The Last Time

I hate that even now, a year later, I am still struck dumb by the “last times.”  In the beginning it was expected that there would be lots of them. “The last time I drove was the day I took her to the hospital.”  “The last time I was at this friend’s house for dinner I was holding her.”  “The last time I sat at our dining room table I was nursing her.”  “The last time I slept in this bed, she was sleeping next to me.” 

It happened less as time went on, as each one of them was realized, cried over, and recovered from. They would still creep up occasionally, less frequent and less expected.  “The last time I watched this movie we were in the hospital and I was watching a stupid movie instead of holding her.”  “The last time I talked to this person, I was still pregnant with her, and now I have to explain to someone else how drastically things can change in just a few months.” 

Even now, it still happens once in a while. Today I decided to order from a company I used to do business with. I went back through my old invoices to jog my memory about what I might want to get. Then it hit me. The last time I did an order was just a couple months after Eliana died-during that time I was walking around like a zombie half the time and crying hysterically the other half.

It seems strange to me now that I was doing something so mundane as ordering food. I don’t remember eating. I guess this is proof that I fed my kids at least. I can’t even begin to imagine how I pulled it together enough to either make a decision about what food to buy or to actually purchase it. I certainly did not feel very functional or even okay. Did I look like I was functional or doing okay?

Going back a few orders I found the ones I placed right before she was born. I bought all that stuff in preparation for having a new baby. I stocked up on essentials so I wouldn’t need to go to the store for a while afterward.  I made ready for life with a baby that I wasn’t going to get to keep. I have a whole trail of sadness, neatly disguised as food orders.

And then this whole line of thinking leads me to the really important stuff. The last time I held her. The last time I saw her smile. The last time, the last time. Most people record their baby’s firsts. I can only recite the lasts. The last time she took a breath, and the last time I was able to hope for miracles.   The last time my baby looked into my eyes, the last time I saw her face, and the last time I looked at the world unclouded by grief.

I think most of all I yearn for the last time that both she and I were whole, and for the time when we both will be again. Someday, hopefully a long time from now, it will be a relief to know that I’ve cried for the last time over missing my Eliana.

I’m In Love

I’m in love. No, don’t call my husband please. The object of my affection is no threat to him. I’m in love with the rainbow baby. The day he was born I held him for …. about eight hours. Do you think that’s excessive? It was hard at first to be sure. I cried on the way to the hospital. I cried walking in. I cried in the elevator. I cried when I got to the room, and when I first held him. So much fear and joy and sadness and wonder, all tangled up together.

The worst part, though, was after the nurse gave him a bath. He was crying, so I went over and held his hand and stroked his head. Then it hit me forcibly that this was the same thing I used to do with Eliana-same overhead warmer, same hand holding and head stroking, same whispering that everything would be okay. It was like a knife in my heart, an instant transport back to those horrible, endless days and nights at her bedside. I stood there sobbing, onto my shoes instead of onto him, though. He was upset enough over the bath already. What a lucky little thing, too young to know that sometimes everything is not okay, not even close to okay.

The next day I was thinking about him, and musing about the fact that he is the first child besides our three girls that I have ever bonded with ….and then the panic set in. I’m moving! What in the world was I thinking? Why didn’t it occur to me beforehand that I would have to leave him? That if I allowed myself to love him, my heart would feel it as another loss? Should I have held back, built a nice safe wall to protect me from any more pain? Was I so anxious to love a baby again that I was foolish to do so with one I won’t even get to see very often? Should I have kept a tighter reign on my emotions? How did I not realize this until after I fell in love with him?

Interesting questions to be sure, but all a little too late. I love this baby, and it already hurts to think about leaving him. I don’t know why I’ve never had (or really tried to make) a connection with the other kids I could have been “Auntie” to, but I was finally ready to try it. Unfortunately, it seems I won’t get the chance now. When I said I wanted to love him from a distance, I didn’t mean from a whole state away. Any emotional distance I thought I was going to have went out the window the first time I held him. What do I do now? I’m in love with the rainbow baby, but I won’t get to see him grow up either.

Moving

I’m moving. Soon and far. The wanderlust side of myself is reveling in the change and the new adventure of it all. The sentimental side, however, is crying rivers of tears inside my head and heart. All three of our children were born in this house. That fact alone could have kept me content here for the rest of my life. There is a certain old-time appeal to the idea of birthing and raising our children here, and growing old and dying here. It is not going to happen that way now.

