What I Can Remember About Her Funeral

It had been unseasonably warm in the days leading up to Eleanor’s funeral.  I remember noting the sunshine and only needing a light jacket as we shuttled around town, meeting with people and making arrangements. But the second worst day of my life was really cold and gray and damp. Which seemed fitting, if a little on the nose. Like a movie of the funeral of a loved one.

I have inconsistent memories from that day, little flashes that I remember vividly then big black holes in between.

Like screaming at my exhausted, grieving parents, siblings, and in laws because I thought we were going to be late (we weren't).

Or realizing I had to go to the bathroom and having some kind stranger who worked at the church take me by the hand and lead me to the bathroom because something about the way I looked must have clearly showed I was in capable getting myself to the bathroom like a normal adult.

And running into a close friend’s husband on my way to the bathroom and seeing his slightly horrified face as we made eye contact and passed each other wordlessly.

At some point I noticed that My OB/GYN along with some of the other doctors and staff were seated, in a pew towards the back of the church.

I wore a dress and shoes that my sisters went out and purchased the day before the funeral and then returned after because I didn’t want the dress hanging in my closet.  I couldn't really even tell you what it looked like - dark stripes, I think. The shoes were cute but too big.

Before the service began, they led us into a small side room where we could spend sometime with her body. She was a beautiful, sleeping baby and I really thought I might stop breathing.  We buried her in the outfit we had picked to bring her home from the hospital. A multi-colored polka dotted fleece hooded sweater and pink pants. She looked cozy and comfortable. She also wore a bracelet pink tiny beaded that her great aunt had made her. Her little white casket was impossible.  A friend later wrote that she couldn’t bear the idea of a casket that small needed to exist. Me neither. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her skin but I laid my hand on her little belly for several minutes.  Members of our family were in the little room with us and Dan made a short speech about how much we loved her.

There weren’t a lot of people at the service. I look back now and know I likely didn’t do a good job of making people feel welcome to come. I didn’t really share the details or invite many people - torn between wanting people to be sad and know how important she was but also not wanting anybody to look at me.  I am very grateful to the brave friends who just showed up.

During the funeral the priest conducting the services got my name wrong. He called me Amber or Allison or something like that. I don't really remember caring much, though I found out our family priest who had traveled down from Joplin to participate in the service - along with row of some very close friends - were infuriated.

As is traditional after a funeral, we had planned to invite people over to our house or maybe it was supposed to be in a room at the church. We had even arranged some trays of sandwiches and fruit. But after the graveside service, I couldn’t stomach the thought of it and quietly told our church director to tell people not to come over.  I'm not sure how word spread but no one showed up and I don't know what became of the trays of food.  I went to sleep for several hours and that's pretty much everything I remember from that day.

Her grandfather, Dan's dad, wrote her obituary, which was also printed in the funeral program:

Our angel left us quickly to brighten Heaven forever. Eleanor Lee Ashley was born to Amanda Claire Ashley and Daniel Lee Ashley of Fayetteville, Arkansas on February 5, 2012 and passed away shortly after birth. In addition to her parents, she is survived by her grandparents Jeff and Mary Hughey of Joplin, Missouri, Larry and Martha Ashley of Simpsonville, SC, her four aunts Sarah Hughey of Chicago, Illinois, Courtney Hughey of Wolf, Wyoming, Emily Hughey of Joplin Missouri, and Lisa Schilling of Rockhill,SC, her Uncle Chris Hughey and his fiancee Jessie Cupp of Springfield, Missouri and Uncle Jonathan Schilling of Rockhill, SC, her cousins Wyatt, Bratcher, and Alice Schilling of Rockhill, SC. 

She will be missed and remembered as a soft and precious treasure forever.

The Funeral will be held at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church on Thursday February 9, 2012 at 1:00 p.m., with Father Larry Heimsoth presiding. Interment will follow at Fairview Memorial Gardens.

Eleanor's 2nd Birthday

This year we had the idea to not just release balloons here in Arkansas, but to involve friends and family around the country.  I love the idea that over the course of the day and across several states, memories and thoughts of Eleanor soared into the sky.

