Layers

A few months after Henry died, Brian and I drove to Boston every other week  for a grief group. One of the images that stuck with was the layers of the onion. We kept peeling away those layers of grief—all the little letting goes, the fears, the traumas one after another after another, all the hurts that piled up afterward—layer after layer after layer I peeled it away. And like an onion, all those layers all made me cry.

That image came back to me today at church. We were sitting up front for a change and I kept looking at the baptismal font right in front of us. Before Kathleen was born, I would well up just looking at it, remembering that he had been here and now he's not. Today, I remembered Henry's baptism. And Kathleen's. And Elizabeth's. I did not cry. Time healing old wounds? New skin grown over the sensitive spot in my heart? Perhaps. But today, what it felt like was that I have been adding layers to our story instead of just peeling them away, new layers that soften the jagged edges.

His birthday is Wednesday, and I may find that I don't have as many layers as I think I do or that they all fall away too easily. I may find myself crying over my onion again. Or I may grow another layer on my story.

Just last year?

Kathleen has been climbing on the plastic play structure in our backyard. She climbs up the ladder section and right up over the top. "Look at this!" she calls me. Eventually she goes down the slide and climbs back up again and again and again.

Last summer, she could not climb the play structure. She wanted me to pick her up so she could slide, again and again and again. My belly was big and my back ached and I would pick her up a few times and sigh enough. Often a neighbor would take pity on me and help her up more and more and more until I convinced her it was time to go in.

Just last year.

***
Yesterday I stopped at the outlets on my way home from my sisters to buy pajamas for Kathleen and see if there were any other good deals. Kathleen ran around hiding under racks of clothes and played at the Lego table; Elizabeth checked things out from the Baby Bjorn.

As I poked through wintery, Christmas sleepers, I remembered searching last year for matching winter-themed pajamas for a newborn and a 2-year old, something not too girly in case that newborn was a boy.

Just last year.

***
Elizabeth roams the house on hands and knees, pulls herself up to standing anywhere she can, and jerks around whenever she hears her sister's voice.

Last September, a baby kicked and rolled and squirmed about as Brian read The Hobbit to me.

Just last year.

***
Nine months in seemed to fly by and take forever.
Nine months out has simply flown by.

For Elizabeth at 2 Months

Two months ago today, I saw your head emerge from my belly where you fit so snugly, so perfectly, and when they finally let me hold you, warm against my chest, you fit there so snugly, so perfectly too.

You are growing, more quickly than I realize. Already the newborn sleepers are starting to have a little off the shoulder look, the 0-3 sleepers that you were swimming in look about right all of a sudden. Already you are beginning to uncurl from that impossible position you were in for nine months. Already at the end of the day my forearms are tired from too much one-handed while you nurse and I bustle about.

Someday you'll have to scrunch up a bit as you nestle in to nurse. Someday I'll find you are too long, too heavy to sleep on me for long. Someday you will sit on my lap, legs dangling like your sister's do now and I will wonder how you got so big, so long, so old. For now, you still fit neatly across my lap when you feed, head snug at my breast, feet tucked in on the other side. For now, you still fit snuggled on my chest afterward as I sleep with you, holding you upright just a bit so you don't spit up and choke. For now, I just notice you have gotten bigger but you still look so small. 

People see you and guess at your age. I stop to think before I answer their question, because always more time has passed than I expect. Two months today. Two months already.

The view from where I sit, revisited

Last January, I wrote about sitting in my glider rocker in my living room and how that experience had changed from sitting in that chair the January before.

As I sit in my chair now, my view has changed again. The room itself is different. The pictures of Henry are still on the mantle and on top of the TV. His memory lamp and picture still sit on the bookcase next to dried flowers from one of the arrangements from his funeral.

But the walls are no longer bare. Paintings and the shelves we took down to paint the room before Henry was born are finally back up. The table of sympathy cards and thank you notes in that sat next to my chair in 2007, made way in 2008 for the baby swing. Now that corner is home to a giant basket of stuffed animals and a milk crate full of board books. The homey braided rug made way for a cushy Oriental, and the golden tones pick up the light of the morning sun. The coffee table is gone (one less thing to climb or bump a head on), more room to play. Toys of all types fill in the perimeter of the room.

My chair sits in the living room where it has been since we brought Henry home the first time. These days it sits, but I don't sit in it much. I'm on the floor playing with Kathleen or we are out visiting people or running errands or having a snack together in the kitchen, and if she is asleep, I'm most likely sitting at my desk trying to get a little work done.

My surroundings have changed. The rhythm of my day has changed, too. Mostly I am asleep in those quiet pre-dawn hours Kathleen and I used to share; rarely do I see the darkness turn gray and then rose and then bright yellow as day begins in earnest. Kathleen still sits with me when she is not feeling well and sometimes when she is tired, but mostly she is busy: pulling books off shelves, testing her balance, trying to climb onto the ottoman, finding the Cheerios she dropped earlier, emptying and filling bins of toys . . .

Much has changed in a year.

But when I have a chance to sit again, this remains: I still look at the pictures of Henry, now two years gone, and I still struggle to believe, to comprehend that I had a baby boy, that I sat in this chair and rocked him, that he is gone, gone, never to be held, never to be rocked again. I look around at all the signs of my girl, who I held so new and so precious last January; she is still with me, now chubby cheeks and chunky thighs and giddy giggles.

I sit in this chair and remember, remember sitting with both my babies, rocking them, feeding them, singing to them.
I sit in this chair, one baby tucked into bed, the other tucked into my heart.

I sit, as I did last year, with the grief and the gratitude, the ache and the awe.