mommy and daddy.

And it occurred to me that we may never be fully present, never completely right where we are. For me and C and T there will always be a little piece missing from this place and time and all of our future places and times. We’ll always face the past every so often and wonder what it would be like if R had survived.

Pip

2011-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

We moved R's tree to our yard in time for Mother's Day. Technically we did it in time for the other Mother's Day...the one I didn't bother mentioning to anyone. That wasn't the intent anyway. This just happens to be a good time of year for moving deciduous trees.

T commented that he would like something ornamental better--something with showy blooms to breakup the monotony in our yard. That wasn't my intent either.

This is an intention-free zone.

Left to my own notions, I never would have purposely planted anything as a memorial to my daughter. I'm not opposed to the practice. I just dread dead memorial plants. And I'm tired of dread.

But this tree was already dead when I found it, burning through its limited resources, waiting for a taxpayer-purchased weed-whacker to come and finish the job. It turns out that I'm more tired of death than I am of dread.

So, I threw caution to the wind, dug the little tree up with a random stick, and planted it in a vacant spot alongside my mom's garage where it stayed until we could plant at the new house.

****

At my 6-week post-partum visit, the OB ran through the list of questions that mark the route for his daily parade of interchangeable lady parts.

"Are you sad?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I mean, are you sadder than you would expect?"

I swear there was an audible click as the doorway that stood open between me and the ordinary world closed...forever. I may have laughed a little.

What did I expect? A first time mother to almost died and almost lived. I felt like the entire universe had been crammed into the space between my ears and there was no room left for expectations of any kind.

Going on four years since pregnancy/birth/death, aside from the eternal ache of missing R and my white-hot obsession with C, this is the most lasting effect--I lost my expectations.

I can need and hope and want. I just can't expect.

I think this may actually be an improvement.

****

R's tree started out like any other red maple. The seed landed, down went the roots, up went the cotyledon. When the resources supplied by the seed were gone, leaves sprouted and photosynthesis kicked in...as expected.

It had a lot of siblings, this tree. In the r-selected world of plant propagation, it's all about the numbers. Because, if it can expect anything at all, a tree probably expects dead babies.

Survival is for the seeds that land in a wooded area with the best soil and a little break in the canopy to let in the sunlight. If conditions are right, a red maple can expect to live for close to one hundred years. It's a relatively short lifespan for a tree but, still.

Pressed up against the post of a playground structure (even one as well-meant as this one) with the maintenance crew breathing down its neck, this tree couldn't expect much more than a couple of weeks.

But, you know, fuck expectations.

Parental Failings of the Ironical Sort

2011-04-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

"Yep, I see it."

The doctor points to the exam room and I scoop C up mid-run for the next part of the appointment.

She clambers up onto the exam table and he starts checking her hips for alignment--or rather, checks them for a lack of alignment to explain the hitch in her gait.

"We could do some x-rays but it probably wouldn't help at this point," he says, frowning at her apparently symmetrical pelvis, "Could be neurological."

****

I had a housemate in college who was a stone, cold fox.

I maybe had a few weeks in 1995 when I was a solid 7. I may even still be a 6 for those who are attracted to sturdiness and sarcasm. But, truly, I'm a 5* most days..at best.

My friend, J, is a solid 10--perhaps an 11. Back then she looked like a veela as interpreted by one of those pervy animators responsible for the Disney princesses.

Living with her was just how I imagine it would be to run a base camp at Everest. Hordes of men show up all aflutter with adventure and conquest on their minds. Even those who are vanquished can't talk about anything else but the next try. The ones with any sense stay far away.

I won't lie, my ego was definitely bruised up by the end of it but I came away with a solid understanding some basic truths.

Comparing yourself to other people is a short road to disappointment.

*In case it's not obvious, I'm including this as a bit of a sly wink--I am, however, serious about the sarcasm part.

****

It was probably intended in the spirit of upward mobility that marks members of the middle class but, it still seems like a bad idea to me, especially now that I'm a mother myself.

On my second birthday my mom went to the trouble to get out my baby book and a pen and note that I "still had a miserable personality" but "had shown some improvement lately."

Guess who doesn't have a baby book of her own? What would I have written in there during her first year?

C still defies expectations by continuing to be alive. She's alive!!!! She's alive!!!

It's still the predominant thought in my head when I look at her--holy shit! She's still here! Please, please let her continue to exist.

Right after we were pounded by the fickle sledgehammer of fate, I gathered up my tiny daughter and ran as fast as I could away from the trouble. Along the way I've done my best to shed her lingering association with loss and grief.

I've ditched any hard-wired expectations.

I don't compare her to other children as a matter of principle.

Those things just slow you down.

And now I've charged face-first into the enormous, spiky outstretched fist of the universe.

I can't escape the notion that I've been making this all about me this whole time.

It could be neurological.

Is that better or worse than a deformed pelvis?

Once More...without Feeling

2011-04-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

You know when you throw something together using whatever you have in the cupboard and it doesn't turn out so great but you choke it down anyway so that you don't waste food.

Maybe not.

Just imagine something unpleasant that's lurking around making you uneasy.

I don't think I made the point I was trying to make with that last post. Or maybe I'm not sure what the point was.

I'd like to just wipe it away...except for the part about the three A's (angst, accents, acoustic instruments). I won't apologize for my little fetish. I could pour that whole situation into a glass and drink it.

Ok, so maybe I'd just sip at it...demurely.

And then, about halfway through, I'd start wondering how I could dare enjoy any aspect of my continued existence. But I'd be proud of myself for making it halfway.

The 2007 version of myself who paces around in my head finds none of this amusing or encouraging but she seems to be taking a lot of naps lately.

Happy is easier than sad--maybe it always has been for me. Or maybe I've just covered my sad with a scab so thick that I can hardly feel anything anymore.

Grief hasn't changed me as profoundly as I thought it might. I've not been engulfed in a swell of magnanimity. I haven't been compelled to help others or to do something meaningful in R's memory. I've made friends here in the land of babyloss grief but lately I keep forgetting how I met them.

Acceptance has invaded every corner of my heart. The muck has settled to the bottom of the glass of water. I can take the stone from the master's hand. Etc...

Scope, immediacy, violence--these things don't register on my scale of reaction anymore. Death is death is death. Doesn't really matter how it happened. Respect the pain and then file it away for later. Misery keeps.

Good and bad are a package deal. It's possible to fit them both into your head. Trust me on this one. Look up from the 24-hour news cycle. Have you noticed that the daffodils are blooming?

Let the neighbors and co-workers think that this is easy or that I'm cold and unfeeling.

For so long after R died I had to fake happy. I don't have any energy left over to fake sad.

But I'll spare you the banjos this time.

Perspective

2011-03-28T06:41:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if my sadness over R's death is outsized.

Tsunamis, bombings, floods.

My neighbor's house burned to the ground last week.

R is dead. No more pain. No more worry. She is as she is. As she will be. Forever.

The first time I heard someone use the word 'tragedy' in reference to my daughter I was surprised. Tragedy? How could that be right? Everyone knows that tragedies happen far away from here in corrugated tin huts with inadequate plumbing.

Tragedy needs a good head of steam. It should start with years of social injustice and oppression that create an unsustainable situation that completely crumbles under the weight of a natural disaster. This was just some bad luck in our otherwise lucky lives. R was just one tiny person.

It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen happen to another human. Her body rotted from the inside out. She died slowly, in pieces, right in front of me and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Even so, I've only glimpsed the bottom of the pit and I have no interest in getting any closer.

****

This process is slow and grinding. Some portion of each day is spent shoring up the compartments in my mind, remembering how to get along to go along. I'm pretty proficient. I can have hours of normal conversations and experience genuine interest and engagement with something other than my own thoughts.

I keep it small.

I don't call or email anyone for frivolous reasons. My co-workers probably think I'm chained to my desk.

I don't watch the news. I don't read about important world events.

It seems best to not start things that I won't be able to finish.

I pour my energy into maintaining a socially acceptable exterior and keeping C happy and I just don't have any to spare--not consistently anyway.

I can't tell if it's the sadness or the walling off of the sadness that's more wearing. They feel so integrated now. It might be easier to let it all out and be done with it.

****

Summer makes me a little manic. Fall and winter are depressing. Despite my pollen allergies, I think spring might be my favorite. Springtime is for nostalgia.

I'm not exactly ancient but I miss being young and carefree. I want to lounge around in the sunshine and neglect my responsibilities. I want to sip on an iced coffee and get incensed about politics.

I spent the better part of my young adult years in North Carolina and every spring I get this urge to go back there and see if I can find that other version of myself lurking amidst the magnolias and excessive politeness.

But I don't have the time. And we all know that it's impossible to go back.

Instead I've just been scratching my itch by listening to this song and reminiscing about earnestness and banjos.

Bread Line

2011-03-07T04:38:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid, my Dad would sometimes get up early on a Saturday to stand in line at the Conshohocken Bakery for the rolls. Ridiculous, no? Why line up for bread that you have to pay for--with real money? Yet, every Saturday people would queue up regardless of the weather as if they were waiting for Mike Schmidt's autograph.

I'm not begrudging any culture their own ways with yeast and flour but, seriously, the bread in Philly is friggin' amazing--crusty and chewy and just the right amount of salty. T, Army brat and citizen of the world, has assured me that my opinion isn't just warped hometown pride. He thinks it may have something to do with the fact that we have 'wuhder' here instead of water.

Once Dad waited on line for hours only to discover that all of the rolls were gone by the time he reached the front and he was forced to switch to loaves of Italian bread. He wasn't disappointed though. The lady behind the counter handed him the queen mother of them all--a ridiculously huge hunk of bread. He was buying for our extended family so he took a couple more average-sized loaves too. My aunt and grandmother were slightly appalled by the size disparity between their loaves and his yet, not surprised that he would keep the largest one for himself.

When he got home and presented my Mom with the colossal loaf they laughed and laughed at their good luck...until they cut it open and realized that the inside was mostly empty.

****

A couple of weeks ago I passed the 20th anniversary of my first date.

I regularly forget my wedding anniversary, my mother's birthday, pretty much every date that's important for the significant people in my life. Every Feb. 23, however, I seem to remember my first night out on the town with "Lloyd."

After weeks of after school negotiations and one Valentine's Day note that could have scorched the attached red carnation, I agreed to go out with him. It was a Friday night. We went to see "The Silence of the Lambs." I was so terrified about being in a dark theater with a boy that I forgot to be freaked out by a movie about a cannibal and lady-skin-coat wearing serial killer. When he dropped me off at the foot of my driveway, I darted out of his Malibu as if it had burst into flames.

We dated off and on for the next 18 months despite the fact that we really had nothing in common aside from location and above-average physical fitness.

Lloyd's family was a disaster. His parents divorced when he was around 5 and his dad moved to a town maybe 10 miles to the west. Lloyd's mom remarried a few years later and had two more kids--the family she had always envisioned. At the ripe old age of 10, Lloyd, recognizing that he was now persona non grata, packed his belongings into a paper bag and rode his bike up the shoulder of the turnpike to his dad's house. His dad fed him a hot dog and sent him back to his mom. Lloyd had an endless supply of similar, miserable stories.

My family bore more than a passing resemblance to his mom's 2.0 version--two parents, two kids (big brother and little sister), a four bedroom house in the 'burbs. My Dad and Lloyd's stepdad probably could have had a support group for men who wished Lloyd would disappear.

Looking back on the whole thing it seems as though Lloyd was on some sort of mission to uncover the inner workings of a happy family. He'd hopped over the fence and was ready to sample the sweet, green grass on the other side. Unfortunately it turned out to be a disappointment. I can't remember all of the details now but I have the faint impression that he broke up with me because I was a boring know-it-all.

****

We're having a bit of a time in these parts. T's dad has passed the point of treatment for his cancer. My eternally spry grandfather seems to have started the fast march toward infirmity. T's aunt was hospitalized last week and is likely in the end stages of emphysema.

I feel I'm experiencing all of it from some remote location. Family members call on the phone all adither with the bad news and it's like the noise disappears inside me where there's nothing to catch the vibration.

In the storage compartment where I once kept fear and sadness, there are only angry questions.

How can any of R's relatives still be afraid of death?

How can any of them grieve the loss of a life that spanned multiple decades?

Have they forgotten my girl?

I suspect that everything they're saying is perfectly normal but grief for a terminally-ill senior citizen still seems like a luxury item to me.

****

After Lloyd and I broke up we never spoke again. We didn't have any common friends and we were on decidedly different trajectories. We just went back to being strangers. I have a box of Lloyd-related mementos in my Mom's attic that I haven't looked at in years. For all I know he doesn't even remember my name or my face. He probably just has a passing memory of a girl who made a big deal out of small problems.

A quick googling tells me that Lloyd escaped his parents. It looks like he made his way to NYC and spent some time in a band. The cursory FB profile doesn't reveal whether he's happy.

Twenty years ago I didn't have any appreciation for Lloyd's perspective. I had no idea what it felt like to lose or to want. The obstacles I encountered in my life were tiny things I could step over without even a running start.

Right before we broke up, his parents threw him out for the final time. He called me and I went to pick him up at the park near his house so I could take him to a friend's house.. He didn't even have a bag packed. I remember being annoyed by the inconvenience of his homeless status.

I wish I could redo that moment. I want grab both of those kids and tell them that all of it--success, failure, happiness, misery--it's just dumb luck. A wake-up call for the girl who had it all figured out. Some relief for the boy who couldn't even understand the question.

We just take what we're given.

Cut it open and you'll find that there's nothing inside.

Happy anniversary, Lloyd...wherever you may be.

Ramblings from the Sick Ward

2011-01-31T06:02:00.000-08:00

C is sick.

The fever and coughing started on Tuesday, the ear infection was diagnosed on Friday, antibiotics were started shortly thereafter. Now that it's Monday I think we can safely assume that it's just a run-of-the-mill cold. Let's pause a moment while I thank every deity I can call to mind.

When I get a cold I'm generally pretty stoic. I stay home from work to avoid spreading it around but I carry-on, fueled by coughdrops and ibuprofen. You can tell that I'm sick because the laundry is folded and you could eat ramen out of the toilet.

When C gets sick I feel as hollow and floaty as a balloon. I can't think or do or plan...I just can't.

****

I knitted (almost) an entire sweater between Wednesday and Friday.

The dishes and laundry piled up. My email and voicemail sat unattended. C took naps aplenty. I had time to manage all of my normal care and maintenance but I became fixated on this sweater--despite the fact that I own plenty of sweaters and the yarn had been sitting around in an unfinished afghan for 5 years.

There are probably more productive stress reactions than a sweater-making marathon. It would be awesome if I could be more of a sock mender or pants hemmer. I'm glad that I'm not a smoker or an obsessive hair plucker. It's probably a push. We'll see if I can bring myself to wear the sweater once it's finished.

****

I can't quite escape the notion that the train is about to go off the rails. A sniffle will kick-off a catastrophic, terminal illness and I will spend the rest of my life fixating on its volume and wetness. Did it seem fatal? How did I miss the signs?

Does that carrying-your-heart-around-on-the-outside thing affect everyone this way? Is it a switch that's flipped when you see your baby for the first time or is it when you decide there's no point in waiting and tell the nurse to go ahead and disconnect the ventilator?

****

Through the night I listen to C's coughs and ragged breathing. I'm waiting for them to turn into something serious. She's so big now. She has words. She can tell me what hurts and ask for medicine, water. In my mind I just see her tiny, exhausted body in the plastic box covered in tubes and wires. I try not to let my eyes stray to the empty box in the adjoining room.

On the one hand I feel prepared. I've seen her genetic clone in distress--I know what it will look like when it comes. On the other hand, I may not be able to do anything but watch. If I had paid closer attention...

I sleep in 5 minute snippets for 4 nights.

****

Over breakfast on Friday C tells me that she's going to make a full recovery. After 4 nights of fevers we go to the doctor to be sure.

In the exam room she prepares for her 'patient' performance--sad face when the doctor enters the room, hands folded on lap, perfect posture, grateful yet pathetic smile when he finishes his preliminary examination. The mask slips a little when he asks if she's been pooping regularly.

I smile and wonder why I ever thought I could hide anything from my mother.

2010: The Year I Relearned How to be Boring

2010-12-31T02:38:00.000-08:00

So, here we are. The end of the first decade of this millennium. Seems momentous, right?

Time has moved differently for me in this decade. It's compressed, squozen, flipped, and turned in on itself. There are frozen blocks of time inside my head--two massive, icy sheets that float to the top and obscure everything else.

It is perpetually December 2005 and August 2007.

But, somehow, time still manages to flow beneath.

I organized my desk last week and spent a few minutes marveling at my level of production during 2010. It felt like I did nothing but fret about C and my widowed mother and wonder how I could have saved R but the pile of paper on my desk indicates that I'm actually a highly productive and organized worker bee. Go figure!

Who is this person who manages to accomplish so much? She's so orderly. Her emails are so informative and polite.

I saw Sybil and Sally Field made this all look very dramatic. I thought that my other personalities would be more...flamboyant. I guess I'm just a bureaucrat,even at the very core of my being.

On paper 2010 was actually a banner year for the mommicked family. A new house, a new job for T, C has been declared perfectly normal by her preschool teachers.

But, you know, happiness just doesn't sing like it used to.

We can't move forward with my Dad and R in tow. Each step down the path leaves them a little further behind.

At the same time, letting go doesn't hurt like it used to.

I guess that's the story on 2010--we've evened out, righted the ship, slipped on our normal suits and zipped them all the way up to our chins.

Time heals, if you're willing to do some work.

I have to thank all of you for your assistance with helping me rediscover my inner workaday drudge. I think of this place and all of your blogs as a sort of virtual teacher's lounge. After a long day of setting a good example for the kids, I can stumble in, utter a few cusses, and tug off the pantyhose. I can tell a crass joke. I can tell you exactly what I think of little Jimmy's dreadful mother. And then I can pull myself back together and head back out feeling placid and capable.

Thank you and best to all of you for the coming year.

I hope 2011 only brings good (or boring) things your way.

Chums

2010-12-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

I arrived at my new job in June 2008 and promptly filled my cube with a cloud of tragedy and despair. Everyone in the office shivered and felt as though they may never be cheerful again. Because, though I felt like this on the inside...

...I looked more like this on the outside.

Just to bolster my Gen X cred, here's another example:

Felt like this -

Looked like this -

And so, despite the fact that I was a party planner and holiday skit auteur at my previous job, I've been mostly friendless for the past 65-odd pay periods.

Work friendlessness is sort of freeing. My boss seems to like my lack of interest in small talk and office hijinks. I'm left out of most work drama and I never spend more on coffee or lunch than I intended. As a natural introvert I find the opportunities for silence and solitude comforting.

But, alas, the world is changing and me along with it.

I don't exude despair anymore. We've had some turnover in the office and the new people don't remember the bad, old days. My mystique is gone. The shard has been reunited with the crystal. Now I'm like a less-glamorous J.C. Wiatt. I can almost hear the cheesy '80s soundtrack music following me when I schlep up my front walk after a long day at the office.

