I'm mad at Blogger for being an asshole. I keep trying to comment on posts and my comments get eaten, sent into oblivion. Anyone else? What the hell. So, I guess, if you're reading this and I usually comment on your posts, please know I've been reading, and trying to comment. But maybe what I have to say is deemed too stupid by Blogger, and it's saving face for me.
Life's been, you know, life. Busy. Bumbling. E's in school four days a week, so O and I have some more time, just the two of us. Sleep schedules are erratic, hence little sit-and-think time for me.
But I have been thinking. O turns two in two days. Gosh. Two years. I can't help but remember those last days of panic, worry, fear, anticipation and excitement before he was born. I hardly dared hope he would make it. But oh, he did.
And she didn't. And I wasn't worried about her at all. Now I worry about the two here, all the time.
I think about the rest of forever. Forever missing that little girl I never even knew. I think about those first days after she was born. The earthquake in Haiti. The cold, cold January air. Being wheeled out of a hospital empty handed.
(No, that's not right. I was wheeled out with my maternity clothes and a binder full of good ideas on how to grieve.)
My life is so very different from then, now. That was almost three years ago.
I am getting better at being around almost-three-year-old girls. The pounding in and on my chest has slowed to just a dull thump here and there.
It's the waiting, though, for the inevitable stumbling blocks. This is the thing, I'm learning, about forever. Shit's bound to happen sooner or later. Like, "You're not going for a girl?", "You have boys, they're so much easier than girls," or meeting a girl named Calla--which has happened, but she was the hostess at a restaurant, an older teenager, maybe early 20s. Meeting new people and deciding when, or if, I should explain about our dead baby, what their reaction and departure-time-out-the-door time will be.
The sadness just creeps up and surprises me sometimes. And it surprises me, really, to think that I've gone so many days and nights without crying, when almost three years ago I couldn't imagine the crying could ever stop.
It is a challenge to parent my children sometimes. E is . . . intense. The kind of kid who wakes up before 6, worrying if he'll have to have a try-bite at dinner twelve hours later in the day. He has, as my mother says, one speed--and that is GO, fast. O is way more mellow, but man, that kid can be a hard head. We are currently locked in the epic battle of Hat Wearing--and lo, I will win.
It is a challenge for which I often believe I am ill-equipped. Having a dead baby makes my parenting even more difficult, because lumped in with all the usual patience-reservoir-scraping, the guilt is multiplied to a factor of infinity. But maybe I'm overestimating myself? Maybe the guilt is this heavy for everyone, dead baby or not. I should be more, I could be more, I should be better. I swore I would be in that hospital bed almost three years ago, and many days I fall so very short.
Somehow this turned into a pity party, and that wasn't my intention. Life has been busy, life has been good. I'll leave you with this. If you see me in the parking lot of Target with my windows up and a little boy in the back seat, head on the steering wheel, you'll know what I'm listening to.
Oh I have two hard headed children of my very own. With whom I am oft to be found locked in epic battle.
ReplyDeleteI'm always sworn that I would be better tomorrow. Even before she died. And that is a heavy burden of guilt to haul around. I think I've given up trying? Good enough, good enough seems to have become my mantra.
It's not a pity party. I don't think so. It's . . . . just the way it is. Busy. Good. Need to sit in a carpark with my head resting on the steering wheel for a moment.
Beautiful song. One of the songs my Dad used to play me when I was little, he has it on 45 RPM vinyl. One of my favourite songs from my favourite artists. Which spawned an album called 'Boxer' from another of my favourite artists, The National. Some songs just need to be sat through.
Tiring and surprising and a muddle. This life.
There you are!!! All perfectly consumed in your life! Being with your boys no matter how headstrong or amicable... Two small people requiring your attention. As far as head on the steering wheels and heads upon them go.. It seems to be a good position for listening to music. Sometimes even loudly so as to drown out the racket going on in the caresses behind you :) crazy that Owen will be 2!!! I find it interesting that you have met someone named Calla. It's a beautiful name but uncommon. That would make my stomach go all twisty. I remember gearing a mother talking to her daughter and I thought the little girls name was Camille. It made ne tear up and stare, trying to figure out what that Camille looked like, if mine would look similar, it does strange things to your head to hear your daughters name.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm different with my parenting because of my loss. My parenting lacks in patience but I think I feel all grippy and panicky sometimes and I know that is the stems of loss stabbing into my heart.
Anyway. So glad to hear you.