winter 2008-09: i lost a world

In Auld acquaintance, Erica of I Lost a World poses a question that's kept many babylost parents up at night: What of the forgetfulness that you don’t want, that you don’t seek?

As time passes, a natural sort of blur settles itself on memory. As Erica writes so evocatively, memory ebbs and flows as much as grief, and none of it changes how the essence of our child(ren) remains.

...I don’t want to lose any more of him. Not one memory, story or image, not one pain or tear or scrap of longing. But it’s becoming very clear to me lately that I can’t forget him, won’t ever forget him, that he will be a part of every meaningful moment in my life. Just now this knowledge is a huge relief. I don’t have to panic if I forget to light his candle some Friday evening, or if I don’t look at his photographs for a few days in a row. His memory and his loss are still with me, will always be with me, are grafted onto my being like the branches of some strange fruit tree. I don’t exist without them.

november 2008: elm city dad

In his post Lying, Elm City Dad explores the strange reality of trudging along through a relatively unaware world after the heart-explosion of babyloss. As he notes, what's even stranger than constructing this outward-facing facade of normalcy? The getting accustomed to it, this split-personality outfit we zip and button onto ourselves for the purpose of ordinary days.

I have spent my life trying to be genuine, honest, direct, truthful. But now I am living a lie. Suddenly I find myself deceptive, evasive, calculating and misleading. It is not out of malice, though, nor for personal gain. Unless, of course, you count ‘personal gain’ as trying to avoid being in pain all the time. If so, then yes. I am lying to avoid pain. Lying to myself, to my wife, to the World, to anyone that asks.

I am lying when I say I’m fine. There is a low-grade terror that burbles in the background of my life, now. It is that oh-shit oh-shit oh-shit cascade that precedes moments of near disaster.

That feeling is constant, now.

The scary thing is, I’m getting used to it...

september 2008: gal of growing inside

In her post Thanking, loving, feeling my daughter, Gal of Growing Inside (and mama to angelbaby Tikva) gifts us with light. Her loving words are nothing short of triumphant in any space -- and especially in ours, in this community of mothers and fathers trying to find their way to hope.

It is impossible to exist without hope – that hope is what gave me such profound guidance and meaning. Such PURPOSE.

MY TIVKA GAVE ME PURPOSE.

She still does. Now my purpose is a little less apparent, less obvious, but it is still there:

To love completely.
To be my most pure and complete self.
Deeply connected to God.
In every experience.
In every relationship.
In every moment.
In every interaction.

august 2008: gwendomama

In her post Before, and after Gwendomama writes of a brain vacation--one of those rare, gifted moments of visitation and vivid, all-senses memory--and the abruptness of the brain returning to duty. By sharing with us her Elijah she gives us a dose of our own, and we thank her for it, and we understand.

For a moment, he was never gone, there was no 'before'. There was no 'after'. There was only Elijah. He was just here. In my arms. He was mine; he always had been. All of his cedary sweet milky vanilla gorgeous cheeky delicious chunky ethereal baby awesomeness was mine.

For a moment I was allowed the thrill of him, the thrill of being his mother. The incredible 'I'm not worthy' feeling as I gazed at this beautiful creature and breathed him in. The pride. For a moment I felt joy when I looked down at my son. For a moment I felt the love gushing out of me, the dam had broken, it all rushed straight into my son while I watched it pour all over him. I could not stop it; it all was his and there he was, in my arms, absorbing every single drop.

july 2008: carol of happy sad mama

In her post Happy-sad, Carol writes of the strange realization that life has become some semblance of ordinary again, five years after the stillbirth of her daughter Charlotte. She speaks of occupying her skin, of a moment of lone reflection without feeling drowned in memory, of feeling peaceful as mother to the two children at her side.

Four years later, I am here in a much more comfortable place, a place where I admit that yes, I am grieving, but I am also human: and sometimes, it feels nice to go first.

To eat when I am hungry, to think for a few minutes without first thinking about somebody else. To be out in the hot, night air, and to walk slowly, and to not worry about whether I was moving too fast, or too slowly, or if there was going to be traffic on the way home. ... and try to make me hold my chin up like a normal person, not like a grieving, slightly manic babylost mama who is pretty sure she is broken and her two living children are some sort of fluke.