Just a Minute

Wow. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been here and posted anything. It’s almost been 3 years since the reason I started the blog. As you can tell from the last post, I felt released from the burden of bloodletting the grief and just felt I needed to wear it for a while.

I was angry, depressed, confused, felt betrayed, hated my body, went through a period of resenting my husband for not wanting anymore children, but I can say that we made it through all of that.  God is a miracle worker in case you hadn’t heard. Glad to be on His side with His son at my side.

I know very few have read these thoughts, but I’ve referred to them over and over to help me remember our boy, not to wallow in despair, but to remember where God has brought us through faith.

 

Released

Much of the tension I was feeling in “Trapped” was released through a friend’s experience with his dog’s death.

Sounds strange everytime I think it. What does a dog’s death have to do with my grief for my child? Everything, it turns out.

Through the expression of his grief, I came to understand that we let our loved ones go much easier, much faster, when we know that they lived well, were well cared for, lived the life they wanted. In other words, we let go easier, when we have something to hold on to. Pretty simple when you think about it in physical terms, but it applies emotionally too.

I have no snapshots of Luke’s life. No memories, no knowledge that he lived well, loved the life he knew, knew that he was loved. I have nothing to hold onto except the emptiness that he left behind.

But I’ve also come to realize that I can create our lives with him. I can create the snapshots that I won’t have on my digital camera through sketches. I can and have drawn him with O, with us, inside of me as a fetus.

All this time, I’ve been missing him and I don’t think I had to. As I’ve mentioned before, he is with us daily in our minds and hearts. So now I try to capture the daily things in my sketches with him. Maybe one day I’ll paint two or three. I no longer try to shut him out. I can let go because I have my “memories” of him that I collect with my family to hold onto.

 

Nothing to Apologize for

The hardest thing about having a baby who’s died is remembering him without making other people uncomfortable.

Luke would be 5 months old on the 4th of July. I’ve begun planning a graveside balloon release that I know my daughter would enjoy. It feels very important to visit the grave on that day and allow ourselves to include him as part of our family for a short time.

It’s funny that I say that “include him as part of our family”. He IS part of our family, but it’s more physical when we visit the graveside, almost as if he’s there with us. That is not an unusual feeling, I’m sure.

Our nearly 6 year old daughter came home from school the other day and told us at dinner that she now knows 3 Lukes. One at her old school, one at her new school and the one who lives with us. I like how she thinks. He really does live with us in a way. There are even some days when I get up and think I need to make sure I have taken care of the baby and it’s not horrible when I realize I wasn’t quite aware of what I was thinking; almost comforting.

I love it that my daughter thinks and talks about Luke. She is the only one of our family besides me, my husband (rarely) and his father who talk about him openly. He is so present in my daughter’s life that she recently wanted to take a balloon home from a birthday party just for Luke. While I have to keep her grounded in the reality that Luke can’t truly appreciate the balloon, I am pleased that she would think of him in the middle of her fun.

I was sitting with a friend of mine who heard this interchange between my daughter and I; she has supported me through my pregnancy and then some. But she had no comment for what O had to say even when I reiterated how neat it was that O wanted to give the balloon to Luke. The silence is hard, but I’m not sure what I expect people to say either.

Having people ask about my children and how many I have is also a hard question. Most ask while O is with and say something like “Do you just have the one?” I say yes, but feel I am betraying the memory of my son. When I have attempted to explain that I have only one surviving child, it’s been very awkward, with the person on the other end apologizing and me, not knowing how to accept an apology.

Sometimes it seems like you’re accounting for them the same way you might say I have one brother who is a blood relation and five step brothers and sisters. Like the five step brothers and sisters are less qualified than the one blood brother. It feels the same with Luke. “Yes, I have one living child and one who no longer qualifies as a child because he’s not with us but is still loved like one.” I hate the ambiguousness of it.

O, on the other hand, has no problem with this and she has no feelings of needing to comfort another person. It is fact to her. I learn from her whose feelings about her brother are pure and simple. He lives with us, looks over us from Heaven, and we visit him at the cemetary. What is there to apologize for?

 

Our Son

I began writing this in November of '05. It helped me deal with the negative feelings I had while I was pregnant and did not know what the outcome would be, only what the prognosis was.

"Luke Alexander is our son. He has a chromosome disorder that the doctors tell us is "incompatible with life". He grows within me every week, getting stronger as time goes by. He is tiny. I know that I do not feel "kicks" but only punches because he cannot move his legs. The punches usually always happen on the same side, the left side, of my body though I feel a flutter every once in a while on the other side.

Each morning before I rise, I wait to feel those flutters and punches before I roll out of bed. I am both comforted and disturbed by those movements. Comforted because I know that with that small amount of movement, he will make it through another day. Disturbed because he is allowed to live for what? Another day inside a stinky, dark sack?

He hiccups and I am honestly steadied. Sick babies don't hiccup do they? They feel the same as Olivia's. I schedule another sonogram because, even though I think I have accepted that we will not be granted a miracle, I secretly hope to be proved wrong. God is our rock. I do not comb Scripture for comfort, nor pray all day. I simply comfort myself knowing that God's plan is not my own and that I do not know what He knows. I try to find the gift He gives with the pain he bestows on us. Everything else seems cliche.