I'm considering one of those shirts with the floppy bowtie...

If it's solitude vs. 'alrightness,' I guess I'd have to vote for the latter but it does sting a bit. I've read this sentiment a lot lately on the blogs that I follow--as horrible as those early days felt, fresh grief was so much simpler.

I've been befriended by a pregnant woman. She was 32 weeks last Thursday. She likes to talk to me about pregnancy because I'm so positive and supportive (that high-pitched sound you hear is me whimpering like a puppy).

This woman has a name picked out! And, dare I say it? A birth plan!

Saints preserve us, a birth plan!

I can't figure out how she got this 'positive and supportive' notion. As far as I can tell I just nod along while she talks and do my best not to furrow my brow. There's not much else I can do. My entire personal pregnancy experience is built upon a foundation of weirdness and she seems to be having a completely normal pregnancy. The vast majority of women I know who incubated one fetus and made it to 32-weeks brought home a living baby amidst a cloud of balloons and flowers 8-weeks later. The odds are in her favor.

Yet...I feel like such a liar.

Prayer-ish

2010-11-29T11:38:00.000-08:00

It was the Bolivian dancers that did me in. I made it through the treacly holiday music and the adorable child-ballerinas marching along in their Nutcracker mouse costumes. Hell, I even made it through a 3-hour drive in the early morning darkness to get to the parade on time with my happy mood intact. But watching those teenage boys smiling and leaping, boots a-jangle, after the girls in their microscopic skirts left me fighting back the tears.

As they passed by C hopped around on the pavement imitating the dance steps, face aglow with envy at the ornate costumes. I caught a sudden glimpse of a teenage C cramming herself into something short and tight for a high school dance. Then I grew simultaneously sad that she's growing up and terrified that she won't get to grow up. And then I imagined the smiling dancers old and infirm. And then I thought about R in her urn, wrapped in a T-shirt, in the suitcase, in the car that we left in a parking deck 3 blocks away. And then some sniffling. And then the tears.

This is it. This is all there really is. Randy teenagers and impure thoughts. At least that's what I thought for those five minutes as I stood weeping on the curb in in Silver Spring's fabricated downtown.

So sad, isn't it? One day you're strutting your stuff down the parade route in a bedazzled mini-skirt, the next day you're a mom with three-year-old, a set of cremains, and a stack of worries. Then, you're a down-on-your-luck musician playing a mournful saxophone on a lonely rooftop in the heartless city while Time, that cruel bitch-master, cackles at you. Or something like that.

Thirty-five years go by in a flash but at least it's a good solid lifetime. Would I feel better if I knew C would get 35 years? Would that be enough? Would I be more content if R had gotten 35 days instead of 12? What about 5 days with no pain or illness?

I'd like to say that I had some great revelation while watching the parade or that I achieved some level of peace with whatever other challenges lie ahead. I'm afraid I don't have it in me to be wise or peaceful. I just have two simple requests...

Oh, great universe, if you're listening, please let my girl live long enough to dress inappropriately and be leered at by some pimply-faced boy full of adolescent arrogance and impure thoughts. And, please, even though I don't espouse any particular set of beliefs about heaven or the afterlife, let there be parades and spangly costumes for R too.

knit your own jizo figure (I'll help you)

2010-11-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

It's getting on to Holiday Giveaway season out in blog-land. I haven't decided yet whether I have the crafting wherewithal to participate this year (given my current craftload) but, I want to show some sort of good will. So, here's a free pattern that I whipped up.

mommicked’s Mizuko Jizo knitting pattern

This pattern was inspired by Angie’s Jizo paintings. In the pattern I’ve used abbreviations and notations typically used at knitty. This is the first pattern I’ve ever created (and, true to my lazy blogger ways, I only spent an hour or so writing it up). If you find something you don’t understand in here (and I won’t be surprised if you do) or you need a clarification on the directions, just leave a comment and I’ll reply in the comments section.

Finished Size –
Height – 4-5 inches
Use smaller needles and lighter gauge yarn to size down.

Materials –
MC – Plymouth Encore Worsted (white)
CC1 – Loops and Threads Impeccable Worsted (Heather)
CC2 – Lion’s Brand “Vanna’s Choice” Worsted (Cranberry)

Note – I think you can use whatever worsted weight white, pink/tan/brown, and red yarn you happen to have or can acquire at your LYS or craft store.

10 yards MC
10 yards CC1
2-3 yards CC2
Extra of MC and CC1 for stuffing or you could use fiberfill
A small amount of grey or brown sock yarn or embroidery floss
Size 6 dpns (or whatever size gives you a fairly tight fabric—you want to knit this tightly so that the filling doesn’t show through)
Darning needle
Crochet Hook

Instructions –

Body and Head
Using MC, CO 9
Place 3 st each on needles 1, 2, & 3
Row 1 – kfb every stitch to end (18)
Row 2 – *k1, kfb* (27)
Row 3 – purl
Row 4 – *k8, kfb* (30)
Row 5-15 – knit
Row 16 - *k2, k2tog* (24)
Row 17 – knit
Row 18 - *k2, k2tog* (18)
Row 19 – knit
Row 20 – switch to CC1, knit
Row 21 - *k1, kfb* (24)
Row 22 - *k1, kfb* (36)
Row 23-28 – knit
Row 29 - *k4, k2tog* (27)
Row 30 - *k3, k2tog* (21)
Row 31 - *k2, k2tog* (16)
Row 32 - *k1, k2tog* (11)

Filling - Now is a good time to stuff the body and head with the filling of your choice. I like to use white yarn for the body and the skin-colored yarn for the head). If you want the Jizo to stand up easily, you could stuff something heavy like a bean bag down into the body. Make it as soft or as firm as you desire.

Note - When I make these, I typically take a few minutes to write a message to or about the baby I’m remembering on some slips of paper that are 1/8 in. wide by 2 in. long and I add them in with the filling. For my own daughter I asked for her to be protected and to have help finding her family and friends. I can’t write directions for this part. You just have to do what feels right.

Row 33 - *k2tog* (6)
Row 34 - *k2tog* 3 stitches left. Break yarn, leaving an 8-10 inch tail and run end through all 4 remaining stitches.

Using darning needle, push yarn tail into top of head and out through the figure’s neck. Weave the end around the neck of the figure in a running stitch and tighten slightly to differentiate head from body. Tie off and tuck end inside head.

Bib
With CC2, CO 5. Leave a 14-16 inch tail when you CO.
Row 1 – knit
Row 2 – purl
Row 3 – k1, kfb, k1, kfb, k1 (7)
Row 4 – purl
Row 5 – *k1, kfb* (10)
Row 6 – purl
Row 7 – k2, k2tog, k2, k2tog, k2 (8)
Row 8 – BO

Time to make a string for the bib. Take your crochet hook and make a 3 inch chain using the long end from your CO. Attach the loose end of the chain to the other side of the bib and put it over the figure’s head.

Sleeves – (make 2)
With MC, CO3
Row 1 – knit
Row 2 – purl
Row 3 – k1, kfb, k1 (4)
Row 4 – purl
Row 5 – knit
Row 6 – purl
Row 7 – k1, kfb, k to end (5)
Row 8 – purl
Row 9 – knit
Row 10 – purl
Row 11 – knit
Row 12 – k1, kfb to end
Row 13 – BO
Don’t weave in ends. Use ends to attach sleeves to body. You want to position the shoulders so that the wide ends of the sleeves where the hands will be end up about ½ in apart in front of the bib. Leave the ‘hand ends’ of the sleeves open.

Hands
With darning needle and CC1, make 5-6 loops attaching the upper front corner of the sleeves to each other. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You just want to give the suggestion of fingers laced together. I like to tuck the bib down behind the hands to hold it in place.

Face
I keep it simple here, mostly because I can’t come up with a mouth that I like. I just loop the sock yarn around 2 stitches to make some closed eyelids. You can bring the yarn or embroidery floss up from the back of the head. Keep in mind that eyes are generally located about halfway down the head when you’re deciding where to put the stitches. You could probably draw some eyes and a mouth too if you’d prefer.

Little Soul

2010-11-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

Have you ever given yourself a headache contemplating the nature of existence? Just look around--thumbdrive, catalog, coaster, dog. What prehistoric butterfly flapped its wings at just the right speed, at just the right time, in just the right location to make all of this possible? Did a supreme being really come up with all of this in 6 days? Is it turtles all the way down? Is TracyOC actually 13-year-old who just smoked weed for the first time?

We all experience multiple iterations of reality and multiple associated epiphanies in our lifetimes. Just to be clear, I'm talking about these types of moments -

So, that's what makes my brother a boy!
Wait a minute, where does the stork come in?
Jesus! Darth Vader's his father?!

For me, each of these moments is immediately followed by a brief mental recap.

Why didn't I know this already?
Does everyone else know about this?
What else is lurking out there waiting to surprise me?

The earth rocks a bit and I float up out of myself for a moment before feeling that things are mostly the way I previously understood them to be. Reality has expanded a bit but I'm still more or less the same.

Some epiphanies are bigger than others.

I remember sitting by my father's bedside a couple of days before he died. This was at the beginning of his second week in the ICU after he'd ripped the central line from his neck and attempted to escape. He was heavily medicated and disoriented by the toxins that had built up in his body as his liver failed but we were alone for what might be the last time ever and I decided that I should probably say my good-byes. I told him that I would miss him and that it was ok to stop fighting. The image of him trying to get his eyes to open and focus on me is burned into my brain.

This is death.
This is life.
The world is not as I believed it to be but, it's ok because now I know.

The problem is that a lot of people don't know. The other problem is that the people who do know don't like to talk about it in front of those who don't know. I mean, jeez, are you trying to ruin their whole day or what?

Crazy that I still worry about ruining someone's day by sharing the experiences that shattered my entire life but, I do worry about it and I bet you do too.

This is life.

The big epiphanies tend to spawn after-epiphanies (and blogs).

I found myself joking about slow elevators with a complete stranger at work last week. My regional office only has 900-odd employees so I suppose there are no complete strangers but, I'd never met this guy before. I can't remember what I said but it made him laugh and we spent a few floors smiling and trading elevator stories.

I got off at my floor and I thought to myself, "See. You're still in there."

I actually thought that--in exactly those words. I smiled and nodded and congratulated myself on getting back in touch with my inner smartass.

The feeling of satisfaction lasted approximately 12 seconds. By the time I was back in my cube I was berating myself for daring to gripe about an elevator that still exists in a world without my daughter. R is dead and you have the nerve to complain about an elevator? Take the f*cking stairs if you don't like it.

If someone else said it to me I'd probably knock his teeth down his throat. I don't know why I'm letting myself get away with taking such an absurd position. After all, there's no prize for being the most miserable.

This is death.
This is life.
Choose.

Clearly life will go on but I feel stuck in mid-air. I'm waiting for the next epiphany that will place me back on my feet, the one that tells me how a formerly unrepentant, irreverent smartass navigates the world as a half-bereaved mother.

I'm not really one for poetry but I came across this a few months ago when I decided that a responsible citizen ought to know a little bit about the poet laureate and it's been rolling around in my head since.

This is Merwin's interpretation of a poem written by the Roman emperor, Hadrian (I lifted it from here).

Little Soul

BY HADRIAN

Little soul little stray
little drifter
now where will you stay
all pale and all alone
after the way
you used to make fun of things

Still Life 365: Ritual

2010-10-24T04:46:00.000-07:00

We lit our candle and then sat on the hotel balcony for a few minutes together. C, resentful that R got a candle and she didn't, dragged T back into the room for some coloring. Sibling rivalry from the great beyond.

Up above Cassiopeia climbed the night sky, tied to her chair, dangled upside down by the spiteful gods. I used to think she was a villain. Suddenly she's both victim and soul sister. So we were a little smug about our beautiful daughters...this hardly seems fair.

We actually missed our 7PM time slot for the October 15 Wave of Light. C wanted a treat after dinner which involved some difficult maneuvering of an ice cream cone, some angry, frustrated words (mine), and tears (hers). We aimed for 8PM instead and figured that central time was close enough. R was unlikely to get angry about the delay.

I sat alone with the candle for a half hour unable to focus my thoughts in any productive way. It should have felt more significant or more sad. My inner voice scolded me for not feeling R's presence in the flame. I just wasn't feeling it...

...until I saw the candle that another grieving mama lit for my girl. Thank you for remembering her, Jenn.

****

It's time for the Still Life 365 10 Questions. The topic this month is Ritual and I shall attempt to answer the following question.

Have you felt a connection to other cultures and religions and how they deal with death?

I've been reluctant to establish any sort of ritual for R because I know I won't stick with it and then I'll feel like a bad mother. Which, incidentally, is exactly how I feel about my inability to get C's picture taken on her birthday every year.

When Angie posted the topic for October, I wondered what I could contribute. Despite my cradle-Catholic heritage, I'm not good at rituals.

We haven't forgotten her. T's dad built a box to hold all of R's worldly possessions. Her remains sit in a little pink container on top of this box in our bedroom where we see her first thing every morning. But, it took me over a year to print up pictures for the empty frames I arranged around her. We added an LED candle on a timer recently but I haven't gotten around to changing the batteries despite the fact that it's been dark for several weeks. And the dust...oh, the dust.

I'm no more fastidious about R's things than I would have been if she'd lived. All of C's meaningful knick-knacks are still boxed up in her closet from the move because I haven't gotten around to installing shelves for them in her room. I think it's probably healthy that my bad mommyness is spread equally among my dead and living children.

I think about her every time I see a scrappy little tree growing from a crack in the sidewalk. If I find a pretty leaf or sparkly button in some unexpected place, I pocket it and bring it to her. We also include things that others send like the card from Angie. We don't buy things for her or decide what to get for her in advance. We only add things to her collection that arrive by chance.

I don't know if you can count something intentionally non-ritualistic as a ritual but, it seems to work for us.

I borrowed the idea from a place I used to visit when I lived in coastal Carolina. In the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort, NC, on the far north side of the property, behind the church, against the fence, is a large, flat marker. The words engraved on the marker are worn but still legible--Girl in a Cask of Rum.

The story is that her father was the captain of a ship and that she grew up missing him while he was away on one voyage or another. When she was 12-years-old she begged to go to sea with him. She wanted adventure. Her parents wanted her safe at home but eventually relented. Sometime during the voyage she took ill and died. The rest of the story varies depending on the tour guide. He either couldn't bear to dump her body into the sea or had made a promise to bring her home to her mother and so, had her body preserved in a cask of rum until she could be buried back on land.

I heard (and told) this story dozens of times during my time teaching on the coast and it always got a reaction. The listeners are invariably fascinated. They wonder about the logistics of preserving a body, how her mother reacted, what happened next. Once you preserve your dead daughter's body in a vat of alcohol, do you just go back to church on Sunday and blend in? Did the neighbors whisper this story to each other over the hedgerows? In a town full of pirates and transient sea-faring folk, did people just shrug and figure that it was none of their business? Maybe the death of a child always so startling that we all agree that the normal procedures don't apply.

The girl's marker is covered with trinkets and baubles. People come to see her and leave things that a 12-year-old girl might pick up and slip in a pocket. I'd imagine that most of the flowers and seashells are left by mothers and fathers who are heartbroken over this story but I've seen 13-year-old boys crawl around in the shrubs to find an azalea blossom to leave on her grave.

The contrast is a little startling, the spartan, white, clapboard of the Baptist church as the backdrop for this impromptu, pagan-looking shrine. Somehow, however, it seems like the only proper tribute for a little girl who died before her life really began.

So, I suppose that "Girl in a Cask of Rum" isn't an official culture or religion but that's what I have. I bring my daughter random, pretty objects because I think she would have appreciated them in life and my ritual is inspired by another little girl with an extraordinary story.

Fool Me Once...Only Once? You're Clearly Not Trying Hard Enough

2010-10-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

It was a lovely day toward the end of the school year. The students and I had hit a bit of a groove—a groove that is only really possible toward the end of a relationship when the stakes are lower. Spring had sprung, the end was nigh, and class had started to be more fun than work.

So, when my paper grading was interrupted by cries of, “Ms. O, you have to see this!”, I jumped up and trotted eagerly forth to see what grand teachable moment awaited on the other side of the bookcase—a spiderweb? A butterfly? A really cool drawing of a spiderweb or a butterfly?

It was a turd in a bucket.

The story of how the turd came to rest in the bucket is sort of long and twisty and maybe better suited to a blog about the dark, early days of charter schools and my views on adequate funding for public education so, I'll forgo the explanations.

The point is that I'm the sort of person who thinks that a group of giddy 13-year-old boys, the same 13-year-old boys with whom I had spent the greater part of the previous 9 months and had proven themselves capable of producing a stench that could melt the skin off your face, would get excited about a butterfly.

I am trusting and naïve. I also happen to think that a turd in a bucket is funny but that's beside the point.

If you tell me that I have to see something, I will come running to see it. If you tell me something is true, I will believe you.

C doesn't take after me in this regard. She's a natural skeptic and an accomplished liar. Last week, after viciously squeezing a younger playmate/rival's nose to avoid having to share, she told me that Baby X had kicked her first. I told her that there were many eyewitnesses who couldn't confirm her story. She shrugged and brazened it out, “Baby X is a bad kid.”

A bad kid! Sometimes I just have to pause and admire the set on my daughter.

She gets this talent from T, aka, Mr. Mommicked, who can BS with the best of them. Like most people who can spin a good yarn, he assumes that everyone else is full of shit. Even when he sees a butterfly, he suspects it might actually be a turd in disguise.

And so, his first reaction upon reading this post was to check the date on the linked article and to note that the story was likely an April Fool's prank.

Turds. Turds! (shakes fist angrily at unsympathetic sky)

****

I've been ruminating on Mel's post refuting the "Breast is Best" campaign over at Stirrup Queens. I'm just a hack at this blogging stuff, so this isn't any sort of academic or scientific rumination, I'm just trying to figure out my own thoughts on the topic.

My only experience as a mother is well outside the norm. When I try to insert myself into conversations about pregnancy/birth/baby stuff with other women I make all sorts of weird blunders. I talk about death and NG tubes and how much newborn C's cheekless butt reminded me of a hairless cat. But reading Mel's post about the milk that never came in and the unwelcome, ill-informed advances of lactavists made me think that I may actually have a worthwhile contribution to a discussion that I usually avoid.

As the proud owner of one producing boob and the less-than-thrilled owner of one deficient boob, I feel like I have a special view of the world--one person with two completely different perspectives.

Lefty and Righty were raised in the same house under the same circumstances. They're more or less symmetrical. They were both present for all stages of the pregnancy and every step of our painful breastfeeding journey. But, they couldn't be more different from each other in terms of milk production.

