five years...and one day...later

Hell is other people.

Isn't that what the author said?

I've heard it expanded--hell is other people at breakfast.  Now, there's a sentiment I can get behind.! Last week Seth Mc.Farlane tweeted that, in the ninth circle of hell, you have to watch other people eat cereal for all eternity.  All of the hair on my back is standing on end just thinking about the slurping and crunching.  I might join twitter just to get more insight on this issue.

I started off the month thinking that I needed my own version.  Hell is other people...in August.

 Other people getting riled up about memos and grammar, treating work like life, acting like we can only prove we're something more than random collections of cells floating through space on a rock by pushing each other around.

My skin is thinner this time of year.  The accumulation of coping and accepting stretches me into an overinflated balloon of memory, regret, and knowledge.  Beware...other people...beware.  I might explode if you try to cram anything else into my brain place.  Not to mention my heart place...oh, my poor, sore heart...how it hates having to deal with other peoples' issues with bullet formats and passive voice.  In weak moments it urges me to say things like, "You've clearly never had a real problem if you can get so upset about subject-verb agreement."

I stifle it and feel myself swelling further--the balloon pushed ever closer to bursting as I suck down the anger and focus on love for my fellow humans.

I don't say anything smartassy.  I don't say anything at all. And the other people thank me for my patience.

I want to tell the other people that I am only patient with them because of R.

"When my daughter died," I want to say, "I decided that I was through with getting upset about small things. I realized how precious every life is and I celebrate her by not punching appreciating you. My daughter taught me about love...and patience.  My tiny baby--whom you've forgotten  you probably don't know about--is the person you should thank."

But dead daughters are not discussed in the office.  If you bring them up, you minimize other peoples' stupid shit valid concerns and make them feel bad.  And, for R, I want to make other people feel heard and accepted no matter how pointless their issues are and how much they piss me off.

****

Five years ago, during most of August, she was still alive and we thought she had a chance.

I review the12 sacred days between August 14 and 26 carefully every year.  Was she wearing pajamas yet on day 6? Did I get to hold her? Is this the day that T took off from work to sit by her bedside?

And the questions that sneak in unbidden and unwelcome. How didn't I notice? Why didn't I do something?

Other people everywhere and I just want to sit still and remember.  Just for 12 days.  Surely I can have 12 days.  It's hardly any time at all.  Believe me, I know.

****

Other people take up my time with conversations about women who flirt with their husbands and complain about being too busy with their 100% alive set of children.  Other people put things up on their FB walls in August like pictures of bumper stickers that say "falling down doesn't make you a failure.  staying down does."

I think other people ought to try staying down every once in a while.  The view is something from here.

****

Then we inch closer to August 26 and I change my mind.  A door-to-door salesman takes the time to ask about my MISS Foundation t-shirt and turned out to have two second trimester medical terminations.  My uncle posts an FB status about supporting people who have experienced stillbirth, infant loss, and pregnancy loss.  Parents volunteer to help me with my insane plan to coach C's soccer team.

The other mothers just trying to make it through August.

My friend, Catherine, plants some rosemary in her yard on the other side of the ocean.

Other people can be alright.  They can be part of the swirling wonder that is my daughter. Five years after we said good-bye to her. Miss you, always, R.

Five (almost)

There is a turd sitting in the middle of the sidewalk a couple of blocks away from my house.  I saw it when I was walking the dog.  The flies lifted off and made a leisurely flight to the shelter of the grass strip between sidewalk and curb.  A small nod to their abhorrence or a defensive maneuver?

There's still a part of me that sputters in indignation when a turd pops up right in the middle of my morning.  I call this part Buttercup.  Buttercup is the one who reads up on these things and she can tell you that there are at least 2 ordinances being flouted by the neighbor and his or her smallish dog.  Beyond the letter of the law, however, is the matter of decency--decent dogs who sleep on dog beds stuffed with cedar chips and upholstered with stiff moral fabric know that you go in the grass...and that's only because you can't get a good grip on the toilet seat without thumbs.  She looks at the turd and wants explanations.  What deviant little creature would do such a thing?

