A few days late

I'm grateful for family
and traditions
and the laughter of Thanksgiving night, after the crowd has thinned and the turkey has been put away.

I'm thankful for my neighborhood, where people share and help and look out for each other

and for the beauty of this area and bounty of my garden. 

I'm so very grateful for this community and this space, 

for people who listen and read and nod and say "me too" and send big hugs when I need them most, 

for the amazing people I've met because of Henry

for the wonderful people I knew who I got to know in a different way because of him. 

Red birds and stars

There is so much to tell, but somebody is beginning to stir and will need to eat soon and then I will gladly go to bed until she begins to stir again.

I'm so glad to be home and settling in. A week of doctor's visits and heel sticks is over, the phototherapy equipment just needs to be picked up, and her jaundice is a thing of the past. Today her weight is back up again and we are in the clear until her one-month appointment. I am thankful for this.

I'm thankful too for these red birds and stars that made their way to me over the past month.

Sierra's mom, Erika, saw this cardinal and thought of me and Henry. I love the smoothness of it, the heft of it in my hand and the way the stone takes on warmth. It came with me to the hospital, a talisman to get me through the 17th.

I participated in Jenni's ornament swap. This arrived in the mail while I was in the hospital. My parents were intrigued by my package from another country and brought it to me. This heart-centered star is my ornament from Marie-Josée with wishes for comfort, peace, and joy. 

This lovely red bird ornament came from Liam's mom Amy. It was a surprise on a day I needed a lift. We didn't do a tree this year, but this little red bird has greeted me each morning when I turn off Henry's memory lamp and again in the evening when I turn on the light. 

Thanks to every one who has made my dark season a little brighter.  

Headstones and hospital programs

Friday we drove up to visit my parents, but really to look at stones. We still, almost three years later, don't have a headstone for Henry. Making that decision was more than either of us could handle when Henry first died. Then grief was heavy, Brian was in nursing school, I was pregnant, we had a new baby, Brian was still in school . . . we didn't have the time to look or the energy to talk about what we wanted. Still it bothered me that he did not have a marker, and we finally started talking about it this year. We talked about getting a piece of granite from my hometown. I never got to bring him there, so we thought we'd bring a piece to him.

While my mom chased Kathleen around an very old cemetery, Brian and I poked through a pile of stones in the yard of a family friend. I wasn't sure we'd find anything. I kept telling Brian we could always get a stone from someplace else if we didn't find what we wanted. Then he found it. Not too big, not too small. A flat face for his name, curved on the back, not quite a perfect arch at the top. It looked natural, but workable—just what we wanted.

We still need somebody to carve and install the stone, but we are one step closer to having a marker on his grave. One step closer, maybe, to keeping people from driving over him. One step closer to anybody being able to find him.

***
Saturday we left Kathleen with my parents and drove into Boston for a program that Children's runs each November for grieving families.

The timing good for me. It feels right to go back in the fall, during the time that I lived there with him. It feels right to make space for him, for grieving, for talking about all of it, right before we head into the darkest days for me.

Strangely, it feels something like a reunion. We saw our chaplain and the woman I knew best from the family life center and the psychologist and a couple from our grief group and a mom who had helped me a lot while Henry was in the hospital and another mom who was in our small breakout group last year. There was that odd happy to see people feeling, despite our reason for being there.

It was an exhausting day, but a good one. I talked about the things that seem like the big issues right now for me: telling new people I meet about Henry and December. I cried the hardest talking about what I want for Kathleen and this new baby—fun birthdays, happy Christmases—and my fears that the weight of December won't let me give them that. These are the things I struggle with right now.

***
When we left our house on Friday, I thought of it as a grief weekend, thought it might be kind of depressing. It wasn't though: we found the stone; I talked to people have I haven't talked to in a long time; I talked about Henry. It was sad, exhausting, but not depressing.

The moment that sticks with me most clearly isn't sad at all. Friday evening we brought Kathleen over to see my grandmother. She was shy for about the first five minutes; then she was running around with her cousin like she owned the place. When it was time to go, I told her to go say goodbye to Big Nana. Kathleen ran right over to her and gave her a big hug and loud kiss, and my grandmother gave one of her famous neck-breaking hugs and sang "I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. You bet your big blue eyes I do!"

