The unberable lightness of being

It's not like I'm walking on sunshine and floating two feet off the ground or anything. But this morning it dawned on me that life is sort of good right now. Uncomplicated in a way it hasn't been in, well, in virtually my entire life, really.

We're not trying to have a baby anymore. So my body has ceased to be a science experiment/means to an end/poorly constructed baby-making machine. It's just my body again. Arms, legs, graying head and a busted uterus that can just fucking relax now, since it's not going to be called into action ever again.

If you listen closely, you can probably hear it sighing happily from all the way over there.

I pay little to no attention to bodily fluids. I have no idea what my temperature is on any given morning. I've stopped shelling out a fortune on sticks designed to be peed upon. I no longer mark the passage of time in 28-day units. I don't have to decide if just one more surgery or fertility treatment will do the trick. I no longer live in fear worrying about what one more loss would do to my already-fractured brain. And, perhaps best of all, the end of a cycle doesn't shatter me to my very core like it used to. Every single time.

People are no longer depending upon my body to produce a child, grandchild, cousin, niece/nephew. No one's crossing their fingers or praying or hoping or giving us knowing glances. The pressure cooker existence I once boiled away in has cooled to a lovely lukewarm bath.

The guilt is still there. It will always be there. I couldn't produce a living child, grandchild, niece/nephew. But at least the trying is over. We can all just agree that I failed and move on.

Or I can agree that I failed and everyone else can be mad at me for calling myself a failure.

Either way, we all move on.

And then there's the other shoe. The one that dropped on January 4, 2011 when I got the call that Dad had died. He got horribly sick (sicker than he'd ever been, which is saying a lot since he'd been in fragile health for 27 years), and after tenaciously battling a host of medical issues that would have immediately felled a lesser (or less stubborn) man, he quietly slipped away in the night.

I no longer panic when I hear the phone ring. I don't dwell on what it's going to be like "after" because I'm living it now. My stomach doesn't clench in anxiety when I pull up to their house. I don't have to wonder about what kind of day he's having - if he'll fall, if he'll die in front of me, if he'll be so confused he won't know who I am. I don't ache as I watch him suffer unthinkable fatigue, pain and indignities. Most of all, he is no longer suffering.

As I said yesterday, I am breathing these days. The good kind of breaths. Better than I've breathed in almost as long as I can remember.

My life is more about me than it has been in a very long time.

I'm not 100% carefree or without responsibility. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. But the fact is that I am living a more peaceful life right now. Work is plentiful enough, My Beloved is still beloved, my mom is in relatively good health, and I passed my annual physical with flying colours (which is astounding given the grief eating I did during 2011, not to mention all the stress).

Sorrow is still an ever present interloper, but it's a snarling beast I've mostly learned how to tame. I know to lure it into its cage when I need relief, and let it out to be walked when it needs to stretch its legs.

We have it mostly figured out, me and Sorrow.

So life is just...life these days. Quieter, less complicated and much prettier than I've seen it in a very long time.


I could get used to this.

The long goodbye

The other day I read an article about the formalized mourning rituals observed by Jews. Being married to someone who is half Jewish, I'm familiar with some of those rituals - like sitting Shiva for 7 days, and the unveiling of the monument one year later.

But what I didn't know is that they understand that that grief takes a solid year to truly process. They figured this out, wrote it down, handed it out and now they all just know to treat each other a little more gently when the heart is healing post-loss. Imagine that.

It has now been one year and five days since my dad died.

Losing Thomas taught me that you don't get over a loss, you simply learn to live with it. So I knew I wouldn't magically feel like "the old me" when the sun rose on January 5th. I knew I would feel like the new me: the one who now lives in a world where my dad does not. The one who lost someone whose voice has been dear to her since before she was even born. But the one who is, nonetheless, still alive.

That's why I also knew I'd probably feel like I could take real breaths again on January 5th. Long, slow, deep ones - not just short, quick gasps designed to keep me alive.

And I did.

The hellish first year is behind me.

And I can breathe.

What remains

Yesterday I hosted a jewelry party - a fabulous girly event attended by some of my closest friends and lady family. I put out a little cookie spread while my incredibly talented friend (accompanied by her helpermom) arranged her gorgeous handmade pieces in my dining room. She works in stone and sterling silver, and oh my - such loveliness my dining room table has never seen!

It was a too-quick sort of affair for me. I was, as it turns out, starved for this kind of joy. The house rang with the sort of raucous laughter that can only be generated when women are under the spell of lovely things and in the company of good friends.

I spent the evening buzzing in the afterglow of the happy energy that filled my house for those three perfect hours.

And what I realized, after thinking so much about each of the lovely people who flitted around the dining room table snatching up Donna's bracelets, earrings, and necklaces as they laughed and chatted; is that I love my life.

