I've never liked goodbyes, since long before Ben died. But in the seven years since he died, goodbyes have gotten a lot harder to say because they bring back his life, and death, the first and only moments we had with him to tell him hello and goodbye all at once.
My family and I are in Pennsylvania right now, getting ready to have a party for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. This weekend also marks the last time we'll be seeing my family for quite a while, for in 11 days we are moving to England to begin a new life. In some ways an old life, too, as my husband is British, and we met, and were married, there nearly 15 years ago. We spent the first year of our marriage living and working in England until my husband was transferred to Ohio by his company. Thirteen years later, we are going back.
And tomorrow I have to say goodbye to my family, to our cats, who will be moving to Massachusetts to live with my sister, say goodbye to another chapter of my life. In a way, I feel I am leaving Ben behind too, for the only place I ever knew him was in Ohio, in the hospital where I delivered him and kissed him goodbye. I know I am not leaving him, but thoughts of pulling away from the hospital doors on the afternoon of the day he was born haunt me. They always have. I left him, not because I wanted to, not because I had any choice. Those moments ripped me apart and I've never been the same since.
And I wonder where I'll find him now, for this is where Ben is, where I feel him with me on those few occasions when I do feel him. I hope I'll find him again, 3,500 miles away, that those feelings won't be left behind.
But today, I just don't know.
Showing posts with label Loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loss. Show all posts
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A Quote
"That was and still is the great disaster of my life - that lovely, lovely little boy. . . There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, via BabyLoss Mamas & Maggie, on Facebook
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, via BabyLoss Mamas & Maggie, on Facebook
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Shades of Gray
A few days ago I put up a post about the difference between stillbirth and miscarriage, after I had a friend refer to Ben's death as a miscarriage.
Several readers commented that, technically, their losses were somewhere in between a miscarriage and a stillbirth, in a strange gray area where there are no appropriate words in the vernacular to describe what they endured. Even though they had vaginal deliveries and saw and held their children. One reader's sons were born at 17 weeks gestation, within those shades of gray.
Another reader's son was born at 16 weeks gestation and took one breath. Only one.
And yet another delivered her twins in the UK, where a miscarriage is classified as a loss before 24 weeks. Her girls were delivered at 23 weeks. One of them lived, one of them died.
What can we learn from all this, you ask? I think we learn that there are few areas of black and white in this world, that we need compassion more than we need absolutes. We learn that loss takes many forms and cuts far deeper than many of us can ever know.
We learn that numbers mean almost nothing at all when faced with unfathomable grief.
Several readers commented that, technically, their losses were somewhere in between a miscarriage and a stillbirth, in a strange gray area where there are no appropriate words in the vernacular to describe what they endured. Even though they had vaginal deliveries and saw and held their children. One reader's sons were born at 17 weeks gestation, within those shades of gray.
Another reader's son was born at 16 weeks gestation and took one breath. Only one.
And yet another delivered her twins in the UK, where a miscarriage is classified as a loss before 24 weeks. Her girls were delivered at 23 weeks. One of them lived, one of them died.
What can we learn from all this, you ask? I think we learn that there are few areas of black and white in this world, that we need compassion more than we need absolutes. We learn that loss takes many forms and cuts far deeper than many of us can ever know.
We learn that numbers mean almost nothing at all when faced with unfathomable grief.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Before and After
September 11, 2001, I had just put my 8-month-old daughter down for her morning nap at 9 a.m., and I entered my office to do some work. I turned on NPR, as I always did, and heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I figured it must have been a small, private plane that had gotten in trouble, but decided to go downstairs and turn on the TV. There I saw a 2nd plane fly into the other WTC building; there I watched people jumping to their deaths; there I watched, on my hands and knees in front of the TV, crying and praying, the buildings fall down in a mass of ash and fire.
It took me days before I even realized that, as those buildings came down, people were dying inside. Days before I could allow myself to think it. My parents and my husband were supposed to board flights that day, flights that were cancelled. My daughter was scheduled to be baptized two weeks later, and my in-laws, who were to fly over from England, cancelled their flights because of September 11.
In the following days, the world was so quiet. No planes flew over my house; generally dozens did. There were no cars racing down my urban street; the neighborhood was unusually subdued. That's what I wanted after Ben, as well, for the world to stop and acknowledge he was gone.