Because I see butterflies instead of turds, I believed the LC when she suggested herbal supplements and pumping between feedings to improve my dismal production. When C was big enough to co-sleep, we piled into bed and tried nursing through the night. After 4 months of constant cajoling, Lefty managed to produce 4 oz....once...during a pumping session following an 8 hour gap in feedings. Righty never, ever got above 1.5 oz.

Same body, same regime, same baby, major difference.

I suppose it turns out that my entire life is a bit of a controlled experiment—half of a uterus, half of the expected fallopian tubes, half of a set of functioning breasts. Half of my children. The view from both sides. Sappy and had.

3 years ago, however, I had no perspective on the issue. I was in a desperate struggle to keep C alive and healthy and to hold onto my own sanity. Even though I was surrounded by friends and family who supported my quixotic lactation quest and agreed that supplemental formula-feeding was necessary, I was still terrified that I was damaging my surviving daughter. It probably didn't help that C's identical twin, R, succumbed to NEC which can be aggravated by formula-feeding--information that is mentioned in all of the materials I read about breastfeeding preemies.

I know dozens of women who successfully breastfed, a scant handful of women who tried and failed, and an even smaller set of women who tried, failed, and are willing to talk about it. While I was muddling about trying to get Righty to do anything useful at all, I read and studied and landed at the bizarre conclusion that I was doing something wrong (with Righty but not with Lefty). If I couldn't even believe myself when I told myself that I did everything I could, I can see why some firebrand lactavist might have trouble believing me.

I think that some lactavists really suffer from a lack of tact (does that make me a tactavist?). I completely agree with them that breast is best. During the 2-3 days when Lefty was really on her game, it was friggin' glorious. I felt like some sort of wizard. Breastfeeding was easier, cheaper, faster (breastmilk tastes way better than formula...ahem). It's just better in every way. But what kind of crappy person celebrates her ability to breastfeed by lording it over women who are struggling or just plain can't?

Advocacy is fine. Boldness is fine. Casting formula-feeders as misinformed women who got railroaded into bad decisions by big pharma is both rude and wrong, sort of like squeezing Baby X's nose and then calling her a bad kid to cover your own ass.

Of course C was partially formula-fed...

****

At some point in early 2006 I trotted eagerly forth toward parenthood. I'd heard great things about pregnancy and babies. I had grand plans. I was going to trust my body and do the best for my baby. I expected butterflies because that's all anyone ever talks about. When my personal experience with parenthood turned out to be a little more like a winged turd, I blamed myself for failing my daughters.

Fortunately, somewhere toward the bottom of my downward spiral I read about a woman named Elizabeth Goodyear. She had been born prematurely, her twin had died, her parents kept her alive with whiskey and cream fed through an eyedropper. As of 2008 she was 101 years old.

A less trusting sort might assume that this is a turd in disguise, maybe even a ruse put together by the Evil Formula Empire. I prefer to think it's a butterfly.

In the article Ms. Goodyear says, “I think I only remember the amusing things; I don’t remember any depressing things. I think I just put them out of my mind. I know everybody has things that they want to forget, but I don’t even have to forget. I just don’t remember.”

I think I'm going to take her advice.

Still Life 365 - Trees

2010-09-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

1. When you saw the theme of trees for the month of September, what immediately came to your mind?

Honestly my thought was something along the lines of, "Ooooo, oooo, I have a lot of things to say about trees."

2. What kinds of words do you associate with trees?

Enduring, tough, adaptable

3. Of these words, do you associate any with yourself?

I don't necessarily think of myself as particularly tough or enduring by nature (perhaps by circumstance). I suppose I'm adaptable but, really, who isn't?

4. Have you been an outdoorsy person throughout your life?

In a former life, many years ago, I was an outdoor experiential educator. I spent a lot of time in the woods, teaching kids about biology, ecology, and our relationship with trees and plants. In fact, I built an entire curriculum on traditional medicinal uses and various edible wild plants. Now I spend most of my time indoors staring at a computer screen wondering if I could somehow get back to that former life.

5. How has your relationship with nature changed since your loss(es)?

On the one hand, I feel a certain kinship toward critters and the sorts of indignities they endure, e.g., storm-blown baby birds and squirrels, street trees with their bark scraped off by lawnmowers and car doors. I feel like we're all sort of trapped by fate and just getting by as best we can. On the other hand, I've actually been sort of pissed at a mother goose carelessly letting her 6(!) babies cross a busy road--doesn't she care about them?!

Overall, I feel like reflecting on the great variety of life on this planet and the very peculiar and amazing adaptations plants and animals exhibit is a good way to feel both inspired and humbled.

6. Did you plant a tree or bush in honor of your child?

Since R is actually named after a plant that grows relatively well in our neck of the woods, we've planted several little shrubs in her honor...mostly to good effect. My brother has had multiple fatalities of the same plant. He finally gave up because it was starting to creep him out.

Last year I found a tiny, volunteer red maple growing under the playground equipment we donated in R's honor. At the moment it's still in a temporary home at my Mom's house but I think we'll move it into our yard in the spring. I'm pretty nervous about moving it--what if it doesn't survive?

7. If you have planted a tree for your child, in what ways do you incorporate the tree into your life? If you haven't, what natural images do you associate with your loss? (Do you tend to it? Do you meditate or reflect under it? Do you places flowers by it?)

At the moment I just sort of fret about its safety and survival...sigh. But I have big plans for it.

8. Trees have also been used to represent families. Talk a bit about your own family tree.

I've been thinking a lot about my family tree lately and wondering how many of my foremothers endured babyloss or fertility issues. We don't exactly have a huge family and there are several childless great-aunts in the mix.

I grew up hearing about my great-uncle who died shortly after birth and how my great-grandmother knew he was going to die when she saw an owl outside the kitchen window and how my great-grandfather lied and said that the baby had been baptized so that he could be buried in the family plot. This story is a fairly good illustrative example of some key family characteristics. A tiny part of my brain is also confident that R is in good hands with my superstitious Grandmom and my white-lying Grandpop.

9. What are your feelings now about family trees and exploring your own lineage?

I can't say it's something I'm all that interested in. I like getting information in bits and pieces from various relatives at family gatherings.

10. The rings of trees fascinate me. I remember learning that in hard years, the rings were smaller, or darker than in years of good water. Describe the rings of your tree.

Over the last decade we've been on a 2-year cycle for death and mayhem. During the more mayhemish years I always remember a friend of mine who liked to say, "When it rains, it fuckin' pours." So, I guess we have alternating skinny and fat rings. But I'm hoping for a drought.

Sidenote: There is a spectacular sunrise at the moment and the dog is insisting that we go for a closer look. No time to edit or correct anything...hope I did ok.

Side-sidenote: After letting this sit for a while I realized that I sound like an ignoramus when saying that I'm not interested in learning more about my family tree. Of course I'm interested. I think I mean that I prefer the casual/serendipitous approach rather than the formal research and interviewing. There's nothing quite like finding out that you're related to the Amazing Kreskin at a random family gathering. I'm sure no one in the family would have owned up to this fact if they thought I was recording it.

Infinite Possibility...Part 2

2010-09-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

So last week I was chatting with the New Guy at Work (NGaW) and he mentions that someone was arrested back in April while poking around the dumpster outside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and that he CLAIMED TO BE FROM THE FUTURE and subsequently DISAPPEARED from his room at the mental health facility where he was detained.

I found this whole thing surprising for several reasons:
1) I was unaware that something so bizarre had happened for almost 5 months
2) NGaW is also nerdy enough to read up on the LHC
3) People apparently still wear tweed in the future rather than head-to-toe silver lame (imagine the accent mark, folks)

Do you ever feel like you have a choice to make? You could go on with your skeptical views, you can listen to the teacher and assume that some things are just not possible...or you could exit the herd, leave the other sheeple behind, and open your eyes to the possibility that ripples out there along the edges.

Kit-kats for everyone in a communist chocolate hellhole!?! I wonder if it means what we understand it to mean or if language has just evolved.

****

Imagine a sunny day at the beach with ginormous, hurricane waves, an opinionated 3-year-old, and a whole bunch of people who can't see how desperately you want to be alone. Imagine a long walk down the beach and a wrestling match in the public restroom (with said 3-year-old), a large cup of french fries and a threatening horde of gulls tracking your every move. Struggle to think only happy thoughts about this precious child--the antidote to every rotten feeling you've had over the past 3 years.

Feel your nerves stretch under the strain. Pluck one. It's a high C.

Finish the fries, hand the kid a bucket and shovel, sit down on the chair that you lugged all the way here and haven't used once. Don't cave in. Take a break. She can get over it.

Look up for no particular reason. See a lone butterfly fighting the wind. Watch it beat a drunken path across the dunes. Smile as it approaches and smacks your grouchy daughter right in the face. Try not to cry when she laughs. Wave good-bye as it flies away.

Watch it disappear into the rippling edge.

Feel better.

Wishing Time Away

2010-08-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Summer just zipped by this year. Or maybe I zipped by summer.

It seems to happen that way now that I'm old enough to be unquestionably grown-up. In June I start off with an ambitious list of free concerts and farmers markets--my imagination mistakes me for a woman of leisure once the temperature inches above 70 degrees F.

June is a frenzy of summer--picnics, baseball, splashing in the kiddie pool. July never fails to be overtaken by events. August is a parade of housekeeping feats of strength punctuated by bouts of emotional distress.

By the end of it my brain is paddling around inside my head like the baby bunnies the dog used to chase into the backyard pool. Only one more week to luxuriate on the beach! You should rent a kayak or something! Make some iced-tea and sit in a lounge chair! Why didn't you tie-dye anything this summer?

Normally Fall would come along in a few weeks and scoop me up into the safety of short days and limited possibilities. This year, however, we're shifting into phase 2 of our parent lifestyle--preschool.

C has a new backpack and a set of jumpers handcrafted by her Grammy hanging neatly in the closet. We're practicing bathroom skills and reminding her that her classmates and teacher will not want to hear about butt cheeks during the school day. She dutifully takes in this information and then spends her evenings pretending to be a baby.

I didn't realize I was dreading the transition until I found myself staring at the ceiling this morning around 3AM while my mind concocted all sorts of misery. What if she gets bullied or excluded? I think she'd have an easier time if she turns out to be a mean girl. Oh my god! I'm hoping that my daughter turns into a mean girl!

There's no shortage of things that need to happen around here. The laundry's backed up. I can't concentrate on the meeting agenda I'm supposed to be developing. I have no plan for dinner for tonight...or any night this week to tell the truth. All I can think about is C's clean, little self-perception getting tromped all over by a bunch of strangers.

I've already marked the last day of the school year on my calendar--next June. I'll skip work that day. We'll get ice cream at a local dairy that we haven't visited yet and go to a free concert. We'll make a bunch of plans for things that we probably won't do.

Now that summer's over, summer just can't come soon enough.

Three

2010-08-26T02:06:00.000-07:00

And so it's here. Another year gone without R. We miss you and love you, kiddo.

Lifeboat

2010-08-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Can you scoot over a little bit? I'm getting a crick in my neck. Better yet, why don't you hop out and swim alongside? I'm feeling a little self-absorbed this week and I need to stretch my legs.

In my real life I don't talk about R very frequently. I may throw in a cautious self-deprecating remark about my less-than-ideal experience with pregnancy or a veiled comment about the 'hard year or 2' after C was born but even those are few and far between. It's not that I don't want to talk about her or can't--I don't want to hear what other people think about R or her birth or her death or my reaction to it.

On the few forays I've made into the world of public grieving (i.e., expressing sorrow in front of people without dead babies) I've been advised to 'find something that will help me turn that negative energy into a positive result' or to 'stop worrying because it won't bring her back.' My former boss suggested I use the time freed up by trauma-induced insomnia to get more work done. I've also been ignored because, as we all know, if you want something to go away, you should ignore it.

The birthday has passed. We are now in our 3rd grief season (it may actually be the 4th given the circumstances leading up to their birth). This year's theme is apparently “Self-indulgent Prick.”

T pointed out that I cannot get annoyed by family members and friends who behave as though R never existed if I'm the one leading them in this direction. It seems I have made myself a tiny little bed with room enough for only me and a 3 lb. 12-day-old baby and I now have to lie in it.

In my mind I'm trying to spare everyone. The monumental R-shaped hole inside my heart isn't really fit for company. If I lay it out in full view it is both impossible to ignore and hideous beyond imagining. It will mock your kid's asthma* and kick you right in your arthritic knee. It wants you to know what it feels like to kiss your dead baby's forehead in the back room of the funeral home. And, goddamn it, if you don't stop talking about your Tar.get boycott, it's going to rip your head off and shove it up your ass.

In preparation for the kickass birthday party we had planned for C, I did the mannerly thing and wrestled Old Ugly into submission. After all, this was the first time all of these folks would be gathered together since I married T back in 2002 and I wanted it to go smoothly.

My family did not appreciate the effort. In fact, they didn't even notice. So, in a fit of pique I cracked open my laptop and executed the blogging equivalent of kicking the dog after a hard day at work. There I was, Monday morning, lounging with my feet in some undeserving person's face, complaining that the lifeboat lacks luxury appointments. But, you're all too decent and supportive to point that out and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

I think of myself as a fortunate person. I've always been healthy, capable, free of any crippling mental, physical, or emotional handicaps. For most of my life I've 'had it to give' or at least felt like I didn't need to take anything from anyone. Then my Dad died and then I became a mom and then one of my daughters died and I've been struggling to reconcile my former carefree self with this new baggage-laden version ever since.

Sympathy has never come easy for me. Like most fortunate people I always thought that I had earned a life that ran smoothly. People with problems could just work their way out of them or not but, that had nothing to do with me.

You'd think that I'd be a font of sympathy now that I know the truth about suffering but it's really not that simple. My well of caring is miles deep but only an inch or two wide. If it doesn't have to do with death or imminent death of a young human, I really can't get too stirred up. (OK, maybe I can get a little weepy thinking about the polar bears drowning for want of pack ice but mostly because it reminds me that children living in low-lying areas of Bangladesh could be swept away by rising seas.)

Everyday I get up, take a shower, head to the train and somehow manage to walk the walk of a conscientious, upright citizen but it feels like such a sham. I weigh everything against R's death. At the slightest provocation I find myself back in the family room of the NICU watching T hold her out so that the doctor can listen for a heartbeat and call the time of death. Sometime right around 4pm on Sunday, August 26, 2007, the universe collapsed into a pinpoint and everything other than R and C and T ceased to exist.

Over time, the pinpoint widened to let in other families struggling to recover from babyloss but there's still nowhere near enough room for mundane complaints of the non-grieving, non-fatal variety.

On Wednesday it will be three years since R took her last breath, Thursday will be three years since she died. I'm not sure how I thought I would feel after three years.

Last year I was completely adrift on August 26. I had just started reaching out to other folks via the blog. I was living in my mom's house and wondering if we'd ever manage to get pregnant again. I walked down to R's playground and looked for some type of sign that R still existed somewhere. And I suppose I found it.

This year I feel less alone and more settled. On Friday morning I got a card from Awesome Angie (R's first and only birthday card). Several of you sent messages of support here or through email or on FB. We're in our own house. At some point last fall we decided that we really don't want more kids which is great because I don't think we can produce anymore anyway. T recently started a new job that suits him perfectly.

We are where we want to be...except that R isn't here with us. These days, missing her is just a part of daily life--easy as taking a breath. Truthfully, it's probably easier than it would have been to parent her if she had survived.

On Thursday, C and I will drive down to the beach for a reunion with some of my grad school classmates who are now mostly happily married with (100% living) children. I'm sure that we'll get caught up on life since graduation--the choices we've made, the opportunities we've missed. I will endeavor to stay focused on the conversation but my mind will likely be off and wandering, trying to figure out how I could have failed my daughter so miserably and how I can go on growing my career, making decisions about our future without her.

Whenever I talk to other parents about topics other than parenting I always wonder if they've also demoted everything else. If it comes easily, if they can crank out living babies with no trouble at all, do they sit at their desks some days wondering how the hell they got there? Do they ever feel like jumping up from the desk, running back home and never leaving the house again? Do they ever spend an entire day mulling over the power random chance has over our lives?

Do they ever dig up a puny little tree and replant it in the yard because it might be a sign from the universe that we're all part of something too great to comprehend?

Do they realize that you can learn everything you need to know in 12 days?

*NOTE: After I published this I had instant remorse about that asthma comment. I know that asthma can be fatal and is terrifying for parent and child alike. I thought about deleting and replacing it with something less horrible but I left it in because a) I already pointed out that I'm feeling lousy about being a prick b) it highlights exactly how unreasonable I can be when feeling sorry for myself.

Birthday

2010-08-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

I can't figure out how to be around other people.

I recognize that I'm not like them any more. Even the ones with some sort of personal tragedy generally have something less bizarre.

I know they have questions. I know they have feelings. I know that they want to share these things with me.

I am a clenched fist.

A birthday celebration, bouncy castles and bubble machines in my yard--I dash from one thing to another, reluctant to get pinned down and examined.

They watch me flutter around, spinning the plates and keeping the balls aloft. They are impressed/troubled/relieved.

I watch C jostle across the yard amidst a cloud of pink dresses and hair bows. I see a second set of bouncing honey-blond pigtails and I know I'm not the only one. Their collective will can almost conjure another freshly minted three-year-old. But they still can't understand.

I'm not the self-appointed keeper of misery, never have been. I'm an easy one, a good listener. It was touch and go for a while there. The old complainers braced themselves for the arrival of a new sheriff in town but I collapsed halfway through the campaign. My scars are not up for a vote.

They wait patiently to see if I want a turn and then, in the absence of any airing of my troubles, they bound into the void with their discomforts, disorders, disappointing diagnoses. I nod and express sympathy. I wish I could take a pill to fix my problem. I want to tell them that I would endure everything they have described to have R back but I know they wouldn't believe me because they can't understand.

And I'm glad they can't understand because I love all of them and nobody should ever have to feel like this.

So I leave them to draw their own conclusions and quietly take my place in the family lore.

C falls asleep on the couch all dirty feet and sweat-plastered hair. The guests exit, smiling. The party is a success. I am satisfied.

But in the quiet solitude of our room, T and I hold hands and shed tears for our other birthday girl, wherever she may be. And my heart breaks all over again because next to C and R, T is the one I love the most and he is the only other one who understands.

Rosebud

2010-08-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday evening T called to tell me that our car was on fire. He was getting ready to call for a tow and needed me to pick him up.

My immediate response to this news was rage which then softened into something between sadness and anxiety. As an avowed walker and devoted user of mass transit it feels strange to admit it but, I love my car.

The car was our first major purchase as a married couple. The day it arrived from Germany we picked it up and drove through the night from NC to surprise my parents with a visit. The diesel engine means that it can travel ridiculous distances on one tank of gas. When the “shit goes down” we can run it on fry-o-lator grease and flip the seats down to sleep in the back. If you aren't convinced yet, I should also tell you that the financing was set up by a six-fingered man...with a manicure.

