Last year, walking through the soft, big flakes would have triggered a memory. I would have found myself back on Longwood Ave., stumbling along the slippery sidewalk, Henry heavy in his car seat, the oxygen tank slipping off my shoulder. Yes, a bit of weather could have thrown me back into the full-blown panic of trying to get my baby back to the hospital after being discharged into a massive traffic jam caused by a not so massive snow storm. But yesterday, I just noticed the beauty and sighed at the sight of more fallen lilac bush limbs. Then later in the day, my brain made the connection but I didn't get the emotional punch.
***
Today we went to our favorite sugar shack. We took Kathleen for the first time last year, and it triggered a flood of memories and missing. This year was different. We ran into friends who have a little boy who was born three days before Henry. We sat together and talked about a mutual friend who is pregnant again. We laughed at their son bestowing kisses on Kathleen. I fed Kathleen; they admonished their son to sit down and eat. It was fun to have breakfast with somebody we know.
Not once did I look at their son and think that Henry should be sitting across from him at the little kids' picnic table. Not once did I have a stab of what should be but isn't.
Later in the day I thought about the fact that their son is Henry's age, a simple fact once would have paralyzed me. I might have cried all the way home or curled into bed with Henry's blanket once we got here. But lately, things haven't been triggers tripping off emotional explosions. Lately, they just make me connect memories, that may be sad but are not as loaded as they used to be. It's a curious thing.
***
Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day, the slant of sunlight coming in the window or the scent of moist soil or a paper that got tucked into the wrong box may set me off, leave me clutching the counter top to stand and wipe me out for days. I know I have no power over these triggers. They come unbidden and unsuspected. Right now, the likely candidates aren't hitting me that way.
So for now, for as long as I can, I'll enjoy the fluffy snow and the conversations with the woman who I shared my first big belly days with. I'll watch with a smile as her son plays with my daughter and not bemoan that he doesn't play with my son. I'll enjoy these things as they are today, unmarred by scary memories, unshadowed by what what should have been.
Showing posts with label distance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distance. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, June 26, 2009
Bits and Pieces
There is a school bus stop outside my house. If Kathleen isn't in an early nap (or strangely still asleep), we go out and say hello to our neighbors. Today was the last day of school, and as I stood holding Kathleen watching Meg get on the bus for the last day of first grade, I remembered holding Henry watching a younger, much more tentative Meg get on the bus for the first time on the second day of kindergarten. And I smiled, a bit wistfully, but I smiled.
***
Wednesday I made jam. Strawberry, strawberry rhubarb and a batch of double strawberry rhubarb. The pectin I use doesn't specify amounts for strawberry rhubarb, but I knew I had the recipe on a little scrap of paper somewhere. I sifted through my recipe box and a pile of papers tucked into my jam book—and there it was. I dropped it, and picking it up realized it was written on the back of an appointment card, one of Henry's pediatrician visits. I took a deep breath. I sighed. And that was all. It didn't break me. Not that day.
***
On Tuesday night, we went to a regular potluck dinner hosted by friends, the potluck where two other bellies grew large at the same time mine did when I was pregnant with Henry, the potluck where we went numbly after Henry died. It has gotten easier over time to be there, to see the other spring 2007 babies, but there are still twinges. But this Tuesday, Zoey, who adores Kathleen, wanted to see her as I was feeding her in the high chair, so I scooped her up on to my lap. And it struck me. This should be Kathleen's little brother on my lap, this child of just the right age. But again, it was strange, rather than crushing.
***
Earlier, or perhaps still now on a different day, any one of these things could have flattened me, reduced me to a sobbing heap, wiped me out, left me useless for the rest of the day and worn out the next. I feel in some ways stronger, but also more distant. Is the distance part of the strength? Am I simply letting go of some of pain to make room for more pleasant memories? Or is all this just a fluke and tomorrow a memory, a scrap of paper, or another child will take me down? I'm not sure. I'm hoping for b) the less pain, more pleasant memories option. Though that thought makes me sigh again—I wish there were more than memories.