Because Buttercup (and every other upstanding citizen of the borough) knows that this is a public right-of-way.  That means that god and country wanted some pavement here so that pedestrians could stay out of the way of the cars that are clearly meant to burn fossil fuels and expel noxious fumes 5 feet to the left.  You can check the plat maps down at borough hall. That's where the fundamental truths lie.  In the closet right next to the one where they store the cotton candy machine that comes out for fundraisers.

The plat maps will also show you where the sewer lines run in case you're wondering where turds really ought to be...flushed down using potable water into a pipe that only runs directly into a stream when there's a big storm.  There are people paid to take care of stuff like this. They spend their days thinking about shit so that you and I don't have to.  Because civilized creatures don't squat in the middle of the sidewalk  Or, if they do, a more civilized creature comes and at least wraps that turd in plastic and sends it off to the landfill

A turd!  Right in the middle of a pristine slab of pavement, lounging there so casually as if it has a right to exist.  As if it has anything to do with the rest of us...

So, I was just about to kick it into the grass so that we could all forget about its existence and return to our normally scheduled, feces-free programming.  But something stopped me.

I'm still a city dweller at heart and even the non-Buttercup parts of me understand how to get along to go along.  I carry many bags and keep my dog on the leash whenever we head out for a walk together.  But, it's August, the month of joy and despair and I kind of want one of my unsuspecting neighbors to step in dog shit and to contemplate the importance of shit as he's scraping it off the bottom of his shoe.  Or to have the temporary feeling of good luck that comes when he narrowly avoids stepping in the shit.  The bad, the good, all of it--all of it is necessary.

 What's the difference anyway?  Turd? Sidewalk? Flies?  People? A million seeds that can't grow in pavement?  People who don't walk enough to warrant a sidewalk anyway?  Who am I to say how things ought to be?

++++

Tomorrow is their 5th birthday--my daughters who are cursed with a mother who writes about dog turds on the internet in connection with their birth.  Maybe R will never find out.

I don't know how to feel about 5 years.  It seems to be the magic number of years that it has taken to get alright with R's death and to feel like a halfway decent mother.  I can't/won't forget how my R suffered for those 12 days and I will regret that I couldn't give her something better for the rest of my life but, the central fact of her existence is separate from that pain.  She was mine and she was perfect for me because she was mine.

Somehow this is harder with the daughter that I see everyday.  For her, just the fact that she survived is so amazing to me that I can't figure out what happens next.  Yet, I feel the unsolicited advice bubbling up.  It used to be the basics like 'don't talk while you're eating' and 'put your bike helmet on' and (at night while watching her sleep) 'please wake up tomorrow.'  But it's getting more nitpicky as she gets older and the stakes are raised.  I worry about the future and the way she gets frustrated about coloring and writing her letters.

"You survived." I want to say, "You barely made it.  Who cares about school?"

But that would be some crap parenting so, out comes the advice.  She makes her B backwards and I point it out to her because I know that she'll be pissed when she notices it later.  And then the tears and I immediately regret opening my mouth because she is almost five and just the fact that she is almost five is enough perfection to sustain me for the rest of my days on this planet.  But, the B was backwards and we can't have meltdowns over backwards Bs so I tell her she needs to calm down and now I'm squelching her self-expression...

GAH!!!

Every parent probably feels this way.  I'm sure every mother I know gets accidentally wrapped around the axle of good intentions sooner or later.  And every other mother probably tries to back away from the situation and reassures herself that this isn't a big deal...in the grand scheme of things.  She may even utter it aloud, "Hey, settle down.  It's not like someone died."

++++

But still, my girls and I have come so far together over these five years.  August is still challenging and exhausting for me but I'm thankful for both of my daughters and everything they've taught me.

Happy birthday to you, C and R!

Charlotte

A spider has moved into the side mirror of our microvan.  We first noticed her in early July when we were back from a long weekend in Kentucky.  The car hadn't moved for a 5 days and I guess it seemed like a decent spot for a web.  She's a smallish spider and we didn't really notice her until the car was moving and she was struggling to climb to the relative safety of the side mirror casing.  "Tough break," I thought, as T slowed the car to give her a chance to get settled, "Guess she's going to have to move."

Two weeks later, speeding northwest on the NJ turnpike on my way back from the annual, family vacation, my mom noticed that the spider was still there--after 500 miles, a week of salt air, and one trip to the garage for tire rotation.  Still there, whipping around on the end of a thread while trying to repair her wind-ravaged web.

