Lightning Strikes

At 3:17 AM yesterday (Dec. 27), my beautiful daughter was stillborn. For the week before that, I had been experiencing severe cramps and minor bleeding. Nothing showed up on ultrasounds, though, so the OB decided we should just monitor it carefully. The cramps were really bad on Christmas day, so much so that I dragged my best friend from his family’s holiday get-together earlier than planned. Late in the evening of the 26th, I started developing what felt like contractions and bleeding heavily. I went to the emergency room, where they found a placental abruption. They induced labor at 12:30 AM on the 27th, and Maddie was born almost three hours later. Tomorrow, I will be going to pick out an urn for her. I should be picking out a cradle. We’re trying to decide on an appropriate memorial service, but for now, my head is spinning too much to think about anything other than the fact that both of my children are now gone.

Panic

Due to absolutely horrible driving conditions, my best friend and I were unable to attend the Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting this year. I panicked. All of those emotions and thoughts I try to shove down through the year get released on that day. All of the asking why and wanting to scream in anger comes to the surface. The day is raw. The pain feels fresh. However, as I said in the previous post, the Candle Lighting is one of the most comforting experiences I’ve had since my son’s death, and I needed that release.

My best friend and I did light a candle (or rather, turned on a battery-powered candle) in his living room at 7:00 PM last night, but it didn’t feel like enough. I missed the sense of community and the sharing of our children. None of us actually knew each other’s children before their deaths, so this is our time to share our children with people who, though they’ll never meet them, love them just as we do.

For those of you who did get to attend a Candle Lighting Ceremony, I hope you found it peaceful and comforting, as well. It’s our start to a holiday season that can be excruciating, but it’s also a reminder that we are not alone.

Blue Lines

Over this past week, I realized there was a slight possibility that I was pregnant again. One of the classes I’m taking this semester has a dissection component. Normally, I’m perfectly fine with blood and guts and ooze. In fact, the three others in my group had been a bit hesitant at first, so I was the one who jumped right in with gloves to the elbow. Wednesday, though, I couldn’t stand to *look* at our specimen. When one of my group mates started defining a muscle, I started absolutely gagging. My professor told me to go throw up in the other room. Jokingly, someone asked if I was pregnant. I laughed, opened my mouth to say no, felt another lurch in my stomach, and had to answer with an “I don’t know.”

Last night, I took a pregnancy test, and it came back negative. Now is absolutely not the right time for me to have a child. I’m in school, my housing isn’t quite steady, and I’m starting clinical classes next semester. I’ve said over and over again that I do not want another child. When that test came back negative, though, I felt a little down. I think we women feel an immediate attachment to a child, even if pregnancy is only a possibility. Negative was, as my best friend said, the best option. Still, I guess the thought of having another child in my life isn’t so scary afterall.

What’s Left?

Last night I asked my best friend if he thought I could still claim the title of mother. He said yes without any hesitation. I wish I could be that sure. After pondering that aloud for a bit, all I could come up with was another question– what’s left?

Being a mother implies having a child. Is it simple semantics? Does saying “I had a child” equate with “I was a mother”? Can one be present tense while the other is past? It’s the same argument I wrote about in the previous post and the same argument I go through time and again in my mind. I want to be able to say yes as absolutely as my best friend said it, but the past-tense bit stops me. I still feel like a mother, but my child is gone. There’s no one left to mother. That role, for me, has faded into the past. It has changed incomprehensibly, and I no longer know where it fits in my life, where I fit, or what thread of the Universe ripped apart to create this break. It’s never how it should be. There is no explanation and no answer to the question of why. There is simply nothingness. There’s nothing left at all.

Birthday Balloons

On Andy’s birthday last Saturday, my best friend and I released 12 balloons– one balloon for each year that Andy would have had at this point. The balloons were absolutely beautiful. They were so vibrant and bouncing everywhere in the really strong wind we were having that day. I joked that apparently Andy would have enjoyed hitting me with balloons.

It was a bittersweet day, but I’m glad we found a way to celebrate that felt right. My best friend and I hung on to the bottom of the balloon bouquet, counted to three, and let them go. That’s always a hard moment for me– I think about how each balloon was so individual and how I’ll never get those same balloons back. The same thing happened last year on Andy’s birthday. Of course, it’s just symbolic. When we let the balloons go, though, I heard a man say “Look! Balloons!” and then I heard a small child laugh. That seemed so appropriate, and it made me smile. Andy is still bringing laughter and beauty to other people’s lives. I’m so proud of him and so lucky to have spent any time with him at all. My sweet boy. The balloons were my way of hugging him and saying hello. Perhaps that child’s laugh was his way of answering back.

The pics below are from the balloon release, of course. The second is the balloons high in the air. If you look closely at the center of the sky, you can barely make out them out. A beautiful image on a beautiful day for a beautiful child. We miss him dearly.

A Common Bond

My best friend and I took Andy’s Name in the Sand picture to a local craft store last night to ask about having it framed.  The clerk and I had a bit of a chat about matting and frame colors and all the other minutiae that I had no idea came along with framing.  Even with the 55% off discount, the end total came to $72 USD.  I’m talking about a 5″ by 7″ picture.  $72?!?  Obviously, there was no way at all I could afford that.  I asked if there was a way to lower the price, and the saleslady was able to get it to $54.  I asked about using a lower quality glass, but she didn’t want to budge on that one.  I told her the price really made a difference as to whether I could have the picture framed and intended to walk away at that point.