Since Eliana only lived two months, there are very few physical ties to this world. One is our house. The other is the hospital. She was born and lived one month at our house. She lived one month and died at the hospital. Now I am leaving both behind. I’m also leaving my friend’s mom’s house, where Eliana made one of just two social outings. My other friend’s apartment is here, the place of her second social event. The doctor’s office I took her to is here. The urgent care we went to is here. The funeral home, the last place I ever held her, is here. Every place she ever was, is here, and I’m leaving.

I won’t be able to drive down the street, and pass any of these locations anymore. I won’t be able to go visit the nurses at her hospital and chat for a few minutes with someone who actually knew her. I won’t be able to sit in my recliner, or lay down in bed, and close my eyes and relive the moments when she was right there in that exact spot with me. I suppose to someone who has never lost a child that might seem like a good thing. To anyone who has, though, we know that part of getting through this depends on clinging to whatever memories we have of our children, because that is all we will ever have of them. There will never be any new ones.

I’m also leaving the only people who are witnesses that my child existed. People here saw her. They held her. They came to the house, to the hospital, and to the funeral. To them, she is more than just a picture on a wall. She is a person. I’m moving away from all the people who care about my baby, or about me. I’m leaving the only people who know me and love me enough to support me in all the things I do in Eliana’s memory, the things I need to do to survive this life without her.

Her birthday is going to be the last day I see most of the people I know. How could the day be any sadder? Two months after that I will be in a new place nearly alone on the one year anniversary of her death. The only thing I can think of that is worse than dealing with my child’s death, is trying to deal with it alone. I’m scared of how hard it is going to be.

I will still have her urn, and her pictures, and stuffed animals, and everything else that was hers, and that I’ve collected since she died. It just isn’t the same, though. It feels as though her essence or spirit is here, and I’m leaving. It is somewhat ridiculous, as I do not believe that at all, but that is how it feels. I’m aware that feelings sometimes have little to do with reality, but  knowing that does not stop how much it hurts to be leaving this place-leaving it without her.

I’m moving, but a part of me, a part of my heart, will always remain here, in the bedroom of this house where my sweet baby took her first breath, and in that hospital room where she took her last. I may have to move, but I will never move on.

The Rainbow Baby

One of my closest friends is pregnant and is due on February 21st, just 6 days after Eliana was born. Needless to say, we have had many discussions about the various emotional responses we’ve both had. I am both terrified and excited about the possibility of her child being born on the same day. What an incredible cyclical sort of irony there would be in that-a living testament to the reality that life goes on. It never occurred to me to ask, but I realize that her baby must have been conceived somewhere around the time that mine was dying.

To be honest, there are few people in this world that I could have been truly happy for if they had told me that news at that time. She happens to be one of them. It has been both painful and healing to watch her go through her pregnancy. It’s like watching a fuzzy movie of myself one year ago. The discomforts, the growth, the expectations, the waiting-all the things I went through at the same time I went through them, but from a distance.

Because it’s her, I don’t hate her for her pregnancy. I don’t hate her for her happiness, or for her complaints. Because it’s her, I don’t assume she is naive about the fact that sometimes babies die, and I know that she does not take this gift she’s been given for granted. She knows, and that makes all the difference.

I have a much harder time with strangers, or for that matter, with acquaintances who know I lost Eliana, but who never said anything to me about it. It may be unfair, since I don’t know for sure what has happened in their lives, whether they have ever lost a child. Unfair or not, I have to fight the resentment I feel over the thought that they don’t know how lucky they are, and anger over all the times I have to sit and listen to them griping about inconveniences I would give anything to have back. I want to scream at them to shut up and go hug their babies, that they might not have them tomorrow. But I don’t.

Would I have listened if some crazy lady had started ranting to me about appreciating my kids while I still had the chance? Would I have understood if a newly bereaved mom had cried to me to not wait until it was too late? Was I only able to truly let in the horrible, unbelievable truth of child death after it had already happened to me? Was it just too terrible for my mind to accept until I no longer had a choice, because I was living it?

Does my anger and resentment toward the clueless really just stem from jealousy over their lack of knowledge of this agony I now call my life? That may be it. I’m jealous-of not knowing, of not feeling, and of not understanding the grief of losing a child. I don’t want to know what this is like. I want to be clueless too.

I wish I could go back. I’d give up my greater empathy, my fundraising, my collection drives, what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown, who I’ve helped and all the people whose lives have been touched by my baby’s story. I’d give it all up to turn back the clock. It was too high a price. Losing Eliana is not worth whatever I may have gained from the experience of going through it. Selfishly enough, it’s also not worth whatever others may have gained from it.