There are great holes in it. There are massive sorrows. There are missing people. There are scars that will never fade. But I love what's here. What's here now.

What I do have, as it turns out, I adore.

I watched my friends - people I have cared about and known for years - as they flooded my house with their joy, and found myself pulled in. I have danced on the periphery for so long. I have spent endless days, months, years; waiting, trying, struggling. I have pretended to be happy. I have lied about being happy. Even to myself. Often to myself.

But yesterday I really was happy. And it occurred to me for the first time that I love this life.

I love what remains.

This is not to say that I'm happy that this is how my life has turned out. This is not what I chose - it's not what My Beloved and I wanted or planned. But in the aftermath I've somehow managed to carve out a sweet and happy place, and I'm grateful for the peace. And for the friends who helped me realize that I have it.

 (One of three (yeah, three) of my pretty new bracelets. Seriously, it was a good day all 'round.)

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.

Two showers in June

I'm just going to come right out and admit it: it's still an energy-sucking challenge to clear out a corner of space in my head to make way for happy for someone else. There's all kind of stuff to wade through to get all the way to some new post-Thomas, post-miscarriages, post-infertility version of being genuinely happy. I have to sort through sorrow, jealousy, and disbelief that it's not me (yeah, still - after all these years. How can it not be me?), and then run the memory gauntlet.

I had my own shower, you know. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the oohs and ahhs for little outfits, and jingly toys, and practical nursery items when I was the one sitting in the specially festooned chair.

So two showers in June. A challenge.

The funny thing is, I didn't hesitate to say yes to either. Okay, a fraction of a second maybe, but that's it. And the happiness for each of those new mothers is genuine too. A first child for one, a gorgeous little adopted daughter from China for the second.

Honestly. I'm absolutely thrilled for both of them, after two very hard-fought and incredibly well-deserved battles.

It's just that the post-apocalypse shower experience is not without a certain degree of mental gymnastics. Kind of like an out of body sort of situation where I float above the sorrowful self, join in the oohing and ahhing, and then plunk back down into the body with the aching heart and sink into a quiet, restorative stupor when I'm back home, safe and sound.

I'm also keenly aware that people know. Not everyone, of course, but some. And I wonder if I'm looking as happy as they think I should be, or if I'm reacting to the gifts with as much enthusiasm as they'd expect. Or if I'm overdoing it - making it look disingenuous and plastic.

I think too much. I know that. And eventually at both showers I relaxed and slipped into a protective comfort zone where I just didn't care what anyone thought, for the most part. I focused on the mothers-to-be and absorbed little fragments of their joy, making it my own.

Joy is like that. Which is useful for me, since I'm very susceptible to picking up other people's moods.

And then I came home, closed the door to the outside world and proceeded to unclench, uncork, and slowly relax.

I shouldn't be, I suppose, but I continue to be amazed by exactly how much mental energy it takes to navigate a child-centric world when you're childless not by choice. There are landmines everywhere, and while they usually don't blow me to pieces anymore, they do inflict some degree of injury. Every time.

But I'm glad I successfully navigated the showers - the first two I've felt strong enough to go to since Thomas died. I think I did okay. And I'm comforted that despite the work (which I have to assume is always going to be required), I really can come to a place where I feel absolute joy for someone else.

All the ugly gunk is still there - let's be clear, I'm not a saint or a magician or completely delusional - but I've figured out a way to drill through it and make a peephole of joy.

And sweet Jesus, a peephole, for someone like me, might as well be the Grand Canyon.

It's all we can do

I read a blog yesterday that has had me thinking ever since. No mean feat given how busted up my weary brain is these days.

The blogger was wondering aloud if she still belonged in the dead baby mama"club" since, after losing her first child, she has gone on to have a second, and is now pregnant with her third. Her concerns seemed to be for those of us who are still childless, who she believes may not think she belongs anymore because she is a live-child mother.

I'm not going to lie. I have thought a lot about the whole "us vs. them" situation over these last few years of childlessness. There are just a small handful of us left who have lost and not been able to gain. We are the minority, and not an especially vocal one, for the most part. We often just watch from the sidelines, unsure of what to say or do next. In life, not just in blogland.

It's part of the reason I quietly disappeared from the blogosphere last summer. We'd decided to stop trying, I wasn't parenting living children, and having lost the last of my babies two years earlier,  I just didn't know what was left to say - or who was left to read any of it anyway.

We move on. It's what we do, we baby loss survivors.

So I faded away. Until I realized that there are still volumes left to speak. Of course there are.