At the time, I felt that this was most likely the defining moment of my life as an adult, the moment where everything changed for us in America, that we - none of us - would be the same ever again. This was the permanent "Before and After" for my generation, like Pearl Harbor was for an earlier generation.
And although I was stunned by the events of that day, I wasn't surprised. When I was in college, I travelled to England and Ireland, and that was when I "got" the fear of terrorism. This was during the time of the Irish Republican Army, and while travelling through the airport in Dublin, I saw members of the Irish military in their uniforms, with automatic weapons strapped to their bodies. I got it then, a little bit of what it is like to live with the threat of terrorism every day, which much of the world has been doing for generations. Later, I lived in England and commuted to London for work, and was always aware of the terrorist threat, had train service cancelled because of IRA threats and suspicious packages placed in underground stations. I knew, somehow, that something like this day was coming for us.
I remember boarding an airplane for the first time after September 11th, sobbing in my husband's arms as I thought of all those people on those planes, what they must have felt, how frightened they must have been, how innocent they were. I thought of the families left behind and prayed to God to help them find some peace. I remember standing in the Newark airport and seeing New York City on the horizon, with two buildings so obviously gone.
I was wrong, however, about this defining moment for me. September 11th was not the defining moment of my life. Ben's death was my defining moment, my own marker of a time Before, and a life After.
Today, I remember all of them - all those who lost their lives that day, and all the ones they left behind. I remember Ben, and I remember all the babies who, every day, don't come home. I remember that 7 years ago, in hospitals and homes across America and the world, babies died, grandparents died, moms and dads and siblings and aunts and uncles lost their lives, and their deaths have gotten lost in the horror of the terrorist attacks.
I remember you.
Fragile
If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence
And nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are How fragile we are
- Sting
It took me days before I even realized that, as those buildings came down, people were dying inside. Days before I could allow myself to think it. My parents and my husband were supposed to board flights that day, flights that were cancelled. My daughter was scheduled to be baptized two weeks later, and my in-laws, who were to fly over from England, cancelled their flights because of September 11.
In the following days, the world was so quiet. No planes flew over my house; generally dozens did. There were no cars racing down my urban street; the neighborhood was unusually subdued. That's what I wanted after Ben, as well, for the world to stop and acknowledge he was gone.
At the time, I felt that this was most likely the defining moment of my life as an adult, the moment where everything changed for us in America, that we - none of us - would be the same ever again. This was the permanent "Before and After" for my generation, like Pearl Harbor was for an earlier generation.
And although I was stunned by the events of that day, I wasn't surprised. When I was in college, I travelled to England and Ireland, and that was when I "got" the fear of terrorism. This was during the time of the Irish Republican Army, and while travelling through the airport in Dublin, I saw members of the Irish military in their uniforms, with automatic weapons strapped to their bodies. I got it then, a little bit of what it is like to live with the threat of terrorism every day, which much of the world has been doing for generations. Later, I lived in England and commuted to London for work, and was always aware of the terrorist threat, had train service cancelled because of IRA threats and suspicious packages placed in underground stations. I knew, somehow, that something like this day was coming for us.
I remember boarding an airplane for the first time after September 11th, sobbing in my husband's arms as I thought of all those people on those planes, what they must have felt, how frightened they must have been, how innocent they were. I thought of the families left behind and prayed to God to help them find some peace. I remember standing in the Newark airport and seeing New York City on the horizon, with two buildings so obviously gone.
I was wrong, however, about this defining moment for me. September 11th was not the defining moment of my life. Ben's death was my defining moment, my own marker of a time Before, and a life After.
Today, I remember all of them - all those who lost their lives that day, and all the ones they left behind. I remember Ben, and I remember all the babies who, every day, don't come home. I remember that 7 years ago, in hospitals and homes across America and the world, babies died, grandparents died, moms and dads and siblings and aunts and uncles lost their lives, and their deaths have gotten lost in the horror of the terrorist attacks.
I remember you.