As a long shot, I even attached tags to the balloons that included the address to this blog so that if a stranger would find it and look it up, they would see just the sort of loving legacy Eleanor left behind.

I will update as more of the pictures come in from friends and family, but here is a look:

ARKANSAS

MISSOURI

OKLAHOMA

TEXAS

SOUTH CAROLINA

How Do I Make it Not Sad for Him?

I took this picture on Christmas Day.  A typical holiday pilgrimage to a place no one wants to spend their holidays.  Where Eleanor is buried is very lovely.  It's in a particularly pretty area of Fayetteville, the grounds are softly hilly, there's a even duck pond.  Folks in the neighborhood are always in it on nice days, using it almost like a neighborhood park - walking dogs and jogging.

I think Ed will like coming here for those reasons but, while I love this picture of him in his Christmas outfit, reaching happily for his sister's flowers, looking at this image also fills me with anxiety for the future.

I want to celebrate Eleanor.  Include her in family events, remember my pregnancy and her life.  And we do.  But how and when do I begin to broach the topic with my joyful baby.  He's one now and their birthdays are very close together in the calendar year.  Which means every January 28th we celebrate the happiest day of my life and a scant 8 days later we struggle through Eleanor's birthday.

I never want him to dread her day or the mention of her name and I don't want him to feel sad - ever. But I want him to know her, to love her with us.

I guess we'll navigate this pass the same way we have made it through all of the other impossible situations presented to parents who don't have their children to hold.  Do it because we must. Figure it out because we've been given no other option.  Be natural and cautious, happy and heartbroken.

But if someday, somewhere, some mom finds this entry and knows just what to do - please, please advise.

Essay Featured in Child Loss Magazine

Still Standing is an online magazine dedicated to survivors of child loss and infertility.  I have gotten so much out of its articles, many of which are guest submissions by moms who have experienced loss.

Back in July, an essay I wrote was selected to be featured as a guest submission.  Titled "Family of Four, Party of Three", it's about the social awkwardness of explaining your family situation to friendly, well-meaning strangers. It was therapeutic for me to write it and my hope is that maybe a mom out there felt supported by the words.  

Because I am not sure if I'm allowed to share the text in full here, please read the essay on the Still Standing website.

Photo credit: Addison's Keepsakes

Still Surprised and Angry

More than a year out from losing Eleanor, there will be at least one moment everyday where I am still caught of guard by the overwhelming surprise and disappointment that she isn't here.  Let me be clear, I think about her all the time, if my mind made noises or music, the drumbeat of everyday would be thoughts of her.

But at least once every 24 hours, something will happen and I will think, "I just can't believe she isn't here.  That she as supposed to be here right now and she isn't.  That she is never coming back."  And it's as surprising as it was that first day.

Usually, these moments will hit me while I am alone.  But recently, I was hanging out with a friend - baby Ed between us - chatting about friendly, unimportant things.  The the sudden and complete feeling of heartbreak overwhelmed me.  So I said so.  A mark of this friend is that she didn't miss a beat, didn't make a huge deal over it and did act like I was a weirdo.

"I just still can't believe she isn't here!" I said, apropos of nothing.  "I can't believe I have had two children in the last two years and only one is here."

"Me, neither," was her simple response.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Thanksgiving and Christmas were bound to be fraught with dangerous opportunities to be sad.  But I'd like to say right now that the bulk of the holidays were awesome.  Full of family and laughing and new happy memories.  Everyone in my immediate family (all five kids across 4 states) got together along side significant others for Turkey Day at my parents house.  Christmas was fun and low key first with Dan's family, newly transplanted to Fayetteville and then with mine, back to Joplin, for gifts and meals and FaceTime with the one sibling that couldn't be there.

Now I will indulge myself by recounting the parts of the holidays that weren't so great.

No Baby's First Christmas

That's it.  All of it summed up in one phrase.  The day after Thanksgiving is when my family puts up decorations and all the old keepsake ornaments were unboxed and hung haphazardly on the tree, just like every year before.  But there was no baby's first ornament to hang.  No new person to buy presents for.  No little one to bundle up and bring to church.  No early bedtimes or feedings to interrupt late night board games or conversations. No one's every move being overly documented on cameras and phones.