Going to look for the stone, the extra night with my family was a last minute plan, but when I think of this weekend, the first picture I see is Kathleen with her arms around my Nana and it makes me smile.

A friend

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my friend Tricia (who I wrote about here). I was visiting her new home for the first time. When I visited her last in her old home, I was touched to see she had a picture of Henry sitting on a bookcase.

It's the kind of thing that could easily get tucked into a box and not make it out during a move. But there he was. She said that people see the picture and ask if it is her daughter (you know, the oxygen and all), and she tells them it's Henry. And when they ask who Henry is, she tells them he's a friend.

And she is an amazing friend, one I never would have met without Henry, and I'm so glad to know her.

It brings me back

It seemed like the memories of being at Children's had faded some. I could remember but not be immersed. I could see what had happened without being thrust back onto the floor. This seemed like a good development.

Then last week, somebody asked me if I had any advice about support for her friend whose son is being treated at Children's. As I tried to think of what had helped, I found myself back there walking those halls, lost and floundering, exhausted and anxious. My chest was squeezed tight and I could barely breathe.

Yesterday, my friend Tricia posted that she had spent several hours in the ER at Children's with her daughter, Riley. She lived at Children's for months and months with her baby too. I read her comment on Facebook and hoped Riley was okay, but at the same time, my heart jumped up and choked me. I remembered bringing Henry to the pediatrician and ending up in the ER. I remember bringing him into the ER after finally being released from the hospital. And I remember how stressful it was to simply approach the hospital again, without a sick baby. I thought of her arriving at the hospital and all of what I had been through there flooded back, and I imagined her struggling through her own morass of memories weighed down by the fear of the current situation. I send her hugs and hope.
***

I am still haunted by the three months I spent there with Henry. I don't look back and think that was nothing compared to losing him. It was a different kind of unbearable, that I had no choice but to bear.

When Henry was getting close to discharge, I got more and more agitated. As much as I wanted, no needed, to get out of the hospital and get him home, I was terrified. How could I keep him well? Could we see family at Christmas or did we have to isolate ourselves that much? Would I miss signs of withdrawal?  Would he ever come off oxygen? What, really, could we expect for him? What if he got sick again? Would I miss symptoms of his condition worsening? What if he had a low-grade fever (DANGER, DANGER) in my mind that doctors who didn't know him brushed off? I had been away for so long, could I bear to barricade myself in the house with him all winter?

And the answer were: I couldn't keep him well. Even before we left the hospital, he had a little bug brewing in him. We did see family at Christmas—by that time he was gone. We weren't home long enough to have problems with withdrawal or try to wean him back on oxygen or figure out what he could do. He did of course get sick again, and I was paralyzed, to scared to bring him to the hospital, and he got worse rapidly. And he had a fever, and still, I was unable to bring him to the ER. I ended up in for most of the winter without him, lost in the blur of missing him.

I'm sitting here now, taking deep breaths, shaking off the grip of hospital fear that grabbed tight onto me, but every now and then I find myself smiling a little half smile as tangled up in that anxiety find the little glimmers of hope and kindness that sustained me through those three months that feel like a lifetime.

It does often now feel like a different lifetime, and yet, it seems I am not as far removed from it as I'd like to think I am.

Another mother's loss

When Henry was in the hospital, there was an 18-year old named Charlie there waiting for a heart transplant. You'd see him walking the halls, often with a med pump slung around his shoulder. Told he couldn't carry it around, he worked with hospital staff to configure the device to keep him moving. He figured out how many laps of the floor he needed to do to make a mile. I asked him about the walking once and he told me he was doing his best to stay in shape while he waited for his heart.

He marked off an area outside his room with tape, put a couple of chairs and a small table there, and called it his porch. He might sit out there with visitors, chatting or playing chess. He was a budding film maker. Stuck in the hospital, he made it the set for his movie. It was a sucky situation, but he did what he could with it.

There were days when I thought I would go crazy if we didn't get out of the hospital, but watching Charlie doing his laps and making his movies and sitting on his porch, I'd think I can do this.

