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.

Boys Who Could Have Been Mine

I met a Ben yesterday, a sturdy little towhead, 3 years old, whose big sister is in the same first grade class as my daughter. Most of the time I don't think about the kids I meet who are the same age as Ben; I feel time stopped when he died and that his life and death somehow belong to a separate universe, and that all the children born thereafter are of a different time and place. Mostly.

I can't help wondering sometimes, what my Ben would look like now, and I can't stand that I just don't know. He was very long - 19.5 inches, 7 lbs, 10 ozs. He had the longest hands and feet; feet just like his father's. I expect he would have been reasonably tall, like me, and thin, like his dad. He didn't have much hair, which was a medium-brown color, though he may have gone blonde like his brother and sister did. Or would he have been dark like his father? And what color were his eyes? I will never know.

I have thought, from time to time, of trying to find someone to do an age progression on his photos, like they do on the missing children posters you see at rest stops on the highway and in flyers that come in the mail. I want some idea of who he was - though I don't suppose they can do much with photos of dead babies, and an age-progressed photo of a child who never opened his eyes won't tell me who he was. How could it?

Here's what I know about Ben, from the time I had with him:

• He loved music, and kicked a lot when he heard it;
• He was quiet in my womb, quieter than his sister, and he pushed more than he kicked;
• He was beautiful;
• He was never mine to keep.

And I miss him.