***
Wednesday I made jam. Strawberry, strawberry rhubarb and a batch of double strawberry rhubarb. The pectin I use doesn't specify amounts for strawberry rhubarb, but I knew I had the recipe on a little scrap of paper somewhere. I sifted through my recipe box and a pile of papers tucked into my jam book—and there it was. I dropped it, and picking it up realized it was written on the back of an appointment card, one of Henry's pediatrician visits. I took a deep breath. I sighed. And that was all. It didn't break me. Not that day.
***
On Tuesday night, we went to a regular potluck dinner hosted by friends, the potluck where two other bellies grew large at the same time mine did when I was pregnant with Henry, the potluck where we went numbly after Henry died. It has gotten easier over time to be there, to see the other spring 2007 babies, but there are still twinges. But this Tuesday, Zoey, who adores Kathleen, wanted to see her as I was feeding her in the high chair, so I scooped her up on to my lap. And it struck me. This should be Kathleen's little brother on my lap, this child of just the right age. But again, it was strange, rather than crushing.
***
Earlier, or perhaps still now on a different day, any one of these things could have flattened me, reduced me to a sobbing heap, wiped me out, left me useless for the rest of the day and worn out the next. I feel in some ways stronger, but also more distant. Is the distance part of the strength? Am I simply letting go of some of pain to make room for more pleasant memories? Or is all this just a fluke and tomorrow a memory, a scrap of paper, or another child will take me down? I'm not sure. I'm hoping for b) the less pain, more pleasant memories option. Though that thought makes me sigh again—I wish there were more than memories.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Distance
I'm slow, as I was last month, in getting to Under the Tree, but the first question hit on something I've been thinking about lately.
How long has it been since you lost your child? Has your grief changed at all? Is your life becoming any easier or is it just harder as time passes?
I've been saying lately that Henry died a little over a year ago, though I can't say that much longer. Soon it will be a year and a half, then almost two years or two years in December.
My grief has changed in part because of time and in part because of circumstance.
The first days and months were a haze. Henry died on December 17. We buried him on December 22. I don't remember what we did for Christmas that year. I have vivid memories of Christmas Eve, of sitting on the couch with my friend who's dad had died a couple of weeks before Henry with the energy of kids at Christmas swirling around me. I walked around in that haze for a while. It was a strange mix of numbness and searing pain. I slept with Henry's blanket every night. I avoided going to bed because it always made me cry, so I stayed up late reading babylost blogs or doing mindless tasks. I mediated and cried my way through yoga classes.
I hated the time I had to do it, the time I had to do anything for myself.
I didn't have the energy for the day to day stuff that needs to get done. So a lot of it didn't.
I was exhausted.
I cried every day.
In March, three months out, it hid me harder. I felt like any bit of protective numbness was gone. Outside was mud and dirty remnants of snow, nothing green in sight. It was bleak and lifeless, and it fit my mood perfectly. But March was a turning point: I didn't necessarily feel ready to have another baby, but I felt the need to make the effort, to work to create life as sickness and sadness and death past and approaching surrounded us.
My sister-in-law died in June, and in addition to the grief at this new loss, I was plunged back to December, to a place where just getting up, just breathing felt like too much. Brian and I struggled to communicate, both stumbling to find words and mistaking what the other was trying to say.
Some days were harder than others. Some days just knocked me out--I'd wail and weep, I'd literally be too weak to stand. As time moved on, these knock out days became less frequent, though no less intense.
As we approached the first anniversary of Henry's death, a day I dreaded, we were also approaching Kathleen's birth. Kathleen's birth has had a huge impact on my grief. I cannot focus so much on Henry or on the hole left behind in my heart anymore than I would be able to focus solely on him if he were here. This isn't to say I don't feel it, but more that it has taken more of a background role, tinging my whole life, but not the center of it.