I am looking forward to next year, when the Pick arrives.  The closeness of these two pregnancies means he will be almost exactly the same age for Christmas 2013 that Eleanor would have been for 2012.  I can't wait 'til we can celebrate with him and hold him.  But I wonder how often I will look at him during those first sets of holidays and think about how similar Eleanor's experience might have been just 365 days prior, in a parallel universe where she lived instead of left.

I am once again blown away by my friends.  A group of girls whom I have been friends with here in Fayetteville for years gave me a beautiful ornament for Eleanor.  A silver, wire elephant that has an E hanging from it.  Simple, not overly sentimental, not sad, just a nice way to bring her into our Christmas visuals.  I love it.  I had been dragging my feet about putting together a holiday card this year but once I had that keepsake, I had a little easier time sending them out.  I loved being able to include her on our card.

When we were planning for E, I kept gravitating towards elephants for decorations.  Elephants - Eleanor, it's not a great puzzle as to why.

But after we lost her, I thought more about these elephants.  They can carry great loads and the old saying is that they never forget.

That's such true sentiments for moms who have lost.

I love you and miss you, Eleanor.  I am remembering you this Christmas, everyday, and looking forward to next year.

9 Months: Good News

Today, Eleanor would have been 9 months old.  I hate that she missed Halloween.  I really felt her absence among the babies of friends dressed up and paraded through work and in my own family as my niece and nephews came over to trick or treat.  We had looked forward to her first costume - a hand me down plush Dumbo the Elephant costume - now tucked into a large drawer in a dresser sitting just to the left of me as I write this post.

But today was a big day for our little family.  We had our second appointment to see the genetics specialist in Little Rock.  I had worked myself up into an anxiety ball in the weeks leading up to this appointment.  We were there to look again at the diaphragm to make sure it was not herniated.  Plus a look at any other warning signs that may indicate that Pick was going to have problems.

I am happy to report they could find nothing out of the ordinary.  By all accounts Pick is a healthy, growing baby.  He even had the hiccups while they were taking pictures, as if to show off his strong diaphragm.

Dr. Wendell said there was nothing that made him nervous about what he saw.  He added that this far along, he felt that if something was wrong, there would be something off, some sort of visible indicator.  He tempered this optimism with the required acknowledgement that in our situation, we cannot know until he is here.  But overall, I could tell he was very confident about the results.

I'll say again today what I think every moment - it will never be okay that Eleanor isn't here.  I am so glad to know that Pick is getting close to making his arrival and that it would seem, at least for now, that he will not be sick.  But I love him alongside my daughter, not instead.  Sometimes, I think (torture myself) with the idea that if Eleanor had lived we would not be having this baby boy.  That loving and looking forward to Pick is at the expense of her.  But today I had a better thought.

Without having Eleanor, there would be no Pick.  If I had not given birth to my beautiful daughter and experienced her short life in 2012, then surely I would not have had her brother in 2013.

Of course, it still doesn't make it okay. I am just so bad at being noble or strong.  I really tried to be genuine and positive in this post but it still feels like such crap.  I will never, ever understand why I cannot have and love them both.  On some level I will never fully accept it.  At least not in this life.  Though I am genuinely hopeful that someday I will gain an understanding that is not available to me here.

And that IS the truth.  I promise.

6 Months

August 5th marked Eleanor Lee's six months.  It's been hard every month but this was especially hurtful because when I was pregnant I had very specific plans for this day.

Dan and I have always joked that one of the perks of having children will be that we can finally buy one of those ugly plastic wading pools they sell at the grocery store for the back yard. We talked about how nice it would be that Eleanor would be 6 months old and still have a solid month of warm weather to enjoy. We would have bought the very smallest of the plastic pools. She would be steady enough to hold her head up and, maybe with the help of her bumbo chair, don her very first swimsuit and have her very first dip in the pool!

So that's why I am especially sad on her 6 month day.  Because I had so clearly pictured how this day would be and, of course, it looks very different.