++++

My boss is encouraging me to apply for a developmental work assignment.  I told him that I'd think about it but that I felt like my plate was pretty full at the moment because I'd just volunteered to coach C's soccer team and needed to manage my workload.  And then his face scrunched up in that way that indicates confusion.  

There's no point in trying to explain it, is there?

You either understand how much effort it can take to just stay even or you don't.

It feels like a cheat because I talk about acceptance...a lot.  Maybe too much for some who are struggling to get their feet back.  Sometimes I wonder if my acceptance is even like anyone else's.  Is a dead baby and a living baby at the same time really that big of a pill to swallow?  How does 12 days of life stack up against a baby who never took a breath?  What if dying was probably the best thing that ever happened to R?  

And what about all of the other trials that life can throw at people?  Do I really understand anything at all?  I took a pretty intense series of kicks and punches from fate but I had a deep well of support and good fortune to help me recover.  Do I have the right to even use the word acceptance?

Have I really made it if I'm just standing in the shallow end, shoulders hunched, soft parts covered, neglecting personal growth and forward movement while I wait to fend off the next blow?

++++

I don't really think that there's a right way or a wrong way to proceed after your baby dies.  I'm not even sure that I believe that you must proceed, depending on the circumstances.  The whole my-baby-died-and-I-became-a-villain or the baby-made-of-hope-that-grew-in-the-garden movie plot seems perfectly reasonable and inoffensive to me. Because, my baby died and, sure enough, I went a little nuts for a little while.  Maybe not steal-the-neighbors-baby or hijack-happy-person's-life nuts but, close enough that I could see the gates to those lifestyles on the horizon.  I'm sure that there are countless other things that could happen that might drive me around the bend.  There's no point in judging a thing that I can't understand.

A lot of beauty exists in the place where I used to feel R's absence but there are still dark corners full of details about her life and her death that I can't forget.  I  keep them at bay through constant vigilance.  Vigilance takes time that, naturally, I'd rather spend doing other things but then the whole house would collapse and, dang it, I just finished painting the rec room.

++++

Not that I can even begin to understand the criteria that spiders apply to web location decisions or relate to them in any way at all given their over-supply of scuttling legs and weird, shiny eyes and the way they bite you on the pinky finger and make it swell to twice its natural size.  It seems like this spider is either extremely brave or stupid or unlucky or some combination of the three.

It's been about a month now.  Yesterday the spider dined on a tiny moth while we drove to the hardware store. T declared her to be the Evel Knievel of spiders and wondered if she has some sort of genetic anomaly that makes her more of a thrill-seeker or if she got tired of her humdrum life and decided to step out to the ledge.

Or maybe she's completely unaware that there are places to build webs that don't hurtle across the landscape at 80+ mph.

Or maybe she's unhappy with the situation but striving to make the most of it.

"I used to have a web in a quiet corner of the garage," she says to the tiny moth as she binds it down with sticky fibers, "You should have seen me back then, eating moths thrice your size."


The moth doesn't reply.  They never do once she's paralyzed them with venom.


"Bloom where you're planted.  Isn't that what they say?" says the spider, bracing herself as the car makes a left turn.


The moth has given up now. The spider feels a momentary pang of regret, having known struggle herself ever since she got stuck on the side of this car.  She sinks her fangs into the still form and drains it, surprised and somewhat happy to find that it's just as delicious as the moths of her golden years. She wishes that she'd been able to tell the moth how delicious it tasted and briefly wonders if there might be a way to eat moths without actually killing them.  But then she remembers that she's just a spider.  Even here, performing amazing acrobatics while stuck on the side of a car in a twist of bad luck, she's just a spider.

onward

I've had the same sharpie marker on my desk for 7 years.

It's not terribly useful for my particular line of business but I keep it around for two particular purposes.  I use it to mark my file folders for projects that are finished and have been consigned to my forgetting-drawer and I use it to strike the days from my wall calendar.

Once upon a time I'd take the final moments of my Friday afternoon to strike through the entire weekend in the spirit of efficiency--FridaySaturdaySunday.  One less thing to take care of on Monday morning when, naturally I'd be back in the office because of-course-I'll-still-be-here-on-Monday-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-in-two-days-time?