Nobody is given a choice, though, about whether they want to go through hard things. I would certainly never have chosen for my child to die, no matter what good may result from it. And I suppose if I had been given a choice, I probably would have thought that going through my friend’s pregnancy, with it’s eerie deja vu timing, was way too hard too. Better to put it off-too hard to deal with right now. But as soon as she told me, the whole thing just felt right-difficult, but right.

And now, I’m greedy for this baby, so anxious for him to be born. I want to hold him in my arms and be comforted once again by the thought that most babies are healthy, that most babies don’t die. I need to cry on his little head, both in sadness over Eliana being gone, and in amazement over the miracle of birth and life. He is both a reminder of the past, and a hope for the future. I need to love him, but from a distance. I need to test out the waters of opening up my heart again to a baby, to work through the fears and confusion and guilt of loving again after losing her. I’m grateful to my friend for loving me enough to put up with all the weird, convoluted emotions I already feel for her little boy.

The people on the grief support forums have a term for a child born after they’ve lost one-a rainbow baby. That’s what this unborn child is to me. He may not be my rainbow baby, but he is the rainbow baby. He’s the baby born after Eliana, the baby that represents promise-promise for his parents, promise for me, promise for the future, and promise for the world. There will always be pain, but there will also always be joy that follows it, just like the rainbow after the rain. Sometimes it appears right away, and sometimes we have to wait a while to see it. It has been a long, rough storm, and I’m looking forward to seeing a rainbow.

The Missing Piece

I should be asleep right now. We are supposed to be getting pictures taken in the morning. But as I was putting Elisabeth to bed, she started sobbing, choking out that she misses Eliana. This happens, not frequently, but enough that (sadly) I am used to it. Used to it or not, it breaks my heart all over again each time it happens.

She talked more tonight than usual. She kept asking why Eliana had to die, and said how sad she was that the doctors couldn’t fix her. She cried about not getting to hold her more, and that she didn’t get to come see her more often at the hospital. She was so upset that Eliana was taken so soon after I had her. Her face was lined with pain when she told me she didn’t get to kiss Eliana goodbye at the funeral. To experience my child dying is the worst thing I have ever gone through. Watching my other child try to deal with her death is the second worst thing.

Toward the end of our talk, Elisabeth brought up having our pictures taken tomorrow. I asked her if she would like to take Eliana’s teddy bear with us to be in the picture, since Eliana can’t be here with us. She said she wanted to. It was something I had been thinking about doing all along, but it’s nice that it can be something to comfort Elisabeth too, not just make me feel better.

To be honest, I was having serious issues with the idea of having family pictures taken again. I know, I know, you don’t have to say it.  It’s something we need to do.  We have to do it for the girls.  I’ve heard all the admonitions. Perhaps unless you have lost a child you cannot really understand my strong resistance to having our photos done again.

My baby is not here. Eliana will not be in these pictures. Eliana will never be in any of our family photos again.  It seems so wrong sometimes to go on doing the normal everyday things that she cannot be a part of any longer. These thoughts race through my head, round and round without resolution. Motherly guilt and feelings of obligation compete with the gut-level conviction that I don’t want them done again……ever.

I’ve heard more than one person say that they have tried to complete a puzzle, only to discover that there is one piece missing. Do you know what they did with the puzzle? Donated it? Kept it and ignored the missing piece? No. They threw the puzzle away. I think there is something about being human that makes us hate an otherwise beautiful image that has one little missing piece. Just like I, motherly guilt and all, am going to, on one level, hate the otherwise beautiful image that is going to have one piece missing. The face that won’t be there is just as loved, and just as important, as the faces that will be there.

Elisabeth was able to go to sleep after letting her sorrow out. I’m not so lucky. Here I sit, typing away instead of getting my beauty sleep. I may look a little tired in those pictures tomorrow. The smile might be on my lips but not reach my eyes. At least I’ll have a good reason. Before I even see the proofs, I’ll know that there will be something wrong with them. I’ll get some anyway, but I’ll know that behind the image is a family grieving the loss of their daughter, their sister, and their granddaughter. It will be a picture of a family that is incomplete.

And always will be.

I Am A Child

I thought this was just beautiful. It was written by Linn Keller, who recently read it as a eulogy for someone close to him who died. It paints such a heart-tugging picture, doesn’t it? Sadly, children are often end up being the forgotten grievers.