Fragile
If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence
And nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are How fragile we are
- Sting
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
A Loss, but Not My Own
My cyber-friend Christy had a miscarriage on January 4th. She is the mom of Elias, who was a micro-preemie, barely 2 pounds at birth, who is now a beautiful 3-year-old with numerous physical challenges. Christy has two uteri (yes, plural of "uterus" - sounds weird, doesn't it?) and knew this pregnancy would probably require bed rest and many precautions. But she didn't lose the baby because of any physical or medical problems, she lost the baby just because miscarriage happens to about every 1 in 4 women, just one of those statistical anomalies that happen.
Which doesn't make the loss a damn bit easier.
Which doesn't make the loss a damn bit easier.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day
It's October, which means that it's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and today, the 15th, is loss awareness day. And wow, I sure wish I didn't know that.
My boy would be nearly four today, attending preschool, running around like a wild child, loving Bob the Builder, trucks, cars, macaroni and cheese. I don't expect he would be napping any longer, he would have declared his favorite flavor of ice cream, and would probably be in love with the Cars movie. I expect he would be at that really wonderful stage of adoring and needing his parents, still a bit cuddly, but on the cusp of pushing us away as he started to grow up and become a "big boy." And I know he would be driving his sister crazy.
I also know, that, had he lived, I wouldn't have a James. I have thought, over and over, that I could have had them both: Ben would have been 19 months old when James was born, so it's all physically possible. It would have been hard, but I could have done it. But that's not how the cards were played, and now, I can't imagine my life without James, and I can only dream about my life with Ben.
I'm not doing anything today to remember Ben - except what I wrote above. I do more on his anniversary, and I don't really know what else to do today. I think of him, like I do every other day, and I think of all the other babies who never came home, like mine. And I know how unbelievably lucky I am, that I had him at all, and that I have what I do, with my two children now. I recently met a woman who had a baby in 1963, her second, a boy. He was born severely deformed - and of course, this was before all of the testing they have now, so they didn't know anything was wrong with him until birth - and they took him away from her, and he died three days later. She never saw him, never had a footprint, a lock of hair, a shirt he wore. Nothing. The hospital had him cremated and buried, and she was encouraged to forget, to move on. Those were the dark ages of infant loss, and I am so grateful that I lost Ben in 2003, and that I got to hold him, and kiss him, and see the whole of him before I had to let him go.
And I am thinking today, of all the mothers and fathers who are aching for their babies; the ones who will lose their child today, the ones who lost their child decades ago. The ones who are waiting, hoping, for another chance, another child. If I had a magic wand I would be waving it like mad right now, to make it all better for all of us who've lost the most precious thing in the world.
My boy would be nearly four today, attending preschool, running around like a wild child, loving Bob the Builder, trucks, cars, macaroni and cheese. I don't expect he would be napping any longer, he would have declared his favorite flavor of ice cream, and would probably be in love with the Cars movie. I expect he would be at that really wonderful stage of adoring and needing his parents, still a bit cuddly, but on the cusp of pushing us away as he started to grow up and become a "big boy." And I know he would be driving his sister crazy.
I also know, that, had he lived, I wouldn't have a James. I have thought, over and over, that I could have had them both: Ben would have been 19 months old when James was born, so it's all physically possible. It would have been hard, but I could have done it. But that's not how the cards were played, and now, I can't imagine my life without James, and I can only dream about my life with Ben.
I'm not doing anything today to remember Ben - except what I wrote above. I do more on his anniversary, and I don't really know what else to do today. I think of him, like I do every other day, and I think of all the other babies who never came home, like mine. And I know how unbelievably lucky I am, that I had him at all, and that I have what I do, with my two children now. I recently met a woman who had a baby in 1963, her second, a boy. He was born severely deformed - and of course, this was before all of the testing they have now, so they didn't know anything was wrong with him until birth - and they took him away from her, and he died three days later. She never saw him, never had a footprint, a lock of hair, a shirt he wore. Nothing. The hospital had him cremated and buried, and she was encouraged to forget, to move on. Those were the dark ages of infant loss, and I am so grateful that I lost Ben in 2003, and that I got to hold him, and kiss him, and see the whole of him before I had to let him go.
And I am thinking today, of all the mothers and fathers who are aching for their babies; the ones who will lose their child today, the ones who lost their child decades ago. The ones who are waiting, hoping, for another chance, another child. If I had a magic wand I would be waving it like mad right now, to make it all better for all of us who've lost the most precious thing in the world.
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