Listen—Run

It was to put it mildly, a rough morning. By 9AM, I had dealt with two meltdowns and a standoff at school. I was exhausted—staying up too late, having trouble falling asleep, waking up to Elizabeth's cries at 1 AM. Is it bedtime yet? I wondered. But no. There were two chapters to edit and project updates to send out. A bill to pay.

I sat at my neighbor's dining room table, which serves as a desk these days, and closed my eyes, breathed deep. I heard the birds, busy outside, and when I opened my eyes, the sun again was bright, the sky a deep clear blue, and the snow still brilliant. I sighed and scrolled through my file. I wanted to be out there. I looked at my list and the thorny chapter I was cleaning up. I thought about the struggle of the morning and about the afternoon and bedtime looming ahead.

You need to run. 

I haven't been running regularly, not with the cold (temperature) and the ice and the cold (sickness) of this winter. But I had an email about making time for yourself even when things are overwhelming, and I remembered the Facebook post the other day about making running a priority and listening to your body, and even though I hate the p word, it stuck with me. I looked out at the sunshine. I wanted to be out there.

Suddenly I was motivated to get that chapter wrapped up. If I could do it by 11:15, I could go before Brian was back with the girls. I could do the 3-mile loop and be home in time for lunch, home when I said I'd be back from work. Yes.

It was colder than I thought. For the first half of the run I regretted not wearing gloves and contemplated another layer. One foot got wet when I stomped through a puddle hurrying to the side as a car approached. And I didn't grumble about any of that. I listened to my body, even though the to-do list suggested it wasn't wise. I ran, my nose tingling with the cold, as I breathed in fresh air. I ran, letting go of the meltdown about not wanting to go to school and the one about actually wanting to go to dropoff after all. I let go of the stand down by the cubbies and the kicking and the faces and the tone. I let go of the tears that threatened when I returned to the classroom with Kathleen's water bottle and one of her teachers was kind to me, patted my back, seeing that morning played out on my face. As I turned the last corner toward home, I stretched out my arms and shook off the rest of it.

I listened. I ran. It got me through the day.

Sun on snow

We've all been grumbly lately. Kathleen pouts every day because it isn't spring and she can't make fairy houses. (We did get out for two days to make them, only to have ten inches of snow dumped on them the next.) Both kids have energy they don't know what to do with. I sigh every time I have to put on boots and coat and hat (now gaiters) to take the dog out.

It's been a long winter.

This time of year I'm usually done with winter. I'm dreaming of my garden even though it's still covered in snow. I'm buying seeds whenever I go to the store because it feels like a step toward gardening. I'm getting through by thinking of sap running and pancakes with sweet syrup in just a few weeks.

So it's just that time of year, but this winter has seemed particularly rough. I expected it to be the year we finally started to take back winter more with both kids a bit older and more able to maneuver themselves even in the snow. We didn't have all that much snow this winter though. Mostly ice and cold cold cold. We didn't go out to play because walking across the yard was treacherous. We didn't go out because we were all sick for two solid weeks. Getting out in winter makes it not so bad. Getting out in winter can make it enjoyable even. I couldn't figure out how to get out alone in this winter never mind with the girls and the dog.

It snowed yesterday. It started sometime after I got up with Elizabeth at 1 AM and there were several inches by morning and kept up all day. We shoveled for two hours ending at noon and had to shovel again before dinner. I made every one go out. Kathleen grumbled because she couldn't make fairy houses. Then she made them a snow cave. I took the pine swag from Christmas off the door and let her use that too. Elizabeth didn't want to go out, but was happy to help shovel. We worked. We had fresh air. It was good.

Today, the sun shone, brilliantly, on the fresh, dry, crystalline snow. After Elizabeth's nap, it was still bright. I made us all get out again. Kathleen pouted as she brushed off her fairy houses. Elizabeth begged me to push her on the swing. I grabbed a dead kale plant I never cleaned up in the fall and tossed it for the puppy to chase. I looked up at the blue sky and the skeletal trees. The sun was not warm, but the brightness glowed in me. This is the winter I wanted mixed with the inching closer to spring.

More snow this weekend, but it will melt. I'll see the ground again, smell the fresh dirt. I'll see green again and pink and yellow . . . spring will come. There's beauty though where we are. Yesterday and today that wasn't so hard to see, but even in the ice and the cold and melting muck, it's there even if I have to remind myself to look for it.

My View, 6

Something new in my view: the puppy sprawled out on the floor, scratching and licking himself, happily in a restful state for for a while. He was 11 lbs at eight-week old when we brought him home, now he's over 50. He's growing fast, faster even than my girls who continue to amaze me. How are they five and three?