I am a child.
I stand alone on the playground in the gathering dusk.
I look around and I am sad, for my friend has been called home by a Wise and Loving Parent.
I know this — I know the Parent is both wise and loving, and I know my friend is safe and warm at home — and yes, I know I will see my friend again, in the dawning of the new day.
But I am a child.
A child understands one thing:
NOW!!
A child does not understand later, or perhaps, or tomorrow; a child exists in the moment, and I am a child.
I will see my friend again in the dawning of the new day, but to a child, tomorrow is forever, an eternity.
When one of our own is called in by that Wise and Loving Parent, we look around the playground and cry for them, for there is still light enough to play.  There is still light, there is time, but my friend is gone, and I must wait.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. What does that mean to me now? That at some arbitrary division of days I’m supposed to feel like I can just start over fresh? That since I have a new calendar I can forget whatever happened during the time the old one hung on my wall? Much like someone who moves to a new place to outrun their problems, I find that mine have followed me here. I’m still the exact same bereaved mom today in 2009 that I was yesterday in 2008.

I started thinking yesterday about what I was doing at this time last year. I was eight months pregnant, getting big and heavy and uncomfortable. I was torn between being desperate for the baby to come out, and terrified of how I was going to handle three kids once she was here. I was seeing my midwife, and chiropractor, and cleaning obsessively. I checked and double-checked my lists, and made double batches of food to freeze for later. You know, all the normal things an eight months preggo woman does. And the only thought that comes to mind with these mental pictures is “normal.” It was all so normal.

It’s like watching a horror movie. You hear the music start to change, you see the character heading toward danger, and you want to yell at them. You want to warn them about what’s lurking around the corner. You know what’s going to happen, and you want to scream for them to stop and go the other way. But they can’t hear you. The script is written, the scene has been shot, and there is nothing you can do to change the way it’s going to play out. You can only sit on the edge of your chair, biting your nails, waiting for the ax to fall.

The excitement, love, fear, drama, and pain of Eliana’s life and death have been carved into time, unchangeable, unerasable, uncorrectable. She’s a part of history now, instead of a part of our world. Screaming to the unsuspecting, naive woman of last year is utterly pointless. Trying to warn her of the impending disaster won’t change anything. Just like the new calendar on my wall doesn’t change anything.

Every day now is an anniversary of a day last year when I was looking forward to Eliana’s birth, instead of mourning her death. That wonderful time when I actually fretted over something so minor as how to fit two toddlers and a nursing baby on my lap all at once for story time. Before I knew that I should be on my face giving thanks for the gift of having them here in the first place, because they can be taken so suddenly. Oh, to be that clueless woman again.

So it’s a new year, but it’s the same old life. Full of the same sorrows and regrets of the last eight months, and the ugly reality that being wished a happy new year doesn’t mean it will be so. I can hope, but I no longer expect. I don’t really know if that is good or bad, but I do know that it makes me very sad. The woman from one year ago now walks around with an invisible broken heart. The show is over, and it was definitely a tear-jerker.

Just For Today

I was going through some of my old files a couple days ago, and I found this. I do not know who wrote it, so unfortunately I cannot give them credit. I’ll write more of my thoughts at the bottom, so you can read this first.

TO MY CHILD:

Just for this morning, I am going to smile when I

see your face and laugh when I feel like crying.

Just for this morning, I will let you choose what

you want to wear, and smile and say how perfect it is.

Just for this morning, I am going to step over the

laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.

Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in

the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle 

of yours together.

Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone

and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the 

backyard and blow bubbles.

Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, 

not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine 

for the ice cream truck, and I will buy you one 

if he comes by.

Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what 

you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess 

every decision I have made where you are concerned.

Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake 

cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.

Just for this afternoon, I will take us to

McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you 

can have both toys.

Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms

and tell you a story about how you were born and 

how much I love you.

Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the

tub and not get angry.

Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late

while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.

Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for

hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.

Just for this evening when I run my finger through 

your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful 

that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.

I will think about the mothers and fathers who are 

searching for their missing children, the mothers 

and fathers who are visiting their children's graves 

instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers 

who are in hospital rooms watching their children 

suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they 

can't handle it anymore.

And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a 

little tighter, a little longer. It is then, that 

I will thank God for you, and ask him for nothing,

except one more day.............

I remember reading this years ago, and it always made me cry. The strange thing is, I didn’t shed a single tear when I read it this time. I don’t have to wonder in terror about how that would feel if it happened to me. It already has. I’ve experienced all the regrets, should haves, what ifs, fears, and pain, and grief. I live with it every day. Reading about it from the perspective of someone who hasn’t gone through it doesn’t seem to affect me now. I guess I’ve wept enough over the actual event that I don’t need to weep over the possibility of it happening. Imagination is much gentler than reality.

Okay

Every year we drive North to go play in the snow. Right now I’m recovering from this year’s trip. It’s a long drive, and during part of it I was sitting there just thinking about things. It occurred to me that I felt okay. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty good. My husband and I were getting along. The kids were excited to get there and play. My close friends were with us and sharing the fun. I had snacked for the last hour and my tummy was happy. I just sat there for a few moments in sheer wonder that I could feel this “okay.” And then I had to turn my face to the window because the tears started streaming down.