I think its purchase may be the only decision that T and I have ever agreed on 100%. Our little silver station wagon embodies us at our best.

I hate our other car. Faced with a shortening cervix that curtailed the walking portion of my commute and a job change that required T to drive, we were forced to buy a second vehicle. In a fit of optimism we went with the mini-van figuring that we'd need something that could easily fit 2 babies and a dog. The guy who sold it to us was young and slick and had no evidence of polydactyly. It felt wrong from the minute we bought it.

There are people who will tell you that you can jinx yourself with a surfeit of optimism. There are people who believe that pessimism and negativity attract bad things into your life. All of these people are assholes.

The mini-van didn't kill my daughter. It didn't generate a toxic haze of doubt that poisoned her and it didn't draw the attention of the Fates and inspire them to put me back in my place. As cars go, it even performs most tasks quite admirably but I hate it all the same.

Most parents loathe their mini-van, a.k.a. swagger wagon, because it hammered the final nail into the coffin for their hipness. I celebrate Groundhog's Day with a haiku contest every year--I was never in danger of being hip. To me, it is the vehicle of a family that has arrived at the desired destination. It feeds the illusion that we have everything we want. The cargo room, the extra row of seating, the plethora of cup holders—they're all just reminders of the plenty that I'd gladly sacrifice for just one more day with R. I wonder if I look like I'm getting my swagger on when I roll up to Big Box Retail in my shiny van with my spritely daughter in tow.

The station wagon is the path we chose. The van is the path that was forced on us.

Buying a car that can double as EarthshipOC in some Mad Max-esque future seems so naïve now but I like having a physical reminder that I once made decisions with the unwavering belief that my opinion mattered. When I drive it I feel young and capable.

The van makes me feel like a failure. I never drive it unless I absolutely have to. Anyone who sits in the captain's chair behind the driver is automatically transformed into “not R.” I never tell these unfortunate passengers that they're sitting in my dead daughter's seat. I feel like an ass for even thinking it. Sometimes I'm tempted to pull to the side of the road and pitch R's seat into the woods so that I don't have to deal with all of the cognitive dissonance anymore.

Luckily the mechanic was able to make the necessary repair and the wagon is back in action but, for those couple days when we thought we might have to replace it, I was really a little beside myself. Guess I'm not as alright as I think I am.

White Elephant

2010-08-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

I seem to be back on top in the battle for parental supremacy. T thinks I'm C's new favorite because I'm willing to spend hours crouched on the floor drawing giraffes on demand. I know that it's just a phase. Soon enough she won't want anything to do with me.

That's just the way it is, I'm afraid. The mother-daughter relationship is always fraught with tension. The mother looks at her daughter and sees another shot at missed opportunities, the daughter looks at the mother and sees someone who is clueless about everything. I wonder if it's less tense with more than one daughter around to bear the brunt of mom's deferred dreams. As an only daughter raising an only daughter, I won't ever know for sure.

I can't imagine ever being anything less than completely smitten with my feisty, silly girl. If she grows up to be anxious and moody I'll admire her depth of character. If she dates the wrong kind of boy (or girl) I'll silently applaud her romantic spirit even as I'm spouting off about STDs and birth control and exclaiming over the attributes of others I consider more suitable.

She has such a light in her--just like we all do before time bends us low. I can't help but worry about the first gust of wind that will threaten to extinguish it. I worry that it will be something I say or do that makes her feel like she's not enough.

When my Dad died I went to great lengths to keep my Mom happy and busy. I thought I could fill the space in her life if I just poured enough stuff into it. I placed quantity over quality. I didn't want to see that I could never be an adequate replacement for her husband. Even five years later I'm a little wounded by the realization that I can't make my Mom happy.

Sometimes I watch C sleep and wonder what her future holds and then I stop myself, unwilling to tempt fate. Three years ago today I was in the hospital wondering the same thing. At the time I wasn't thinking about any sort of distant future, I was focused on finding out when the perinatologist would be by with his handy portable sonogram machine. Judging from the frantic tugging at my ribcage, I knew C was still alive and I could feel R hiccuping away on the lower righthand side of my belly but I knew things could change in a moment.

I remember thinking about what I would do if C died. I played with the idea of both of them dying and I even talked to T briefly about what he should do if all three of us died. But, C was really the one I worried about most. It wasn't a heavy, emotional thing. My dad had died two years earlier and I was still dealing with the logistical aftermath. Faced with the possibility of another tragic episode, I wanted to have a plan. So, I imagined a future with different arrangements of cremated remains and I took a nap.

The concept of C having many possible futures in August 2010 feels so strange as compared to the high-intensity rapid shifts of August 2007. Three years ago I made peace with her impending death. I told myself that I could survive it and then August 14 came and she was suddenly healthy again. And R, who had seemed so much more likely, was suddenly gone.

On Sunday T and I were discussing our hopes for C and I realized that I have a bit of a block. He was all "advanced degrees" and "making a difference in the world" and I was sort of stuck on "breathing" and "ambulatory."

In this five minute conversation I saw a vision of my own future as one of those sunshine-blowing, enabling nightmare mothers and I started to worry a bit. It's one thing to have my own expectations of the world crumble a bit in the wake of my R's death but, I can't stand the thought of C losing out because of it.

I feel as though I've traded in my ability to hope and plan for more capacity to cope with "very bad things." What if there are sunny skies and advanced degrees ahead? Is it my job to serve as C's chief apologist if she turns out to be a fuck-up? Am I turning her into a fuck-up with my low expectation?

And so, I know this is the slow season for blogging and I know I've been bad about commenting on other blogs but, I could use some advice here. How do you go about parenting responsibly when you're so relieved to have a living child that you can't figure out what ought to come next?

I know that a lot of you are holding onto parenting advice that you can't share with the IRL folks because it involves death and loss.

Lay it on me.

Dreams

2010-07-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

Last week at GITW, Chris asked folks in this community what we've been dreaming about. I really had no answer at the time as my dreams (though incredibly strange and vivid) never seem to pertain to events in my waking life.

I have a recurrent dream that involves moving into a new house that seems fairly normal but discovering that it's full of the most incredible stuff. Sometimes the extras are things like an elaborate art-deco in-ground pool in the basement. Sometimes it's a secret underground tunnel to my favorite bar from some other place I've lived. I love this dream. The perfect happiness of finding something completely delightful, unexpected, and unearned makes for a fantastic night's sleep.

Last night's dream featured a home office with one of those old-timey double desks and a lot of dark wood paneling (the fancy kind...not the 70's rec room stuff). It was the kind of desk that you might see in one of those old movies about a spunky lady journalist. Then a door opened up in the paneling and I walked into the most hideous secret room.

Everything (even the ceiling) was covered in harvest gold shag carpet and it had one of those conversation pits. C was playing in the pit, running up and down the stairs. After reminding her to be careful, I took a spin around the room trying to figure out how long it would take to get all of the carpet off of the walls and when I looked back at C, there were two of her.

I asked C if she could see the other girl and she said, "Yes," as if nothing could be more normal.

Then the other C looked at me and said, "I'm R."

I reached out my hands and held her by the shoulders. She was wearing the outfit I had set out for C last night on the piece of furniture where we keep her urn, a sleeveless pink shirt and jean shorts--she was warm and she looked happy and healthy. They both smiled at me and went back to playing while I started yelling for T to come and see what I found. I had a chance to see the look of absolute joy on his face as he reached to pick her up right before I woke.

It's not much--a few minutes with our missing daughter generated by my hyperactive subconscience--but I have to tell you that I feel completely replenished.

Cornucopia

2010-06-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

My brother has a condition that my family refers to as the "Luck of the Polish." Those of you who have lived in the northeastern portion of the US will be familiar with Polish jokes and will know why this is funny. T tells me that Kentuckians make these same jokes about people from Indiana who are apparently just as stupid as Polish people. Before anyone gets their feathers ruffled about this, let me assure everyone that I am 75% Polish-American. The other 25% is Italian but, aside from my utter loathing of golumpki, you'd never know it. If you plunked me down in the middle of Warsaw, tourists would ask me for directions. Thus, as a child, I had to grow a thick skin...and learn how not to fall out of a tree while raking leaves.

Anyway, back to the "Luck of the Polish." Simply put, when something crappy happens to my brother, it usually results in some sort of financial windfall. Usually the crappy thing involves a blow to his rather ample head, some stitches or staples, and a quick settlement with the restaurant owner/driver who blew the red light/employer. Bad luck morphs into cash and everyone goes home satisfied.

I'm not similarly afflicted. My mom has always said that I have more ambition than my brother and, therefore, don't need any luck. She's said that she knows I will always land on my feet.

I thought about this a lot while floundering helplessly on my back during fall of 2007 and most of 2008. Is it true? Am I without luck? Is ambition really an adequate substitute for luck? It sure feels like I could use a little luck...I wonder where I could find it.

What is luck, anyway? Some days I think I'm lucky to have C. Some days it seems like luck really has nothing to do with it. After all, surviving birth and infancy is apparently quite normal. We all managed to do it, right? Even those of us with bad luck. And it goes on from there.

Have sex--get pregnant--have a baby--raise baby into a) a functioning member of society b) a menace to society c) somewhere halfway in between. Repeat. Completely normal. Easy as pie.

Unless it isn't.

I found out a couple of weeks ago that I have a unicornate uterus and one functioning fallopian tube. In the reports, the radiologist described my uterus as "banana-shaped" (isn't there some sort of latin word for that that sounds less pathetic?). For those of you who aren't up on uterine anomalies, this means that I have roughly half of a womb and a very poor chance at another successful pregnancy.

This was not good news.

I don't think of it as strictly bad news either. T and I had already accepted that our baby-makin' days were likely over anyway and our apparent secondary infertility finally has a name. My only regret is that I won't be able to serve as a gestational carrier for a very deserving couple.

The causality isn't quite right to call this an instance of Polish luck but this news has cast the past three years in a completely different light. Most of the way to "advanced maternal age" with only half of the requisite parts, I somehow got to conceive 2 babies the old-fashioned way, carry them for 32 weeks, and witness both of their completely unlikely live births.

I feel like my entire identity has shifted. Like a smart girl who's just been called pretty. I'm considering a trip to the casinos. I'm thinking about joining a carnival and charging people a dollar to rub my belly of banana-shaped good fortune.

For the past three years I've been wishing for normalcy. Now I know that I was never normal and that I'll never be normal. But I think I have something better. I am lucky.

Weight-training for the Soul

2010-06-14T07:15:00.001-07:00

I don't know why I even look at parenting magazines. They always end up pissing me off one way or another. But the doctor was running late and I'd left my knitting home so I ventured forth.

I was already deep into eye-rolling mode over the outrageously priced 'must-have' mommy items and serious discussions about the problems of privilege when I came across the most HI-larious piece of clever. Someone had taken the stages of grief and applied them to the loss of her pre-motherhood ass. See, it's funny because it's about mourning a less-than-perky butt...just like one might mourn the death of a loved-one or a child.

LOL...LMAO...ROTFLMAO...or whatever the kids are saying these days.

I suppose she and her editor were both absent on the day they handed out the common sense.

I'm not really one for therapy or therapy-speak. I've noted before that I firmly believe every thought that comes out of my addled little brain is neither unique nor unnatural. (This belief extends to the voice in my head that reminds me how therapy would cut into my sock yarn fund) All the same, I've watched my daughter die and I've watched my ass reach for the ground and I can assure everyone that only one of these things deserves the full five stage treatment.

The authoress behind this little gem is clueless on two counts. Firstly, obviously, death and sag are truly not in the same league. One can be giggled about over cosmos with the girls, the other is more of a drinking alone sort of experience. Second, the entire piece built up to 'acceptance' as a resting place--a cute little baby and more cushion for the pushin' ain't so bad after all, right? (sigh, smile, head-tilt).

No one's ass is really ever beyond help. Put down the Little Debbies (or Whole Foods organic chocolate truffles) and get to the gym (or call your private pilates instructor). Do some squats! Feel the burn! You'll be back to a size 2 in no time!

Loss, real loss never lets you rest. Acceptance is a lifelong isometric hold for your soul. Clench and hold! Keep holding! Until you die! Oh, and smile or at least seem stoic while you do it because it makes everyone upset when you bare your teeth like that.

Admittedly, I'm not exactly thrilled with the current state of my own ass but my soul is well on its way to an ass like carved granite--high and mighty as a high school homecoming queen, tight and right as summer's first plum.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

2010-06-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

I really can't stand squirrels.

They have nothing to do all day but figure out ways to chew through different parts of my house. They are agents of destruction. Pretty rats with bushy tails...at least rats have the courtesy to stay out of sight.

Our neighborhood is a squirrel haven. They run around in packs waking us up with their pre-dawn chatter about the delicious plants available in our gardens. They antagonize the dogs.

I admire their industriousness. I want to squish their tiny, evil-doing bodies with my car tires.

And then there's Bad Ass.

Bad Ass is the decrepit old-timer that lives in the oak outside our front window. Most squirrels scurry. Bad Ass takes his time. Most squirrels get by on their looks. Bad Ass ain't much to look at.

The bushy part of his tail is missing. It may have been ripped off by a hawk or a feral cat or trapped under an errant tire. His long, scraggly, naked tail trails behind him as he strolls along. It marks him as a veteran of hard times. Someone not to be tangled with.

In my imagination he's decades old, an ancient battle-axe, a hero to his squirrely kin. They gather around him and listen to the stories that he delivers in a gravelly voice with the beady-eyed squirrel equivalent of the thousand-yard stare.

Given his obvious toughness, he's probably the one that could cause me the most trouble. But I like him. Even when I see him gnawing on my siding as I leave for work in the morning I think, "Hey, there's Bad Ass, MY squirrel."

I don't know if kinship with a squirrel is a sign that I still have a good hold on my humanity or if it's an indication that I've gone 'round the bend.

***

This morning I saw the crows clustered around a roadkill as I stepped out of my front door. They flew away when I approached and watched me from the opposite side of the street. I glanced down as I walked by and caught a glimpse of a long, scraggly, naked tail.

I suppose I can't feel too badly about it. Bad Ass was clearly living on borrowed time. But it seems like he deserved to go out in more of a blaze of glory--carried off by an eagle or devoured by a snake. I hope the driver at least had to swerve to get him.

Rest in peace, Bad Ass. You will be missed.

Thousand

2010-06-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's such a great, round number. A go-to expression for me.

"I told you a thousand times..."

"I could sleep for a thousand years..."

"A thousand pounds of shit in a five pound bag."

And here I am, just over a thousand days into this parenting gig.

It's a long time, a thousand days. If I do the math in the opposite direction and consider what I had going a thousand days before they were born it seems like I've lived two full lifetimes since. The end of 2004 was marked by the impending arrival of my youngest niece, my Dad's final Christmas (though we didn't realize it at the time), and a trip to the emergency vet for my new puppy who was suffering from something called mega-esophagus (yes, it's completely disgusting). I bought my favorite pair of jeans.

If I think about what we might be doing a thousand days from now, it almost gives me vertigo. Kindergarten for C, 38th birthday looming, and the puppy (who made a full recovery btw) will be pushing 9 years. Assuming that we're all still here, of course.

It feels like I should take an inventory to mark the occasion. Maybe if I unpack my heart and mind and spread the contents out on the floor I'll see some sort of pattern emerge. Maybe everything will suddenly make sense. That "reason" that the Alliance of Tired Bromides keeps floating will make a special appearance and vaporize my feelings of parental failure.

We're still in the process of settling into our new life and our new house. Each box that we unpack is like a tiny Pompeii--an artifact of disaster. A box marked "dog toys, whistles, spices" taunts me from the corner of the spare room. Who were these people who bought enough whistles that they warranted their own packing label? And what kind of crazy person packs spices with dog toys and announces it to the world?

We aren't those people anymore.

I think we've learned to wear our peculiar mix of joy and despair a little more gracefully. People do less brow-furrowing when I engage them in mundane small talk...and hey, I can engage in mundane small talk! T almost electronically eviscerated an FB friend who wandered into my lane last week (she responded to my post about my early-rising dog with a complaint about her twins who won't sleep in) but we discussed and decided we shouldn't rain on her parade.

I still burn out lightbulbs when I get angry but we seem to be changing them less frequently.

Rounding the corner and heading for the three-year mark, I occasionally have the sensation that I'm exactly where and who I want to be. I'm not so sure that I would want to be the clueless FB commenter or the sharer of crazy twin-parenting hijinks. Sometimes I can even think about the upside of raising an only child without feeling like I'm killing R all over again.

My daughter is dead. I miss her and I will always love her but, my other daughter is alive and healthy. How can I look at C, knowing what I know about the slim margin between possible and impossible, and be less than thrilled about my good fortune?

A thousand days ago it felt as though every notion I'd ever had about how the world works was blasted right out of my head by the one-two punch of a dead baby and a living baby.

If I crack open the vault and take a thorough look inside, I can see that some things survived intact. I still curse like a truck driver and laugh at T's stupid jokes. I still hate beets, mummies, and TV crime/hospital dramas. I still think that voting is important and that people shouldn't own handguns. I'm still afraid of right-wing nut-jobs.

Other parts are damaged beyond recognition. The section that stored all of my high-flown ideas about the 'right' way to parent is just a steaming pile and I seem to have lost my interest in celebrity gossip (sigh).

I have a stack of shiny new things I've learned from my girls--an appreciation for the role that luck plays in our lives, the ability to ignore small problems, the patience to meet people where they are, a thorough understanding of couch cushion fort engineering.

As far as I can tell, there's no 'reason' tucked in among the jumble. I could have learned and continued to grow if R had lived...even if she was perfectly normal and healthy. This accumulated knowledge doesn't even seem particularly special. I doubt it looks significantly different than the stuff that other parents have learned.

I wish I had some grand bit of wisdom to pass along. All I can say with any certainty is that I'm hoping for a smoother ride over the next thousand days.

Getting Nowhere and Liking It

2010-04-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Right around the time I started this blog, a friend told me that his wife was fighting cancer. Sadly, she passed away in early January and, since then, he’s been muddling through the ‘new normal’ with his two young children. This week I saw him in person for the first time since she died.

There’s a look to people who are grieving that’s hard to describe but easily recognized by everyone. He still takes up the same amount of space but seems lighter…like he’s floating outside of his body while the auto-pilot handles the social niceties. He hovers just slightly to the side of his former self. He makes people uneasy.

I asked him if he was feeling like a human again yet and he laughed. He said he couldn’t believe how much he hates work now and I laughed. We chuckled about the our new found surliness. All of this silliness made some of the other people in the room shoot me happy/panicked it’s-so-good-to-see-him-smile-again sort of looks. I’m not sure they would’ve smiled if they were within earshot.

One of them suggested that I take him to lunch, presumably to continue the ‘cheerification’ process and encourage his recovery (as if a recovery is a destination to be reached as quickly as possible).

