The Terrible (benevolent) Two's: Mateo's Birthday

"You can look at a scar and see hurt, or you can look at a scar and see healing" Sheri Reynolds

The terrible two's. This week was the two year anniversary of Mateo's birth and death. My terrible two's. There have definitely been moments in year two when I have wanted to throw myself on the floor, kicking,screaming, crying. A tantrum. Sometimes I can't believe it's been two year already and sometimes I can't believe it's only been two years. 

But year two, for all the ways it was terrible it was also kinder on me than year one. Year one was a raw nerve, exposed to the elements whose pain I could not be protected from. Year two, the pain fits inside me differently. Just as real. This year is no longer about the shock, it's not about the guilt or blame. I don't spend as much time editing the days of his life in my mind- a producer trying to find alternative endings to an already released movie. This year was more about acceptance. Truly coming to terms with the knowledge that I will never wake up to this baby in my arms. Never. That I could have a million children and all the successes in the world. But the one thing I will never know is the sound of his laugh. And that's what you carry year two. 

The realization that the depth of your loss is so great your brain can only process it in pieces. 

Pieces, moments, years, time. All in time. And so year two was terrible. But it was also better. And I was better at grief. And my loved ones were better at letting me grieve. I went to Mateo's grave on his birthday. I laid in the  grass, under the sun and talked to him for hours. I cried in a way I can only do when I am visitng him, this is why I like to go alone. I'm so vulnerable in that moment. I also visited him before I left, decorated his grave for Christmas with some things me and my friends Alex and Jacky bought for him. There is healing in rituals. Year two was terribly kind in its own way.

         Here is to year three of healing.

New Life. Same Old Grief.

Gentleness by Mark Nepo

" This is the story of a blind boy who in a dream is told that bowing will open his eyes and let him see. He tries for several days to bow and open, everywhere he goes: in the grass, in the wind, in the soft hands of his mother. None of it gives him sight. He bows his face into the holiest of books, the one his father studies. Still nothing. The dream felt so real that he's now in despair, certain he's misread the gift of this instruction, certain he's lost his chance to see.

In his sadness, he wanders to the shore of a lake, where he wades to his waist. Depressed, he sits in the water. And as a child sinks in a bathtub, he holds his breath and drops into the lake, below the surface of things, below the noise of his blindness. He is surrounded by such softness and quiet that he begins to cry as the water from his eyes mixes with the water of the lake. In the slow, gentle wash of water meeting water, he begins to feel the bottom of the lake. He begins to feel the old fish swimming behind a rock. He can feel the oar in the middle of the lake slipping in and out of the cloud-reflected surface. He even feels a heron circling above, its shadow cooling pockets of the deep.

He returns to the surface and can feel the movement of air against his eyes, and the heat of the sun warming his face. From that day on, he can feel with his eyes, as long as he remembers to slip below the surface of things. And though he is blind, from that day on, he carries great vision. In time, he becomes a teacher that others seek out, and through his gentleness, others learn that whatever our blindness, the heart can sink below the noise of its memories and wounds. The sweet blind boy tells everyone who asks that the heart wakes slowly, and only our gentleness -- our willingness to sink into the depth of things and wait -- will let us see and make our way."

I have a new life. Mostly. I live in a new city, Yonkers, New York. In a new apartment with a new roommate who is perfectly nice and wonderful. My neighborhood is quiet and calm and Grace and I go out for long walks. The weather is changing and everything is becoming cooler and crisp. It's a new season. I go to a new school, with new classmates and I am learning new material. Last week we read the story of a boy named Jesse who died because of negligence in a clinical trial he was participating in. The story was written by his father and I cried for 40 minutes after reading it. There are new triggers. Today I went to a support group meeting, it was my first time since moving here. It was good to listen, and talk, but mostly listen. Because in my new life, with my new adventures, and new beginnings there is still the same old grief. 

Most of the time grief is close by, a shadow I can sense but not always see. Sitting close to me, we are familiar, but familiar does not mean comfortable with. Sometimes grief sits next to me and sometimes it sits on me. All consuming and heavy and crushing.

This year his birthday falls on Thanksgiving. A day of thanks. It feels like a very tall order I am not quite up to. I drained my savings and bought a ticket home so I could go lay on his grave. I will bring him a birthday gift and lay in the grass for as long as I want to. All day. All week. All of my life. 

