Back to school

Thomas would have started grade two this week. On the first day of school, I lay in bed and told him about the day that would have been. The special breakfast I would have cooked, the way we'd have walked to school together, the treat I'd have made him to snack on after school while he told me about all the adventures he'd had as a big boy in grade two.

Then I got up and carried on with my day. I don't remember what I did, I just know it was painfully ordinary.

Back to school pictures, which began popping up on Facebook back in mid August as children of my American friends headed back, reached their agonizing peak this week. The annual assault.

I would have done it too, of course. Thomas all dressed up in his first-day best, smiling at the camera as he headed out the door to grade two. I would have sent the picture to his grandma and his Auntie Kathy. And his bubby and nonno too.

I would have.

Ha. Would.

It was wearying. My last grief-frayed nerve about to snap on Tuesday, when a new friend e-mailed me and asked how I was coping with the onslaught. She barely knows me. We've met once. But she has been a staunch supporter of Thomas' Random Act of Kindness Day since a mutual friend told her about it a few years ago, and she has a rare kind of sensitivity that I'm discovering is like a cooling balm on a sunburn.

A blissful salve on time-worn grief.

It didn't occur to anyone else. And nor should it, really. I'm not the centre of anyone's universe but my own. At seven-years old, my grief is seasoned. And besides, I don't tell people that eleventy-billion milestone pictures coming at me for two solid weeks eventually starts to erode the stitches holding my heart together. So how could anyone have known?

But thank God for that one friend who did think to ask. It's all I needed.

All the bereaved moms I know say the same thing: every once in a while we just want someone to acknowledge our loss. Not all the time and not out of guilt or obligation. But maybe once in a blue moon; just a quiet nod to the ongoing agony of loss that ebbs and flows as life marches on. Especially as life marches on.

Because grief marches in place.

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk

My book was talking to me last night.

Feeling wide awake and vaguely tense (which could have been all the sugar I ate at the CNE yesterday messing with me), I decided to read myself to sleep. It usually works like a Valium-induced charm, but it failed miserably last night. In part because the final 150 pages of the book were gripping, but also because it would not. shut. up.

Talking books are such a nocturnal buzz-kill.

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing", it said to me.

I hate when books are smarter than I am. And I hate when they get all up in my face, trying to teach me valuable life lessons when I'm just trying to get to sleep after a vegetable-less day of total crap eating.

Book was right, though. What was, rather miraculously, left standing in the bloody aftermath of my quest for a child is what I'm building my life upon. It doesn't mean that what (or who) is missing isn't important and hasn't changed me, forever altering the course of the life that remains. But what I snuggle up to each night, hold hands with in a crowded midway, and share my rocky road cheesecake with is what's here.

And my God, it's good.

So, that was nice. A bit of a slap upside the head, but I can't say it's terrible to be reminded that it's important to readjust one's focus every now and then. Book meant well.

"A lost child follows a mother all her life", came just a few pages later.

It screamed through my body and brain, that phrase, with its searing truth. The tears finally came when I read Book's final chapter, closed it, and turned out the light.

Thomas would have been starting Kindergarten today.

I lay on my back with my hands on my belly, the empty tomb where he once rolled and kicked and lived. I cried softly for him in the dark. I whispered his name.

Book was probably thoroughly disgusted with this wanton display of ingratitude for the life I have, especially after it had just reminded me that what I have is pretty sweet, all things considered. But Book can suck it.

I finally got up, took some deep breaths of cool night air at the window, and found a cat to cuddle. Sleep inducing solace eventually came from the Internets. The people inside my computer are as wise as Book, and infinitely more empathetic. Messages from four night owls in response to a pitiful Facebook status gave me the comfort I needed for sleep to come.

And it did. I curled up next to My Beloved, a toothless old cat tucked in beside us, and smiled as I dozed off.  Because books are smart, friends are kind, and darkness makes you see the unfathomable beauty in the light.

Saving grace

It's pouring rain - pounding on the roof and, thankfully, on my poor parched pie pumpkins which can't seem to get enough water these days.

But that's not what's keeping me up. Mostly it's all the cheese and chocolate. A fondue extravaganza, is what it was, with wine and friends. And way, way, way too much food. Seriously.

And then, A Single Man. Which, if you haven't seen it, is utterly fantastic. It so beautifully and artfully demonstrates what it's like seeing life through the lens of loss; how shades of gray dominate until a spark of beauty - a kind word, a lovely face, a selfless gesture - infuses a moment with colour. And in those moments, a fragment of the beauty that existed before loss returns. Shines. Saves.

It was truly stunning in its simplicity and power.

And it's all so true. Loss does alter the way you see the world, and there's nothing you can do to change that. You can't un-ring a bell, as they say. And so it follows that you can't be who or what you were before loss. That person is simply gone.

But there are moments that revive your soul, quench a thirst you didn't know you had, and keep you moving forward. Step by stubborn step.

Today it was a chance encounter in the parking lot of the grocery store. A voice calling my name, a hand gently touching my arm, a friend asking for news about my dad - caring so very much.

And in those few sweet moments, colour radiated from her and bathed me in its healing light.

And for that gentle, restorative energy I am so grateful.

Once again, I am saved.

Imagine that

"I just read your "about me" section", she wrote in a Facebook message to me.

"I am sorry to hear about your baby tragedy :( I didn't know."

She wasn't afraid of me. She wasn't afraid to speak of the unspeakable. To acknowledge my sorrow and my loss. To risk reminding me of my grief (as though I could ever forget it). To reach out to me.

She wasn't afraid.

And my heart feels as light as a feather.