I sit here a lot again in the evening, enjoying the warmth from the wood stove, keeping tabs on the puppy who has been known to chew toys, try to dig into the couch, and chew up sticks until the carpet looks like a forest floor. I sit in the comfort of the living room, no longer feeling like I should hole up in my office to churn through a chapter for work, because I no longer have an office. I dismantled it to make space for a play room. I have no regrets—just piles of stuff still, six months later, seeking a new home. 

My old toy box sits next to me—in the spot once occupied by the baby swing—housing dress up clothes. A small bin and crate contain a jumble of hats and jewels a dance shoes and bags.

I'm constantly moving toys, getting new bins to sort them. Packing things up and putting them away for a while. I had just gotten things situated, and we had a birthday party for the girls. Now there are piles of new toys waiting for a home. I can't keep up. I think we should get rid of some, but the girls love some and I love others (and I don't ever really have the time to go through them to figure out what we're done with).

Sitting down in my chair earlier, I noticed where the fabric is starting to wear on the top of cushion and where a hole has already formed on the side. One arm is speckled with grungy black. Mildew? Oils from resting my arm there? I don't know. I've had this chair for almost seven years. It's younger than the hand-me down chair Brian sits in or our third-hand couch. It's seen a lot, and it's still comfortable, and knowing me and my struggles to get rid of things even when they aren't tied to memories, I suspect this chair will be here for a good long while yet.

2014—Listen

"Are you listening to me?"

One or both of my kids has been known to ask this in a slightly petulant or demanding tone, especially if my laptop is open in front of me. Sometimes I am listening, sometimes I'm waiting for them to say what they want to say, and sometimes, often maybe, I'm distracted. Sometimes, the distraction is warranted—the file I'm trying to send to meet a deadline just crashed, a client needs a quick response to an email, I'm looking for the recipe I need to get dinner going—but more often I'm catching up on Facebook or reading an article that I may or may not really be interested in or writing a more involved message that I could write after they go to bed.

I do listen to my kids. I believe that I should get some time during the day when I can pay attention to something else, but sometimes I need to listen more and make sure they know I'm doing it.

I chose listen as my word of 2014.

Cutting back on distractions is a piece of it, being more present and aware, but I chose the word—or it chose me—in December when I found myself really listening to Kathleen's responses as I was trying to sort out her birthday party. Instead of half listening while I tried to sort out my own expectations, I finally heard what she expected and her party and December were simplified.

I need to listen to my body too. I know that when I listen to what my body needs and respond to it, I feel healthier than when I don't. Here's where 2014's listen meets 2013's enough. Sometimes my body is going to tell me, "I need a run," but it will be so cold I can't breathe or I'll have a deadline for work or I won't have enough time before Brian needs to leave for work. I want to hear the need for a run, and instead of choosing coffee and one (or five) cookies because I can't, I'll offer up to myself a walk or dance party with the kids. I'll choose the alternative that isn't quite what I want, but that gets me closer to what I need. My body also tells me sometimes that I've had too much caffeine or sugar. It tells me I need to go to bed even though I want to do so many other things. It tells me I need to stretch instead of sitting hunched over that laptop again. I need to start to listen again. I won't make a resolution to eat better or exercise more or lose weight. I won't even set goals to run so many miles or so many times a week. Instead I'm going to try to listen and respond to my body.

I'm not quite sure where else listen will take me, but it's where I'm starting this new year.

Do you have a word this year? Tell me about it. I'll listen.

December 22

As we parked in the church lot this morning, Elizabeth asked, "What day is it?"

"Sunday," I said, and added, "December 22."

I looked at Brian. Half a beat after my mouth started to ask "Are you okay?" I knew why he wasn't quite okay.

December 22, 2007 was the day of Henry's funeral. December 22 is a day that has broken me before, sneaking up as it does after the 17th when my guard is down. Today though, I just sighed.

One good thing about always being late to church is that we never hear "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." It's nearly always the entrance song during Advent, and because we gave the music director mostly free reign, it was the entrance song for his funeral. I know people who carefully planned their children's memorials or funerals, picking readings and songs that meant something to them. I was too broken to do that. We asked for one song, "Peace Like a River," one of the songs I had sung to Henry nearly every day. We delivered a CD to the music director who not only played it, but wrote out the music and gave us copies. Today, had we been a few minutes earlier, we would have heard "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," and maybe I would have broken. Music does that sometimes, much like smells.

It was a strangely warm and foggy day today. I don't remember what it was like the day we buried him. Cold, I think. Gray. But maybe it just felt that way, felt like that's how it should be. But warm and foggy is so wrong for December 22, it would have been appropriate in some ways for the burial of a baby.