Because, as it turns out, moving on doesn't mean you have nothing more to say. You just have different things to say instead - a whole different voice to go with your whole new life. And for me, it's all about coping with a life that looks nothing like I expected it would. It's about grieving for my lost children, sure, but it's also about grieving for my lost family. I constantly find myself contemplating what that loss will look like when I am old. When, maybe, I am well and truly alone.

We are not what you'd expect. We are two - not three, four or five as we might have been had things been different.

And yes, in many ways I do feel like I don't belong in the same category as the babyloss mothers who have gone on to have living children. I can't understand their new world anymore than they can understand mine. But I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of putting people into categories and neat little boxes. I feel different enough without actually defining and labeling myself as such.

We're all different. Even amongst those who have gone on to have living children there are differences. I'm sure this must be true.

We come from a common place of grief, but we fan out from there, moving along different paths, in different directions and on into different lives as we continue to cope with our loss and sorrow in the best ways we know how.

My road brought me here, to a childless existence with My Beloved and our motley collection of felines. Sometimes I limit my exposure to pregnancy, babies and children when my heart is feeling too tender. Sometimes I seek out ways to interact with the children around me whom I love when that same broken heart is aching for contact with wee ones. Because my soul still longs to mother, even after all this time.

I think it's about respecting each others' journeys and recognizing that we're all doing the best we can with the burden of sorrow we were handed. Until someone gives me a manual for this grief, all I can do is what feels right for me. And that's all I expect from my sisters in sorrow.

We do the best we can. All of us.

Thanks, Kitty

On Saturday morning we had to put My Beloved's cat to sleep. Kitty, at 17, had lived longer with My Beloved's parents than with him after he was forbidden to take her with him when he moved out of the house.

But still, she was his. And we had to make the agonizing call on Saturday morning after the vet ran tests through the night. It was the right call, of course. Neither of us wanted to prolong her suffering, and she was indeed suffering.

But still. But still.

As we were driving about in the bright February sunshine later that day trying to amuse and sooth ourselves, I had that odd, familiar feeling. We were at a red light and I was absently watching traffic passing in front of us. The cars drove by, the people inside oblivious to the sorrow I felt for the little orange cat I'd said goodbye to the night before.

And it all felt familiar. So familiar.

It was like I was wrapped in gauze, staring out at the bright, functioning world from within a filmy layer of sorrow. Both part of the world, and yet somehow totally removed from it. Seeing it all, but not fully engaged in any of it.

It's the way I spent most of my 30s. Losing babies and losing Thomas and sitting in a tiny cocoon of grief, detached from the world around me.

Of course, Kitty was a cat. And as sad as it is to lose a pet, the sorrow eases much more quickly. The world won't wait long before pulling you back into its warmth and brightness in its eagerness to show you all the joys and beauty it has to offer.

But not so when it's a child you're grieving for. The gauze is thicker. The time it takes to shrug it off and truly see again is much, much longer.

I knew I was in full-on survival mode when I was in the first throes of grief with each of my babies. I knew I was absorbed in my pain and I did feel a sense of detachment from the world and people around me.

But it wasn't until Kitty died that I realized just how isolating that grief is. It came and went with Kitty - she wasn't mine and the length of that immediate shock and sorrow was appropriate for the situation. But it lingered for months, maybe years, after Thomas died. I just didn't realize it until I felt it again - until I saw the world through the gauzy lens of sorrow once more.

You don't know how much progress you've made until something like losing a cat reminds you exactly how far you've come.

And I have come far, as it turns out. I really have.

The journey

Moving, moving, moving. Always moving forward. Which is, of course, the only direction that makes any sense.

Saturday we took two carloads of Thomas' baby things to a maternity home in a neighbouring city. All those precious odds and sods and sweet little things we were lovingly given, and purchased ourselves, with such hope and love and optimism.

Gone.

But it's good. It is.

It started the week before last when I took the crib, a play mat and a bag of smaller items to the church for a needy family who'd just had twins. I cried all the way home. And then I sobbed face-down on the couch for another 20 minutes once I finally reached the safety and comfort of my quiet little house.

Father G. asked if I wanted to have the mother contact me and arrange for pick-up or drop-off, but I just couldn't. I want the things gone - off to homes with living babies to use them - but I can't know specifically where they've gone. I can't bear to see the family whose babies will lie snug in my dead son's crib while I'm sitting at Mass trying not to hate God. And I can't bear for them to see me. And know.

He was, as always, incredibly kind and understanding, engineering a drop off/pick up plan that would ensure that none of us would have to meet.

And that's how it began. The great purge.

The last load, just a small one now, will go off to another maternity home in my old hometown sometime next week.

And it's as it should be.