The crying didn’t last long, but it is a good example of how a bereaved parent can be so happy and so sad at the very same time. I wouldn’t trade my tentative feelings of normal for the utter despair I had in the beginning (and that still hits occasionally), but even the sense of normalcy seems surreal. How can anything be good, or happy, or okay, or normal, when my baby is dead? Even when I’m sitting there thinking about how nice it is to feel good, part of me is saying “I don’t really feel okay, do I? Do I really feel good? How is that possible?” It’s enough to make a person feel crazy.

So how can anything be good again when my baby is dead? I guess the only answer is …..that sometimes it just is. In the beginning I didn’t believe it was possible. Even while feeling it now, it seems strange and unbelievable. But it’s there nonetheless. I didn’t ask for it. For a while I didn’t even want it. It seemed like a betrayal that I might feel happy again without her. Guilt rending as it may be, though, I am grateful for it.

Her death and my grief don’t feel like the heavy chains they once were. Now they feel more like an old injury. There is an ugly scar, a dull ache I don’t notice all the time, and at times it acts up and is incredibly painful and debilitating. But I don’t feel constantly enslaved now. I’m not crippled under the weight, or chained to one spot, unable to move forward. Sometimes, even with my injuries, I can feel good.

I guess I need to give myself just as much permission to be happy as I do to immerse myself in the sorrow. I can agonize over the death of my precious child even while loving and caring for my family, and I can joyfully live my life, thankful for all the blessings in it, even while missing my Eliana terribly. Smiling and crying at the same time isn’t crazy, even if it might look that way to others. It’s just another step of this road of grief. I’ll keep allowing myself to smile, even if it makes me cry, because they are both okay.

Exhausted

As if I wasn’t already having enough fun with all this, now I’m starting to have nightmares. And they’re not even about her. I would understand, and be able to deal with, and almost welcome, having dreams about Eliana. But I’m having them about my other kids. Horrible, scary dreams about them being hurt or killed, such as people breaking into our house while we’re sleeping or a nuclear explosion.

This morning it was me and them at a theme park of all things, on a volcanic island. Of course the volcano erupted, so I was running, running with my two kids, trying to outrace the lava. We were doing a pretty good job until somehow the effect of the volcano blowing caused a tidal wave/flood from the other direction. It was coming so fast there was nothing we could do. I woke up, managed to calm myself down, then drifted back to sleep, into the same spot in the dream. This time it wasn’t coming so fast, so we started running back the other way, trying to find the highest spot. We used the service “ladder?” on the biggest roller coaster and climbed to the top. A helicopter saw us and came down to get us. For whatever reason it couldn’t quite come down far enough, and had nothing to throw out to us, so I had to try to lift my daughter into it. She slipped, and fell to the ground. I had to try to get my second daughter into it, and then myself, after having just basically dropped the first one to her death. Not to be outdone, my brain went through it a third time. This time there was no helicopter, and the water got so high we all died anyway, even from the top of the roller coaster. In the dream, as I watched the water coming toward us, I prayed that He wouldn’t let my kids suffer. Then I woke up…again. I decided not to find out what scenario number four would be, so I got up. Half the time I can’t sleep, and when I do, I’m waking up three and four times a night with stuff like this. It’s exhausting.

I know that these kinds of nightmares are just ripe with possible interpretations. As interesting as it is for me to glean what I can from them, I do wish my mind would just find a better way of working through all the stuff up there. I can’t imagine a perpetual lack of sleep is going to be all that helpful for my health, or my journey through this grief. This is not healing, it’s annoying. Dealing with the (real) death of one child is hard enough without having to deal with the (dreamtime) deaths of the remaining two. Ugh. When will it be enough?

Anyway, here’s my super-quick dream analysis on myself.

#1-nothing I can do, just give up, we all die (what I rejected)

#2-do everything I can to save them, despite my best efforts one dies, have to keep functioning in order to save the one that’s left, have to save myself so I can keep taking care of her (what I’m doing)

#3-even when I give my best effort there’s nothing else I can do to save any of us, think my kids will probably suffer despite my prayer, we all die (what I fear)

And on that depressing note, I think I’ll stop, since I once again don’t seem to have much of a point. Except that even now, eight months after her death, I am still finding new ways that this whole thing just sucks. I miss my baby. And I miss the old me that didn’t have nightmares about whether the other two were going to die horrible deaths that I couldn’t do anything about. And I miss being able to take sleep for granted. I’m so tired of all of this.