Two years ago I held his little hand and kissed his little face and I want to fold over and collapse into myself when I think about how much I miss him. I can't actually allow myself to sit with missing him. The weight of that truth would crush my will to live into dust and the winds of time would blow them away and I'd become nothing. Literally dust in the wind.

I brace myself for the 3 days after Thanksgiving, the anniversary of when I said goodbye. Thank goodness vital bodily functions run on auto pilot since I often forget to breathe. I feel like I exhaled my last breath with his and haven't remembered to breathe in yet. 

But I am breathing and living this new life. And I stay true to my commitment that if I am going to live with this then I have to be alive. I get to live for both of us. Only one of us can still breathe and it isn't enough for my body to go through the motions, I have to be an active participant in the inhales and exhales. The ins and the outs and the ups and the downs. I have to be here even if he isn't in the ways I want him to.

And so I have a new life but the same old grief. Here is to year three, I welcome you with a gentle heart <3

The year that was and the one that is.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  ―Anaïs Nin 

"Your life will begin to improve when you define precisely what ‘improve’ means to you.  The agonies and frustrations will start to ease only when you have something real and positive to replace them with.  Be specific.  Happiness is not a goal, it’s the result of a life well lived.  The question is:  How do you want to live going forward?"

During the last week of 2013 I took some time to reflect on the year. It was undoubtedly the hardest year of my life. I thought about the journey my grief has taken me through. The small miracles that made survival possible. The kindness from friends. The support from strangers. The emails and calls and letters. The people who know what I am going through and the people who can't know but care enough to try. I think about the first couple of months of 2013. I had a small checklist next to my bed: 

1. Brush your teeth 

2. Shower 

3. Eat Something

4. Take your dog for a walk.

Those were the 4 things I had to absolutely do in a day when I couldn't bring myself to do much more than breathe. I was operating on survival mode. There I was creating checkpoints in my life that made still an active participant of the living, at least on the outside. I read books, and went to therapy. I went to support groups and did the HEAL group. I called friends and vented. I decorated Mateo's grave during the holidays and celebrated his due date.

I cried. I cried all the time. I cried in the car on the way to anywhere and everywhere. I cried at night. I cried in the shower. I cried alone and I cried with others. I cried from the depth of my despair and when I had no more tears to give, I whimpered myself to sleep. 

I spent a lot of time alone, in my head, sorting through the pain. I didn't allow myself to get distracted from grieving. For a while there I would set an alarm on my phone with a reminder that it was time to grieve. And so I would stop what I was doing and I would dedicate that time to reading or blogging and crying and feeling. I knew the only out of my grief was through it. There are no shortcuts with grief. And so I sat with it and let it engulf me to the point of suffocation. There were times where I literally thought I would die from the pain. But I didn't die. I allowed myself to experience the full force of what it means to have loved a child, to have held him in your arms and to have watched him pass away. 

This doesn't mean I am "okay" now. It means I didn't die also. And because I didn't die in this space I can now choose to live. And I don't mean survive or just get by. I mean actually live. With love and joy and excitement. Things I never imagined feeling again a year ago today. 

And so at the end of 2013 I took some time to reflect on the year and found gratitude for the miracles around the tragedy. I'll never be grateful my child passed away but I can be grateful for things around his death. Like the love I have for him and the love others have for him. I am grateful for the people that loved me through my pregnancy and then through my loss, our loss. I am grateful for the strength I have found inside, for the lessons in humility and the faith that come with healing. 

And so at the beginning of 2014 I took some time to set intentions for the New Year.Because while 2013 was my year dedicated to survival, 2014 is my year dedicated to living. To embracing the wide range of experiences and emotions people who aren't fully consumed by grieving are given the privilege of having. 2014 will be my year to learn how to laugh again. I plan on falling in love with life, a little wiser from having been hurt by it and a little stronger from having survived that. A couple of weeks ago I met a nice guy and we have started dating and I hit a milestone in my journey. I had to tell him about Mateo. Really tell him. Of course he didn't see me a year ago when I was just a zombie version of myself whose day was a success if it included basic hygiene practices. He didn't see my tantrums with God. He didn't witness me lay at Mateo's grave and weep uncontrollably for hours. He just gets to hear me retell the story. And in that brief moment it became something that happened not something that was happening. He didn't run. He held my hand and was kind. He listened. He challenged me to think about some of my beliefs around my grief. Most of all he listened. And held my hand. And it was nice.

2014 is my year of learning to live again and to hope and to dream and to love. I respect the role 2013 had to serve in order for 2014 to matter and to that I say welcome to this New Year.