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

No Breakfast, No Cards

Next Sunday, I will join moms across the country for Mother's Day.  Mostly because I love a good excuse to go out to eat and have Daniel say nice things to me.  But today, for the second year, I privately noted Bereaved Mother's Day.

I don't make a big deal out of it because A) I have no problem setting aside everyday to be  mom to Eleanor and wish she was here. And B) I think celebrating the daughter that made me a mom on Mother's Day suits me just fine.  Just because I hold her in my heart, not arms, does not make me less of a mom to her and she is not one fraction less than my child.

But I am glad for this day and glad for all the women out there who find comfort in this day for them, before the intensity of all who are wonderfully oblivious to empty arms begins to press down on them, to know they are special, important and loved.  Even if our children aren't here to write a down in a card.

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.

Eleanor's First Birthday

It was a date that loomed on the calendar for months.  Eleanor's first birthday.  I knew I wanted to do something to celebrate and remember her but had no idea how to proceed.  I mean, what person on the planet wants to mark a their child's birthday like this?

Edison's healthy arrival just 8 days before helped to give me strength.  But recovering from surgery and a newborn limited what could be done.

In the end we settled on a balloon release.  Just family and held at her spot at Fairview Memorial Gardens.  It's hard for me to call it her grave - I avoid the term, along with cemetery, when I can.

The weather was ridiculously nice, as though the universe knew it was important to make the day as beautiful and happy as possible.  Dan's family went to her spot earlier in the morning, putting out a cheerful fresh flower arrangement, swapping out the more permanent, weather-sturdy, decorations that are usually there.

Every member of the family released a purple balloon.  Each balloon had a tag, handmade by two of my dear friends.  they wrote her name and birthday on each of the 20+ tags, then drew an elephant on the back of each.  I think back to just over one year ago, and wonder how I could have ever prepared them or myself for the idea that they would be helping plan Eleanor's first in such a strange and sad way.

We released Ed's balloon last.  Untied it from his carrier and set it free.  All the balloons were picked up by the wind quickly and carried high into the sky.

Maybe someone found one of the cards when they fell back to Earth and wondered who Eleanor was and understood from this small gesture that she must be really loved.  I hope so.

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.