Henry is retreating from me in some ways. I feel more distant from him. This bothers me, though I think it is normal and bound to happen. I don't have guilt, but sadness at the growing separation. In some ways, Kathleen increases this divide as my attention rightly goes to her and her needs, but at the same time, she bring Henry back to me in some ways. I can't help but contrast the experience of living with my two babies, and that brings him back.
And lately, many people have been telling me that they think Kathleen looks like Henry. I have seen it myself in flashes, a certain expression, a particular angle. So I feel heavily the growing distance between Henry and me and I love the anchors that help hold him near, part of our family, part of my life.
Some days still knock me down; they come out of the blue and hit hard and sudden. But they continue to be less frequent. I still start to realize sometimes that I will always carry this loss, that it is part of me forever. It's too disheartening to think that, so I just try to go day by day. I am able to feel joy more, to see the light more. I'm not sure life is easier, just different and still changing. Sometimes it seems so long since I held him, and yet he wouldn't yet be two. It is almost too much to take in, how much has happened since May 2007.
How long has it been since you lost your child? Has your grief changed at all? Is your life becoming any easier or is it just harder as time passes?
I've been saying lately that Henry died a little over a year ago, though I can't say that much longer. Soon it will be a year and a half, then almost two years or two years in December.
My grief has changed in part because of time and in part because of circumstance.
The first days and months were a haze. Henry died on December 17. We buried him on December 22. I don't remember what we did for Christmas that year. I have vivid memories of Christmas Eve, of sitting on the couch with my friend who's dad had died a couple of weeks before Henry with the energy of kids at Christmas swirling around me. I walked around in that haze for a while. It was a strange mix of numbness and searing pain. I slept with Henry's blanket every night. I avoided going to bed because it always made me cry, so I stayed up late reading babylost blogs or doing mindless tasks. I mediated and cried my way through yoga classes.
I hated the time I had to do it, the time I had to do anything for myself.
I didn't have the energy for the day to day stuff that needs to get done. So a lot of it didn't.
I was exhausted.
I cried every day.
In March, three months out, it hid me harder. I felt like any bit of protective numbness was gone. Outside was mud and dirty remnants of snow, nothing green in sight. It was bleak and lifeless, and it fit my mood perfectly. But March was a turning point: I didn't necessarily feel ready to have another baby, but I felt the need to make the effort, to work to create life as sickness and sadness and death past and approaching surrounded us.
My sister-in-law died in June, and in addition to the grief at this new loss, I was plunged back to December, to a place where just getting up, just breathing felt like too much. Brian and I struggled to communicate, both stumbling to find words and mistaking what the other was trying to say.
Some days were harder than others. Some days just knocked me out--I'd wail and weep, I'd literally be too weak to stand. As time moved on, these knock out days became less frequent, though no less intense.
As we approached the first anniversary of Henry's death, a day I dreaded, we were also approaching Kathleen's birth. Kathleen's birth has had a huge impact on my grief. I cannot focus so much on Henry or on the hole left behind in my heart anymore than I would be able to focus solely on him if he were here. This isn't to say I don't feel it, but more that it has taken more of a background role, tinging my whole life, but not the center of it.
Henry is retreating from me in some ways. I feel more distant from him. This bothers me, though I think it is normal and bound to happen. I don't have guilt, but sadness at the growing separation. In some ways, Kathleen increases this divide as my attention rightly goes to her and her needs, but at the same time, she bring Henry back to me in some ways. I can't help but contrast the experience of living with my two babies, and that brings him back.
And lately, many people have been telling me that they think Kathleen looks like Henry. I have seen it myself in flashes, a certain expression, a particular angle. So I feel heavily the growing distance between Henry and me and I love the anchors that help hold him near, part of our family, part of my life.
Some days still knock me down; they come out of the blue and hit hard and sudden. But they continue to be less frequent. I still start to realize sometimes that I will always carry this loss, that it is part of me forever. It's too disheartening to think that, so I just try to go day by day. I am able to feel joy more, to see the light more. I'm not sure life is easier, just different and still changing. Sometimes it seems so long since I held him, and yet he wouldn't yet be two. It is almost too much to take in, how much has happened since May 2007.
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