I am numbed and yet strengthened by grief. Everyday that passes teaches me something about life. Facing death in any form seems to have a way of affirming life. Steve and I seek comfort in loving each other. We find comfort in loving our 5 year old daughter, in her laughter, in her eyes, in her precious questions to God about Luke.

I read others' stories and get unexpected support from others who have lost a little one of their own. It's too common. My pain is mine but not unique. People who know and even those who don't, delight in putting their hands on my round belly. I am rocked by those touches

Tomorrow, I want to remain in bed all day long. Sleep long and hard and deep. The sleep of the depressed. I know I cannot and that soon enough I will be given time to grieve in full and I actually look forward to those days when no one expects me to be available to them, to be responsive, to be smiling. When everyone goes to work and I can lock the door behind them and just breathe. When I can allow myself to cry and nurse the migraines that follow. Twenty weeks is a really long time to know that the baby you carry will not live long. I look forward to the time of rest from worry and horrible, selfish, and ambiguous thoughts.

I have no doubt I will carry to term, though many parts of me wish that I could deliver early. However, that will mean a Christmas in the hospital and I don't want that for any of us. So I try to be patient and enjoy the pregnancy and his little life while we still feel him.

His life will not be a cliche."

 

Dear Luke

I miss you. I didn't know you, but I miss you. I miss how big you'd be if you were stilll with us and how your big sister would be making you laugh with goofy antics. I miss the way O would be bent over your face, nearly suffocating you with kisses and patting you on the head.

I miss not rocking you to sleep after you've nursed and observed the world through your tiny finger tips and nearsighted eyes. How you'd smell after a bath with Lavender scented soap. I miss your soft snuffles as you learn to coordinate your breathing. I wish that I were waking up with you in the middle of the night instead of waking up because you are not here.

I know that your Daddy misses the way your toes would dig into his thighs while you practice bouncing and testing your own legs. And the way your little boy fingers would look to his to guide you, lift you, snuggle you, tickle you. I miss your smile and the little gurgles that would be your first attempts at laughter. O misses having someone to play with, dress up, and tell stories to.

Everday that goes by, it gets harder to remember your tiny little kicks against my belly button and sides as I slept at night. We only knew you in black and white. We know you're in Heaven now, with Jesus, and that you don't feel pain. And O is sure that you're frollickin around with all of the other winged babies and having fun. I often picture you with a smile on your little face, waving pudgy hands at your sister.

We'll see you again someday. If we're blessed, it won't be soon, but we'll have Eternity to get to know you. We love you, Mommy, Daddy, and Sister

 

The Beginning

Wow. When I started writing, I thought that I would be more original than "The Beginning" but that's what this is and well, why not be blunt.

This is my first attempt in the online blogging world. I didn't have any interest in blogs until I attended SXSW in Austin and learned how others were sharing their lives just because. A friend of mine inspired me by creating her own and really doing something fantastic. She keeps bugging me to get started and so here I am. It was easier than I thought.

I don't have anything in particular that I want to accomplish with this blog. I just know I like to write. There is something so tangible about words. They are my hugs and my daggers and both flow freely from me.

I'm an Aries, a ram. Anyone who gets to know me never refutes my nature. Stubborn, dominating(big meanie), tenacious, up front. Also loyal, quick tempered but easily distracted, quick to smile or laugh, and formidable when the ones I love are in over their heads. Mountain retreats are especially appealing.

 I wrote a lot in school. Saved my work and I pull out from time to time because it's neat to see where my thoughts are now in comparison to where they were then. But my favorite journaling came from being pregnant with my first child and again as a way of releasing intense emotions while pregnant with my second child who died three months ago at 38 weeks.

 I had a lot of dark thoughts during those months from my 20th week when we learned our baby would be serverely handicapped and then at 23 weeks when we learned he would not live to see his first birthday if he made it to term at all. But the dark only revealed more light (cliche, I know). Luke, bringer of light. That is his name and I use it freely. It keeps me from thinking of him as my dead baby.

My biggest joys come from being married to my husband for nearly 12 years and from being a mother, in that order. My husband is my rock, my navigator of faith, my perception checker, and the love of my life. We've known each since I graduated high school and I love him more now than at any other time during our marriage. It's never been a sacrifice, but I won't say it's been easy either.

 I have a friend who is testing the baby waters. She knows that she will regret not having a baby but she just hasn't found the right time for she and her husband to bring a little one into the world. I think she's also afraid of losing herself and her husband to motherhood. But what I really think is that she's afraid of losing herself to a picture of motherhood that they create in movies, cards, and advertising.

That mother figure is a one-dimensional character whose voice is always pleasant, has always a kind word, makes lunches with little notes in them, sweetly bends to tie the shoes that have come untied for the 50th time, wipes boogers with a smile, and changes poopy diapers without gagging.

Then there's the picture of what we might become. Our mothers. Dundundun. Or better yet, how about Mommy Dearest? Oh wait, YOUR mother WAS Mommy Dearest? Sorry.

Really, though there are worse things than becoming our mothers and we get to hear about those things in the news everyday.

It's scary, hell yeah. But amazing too. Maria, turn off your TV and discontinue your RSS feed to CNN. There really is a happy place in between what you "should" be and that b____ on TV. Besides, you won't know how to tell your daughter how to raise her kids if you don't give it a shot yourself. <hehe>