Straight and narrow

The Cub met the approximate hour of his five months birthday by doing what he has taken to doing in the early hours of the morning these last couple of weeks-- nursing. He did that a couple more times before seven o'clock when he gave a significant portion of it back-- I am pretty sure the kid overate.

We met and dispatched the day by doing nothing in particular, and certainly nothing remarkable. My mom called to say happy five months to him and us, and I said thank you. We mentioned it again at dinner, and JD said "wow, Monkey, can you believe the Cub's been living with us for five whole months now?" And she corrected him by saying that no, he hasn't been at home for that long-- remember that whole week he had to be in the hospital. "Yes, but still with us," JD persisted. Of course, always with us.

For a little over a month now we have been able to make him laugh. Predictably sometimes (by doing particular things, and I certainly do take the opportunity whenever I can), and randomly at other times. He has the infectious laugh of a happy infant, and the unmistakable features of my father's line when he does laugh. And he is in love with his sister. As well he should be. She's been in love from, you know, many many months back. She tells us he is getting heavy (he is), but she doesn't think much of the "so you don't have to pick him up" solution.

And yet, as I've recently told Tash, the Cub exists on a completely different plain inside my heart than his brother. The glorious everyday-ness of his existence is no match for January, for me missing his brother in the particularly intense way that demands that I stop, every so often, in the middle of my day to name the well above the ambient dull ache-- I miss my son. I only say it to myself, inside my head. But I want to scream it on the street as I walk to buy the lunch I didn't have the time to pack that morning-- I miss my son. I still miss my son. More today, these days, than at other times. But I think I will always miss my son.

I've been at this long enough to know that with the significant dates, with the anniversaries, the bark seems to always be worse than the bite. The dates will come whatever I do, and when they are here, we will do what we need to do to get through them. But the days before the days... those seem long, torturously long, stretching towards the last two days of January. But they also seem short, like they will fly and then I won't be ready.

I've been more or less (much more than less) unproductive at work the last couple of days, almost a week. Which is silly because the new semester won't wait for me to be ready. I have to get ready, and in time to help other people get ready too. That the new semester starts in the middle of the last week of January is, I would say, incredibly inconsiderate of it.

I think I have been dragging towards today. From here on out it's A anniversary express-- all aboard! Nothing but build-up, anniversaries of dates and events edged in my memory. And yet, just as there is palpable joy and beauty and gratitude in my every moment with the Cub, I know there is fragile and quiet tribute in the days that lead me to the days. The joy, of course, is plainer to notice, more obvious. Not to mention more pleasant to sit with.

But I will do my best to not wish these days away, to not stomp through them. I will endeavor instead to walk them with the attention and care they deserve. Endeavor, that's all. No promises as to how well I'll do at it.

Bewildered

I had to cancel on my sister for tonight. Because I forgot we had other plans, forgetting stemming from my continued inability to synchronize the days of the week with the days of the month in my head. January is messing with me. Ugh...

The thing I canceled, likely moved to tomorrow actually, is our monthly sisterly date. So ok, it hasn't been every month, but we have done well. Usually we go out. This time we are supposed to stay in and mess with the me-s on our new Wii Fit (pooled New Year present from said wonderful sister and BIL and our wonderful parents-- see, blogging can be profitable; um, no, parentals don't read, sister does). Stay tuned for my "actual" age. I am kinda not looking forward to learning what it assigns me. Or exactly how round it makes my me. Can we say embarrassing?

Anyway, I was thinking today of how the sisterly date thing started. My first period after A was weird. [Warning: avert your eyes and scroll for a few if you are not interested in exactly how weird it was.] It took longer to come than the literature says. It sort of started, then disappeared, then started for real. And then on day three of for real got much heavier. Which never happened to me before (or since). [Ok, you can stop averting now.]

I made a mistake of mentioning the weirdness to my mom, who promptly decided that SOMETHING WAS WRONG, and commenced pestering both me and my sister that I should go be seen. Knowing that sometimes the price of peace is doing what she asks, I called. And was told to go to maternity triage. The same triage where I learned that my son had died. Exactly eight weeks before that day. Um-hu.

