Part of our story

Earlier this week, Rachel at 6512 and growing, writing  about the premature birth of her son and how her awareness of prematurity has changed over the last eight years, said, "Now it feels like part of our story, but not the main plot."

I've been thinking about this line since, thinking about how Henry's story is part of my story, how it isn't the main plot anymore. I think the tough part is that his story doesn't go on, and I worry about that plot line fading out all together. I find again and again that I need to let go of the fear of him being lost to memory. I am reminded again and again that it is okay to let go, that he is remembered, that he is part my story.

One friend recently asked if we would have a Christmas tree this year. I met her after Henry died, while I was pregnant with Elizabeth, and two years ago, I told her that December is really hard for me, and she remembers this and asks me in different ways, how the month looks for me this year. This same friend dropped off a plant to put in Henry's garden for his birthday.

And my dear friend who knew Henry, who did more than she may know in helping me survive the hospital, just ended a message by saying she was thinking of me and Henry, as she always does come December. This friend has a picture of Henry on a shelf at her house, and when people ask her about it, she tells them he's a friend.

I am a cautious person. I reel out my line, loosen my grasp slowly. Will I have as much trouble letting go of my girls as they are ready more and more to go into the world?

I've been thinking a lot about Henry's story, my story, our story lately. I've been writing more lately (just not here), and I'm working with this story, but I'm not sure which story I'm telling. Is it the story of his life where roller coaster of his health are a major plot, the story that ends with me standing by a hospital door in the dark, arms empty, to go home to a quiet house? Is it the story of the journey that ending started? Is it the story of becoming this person I am now having reassembled my pieces (mostly) these near five years later? I don't know, but I'm going back into the darkness and the fear and the confusion, little by little, and finding it is not so deep below the surface sometimes, though the crust is stronger. I'm looking in these dark corners, as I always do, for the bits of light, the bits of love, the bits of Henry hidden in the shadows of oxygen tanks and ambulance rides, and codes.

It's almost December, the month when I celebrate all three of the lives I brought into this world. Two birthdays, one remembrance all packed tight and barreling into Christmas. I'm approaching December tentatively this year. I wonder if I'm just limping now out of memory, if perhaps I could step more surefootedly through the coming month. I'm just going to take little steps and see.

Thanks, No Buts

Anne Lamott has a new book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. Every time I see the title, I am brought back to a tiny windowless room with a bed and a nightstand and a phone, where I slept for several weeks while Henry was in the CICU. Each night, I'd pray my helps and my pleases, my hopes and my pleas, but first, I gave thanks. I didn't give thanks first to bolster my pleas or as an afterthought tacked on the front. I gave thanks because I was grateful, grateful for another day, for a step closer to coming off the ventilator, for eyes peeking open. I was grateful for friends who visited or sent notes, for meals people sent in through my parents. I was thankful when Brian was able to visit.

It always seems odd to me that I really learned what I know about gratitude at one of the worst times of my life, but there I was thankful. Asking for help, asking for a miracle, for strength and patience, but first thankful.

As much as I wanted, that gratitude stood on its own. It wasn't thanks but . . .  it was just thanks.

I'm not there now, though I'd like to get back. I'm working on letting go of anger and frustration and feeling put out over little, inconsequential things. I'm trying to give thanks with no buts attached.

I'm thankful right now for the warm fire in front of me, the comfy bed waiting upstairs for me, the two healthy sleeping children already cozy in their beds, the husband who will come home and slide into that bed with me sometime, hopefully soon. I'm thankful he has a job. I'm thankful he has a job with health insurance. I'm thankful for a family that I both love and like who I will see tomorrow.

For a moment at least, I'm just thankful.

In the Coming Darkness, A Light

I love the fall, this downshift season.

I love the colors and the crisp air and the delightful sunny, warm days. I love the gold of the light through yellow leaves and how it can seem bright on even a gray day.

I love layers and sweaters and pulling the covers up at night. I love soup simmering on the stove and hearty casseroles baking in the oven. I love squash and kale and apples. I love clearing the dead plants out of the garden—and still running out to snip some kale or broccoli or mustard greens or parsley.

And I don't really mind winter, but December is another story. I still dread it, still get anxious about how to make space for joy and grief, celebration and commemorating. I made some headway on it last year, but I don't trust it. Grief is not linear. I know this. I've forgotten and been reminded. December was better, but I'm wary.

But here is my light going forward:

I was talking to my aunt tonight and the day for grieving families that I go to at Children's came up. I talked about how it felt right for me to go back in late fall, in what was the middle of our time there. And, I said, It's right before . . .

Your dark time, she finished for me.

Yes.

It won't always be dark you know.

I started to cry. Maybe part of me knew that, but part of me needed to hear it, because sometimes it feels like it will always be dark, despite the light most days. I have come so far in these almost five years. I don't need to reread my journals or this blog to recognize that (though I like to do that). I have come so far in these four years ten months. There will be other milestones, but I think (hope) believe December is the last big hurdle. I pushed back last year to reclaim the month to take back some of the joy. I will keep doing that, but I suspect that there is something beyond my control that needs to happen through grief work, through time. Maybe it will take five years or six or eight or ten. I don't know. But it won't always be dark.