But there is some good.  We are 15 weeks along, awaiting our second child.  The risks are scary, one in 10, so they say.  But we are praying and hoping everyday that this will be out take home baby.  There are so many here that are waiting to meet this sibling.  And I feel that Eleanor is rooting for us and, if she can, doing everything to get this baby here and home.

But I will never call this baby my Rainbow Baby, as is often the terminology among parents who have experienced a loss.  I understand the thought behind the words but they just aren't for me.  Eleanor was not a storm I had to endure and this baby will not be my reward for losing her or a symbol of the end of the grief.  She was a beautiful first child and I will love her and miss her and enjoy remembering her forever.

Pinwheels and Snapdragons

"It looked really nice.  The picture made me happy-sad."

This was my mother's response when I sent her a picture of what I did out at Eleanor's site today.  And it pretty much sums up how I feel after doing anything nice to remember or honor E.  When you lose a baby you are left with so little - so few tasks.  While others spend the 6th week of motherhood sleep deprived, washing bottles, bibs and blankets - I cling to the few "duties" I can take on for my precious daughter.  So I take her fresh flowers, spend time in her room and write these entries.

And I hate it.  Because it feels like such a charade. So unfair.

Just as I am starting to feel comforted by these little rituals, happy with what I have done her for - I inevitably get smacked in the face with a child in a stroller, a children's book display or some other item that brings it all back into sharp focus.  And then I am sad again.

Sad that burns in my throat and aches in my empty arms.  Sad that crushes me under the weight of its horrifying permanence.

Tiny Pinpricks of Comfort

I visit Eleanor's site every couple of days.  Thanks to the mild temperatures, I have been able to keep fresh flowers out there.

When I went yesterday, there was a small bouquet placed near her marker.  It really meant so much to me that someone came to visit her.

Painful Reminders and Closure

Today was my post partum visit with my doctor.  For some reason I did not realize it was going to be as hard as it was.  I was okay through the blood pressure and temperature taking, talking to the nurse about the weather.  I even made a half-joke about being dressed nicely for the day noting that I was making an effort to "fake it, 'til I make it."  (As a side note: her comment about my appearance made me sure of what I already suspected - that the last time she saw me, only two weeks out from losing Eleanor, that I looked like a total zombie mess.)

But when she asked me to undress so the doctor could check the episiotomy site and make sure my cervix was closed - I lost it.  It just hit me like a bullet.

Now, let me say that my rational mind knows that I am not pregnant.  I know that I delivered and lost my sweet E.  But as I have said before, it all happened so quickly, turning from celebration to tragedy in a blink, that I remain very much in shock.  I often tell Dan it feels like we are still waiting for her to arrive.

So while I waited for the doctor, I grieved.  That this visit really meant it was over.  That I was not waiting for her to arrive but coping with the loss of her.  That in a few minutes, I would have to endure an examination that over the last few months had been associated only with good news - the progress of the pregnancy, the excitement as we neared the due date.

To be honest I think I was suffering from post traumatic stress at the thought of, this time, this examination would be further proof of the finality of what had happened.  My body had returned to non-pregnant condition and I had no baby girl to acknowledge it had ever happened.  It felt so barren and, as always, so painfully lonely.

But my doctor is wonderful and saw I was a woman on the edge.  So rather than coming in a quickly preforming an office visit that should have taken 5 minutes, she sat and talked with me.  How was I feeling? Physically? Mentally? Emotionally?  She gave me an update on their progress of trying to get answers about what happened to E.  Options for how to approach another pregnancy. Only after I was calmed down did she do what she had to.

And I got through it.  Just like with all new things I have to do as I carve out what my new normal looks like.

The Day Before She Arrived

The last Saturday of my old life was a really good one.  My due date was the very next day, February 5th, and I was scheduled to induce the following Wednesday.  I had little progress at my last two doctors appointments and it was beginning to look like Eleanor wasn't going to arrive on her own.

But I was too excited to wait.  I had made up my mind I was going to have her on her due date.  My parents had come to Fayetteville for the day on Saturday and tagged along as I finished up some errands including grocery shopping to get the cabinets stocked.  I had decided that morning that I had not planned adequate headwear for E so I picked up some tiny hats - this was a February baby after all, what was I thinking?!