Luckily, my sister came with. While they ran blood tests, we talked, we snarked, we trash-talked about the long arms of the law mom that caused us to be there in the first place. We laughed, bitterly and sarcastically, but we laughed. And afterwards we went to dinner. And resolved to do that again, once a month or so. Minus the trip to triage, if possible.

I wonder if we looked weird, not two months later, laughing in that place. I wonder what the nurses and midwives who staff that room thought. If they thought our (my, really) reaction strange they never said a word. The one nurse gave us a look after one of our very dark humored jokes, but she rolled with it. And was nice to us.

In the many visits to triage I ended up making in my pregnancy with the Cub I never got anything but kindness from them. Even when I knew I was probably overreacting to this symptom or that, they assured me that they had absolutely nothing better to do, that whatever I needed to do was fine, that they weren't tired of seeing me. (I think, actually, the next time after the visit with my sister that I walked into triage was the time that Dr. Friend and his wonderful ultrasound machine on wheels saved my sanity.)

The reason I am seemingly unable to let go of the memory of us on that triage visit, it having been called up by the sister date thing, the reason I am wondering how we looked... Hey, I know we are judged everywhere. Are we grieving appropriately? Healthy? Or what is it, are we grieving still? Everyone's a critic, I know. It just that it still blows my mind, though I know it shouldn't, how sure some people are of their own infallibility. And how close to the bone they can cut. And how there are some quarters we just don't expect it from. It must be nice to live your life that sure though. Must be simple. Prosecutor, judge, jury, all rolled into one, no defense attorney necessary.

It didn't happen to me this time, but to a friend. But it comes on the heals of another friend getting gobsmacked with a similarly ridiculous and unexpected weirdness, though in another realm altogether. And I stand here, squinting as if at a bright light. Really? Really? The world, is it this fucked up? Still?



So tell me your stories, please. Desensitizing therapy, I suppose. Tell me of how you were stabbed in the back. Or tell me of how it was for you going to the maternity floor, after. Or how you think it might be, whenever you get to go.

Here

When she started her blog I was still pregnant with A. But not for long. When we exchanged our first emails, I was still so newly grieving I didn't even realize I was still newly grieving. That was on A's due date-- twenty two months less a day ago. And this morning Niobe's baby son was born safely into this world.

I keep trying to express how happy I am for her, and no words seem adequate... For once I am so happy I am nearly mute.

One less

People have been telling me that I look good. What they mean, because I, at nearly 200 pounds on my five-one-and-a-half frame and often with no real time to pay mind to my appearance most decidedly do not look good, is that I look lighter. The other lighter, the less encumbered one rather than the less hefty.

One mom in Monkey's class even went so far as to observe, not two weeks ago, that I go have a new baby and suddenly look better. It's supposed to be the other way around, she said. She didn't remember that she saw me pregnant with A, and I can't really blame her for the very human fuzziness of her memory-- we were only looking at the school then, both of us there for one of the Open Houses. I reminded her, and sometime in the next bit of the conversation came "ah, that explains, then, why you always looked so unhappy." Heh. Good to know, I guess...

Which is to say I knew I looked like hell. I just didn't know I looked that obviously or that consistently like hell. Grief, anxiety, responsibility-- it's a heady cocktail I was living on. Not FDA approved or recommended. I'm just sayin'.

I told JD sometime in the fall that it annoyed me when close friends told me I looked good. Not because I didn't want to look good, but because I didn't. And because them saying I did implied that they could no longer remember back to when I wore sizes in single digits and didn't have to strategically plot my movements around my own house lest the squeaky knee let me know exactly what it thinks of me, my ass, and the stairs. Good, as it applies to me among the people who have hung in apparently means jaw no longer in lockdown mode, smelling baby head with a drunk on love look in the eyes. And I know that's a lot, I do. It's everything, in fact. But it's not looking good, it's looking lighter.

I feel lighter, too. I felt it from the very moment the Cub exited my body. The push that propelled him into the world felt like it took off fifty pounds, or a hundred instead of the less than seven it actually did. It's not that I haven't been flattened with a strategically dumped ton of grief, or driven to deep sadness or profound anger over things that might seem insignificant to anyone else. It's just that it's not all the time now, and that, mostly, the stuff of daily living is not hard.