****

June 2008
Church carnival beer garden, family snack break

I suppose the blond-haired, blue-eyed identical twin toddler girls who sat down next to us were cute and amusing. And that obscure pop song from the ‘60’s with our dead daughter’s name in it was an interesting choice for the suburban bar band providing the evening’s entertainment.

Luckily there was funnel cake on hand to prevent me from melting into a puddle of tears or erupting into deranged laughter (hard to tell in those days). I’m pretty sure deep-fried starch is the answer to most of the world’s problems.

****

April 2009
Cube farm @ unnamed government agency

My co-worker likely thought she was doing me a favor by telling me that another of our colleagues was expecting twins. I’m sure it was a courtesy to prevent my being blindsided at staff meeting or some other group event. I probably should have been appreciative but, I really just wanted to staple her mouth shut.

I don’t know what I said but I can remember that she looked a little bit like this so it probably wasn’t supportive/graceful/friendly/nice or whatever it is that people want to hear from the bereaved during these conversations.

****

April 2010
Conference Room – national bureaucratic meeting

“So, how are the girls?”

Girls? What girls could she possibly be asking about?

Now, in her defense, I did change jobs and move away shortly after my maternity leave but, it’s hard to believe that a woman who sat 15 feet away from me throughout my pregnancy could forget that we dropped from the plural to the singular.

So, I looked behind me to make sure she wasn’t talking to someone else and then just played it off and said that C is growing up fast.

A new member of our work circle who didn’t know me ‘before’ asked me if I had more than one.

“No, just one daughter.”

“I have 3. A daughter in college and twin girls in high school.”

“Wow, that must be interesting.”

****

The lunch appointment didn’t happen after all. We just sort of tagged along with the group and engaged in work-appropriate chit-chat. I’m sure some of our colleagues were disappointed by the apparent lack of coping. They're probably wondering how we'll ever cross the finish line if we don't get moving.

But there is no way to finish coping with loss.

First of all, R isn’t coming back and neither is W’s wife. It doesn’t matter if we react with tears, anger, or patience. We can’t earn them back by having just the right conversation at the salad bar or by being more considerate to our friends or by suffering or by giving up bad habits and staying upbeat.

Second, there will always be bizarre reminders and setbacks. I can imagine some distant future where my hoverboard or my flying car will make a sound just like the pump that delivered R's prostoglandin drip and my tears will stain my silver jumpsuit.

It’s forever. And there’s no getting over it or through it. All we can do is be patient and try not to get trapped underneath…and apply funnel cake as needed.

Apology

2010-04-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

I remember feeling extremely relieved that I still had all of my toes on my 10th birthday. The relief wasn't because of any imminent danger to my toes (frostbite, gangrene, flesh-eating athlete's foot, etc.) but rather, a reaction to a story I'd heard about one of the neighborhood dads who lost a few toes to a lawnmower at the age of 9. I spent my 9th year studiously avoiding open-toed shoes and naturally, lawnmowers, and convincing myself that if I could just make it one more year I'd get to keep all of my toes for the rest of my life.

I suppose I could dismiss the whole thing as nutty 9-year-old logic but I think I was onto something way back then. The world's a crazy, uncontrollable place and it feels good to put some boundaries around little pieces of it.

I think I owe y'all an apology for that last post. Having a whine about the unfairness of my FIL's mortality is pretty bad form. To be clear, I do care about my FIL and I want him to live a long and happy life and I don't think that everything's about me. I'm going to have to break one my blog rules to explain myself. So, another apology to FIL for oversharing.

The diagnosis FIL received from his doc was stage 4 metastatic melanoma. This is the same diagnosis my father got 10 years ago and the same disease that eventually killed him. So, I took an unpleasant little trip down memory lane with a little side trip into despairing-mama land. Two grandfathers with melanoma isn't good news for C or for her over-protective mother.

I've spent the last 2.5 years minimizing risks to C's health and well-being. We spent months -2 through 7 on almost complete lockdown to avoid RSV exposure. During the cruising months we attached the furniture to the walls to prevent tipping and crushing. We don't permit bike-riding without a helmet, car-riding without a car seat, or uninhibited furniture jumpery. I'm sure that much eye-rolling and head shaking goes on behind our backs but we tend to ignore parenting opinions on this subject from folks who've never had a play date at the funeral home.

It's deeply troubling (in a Grendel's Mama sort of way) to think that life-sustaining sunshine could do my daughter in...even if it's fifty-odd years from now.

The good news is that I abandoned my initial plan to detonate a nuclear warhead inside the sun (you know, because the sun actually does more good than harm). But, I'm afraid that I may owe an apology to the people of Iceland and all of the folks stranded in European airports for that enormous cloud of ash that may or may not have been caused by a request I made to various volcano-related deities for some assistance with blotting out the sun during summer 2010.

Now you may be thinking, "TracyOC, you don't have the power to cause major geological catastrophes with your mind." And for the most part I agree. After all, I just did a little hunting around on the internets and didn't actually organize a ceremony or anything. And I have fairly solid proof that you don't always get what you ask for--even if you ask many times with great fervor. But I was also raised in a one-true-god culture in a volcano-less part of the world so I don't really know how it works.

I'd imagine things are pretty slow in the volcano god/goddess offices in this age of scientific discovery. Pele and company probably spend most of their days sitting around playing pinochle--all dressed up and nowhere to go like immortal Maytag repairmen. They were probably thrilled to get my request and jumped on it ASAP. Meanwhile, in the seriously ill child department...

I keep trying to figure out the secret to carefree living. Did I forfeit any chance when I became a mother? Am I genetically predisposed to worry or have I just seen too much bad news lately? Maybe there's no such thing as carefree for any of us.

And so, I'm sorry for last week's selfish rant and for the havoc that I may or may not have caused. I bought some broad-brimmed toddler hats and long-sleeved swimsuits yesterday so the world is now safe.

On Resilience

2010-04-03T04:04:00.000-07:00

On my walk to the train yesterday a squirrel fell from the sky. Well, judging from the scrabbling noise I heard from above, he probably fell from a tree limb, but it was still startling. He didn't even try to get his feet under him. He just hit the sidewalk about 4 feet in front of me, lying on his side. I heard a tiny crack as he made contact with the pavement.

As I watched him fall I had one of those thought avalanches where I pictured myself splinting his tiny legs and cursed myself for not knowing if the new recommendations about rescue breathing during CPR applied to rodents. Before I could react, however, he was off, frisking about with his squirrel buddies, keeping pace with them in spite of his recent shock.

Maybe that's how it is with squirrels. They can afford all of their high-flying daredevilry because they're built to take a licking. Or maybe he ran because his little squirrel brain didn't know what else to do and just kept him going until he dropped.

Either way, it was an impressive display of resilience—equal parts foolhardy and admirable.

We found out this week that T's dad is sick. It's not really my story to tell so I'll keep it short. The prognosis isn't good.

I have to admit that I was feeling inappropriately smug about the future or at least about the remainder of 2010. I'd rediscovered my capacity for foresight and had visions of the leisurely contemplation of nothing in particular.

The past several years have been tightly managed in these parts. A forced march onward, upward, above through regimented activity. Somewhere in my mind lurks the rock-solid belief that our salvation, our return to normalcy, lies in whiter socks and more orderly closets. Or perhaps it's about not slipping further down the slope.

But this spring was gonna be all about relaxation and unlimited potential—thoughts and possibilities flitting about like tiny yellow butterflies while we sit back decide whether or not to chase them.

In mixed company I'll say all of the right things about hope and positive thoughts. We'll put our trust in the doctors and fix our faith firmly in place. But privately I can't muster a positive view. Instead I'm sitting in the family room of an ICU, I'm watching my mother-in-law sign a DNR order, I'm choosing pictures for a memorial service and taking ownerless shoes to a thrift shop. I can't even feel amazed that I don't dread these things anymore.

People who haven't experienced loss or watched someone suffer through a serious illness might think I'm callous and unhelpful but I know everyone reading here understands. There are lessons that can't be unlearned.

And resilience has a dark side.

Stripes, Plaids, and Infinite Possibility

2010-03-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

When I was teaching middle school, Einstein analogies were one of my pet peeves. For some reason parents never pointed to their own family members when explaining academic or behavioral tendencies, e.g., Little S's brother had trouble reading too until we got him some glasses. They always swung for the fences and implicated poor Albert.

Me: Mr. X, your son called me a bitch today in class. He has to serve detention tomorrow during recess

Mr. X.: That seems unfair. Einstein didn't speak in complete sentences until he was seven.

For all I know, some of these kids will grow up to be some of the greatest thinkers of our time so I suppose I shouldn't judge. The point is that it gets a little tedious which is why I hate to bring Albie up at all.

Last week I noticed an Einstein quote at the bottom of a colleague's email message. Now, quotes appended to emails are another thing that stick in my craw for some reason (perhaps because I'm approaching my coot-hood)but, I liked this one.

“Once you can accept the universe as being mostly nothing that is really something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.”

For me, the entire experience of parenting a dead child has been about rearranging my perspective. I marched up the hill, saw what I can't have, and can't quite forget the view.

On the one hand I see good, old Albie's quote with my missing daughter on the front end, i.e., once you accept the fact that your infant daughter stopped breathing and is now stored inside a pink jar, everything else seems easy.

That's certainly how it felt in the early days when I was constantly shocked that the world kept moving without R. How could people complain about taxes or soup that's too salty or grass that's grown too shaggy when my daughter is dead? I spent a long time teetering on the brink of the bitter recluse lifestyle before I decided that C deserved better...and that a move into a crumbling Victorian mansion with a decrepit wrought iron gate just made no financial sense.

These days, I'd place R's death at the back end of the quote--just another of the infinite possibilities presented by an infinite universe where the gap between possible and impossible is virtually non-existent.

Yesterday my boss told me a story about a woman who used to work at our organization whose adult daughter was murdered years ago. The story just emerged from nowhere and went on and on with many segues into the whole I-don't-know-how-anyone-can-go-on-after-their-child-dies business. I couldn't tell if she was looking for me to impart some wisdom on the subject or if my role was to say that it was easier for me because R was a baby. I decided to keep my mouth shut and let her draw her own conclusions.

I appreciate that she has sympathy for people who have lost a child but I just didn't have the wherewithal to assume the spokesperson role at 8AM on a Friday during a meeting about a draft memo for the annual accountability reporting exercise.

I would've liked to have told her that we're all just a hair's breadth from disaster and that any horrible thing can happen to anyone at any time. And that if/when the unimaginable occurs, you just make your way through it because there is no choice. Impossible transforms to possible before you even realize what's happening and, amazingly, you keep breathing and moving and living and that's all there is.

And then I would've asked her if we wanted to capitalize the word 'priority' in all instances and she would have looked at me like I had sprouted antlers or maybe like I was wearing stripes and plaids together.

How About That?

2010-02-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

After my long dry spell, it feels a little strange to have enough swirling thoughts to generate two posts in two days. And here I thought I couldn't surprise myself anymore.

Yesterday I noted that I tend to be a little inauthentic here on the blog. Since then I've been mulling it over. Why am I such a damn Pollyanna about my daughter's death? Being angry and bitter and saying things that may upset people won't make her more dead, after all.

I had a little quiet time to reflect yesterday and I've arrived at three conclusions. 1) I had to tamp a lot of the gnarliest thoughts and feelings down to focus on parenting C 2) I should quit my griping and thank the fates that one of the babies survived 3) Being angry and bitter and saying things that may upset people won't make her less dead either

That's what the stern taskmaster in my head tells me, anyway.

But, here's the thing. I read this and this and both posts have really opened my eyes. I didn't experience stillbirth. And despite the fact that I know several women who have, and I claim to be a thoughtful and supportive person, I never really troubled myself to think about the details.

This isn't some sort of congratulatory victory lap--Wow, TracyOC, you've taken your empathy to a whole new level! It was more of a wake-up call about the value of honesty and authenticity.

****

Yesterday I was listening to "Fresh Air" while driving today. Terry was talking (in her normal soothing tones) to an expert on medical ethics regarding hunger strikes. Specifically, they were contemplating the role of a trained physician in caring for a hunger striker and what lines ought not be crossed. They didn't seem to make a clean landing but the answer apparently lies somewhere between preserving life and preserving dignity.

During the discussion, the medical expert read a couple of graphic statements equating force-feeding via gavage tube with torture. The statements mentioned pain and discomfort and disruption of bodily functions, tissue damage, disorientation, etc. The medical experts explained that the patient can be forcibly restrained and then left alone in a hospital bed covered in his/her own waste.

Sound familiar, anyone?

I've watched two people die in intensive care units--my father and my daughter. Both of them were scared, disoriented, and in pain. My father was incapacitated and couldn't tell us what he wanted the doctors to do. R wasn't quite human enough yet to communicate. In both cases I was put in a position to decide for them. In both cases I told the doctors to do whatever it would take.

I was wrong both times.

Doctors and nurses confront these issues daily. They see critically ill people make miraculous recoveries. They're trained to react and do everything they can to save people. When one dies, they move onto the next, bringing their considerable intelligence and intensity to bear. It's hard not to believe them when they say something can be done--it's hard not to hear 'should' instead of 'can.'

I let the surgeon cut my daughter's body open even though there was virtually no hope that she could survive. She spent 3 of her 4 final hours on an operating table surrounded by strangers. I let my Dad undergo surgery for a blood clot and get jounced down the highway in an ambulance full of tubes and wires on Christmas Eve, hours before he died.

They both deserved better. The medical ethicist told me so...just a little too late.

All I can think now is that way too many of my stories start with, "I was listening to NPR..." I have to get out more. How's that for honesty?

Hovering Near the Kitchen Table

2010-02-25T03:30:00.001-08:00

So, I haven't really been writing much lately--not that I ever did. But, all of this inclement weather has me feeling...pensive? thoughtful? pent-up? I can't quite put my finger on it but, when I saw the questions posted on GITW it seemed like the thing to do.

Here goes.

1 | How would you describe your presence on the internet? Does your online voice differ from your real life voice? If so, how? And why?

Regarding my online presence, the words 'lurk' and 'tentative' come to mind. Sadly, this isn't all that different from real-life (even before my daughter died). My online voice, however, is nothing at all like my real-life voice. On my blog I'm all "looking for significance" and "trying to create meaning" and "trying to understand things." This extends to emails I send to bloggers or comments that I leave. It's not a natural fit for me. In real-life I come off more like a self-righteous know-it-all (with a heart...and a reasonably well-developed sense of humor.

When I sit down and confront R's death head-on, I can't seem to access my know-it-allness or my sense of humor...hence, the difference.

2 | Why did you begin blogging, or reading blogs? Was this before or after your experience of babyloss?

I don't think I ever intentionally read a blog before R died. I knew that they were out there and I maybe stumbled across one while googling friends and acquaintances (ahem). I found Glow and Kate's blog while hunting around online for advice on raising a twinless twin (or maybe I was just out to prove to myself that other people lost babies and survived). I started blogging because I felt like a creep reading about other folks' lives and not sharing any of my own details.

3 | Do you write anonymously? Does anonymity - or would anonymity - change your expression of grief?

Erm...I guess I'm semi-anonymous. I don't feel comfortable using family member or friend names here because everyone should get to tell their own story but I'm fine with using my own...sort of. I think I've either met or corresponded with the handful of people who stop by here and they all know my true identity (and they know why you never see TracyOC in the same room as a certain lady who carries a lasso of truth and wanders around in stars-n-stripe undies...shhh). As far as expressing my grief, I think it's always difficult to be completely honest about the ugliest aspects of babyloss. Anonymity doesn't really make a difference for me.

4 | Do you have a responsibility in how you express yourself on the internet? To whom, and why?

I think this is related to the anonymity issue above. I try not to co-opt my husband's grief or my surviving daughter's experiences. It's like all of that 'I-statement' business about owning your feelings and not accusing other people of things they don't deserve. I try to stay within the boundaries of self-expression.

5 | Do authenticity and honesty matter to you, both as a reader and a writer? Or does unconditional support matter more? How do you think readers perceive your truth?

I don't think that I'm really capable of being dishonest but there are things I don't write about. I'm a lot angrier about R's death than I'd ever admit on the blog (or in real-life). I like to offer unconditional support when I comment on other blogs but I don't really require it for myself. It's more that I'm trying to avoid adding to anyone's emotional burden. I think people read babyloss blogs because they're looking for company and hope and I try to offer that because I currently have it to give.

6 | Have you ever been in the crosshairs of a troll? How did you deal with it, and what did you learn from it?

Not on my blog...

7 | How do you feel before going online - either to write on your own blog, or to absorb the writing of others? How do you feel when you shut down the computer and walk away?

It's a mixed bag. When I write I usually feel anxious when I start and relaxed when I'm through. If I'm reading, it depends on the content. Sometimes I feel worried and anxious for folks who are struggling. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be as evolved as the people I follow. Most of the time I feel lousy about not leaving enough helpful or supportive comments.

8 | Do family/friends know you write/commune online? If so, have they told you how they feel about it? How do you respond to their opinions?

My husband knows and is supportive (and usually complimentary). If anyone else knows, they're not telling.

9 | Have you ever met any other loss bloggers in real-life? How did it feel to share food and air and space, and how did it make you feel about your own storytelling and healing? If you haven't experienced this, would you want to, or not? Why?

I have and it was really satisfying. There's such a difference between talking to someone who's trying to understand and empathize and talking to someone who doesn't have to try because they already know. I don't really have the words to describe it but it made me feel somehow more capable, sane, and human. Can't recommend it highly enough.

10 | How did you/will you know it's time to read fewer grief blogs, and write less of grief? How did you/will you redirect your energy, creativity, and persona online -- did you/will you go offline? Disappear and start again? Or transition in your current space, hoping to find a new voice? If you've done this, how did it feel?

As far as Mommicked goes, I'm sure that I'll eventually disappear. The online life just isn't for me and, barring another unforeseen personal tragedy, I'm rapidly approaching the 'settled into the new normal' stage of my life. Thus, I'm running out of things to say about grief and I lack the wherewithal to write about other aspects of my life. I don't, however, think I'll ever stop reading other grief blogs. I remember how I felt when I started writing and I want to stick around and listen and try to offer a helping hand for people who are newer to loss and grief.

The sun's up and the dog's crying so it's time to pull on my wellies and head out into the crap weather for a morning walk. And I think I feel a little bit more relaxed than I did an hour ago. It worked!

Signs and Settling

2010-02-06T04:37:00.000-08:00

Last April, my mom and I went to an open house that was somewhat uninspiring. I liked the price and location of the house and the street was planted end-to-end with the most spectacular trees but, the house itself was in dire need of updates. Having recently moved from a handyman's special, I had no interest in becoming a servant to another dysfunctional dwelling.

I said something politely non-committal to the seller's agent and headed for the car. As we drove out of the neighborhood, I pointed to another house that sat immediately behind the one we had just toured. It was essentially the same building and floorplan but looked somehow more inviting. “I wish that one were for sale.”

Flash forward to August 26, 2009.

Rather than spend the second anniversary of R's death slumped in front of my computer, filling my cubicle with kleenex and misery, I took a sick day. Aside from our visit to R's playground, we didn't really have a plan for the day--planning and focusing are two things in short supply with the mommicked family anymore. We just loaded C in the car and drove around town...to the neighborhood we hoped to relocate to...down a street planted end-to-end with the most spectacular trees.

I think you know where this is going.

The house. My house. For Sale! Jesus Christ on a Triscuit! Fates, stars, and planets aligned!

So we bought it.

I won't bore you with the details. I think I've already mentioned some of my opinions on real estate dealings and I seem to have misplaced my soap box and my copy of Marx's manifesto (just kidding--I'm not now, nor have I ever been, a communist). The bottom line is that I'm sitting in my very own dining room typing away as Snowmageddon 2010 rages outside.

The dog is a little out of sorts and the couch we ordered is still in parts-unknown but, it seems that we are finally settled.

*****

The spectacular trees are sycamores. In the mid-twentieth century, disease wiped out most American Elm trees and left many urban and suburban areas completely devoid of canopy cover. The sycamore, prized for its heartiness, was a favored choice for replanting. They aren't the most graceful of trees...certainly no match for a lovely, vase-shaped elm. But, they are tough. More importantly they grow fast. They grow so fast, in fact, that their bark peels off in great chunks, unable to stretch to accommodate the rapid expansion of the trunk beneath. They are literally bursting out of their skin with life.

Outside of our new home, the branches of 'my' sycamores stretch to reach each other, forming a cathedral-like peak over the street. Beautiful and resilient, they shelter us and welcome us home.

25 Days of Giveaways--And the hat and mittens go to...

2009-12-07T02:44:00.000-08:00

#4...Diane!

The hat and mittens are excited to start their adventure so, please drop me a line @ mommicked1@gmail.com and tell me your mailing address.

Thank you all so much for your very thoughtful comments on wisdom and growth and, of course, your compliments on my rather amateurish knitting. I wish I had the time to make mittens and hats for all of you.

As a couple of you noted, the most horrible things can happen to the most wonderful people. The great thing is, that those people (and I mean you) continue to be amazing and thoughtful and generous despite their troubles.

Now, go on over to Malory's place and see how she's honoring Janessa's memory and what's on the block for the next giveaway.

25 Days of Giveaways - It's Day 10...Welcome to Mommicked

2009-12-05T17:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Day 10 of Tina's Awesome 25 Days of Giveaways.

I'm so excited that it's finally my turn that I'm posting a little bit early for the states. But, it's December 6th somewhere, right?

Here's a photo of my contribution.

Not sure if every monitor will pick up the detail. Both the hat and the mittens are a chocolate brown and have an owl cable motif. (They're also machine-washable because I'm a practical sort of gal).

I thought this pattern would be apropos for the giveaway because owls are all about wisdom and wisdom abounds in this community. I decided to make mittens because I had never made a pair before. Since R died just over 2 years ago, I've found that learning a new skill or taking on a manageable challenge has helped to rebuild my confidence.

So, in the spirit of growth and sharing wisdom, I'm wondering what you've learned about yourself since losing your baby. Have you grown in any surprising ways? Do you have any new projects planned for the coming year to aid your personal growth?

Leave your comments on wisdom and trying new things below. The random number generator (aka, C) will pull numbers from a hat when I'm good and sure that December 6 is over for every time zone.

A side note for all of the knitters out there. Both patterns are available for free on the internet. The hat is here. The mittens are here. And if you're all et up with owl cables and looking for a project so unbelievably adorable that it will make all of your friends' eyeballs explode...go here and scroll down until you see the picture titled 'owlet.'

25 Days of Giveaways - Day 9

2009-12-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

To enter in today's giveaway go visit Brandy @ Forever Elliot's Mommy.

25 Days of Giveaways

2009-12-02T02:57:00.000-08:00

Looks like we're into day 6. Donna at "Life without Ellie" has a cornucopia of knitted delights.

Day 4 Giveaway

2009-11-30T02:50:00.000-08:00

It's really early but I wanted to post something about today's giveaway before leaving for work. The giveaway is still a mystery but I'm sure it will be spectacular...like all of the others so far. Go here at a reasonable hour (in North America) to find out.

Day 3 of the Giveaways

2009-11-29T05:46:00.000-08:00

I failed to note Jeanette's lovely Day 2 Giveaway. I'm changing my lazy ways today.

Day 3 @ Busy Hands--Karen is working on a lovely knitted wrap and remembering her son, George. Please go over and tell her about special things people have done to help you as you grieve.

One Down, Twenty-Four to Go...

2009-11-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

We've officially entered the Holiday Season and the "25 Days of Giveaways," organized by Tina of "Living without Sophia and Ellie"

You can click on the button right over there ---> for more information.

Tina's kicking things off today with some beautiful jewelry and a discussion about remembering our children during the holidays. Click here to go on over and tell her what's on your mind.

Un-Mommicked?

2009-11-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

The thing about a good mommickin' is that it's always followed by scavenging. Decks without houses and houses without decks and other parts litter the beach waiting for someone in need . The someones in need gather the parts and, through the sweat of their exhausted yet good-humored brows, wrestle them back into shape.

In the Outer Banks town where I lived for a few years after college, it wasn't unusual to see entire homes composed of storm-washed, found materials—monuments to the durability and versatility of pressure-treated 4 x 4's. These homes (the year-round variety) were squatty and homely, built and re-built for survival rather than for looks.

I spent last weekend in another of my favorite coastal towns with a group of babylost mothers - Angie, Sarah, m, Lani, Tash, Niobe, Julia, Molly, and Laura. It's difficult to wrap my brain around this experience. I met 9 amazing women whom I likely never would have met if my daughter and their children had survived. We ate and knitted and talked and laughed...a lot. The weekend was rejuvenating and transformative but I can't possibly be happy about something like this, can I?

Maybe it's enough to marvel at the terrible beauty of randomness and be thankful that I've washed up on such a welcoming shore.

I remember watching a newscaster bobbing along Bogue Sound in a skiff immediately following Hurricane Ophelia. He gestured to the twisted, malformed houses in the background and spoke of destruction and damage. To me, and anyone else who had lived on the island for any amount of time, the houses looked the same as ever, beautiful in their randomness.

A trailer with a rooftop deck may not look like much to a dit-dotter from off but if you climb on up those rickety stairs you can probably see forever.

Curmudgeon 3 - Home Again

2009-11-19T02:35:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned before, my mom is a pessimist. It's a genetic condition, her entire side of the family elevates negativity to a high art. All of the sarcasm and kvetching bugs me. For the most part I'm more of a doer than a talker (and more of a solver than a complainer)--at least that's how I used to be before I started my project.

The last 4 years have taught me that some things just can't be fixed. They can't be fixed by foresight, medical technology, or hard work. They certainly can't be fixed by a positive attitude. Sometimes I wonder if a positive attitude clouds the truth and makes it harder to see the solution. If that's the case, why shouldn't I go negative?

If I just roll around in all of my negative thoughts and let them soak in maybe I can get it all out of the way and feel more like myself again.

No one on my mom's side of the family would ever suggest that I should past this, or move on, or get over it. They'd cheerfully decapitate any outsider who suggested it. They hold strong opinions and epic grudges. They are Titans of 'No Thank You.' I'll grudgingly admit that I admire their fortitude.

Last weekend C and I went to my cousin's birthday party (yup, the one with the revelations about the Osmonds). Watching C run around the yard with her cousins I knew that every single one of my relatives was picturing R trotting along beside her. Most of them probably aimed a criticism at god or fate for taking her away from us.

It was a relief to let someone else carry the water for a few hours.

I guess I'm thanking my family for being un-thankful on my behalf.

So, with the 'Thank You' out of the way, here are three 'No Thank You's'

No Thank You -

A person who is turning the upcoming work Thanksgiving celebration into a spreadsheet-driven nightmare.

The person who thought that I'd want to hear a ten-minute speech about how hard it was for her to say good-bye to her daughter before a 5-week school trip.

The person tailgating me in the 25 mph zone on the way home yesterday. We're all in a hurry but it doesn't mean that we should speed in a residential zone.

Now I'm thinking of all of the things that made me thankful yesterday...I think my experiment isn't gonna take.

Curmudgeon 2

2009-11-17T02:50:00.001-08:00

So the problem with setting up an experiment is that you have to tend to it. Not sure if it's a lack of time or organization or some combination of the two that's holding me up but I'm going to try to execute.

Gratitude (and its sly cousin ingratitude) are slippery subjects. Now that R is gone and never coming back I feel like I ought to be grateful for every single second I have in this current existence with her sister and the rest of my family. Every plate scraped, bill paid, toilet scrubbed should be a glorious affirmation of my continued survival.

In the early days, my internal dialogue resembled some pathetic version of Pollyanna's famous "Glad Game" - My back is killing me from raking these leaves. But the pain means I'm still alive!

Not surprisingly, I found myself insufferable most days.

Eventually I gave myself permission to gripe about trivial things but I still struggle with achieving a balance.

So, today I'm raising the bar for myself - 2 Thank You's and 2 No Thank You's.

No Thank You -

Demolition contractor, piano mover, and furnace repairman who have all managed to disappear into thin air despite commitments to arrive at various times over the past two weeks. Way to respect the customer, y'all.

To the folks boldly coughing and sneezing into open air on the train. I know that it's hard to get sick leave and this may really be a complaint directed at their employers for forcing them to come to work but, I think everyone can let go of the newspaper long enough to cover a cough. It reminds me of my days in the kindergarten classroom. Maybe I should write a little jingle to help them remember.

Thank You -

To my Aunt J who informed me that my Dad used to refer to Donny Osmond as "No Nuts" Osmond over cake and ice cream at my twelve-year-old cousin's birthday party. (Happy B-day, little cuz).

To the universe for safely delivering healthy baby to these fine people.

No Thank You - An Experiment in Curmudgeonhood

2009-11-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of rumblings in blogland about the relative benefits of positive and negative thinking, inspired by the release of Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Bright-Sided. I haven't read it yet but I told T to snatch it for me as soon as it arrives at the library (oh, the benefits of being married to a librarian!). In the meantime, I'm going to spout some of my own opinions on the subject. Being ill-informed has never stopped me from clambering up on the soapbox before.

I'm the offspring of an unapologetic pessimist and an unsinkable optimist. As a quick illustrative example, I offer some opinions on organ donation. My mom believes that no one should be an organ donor because doctors let organ donors die. My dad rushed to get his name off of the organ donor list when he was diagnosed with stage IV cancer because he was worried that one of his contaminated parts might accidentally land in an otherwise healthy person. It was sort of like being raised by a suburban version of Dorothy Parker (without the booze) and a manly Bob Cratchit. As you know, only one of them is still alive.

I'm afraid that I lean more toward my Dad's side. I'm not a full Pollyanna but I definitely tend to assume the best about people and situations even when it would be obvious to anyone with a pulse that things are veering off the tracks. A dear friend once called it my 'pioneer spirit.'

But, I am my mother's daughter too and her voice is the one I hear in my head pointing out the various ways that something can go wrong (should Baby A's heart rate be so slow?)--she rarely leads me astray. I'm well aware of the power of pessimism.

In a couple of weeks we'll gather 'round the turkey and give thanks for our blessings. Until then we'll all be bombarded with messages about the holiday spirit and the celebration of plenty as if the economy isn't in the crapper and everything's going well for everyone. The positivity will suck all of the oxygen from the atmosphere and make things unbearable for folks who are struggling.

This year, I'm turning over a new leaf...ok, I'm not inverting it completely...more like flipping up one corner so I can see the dark underneath. I'm going to mix things up by saying an occasional, "no thank you." Turkeys be damned.

I'll start slow with minor issues. I'll also have to use my old teaching trick of cleansing negativity with 3 positive thoughts of equal scale. I present today's "Thank You. No Thank You." (not necessarily in that order).

No Thank You -

SEPTA, for purchasing high-tech parking meters that only accept coins and must be paid with exact change. Dear parking meter, you are shiny and beautiful and have many fancy buttons. Therefore, when you tell me that I can't have my extra nickel, it makes me want to plunge my knitting needles into your cold, mechanical heart. I swear it's like being transported back to the dark ages. GAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Thank You -

Prep School students for enlivening my AM commute with your silly games of grab-ass. Gangly teenage boys with their oversized feet and shorn-sheep haircuts always make me nostalgic for my retreating youth.

John McArthur, Jr., the madman who designed Philadelphia's City Hall. So baroque! So many tacky allegorical statues symbolizing justice! So delightfully decrepit! It's the perfect tribute to the dour Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, William Penn.

WXPN for playing "Let's Go Crazy" during my drive home from the train station. I know that it's not the right song but it reminded me of the closing scene of "Purple Rain" where Prince is scooting around the stage shaking his tiny, little money-maker at incredible speeds. Ah, Prince. Ah, money-makers.

But I still don't forgive you, parking meter.

Not a Blogger

2009-11-11T04:14:00.000-08:00

Last week I had intended to change direction a bit. I was going to write about the Phillies and my dad and relate it all back to the struggle of terminal illness and the importance of universal health care. It was supposed to be a happy story to balance out all of the woe-is-me.

Unfortunately the Phils lost and the House chickened out on a viable public option allowing the air to escape from my post with a pronounced pffft as it zipped out of the room.

Then my jerry-rigged facade of alrightness fell over during a meeting at work and exposed my pet elephant and his ever-growing pile of shit that I've been meaning to take care of but can't seem to find the time.

Sometimes 'forever' just seems completely unmanageable.

Note to Self: When you get upset at work, cover your face with your coffee cup before your chin starts to quiver and keep it there all day if necessary.

++++

Philosophers will tell you that there's no such thing as 'nothing.' The very act of thinking about nothing gives it a certain somethingness that can't be ignored—nothing is as real as a ham sandwich.

Science gives a similar answer. Even though it may seem that everything is mostly nothing dotted with tiny clumps of stuff, the empty space between the bits of matter behaves in a way that must be categorized as something.

++++

When R died, a little space opened up in my heart. Comfort and concern slid right through the hole with no resistance or reaction. I couldn't find a name for it and it wasn't like anything I had encountered before.

It felt like nothing.

Over time it just became part of me. All of my remaining something rearranged itself and the nothing spread out and made itself at home. The whistling hole was gone but I was somewhat less substantial.

People who had all of their something intact could pass right through me. Only those with a little bit of their own nothing felt solid.

I never really intended to start a blog (or even read one to be absolutely honest). Prior to April of 2009 I was a newspaper reading, dog-walking, knitting Luddite with a neglected FB account. Then dozens of friends and co-workers completed uncomplicated pregnancies and birthed healthy babies in spring of 2009 and I took to the internet in search of anything that could make me feel human again.

One thing led to another and now I'm a Luddite with a poorly maintained, ineffectively semi-anonymous set of grammatically flawed ruminations that I started writing just to seem less like a rubber-necking weirdo when I read other peoples' blogs.

There's not a whole lot of candor and variety here. My husband calls my style 'charmingly old-fashioned.' I describe it as 'Johnny One-Note.' I don't aspire to become a real blogger with a catalog of interesting stories that cover all aspects of my life (though I do appreciate reading real blogs). I just want a little bit of space to try to turn my nothing into something.

The Daily Grind

2009-11-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

By day I'm a professional haranguer. It's not something I ever aspired to or trained for—it just flowed naturally from a series of non-decisions about my career. I spend my days sending notes, leaving voicemails, and hunting people down for the express purpose of needling them into doing things that they have deemed unimportant.

One of last week's glamorous tasks involved proofreading a report for adherence to style guidelines. Specifically, I had to bring down the hammer regarding the appropriate way to denote fiscal years in official documents. (I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat so I'll satisfy your curiosity. There must be a space between the FY and the 2010 and that it must be 2010 and not just 10. Oh, and it should be FY 2009 – FY 2010...not FY 2009-FY 2010, etc.)

I get a lot of eye-rolling. My colleagues/targets frequently remind me about priorities and relative importance.

They assume that I don't understand what really matters.

The feeling is sometimes mutual.

Most days I'm stunned that I'm still here, hunkered down in my cube inching the boulder up the hill, the keeper of both the great truths of the universe and the only three-hole punch in the office. You can imagine which gets more overt attention.

I'm glad to have a job, especially one that's 95% satisfying. I can even appreciate the simple beauty of a menial office task...staplers are truly amazing. It's the assumption that my work persona constitutes my entire being that stings my poor battered soul.

In my mind I'm shouting as my body shrugs.

Of course I don't give a crap about whether there's a space between the 'FY' and the '2010.' One of my daughters died and will never walk, run, graduate, get married, feel the sun on her face or hit the space bar at the right time. I should be home teaching my precious surviving daughter how to count to 2,010 instead of standing here listening to you gripe to me about the indignity of meaningless work.

****

Last Wednesday I received an outstanding on my annual performance review. My Dad's 62nd birthday passed uncelebrated, C learned how to say, “Go away, Mommy,” in context-appropriate situations, and R...well, you know how that goes.

On Friday afternoon I received an invitation to complete a survey for high-performers about motivation. I reviewed the questions (with a straight face) and determined that I could channel my former self well enough to answer them somewhat truthfully.

And then the demographics section asked how many children I have and I was stumped.

It's totally anonymous.

What should I say?

This is C

2009-10-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

She's always been a friendly one, my little C, smiling and uninhibited. As the baby on both sides of the family she's grown to expect a certain level of coddling and is happy to reciprocate with a full on dose of sparkly baby charm.

When she meets a new acquaintance she waits for just the right moment to introduce herself--a pause in the action--all eyes on her. She takes one bold step forward, smiles her most ingratiating smile, places both hands on her chest and says, "This...is C."

The pacing is perfect. All of your highest expectations are about to be exceeded. Just wait 'til you see what's in this package. It's almost exactly like that James Earl Jones CNN voiceover...only chirpier and lacking a bit in terms of diction.

Last night she was 'helping' me with the laundry when something caught her eye--her blurry reflection in the side of the washing machine. My heart clenched a little as I watched her approach the not-quite-mirror-image so earnestly to deliver her favorite line.

Some days I'm willing to believe anything.

Ms. Mommicked and the Meme

2009-10-17T18:52:00.001-07:00

Quite frankly I find this entire thing a little intimidating...at least I did until I realized that the genius, sweetsalty kate, is also a Lady of Lallybroch. Now I feel up to the challenge.

Plus it's for the excellent cause of promoting Kate's book - Dread Crew - Pirates of the Backwoods. I don't exactly have a huge readership but I wanted to get a plug in just in case someone stops by.

1) You are facing an epic journey. You may choose one companion, one tool and one vehicle from any book or film to accompany you. Or just one of the three. It's up to you. What do you choose? I'd have to go with somebody powerful/magical like Gandalf or some similar wizardy type. For a tool I'd take a time-turner and my vehicle would be Falkor the Luckdragon. Everyone should just admit that they've been wanting to ride Falkor since the mid-80's.