Do I even need to say that I've changed my ways?  Does anyone who reads here take a single day/hour/minute/second for granted anymore?

My new world-view has imbued my sharpie with magical powers.  It is now the destroyer of time and instrument of doom.

****

We're rounding third on year five and proceeding to home plate.  For those of you with half a set of twins, you'll be familiar with the annual, double-penetration mind-fuck of the weeks leading up to your child's birthday.

I'm really not one to compare scars but, folks, their birthday (and its concomitant stew of joy, love, logistics, sadness, and regret) still makes me feel like I'm turning inside-out and transforming into a wild beast.  By the time C blows out the 7 candles on her cake (1 for R and 1 for good luck) I'll be ready to howl at the moon.

****

We took another road-trip to Kentucky to visit friends and family this year.  It wasn't the 2-week-long funeral/wedding extravaganza of 2011 but the trip wasn't completely devoid of drama.

On  the first leg of our trip we saw an overturned minivan and an abandoned car that burst into flames from the extreme heat.  As that insane, inland hurricane passed through West Virginia, we hurried off the elevated highway to take shelter in a Wendy's. Disasters small and large everywhere but we managed to emerge unscathed.

The night before our return trip, C and I went to bed early while T stayed up to talk with his mom.  I had a couple of books but C didn't want to read.  She wanted to talk about her birthday and how it was only 6 weeks away and all of the things she'd do once she turned 5 like chew gum and start kindergarten and all of the birthday party supplies that we could get once we got home from Kentucky.

Meanwhile, inside a nondescript, beige cubicle, deep in the bowels of a government office building in Philadelphia, an evil sharpie marker twitched to life.

I should probably be encouraged that, in spite of everything, C still trusts that the sun will rise and that the next few weeks will come off without a hitch but I have to admit that I slept very poorly that night.  I wasn't really crying but it was like my head was so filled with worry that it started to leak.  The tears caught in my hair as I stared at the ceiling and sent a silent warning to the fates, "Leave her alone.  She's just a kid.  She doesn't remember."

****

I'm just going to end this one by noting that my trusty macbook pro died at the end of May, precluding my participation in the 'right where i am' commenting bonanza.  I haven't even been able to maintain my normal schedule of spotty posting and delayed commenting and, rather than try to make up for lost time, I've decided to just cut bait.  Not that you're all sitting around waiting for me to eject nuggets of wisdom via blogger, but, I didn't tumble down the basement stairs to my untimely demise and I think I'm back to normal operations.

Now...on to August...

right where i am: 4 years, 9 months, 12 days

Update:  This post is part of Angie's project at still life with circles, right where i am 2012.  Here's my post from this same project in 2011.  Kept it short this year in hopes that I'd have plenty of time to get around and comment on all of the other posts.


I suppose some would say that I'm actually at 4 years and 9 months since R died on the 26th and it's the 26th.  But, honestly, I regret the circumstances of her short life just as much as I grieve her death--maybe more. So, 12 days it is.

I went back and read last year's post before writing this year's post and I've decided that I'm ridiculously predictable.  Would you believe that I've engaged in the same activities and circled around the same themes in my head over the course of an entire year?  Well, if you read this blog, you probably aren't surprised to hear that at all---yeah, yeah, infinite possibility, sorrow and joy, grouchy dog, left-wing politics.

When I search my closet today there will be some new stuff.  I went shopping last week and bought some clothes that are neither black nor grey.  Two of my new shirts have ruffles.  I still want that monastic robe but mostly to hide my middle-aged spread.  I smiled at the youthful stupidity of the returned college students who drove down my street this week towing a friend on a skateboard (with no helmet) rather than worrying about their soon-to-be bereft mothers and sisters.  C asked me how I know she isn't really R last week and I didn't worry about her psychological health.

I've turned a corner this year.

R is just my daughter.  Sure, she's dead but that's no longer the operative word.  She is my first born.  C's twin.  A full member of this family with all of the associated rights and privileges.

I want to lounge around and watch TV with her snuggled on my lap, poking her big kid elbows into my ribs.  I want her to hide a big-eyed unicorn toy behind the shower curtain to scare the bejeezus out of me.  I want to argue with her about green beans and the importance of wearing a hat in the sun.