The most sentimental items I just couldn't part with are safely tucked away. Knitted items lovingly made by my Mom, stuffed toys chosen by my sister, and a few things I bought and just couldn't send away. They're still here.

And now it feels right. Clean. Peaceful.

I'm sure, in time, even the remaining items will be whittled down to just a handful of things - especially if any new nieces or nephews find their way into our family - but for the time being, I'm holding onto those last few dear bits and pieces.

It was hard to get to this point. It has been an unbearably long road. But once I found myself standing at the end of it, it just made sense. One day while My Beloved was dutifully cleaning out the cat boxes, I happened to turn my gaze to the disassembled crib leaning against the opposite basement wall where it's been for the last four years, and just knew.

Just like that. I knew.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility that we'll find ourselves with a magical, healthy pregnancy that blossoms into a living child at the end of it. But I hold out no hope for that now. Not really.

And I'm okay. I am.

I'm slowly embracing this new life in small, quiet ways. And I'm coming to terms with what a childless future will mean to us. And what it will look like. Even all the way at the end of it.

I was talking to a friend who is childless by choice the other day, and it was like what I imagine the first breath of pure oxygen is like for a firefighter in the midst of a smoke-choked room.

My stories? Where will they go?

"Write a book", she said.

And my things? What about my things?

"Donate them to a museum."

And company when I'm old?

"Make very, very good friends with your nieces and nephews. And remember, there's no guarantee that even if you had kids they'd want to visit you in the home."

She then sagely pointed out that there's also no guarantee I'll even get old. Bad shit happens, as we all know. All too well.

There are other ways to live. There is a life out there - even if there are no living children in it - filled with possibilities, and laughter, and hope, and love. And, most importantly, meaning.

There is still worth and meaning to my life. I'm positive of this. I believe raising children is probably one of the most fulfilling and meaningful things a human can do. And one of the most important.

But it's not all there is. And those of us who have no choice but to prove it? Well, I guess that's just what we'll do then.

And in the meantime, there's a new kitten in the house. Filling it with chaos, ungodly early wake-up calls, deafening purrs and endless entertainment.

He's not a substitute for a baby. He wasn't brought into the house for that.

But he is, I realize, part of the process. He is here because I am carrying on. Moving instead of standing still. Looking forward instead of behind. And searching for new joys and new happiness in whatever form they happen to take.

Life takes you where it wants you to be. The secret is being open to whatever newness it holds, and to resist the urge to claw your way back to the past and stay there, mired in the remnants of a phantom life that no longer exists.

I can't bear living like that anymore.

I'm ready for the newness.

Finally.

Dibley, June 26/09 - 9 weeks old

The story

A long time ago, maybe two years or so, I tried to write down Thomas' birth story. Partly because I'd never told it here in its entirety, partly because I didn't want to forget any of the details, and partly because that's what new mothers do and I didn't want to be left out.

I started and the words came easily enough, but they wouldn't stop. And each one tore at my heart because I knew how the story was going to end, and no matter how much I wrote, the end would never be the one I wanted to write. Forcing myself to relive, in exacting detail, the days and hours leading up to his birth just reminded me of how quickly things went wrong. How suddenly he was snatched from us. How little warning we had.

The last words I said to My Beloved before the earth gave way beneath our feet were, "Soon we're going to see our little boy."

We were that close. That close.

And suddenly it just somehow didn't seem to make sense to tell the story in great detail. Or, to tell it at all.

He was born and he died. Does it matter how?

God - I mean, of course it matters. Everything about him matters, but what purpose does it serve to write it all down? What good will it do me? Or you? Or My Beloved?

So I saved the unfinished draft, and it remains buried in the list of post titles, somewhere back there.

At the time, I was deeply disappointed with myself for not being able to finish the story. I added it to my list of failures and went to bed with a heavy heart that night.

But I think very differently about it now.

Now I'm not so sure it would be all that terrible to forget some of the awful detail I was struggling to capture on paper. Because I don't know what earthly good it does to remember it. It doesn't fix anything. It doesn't bring him back. And it certainly doesn't make me feel better.

People always say that you forget the agony of childbirth the moment you hold your brand new baby in your arms.

Should I be made to hold onto the agony of mine simply because my child isn't here any longer?

It's just another confusing thing to wrestle with when your child dies. The rules change for you. What others cherish and try to remember, you sometimes struggle to forget; torn because sometimes it's all you have of your child.

Things are different for us. It's the way it is. Trying to pretend otherwise will make you crazy.

In truth, I know will never forget giving birth to Thomas. Or the days before or the days after. But I know for a fact that what has helped me heal and what has kept me moving forward is focusing on the boy, not on the tragedy. Of course they're inextricably linked to each other, I realize that. But I can choose to what degree I make that link.

