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

Pink Rose Award

Monica, over at Hopeful Momma, very kindly gave me a Pink Rose Award, given "to those who inspire you or need to be inspired, to those who have encouraged you or those who need encouragement.” She sweetly said that I am one of the bloggers who encourages her, post babyloss, with my story of loss and my life-and baby-after Ben.

I can't figure out how to post the Pink Rose Award icon on the side of my blog - perhaps I'll figure it out soon. Or maybe someone can tell me how?

Anyway, thank you, Monica, for giving me this. I'm glad I have been of some help to you in your journey.

I hereby give this award to Jen, at The Comfy Place. She has inspired me as she battles cancer and raises her children - she is a remarkable human being. I also give this to C., who, after two devastating losses, is struggling to keep going.

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Here's what to do:
1. On your blog, copy and paste the award, these rules, a link back to the person who selected you, and a link to this post: http://smartone.typepad.com/smartone/2008/05/pink-is-my-favo.html. You will find the story behind the Pink Rose Award and other graphics to choose from there.
2. Select as many award recipients as you would like, link to their blogs (if they have one), and explain why you have chosen them.
3. Let them know that you have selected them for an award by commenting on one of their posts.
4. If you are selected, pass it on by giving the Pink Rose Award to others.
5. If you find that someone you want to nominate has already been selected by someone else, you can still honor them by posting a comment on their award post stating your reasons for wishing to grant them the award.
6. You do not have to wait until someone nominates you to nominate someone else.

Support Early Infant Death Research

First Candle is an organization devoted to making sure babies don't die. They do research and support work relating to stillbirth and SIDS. Over the summer I received a newsletter from them with the news that the website www.goodsearch.com allows users to search the web for free, and donates money to the charity of your choice for each search.

Here's the blurb from the First Candle newsletter: "GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo!-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo! and watch the donations add up for First Candle!"

I say we give it all a try - anything to help.

This Is Not a Fairy Tale

It's a bit like a fairy tale, this story of mine. Not in the "happily ever after" sense, for we all know how my story ends. It's like the original tales, by the Brothers Grimm, where the stepsisters cut off their toes to try to make the shoe fit. Mine begins, 'Once upon a time...' just as all the modern tales do; 'Once upon a time, there was a happy couple with a beautiful daughter, a beautiful home, everything they could ever wish for, except a son. Then one day, the happy couple found out they were to have a son, their perfect family, and they had nothing left to wish for, for their happily ever after was about to come true.'

Except it didn't. And in the aftermath of death, we tried to sort out 'ever after.' For no matter how stark the real stories by Grimm, Cinderella still got her man; Rapunzel, after years of wandering, found her prince; and Hansel and Gretel escaped the witch, who burned to death. The bad met their just end; the righteous prevailed. And in my story, in your story, the righteous don't prevail, though we are left trying to learn how to live with it for the rest of our lives.

I was told by someone very wise, when I asked her how I live with this unimaginable sorrow for the rest of my life, that, one day, Ben's death would become a part of me, like my blue eyes are a part of me. Something I carry with me, always, in every moment. I clung to those words, waiting for the time when that would be true, as it is for me now. But anyone can look at me and see that I have blue eyes; only those I've told can look at me and see Ben's death etched across my face.

His death has become a part of who I am, as that wise woman said, though I wish that part of me wasn't so hard to share with those who don't know. What she didn't tell me - and perhaps what she herself did not know - was that the biggest part of me, my son's death, is the biggest secret I keep. There are no conversations that include, "I'm from Pennsylvania originally, I'm home with my kids right now, been married for 12 years, and have a dead son."

And I pretend I have the fairy tale, the happily ever after. I hide the biggest part of me from all but a select few and wonder how anyone could miss seeing the hollow emptiness I carry with me always.

Happy Birthday to my little guy

I've just read Monica's post over at Still Hopeful and am thinking yet again of what might be, and of what is. Yesterday was a year since she and her husband lost Jack, and I am reminded again of the sting of anniversaries. But today marks a happy anniversary for us, James's 3rd birthday. We were expecting him on the 5th, but despite the 6 a.m. induction, he chose not to appear until 12:57 on the morning of the 6th.

I expect I will always think, on this day, no matter how old the two of us get, that if Ben had not died, there would likely be no James. Physically, time-wise, it would have been possible to have them both, born 18 months apart. Had Ben lived, it is very likely we would have an infant now, a child under the age of 1.5. My naive plan to have three children, about three years apart, might have been complete. That dream might have come true.

Today, I can't imagine having three kids - well, no, I can imagine it, but I can't somehow comprehend what life would be like. I am faced with the terrible knowledge that, if Ben had lived, James wouldn't be with us. I can't imagine life with the one, but without the other. And I could never make that choice, if I had to, although I believe that if there were no other choice but to have Ben, stillborn, or not to have him at all, I would take him as I had him.

