In Due Time and that time I was Due!

Recently someone asked me what it was about upcoming due dates that was especially hard after perinatal child loss. Birthdays and death dates are easier for others to understand, those are tangible reminders but a due date? What is it about the anniversary of a due date that brings up so much anxiety and grief? Today is my due date. I remember sitting in Dr. Carmen's office as she adjusted the small paper wheel and calculated that on March 25th 2012 my baby would come home with me, give or take a couple of days. Once you have that date, your whole life becomes about that date, planning for that date, because afraid or excited or ready or not- a baby is going to come out of you and come home with you and so this date becomes the most important date in your life. But when your baby comes 4 months early and never comes home with you that date is just supposed to go back to being another day on your calendar. 

My grief calendar is filled with many different days, the day I got pregnant, the day I went into labor, the day he passed away, Mother's Day,  and other holidays but my due date is a silent grief day. How do you commemorate the anniversary of the loss of your hopes and dreams with your child? That's some heavy shit. Shouldn't I be cutting a two year old's birthday cake right now surrounded by friends and family? The anniversary of all the would have and should haves- that is what a due date is. It is the fantasy date, the date where your baby didn't die and in alternate reality you watch him get cake on his face and blow out candles.

Today is the anniversary of the life that wasn't. The mother I didn't get to be with the child I didn't get to raise. Some days I am so overwhelmed at the thought, not the memory but just the thought that I lost a child that I am amazed that I am able to get through the day. How do I get through the day? Some days with more awareness than others.

I've been really focusing my attention on what healing looks like for me lately. I think until now I have had only enough in me to get me through shock, then survival, and now grief. I am just now able to really start to imagine what healing can look like for me. It feels like time to address the trauma and the hurt and the grief and to slowly heal those wounds. I understand that there will always be scars but in some places I have gashing open sores of grief crying for attention. How do I heal those places? I think the first step is to want to heal. I want to fundamentally change my relationship with grief so that there is room for much more inside me. I am trying to put together a plan made up of lifestyle changes that work for me. I am looking at everything from mindfulness based cognitive therapy to nutrition and exploring the many possibilities of wellness in my life. While I figure out what healing feels like for me, I give myself permission to be kind to myself throughout this process. To be patient, and loving and understanding with myself. I give myself permission to make mistakes or change my mind. To be open minded about different approaches and to rest when I am weary. I give myself permission to celebrate the moments of happiness and wholeness.

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.

Side by Side

Getting Closer

Go on, the voices say, part the veil.

Not with your hands. Hands will onlytangle the hours like a net. Get closer.

So you can part the veil with your breath.The world keeps moving in on itself. It's

what it does. Cobwebs. Opinions. Moss.Worries. Dirt. Leaves. History. Go on. Put

them down and get real close. Open yourmouth and inhale all the way to the begin-

ning, which lives within us, not behind us.Then wait. When something ordinary starts

to glow, life is opening. When the light off the river paints the roots of an old willow

just as you pass, the world is telling you tostop running. Forget what it means, just

stop running. When the moon makes youfinger the wet grass, the veil is parting.

When the knot you carry is loosened,the veil is parting. When you can't help

but say yes to all that is waiting, the veilis parting.

One year. To think that a year ago I held my baby in my arms and said hello for the first time. Said goodbye for the first time. 365 days. Some days much longer than others. Not all days have 24 hours with it's minutes equally distributed throughout the day. Because some days have hours and minutes that last an eternity. Minutes that never end. The moment my baby took his last breath is still not over. Not to me and not ever. And so parallel moments pass by. Realities that run side by side. There I am working. There I am on vacation. There I am walking my dog. All the while still residing in the moment when I held my baby boy. Both happening at the same time side by side. I wake up. I grieve. I brush my teeth. I remember. I brew coffee. I cry. I get through my work day. I daydream about how big he would be. I go out to dinner with friends. I zone out and miss him. I get ready for bed. I grieve. Side by side. Living both at the same time and so I am always caught off guard when people tell me I am doing so well. Why, yes, I am. I am also really not doing well. That is also true. Both are real and are happening side by side.

The anniversary of Mateo's death fell 2 days after Thanksgiving. It didn't seem fair to ask me to have thankful heart around this time. But nothing about this has been fair. Fair was never an option. And so I went to New York and spent time with my best friend. The same best friend who a year prior had jumped on the first flight available to Vermont to be by my side. Here I was by her side, in her home, eating Thanksgiving dinner. A year later. No baby. But still grateful for her. She and another friend bought Mateo the most beautiful flower arrangement I have ever seen. My friends in Orlando visited Mateo's grave and decorated it and took a moment to honor him. Even at a time when gratitude seems like the last emotion to have room for, it is truly what I felt towards my friends. Thank You all for honoring his memory. Thank you for the calls and the text messages. Thank you to my friend who got him a birthday balloon. Thank You for loving me and loving him <3

They say year two is the hardest. Because the shock has worn off and the sharp edges around your pain have dulled and so all you have left is a raw ache. It is hard to imagine a year harder then this one. I can see how it will be in some ways but in other ways managing gets easier. I hope at some point I learn to not resent this pain, and having to manage it like a terminal illness but rather embrace it. Move with it instead of running into it. I am not looking forward to another year of milestones and holidays. More due dates, and birthdays, and mother's day and babies his age doing the things I'll never witness. Again. Another year. 365 days with unevenly distributed minutes. Time that runs side by side with what is, was, could've and never will be.