I did not stop at the cemetery today, even though I drove by. I didn't mark the day in anyway, except to nod and squeeze Brian's hand when I realized.

The day after

There is no right thing to do on the anniversary of the day your child died, but what has felt most right to me over time is slowing down and making space.

I gave clients a heads up that I'd be out of the office with no email yesterday and put projects on hold. I didn't even turn my computer on. I knew I would find at least a few messages of support and remembrance on Facebook or in my email, but I'd also be distracted and find offers and ads and things that begged for a response.

Instead, I put together a basket of greens and a strung a heart of cranberries to take to the cemetery. I strung another heart to hang on our door. I sat and read.

We all went to pick Kathleen up from school and brought the basket to the cemetery. The snow was falling heavily as we stood looking at the small stone, the dark green and deep red. It was cold. The roads were sloppy. We didn't stay long. This is the only thing I ask for on this day—that we go together as a family to the cemetery, however brief our visit.

It was a half day because of the snow and I got my neighbor's kids off the bus. It wasn't part of my making space plan, but it worked. They made cookies with Kathleen and watched a show with her. They all, miraculously, got a long. When they went out to play in the snow while Elizabeth still napped, I read some more. It felt good to just sit.

After I got my girls to bed, I read some more. I finished The End of Your Life Book Club and then started (and then finished Sun Shine Down). A book about dying and life, a book about Down syndrome and living with the unexpected fit well.

For all the build up, this day I dread wasn't that bad. I moved through it slowly but without spills.

This morning I got up (late) and bustled us out the door. When I got home, I started up my computer and caught up with all I let sit yesterday. I should take breaks more often. I finished my chapter for work, helped Kathleen with her project, picked up milk and bread from the store. I took a deep breath because December 17 has passed again. I'm still ready for a new month, a new year, but I think (hope) the worst of this challenging month is past.

Clear and bright

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The sky was bright and clear, baby blue. Outside felt still, but you could see the clouds move. Dusky gray and white wisps and mounds moved quickly across the sky. And even though I saw the sun sunk low behind the skeletons of trees and the house across the way, it was lighting up the tops of the clouds as if the sun sat within each one. 

I felt lighter today, as if the storm clouds that hovered low overnight Saturday into Sunday held the darkness close to me. It’s clear now, more open—and cold. The stars will be crystalline tonight over the glittering snow. The moon will encourage me to take a late snowshoe or ski, when I bring the dog out to pee, but I’ll go back in by the fire to keep watch over the girls who sleep above. (Or so I hope.)

An hour later, at five, I roused the dog from the couch where he’s slept all afternoon after a long morning romp through the snow. While I waited for him to do his business, I could see that the sun I had glimpsed at four had sunk away completely, but still there was the tiniest glow in to the west. We turned the corner and I could see the hint of a ghost of the full moon behind the tall pines across the street. As I waited, more clouds hurried across the sky, these glowing too, lit from below by the yellow moon. Even in the dusky purple gathering darkness, there was light all round me.

I’m tired, worn out from the tension of joy and sorrow of this month, worn out from the anxiety and relief about my dad, worn out from the bustle of getting ready for Christmas and birthdays even though I tried to let what I did be enough, worn out from this cold that has kept me up too many nights reading and sipping hot tea. I’m tired, but this open sky, this glow within the clouds, this cold, is stirring something in me, some energy I didn’t know was there, some energy that feels something like hope.

Five and three

I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old in my house, where last Tuesday I had four and two. Kathleen woke up singing Wednesday, "I'm five! I'm five! I'm five! I'm five!" She's still delighted. Elizabeth keeps asking "Is today my birthday?" She knows she's three, though she is uncharacteristically shy about saying it sometimes.

On Wednesday there was cake and sausage for breakfast, cookies for school, a lunch with dad, presents and more cake after lunch. Today we had pancakes and sausage and bacon, snow to play in, our neighborhood friends and Papa for supper, cake and presents. It's been a very birthday week.

And now nothing stands between me and the 17th. My dad is home and doing well. My girls have celebrated and grown. I am grateful and happy and exhausted. Today, I pulled it together as much as I could, but really, I was just done. I'm staring down Tuesday and wondering if I can I just sleep through the rest of the month.

My family

I'm blessed in my family. I've known this, but I am reminded again and again.