2) You can escape to the insides of any book. Where do you go, and why? Way too many options here to pick one--Narnia? Hogwarts? The Kingdom of Florin? Wonka's Chocolate Factory? A party at Gatsby's house? So many places I'd love to see in person.

3) You can bring one literary character into your current life. Who do you choose, and why? Maybe the lead character from All Quiet on the Western Front or Leslie Burke from Bridge to Teribithia. I just can't stand the thought of either one of those characters being dead. Not sure I'd have much to say to either one but at least they'd be safe.

4) Outlander (or any book from the series)is my go-to book. (There. I said it.)I could read that book fifty-seven times in a row without a break for food or a pee and not be remotely bored. In fact I’ve already done that but it wasn’t fifty-seven times. It was sixty-four.

5) Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most enviable? I remember hoping that a tiny white dog would show up and tell me that I was a fairy like the little girl in No Flying in the House. I also wanted to be Jo March though I don't think her life was enviable.

6) Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most frightening? I was truly terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West and all of those flying monkeys...and the Barbie-sized action figure version my parents gave me for Christmas when I was about 5-years-old.

7) Every time I read _________________, I see something in it that I haven’t seen before. I'm not a big repeat-reader (except for Outlander) so I can't really answer this one. I'd imagine that I missed quite a few cool bits in Cryptonomicon the first time around and I've been wanting to read it again.

8) It is imperative that Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods be made into a movie. Now. I am already picketing Hollywood for this—but if they cast _________________ as _________________, I will not be happy. I will, however, be appeased if they cast _________________. Obviously I haven't read it so I can't comment too much on casting but there's got to be a part in there for Viggo.

9) Outlander is a book that should never be made into a film. NOTE: With all due respect to Kate, I just don't think a live action Jamie could ever meet my expectations. And without the first person narration, how could I pretend to be Claire?

10) After all these years, the big reveal scene in the book/movie Behind the Attic Wall still manages to give me the queebs. Perhaps I'm translating 'queebs' incorrectly but just thinking about this bizarre, twisted YA book will probably have me lying awake in bed tonight wondering if there are creepy mannequins lurking in my attic.

11) After all these years, the barley field scene in the movie Room with a View still manages to give me a thrill.

12) If I could corner the author Dan Brown, here’s what I’d say to them one minute or less about their book, The DaVinci Code: I want my money back.

13) The coolest non-fiction book I’ve read lately is Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmerman. Every time I flip through it, it makes me want to ditch my humdrum life and knit my way to action and adventure. I'm also a sucker for a good field guide.

Taking the Cure

2009-10-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

Repeat after me--we are all God's children, we are all God's children, we are all God's children.

Keep going until you find the space in your heart to forgive, even if you don't believe in God. Or is it god then?

Since R died I've been working on regaining patience. Not the kind of patience that allows for peaceful browsing of supermarket tabloids while the little, old lady purchases 20 cans of cat food with pennies, the kind that allows me to meet people where they are.

"A hip replacement? How awful for your 90-year-old grandmother! Such a tragedy."

"A parking ticket. That sucks!"

"She made you revise the whole meeting agenda? What a crappy day!"

"Poor thing. I didn't know cats could get colds."

"Ugh! I can't imagine having two children. My one just wears me out."

The tiny pilot that lives in my head meets all of these minor complaints with a steely, unsympathetic gaze as I work desperately to remember the appropriate response. I can usually find the right words and make them come out of my mouth with the proper inflection but, it's work. It should come naturally.

After all, each one of us is a tiny little miracle--the journey-work of the stars as Uncle Walt would say.

I watch C defy gravity as she runs across the kitchen smiling my dad's smile and kicking T's too-short legs. A wonder of engineering. A pint-size family reunion. The culmination of generations of survivors.

I can't believe I made her. Cooked her up right inside my own body with nary a thought. Imagine building one (or two) in the garage.

8 billion+ miracles roaming around the planet with their triumphs and woes. That 90-year-old grandmother was once a bouncing baby, the apple of her mother's eye. That sick cat is a killing machine honed through millions of years of evolution. Who am I to feel like my daughters deserve some kind of special consideration?

On the other hand, maybe some of us more miraculous than others.

Last week I visited one of my best friends from college and her husband. They're expecting their first baby in early February and we wanted to pass along some essential equipment and check in.

Most parents-to-be are excited and nervous but mostly excited. These two had a distinct whiff of subdued terror that set off my spidey-sense.

Over the course of the afternoon my friend's husband recounted the hair-raising story of his own birth. I'll share an abridged version here to protect his privacy--rocky pregnancy, IUGR, low Apgar scores, 4 days in the NICU (in 1975), flatline, baptized by a nurse, last rites, full recovery.

A walking, talking miracle, ladies and gentlemen.

How many bona-fide miracles do I encounter every day? Since there's really no way of knowing, I should probably just give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

You don't have to travel far to meet people where they are if we're all in the same place.

Logic: Brought to you by Crazy People

2009-09-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

Last June, T and I grabbed C and the dog, retreated from our former lives, and moved back to my hometown in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

At the moment 90% of our worldly possessions are packed into my Mom's garage and C is asleep in my old playroom. There's not anything wrong with this situation. We have plenty of space and C loves her Mom-mom. I just can't quite stomach the thought of being 34 and back in the nest.

Last week, in an effort to regain some or our former glory, we started looking for a new house.

We met with a woman who is trying to sell her own home sans agent.

I felt a certain kinship with this woman. There's the obvious parallel—I just sold a house in this shit economy, she's trying to sell a house in this shit economy.

(After much drama we managed to sell our house without losing our shirts. I know better than to complain about things that aren't really problems so I'm not going to gripe about this too much. I'll just say that if I were offered the choice between repeating the home-selling experience and having a flaming hedgehog forcibly inserted into my rectum every day for a month, I'd have to sleep on it.)

Back to our story.

The seller and I had other things in common. We grew up in the same town and attended the same schools. Our high school sports triumphs were reported in the same local paper. And, it turns out that her life also took an unexpected left turn.

Through the suburban grapevine we learned she bought the house with her fiancee but broke off the engagement when he cheated. She's since met a new fiancee and decided to move in with him after they're married this fall.

I felt a little guilty trailing her through her house and complimenting the built-ins and generously-sized rooms while imagining her crying on the couch and burning old photos in the fireplace. It was almost unbearable to stand in the yard and listen to her talk about her future children never playing there.

Now I feel even more guilty because we have no intention of making an offer.

The house was great but she wanted too much money. Not just more than I'd like to pay--more than it's worth. The asking price is around $50K above the likely appraised value (but only $10K above what she paid for it in 2007).

It's easy to see how real estate bubbles happen. Buyers, eager to strike out onto new adventures, reach for more than they can afford. Sellers, agents, and lenders, under the spell of profit, conjure up waves of optimism to push them along. Pretty soon everyone's underwater and wondering if granite's really that much better than formica.

It probably goes without saying that impending personal tragedy is not on the home inspection checklist.

We discussed the situation with our realtor who told us that he never places much confidence in appraisals. He believes that the value of any home ought to be determined by the buyer and the seller—the sacred truth at the center of a cosmic wiggle.

Forget the freshly refinished hardwood floors, the two full baths, and the double lot then. What's the value of a house that represents a failed former life? How about a house that represents another shot at normalcy and happiness?

If my realtor were correct, the seller would probably end up giving us the house and everything in it once we were through comparing stories. I wonder how he'd feel about that commission.

The fact is that the seller is saddled with an out-sized mortgage and we can't afford to bail her out thanks to our own misadventures in real estate. This business about buyers and sellers negotiating value is romantic but it just doesn't hold true when so many people stand to profit from each transaction—no matter what it represents.

+++++

I was listening to BBC World Report the other morning and heard a story about a new action/adventure graphic novel about the life and times of British mathematician Bertrand Russell.

I sat on the edge of the bed and flossed away as the author spoke. At the leisurely hour of 4:30 AM I wasn't entirely sure that my brain was connecting the pieces. Mathematics, comic books, Wittgenstein—WTF?

The author noted that mathematical geniuses, unlike artistic geniuses, tend to be a pretty stable group of folks...except for Russell and pals who specialized in mathematical logic and were all borderline bat-shit crazy.

Logic, math, and insanity hand-in-hand—I have some reading to do.

Maybe I'll pick up an extra copy for my realtor.

Jet

2009-09-01T18:04:00.000-07:00

They have lost their third child.

Tonight I lit a candle for Jethro Craig Wilhelm--such a small gesture compared to such a terrible tragedy.

He's just barely on the other side of that thin line. It seems like the right combination of words and deeds could bring him back.

If we could light a fire big enough to reach up into the night and burn a hole through the sky he could tumble back to Earth--back into his body--back to his parents who love him so much.

2009-08-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk this morning and stopped by R's playground.

And I saw this.

And these were poking through the fence from a neighboring yard so I left them for R and Georgina.

And I thought of this.

And for the first time in a long time I was thankful for random chance.

Day 11 or 741

2009-08-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

August 25, 2007

They bustle about the tiny room, moving the wires and tubes that now constitute her major biological functions and I feel my body dissolve into static.

There’s information, hushed tones, more information, paperwork, a surprisingly casual atmosphere.

I kiss her little forehead and give an empty assurance that she’ll be ok. She doesn’t turn toward my voice.

The driver stands-up slowly, stretches and yawns. I can't decide if I'm reassured or terrified.

Now they’re gone and I re-enter my body—jerked back to reality by a hand on my shoulder.

“Two years from now, when she’s running around just like any other toddler, you won’t even remember this,” the nurse says and smiles. I stare at her and try unsuccessfully to transport myself to this magical future.

****

August 25, 2009

I know that I went to work today. I know that I attended one scheduled meeting, two impromptu meetings, and one farewell lunch. I know that I sent out memos, scheduled future meetings, dialed the phone and answered the questions. I know only because my inbox and my calendar tell me so. I can't really remember any of it.

Most things don't even make a dent anymore.

Tomorrow I won't remember what we discussed in the meetings or how I answered the questions or what I agreed to do next. I might remember what I ate at lunch but I probably won't remember what I said.

I'll remember dancing around the living room to showtunes with C.

I'll remember exactly how the sunlight made R's eyelashes sparkle.

I'll remember reading this and thinking, “Maybe that's my problem.”

Looking Back

2009-08-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

“I can't know what it's like to feel like my body failed me.”

It sounded so strange spoken right out in the open--opinion converted into fact. He didn't come up with this idea on his own. He was paraphrasing me. But, hearing the words come out of T's mouth, I suddenly realized that they aren't true. I don't feel like my body failed me.

I wish I could blame it on my body—on some physiological quirk beyond my control.

I feel like my judgment failed me.

So pleased was I with the valiant effort I had made to rescue my girls, I paused right in the middle of the tracks to admire my reward. C--feisty enough to defeat a malfunctioning umbilical cord. R--patient and strong—willing to suffer to save her sister. And the tiny diapers and pajamas—I guess the train that smacked into us wasn't as taken with them as I was.

I should have asked for another week. I should have stayed at her bedside for every minute of those twelve days. I should have held her when she took her final unassisted breath. I should have stopped them from cutting her open for that pointless surgery.

My body was perfectly capable.

I didn't think that it would go this way.

I didn't think it could happen to us.

I didn't think.

And now I can't forget.

Reminders

2009-08-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Looking at it now it's so obvious--the truth that we were too hopeful to see and that the doctors and nurses were to polite to share.

The instinct to test my mettle is irresistible--like putting weight on a sprained ankle or running your tongue over a sore tooth.

So it sits on my desk.

It kills me a little bit every time I look at it but it keeps her alive.

Happy Birthday(s)

2009-08-14T01:50:00.000-07:00

I don't even have to look at the photo because the image is burned into the movie screen inside my head. The only picture of my girls together. Moments after birth, bundled up in their comically large hats in the OR, both of them looking a little less than healthy and a little less than happy but still alive by some miracle.

This image was in my head for the weeks I spent willing them to grow and thrive while they were still inside my body and I doubt it will ever leave me.

Today, on the 2nd anniversary of their birth I think of the two of them, linked forever in my mind and my heart.

Today marks two years since we charged up the hill together unaware of the sheer drop waiting at the top.

Today marks two years of trying to hold on and learning to let go.

Happy Birthdays to my precious girls.

Disclaimer

2009-08-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to add this blog to the Glow in the Woods blogroll this week to commemorate C and R's second birthday. This means that someone else (other than me and my ever-supportive spouse) might actually read it...yikes!

A few notes for anyone who may be reading--

1) I'm a grammar disaster. I probably shouldn't even use the word 'grammar' to modify 'disaster' but there you have it. I fling commas and fragments around like confetti and can't figure out the difference between a dependent and independent clause. My inner thoughts and feelings spilled out in electronic form for all to see...no problem. My poor grasp of the English language--shameful. (yes, it is my native tongue)

2) It's been almost two years since R died. My condition, therefore, is downgraded from distraught madwoman to shower-crier. If I had attempted to write about any of the events surrounding C and R's birth in real-time it would have been a train-wreck--piles upon piles of rage and contempt--not helpful for anyone. I'm amazed by folks who have the presence of mind to write thoughtfully as the flames are licking at their heels--amazed.

3) I'm not really like Ms. Mommicked in my everyday life. I come here to vent the less-than-happy thoughts rolling around in my head. Remarkably I've gotten to a place where I think about things other than R's death and C's safety/welfare/mortality during the course of the day. Yesterday I injured my foot while dancing to this. Someday I may progress enough that I'll remember to warm up first.

So, what's a lousy writer with waning grief issues doing writing a blog?

We have to support each other.

I may not be the most eloquent writer. You may not agree with my opinions. At some point I'll run out of things to say and dust bunnies will collect in my corner of the internets. I may, however, have traveled the same path that you're on right now.

You're not alone--even if you're stuck with a blowhard who can't use a semi-colon properly and lets her precious, surviving child watch frenetic TV programs.

You're not alone.

Physics

2009-08-04T19:28:00.001-07:00

She is a super-dense form of matter—a star burst from the center of my body.

I pick her up and toss her around amazed that I can lift something with such impressive gravity.

Her awesome mass bends time--a colicky night feels like a decade but two years pass in a blink.

Her screams and giggles set the planets in motion.

Entire galaxies explode into being on her every breath.

With the laws of physics reduced to rubble at her feet it seems like it would be nothing to reach into some other dimension and retrieve what was lost.

Everything starts as a handful of dust.

Reality, Departures from

2009-08-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Every July, like all good Philadelphians, my family members gather for a week long vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey. We’ve been vacationing “down the shore” for almost a century and my family’s history, both good and bad, is tied up in the place.

My mother still tells stories about the summer she spent in Ocean City between her junior and senior years of college. I celebrated both my first and thirty-first birthdays (and many in between) in rented apartments blocks from the boardwalk. My brother and I played on the beach together as children and got tattoos in a neighboring town as young adults. After his first chemo treatment my Dad scored 7 holes-in-one at Tee Time mini-golf.

I had my first emergency room visit at Shore Memorial Hospital. After the final surgery to scrape all of the cancer cells from his skin, Dad shuffled along the boardwalk and contemplated his foreshortened future. When bedrest precluded my visit two years ago my Mom made the trip for me and returned with a tub of caramel corn to hold back the mounting dread in my hospital room.

When R got sick I chased death away with a vision of her on the beach, chubby and sand-covered—a happy, healthy one-year-old.

In Ocean City, reality is just a vague notion. Old-fashioned candy stores occupy nineteenth century buildings. The boardwalk restores the spring to aging knees during a morning jog. Laughing children fly through the air on ancient carnival rides. Everything is enveloped in the heavenly aroma of fried delicacies and salt air and there is no such thing as a “bikini-body”. It’s paradise…New Jersey-style.

This year marked C’s first visit as a fully-functioning human and I was excited for her initiation into the wonders of the shore. On our first morning I anxiously prepared her for the beach—thick coat of SPF 60+, wide-brimmed hat, long-sleeved bathing suit, toys, and all of the requisite equipment. We loaded up the wagon and trekked across the burning sand to a perfect spot near the lifeguard stand. My brother set up the chairs and umbrellas while my mother, sister-in-law, and I wrangled the kids. By the time we were ready to hit the water I was almost as anxious as C and the Dynamic Duo.

Then I turned around and saw them. Chubby, sand-covered twin boys frolicking on a blanket with their beaming grandfather.

The sight of twin toddlers feels more like an exceptionally painful stubbed toe these days than a shotgun blast to the chest. Happy grandfathers barely register anymore. Still, I felt a jolt of envy and anger.

My mind leapt into action, fighting to hold on to my mellow vacation mentality. Within moments the poor parents of these beautiful boys had faced numerous miscarriages prior to the miraculous arrival of their babies. Grandpa became a great uncle, standing in for a father tragically killed in Vietnam and Grandma a victim of early onset Alzheimer’s.

For me this is the most miserable side effect of loss—feeling bad feels good. Some drown their sorrows with alcohol or turn to drugs for relief, I self-medicate with sad stories. Normally the universe (or at least the internet) is happy to oblige with real tragedy. Occasionally I have to cook something up from scratch to get my fix.

Is this behavior normal? Probably. I doubt my little brain has come up with some previously unknown way to grieve. Is it healthy? Probably not but it helps me function. (By the way, the boys escaped unscathed. I haven’t sunk so low that I have to construct calamities for children to float my decrepit ship of hope)

Anxious to get some distance from the poor family being decimated by my overactive imagination I walked C down to the water. I helped her jump over the waves--a time-honored family tradition. We dug in the sand and I showed her how to make a drippy sand castle--just like my Dad taught me so many years before. Gradually my anxiety drifted away, lifted on a warm current of fabricated sympathy and nostalgia and carried out across the water by C’s screams of delight.

Ocean City is the perfect place to escape reality. Developers build high-rise condos on shifting sands. Entire families bathe nearly naked in UV radiation. Diesel-powered carnival rides spew fumes into crowds of children with developing lungs. People chow down on artery clogging funnel-cake and frozen custard for dinner.

But look at them smiling.

Geology

2009-07-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

For several years one of our best friends, S, has been inviting us to join her family on their annual vacation. We’ve declined the invite in years past for various (obvious) reasons. This year, despite many scheduling conflicts, we decided to go ahead and join them for a week at S’s grandmother’s house in the Casco Bay region of Maine.

I spent the drive from PA in a mild state of panic over spending an entire week in the company of S, her family and the other, unknown guests.

T and I first met S when we bought the house we lived in ‘before.’ She and her husband, K, had purchased the house across the street a few months prior and were eager to meet the new neighbors. Soon after that first introduction we were pulled into their orbit and joined an assortment of friends and family members that attended S’s elaborate dinner parties and various holiday celebrations. S’s easy sociability and complete lack of self-consciousness was the perfect antidote to my surly, homebody ways. As neighbors we shared countless meals, discussed numerous home renovation projects, debated issues, lamented the sorry state of our crumbling inner-ring suburb neighborhood, and generally shared our lives. They kept an eye on our house when my father’s death required an extended stay in PA. They were among the first people to know we were having twins and then, later, among the first to know that we had lost R.