The things we want to do and the things we want to do. Love both.

Repeatedly We Are Asked

to embody or consume;

to be in kinship with everything larger

or to order and manage everything smaller.

We are asked, every day, to align or separate;

to coordinate our will with everything living

or to impose our will on everything we meet.

And not choosing is a choice. Acquiescence

is different from patience or surrender.

All this leaves us needing to know:

whether to better the song through practice

or to better ourselves through singing.

Every year in October, international child loss month, ceremonies are held in honor of all the babies loved and lost all over the world. Candles are lit, prayers are said, tears are shed. People remember alone, quietly, in the spaces where no one can interrupt. People remember in groups, in congregations, in homes and in parks. Everywhere, people remember.

I attended an Angel of Hope Ceremony here in Central Florida. Most of the people from my support groups were there. We lit candles for our babies and placed roses on the angel statue when our child's name was called. When I was in line writing down Mateo's name on the list of names to be called I heard the woman behind me sigh, heavily. I watched her write one name, and then two names and then a third name. She grabbed three roses and walked away. Her pain was so heavy that for a moment there I couldn't feel my own.

Whenever I drive to and from events like these, or even to Mateo's grave, there is always a sense of anger. The sting behind the fact that there is a big difference between the places I should be driving to with my baby and the places I drive to in order to honor him. I feel cheated. And sad. And angry. But am also grateful for the opportunity to have the latter. I've had every other opportunity to be his mother taken from me. The ability to hold him, and kiss him, and nurture him. The opportunity to watch him grow, and kiss his scraped knees and watch him become a man. Of all the things I have been denied, not even death can take away my motherly duty of loving him. I love him every day. With every breath. I love him every time I drive to a ceremony in his honor. 

I love him.

                                                          

 

The more things change the more they stay. Period.

"They say, if real enough, some see God

at the moment of their death. But isn't

every fall and letting go a death? Isn't God

waiting right now in the chill between the

small doe's hoof and those fallen leaves?" Mark Nepo

Changes. There is something about fall. Whenever this time of year comes around I find myself in the space between anticipation for the future and mourning what is falling. Didn't I just get accustomed to this year? Aren't I just now embracing what it means to be here in this year? Just in time to see it go and start all over again it seems. In Florida we don't get fall like in other places. It isn't obvious in the leaves. The weather will betray you the moment you feel you might need a sweater. But fall isn't about weather or climate. It's about change. A change so integral you feel it in your bones, in your teeth, your cells. It is the time of year when things change from the inside and the world's changes on the outside are just a reflection. 

This time of the year always brings me back to Andre. I find myself imagining what his life would be like today. I picture the him I knew then in the world I live in today and it feels like a puzzle with missing pieces. I can't create, not even in my mind, the man he would have been today. Not the experiences that would have changed him. Not the heartbreaks and not the accomplishments. I can't create him in this world. But I can carry the him I do know and love with me into this world. Because that Andre, the one that brings a smile to my face at just the thought, that Andre lives in me. I miss him so much. 

This time of year also brings about nervous anticipation and grief about next month and the one year anniversary of Mateo's birth. And death. I have planned on going to New York and being with my best friend Andrea. She wheeled me down to his bed in the NICU so we could read him bedtime stories those dates last year. I would like her to be my side those dates this year. Maybe we will do something to honor his birth. Maybe ill just lay in bed and cry. Either way, I want to do it with Andrea. 

So I moved into a new apartment this week. Talk about a change. This perfect mix of old things and new things in a new place with the old you. I went through all my things, throwing some away, relishing in the memories of others. You run into that old picture you hadn't seen in years and question your life choices- "is that what my hair looked like and no one helped me?" You find things to donate and things you just absolutely have to hold on to for posterity. You imagine a great grandchild asking a question about that item- an old journal, a good book with an inscription from ex "to the forever love of my life, something forever and love and did I  mention forever? love always". A piece of jewelry passed down from your mom, nothing fancy but just nice enough that you look forward to giving to a daughter, grand daughter, great grand daughter and telling her its vintage. You imagine what a stranger would picture you like if they went through your most prized possessions. What do my things say about me? Oh the picture our things paint! And then you put it all away neatly in a box and keep unpacking because this isn't the time to ponder mortality or posterity. It's time to find a place for all those dvd's you swear you'll watch again some day.

I can definitely feel that it is fall. I can feel the familiar changes.