***
Charlie's mom was one of the first parents I met. I had been avoiding people, especially the ones who looked well established. We didn't know what was happening with Henry, and I thought I wouldn't make any ties because we weren't going to be there long. But one afternoon, I was in the parents resource room using the computers, and it happened to be the coffee hour. I took the cookie offered me and then felt like I should talk, or listen, to these other parents gathered round. Charlie's mom talked about years surgery and meds, of being in and out of the hospital, of how she kept two of all her toiletries with one set in a bag ready to go to the hospital at any time. And I thought I don't want to be her; I don't want that life; I can't do that. 

I'd go on to talk to Charlie's mom many times. She encouraged me on the dark days, talked about the good times, the times out of the hospital. When I wondered if I even dared hope any more, she told me to always, always hope. Have high hopes, but no expectations, she said.

The last time I talked to Charlie's mom was December 13, 2007. We had been discharged from the hospital in to a snowstorm that left Boston in utter gridlock. After going maybe a quarter of a mile in 2 hours, we turned around and went back to the hospital. Brian let me an Henry out on the corner to walk the last couple of blocks while he sat in traffic. Once we got back to the hospital, I couldn't stop crying. I cried because we were still there, it seemed we couldn't escape. I cried because I worried about Henry who got some of his meds late. I cried because this first test of me taking care of my sick baby hadn't gone so well. Charlie's mom told me about one time when Charlie really needed meds and she had to walk to the pharmacy in the snow to get them, how scared she was, how it turned out okay. She talked to me for a long, long time. She told me I was a good mom.

The next morning we left the hospital, and I never saw Charlie's mom again. I would get the occasional email update from her and may send her a quick reply, but that was all.

I remember getting the news that Charlie had gotten his heart. I cried that their wait was over, and I cried for the family that I knew nothing of who had lost a child to give up that heart. I rejoiced for them when good news came and sent out good vibes and prayers and hope when I learned of setbacks.

***
We hadn't heard from Charlie's mom in a while. We knew Charlie had had some major setbacks late last year, and we had wondered how he was doing.

Today I got an email from Charlie's mom about a fundraiser to set up an endowment fund in Charlie's name for Children's. I had to read through the whole string of messages and then Google Charlie's name to really believe it was true. Charlie died back in early December. In some ways this doesn't surprise me, and yet I always had hope for him.

So I'm sitting here on this snowy day, thinking about Charlie and his mom, another mom with an aching heart.

Where are they now?

I was watching an online training about CPR earlier and it brought me back to the CPR for parents course I took right before Henry was discharged from the NICU. There was another mom there that I recognized. We had been on the same pumping schedule, so I saw her often. And we were in the same oxygen training.

I have no idea what her name was. I never asked.

But as I watched this video and was transported back to the class where her baby's oxygen monitor kept beeping, I wondered how she is doing, how her baby is doing, if he came off oxygen, if he's okay.

Where is she now, this woman nameless to me? And what about these others we shared experience with:
The couple with the name that sound like ours (Be, not Ba, we'd have to say at the NICU desk), the ones who were only at the same hospital as us because their insurance wouldn't let them be closer to home.

And Dawn, who had to leave to get buttons removed from her c-section incision (I had never heard of such a thing). Her baby was in the first room on the left in the CICU. Her mother happened to eat the only kind of cereal I eat. She offered me some one day and then put her name and mine on the box that she left in the communal kitchen.

And the woman whose daughter had a brain tumor removed. She had a strong Boston accent and always looked dressed up.

And our string of roommates: Jonathan, Xavier, Mariana, . . . .

Or the woman who was trying to do online classes, whose dad was the same age as Brian, who always, always talked to me.

I wonder where they are now, how they are doing, how their babies are. I wonder how many have left that behind as a bad beginning, how many have the hospital as a regular part of their lives, how many are on the path I'm on. I'm curious about these people who were part of my daily life, part of something scary and hard, who I know so little about really, but who I don't forget.

Remembered

Two years ago today, already and only, we said good-bye to Henry. 

Henry in October, days before we almost got discharged from his long hospitalization for the first time. He was so awake and alert and interactive this day. I remember his smiles and little noises and how intrigued he was with this little caterpillar. I had such hope and expectation for my boy.  