Granted, it's easier now with time and distance my constant companions in this epic journey, but it still sometimes takes effort to keep my love for Thomas and my grief over losing him in their separate corners when I need them to be.

But I make the effort, because that's when I most feel like he's my son and I'm his mother. It's when he's most real to me. It's when I can best feel his sweet spirit in my heart and in my life.

He is not my grief.

Abracadabra

A friend recently asked me how I do it - how I manage to cope in a world where, as she put it, everyone is pregnant and babies are popping out all over the place.

My first response was, "I'm dead inside" (after which I laughed heartily at my self-deprecating witticism).

The serious answer was, "I don't know."

Because I don't, really. There's no magic in my ability to hold babies. To smile and coo at them. To listen with rapt attention to endless stories of breast feeding, colic, teething and foiled naps.

I just do it. Then I crawl home, regroup and carry on. It's just what I have to do. And, sometimes, what I actually want to do.

My Beloved and I were just saying today that the very best thing that could have happened to us, in terms of our healing, was the arrival of a new baby next door a little over a year after Thomas died.

It was immersion therapy for both of us. The baby was there. We were here. And soon our lives become intertwined and we fell in love.

And suddenly babies weren't so scary anymore.

She was the first baby I'd held since my own. And, I won't lie, it was agony. The weight of her. The life in her. But I did it. And I've done it a million times since. And now I've held her brand new sister too.

Because it's that or cloister myself away - separate myself from a world that I sometimes do have a hard time feeling a part of. And I don't want that. I've never wanted that. I've fought hard to make people not fear me and my sorrow. I've worked like a dog to prove I'm greater than the sum of those parts.

I figure if I'm going to talk the talk, I have to walk the walk.

So there's not an ounce of magic in it. It's just stubbornness - my inability to let my particular brand of motherhood keep me from being friends with women who haven't buried a child.

Magic would be easier though. There's no doubt about it.

Strange goodbyes

A couple of years ago, I can't specifically remember when now, I gave away my maternity jeans. Donated them to charity along with a motley collection of unloved sweaters, shirts and assorted crap. It was a big deal.

Well, mostly.

I actually hated them. They were never comfortable, always digging into my sides before sliding down and leaving me with a terrible case of saggy ass. But still, giving them away felt like a big step - a monumental shift in my thinking and healing.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure it was, really.

I was thinking about this the other day, how we donated some of Thomas' things just a few weeks after he died and how it barely bothered me at all. For some reason I was able to very easily separate the sentimental from the disposable in those early, dark days. The diaper bag, boppy pillow, lotions, diapers, books, parenting magazines, and baby bathtub. They all went, and with very little difficulty.

And yet other things I still cling to with a ferocity that startles me. Tubs of clothes, toys, blankies. Little socks. A sunhat. Things. So many small, unused things.

There is no rhyme nor reason for the way I categorize his things; for what I decide can and can't go. I adored my diaper bag, but when I came home from the hospital I couldn't stand the sight of it. But the 9 billion receiving blankets, each a dime a dozen? I can't let them go.

It makes no sense.

I never liked the jeans. I wouldn't have worn them again even if I managed to get (and stay) pregnant long enough to need them. I tricked myself into thinking donating them was an achievement.

When really, it was just common sense.

And I may have done it again. The tricking bit. Because tonight, all the rest of my maternity stuff is packed away in a donation bag waiting for pick-up. All of it. A skirt, a pair of nursing jammies and several tops, including the striped one I loved and wore so much I'm surprised I didn't wear it right out.

I'm proud. I am. I've had that stuff sitting in a neat pile on a shelf in my closet for nearly four years. I couldn't see it very well and didn't look at it often, but I knew it was there. I needed to know it was still there.

But I'm smaller now than I was then. And it's not just the absence of a baby belly. All of me is smaller. I likely couldn't wear any of that stuff anyway even if I did magically find myself pregnant. It would be too big. In fact, it would have been too big if I'd tried to wear it two years ago.

But I couldn't let it go. Until today.

For absolutely no good reason, today was the day I was able to let it all go. Even though I know I never would have worn any of it again anyway.

So yeah, I know I'm kind of tricking myself again. Like the jeans.

But I'm not really sure that matters.

There's a clearer space in my brain just the same. Does it matter that the victory isn't as big as it might appear? Does it matter that I had no intention of wearing the clothes again anyway? Does it matter that the odds are stacked against me and my uterus, making the likelihood of me needing any maternity clothes pretty small?

I don't think so.

I'm crossing my arms, holding my head high, and calling it a victory.

It changes

I finished writing my Christmas cards today, but they've gone out without the tiny angel stickers included in the signature - something I vowed to do that first lonely Christmas without Thomas in 2005, and something I did in 2006 and 2007 too.