JD felt terrible that his very important and rather fun business trip left me to fend for myself with two sick kids, and the ever wise Tash reminded me that it's not like I do not have a right to complain. And G-d knows I am not one to suggest that a dead baby mama in possession of a new baby is not allowed to complain about the daily grind because she "got what she wanted." Never. It's just that it didn't feel like there was anything to complain about.

I am not a saint, people, nor do I play one on the internets. There are things I will complain about. Like the seemingly complete lack of sleep now two nights running-- alas I no longer possess the stamina of my undergraduate years and I do not do well on no sleep. I do not even do ok, if you get my meaning. There are even things I will take a certain amount of enjoyment in complaining about, said enjoyment located mainly in crafting the story for maximal effect. It's just that many things that should trigger the desire to complain (see: sick kids, husband away) simply don't. Or not so simply.

We had a gathering for the parents of the kids in Monkey's class a few months ago. I overheard a conversation there, and it's been worming its way inside my head since then. A father of four was telling a mother of three that just that weekend one of his kids had an unexpected sleepover, and suddenly they were able to get so.much.done. I am sure you know how it is, he said, when you temporarily find yourself with just one less than you are used to-- there is all this time you normally spend dealing with the kid who is off at a friend's, and you can now put that time towards a ton of little things that you wouldn't otherwise get to.

Maybe that's just it-- I always have one less. And no, I wasn't used to caring for three, and this is not temporary. Nevertheless, this feels a lot like a key to understanding the source of the very bearable lightness of my being these days-- most troubles are temporary, but I always have one less. Oh, and the troubles that look like they could possibly be non-temporary? Those still freak me right out.


P.S. Somehow this seems apropos here: I noticed that I have trouble saying "both kids". I can do it without the "kids," if, for example, in a previous clause I have identified them individually, e.g. Monkey wants an apple, the Cub could use his toy from the kitchen counter, and they both need baths tonight. But I feel like without the setup it's the wrong word to use for the two when the one in the middle is missing. I noticed that I am having the same issue in both languages. Anyone else with me, or am I overthinking the heck out of this?

Lights out

I lit this candle the night of the day the big wave overtook me. By the time it was ready to go out, shortly after some of you lit your candles on the second Sunday in December, I was through the worst of that particular round.

The last of the last candle of the last Shabbat of the year. And if you are quick on the uptake, you realize that the fact that I took this picture proves that I am decidedly not Orthodox.

Hanukkah is also finished. Sigh. I love the candles every night.

A's name means "the father of the candle (or of the light)." Honestly not until I submitted my portrait for the Glow contributors page did I make the connection with how much comfort I drew from the candles I have lit in the last 23 months. I am slow like that. But I also don't think it's any kind of a sign-- we picked the name after he died, but it was the name at the top of a very short list. And I have always loved watching candles. And bonfires.

Today is 23 months. It's a Wednesday again, only the second time this has happened so far. And in an hour it will be a new year where we are.

2008 was good to us, even if it was hard. But I will take good and hard over terrible and hard, any day. And now it must end. Just like every candle ever lit must go out.

I wish you all a good year, a better year than you dare wish for yourself. See you on the other side.

Ebb and flow

When I first started this post, some two and a half weeks ago now, its title was "Fuuuuuuuck." It was an apt description of the wave of grief that had slammed into me, unexpected in its full-throttled intensity. Those days the missing was intense. Physical. Heavy.

I don't really know why. It came on just as Monkey and the Cub were each recovering from a major case of non-overlapping sickies (though I think it started for each of them with a common, in both senses of the word, cold) and JD slightly more than half way through his business trip to half a word away.

While they were sick, clingy and miserable I hugged, comforted, took temperatures, dispensed medications, and even ran to work for a couple of hours each of the three days the nanny was at our house. My work suffered, but I regarded the ever-growing pile of brick wall deadlines being bulldozed towards the winter break with resigned calm. I had zen.