We started to drift apart somewhat ‘after’. First S stayed away because she was afraid that her daughter might pass a communicable disease to C. Then we decided to move back to my hometown when C was just under a year old. We’ve stayed in touch via email, facebook, and occasional visits but it’s been a while since things have felt easy and comfortable. The fact that they’ve been more fortunate with their childbearing has played no small part in this distancing. They’ve had two perfectly planned pregnancies and two successful homebirths and are now the proud parents of two healthy girls--just like we would have been if things had gone differently. Although they have been nothing but caring and supportive over the past two years envy is poison to friendship.

Upon arriving in Maine my anxiety dissipated somewhat, eclipsed by our new surroundings. The weathered cottage sat atop a rocky hillside overlooking the ocean-- roughly a century old and wearing its age like an eccentric dowager. The stair treads worn with use, the plaster cracked by a settling foundation, and the mismatched dishes chipped by generations of vacationers, yet it all came together somehow in a quirkily elegant way. The view over the water brought to mind a piece of moth-eaten lace—water dotted with land fragmented by seismic activity, the scrape of ancient glaciers, and the harshness of wind and water. The enthusiastic welcome from S and the other guests and an offer of ice cream sundaes mitigated the stress of an eight-hour car trip. We settled in for a relaxing evening and an excellent night’s sleep.

On the first morning of our visit I went for a walk on a path running between the cottage and the water. The rocks, which had looked sturdy and uniform from the house, gave a completely different impression from this closer vantage point. Huge chunks had been flipped end over end and broken into pieces by the awesome forces at work in the Earth’s crust. Striations created by sedimentation marked the rocks as siblings but the lines met at crazy, vertigo-inducing angles, a testament to the power of tectonic collisions. Far below, waves crashed against the rocks continuing the tortured process of transformation. Venturing even closer I could see yet another landscape among the tumbled boulders. Water had collected in the spaces between and within these tiny pools, sheltered from the surf by the upended rocks, plants and animals had made their homes—a nursery formed by violence, balance brought about through chaos.

During our week together, watching C run around the yard with S and K’s older daughter and play peek-a-boo with their baby, I started to feel a resurgence of comfort and ease. Though our friendship may lack the bright shine of the days when we were full of optimism about the future and plans for our unborn children it’s taken on the patina of something old and valuable. Though our peaceful lives were set awry by loss and tragedy they will eventually return to a state of rest. The jutting edges of disaster and grief will be worn smooth by the caress of friendship. The dips and gullies that have opened between us will nurture a new kind of understanding. A relationship begun in shared experience will grow richer through difference. And I will learn to make the most of what is rather than long for what could have been.

Sock and Soul

2009-07-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

Just as Summer Solstice passes I always get the urge to knit. After all, we’re now on the downslope of the journey towards the shortest day of the year and the accompanying cold weather. In just a few weeks the leaves will start to change and there will be just the faintest snap of fall in the air.

Right around the time I returned to work after maternity leave I decided to learn how to knit socks so that I’d have something productive to do on the train. Since my earliest adventures in knitting I had been intrigued by socks. They seemed like the ideal craft for a commute—small enough to be portable, complex enough to hold my attention, but able to be knitted during brief bursts of activity.

In summer of 2008 I knitted my first pair and I was hooked. The work was interesting and fun and socks turned out to be the only knitted garment with universal appeal for my family members. T rarely wears the hat I made for him, refuses to even consider a scarf, and I don’t have time for a sweater but, he loves his woolly socks. Socks, when paired with sturdy toddler-proof shoes, are seemingly the only clothes we can keep on C who, like all two-year-olds, is a pint-sized nudist.

Now I’m in the process of converting my entire stash over to sock projects. Gone are the sweaters, hats, bags, and baby blankets I had planned—my mind’s eye now sees an army of socks, all different colors and sizes (but hopefully the same general shape) marching out toward the horizon.

Normally when I take on a new craft I devote a significant amount of effort to understanding the mechanics and the meaning behind the steps rather than just blindly following the instructions. With socks, however, I just haven’t taken the time to demystify the process. Instead I watch in wonder as my very own hands transform a tangled length of previously unconnected fibers into something recognizable and useful. Amazingly, adherence to the cryptic instructions yields a functional sock every time.

Each completed pair still strikes me as tiny little miracle—proof that real magic is found not in the unexpected but rather in the endeavor that goes exactly according to plan.

Brute Squad

2009-06-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

This was intended to be a Father's Day post as a tribute to T but I'm a few days late.

Over the past few days I've read several eloquent posts on other blogs reflecting on the particular challenges to babylost fathers. It's no surprise that the common theme among these bloggers is the lack of space granted grieving men. While mama deals with the particular physiological, hormonal, and emotional effects of birth and loss, dad is frequently left to handle administrative tasks with a stiff upper lip. This makes sense at first. After all, life does go on and someone needs to keep things together. Over time the division seems less practical but dads are still expected to be somehow less heartbroken than moms.

This situation was exaggerated in our case because T tends to operate on high alert even under perfectly ordinary circumstances. During any type of emergency he's like a thoroughbred twitching and thrashing in the starting gate while I'm more of a fat, shaggy pony merrily grazing the infield. When R died, T made the phone calls, answered the questions, and handled the necessary arrangements. I snuggled C and forgot my ATM PIN number...repeatedly. Confronted with a challenge he batted it down with alarming expediency and dragged me forward through the muck. Woe to anyone who got in his way or said anything unpleasant to me. March of Dimes telethon operators, insurance company customer service representatives, MaryPIRG canvassers--all bobbed in his wake as he went about the business of surviving.

A week after C was discharged from the hospital T went back to work and I was left to face the world of a new parent without my bodyguard.

Most new parents come home with the baby, spend a couple of days entertaining guests and then get down to the business of learning how to be parents. Visitors offer advice, share stories of their own children, demonstrate techniques for swaddling, bouncing, burping—in short all of the things that new parents need to master. When the proceedings also involve mourning the loss of a baby things are less clear-cut.

C was easily the tiniest baby most of our friends and family had ever seen and her size alone filled up hours of potentially awkward silence. Her immature digestive system was a veritable symphony of whooshes, squeaks, and grumbles—a tiny one-woman gas-powered band. Baby farts, however, can only do so much to mitigate the pain and permanence of death.

I have a vague recollection of carrying on many intensely cheery, primarily one-sided conversations with surprise guests. Talking incessantly seemed to be the best way to keep my panic at bay—panic about the microbes they carried into C’s sanctuary, panic that they wouldn’t leave in time for my next pumping session, panic that they’d start asking questions and T wouldn't be there to provide his steady answers. Determined to seem like the same old me and stubbornly convinced that crying would just make visitors linger I charged ahead like a demented cruise ship director sharing priceless conversational gems --“Have you seen R’s urn yet? We thought pink would be nice for a girl.” “One healthy baby is more than some people get.” “It’s probably better this way, she was very sick.” “Maybe it’s so that my Dad could have a grandchild too.” These statements sound completely insane to me now but, at the time it was better to hear them coming out of my own mouth than risk hearing them come out of somebody else’s.

Without T there to help me maintain my equilibrium I felt drained and exhausted by even the briefest visit. I wanted nothing more than to hand the burden over to him for a while so that I could rest.

Recently I got to thinking that there has to be a better way for couples to navigate this type of loss and grief and I came up with the notion of a babylost Brute Squad.

If the hospital had sent us home with a Brute, T wouldn't have had to take on any unpleasant tasks. The Brute would have sent canvassers packing, the Brute would have answered the phone and taken messages, the Brute would have dispatched the priest who was a little too happy that our daughter had gone to meet Jesus. In short, the Brute would have made it possible for T to grieve beside me instead of dashing ahead to remove any obstacles from my path.

Sometimes I imagine quitting my current job and starting a Brute-for-hire service with T--surely the MacArthur Foundation would give me a grant. We could offer a couple of different packages. The Basic – we camp out on your porch and function like bouncers. The Premium – we follow you around like bodyguards and terminate any conversations that veer into undesirable territory The Deluxe – we masquerade as you and pretend to be perfectly calm, ‘brave’ people for the benefit of your friends and family.

Any takers?

Reasonable

2009-06-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

People are strange. We’re terrified of high-intensity deaths—lightning strikes, terrorist attacks, plane crashes--and cavalier about commonplace dangers—car wrecks, lousy air quality, obesity via high-fructose corn syrup. Everyday perfectly logical, high-functioning people engage in notably risky activities (left-hand turn on yellow, anyone?) with barely a thought while the slightest mention of the swine flu practically incites a riot.

When someone is killed in a rare but incredibly sensational event we’re completely flummoxed and left running about like ants confronting a sudden break in the line. “Why?” we cry, pleading to the heavens, “Why did this happen?” Then we run to the water cooler and recount the details for anyone who will listen as if repeating them a couple times will make the whole thing more plausible.

It’s the unexpected and horrific that activates the fear centers in our little monkey brains—as if people who die spectacularly are somehow more dead than those who go out with a whimper. We want explanations, assurances that it isn’t going to happen to us and we will be spared the insult of a ‘bad death.’

Last night, scrolling through FB, I noticed that a friend posted about the tragic death of a baby. My friend didn’t know the baby but she was horrified by the circumstances--baked in a hot car in a parking lot near my friend’s home after his father forgot to drop him off at daycare.

This particular scenario is one of my waking nightmares and I echoed her sentiment in my mind. What those poor parents must be going through. My heart clenched in my chest and I prepared to type a sympathetic reply.

Then I scrolled down a little further and saw that she believes everything happens for a reason…but not this.

A memory percolated about in my mind before rising to the surface and I clicked open my email. I scrolled back through time in search of my quarry. There it was—a message from this very same friend assuring me that there was a reason for R’s death.

The monitor disappeared behind a red fog. How dare she mourn the death of some stranger’s baby and dismiss my baby’s death with some tired bromide about reasons.

Both babies suffered horribly. Both babies died. There is no difference. There is no explanation. There is no reason.

My immediate response was to send the message back with a self-serving, officious reply—something that emphasized my hard-won dead-baby wisdom (as if it’s some sort of treasure) and scoffed at her naivete—something that would allow me to pass the burden to someone else for a while.

I didn’t send the message. I didn’t comment on her post.

Her reaction is perfectly reasonable.

In order to spare ‘them’ the agony T and I frequently downplay the terrifying, graphic details of R’s death. Pruned down to the trunk and essential branches, the narrative is nothing more than an unfortunate but clean series of medical mishaps. R’s final hours sound almost pleasant—surrounded by people trying to save her--soothed to sleep in a quiet, dim-lit room in her father’s arms.

I’m glad my friend still has her strangeness. I’m glad she can still be horrified and search for reasons. I wish I didn’t know the truth.

Looking Ahead

2009-06-08T20:05:00.001-07:00

Today I drove past "R's Playground" and saw a girl, maybe 13 or 14 years old, playing alone on the swings.

When we donated the playground equipment in R's memory our idea was that we would be able to see happy children doing all of the fun things that R couldn't. Seeing this girl, just on the cusp of her teenage years, reminded me of the milestones that R would miss and that C would have to meet alone.

During my pregnancy I was thrilled to be having twin girls. Growing up I had always thought that a twin would make life easier. Pathologically shy and introverted, I longed for a partner who could see me and accept me exactly as I was. I pictured my daughters lying in bed at night sharing secrets in the dark or sharing clothes or supporting each other through the challenges that were sure to come.

For all I know the girl on the playground could have been waiting for her friends or just enjoying some alone time in the sunshine but I can't help thinking that she was lonely.

And I worry that C will be lonely without her sister.

Congratulences?

2009-06-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

When I was younger and considerably more carefree my friends and I would make up words that we felt were missing from the English language. These creations corresponded to the challenges and trivialities of our days and then found their way into our everyday use.

Several of them were developed at the outdoor education center where I worked immediately following college and are fittingly British schoolboy humor-ish. Spluff – when the tide is rising and comes to just-barely crotch level. Lunx – time between two events that is empty but too short to be filled with anything other than ass-sitting. Congweff – doing something (ahem) 4 times in a 24 hour period. I met my husband around this time and he brought a word of his own to the conversation—tamardiggan – finishing a long and arduous task, normally shouted triumphantly.

These were the words of my youth--the language that was needed to capture and codify our exuberance.

Since R died I’ve felt the need to create more new words, maybe even a whole language, to capture the new reality.

Out here in the grieving parent blogosphere the wordsmiths are hard at work, twisting our surprisingly optimistic modern English to fit these new purposes (since when does awesome only apply to things that are overwhelmingly good?) A lot of work has been done on new adjectives to harness knowing rage – craptastic, suckitude, fucktacular. I use all of them frequently but haven’t been able to make any of my own contributions. Compared to most of the folks writing on the subject of loss and misery I’m quite the hack but, I don’t think that’s entirely the problem. Our situation is fairly unique, even in these circles--thus, the lack of words to describe it.

What do you say to someone simultaneously having the most amazing and most horrid day of their life?

What is the name for a twinless twin?

What is the word for missing someone whom you never really met?

And the hits just keep on coming...

2009-06-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

One of the things that sustained me through bedrest, premature delivery, the NICU, and my high stress maternity leave was the supportive group of folks back at the office. My colleagues, and more specifically, my supervisor, ran interference on administrative tasks, helped with errands, sent concerned emails, and just generally 'got it.'

When I returned to work after a seven month absence (most of it courtesy of leave donations) I felt comfortable in my newfound semi-catatonic state. People were patient with my shiny new lousy temper and my complete lack of short-term memory.

When I decided to leave, my supervisor, W, did everything he could to help my transition to the new job. It wasn't exactly the most polite thing to do--take an extra 3 months of leave and then split within weeks of returning to the office but W understood and supported my decision.

I found out today that W's wife is severely ill. The prognosis isn’t good but the illness is treatable and they are surrounded by a supportive group of friends and family who have already mobilized.

W and his wife are the very able and loving parents of two young children and just overall stellar people.

If you happen to swing by here and read this, please direct a prayer or a positive thought toward them tonight.

I'm constantly reminded as I wade through my 'after' that families all over the world are just departing their 'before' and I wish I could do more to help.

The New World

2009-05-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in my mind I've decided that I have until C's 2nd birthday to finish constructing my new world. If I'm being generous with myself I'll add in the 12 extra days and make it the 2nd anniversary of R's death. The point is, however, that grief will likely be my constant companion for the rest of my life and I should figure out how to wear it comfortably.

I'm starting to think that the only way to cope with the memories I carry and revisit daily is to deposit them somewhere outside of myself. Chances are this blog will basically be an echo-chamber for my private musings but there's always the chance that someone will stop by--maybe someone who's just lost a parent or a child and needs to know that they aren't alone.

Grieving, remembering, moving on...it all takes a tremendous amount of energy. The question is do you just let the heat build up inside until it's unbearable or do you direct the force outward and put it to work?

How do you get to the angels?

2009-05-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Even two years after the fact (and almost 4 years since my Dad's death) I'm occasionally blindsided by a rogue wave of crushing grief.

Tonight I'm helping my Mom babysit my nieces, aka The Dynamic Duo. They're 4 and 6-years-old and open to new experience and information in the way that only young children can be.

Out of the blue the 4-year-old turned to me and said, "How did Pop-pop get to the angels?"

"He got sick and then he went to sleep and didn't wake up," I replied as the tiny pilot who steers me through these moments sprang into action.

"But how do you get to the angels? Where are they?" the 6-year-old pressed.

"I don't know. It's complicated."

"You disappear?" asked the 4-year-old.

"Sort of."

"M's Uncle Cookie died yesterday. Maybe he'll be friends with Pop-pop."

And after holding it together through job interviews, follow-up NICU visits, memorial services, baby showers, and so many other challenging events and conversations, the pilot was finally outmaneuvered by the storm.

I left before they could see me crying for R, Dad--for poor Uncle Cookie, struck down by leukemia in his early 30's. Uncle Cookie who called R's death a tragedy when he knew his own days were numbered.

Why do my beautiful, innocent nieces even have to think about the mechanics of reaching heaven? Why can't their sad excuse for an aunt believe that heaven exists?

What Happened?

2009-05-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

I don't spend much time talking about the girls. For the most part, the people who need to know have already heard the details. As a courtesy to anyone who happens by, however, I'll fill in the backstory.

R and C were spontaneous monochorionic, diamniotic twins. In other, words, identical. We have no idea why our little zygote split into two separate beings (though I may share some theories later on). It's not genetic, we did not employ any fertility treatments or mysterious rituals.

The pregnancy progressed smoothly until around 28 weeks when C (then known as Baby B) developed a condition called no-end diastolic flow which led to intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). We found out later that these problems were a result of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). Without getting overly technical, identical twins typically share a placenta and frequently develop malformed blood vessels that result in unequal distribution of blood flow and resources. Simply put, C was starving and R was getting overfed.

I was hospitalized during the 29th week of my pregnancy and spent 11 days with 24-hour fetal heart monitoring. Although C showed some progress during the next couple of weeks, she was still in danger and the doctors suggested that we opt for a planned c-section at 32 weeks. My husband, T, and I reviewed the information they provided about premature birth and decided that the benefits of an early delivery outweighed the risks. The doctors scheduled the appointment and the girls were delivered during an uneventful surgery on August 14 and moved into adjoining rooms in the NICU.

We had two days of relative relaxation with our perfect, tiny girls. Two days of believing that we pulled the wool over death's eyes. And then lightning struck.

I have a vague recollection of the cardiologist appearing in R's room and explaining critical pulmonary valve stenosis and balloon catheterization. The there was something about a fortunate case of PDA keeping R's blood flowing and a prostoglandin drip and a race to reach 5 pounds so that the doctors could operate. Then a whole bunch of tubes, wires, alarms, and updates.

On the morning of August 24 I arrived at the NICU to find C sleeping peacefully while R tossed about. The nurse suspected infection and my heart sank. The cultures wouldn't be ready for 48 hours but they suspected necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).

I don't need to explain NEC here--there are plenty of descriptions on the internet and each one will make your blood run cold.

Within hours we were on our way to another hospital, miles from C, R on a vent in an ambulance.

Two days later it was over. Exploratory surgery confirmed the doctors' worst suspicions. NEC had completely destroyed R's intestines and stomach.

We unhooked the vent around 4PM on August 26th and waited for her tiny heart to stop beating. The nurse cried. The surgeon apologized. We told R she could finally rest.

Then we signed the necessary papers, collected our memory box, and dashed back to little C, terrified of what might happen next.

One week later we hugged all of our nurses and doctors good-bye, packed the 3.5 pound C into her carseat and headed home to figure out how to live with sorrow and joy.