My dad is doing much better. But over the weekend when my mom seemed to need somebody there on Tuesday, my sister and I tried to sort it out. It was the day in my schedule I could go, though I needed to come back that night. I said I could do it. I assured my mom, who wanted my sister's understanding of medicine and the healthcare system, that I could talk to the doctors. I certainly have more experience than I'd like. I told my sister that I could and would do it, but if she could I'd really appreciate. Then thinking about how she was trying to reschedule an appointment that had to happen before Christmas and having her husband try to change his work schedule  and piecing together childcare from friends, I called her back and said, this is silly, I should just do it.

She wanted to do it, she said. She felt bad she hadn't been able to go when my dad was so sick before. She'd like to see him. And, she acknowledged, I know this is a hard time for you. This is what I love. My family knows—understands—that even six years out, December is a struggle for me. They get that having my girls' birthdays in this month makes it easier and harder all at the same time. I know people who didn't get that kind of understanding in year one. I'm lucky in my family and thankful.

What you can handle

God doesn't give you more than you can handle. It's one of those sayings like everything happens for a reason that doesn't sit right with me. Still, this was my prayer today:

I can't handle more. Please. 

My dad got very ill suddenly back in October. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a raging fever. "Sepsis," my sister told me when she called. Hearing the word, I could see it on Henry's death certificate. The word infiltrated my brain, spreading, growing, like the infection itself as I waited for more news, tried to figure out if I needed to go.

I did go that afternoon. As soon as I parked in the hospital garage, I was in in hospital mode—purposeful, quick, tense. I figured out where the stairs were and how to wend the maze that all hospitals seem to be. When I went in to see him, my dad was joking, shaken, but himself. They figured out the source of the problem. Treated it, got a bunch of antibiotics in him, sent him home with a plan for surgery in several weeks.

My dad had surgery on Thursday. It seemed to go well. Thursday night, he joked about going to work on Monday. Yesterday he was in a lot of pain. Today more. And he didn't seem right.

My dad was rehospitalized this evening. We're in the waiting stage now, waiting to see if a CT scan gives useful information. Right now, we don't know if there is really something to worry about. I'm waiting for the call, or if it's really late, an email from my sister and I keep thinking:  I can't handle more. December is enough already. I can't handle more. Please.

Clearing

I came home from Thanksgiving a bit reluctantly a day earlier than usual, which turned out to be a wonderful decision. I spent the weekend cleaning: clearing debris—scraps of paper, twisted pipe cleaners, bits of cloth, small sticks and pebbles—and tidying the art table in the playroom so you could actually do a project or find materials there. I dusted and vacuumed. I packed away sweat shirts and organized snow clothes. And I sorted through the boxes and piles that have covered and surrounded my dining room table since August when I gave up my office and transformed it into a playroom. I have no regrets about that change. The room gets much better use as a playroom, but the residual chaos has been driving me crazy. Some how, going into December with a clearer space (the table isn't quite empty, but it's getting there) makes a difference. I feel lighter walking through the house. There's something to that who clear space, clear mind thing.

Kathleen could barely wait to put up the tree. "Can we do it now?" "Let's put up the tree!" "You said we'd start during Lizzy's nap." We put together our artificial tree together. She watched me untangle the lights and wrap them around and around and around. She handed me the red and green wooden bead garland. Around and around and around again. Then we waited some more for Lizzy to wake up.

Here's the red bird paper ornament from Amy and the felt heart I made with one of our Buddy Walk hearts and the matching hearts for both my girls. Here's the red bird Jenni felted for me and the beaded star that arrived while I was in the hospital with Elizabeth, and the one from the ornament swap with the "desert cardinal" feather. Here's the felt cardinal we had on the tree when I was little that I loved just for itself that means something else now. Here's sand from my home town and the painted ornament Brian and I bought in Aruba. Here's the canoe I bought for Brian the year we bought the canoe and snowshoes and a cross country skiing Santa (remember when we did those things?) Our tree is too full. We have a small tree, so perhaps a full size tree is order, or maybe I simply need to weed out the ornaments that don't have a story.

The decorating is done, though Kathleen keeps asking if there are more Christmas decorations, more holiday toys. But we're done. There are red birds throughout the house. Snowflakes, the ones my aunt gave me one of those first awful winters, glint in the sunlight. I light my candle and Henry's tree. I sit by the fire and look into the empty space in the dining room. I look at the space I cleared and breathe into it.

December, three days in, still wary, but stronger.

December looming

As I look at my grocery list and wonder if there is anything I absolutely need before Friday, anything that is worth descending into the hell that is supermarket the week before Thanksgiving, I realize that holiday is almost here. It's late this year, so two days later, the Christmas season is upon us. Christmas, and of course, December.

I'm not ready.

