Over and Over Again

You can't say goodbye to a memory.

I remind myself of that a lot these days as I begin to prepare for a huge change in my life, one I'm not sure I'm ready for.

I'm viewing my life a little differently right now, savoring the seasons and the moments a little more than maybe I otherwise would. Knowing that my future, for the next three-quarters of a year or so, will be more about saying goodbye, coping with leaving behind what I know here. Walking into the unknown.

I don't like to say goodbye.

The change has been in the planning stages for several years now; we've been waiting for 2011 to put those plans into action. Next year is year we decided, some time ago, that we would move our family back to England, to my husband's home, back to his people, his family, all the things he has missed so terribly over the last 13 years we have lived in the States. The plans were fine, so long as they were plans, so long as 2011 was in three years, or two. But now, it's next year. And I will admit to being a little bit scared, a little bit overwhelmed, and very uncertain if this is the right thing for us to do. I don't want to move away from my comfortable routine, the stability that four or five years ago my husband and I so desperately needed. The memories.

But you can't say goodbye to a memory.

(Or so I tell myself, not quite believing it's true.)

Today I went to my ob/gyn for my annual check, the same doctor I've had since I was 28 or 29, who saw me through all three pregnancies. I've read that many women fall a little bit in love with their obstetricians during a pregnancy, and I can see why. And I think I did a bit myself. I told my doctor that we are moving next summer, and at the end of my appointment he gave me a hug and wished me well. Which made me cry.

But you know as well as I do that isn't the only thing that made me cry. I will probably never walk the halls of that hospital again, where I was pregnant and in labor with each of my children. I will never enter the room where I first heard their heartbeats and saw them kick. I will never again enter the room where I found out that Ben was dead.

Saying goodbye is not leaving him behind. I know he's here with me, but walking away from those memories, the good ones and the nightmare ones, rips me to pieces. Part of him is in those rooms, as is part of me, part of my other two children.

And once again, it's like leaving Ben, walking out the L&D doors with empty arms and stinging eyes.

I know he's here, inside me wherever I go. But I still must say goodbye, over and over again.

No Rules for Grief

Yahoo! Shine just posted an article titled "The Way We Grieve Now." The story opens with this: "Boarding a flight, Lisa Niemi pulled out her phone and texted "I love you” to her husband. It was a sentiment she'd often shared with her partner of 34 years, actor Patrick Swayze."

How. . . refreshing to read this. I'm a mother who has been without her second child for nearly seven years, and I still tell Ben, every day, how much I love and miss him.

Every. Day.

Every day.

For 2,447 days, I have said those words to my baby boy, even though he isn't here. And I have often thought that people would think I am crazy if they knew how often I talk to Ben. I've thought that perhaps I really am crazy, sometimes, maybe I am holding on too tight. This article put those feelings in perspective - maybe I'm not as nuts as I think I am.

The truth is, grief does make us crazy. Intensely, deeply, wildly insane. It changes us forever, and the craziness ebbs and flows and, eventually, tapers down like a candle melting, slowly burning the last of its wick. The flame is never quite extinguished but doesn't burn as brightly as it did when the match first struck the wick.

What's the thing you think people would not understand about your grief, might make them think you're crazy? Care to share?

Hole in My Heart Only You Can Fill

* Photo from GeekPhilosopher.com. 
 
For everyone who lost someone nine years ago today.

Some holes can never be filled.

Still Here

One of my Facebook friends, Janel Atlas (editor of the anthology They Were Still Born: Personal Stories about Stillbirth, in which an essay about Ben's death will appear) (now available for pre-order on Amazon! And Barnes & Noble!) posted a link to this interesting article about how fetal cells remain in the mother's body for years after the baby's delivery.

Dr. Diana Bianchi (not to be confused with the Diana Bianchi who broke up Christie Brinkley's marriage to Peter Cook) is a pediatrician and researcher in fetal cell migration. She discovered, a decade ago, that fetal cells remain in a mother's body for many years, perhaps forever, after a pregnancy, whether that pregnancy is full-term or not. These cells somehow assist in healing the body, providing a therapeutic effect, migrating to the site of an injury or source of an illness, doing what they can to fix the problem.