I can't do any of those things with her.

But I don't do any of those things with most of the people I know and, someday, I won't do them with C either.  And it's alright.

It's alright.

I can love her just the same anyway.

I went to the woods...

...to set up my soapbox and spout off as if I know anything about anything.

That's right, y'all, I've emerged from my little cave and written a guest post at Glow in the Woods about how R's nothing became more like everything.

Now I will go and breathe into a paper bag until my terror subsides.

Lullabies

C has taken to singing "All the Pretty Horses" at night as she falls asleep. I lie next to her in bed and sing along in a funny voice to keep myself from melting into a puddle.

T must have taught it to her. I didn't even know this song before I she was born. It wasn't in my family's repertoire. I think of it as being somewhat more American than we are. I've imagined my forbears on westbound, oceangoing vessels and on foot, trudging through Ellis Island or walking to the mill, lunchpail in hand but, somehow, I've never pictured any of them atop or behind a horse. We're city folk. We don't sing about horses, pretty or otherwise.

...goooo to slee-eep little bay-bee...when you waaaake, you shall have, aaaaall the pretty, little, horse-ses...

Maybe it's because I picture T hearing this song as a little baby with his young, shell-shocked parents. Or maybe it's just just the way C sings it with such commitment in her warbly little voice. Whatever the reason, this song destroys me every time.

If this were an old-fashioned, pen-and-ink journal, you'd see little smeary teardrops all over this page.

I'm assuming that this song is actually about a baby who doesn't want to stop playing with toy horses ahead of naptime. And mom or dad is just doing the normal parent bargaining thing--you can play with them again after your nap, for Pete's sake! Or, hell, maybe it's real horses and a coach and six was a common household possession back in the day, like a pre-Industrial Revolution version of the SUV. I'm a little out of my depth here.

When I hear it, I picture dozens of horses frolicking alongside a sun-dappled pond and it feels so...aspirational. Less 'Mommy needs you to sleep so that she can fold the laundry' and more 'Great things await you, baby. Mommy is going to work on securing your marvelous future while you take a little nap.'

****

I want amazing things for C. I'd crawl across hot coals and broken glass and killer bees to get her those horses or anything she wants.

But mostly, I want her to keep waking up.

I want to believe that she will always wake up.

****

I've always been a little bit nuts. When I was 4, I did not want anyone else picking out my clothes (or my jewelry). I can't tolerate noisy chewing or gratuitous hugging. I eat my M&Ms in a very specific order and, yes, I will share, but, no, you cannot have any of the red ones. Much to T's (and C's) disappointment, I can't quite say "I love you" without tacking a sigh onto the end. You know, that sigh that transforms it into something more like, "I love you, ok? Please don't make me say it."

In short, there were so many other, better, old-fashioned ways I could have screwed my daughter(s) up. I can almost imagine an alternate future where C and R gripe about me in a late-night, wine-fueled bitch session or an even more distant future where they gather all of their own kids around and laugh about me and my strange ways.

I fantasize about them together, ganging up on me and bruising my feelings a bit. I can't believe it will never happen. That they will never know each other. That I couldn't keep them together.

I want my old, garden-variety failures back.

I want a bright future for C but I mostly want to erase the sad parts of her past.

****

She wants me to sing the song to her while I rock her like a baby. I do the best I can, breathing slowly, taking long pauses, and thinking about mundane tasks to avoid thinking about how it was when she actually was a baby.

Her legs stick out at a ridiculous angle and my knees ache from her weight. She's all sharp angles and muscles now.

"Where did I put my arms then?" she asks and I struggle to remember.

"Your arms were shorter. You were mostly greedy eyes and an open mouth. I could hold you in one hand."

She smiles and does her best to tuck her arms in and make her eyes wider. I remember willing her to grow, trying to imagine her one year, two years, three years older, believing that she'd be safe once she wasn't a baby anymore.

"Was I teeny as a crumb?"

"Teenier"

She smiles. She likes to hear me talk about how special she was. R doesn't really exist for her. I have to remember that. She has very limited ideas of before and a whole lot of after stretched out ahead of her.

"Keep singing."

I fight my way through but it's a lost cause.

"Mama, are you crying?"

"Just because I'm happy, boo-boo."