For some reason this year, it didn't feel necessary. And I'm not entirely sure whether to be happy or sad about that.

Over the last year I've found that I need those kind of visible remembrances less and less. It always startles me a bit when I find that I'm content to keep him in my heart instead of on my sleeve, but I don't have the energy to dissect the reason why. It is what it is, and it feels right.

Sometimes I dig too deep to figure out the motivations for the way I think and feel, when sometimes it's best just to think and feel and move on without question.

I don't need the angel stickers this year. End of story. I love Thomas every bit as much as I did last year when I used them - maybe even more. I just don't happen to need the stickers anymore. It's as simple as that.

I think I'm just whittling down the rituals - condensing them, maybe.

Maybe it's all part of the slow acceptance process. At first you need outward signs of grief and remembrance - you need to actually see tangible things that might help you explain the agonizing pain you're in. But eventually, as time passes and the sorrow becomes more a part of who you are rather than something foreign you're constantly fighting to make sense of, you're content to be quieter about your ways of remembering and grieving.

But whatever the reason, I'm at peace with what I'm doing. And how I'm doing it.

I have ways I remember and honour him that I'm pretty sure I'll never change. The special candle at family dinners, the new ornament for his cemetery wreath each year, and the request for good deeds to be done in his name on his birthday. I can't see those ever changing. They are too much a part of my relationship with Thomas to change.

But other things have quietly slipped away, just like he did.

And it's okay. Somehow, it's okay.

Two steps forward, one step back

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I'm at least as big as my sorrow now, but sometimes I still worry that if I let it go unchecked, I could quite easily turn into one of those ugly people who let a wound fester until it becomes so big that it's all they feel. And when it eventually scars over, instead of shrinking and disappearing it turns into a gigantic chip on a self-absorbed shoulder. An excuse to think bad things. Say bad things. Feel bad things.

I don't want to be that person. I don't. But sometimes I feel her lurking quietly inside, waiting for me to fall asleep at the wheel so she can kick me out of the driver's seat and commandeer the bus.

My Beloved and I had a "discussion" on Friday that has had me thinking about all this ever since.

Misdirected anger. That was the topic.

I was blowing off steam in a spectacular non-stop tirade. When I finished, he pointed out that I wasn't angry - I was simply jealous.

I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

And he was, of course, right. I didn't want to hear it at the time - and I still maintain that some of what I was venting about was actually warranted - but still, I know a lot of it was fueled by something uglier.

And I hate that it's in there. It's demoralizing to know that some of the goodness you once had has been displaced by bitterness. It makes the struggle so much harder when it feels like you're battling from the inside out.

And I feel like I've somehow cheated My Beloved by changing into someone who has the capacity to feel spectacular anger and bitterness.

I was never perfect. But at least I wasn't this.

My only defense is vigilance.

I will always need to vent. I will feel jealous and bitter. I will want to rage at the world and have the one person who lost the same child as I did understand that sometimes overwhelming need.

But I will be careful never to let myself get too comfortable or like it too much.

I will be watchful.

Out of the fog

As we drove through the fog on our way home from dinner tonight, I told My Beloved that I think my own fog is lifting. In the last few weeks I've been noticing almost imperceptible little hints of "me" coming back - in small glimpses and in tiny moments.

I can feel again in a way I'd forgotten I ever once knew how to.

I think the difference is that I'm living with the sorrow instead of living through it. It's there, but suddenly I'm there too. And I'm almost as imposing as my grief, which is a tremendous shift in the balance. For more than three and a half years it has dominated me body and soul, but we are nearly equal now.

I think we can live together peaceably. I'm almost sure of it. I've figured out its demanding ways and its all-consuming neediness, and I know how to manage it. I know how to feed it so that it stays quietly beside me without screaming in my ear. I know how to soothe it so that it rests softly in my heart instead of pounding inside my brain. I know how to accept it so that it feels like it belongs.

Because of course, it does. It always will.

I'm not naive enough to think that things won't still shake me. Sneak attacks will still catch me off guard and bring me to my knees. I will cry. I will rage. I will curse.

But I can feel again. I can feel more than my sorrow.

At last.

My elf

You never forget your first.

A week after the miscarriage in October 2003, I sat slumped on the love seat in the family room watching the clock. It was a dull, foggy Saturday morning. November 1st. My Beloved was busying himself in the kitchen. Clinking dishes, washing pots, moving, moving, moving.

While I sat.

I remember feeling like I'd never be able to move again, so deep was my sorrow. My little baby, so wanted and already so adored, was gone forever.