As my mind tries to grapple with birthday party—which kids, how will I fit them and their parents in my house, is my house really still in this utter disarray from my office dismantling this summer?, theme, when—and the special snacks for school and a present and Christmas—crafts and shopping and decorating, my heart is bending in around itself, protecting, pushing back the busyness and all the doing.

I seem to alternate between okay years and not okay years. This feels like one of the latter. Where last year I barged into December ready for battle, ready to reclaim the month or at least some part of it, this year I'm worn out already. I can't seem to get any traction going into the month.

I've done my usual clearing of the slates as much as possible: no appointments, no work from difficult clients, no tight deadlines. I'm trying to get myself organized to wrap up the gift part early, get that out of the way. My family is helpful. They realize that this month still wipes me out. They offer to pick up or order gifts that will bear my name, and sometimes I take them up on it. I hand off the toughest of my nieces and nephews to Brian.

I look at my to do list and think about what I really have to do and which things I really want to do. I try to cross out the rest. But there is an almost five-year-old who wants a real birthday party this year. The kind with games and cake. If it were not this month, if life had not taken that wrong turn a year before she was born, I would be all over it. We'd have fun picking a theme, figuring out games and activities and decorations, decorating a cake. I don't want to throw a birthday party in the middle of December, but even more I don't want to let my daughter down. I have grappled with this since before she was born, since I stared down that first December without Henry and waited for her to arrive.

When I ask who she wants at her party, she starts listing her cousins. Maybe I'm trying to tackle this all wrong. I keep trying to get out of the way and hear what it is that's important to her, try to strip down my own expectations of what birthday means. I try to create simple traditions, ones I can pull off, ones that can grow with us. I love the idea of a quiet tradition that fits our family, but I remember birthday parties—the DIY, homemade affairs that I grew up with, the kind my sisters give their kids. I toy frequently with the idea of a summer half-birthday party as the time to do all the games and activities. I don't know how to sell her on that though, so I keep coming back trying to figure out what it is in her head.

I am looking forward to

• putting up the tree with the girls
• the wrapped up books advent calendar that I'm planning for them
• sleeping with Kathleen on her birthday, because she is so excited about it
• the tea party to honor Brian's mom, using the tiny cups she gave the girls
• seeing their faces Christmas morning

I'm dreading

• Christmas Eve and the hour and half mass and the scramble to get to Brian's brother's house
• getting bogged down in things that feel like they need to get done
• that day just past the middle of the month, the one between the birthdays and Christmas, the one that is dark no matter the weather

Tonight, Elizabeth picked We're Going on a Bear Hunt for her story. December is almost upon us. We can't go over it. We can't go under it. We have to go through it. 
Stumble trip   Stumble trip   Stumble trip
 

Late October

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Strike!

Out!

As I waited for the last two outs, the ones that seemed inevitable, I remembered watching the Red Sox win the World Series in 2007. They weren’t in Boston, but I was. I watched the game on a tiny TV pulled over Henry’s bed. I took pictures of him in his fleece Red Sox hat, with his Red Sox bear, and a Red Sox cookie from my friend Erika on his chest. I watched because as a Red Sox fan, I felt like I should.

In 2007, I stopped being a Red Sox fan. It wasn’t so much that I disliked them, didn’t transfer my allegiance to another team, I just saw them as roadblock. When the Red Sox were in town my dad couldn’t come in to visit or bring me dinner. People would tell me to get out of the hospital for a while, but I wasn’t willing to go as far as my parents and there were no rooms to be had. I watched the Red Sox out of habit and some tie to my normal life, but mostly I just wanted them to go away.

After that, I mostly ignored them. I didn’t care, associated them with those hard months in Boston with Henry. Brian’s not a fan of sports at all and we had cheap cable and didn’t get most of the games, so it was easy to not watch.

This season, it wasn’t until the World Series that I started watching again, and I thought maybe I could start doing this again, enjoy the Red Sox again. But during that last inning, I remembered the baby who “watched” with me last time. He should be six. Would he be a fan? I can see him with a ball cap with that familiar B on it. Would he have begged to stay up to watch the game? Would I have let him, remembering where he was the last time he watched?

I jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon late this year, but maybe this is another little piece of my life I’ve reclaiming. Little things.

Postscript: Shortly after I saw the last out and watched the players jumping and hugging, I started thinking about the parade, the inevitable "rolling rally." In all likelihood, I figured, it would be Saturday. And it is. I'm supposed to go to Boston on Saturday for the grieving families day I always go to at Children's. So once again, I'm thinking about routes and traffic and how to navigate the city around that team.