In an effort to get things going, we ate a spicy pizza for lunch and I went on a walk that afternoon.  I text messaged Dan, who was volunteering at a high school track meet: "Went for a brisk walk. Still no baby." To which he responded "Oh jeez."

My parents headed home and I assured them Murphy's Law was on our side.  Since they had just been up that day and were now leaving - we could only assume as soon as they got home - I would go into labor and they would have to come right back.

One really great thing about being pregnant is you're totally allowed to stay home all the time and be super boring, under the guise that "I'm exhausted!, My legs/feet are so swollen!, I am concerned about being too far away from the refrigerator and television!"

So needless to say - plans for that night included feeding Dan the leftover pizza and watching TV.  We discussed watching a movie but deemed that "too much effort."

Around 10:30, I got up to use the bathroom (for the 20th time).  Then as I walked back tot the living room I though I wet my pants a little.  Or it was time!

"I think my water broke - or I peed my pants?" I said to Dan. A moment later it was very clear - It was time to go to the hospital.  We high-fived.  Because we are the dorkiest people.

As anyone who really loves me knows - I am always super prepared for everything so I threw my pre-packed bag in the car and we were off moments later.  

OR, closer to the truth - Dan and I scrambled around, changing out of jammmies, into clothes and throwing things into a bag.  I DID actually have Eleanor's things picked out and put aside and, thanks to a thoughtful gift from my sister-in-law, a bag full of any toiletries anyone could want.  I called my parents and confirmed that I was, in fact, right about Murphy's Law and come on back to Fayetteville.  They actually did have their overnight bag packed and ready to go.  First grand baby and all.

Because of the late hour, we had to check in through the emergency room.  By this time, my pants were soaked (sorry) and I was a little embarrassed.  As the lady in admitting brought the wheel chair to take me to labor and delivery, I looked at her square in the eye:

"Um, I have wet my pants completely - should I still sit down in the chair?"

"Thanks, but I think it will be OK."

We got to the birthing suite, Eleanor and I were given a once over by the nurse, everything looked good.  They sent the anesthesiologist in to give me my epidural which went off without a hitch (but the doctor who administered it was a bit of a grumpy-bear type and not particularly responsive to my nervous chatter during the process.  They stick a needle into your SPINE! As a first timer - some fear babble should be expected.

Even though by now it was near midnight I sent a text message out to some of my friends and my sisters:

"Baby time! Water broke this evening. Checked and waiting for her to arrive. :)"

My parents and youngest sister as well as my brother and his fiancee got there a short time later, we talked for a while but everyone decided it was better to get some sleep while we could.  The ruse said I was not dilating very fast and it would likely be hours before I began to push.

Everyone went to the hotel and Dan settled in on the tiny hard sofa that pulled out to a tiny hard bed.  So comfy!

I did not sleep, feeling very much like a kid on Christmas Eve.

I am Always Missing Her

I miss her all the time, everyday, every minute.  I can physically feel her absence.  Many, even most, hours of the day.  I can be up, walk around, get dressed, spend time with loved ones, and pose as a semi-normal human.  But instead of it just being natural, done without thought or planning like the un-grieving world, every moment not spent thinking of Eleanor, crying for her, wishing she was here and talking about her is 100 percent forced.

I do this for two reasons.  One: I fear that if I indulge these thoughts all the time I will actually go insane.  I can feel myself slipping away some moments, wanting to just lean into these dark thoughts.  So I make myself compartmentalize those most extreme feelings of sadness, letting them out only when I truly cannot hold them in a second longer.  And then I let them out.  And the process starts over again.

Two: The sad truth is, life goes on.  The days will keep coming.  And I will miss her want her and feel her empty place on the earth for the rest of my life.  So if I let myself drop out of the real world right now - what then?  When do I come back? How do I come back?  Could I?

So the old "fake it 'till you make it" adage comes to mind.  If I can make myself do the things that used to be real and ordinary in my former life - then maybe someday they can feel real and ordinary again.