All month, I have been wanting to just sit, to be quiet, to have time to think or the space to not think, and it hasn't happened. But today, I gave myself that gift. I took the day off from work. I didn't hop on the computer first thing in the morning as I usually do. I didn't plan or try to do anything. When Kathleen napped, I rested on the couch, remembering lying there with Henry on sticky summer days. I remembered how perfectly he fit on my chest, how our breathing would slow together. I remembered how as he got bigger, he wouldn't just lie there anymore. I smiled at the effort he made to raise his head, the only time he liked tummy time. I rested while I could with these memories, the peace of those moments settling with me briefly. 

And when Kathleen got up, I played and I snuggled with the baby here with me. I smiled and I laughed with her. And I cried too. Cried in amazement and thanks for all she is and does. Cried with anger and sadness for all Henry never got to be and do. And yet he was and did so much. He is still so much; he's just not here. 

Brian and I went to the cemetery, standing briefly, huddled together in the bitter cold and blinding sunlight on the icy snow covering his grave. There was nothing to do there but leave the little heart shaped wreath I brought, let sobs wrack through me, hug Brian tight, and nod that it was okay for us to go, get in the car, get out of the cold. I felt so much the need to go to the cemetery today, and yet there I felt helpless and didn't know what to do. 

Tonight with dinner, I listened to his CD, filled with memories of sitting in the weeks before his surgery, tears streaming down my face, worried, worried, worried, despite what the song told me, worried that every little thing would not be alright. It's strange looking back on those fears. I was so anxious, and yet I never really imagined or believed that I might end up where I am. 

But here we are. 

I knew Henry had not been forgotten. I knew that Brian and I had been in people's minds and hearts during this dark month. Still, I have felt lonelier in my grief this month than ever before. But there were notes, emails, flowers, calls to let me know that truly we are remembered, Henry is remembered, and that we are all much loved. 

Light

I find myself craving quiet and time to sit and just be. And I don't have it. When Kathleen's up I'm a-going with her. And when she sleeps I work. But tonight, I'm taking a break, because I need it, because my brain is useless. I'm sitting in my chair in the living room—the chair I sat in with Henry, the chair I sat in with Kathleen, the chair I have sat in very little over the past several months. I'm sitting in the gentle glow of Henry's lamp and the candle I lit for him. 

The candle was a gift from my cousin's mother-in-law. I see her at Thanksgiving, but don't know her particularly well. But she bought be this candle, a white candle in a little jar, for me to light for Henry. She gave me one last year and another this year. I like having a candle just for Henry. I'm touched by her gesture. 

So I have his candle lit in front of his picture:

and I'm sitting and trying to deal with these waves that keep coming over me. Two years . . . two years . . . two years . . .  

I find my self close to or in tears often these days. It has not been like this for a while. I had forgotten how the waves could sweep over me, again and again and again. How the tears well up and subside and well up some more. How it feels to be teetering on the edge of holding it together. 

I had been doing okay. And then December. 

Drained and Refilling

Yesterday, Brian and I spent the day in Boston for Children's program for bereaved parents. I knew it would be an exhausting day, but I underestimated how completely and utterly drained I would feel. I ran into the burrito place across the street from the hospital to get us a snack for the road home and found I could hardly stand.
 
It was hard being back there. The program itself was not at the main hospital, but in a building down the street. But we were there passing the same streets and buildings I walked by so many times during the fall of 2007. We were stuck in traffic on Huntington where we sat in a snowstorm trying to get back to the hospital as Henry's oxygen ran low after we were discharged into a snowstorm. We waited for a light in front of the building where I waited in my parents car when the nurse called to find out where we were because Henry "wasn't doing well" the night he almost died. We were back in this place where Henry got three months of life he might not have had otherwise, where he got a chance at many more months and years, this place where I worried and waited, this place were he and I lived for three months with Brian visiting as much as he could. Two years ago I had been living in Boston with Henry for almost two months with no sense of when we might go home. This was where we were yesterday, even though I did not walk through the door of the hospital, enter the barren garden, or ride the elevator to the 8th floor. 