I was also acutely aware that one of my children was missing. Is missing. Will always be missing. But that is sort of an everyday background hum kind of awareness. It's there, and it colors, but it does not encroach, it does not overwhelm. It is an awareness of sitting on the couch, holding the baby to me with one arm, and the first grader with another, both of them sick and in need of the mommy fix, knowing that as a result that coffee fix I need is a long way off, and yet feeling decidedly uncrowded. Feeling in my bones the outline of the one I never did, never will get to comfort, feeling, with my body and my soul, exactly where he would fit.


I learned to swim when I was little. I remember going to my swim class at six, and I was pretty good by then, so the lessons must've started at five or so. Before that I know that my dad taught me. I have pieces here and there, but no coherent memories of learning piece by piece. But I also watched and helped him teach my sister a couple of years later, and that is why I know that it had to be him who taught me to lie on the water. I remember him telling Adelynne to trust it, telling her that the ocean will support her body if she just relaxes and nixes the flailing. I remember him explaining to me why this is such an important thing to learn.

If I may be so bold as to speak for my sister, it has served us well, that skill. Once you learn how to make like a starfish and float, among other things, you have a resting place on any beach. It even comes with built in earmuffs (natch). And if you can do that face down and are not opposed to the feel of snorkel in your mouth, many an underwater wonder are yours for the looking. Relax, don't fight it, it will carry you. It works great even with a mild wave going-- you just get rocked a little and carried gently.

That's what that everyday feeling is like-- the ocean under me. I am aware of, but not generally bothered by it. And it's a long way from the rather opposite one that overtook me just as it became clear that both sickies were in retreat-- the feeling of being picked up by a wave only to be violently thrown against a seawall. Complete, of course, with a rinse and a repeat. I felt like I was drowning in grief.

I don't know why it happened just then. I am wondering if it wasn't that doing as much as they needed for the two children who are here underscored just how little, nothing really, I get to do for the one who is not. But ultimately it doesn't matter why. It happened, like it has happened a number of times before, like I am sure it will happen time and time again in the future.

[I hasten to add here that of course my life with the Cub is better than it was before him. Of course. Richer, more colorful, more joyous, more tender, filled once more with wonder. But he is not a bandaid, nor a fancy laser surgery even. This is not about him.]


This fall has been full of subtle and not very much reminders of two years ago. The trapeze. When I first saw it, it looked both intimidating and enticing in its otherness. I wanted to try it, but I couldn't-- I was pregnant with A. JD talking about a conference he was forgoing this year causing me to remember going there with him two years before, right after the big ultrasound, trying to get used to the idea that the baby was a boy, trying not to freak out about it.

This year I wore flip flops on December 1st, just as I did two years before. Then it was because my feet had swelled, and it was very warm out. This year it was because it wasn't terribly cold, and because due to thyroid weirdshit (it's a term of art-- look it up) I can tolerate cold even better than my normal abnormally high tolerance. Last year on December 1st we were pretty well snowed under, and I was reminding JD where we were the year before.

I wonder if the slowroll of memories isn't because last fall was all about being stuck, waiting, waiting some more, and a whole lot of RE trouble. But it doesn't matter, does it? It just is.

The December we are having is some kind of a weird mix of the two before it-- less snowed under than last year, and with a thorough thaw following the storms that left our deck buried, but much better endowed in the snow department than two years back. Monkey remembers that, by the way-- she remembers that it didn't snow much the winter her brother died.

My December, too, has been mixed. By the time JD was back from his trip I was doing better. I could breathe, for one. I've had a bad day or three since, and more bad hours thrown into otherwise fine days. I know that part of it is about today and tomorrow marking not just the end of the calendar year, but also our 23 monthaversary, the gateway into the final month of the second year. The second anniversary is looming. Not as intimidating as the first, but clearly not a day at the park. I can already feel the kind of hard that January will be. I will have a lot to say, if the words don't get stuck in my throat.

What's your poison?

Today over at Glow in the woods I spin a long tale of whence my latte habit comes from. And I ask for your personal get through the day without losing your mind techniques. Please share with the class-- I for one am always on the lookout for more and better vices ways to deal.