Before

As part of the legnthy process of transforming my home office to play room, I'm working on getting rid of my old computer. The one run Mac OS 8.6. The one I haven't used in, oh, six years or so. It's been sitting there because I thought there might be stuff on there I wanted to keep, so tonight I plugged it back in and delved in. I pulled some old writing and a few random files. Then I found my email.

I didn't know how to copy it other than to save individual messages as text files. (I haven't tried opening them on my new computer, so hoping it worked.) I found the emails from when Brian and I first met and birthday plans with my friend K. and messages from fall 2006 through spring 2007 when I was announcing and discussing my new and drawing to a close pregnancy.

I was so damn cheerful, even in late spring when we knew about the heart. I was so hopeful and happy and naive, even as they changed the date of my c-section, even as we met with a cardiologist. I took things in stride better than I ever had in my life.

I found emails from two friends, due like I was in June, who had ultrasound scares. I had remembered one of them having an amnio after her ultrasound, but I had forgotten that the other had had any scare at all. Both of them had healthy babies.

I read emails that had nothing to do with babies and plans for my shower and advice about cloth diapers. I talked about prenatal yoga and feeling good and starting to show and feel movement. A friend's wedding, work issues, TV shows . . . all these bits of my life before.

I've read again the emails I got while Henry was in the hospital and those that came in after he died, but I hadn't looked at the time of hope and anticipation since that time. There is part of me that can't figure out how I was ever that person, but I'm glad I was. I'm glad I had that time of trusting and looking forward with excitement not trepidation.

Overlooking little things

A weird rash that appeared on my leg around the 4th of July lingered, and then started to spread. Last week, I got diagnosed with Lyme disease. Twice a day, I take antibiotics. The doctor told me, "Make sure you take it with food." The pharmacist said, "You'll want to take this with food." I take it with food, and about an hour later, I start to feel like crap, slightly nauseous, tired, very cranky. My patience with my kids has been low nonexistant. And I keep thinking of Henry.

When we brought him home that last time, he was on I think ten meds. Two of them were antibiotics. It didn't occur to me how he might feel because of them. I was too focused on his heart rate and his breathing. I didn't think about how they were wiping him out inside because I was too busy thinking about withdrawal of some of his other meds. That's how it was. We didn't worry about PT because we needed him to be able to breathe. We didn't think about his flat head because we needed him to be stable enough to move. All I thought of the antibiotics was that they would be gone soon—and we'd be down to eight meds.

I'm tired just thinking about that med schedule and pushing the sticky pink antibiotic into his NG tube, wishing he didn't have the tube but knowing the med administration was much easier because of it. I'm tired, just thinking about it, and I wish I could pick him up, snuggle him close, tell him it will get better, he'll feel better, soon, some day. And back when I was pushing all those meds into his tube, I thought that was true. Now, I think, "I'm sorry, bud. Sorry for all you went through." I don't blame myself, I just wish he didn't have to go through it all.

Tomorrow, we're going camping. I'll be on high alert for ticks, like I was on Monday when we went blueberry picking. I tucked Elizabeth's pants into her socks. Instead of telling Kathleen she'd be too hot, I let her wear tights. I love being outside: hiking, picking berries, working in the garden. I want my kids doing these things and running around the yard. I won't stop doing these things, but I pounce on every speck of dirt on their leg or bit of debris on their neck. I know how many ticks we've pulled off this year, and I worry about the little tiny ones we might have missed.

Rani and Anne

Tomorrow, I'm going to the Green River Festival with my sister. Four years ago, I went reluctantly. I got there and heard this, "I wanna be ready. I wanna be ready. I wanna be ready when joy comes back to me." I was slowly opening to joy, embracing it, diving in sometimes,  struggling other times, but that night I found myself ready, joyous, dancing.

Rani Arbo won't be at the music fest tomorrow, but I've been listening to them a lot lately. It's my canning music and my cleaning up the kitchen music, and if you were walking by, you'd see me dancing along with my kitchen chores.

And when "Crossing the Bar" comes on, I always think of Anne of Green Gables, Anne's House of Dreams, really, for Jim, the lighthouse keeper who "crosses the bar." I read the series again and again as a kid, and I'm sure I found it incredibly sad when I read about Anne's first baby, Joyce, dying, but when I read the books in 2009, in my spree of comfort reading when Kathleen was a newborn, I sobbed at the chapter when Joyce is born and dies. It rings true to me, from the platitudes people throw at you to the sting of the words of a friend who didn't know even though you know they would never have hurt you, to the day Anne smiles again, though there is something new in her smile that will always be there going forward.

And what I really love is that this isn't the last mention of Joyce. She is not mentioned much in the last few books in the series, but she is not forgotten. A little bit further along this road (though two children later, not six like Anne had) that feels about right too.