There were familiar faces: the psychologist from the floor who had known Henry and checked in on me periodically, one of the women from the center for families who had renewed my key card every morning so that I could have my little room to sleep in each night, a couple from our grief group, one of the facilitators from that group. It is always so odd to go to events at the hospital now a happy-sad reunion of sorts. I'm glad to see these people I know and yet the reason for gathering is not a happy one at all.

We spent the day talking about our children. Brian and I were on a parent panel. I was glad to have a chance to tell our story, Henry's story. The speaking to a group, which I usually hate, was not an issue, but what to say, where to start. I'm not sure what I finally did say— a little about what happened to Henry, a little about losing my first baby and figuring out what being a mom meant after that, a little about where I am now . . .

Much of the day was spent talking with other parents in small groups, our group was made up of people who had lost infants. We shared stories and pictures, how we dealt with different situations, the horrible things people had said, the wonderful things people had done.


It is hard but necessary to go back there, hard but necessary to listen to these stories that are unique but sound so familiar. I went to this program because I needed to take time out, to pause to think about Henry and this journey we're on. I went because I think going back from time to time is part of this process for me.

***
At the end of the day, we went to my sisters and picked up Kathleen. Hugs and kisses for my girl, glowing reports of the day she had had with her nana and grampy and aunt and cousin. We got her ready for bed and bundled her in the car. We got home around 7:30 and it felt like the middle of the night. I was in bed by 9:30, unheard of around here, but my mind was shutting down, my body demanded that I do nothing else. I was fully drained.
***
So today, I refill and replenish. Eight and a half hours of sleep (6.5 + 2) did wonders. I worked my body in ways that felt good—a long run, raking leaves. I treated myself to banana bread with chocolate chips. I soaked up sunshine on an unseasonably warm November day. And I reveled in baby giggles as Kathleen played in my leaf piles. I'm still tired, but slowly restoring myself

Out of the woodwork

Can I say people are coming out of the woodwork if it's only happened twice? Two weeks ago, I ran into a mom I knew from the baby group I went to with Henry. Today, again, I was recognized as Henry's mom by another  mom from that group.

I was out for a run, passing a parked car as I neared home, and somebody spoke to me. I was kind of in a zone and I assumed the woman wanted directions, but the question she asked was "Are you Henry's mom?"

It's nice to hear his name.

It is somewhat surprising to me that I have not had these encounters before now. True, I have not gone where children are much, but I have been to the grocery store, the library, doctors offices, yoga . . . I find it strange that I have not seen any of the people from the group before now. Or maybe I was just too in a fog to see them before; maybe I didn't see them and they left me alone. Maybe I'm just now ready for them. They have helped me open up a little more. They've helped me let go just a bit more of the protective covering over my heart. And I wonder sometimes what I'm afraid of in my encounters with the world.

Henry's mom

I took Kathleen to the parent center today. I was chatting with a mom I don't know. She started to say something about when they start to crawl, then paused and asked if Kathleen was my first. Oh, the dreaded question.

What she wanted to know was: Have you done this before? So I explained that Kathleen was my second child, but that my first died at 6 months, so this was my first time dealing with crawling. She expressed sympathy and then a baby, which, I don't know, distracted us, and we came back to her comment on crawling.

It's not getting easier to say my baby died, but I think I'm getting better at it.

Shortly after that exchange, another mom, one who looked familiar though I couldn't place her, said to me, "Are you Henry's mom?" I told her I was and she said she knew me from the baby group at the hospital. She had a brand-new baby in arms and her 2+ year old, the one I had known only as a tiny baby.

When I go out in places where children are plentiful, I can't help but look for familiar faces chasing the 2-year-olds, but until today, I hadn't seen any. I thought it would be harder (as I am wont to do). Instead, I found it nice to be known, to be recognized, by somebody as Henry's mom.

The Cemetery

I stopped at the cemetery today on my way out of town. So many times I pass by without stopping, but always I like to visit before I leave town for a few days, and if I can, stop on my way back in.

On Sunday, I planted mums, dark red ones, in front of the family stone. Henry’s name is not on this stone because we want to get him a stone of his own. But I’ve found that plants left directly on his grave, whether in a basket or planted directly in the ground get stolen or dug up. 

It’s hard enough to go to the cemetery to visit my baby boy. I don’t need to find the little things I leave for him damaged or gone. It disheartens me every time. Brian gets enraged. I mostly just get weary and sad.

Today there was a huge chunk out of the front of the mum. Perhaps from a mower; perhaps from somebody plucking it off. I’ve never been sure if it was an act of malice or not caring. Either way it upsets me.

It bothered me for a long time as I sat in traffic at the beginning of my trip. I was on the verge of tears and trying to stay focused on the road. So I tried to let the frustration go, and I focused on this.

Henry was buried in December when the ground was hard and frozen. Soon his grave was covered with snow. Then the snow retreated and we could see the bare earth, his tiny grave. As the ground warmed, they prepared to reseed it. Brian and I would pick up little stones each time we visited, stones that would sit on a shelf or in our pockets, a token from Henry’s place. One of the last days before they seeded, we were at the cemetery and I just started making a heart for Henry out of the stones. Brian helped, and then together we pieced out his name. It was the only marker we had for his grave at that point.

We went away, knowing we wouldn’t see our marker again, for the seed was to be planted the next day. Weeks later I got an envelope in the mail, somebody in town, but I name I only recognized from a card when Henry died. Inside I found pictures of Henry’s stone heart.

Brian ran into the cemetery caretaker, who told him that he had hated to cover it up. But, he said, I put the first layer down carefully. It’s still there underneath.

So I hold on to this. If somebody chooses to steal flowers off my baby’s grave or the cemetery staff can’t be bothered to not cut down what I plant for him, one day somebody cared enough to preserve—in pictures and in reality—Henry’s stone heart. Flowers may go missing, but his name and his symbol are just a few inches down. Knowing they are there is a slight comfort; knowing somebody took the time for that kindness, much more of one.

I’m still upset, and will be, when I think of the flowers, but there is a slight redemption to hold onto. 

An Unexpected Remembrance

As we were getting ready to leave church this afternoon, the woman in the pew in front of us turned and asked when Kathleen was born. I said simply December. She said, "On the eleventh?" and I nodded. "It's my sons' birthday, too, that's how I remembered."

"And you had a little boy, too. Henry."

I started, surprised, "Yes, we do."

She told us she had been there the Monday night before his surgery, when we had, at the suggestion of our priest, brought Henry to the church for the St. Jude novena mass. Father Dariusz had offered a special blessing over Henry and people had prayed for him. Barbara, she later introduced herself, had been one of them.

It made my heart sing to hear my baby boy mentioned, spoken of comfortably, with caring.

I don't know why it always surprises me when people outside of my close family and friends mention him. I have wasted a lot of energy worrying if people know about him, if they will mention him or ignore him, how I will speak of him. So when he is just there, in conversation, in thought and heart, it amazes me.

Sometimes talking about him seems so hard.

"And you have a son, Henry."
"Yes, we do."

It's that simple.



My sweet boy, you are not forgotten, not by us, not by so many others, people we don't even know that your life touched.

My Baby Back

I don't know why, but this picture has been hovering in my head for the past few days:
This is Henry in late October 2007, days after he almost died from a PICC line infection. For several days he was in only a diaper and maybe a hospital t-shirt. He was pale and still and lost in a tangle of tubes and wires.

I stepped out one day and came back to this: my baby back. His nurse, Anna, had dressed him, put a quilt and a blanket on his bed, and surrounded him with his stuffed animals. She had arranged his books on a table at the foot of his bed and taped up the cards people had sent us. It made my day. It made it possible for me to go on.

We had been on the verge of going home when Henry turned blue in my arms. He was rushed back to the CICU where he was stabilized. I left the hospital in shock. There was a part of me that night that wanted to let go, to stop being the strong person everyone kept telling me I was, to stop worrying to the point of barely breathing, to stop living in the crazy world I had been plunged into almost two months earlier when my baby was hospitalized suddenly. I remember sitting in his room, silently screaming, "I'm not okay over here," but every body was busy working on my sick baby. I remember later somebody coming over to talk to me, encouraging me to get away and get some rest and agreeing to go. I remember being detached and watching it all from outside of me. And I remember wanting to let go but thinking that if I did I might never find my way back.

That night, that feeling still scares me.

The next night my baby almost died. He teetered between life and death, and I became practical. I begged him to hold on until his daddy arrived. I asked the social worker for rocking chair. I told my sister I needed her sweater because I was cold. I watched and I waited and I was right there, fully there, waiting to see if my baby would live or die. He lived. And I thought we had survived a scare. I thought we had a long road ahead of us and I set out on that road, step by step, sure that my baby could pull through anything now. I never thought the road would lead here.

But in this moment frozen in my mind, my baby was starting to look up. He had come off nitric oxide. They were beginning the long slow wean off the ventilator (again). His color had come back. And a nurse had transformed him from a patient to a baby again.

There is no trigger for this particular memory. I hadn't seen the picture. I didn't recently find the outfit or one of the stuffed animals in the photo. It isn't something that happened two years ago this month. It's simply the piece of Henry's story that I'm sititng with right now.

For Magie and Her Mommy

I've been thinking of Magie today.

I knew Magie through the glass, because she was Henry's next door neighbor for much of his stay in the CICU. I knew her mom from the hospital hallways. We'd wave good morning and peek at each other's babies through the adjoining doorway.

I remember watching Magie's activity during her better days,
the pink, fluffy sign her mommy made lovingly for her hospital crib,
glimpses of her cute face from the window.

I know that she loved the Disney cartoons,
that her mommy was excited to watch the parade with her on Thanksgiving,
that pink was her color.

I think of her when I see a pink sky at sunset
or the fluffy pink-tinged clouds at dawn.

I have a special place in my heart for Magie in part because she was part of Henry's story, and in part because there were so many parallels between their stories.

She was born 15 days before Henry. Today is her second birthday, so I'm thinking of her. And I'm thinking of her mommy, who started on this babylost journey just 5 days before I started on mine.

Happy Birthday, Magie.
Love and peace, Magie's mommy.

A Walk to Remember

Today was the Empty Arms walk. Kathleen and I were there at Look Park, with a balloon with Henry's name written on it tied to her stroller.

In addressing the group, Carol said that when Charlotte died, she was afraid that nobody would remember her daughter, yet so many people now know her as Charlotte's mama. I know the desire to have your baby remembered. I am "lucky" in that Henry lived for six and half months. Many people got to meet him, perhaps briefly, perhaps while he was on the paralytic, but they met him. I remember saying over and over at the funeral as people came in, "I'm so glad you got to meet him." Each person who met him, even those who only read his story, keep a tiny piece of him alive.

So I carry pieces of the babies I've "met" in person or online through their mamas: Charlotte, Magie, Birdie, Emma, Hope, Tikva, Callum, Liam, Oliver, Eliana, Jordan, Sean, Isabella, Teddy, Caitlin, Keely, Ezra, Sage, Grace, Theo, Christian, Justin, George, Sam, Thomas, Nicholas, Andrew, Gwen, Gabriel . . . so many and yet I know there are more, not just more babies, but babies I know.

I'm so sorry they aren't here.

While You Were(n't) Sleeping

For a couple of weeks, Kathleen has not been sleeping well. I was averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night and just barely getting through the day. One day, I thought, "This is hell," but I quickly corrected myself, because it wasn't at all. I've been to hell. This was just hard and exhausting, but I knew it would end and I would sometime get more sleep and in the mean time I had a warm little body on my lap or next to me in bed. A couple of nights of five hours of sleep has made all the difference.

So while we weren't sleeping, I was getting behind in laundry and dishes and work and reading, so I just realized that Amy at Surviving the Day nominated me for the Sisterhood Award. I started reading Amy's blog because her blog name caught my eye . . . some days that's what it is, survival.

The rules* are to pick to blogs with great attitude and/or gratitude. Here are my 10 (and I know some have been nominated before:

• The Happy Sad Mama
  
• Growing Inside
  
• Little Birdie Little Bunny
  
• Tuesday's Hope
  
• Ezra's Space
  
• Building Heavenly Bridges
  
• A Fifth Season
  
• I Lost a World
  
• Flotsam
  
• Missing Eliana

I started to explain why I picked each one, but sleep is still a limited commodity around here, and it's taken me two days to get this far. Suffice it to say I'm grateful to have a window into the world of these other loss mamas and their sweet babies. They've given me things to think about and made this journey less lonely.


* The rules:

• Put the logo on your blog or post.
• Nominate 10 blogs with great attitude and/or gratitude.
• Be sure to link to your nominees in your post.
• Let your nominees know they have received the award by leaving them a comment on their blog.
• Be sure to link this post to the person who nominated you for the award.

Natural

Yesterday I had some errands to run that took me close to a friend's house. We have been meaning to get together, so I emailed her and planned to stop by.

I met Jocelyn when Henry was a baby. Her daughter was born just a couple of days before him, and we met at the baby group. We bonded over our birth stories and went out for coffee once or twice after group. When Henry was in the hospital, she stayed in touch through the Care Page and email. When Henry died, she came to the funeral. We talked once, and that was that. I'm not faulting her; she is somebody I chose not to stay in touch with for a time. While I liked her as a person, we had not known each other that long and I thought of her as a mommy friend, somebody I'd visit with while the kids played. I just didn't know how to have that relationship without Henry there.

When she found out I was pregnant, she emailed me excited to say that she was pregnant too and also due in December. My first thought was that this was a second chance to try out this friendship. My second thought was how can I do this? How can I see her knowing there should be two May 2007 babies and two December 2008 babies.

Her son was born the day before Kathleen. Yesterday, I met him for the first time. I wondered again how it would be to see Jocelyn and her two babies so close in age to my two. Sometimes I think too much.

Our visit was so easy. We compared baby size and watched them on the blanket together. We talked about how much they were eating and sleeping. We compared this birth to the last. It seemed so natural.

Perhaps best of all is that she not only knows about Henry, she knows Henry. I could say "with my first pregnancy" or "when Henry was born" and not have to explain. She said his name as if he were just at daycare like her daughter. It was so natural.

So often I worry and try to prepare for the things I expect to be hard and it's usually something else that catches me in the end. But yesterday, nothing caught me. We had an easy, natural visit. Maybe another visit, seeing her daughter, will be hard, but I am glad we got a second chance and glad I took it. It was a quick little visit. It shouldn't have been a big deal, yet I made it out to one. And it turned out to be so natural.

Music, Memories, and Meetings

Music and memories
Saturday I took Kathleen to see Elizabeth Mitchell (our morning music in the afternoon!). I enjoyed it (Kathleen slept through it in her sling), though some moments made me sad. Two songs almost brought me to tears.

When they played "Three Little Birds," a montage of Henry images played through my head: sitting on the end of our couch feeding him a bottle with his surgery approaching, me singing along almost desperate to believe that "every little thing's gonna be alright"; smiling at him in the bright morning light of his room in the CICU, scared, but hopeful; standing with Brian's brother and sister next to Henry's bed, the night he almost died in October, when we still weren't quite sure he was going to make it . . .

They ended with "Peace Like a River." This is one of the songs I sang to Henry all the time. It was the only song I picked for his funeral. I felt like I should choose music and readings that were meaningful, but I couldn't think. I think Brian suggested something from the CD, and that was the first thing that came to mind. Henry did bring me peace and love and joy, though so often during his life I felt fear and anger and frustration.
***

Vanishing act
At the show, another mama came over, noticing I had a very little one. Both our babies were two months old. We chatted about front carriers and neck strength and when they could face forward. Before I could ask her name or where she was from, she posed "the question." Is she your first?

I don't have trouble with this one. No, our second. It's the follow up that gets me every time. Oh, how old is your first? I took a deep breath. He passed away just over a year ago. He was 6 1/2 months old. I had a chance to say that he spent half his life in the hospital, but not that I played Elizabeth Mitchell for him every morning. She murmured an I'm sorry. And then she was gone. No nice to meet you, no enjoy the show. Just gone.
***

Finally we meet
When the show ended, I went over to talk to Birdie's Mama. We have been emailing and talking and not quite managing to get together, so it was good to finally see her and especially to meet her sweet Holdyn. We stood there after the show, both teary, recognizing each other's happy and sad, meeting each other's second baby for the first time and honoring the ones we were missing.