I watched My Beloved shuffle dishes from sink to cupboard. I watched my arms lying still on the couch cushions at my sides. I watched the clock count down the useless seconds that now meant nothing. My baby wasn't growing anymore.

"Go out", My Beloved urged me gently.

I'd been planning to go to a Christmas Craft show at a nearby high school. Before. But instead I was helplessly glued to the couch listening to time slip away in each tick of the old wind-up clock I'd rescued from my Grandparent's cottage before it was sold years earlier.

I don't remember my arguments against moving off the couch, but I'm relatively sure they weren't valid ones. I was healing well from the D&C and physically felt just fine.

Which is, of course, the worst part of dealing with the loss of a child through miscarriage. You look just fine. There's no way for people to know the pain you're in. There are no scars to show the battle you've just fought and lost.

You become the invisible walking wounded.

And that's exactly how I felt. Broken with grief, but whole to the rest of the world.

Eventually his pleadings won me over. I got dressed and drove through the fog to the Christmas Craft show.

I aimlessly wandered past booths of knitted potholders, summer jams, walnut mice, Christmas wreathes and other assorted festive paraphernalia until I spotted a booth crowded with exquisite handmade dolls.

They drew me in. Lit a tiny spark in my burned out soul.

I stood transfixed, staring at the whimsical faces the artist had so painstakingly created. Dozens of dolls, their gray hair curled in clouds around their wizened faces, smiled back at me.

I couldn't tear myself away, and eventually I came home with an octogenarian elf tucked up carefully in miles of tissue paper.

It was the sweetest possible retail therapy.

And when I look at that elf (which I still can't bear to put away with the other Christmas decorations - she sits in the curio cabinet all year long) I remember the little one I lost, the wisdom of My Beloved, and the strength I somehow found to drive through the fog in search of the light.

The new me

I have so many thoughts rattling around in my head lately. And that's fine - better lots of thoughts than none at all - but every time I think I'll sit down and sort them out, a whole new pack push in and scatter the crowd.

But one thought that seems to keep pushing its way to the front of the pack - a thought that has been slooooooowly dawning on me these days - is that I don't have to pretend that everything is as it was. That things don't bother me now. That nothing is harder than it used to be. That I'm always okay in every single situation.

When I asked, hypothetically, what people think of me now - what they see when they look at me - a friend recently told me that they probably don't think anything at all. Because, she explained, after three years they likely just think "I'm over it."

She fought an epic battle with infertility. She knows you don't "get over" things like struggling in vain to make your family complete.

But I was startled to think that other people may simply assume that I'm fine - all back to normal - just because I can and do manage to function. And because the calendar has flipped 41 times since Thomas died.

On the one hand I'm happy to think that I look and act like a person who has her shit together. This is excellent news. But on the other hand, I was very taken aback by the notion that people might truly believe that trauma as terrible and aching as losing a child simply slips away like smoke up a chimney.

But I suppose I have myself to blame. I'm an enabler. I've been a "grin and bear it" baby loss survivor, subjecting myself to things I wasn't ready for in order to make other people more comfortable. And, admittedly, in order to deflect attention from my sorrow in a desperate attempt to shut down the great, big pity machine that makes me want to run screaming into the night.

I'm not a saint. I did what I did for me - because it made me feel better to make other people feel better. And because it made me feel like I must seem more "normal" in their eyes. More like the old me they used to know. And I wanted to be that girl. Badly.

But I think I'm slowly accepting the fact that she died with Thomas. In fact, part of her died with that very first miscarriage nearly five years ago. And pieces of her have died with each loss and with every moment I have struggled with infertility.

And that's okay.

I mean, it's not okay that all this happened. Of course not. But it's okay that I have changed. Because how on earth could I not? How do you lose your heart five times and remain unchanged?

Now my challenge is to let this new person be. To let her feel what she feels without guilt. To help her understand that she is brand new in a million different ways. To allow her to advocate for herself and stand up to ignorance.

To teach her to embrace herself with kindness, respect and love.

Take my hand

My Beloved and I had a long discussion about what to do when someone, post trauma, has disappointed you in some way. Or if it's even fair to be disappointed in someone who quietly faded away while you were in the midst of your darkest grief.

Is it fair to expect more of someone than they were able to give?

For three years I've been defiant, arms folded across my chest, chin in the air, my answer a resounding "YES".

Yes, I believed, it IS fair to expect someone to rise to an incredibly difficult challenge when you desperately need them to. Figuring out how to deal with you as a bereaved person instead of the person they once knew. Figuring out how to approach you that first time after. Figuring out how to be there for you when they haven't got a clue what you're going through or what you need.

Yes. I've always thought it was fair to expect those close to you to find a way to do all that.

So many people did, you see. In varying degrees and in different ways, they were there.