For summer reading, I recommend Anne of Green Gables or picking up a childhood favorite. For summer listening, try Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, Big Old Life or Some Bright Morning (or get Ranky Tanky for the kids—it's fun too).

Summer unplugged (kinda)

I remember setting up my first email account to participate in an online discussion group for a seminar my senior year. I have a letter up in my attic from my friend Kate asking me if I had email and telling me what she thought her email address was. It seemed a novelty.

I remember that annoying noise that dial-up made. I always thought we can send somebody to the moon, but we can't come up with a nicer sound for this process? As recently as 2000, I had dial up. I'd log-in, go fill up my dishpan during that annoying bong-buzz-static sound, come back start the slow download process, go wash my dishes, come back to see if it was done.

And then I ponied up for a cable connection. Suddenly I could log on and be on all day. It was so much quicker. Email replaced letters. I played games online sometimes, got my news on my homepage. But still, I wasn't online all the time. I'm not sure how that happened, but I think it started when Henry was in the hospital. We kept moving rooms and I didn't have a cell phone, so email was the best way to get in touch with me. Email and our CarePage became my lifeline to the world outside the hospital walls, my link to the world I so longed to be part of.

And then he died and I was floundering and as much as I dove right into my grief, at night, I longed for distraction, to restless to go to bed. One night I was searching for a poem I got at a grief group and I found Charlotte's Mama's blog, which led me to other blogs and Glow in the Woods, which led me to still more blogs. There were other people who had lost babies who were sitting in the dark not wanting to shut down because that thin veneer, that sheer curtain they had pulled between their hearts and the sorrow that threatened to drown them would go away when they did.

I started to spend a lot of time online. And then came Facebook. Sigh.

This summer I decided to try to spend less time online. I had tried during the winter, actually shutting down my computer when I wasn't working. It made me realize how dependent I am on my online connection. I kept finding myself popping in to my office to "check something real quick," which would have turned into checking email and answering it, and liking half a dozen posts on Facebook and reading articles friends had linked to and . . . .

It's not how I want to spend my time, and summer with all its outdoorsness seemed like a good time to make a bigger break. It helps that I'm not working a lot. I'm out in my garden or trying to read while my kids splash in our tiny kiddy pool or sweating in a steamy kitchen making jam or pickles or relish. My weakness right now is right after bedtime when the kids are down, but not quite settled, when I don't want to get involved in anything because somebody is sure to need to use the potty or irritate somebody else with their noise or just need me.

Unplugged is a bit of a stretch for what I'm doing right now, but I'm cutting back and trying to figure out how cut back more, recognizing that cutting it out completely isn't feasible.

I wrote a letter today, to Kate, who so many years ago was the first friend I emailed. I put in an envelope, addressed it, stuck on a stamp. Tomorrow our mail carrier will pull it out of my box and add it to a pile of mail to be sorted and routed and delivered. She won't get it seconds after I sent it, won't reply almost instantaneously, but sitting with a notecard and a pen, jotting memories and stories about our summer was satisfying—and I didn't get distracted by the new message popping up or the new Like on a comment.

I'm shutting down now for the night. I'll get out early tomorrow before the heat really settles in. I'll drink coffee with my neighbor under the pear tree while my kids get along with hers (or not). I'll check my plants for squash bug eggs and pick lettuce and water. We'll get dressed for story hour and gather trash for the dump. Somewhere in there, I'll log on to see if there are any work issues for my one little on-going project and then maybe I'll shut down again to have the day free.

Do you spend to much time online too? How do you limit yourself? Or do you?

Summer

We celebrated the solstice on Friday with a neighborhood party that included margaritas for big people and lots of lemonade for little people, fire, s'mores, and staying up late. Kathleen got to see a sunset which was on her list for the summer.

Since then, we've had a sleepover with cousins; hot, sticky, icky days; the last day of school; the preschool picnic; homemade popsicles; meltdowns over the color of the handle of homemade popsicles; potluck dinner with friends I may not have visited since last summer, though the've been here a couple of times; sign up for summer reading at the library; homemade ice cream; a visit from a dear friend and her lovely daughter, one of those miraculous visits where two kids who didn't know each other got along swimmingly.

I'm loving the ease of not worrying about waking up for school in the morning and the dread of getting ready for bed, because early or late, there is drama and up and down and "I can't sleep."