My cousin died 15 years ago. I don't know when the darkness lifted for my aunt. Perhaps it faded slowly so that she wouldn't have been able to tell me if I had asked. I didn't need to know when it happened for her. I know we all have our own timelines.

It won't always be dark you know.

It feels a little lighter already.

Where have you been?

It's been a while since I've been here adding words. I've opened this page to see what other mamas I read are doing. I've thought about writing again, but then I think of all that has happened in the month plus since I last wrote and there are so many things I should have said.

I should have told you about Kathleen's first day of school and about the day I watched her through the secret window and saw her standing hands in pockets not doing anything, not talking to anyone and my belly lurched and my heart ached as I begged her silently not to be shy, feeling years of my own fears and struggle welling up. And I could tell you that she seems to be settling in and that I need to relax and trust her to make her way.

I could have told you about having coffee with one of the preschool moms and not realizing she didn't know about Henry and about telling her and how it wasn't as awful as it has been as I dread it being.

I should have told you about how I finally signed up for and started a writing class and how I love this time that I carve out for me and the energy I haven't felt in so long that wells up in me as I get words out. And that makes me think I should share some of those words with you and maybe I will, but not today.

I should have told you how my mother-in-law died almost two weeks ago and how I heard her and my sister-in-law laughing as if somebody left a window to the next world open. And how I felt Henry's energy zooming around with them.

I should have told you that Brian and I celebrated our seventh anniversary, despite all those dire warnings about divorce rates when we had a baby born with health issues, and the equally dire warnings after he died. And too that my mother-in-law died on that anniversary, but that Brian still got me a card and flowers.

I could have told you that because of the funeral, we missed the Buddy Walk, a walk we've done since the year after Henry died. And how my sister emailed the organizer and asked her to give each team a red heart balloon so Henry could be represented, and they did.

I could tell you the three trees that we had taken down this week by our barn and how different our yard feels. I could tell you that I'm having as much fun as Kathleen walking and balancing on the cut trunks, jumping from stump to downed limb for now, until we cut it up for fire wood.

I could tell you that I'm settling in for fall and thinking about the fires that will make the house cozy this winter. How everything but the mums and asters have died down in Henry's garden.

And underlying all of it my own wondering what I'm doing here, what I want this space to be, how much I want to tell you about Kathleen and Elizabeth. And I don't have answers to that. But here I am, and since I'm here I'll tell you too that I was visiting a friend and with her reminder, her son brought out the heart shaped stone he found on the Cape this summer. It's a lovely, tiny one and its up on my Henry shelf with the last little flowers from the garden and my mizuko jizo from Angie and my cardinal stone from Erika and the cardinal from Tricia and it made me smile on this gray and rainy rainy day.

Comedy of Errors

It's the first day of school.

Henry should be starting kindergarten today. He should wearing a new outfit and a too big backpack and a huge grin or maybe a nervous, tentative face. Back in mid-August, I sat at my desk one night picturing this morning, and I sobbed. Sobbed.

In reality, I would have dropped him off today a bit later than the bus. In reality, tomorrow would be the day I would see him climb on that big yellow bus for the first time, see him holding M's hand. Even though she sometimes rolls her eyes these days in a double-digits tween kind of way, I know she would follow through on that promise to get on the bus with him and make sure he wasn't scared, the promise she made five years ago after she climbed on the big yellow buss for the first time, while he was a baby, sitting in my lap watching. That's the image of the first day of school that has haunted me each September. Now it's here.

Five. Kindergarten.

Today is the first day of school, but not for us. Henry isn't here to get off to kindergarten and Kathleen's preschool starts next week. Still, we have a habit of seeing the kids off on the first day (and most other days too). Last night I made banana chocolate chip muffins like I did last year. This morning I brewed extra coffee. And at about 7:37 as Kathleen was saying we should eat the muffins with our friends, the bells on the back door jingled.

Despite the gray damp, I carried the muffins outside. We were just sitting down at the picnic table, reaching for our muffins when my friend J called out from down the driveway. "Where are the kids? Bus?!"

M ran into the house for her lunch box.

J ran across the dew-wet lawn in her wedge sandals trying to see where the bus was going.

Kathleen darted this way and that following M and J.

"This way!" J called and we were all off to the corner. N doubled back to grab a muffin off the table. I scooped up Elizabeth as we headed for the busy road.

"Oh, he's turning!" So we all looped back up around the house to the driveway where the bus had picked up the kids last year. M and N had crossed the road and were climbing the steps onto the bus by the time I got there.The bus roared away.

"I didn't get pictures!" J said. And she didn't. There was no excited, nervous, happy, grumbly waiting. No hugs and kisses before the bus actually got here and friends might see. No picture of smiling kids in new outfits and big backpacks waiting for the bus.

Maybe that was my saving grace this morning, that I didn't have to watch it all and think about what I wasn't doing, that I didn't have to see M actually get on the bus, or maybe this is yet one more milestone that is harder in the anticipation than actuality. Three weeks ago I sobbed one night thinking about the first day of school and the ghost of my boy getting on the bus, but this morning didn't even feel like the first day of school. I drank too much coffee and ate too many muffins and herded my girls back inside to start our day. This afternoon, when the kids get off the bus, I'll be on the other side of the river for an appointment for Kathleen. It's the first day of school. Just another September day for us.