Amazing, no?

They're still here, our babies. Still with us, still residing in our bodies. Not them, but part of them. And that makes me feel much differently about losing my son.

What I Did Not Do On My Summer "Vacation"

Remember that post I wrote in early June, "School's (Almost) Out for the Summer"?  Where I posted a list of what I hoped to achieve while my children were out of school and I became a stay-at-home, work-at-home, full-time semi-crazed mother?

Well, ha on me. Here's a list of what I didn't get done over the past three months.

1. Lose 10 lbs. I maintained. Which has to be seen as a plus, right? (Right?)

2. I did not get my children to put their dishes in the dishwasher. Well, maybe 25% of the time. That's an optimistic percentage.

3. I did not convince my children that bickering with a sibling is overrated. But boy, did I try.

4. I did not eliminate foods with high fructose corn syrup from the family's diet. I limited them, but when you've got two kiddos with you at the grocery store arguing and pleading, I've found I give in more than I should.

5. I did not win the lottery. No surprise there.

6. Nor did I deal with the piles and piles of kid artwork and other assorted schoolwork lying around the house. Let's just say I have a new plan for the fall.

I did have a lovely, relaxing vacation in Massachusetts with my family and my sister. Except for the bickering siblings part, it was terrific. And now, school is back in session, my children are doing well (so far), and James, though exhausted, has done great in all-day kindergarten. Leaving me to focus on those piles and tasks and 10 lbs for six hours each day, though I am desperate to run to school and bring him home at noon.

Catch me in December and I'll let you know how I've done on my summer "things to do" list.

And They're Off

My baby started kindergarten this morning. He was up and dressed and had his backpack on 20 minutes early, stating, "I'm ready to go now!" We told him it wasn't time yet, and he said, "I want to go anyway!"

And I teared up all through breakfast and our short walk to school.

He's ready. And it's hard to let him go. James walked into the school door without a backward glance while all I could do was look back in time, remembering the day he was born, remembering the last five years, wondering why they went by so quickly.

He's ready. And I am not.

He saved my life, you know. James and his sister both did, after Ben died. Charlotte was my reason to get up in the morning when I wanted to stay in bed, covers pulled tight over my head, forever. Though I can't claim to have been a good parent to her in that year after her brother died, I showed up because I had to. Because she needed me. I needed her even more.

Unlike last year, when I lingered at school on the morning of the kindergartener's first day, remembering what might have been, I cried this morning in happiness and sorrow. The milestones I would have marked with Ben are becoming more nebulous now, smaller in significance. I will not know when he would have finished school, for he might have dropped out, or failed a year, or some other unfathomable thing. He may never have gone to college, or gotten married, or had children. I don't know, and I live with not knowing, having to accept it because that is all there is.

I will mark my life now with the two who lived. And it's ok. Though I can't pretend these milestones are normal, untinged with the pain of loss.

James was my second chance, my hope, my future, my joy. All through that long pregnancy filled with fear and expectation, I waited, and hoped, and feared the worst. Then he came and I can't imagine living without him.

He's ready. Ready to go off into the world, eager to learn, so excited to be big.

The past five years have been leading up to this, I know. James, and Charlotte, are both where they need to be. Exactly as it should be, exactly as I want it, except for the longing in my heart.

At 81, He Still Blames Himself

I came across this article several weeks ago, "Hibakusha writes to his dead child," about an 81-year-old man in Japan, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In it, he speaks, through a letter written to his second child, a daughter who was stillborn, of his anguish that he may be responsible for her death.

"Is some bad blood flowing within me?" he writes.  "Or, is this the payback for having survived?"

I already knew, and this only reaffirms, the guilt and sorrow never go away. But at least there will be others out there who feel just the same way.