We're looking forward to:
the beach next week
seeing bats
a family vacation in August
getting a puppy
picking blueberries from the canoe
camping out
more sleepovers with cousins
raspberries and peaches
making salsa and pickles
running a 10K
reading and reading and reading
going to a zoo
eating ice cream
going to our swimming hole
paddling in the canoe or kayak
eating lots of meals outside
going swimming
watching the garden grow and change

It feels busy already, busy and hot and sticky and messy and good.

What are you doing this summer?

Where did that come from?

The Sunday before Henry's birthday, I thought I was doing so well. I sized up the baptismal font and the triptych of memories and thought, more layers, not so hard.

Right.

I should know that when I have thoughts like this it's time to be ready for something to hit. I thought it would be his birthday, which had its moments to breathe through but wasn't terrible. I thought I was good, through that, smooth sailing this year. And then today, I found my self sitting in church on the verge of tears for no particular reason. Later, alone in the car at a stoplight, I felt them well up again, but as I turned, grumbling at the truck in front of me going half the speed limit, I found myself sobbing in little gasps, no tear, just these dry, sudden intakes. Where did that come from? I don't know.

Maybe it was a delayed let down after his birthday.
Or the kids in the car next to me in the parking lot. I thought I recognized them from church. That family of the mom who looked ready to burst as I was harboring my new and still secret pregnancy in late 2006.
Or reading back over my own story over the past two nights.
Or telling the story of being recognized as Henry's mom three years ago (how much that meant to me)
Or seeing yesterday the photos of our local Down syndrome group's picnic, an event we took Henry to when he was just two weeks old. 
Maybe my plateau simply got to a critical point where I needed to crack again to heal.
I don't know. I don't know why I always want to know why, specifically, but I do.

Later as I was working on dinner, a cardinal in his glorious red, landed in Henry's tree and sat and sat and sat. Where did that come from? I don't know that either. It's not uncommon to have cardinals here, but I haven't seen one in this tree before. I watched him and breathed again. Coincidence that on this hard day, a little red bird came twice to my window? Maybe, but it felt like a sign—a wave or a smile from Henry.

Right Where I Am 2013: Five years, five months, fifteen days

Past years in this project, I was on the verge of Henry's birthday, which meant that no matter how good I had been doing, I was wound tight, waiting. This year, though, his birthday is just behind us. He would have been six. I'm almost five and a half months away from last holding him.

Like last year, he feels far away. Even when my girls talk about him, about how we love him, how they wish he could be here, and they do talk about him often, he feels far away. That he was here, sometimes feels like a dream. Immediately after he died, it all felt unreal, that he had died, but also that he had lived, and the latter part of that bothered me to no end. If he was not real to me, what about the rest of the world who had not felt him kicking inside, had not rested feeling their body calming with his as he slept on their chest, had not felt the flash of his smile. Now, it is a gentler distance mostly.

It is still surreal to me if I let myself think about it. I had a baby boy and he is not here.

But day by day, I get my big girl off to school and hug her when we both get home for lunch. I snuggle in the morning with my little girl until I can convince her to come make coffee with me. I tell stories and sing songs at bedtime. I notice how big they are getting, and only rarely do I compare to where Henry might be.

Right now, I notice the tree we bought as a gift for his first birthday is heavily laden with peaches. Right now, the red-flowered hawthorne we planted on his first birthday, a gift from my husband's cousins, is starting to fade, but was absolutely brilliant this year. Right now the garden that I tend for him is full of color, early, purple phlox that is almost luminescent at dusk, tiny blue starry flowers that I can't name, brilliant red verbena and the red gerbera daisy I planted this year on his birthday, a hint of pink covered in ants that makes me think of Mary Oliver where my peonies are about to bloom for the first time.

Right now, I'm exhausted but feeling strong. Finally. I am tired, but not worn out. There is something left in me to give. I think in possibility again. I start projects like overhauling parts of my garden that haven't been touched in years, like writing something more than blog posts, and in that writing starting to delve back into memories and sometimes finding that things are closer to the surface than I realized, and sometimes realizing there are still little pockets I have not really explored since he died (though sometimes it seems I have explored every inch from every angle).

Right now I am grateful for the neighbor who knew me when Henry was born and knew Henry for sitting with me on Henry's birthday with a bottle of wine and the dinner I threw together. Right now I'm grateful for the neighbor who didn't know me when Henry was born and never knew him for asking how I was doing in the days before his birthday (not the first time she has given me that space to talk about him).

Right now I'm listening to the summer night sounds coming through the window and the silence from upstairs where my girls finally fell asleep. Right now I'm relieved that I can once again enjoy the quiet.

Right now, I'm grateful to Angie for hosting Right Where I Am again. Because five years and some plus, I still need to pause and reflect.

Right where I was 2012
Right where I was 2011