But today is not about Ben, though he is never far from my thoughts. Today is James's day, and I can't imagine my life without him. Every day I am amazed by how much I love him, how much he lights up my world. I think he came here to make us laugh, which we all need. At three, he loves big trucks, dinosaurs, and making loud noises. He tells me he loves me, gives great "squeeze hugs," and is generally a crazy little man growing up far too quickly. He loves preschool and wearing his "packback" and carrying his lunchbox. He adores Thomas the Tank Engine and his stuffed monkey. He also adores his big sister, who he calls "Diddy." He has changed my world for the better and he is the reason I smile every day.

Happy Birthday, Little Man. I love you, more than you will ever know.

Hanging Here in Space

That Christmas, before Ben died, my husband or daughter, I don't remember which one, gave me the Sacred Love CD by Sting. We listened to it that day, though not thoroughly enough for me to really hear the songs and learn the words. As it turned out, I didn't listen to it again before Ben died, and in the months that followed, I couldn't listen to any music at all.

About six months after his death, I started listening to music again, CDs that I thought would be safe, that wouldn't make me cry. And I pulled out Sacred Love in my car one day as I ran errands, cruising along in the sunshine of a late-spring day, though my thoughts were always, always, on Ben.

It's a post-9/11 album, both in release date and in content. Sting sings of war, love, memory. I wasn't expecting to find a song that would make me gasp for breath and have me sobbing halfway through, but one song, "Dead Man's Rope," nearly did me in that day, and on many days since. The lyrics took my breath away, felt just exactly right for where I was in my life: drifting, walking away from one thing and trying to walk into another, walking away from emptiness and devastation. I searched online to see just what Sting was thinking when he wrote the song, but found only a short commentary, that it is about a man trapped in a "well of memory", needing to deal with reality. I think it's a little more religious than that, at least for me, but I'll let you judge:

Dead Man's Rope
"A million footsteps, this left foot drags behind my right
But I keep walking, from daybreak, 'til the falling night
And as days turn into weeks and years
And years turn into lifetimes
I just keep walking, like I've been walking for a thousand years

Walk away in emptiness, walk away in sorrow,
Walk away from yesterday, walk away tomorrow,

If you're walking to escape, to escape from your affliction
You'd be walking in a great circle, a circle of addiction
Did you ever wonder what you'd been carrying since the world was black?
You see yourself in a looking glass with a tombstone on your back

Walk away in emptiness, walk away in sorrow,
Walk away from yesterday, walk away tomorrow,
Walk away in anger, walk away in pain
Walk away from life itself, walk into the rain

All this wandering has led me to this place
Inside the well of my memory, sweet rain of forgiveness
I'm just hanging here in space

Now I'm suspended between my darkest fears and dearest hope
Yes I've been walking, now I'm hanging from a dead man's rope
With Hell below me, and Heaven in the sky above
I've been walking, I've been walking away from Jesus' love

Walk away in emptiness, walk away in sorrow,
Walk away from yesterday, walk away tomorrow,
Walk away in anger, walk away in pain
Walk away from life itself, walk into the rain

All this wandering has led me to this place
Inside the well of my memory, sweet rain of forgiveness
I'm just hanging here in space

The shadows fall
Around my bed
When the hand of an angel,
The hand of an angel is reaching down above my head

All this wandering has led me to this place
Inside the well of my memory, sweet rain of forgiveness
Now I'm walking in his grace
I'm walking in his footsteps
Walking in his footsteps,
Walking in his footsteps

All the days of my life I will walk with you
All the days of my life I will talk with you
All the days of my life I will share with you
All the days of my life I will bear with you

Walk away from emptiness, walk away from sorrow,
Walk away from yesterday, walk away tomorrow,
Walk away from anger, walk away from pain
Walk away from anguish, walk into the rain."

I've been sitting here with my laptop trying to explain to you what this song meant to me, and I find I can't. It's tied too much to that time, it's too deep in my soul for me to make sense of to anyone else. But that emptiness, that sorrow, the notion of walking away from everything, but still being "led here to this place" - that's where I was, hanging in space. Waiting.

Days Like This

Ok, folks, bear with me. I'm going to whine. (I've been hearing so much whining from my daughter that it has rubbed off.)

I'm exhausted. Not sleeping well - too hot, too stressed out, too much on my 'to-do' list worrying me. Summer has officially become too long this week; my kids are between camps and lessons and the constant requests for something to do, to phone a friend, the 'I'm-boreds,' the 'why-won't you-let-me's,' the, 'this-is-the-worst-day-of-my-life' screaming fits . . . well, I've had enough. I feel totally unappreciated and unacknowledged. Parenting is the best thing I have ever done and the hardest thing I've ever done. No one tells you that, while you're raising your kids, they won't appreciate you, they won't say 'thank you' unless reminded 18 times, they will demand as much of you as they can get and they won't respect the fact that you are exhausted, have a need for time to yourself, or are trying to make dinner/pay bills/clean/have a conversation on the phone . . . .

What's in order for me right now is a good massage, a pedicure, and a big, big margarita. (And none of those things are going to happen, especially not the margarita as it is currently 10:30 in the morning.) I am feeling sorry for myself, but I'll get over it. Thanks for indulging me.