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.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Multiples and Chickens of Responsibility
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.
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.
Friday, September 2, 2011
And the Winner is....
....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.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Might as Well Enjoy It: An R Day Giveaway!
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.
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.
Monday, August 22, 2011
4 Years Later
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Dispatches from Level 4
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Trying - Part II
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.
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.
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