Then something completely unexpected happened. She had asked me about the picture earlier, and I told her it was a memorial for my son who had passed away three years ago.  As it turns out, she almost lost a granddaughter last month, and she wanted to help me do this for my son.  She took me to the “off the shelf” frames, told me the size to pick out, and said to bring it back to the counter.  My best friend and I proceeded to do just that and found a great frame that looked almost like the custom frame we priced earlier.

Back at the counter, the lady ripped open the packaging of the frame and showed me how it would look with the picture and matting in place.  Apparently, while we were picking out a frame she had spoken with someone else from the framing department and had worked something out for me.  Her coworker referred to “cheating the system,” typed in a few codes, and the new total for everything was roughly $24.  I don’t think they were technically supposed to let me use a ready-made frame.  I’m not sure they were technically supposed to ring up the entire package.  The saleslady told me that, yes, she did like to sell things, but some things in life are more important than sales.  I am so amazed and grateful for her kindness.

So there we stood– my best friend who is a guy with no desire at all to have children, a young man working at a craft store who I hope never experiences the loss of a child, and the two mothers trying not to cry about a loss that every mother fears.  Even though the saleslady had not lost a child, she is a mother.  By that alone, she immediately recognized the depth of my loss because she knows the role I filled as mother to my son.  She couldn’t understand my loss, simply because she has not experienced it.  She could, however, understand that I am a mother, and through that connection, we were no longer strangers.

As my best friend and I walked out of the store, the lady called me back to the counter, introduced herself, and shook my hand.  No words were spoken beyond that, but I saw the look of recognition in her eyes.  She knew how important this photo is to me, and she made framing it possible.  There are so many good people in the world, and she is definitely an example of that.  Setting aside commission and breaking protocol at a job she hadn’t been working long, she made something so important happen for me.  Motherhood is a common bond, for mothers whose children are alive and for those of us who would give anything for ours to be alive again.

Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for.  I lost my son, and I’ll never face anything harder.  For a while, I wanted to die, too.  Even though I still miss Andy every hour of every day, I’ve found some beauty in my life again.  Just typing that makes me feel guilty.  All of us who have lost children, though, have to surround ourselves with the love and support of the people in our lives.  We have to push through somehow.

And for the people in my life, I am thankful.  For those who’ve sat and cried with me, I appreciate the depth of feeling and respect you show my son’s memory.  For those who’ve laughed with me, I appreciate your courage.  Not everyone is comfortable laughing with a bereaved parent.  It takes true courage to understand that we need laughter mixed with the tears.  And for those who’ve been absolutely silly with me, thanks for bringing sunshine to my life when days are dark.  For you who have done all of that, all I can say is I truly owe my life to you.

I’m thankful for eight years as well, even though there should have been so many more…

New Year’s Eve

This feels like new year’s eve.  The old me died with my son, and the new me was born that day.  Another anniversary down, though.  This afternoon, once 3:30 had passed, I told my best friend that the current version of me had started existing at that time three years before.  Three years.  I haven’t seen or heard my son in three years.  It doesn’t seem possible sometimes.

I let myself fall apart for a few minutes this afternoon, hoping to feel better, but as it turns out, I felt no release at all.  I just felt like crying for hours longer.  I felt like it would consume me, and like it might not be a bad idea to let it.  Tears don’t come easily for me, even in the face of horrible pain.  When I do cry about Andy’s death, though, I sometimes feel worse than before.  My best friend compared it to stopping a sneeze.  As he said, it hurts to stop a sneeze.  Stopping my tears just increases the pressure further, sometimes.

But this New Me has things to do.  She has work to attend, errands to run, and so many other things to stop her staring at the hole in the center of her life.  She knows that stopping means looking at the face of loss.  This New Me just passed her third new year’s eve, though, and on this first day of her new year, she finds herself look back once again.

I’m told that one day I’ll spend more time looking forward than back, but from where I stand now, that doesn’t seem possible.

Four Little Words

My son is dead.

I said those words for the first time ever on Tuesday.  I said them again tonight, leaning up against my best friend’s shoulder.  It’s been almost three years now since Andy died, but I’ve never actually *said* the words out loud until this past week.  And then the world fell again.

Until now it’s just been euphemisms and platitudes.  He’s passed away.  He’s in a better place.  It was just his time to go.  But he hasn’t passed away, I have no idea if he’s in a better place or anywhere at all, and it’s never time for a child to go.

My son is dead.  There are no other words to describe it.

Gratefulness

A few days ago, my best friend’s mum helped me feel more connected to motherhood than I have since Andy’s death.  She helped me remember that I truly am a mother, still.  I just haven’t found a place to use that energy yet.

We talked about the joy of seeing our children for the first time, and whilst it was painful, it took me back to the day Andy was born.  As my best friend’s mum pointed out, there’s no happiness quite like that.  She has two children, and even though each birth was unique, that happiness was the same.  Our children, in the very first breaths, gave us the greatest joy we will ever know.  I am so grateful for every minute of my son’s life.  He gave me a gift no one else could and touched my life like no one else ever will.  It was such an honor to have him in my life.  Andy’s absence is a void  in my very being that will never be filled, but the simple fact of his birth shines a light through the darkness that lets me know I have the strength to withstand this loss.  Even in death, he comforts me, and I’ll remain forever grateful.