But a small few weren't. Not after Thomas. Not after I lost the twins. And now, with no end to the silence in sight, I'm wondering if maybe I really have been expecting too much.

Or if perhaps I'm not, but need to let it go just the same.

My Beloved asked what I'll gain from still being hurt and disappointed in these few.

I had no answer. I will gain nothing from continually allowing myself to feel the sting of their continued absence.

In fact, I will lose. If I let the chasm continue to grow, I will simply be adding further loss to a life that has already seen too much.

My point has always been that it seems wrong for the person who has suffered to have to reach out and pull in those who have stood quietly by and done nothing. It seems unfair for someone who is grieving to have to take care of others; hold them by the hand and tell them what to do to help.

But if we don't, are we any further ahead? If we stand just as quietly on our side of the fence mourning our losses and the loss of much needed support on top of that, are we any better off?

If I could let it go, the answer would be yes. And I have been able to do that in at least one case. But another, I just can't.

"Reach out." He said.

So maybe I will.

The unexpected

I used to tend my Grandmother's grave all the time. Before I was married, I lived very close to the cemetery and regularly visited her little corner of the world to say hello, plant pretty new flowers in the spring, and water and weed throughout the summer.

It never bothered me. It was peaceful. It was a way to feel close to her - to feel like I was doing something for her. And it was my way of showing the world (well, the cemetery dwelling world, anyway) that she was loved and not forgotten.

In 2004, when I was three months pregnant with Thomas, my Grandfather joined her. By that time I'd pretty much stopped being much of caretaker to the garden because I lived just far enough away (an hour round trip) for it not to be all that convenient anymore. My sister and my Mom, who'd shared the garden duties with me over the years, took over regular tending.

And then Thomas died. And he was buried there too.

And suddenly that quiet, peaceful place I'd always found comfort in was a terrible place where all I did was stand and cry, ripped wide open and bleeding from the pain of my sorrow and guilt.

I barely went. I didn't see the flowers at all last summer. Or the summer before. It was all I could do to place his Christmas wreath in November and take it off at the end of March. And sometimes I didn't even do that, letting my Mom or sister take care of the retrieval process for me.

I'd usually bring something on the rare occasions that I did drag myself there for a visit - a little teddy bear garden stake or a small bouquet - but I couldn't bring myself to actually look after the garden. Not the slightest bit. Not even to pull a weed or give it a shot of water. Nothing.

I might as well have been asked to climb Mount Everest as tend the garden.

Just making the trip took every last ounce of energy I had. And once I was there, weeping at the grave, leaving as fast as I could was my goal.

But for some reason yesterday everything changed. I went to the cemetery. Happily. Well, not happily, but with as much peace and contentment as it's possible to have when you're going to visit your son's grave site.

I took violas, snapdragons and alyssum, a bag of dirt, and all the gardening tools I'd need. I trimmed the two cedar bushes my Grandpa brought back from his cottage and lovingly planted there, I cleaned out the garden and topped it up with fresh earth, I planted my flowers, and I edged Thomas' plaque so that all the words could once again be seen.

I was there for more than an hour, happily weeding and tending and primping, as though the past three springs of my neglect had never even happened.

I don't know what seismic shift in my thinking - or perhaps in my healing - enabled me to do what I did yesterday. I absolutely haven't got a clue what made it easy - even pleasurable - to tend to the grave site garden after all this time.

But I know I'm glad it was.

And what all this proves to me is that healing comes when it comes. There's no time line you should follow - no time line you can follow. There's no schedule for the cessation of the aftershocks of grief. It just happens when it happens.

Slowly, slowly, slowly you return.

Peace

I've been thinking so much about my last post, specifically the last few lines.

Initially the whole idea of my children not needing me made me desperately sad. And then, as if the clouds parted and all the angels sang in a great massed choir as sunbeams poured down from the heavens, the idea freed me.

They don't need me to hold onto the sorrow. And doing so for their sakes helps no one - and hurts me.

I'm not saying I won't feel sorrow. I do. I always will. But knowing that all I have to feel is just my own simple sorrow - and that I'm not responsible for any additional obligatory, complicated grief - feels like I've been released from something I didn't even know I was ensnared in.

This probably doesn't make any sense. I just didn't realize that I was holding on to grief because I felt I needed to in some strange way. I think I felt that they needed me to. And of course, they don't.

All I need to feel is what I feel in my heart. My own sorrow is sorrow enough.

And realizing this has given me a kind of peace I haven't felt in years. Years.

I'm not done - I'm still a nut job, and I still need my therapist to help me find more clarity. But I think this was a huge breakthrough and I'm so grateful to her for helping me get to it.

The sunset tonight was beautiful. And I saw it. I really saw it.