Heart to Heart Resuscitation and other things I hardly do but want to

"Everything that happens helps you grow, even if it’s hard to see right now. Circumstances will direct you, correct you, and perfect you over time. So whatever you do, hold on to hope. The tiniest thread will twist into an unbreakable cord. Let hope anchor you in the possibility that this is not the end of your story – that the change in the tides will eventually bring you to peaceful shores."

Yesterday I spent some time with a group of powerful women who come together for what they called "heart to heart resuscitation". It was wonderful. It was one of those moments in time when you feel connected to the universe and you know you are right where you should be, in the company of strong women, good food and great conversation.

So this morning when I woke up I did something I hardly ever do, I prayed. I thanked the universe for all of its glory and I asked to be touched by it today. I am in the process of processing my hurt around Mateo's father and creating a path towards forgiveness. I get overwhelmed at the thought of starting that process. I get even more overwhelmed at the thought of never doing it.

I also did something else I hardly ever do, I cried, with others. I cried with this couple who lost their baby a week a go and shared their story at our support group. I tried to remember what I felt like 4 months ago, a week out of Mateo passing away. I was a zombie. A fucking zombie. I don't know how I made it past the first week, the first month. I am sure at some point I will add the first year, until eventually I stop measuring the time and then it just becomes- I don't know how I made it past the death of my baby, but I did. So I cried with this couple. I shared in their grief, I allowed myself to feel it and to be connected in this way I have not been able to before. When I tell my Mateo story I do not cry. I do not break down in front of people, I often wish I could. I wish the tears would just stream down my face and I could ask someone to hold me, to grieve with me. I may not be ready to be that vulnerable with my grief but I think it was a real breakthrough to share in someone else's today. Maybe the Universe heard my prayer after all.

I feel like the gravity of what it means to lose a child slowly leaks into my consciousness. If I were to feel it all at once, I am sure my heart would explode. Actually I am certain I would have killed myself. If I would have woken up the morning after Mateo and fully felt the magnitude of what it means that your baby is gone, I would have joined him. I think the mind and the body have instinctual ways of self preservation. They want to survive even if your baby didn't. So little by little I come to understand and to really feel what it means to not have Mateo in my arms. I watched his sonogram DVD for the first time recently. I wanted to see him, to hear his heartbeat. I didn't meltdown. Four months since you lost a child is really not a very long time. I don't know if any amount ever will be, but I can feel that four months might as well be 4 days when it comes to missing him. And yet in 4 months I have taught myself to walk into my grief, to not run from it, to be as present as my mind and my body will allow me to be.

You mustn’t befrightened

if a sadness

rises in front of you,

larger than any you’ve ever seen;

if an anxiety,

like light and cloud-shadows,

moves over your hands and over

everything you do.

You must realize that something is

happening to you,

that life has not forgotten you,

that it holds you in its hand

and will not let you fall.

                       Rainer Maria Rilke

Birthdays and Goodbyes and Everything In Between

Though nothing compares to the grief of losing Mateo- losing him is not my first experience with grief. In 2009 I lost a very dear college friend- Andre to a tragic car accident. He was my inspiration for applying to the Peace Corps and honoring his memory was often the driving force behind my seeing it through until the end, as hard as it was to do my first trimester in rural Northern Peru it was even harder to feel like I was letting him down by not fulfilling both of our dreams to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers. There is this sweet moment Andre and I shared that I will always hold dear to my heart, we were sitting next to each other, probably studying for a test and he put his head on my shoulder and lovingly asked "When we met did you ever think we would be best friends?" I am not sure what I replied but I remember knowing that the love was mutual. I love Andre. I feel so cheated of not having shared my Peace Corps experience with him, we were supposed to be pen pals. I feel cheated every time I do not get to call him on the phone to share something I know he would have found hilarious. I feel cheated every time Adele releases a new song, he adored Adele. I feel cheated knowing that we can't create new memories, we only live in the ones I have now. A friendship frozen in time, stored in a time vacuum and shelved under those couple of years in college. Our friendship is marked by could haves and would haves and definitely should haves with no potential of will be, can be, or possibly. When someone you love dies your whole experience around that person is preserved in your mind. A clear timeline can be drawn out- this is when we met, this is when we loved each other, this is when you died. I will spend the rest of my life keeping his memory alive, honoring the man I knew and the friend I loved, but our story is told and I absolutely hate the ending.

In about an hour it will be his birthday. His family and friends gathered for a mass and a moment of remembrance today and if you knew Andre you would understand why a shot of patron was in order in order to truly honor him. I did not share in this particular moment of remembering him but I did take time out today to do it in my own way. I am not a person of faith so I will not make any claims to where he resides now and what has been become of his soul. I do know that that soul was so full of life and energy and love and hope that if anyone is going to continue onto a next life and carry out a purpose in another realm it would be him. It should be him. I don't know if there is a heaven. I do not know if he is there or if Mateo is there. Honestly it isn't as comforting for me to believe there is as it is for others in my life because I want them here, in this world, with the bodies I got to touch and the hearts I got to witness. If they are not here, where they are now doesn't matter so much as where I am now and my grief over them. I am still here. And I miss my friend. And I miss my baby.

From now on life will be marked with those I have loved, the time I got to love them and the time that I lost them. and you will lose everyone in your life. And when you no longer notice that you are losing people, it is because someone has just lost you. You are now a part of someone's grief journey. Year after year candles will be lit and tears will be shed, shots of patron will be taken and funds will be raised in the name of our loved ones. This is my life now. Life and death intertwined, inseparable, cut from the same cloth, weaving in and out of my memories leaving fingerprints on birthdays, goodbyes and everything in between.

“The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears til later:
But my grief will never go.”
― Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsinger