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.

An evening out

I went out for drinks and apps with a good friend tonight to celebrate my birthday. After what feels like weeks of rain bracketing a mini heat wave, it was absolutely perfect weather-wise to sit on the deck, sipping beer and eating nachos and fried catfish and mussels. It was the kind of night that makes me wonder why I don't go out more often.

We were there for a little over three hours, and for probably half of that time we talked about Henry, about what happened when he died, what she remembered, what stood out to her, what I remembered, what I couldn't remember or what was fuzzy.

And here's the thing: it wasn't depressing at all. I love having conversations like these. (Not the experience that led to this conversation, but that, given that experience, the conversation happened.) It was not what I expected of my birthday outing, and yet it was what I needed right now.

Looking back on the day

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.

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.

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.

A Reaction and a Response

Yesterday I was talking to my friend Amy about sharing news even when it is hard to here. We talked about how it was hard for me when she had her third baby in March 2008, three months after Henry died. She remembered calling to tell me she had had the baby, she remembered me saying congratulations, and then tears. And her telling of that moment put me back there in that swimming place of happiness for another, relief, but mostly sadness and jealousy. I remember how hard it hit me when she told me, even though I had been expecting it. I remember not being able to speak. And yesterday, for a moment I was plunged back there and tears came again.


Today, I got a message from a friend on Facebook (the one I wrote about here). She apologized for not responding sooner (she's in the middle of a job change and a move). Her response was sincere and thoughtful and acknowledged the breadth of my experience without glossing over Henry with Kathleen. It was a relief to get her response. I had kind of written it off, but I suppose on some level it still bugged me.

The Unafraid

Tonight at dinner, there was a couple who knew Henry well and many of the nuances of his story and a couple who we had never met who had no idea we had another child. I was out of the room when it came up. Brian was telling the story of Kathleen's name and Henry came up. I suppose he gave the brief version of the story.

When I came back in the room, there was no uncomfortable silence over the room. There was no smoothing over of the "Well, look at the beautiful baby you have now," variety. There was no changing of subject. Instead there were a few questions and space talk about Henry. And later out on the porch, the woman asked me whether it had been hard to be pregnant again. She apologized and hoped she wasn't bring up something I didn't want to talk about. No, I assured her, it is nice to be asked.

It is nice when people aren't afraid to talk about my baby and my loss and the wonder of his life and my sadness. I'm always surprised when I find them.

Out of Nowhere

My last post sounds so past tense, as if this grief is, at least mostly, behind me. I suppose that was how I was feeling as I wrote it, for it has changed and I had had a string of good days, but those knock out days I mentioned? Today was one, and it has left me weary.

I don't even know what got me going today. All I know is I was driving and next thing I knew I was crying.

Maybe it was my mom's call to see if I was planning anything for Henry's birthday this year.
Or passing the cemetery—again—without stopping.
Or the missing pansies I had planted at the head of his grave that Brian reported had been torn up.
Or that we just changed the calendar to May and Henry's picture, my all-time favorite picture of him, is there.
Or that we were headed to a birthday party for his cousins—
And that I should be planning a birthday party too, one with two candles on the cake.
***
So I cried off and on all the way there. At the party, somebody pointed out the one-year old running back and forth across the kitchen, his dad following him. "Watch that . . . that's what you'll be doing next year!" And most likely I will be, though there's no guarantees. But more importantly I already should be.
***
All last year, I relived and processed what I had been through with Henry. I saw it as a necessary part of my healing. I walked through all the time I had with him again, until almost the very end. The bitter end came during Kathleen's birth and the days immediately following it. So I turned forward instead of back. I looked at life, instead of death.

But tonight for some reason, I was drawn back to Henry's last days, to the heavy, breathless feeling I had as they got basic info from me at the ER, to images of them trying unsuccessfully to get an IV into him and finally pulling out what looked like a drill to gain access in his leg. Seriously, I thought I had seen it all with him, and then they drilled into his leg.

And then I was in his room in the PICU. The machines started beeping. I had been around beeping for months. I knew when an IV pump was almost done from one that was done. I knew the difference between a feeding pump that was done and one that wasn't working right. I could tell when a sensor just wasn't pick up properly or when Henry's movement caused an alarm to go off. I knew when to worry. But this was a different hospital with different equipment and I didn't know the sounds. All I knew was that I didn't like the sound of it. I walked calmly to the desk and said that I didn't know the beeps but was Henry okay. And the doctor looked up. And then she moved very quickly. I didn't go to him right away. I stood back, out of the way to give room for doctors and nurses to work. I stood against the wall and I started to sing to him, quietly sending forth the thread of connection between him and me. My mother said, "I can't hear you. I don't know what you are saying." I shooed her away, taking only half a breath to mutter that I was singing to Henry, afraid to let that connection slip.

They made room for me at the bed, and I watched them pump him full of drugs and give him chest compressions, watching the monitors to see how it was working. I sang through it all, but I knew. So I waited. Waited for somebody to say, "Time of death . . ." but they never did.

I watched my baby die. I held his foot and sang to him of all the people who love him while he left. I told him it was okay to go.

I still have moments of disbelief. This is me. This is my life. This is my baby boy who died.
***
My grief is still very much present tense, despite what my last post suggests. It is very present and very forceful today. It blindsided me and left me with a familiar dull, weary feeling. So I'll go up now and hug Henry's yellow blanket and try to sleep, as I have so many nights. And in the morning I'll wake up and still miss him, but I'll smile for my baby girl even if my eyes are sad. And we'll go on.

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.