Remembrance

First thing this morning on Facebook, I found this.

I've been wanting to write about this very thing for a while; about how hard Facebook has the potential to be if you are on the outside looking in. The ultrasounds and baby photos subbing as profile pictures, the "offers" to sell naughty children, cute birthday/Halloween/Christmas/Thanksgiving stories, announcements about potty training successes, first teeth, and new pregnancies...

Facebook is rife with childcentric information.

And there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be. None whatsoever.

But because it is, it can be a dangerous place for someone trying to navigate the bloody waters of infertility and loss. And it can be torture for someone for whom all those lovely baby things will never be a reality.

The interesting thing is that we generally stay very quiet about all this. So much so that it likely never occurs to anyone but us that it might be painful. The landmines are invisible unless you see them as such. We are blown to smithereens every day by things others look at with wonder and joy.

That's just the way it is.

It's the way it has to be, in fact, because the world can't (and shouldn't) stop merely because we are sad. There is no reason our sorrow should trump another's joy.

But that's precisely why I was so shocked to see the link above; stunned that someone would actually dare to put it all out there - to demonstrate in a tangible way what it can sometimes feel like to be a childless person floating alone in a seemingly endless sea of fertility.

We, as a group, generally concentrate our efforts on making sure other people don't feel uncomfortable. The last thing we tend to do is point out our own discomfort. We might be broken, humiliated, and desperate - but we are usually silent.

And I'm not sure what I think about this phenomenon anymore, this strange code of silence.

I don't want to be the person who rains on everyone's parade, reminding people with my sad looks and pitiful sighs that I envy what they have. I don't want to be the needy girl from whom people flee in horror. And I certainly don't want to end up being a one-trick pony who can't talk about anything but the life she wishes she'd been able to have.

But sometimes I do crave a certain level of acknowledgment - a little something that lets me know you would smother my pain with a pillow if you had one big enough, or strangle cruel fate with your bare hands for denying me my joy. I am desperately struggling to co-exist in this fertile world, and that pain I feel is real. This life is hard - harder than I ever dreamed - and I'm not always okay. I probably look it most of the time - maybe all the time - but I am stuck together with tape, staples and prayers. And chocolate and wine.

I'm not looking for pity. I can't stress that enough. I think what we all want so much is simply for people to remember that we're here too.

So you think you can dance

So tonight at dance class, My Beloved and I had to hijack the instructor (we'll call him Cliff because I can't remember his real name) to settle a disagreement about which leg we should each be using when starting the waltz. I always presume I'm right - which is, unfortunately, not always the case. Not that it stops me from steadfastly believing I'm right the next time a directional or foot placement issue comes up, of course.

I also, not surprisingly, have trouble letting My Beloved lead.

Anyway, after having the mystery of the starting-leg sorted out for us (yeah, I was wrong), Cliff then proceeded tell me that I'm one of the best dancers in the class.

I started laughing.

Incredibly, he waved off my laughter and insisted that I'm truly one of the best - something about the graceful way I move my body or something. I dunno - I stopped listening when I realized he wasn't taking the piss. Shocked into a stupor.

Something nice about my body? Wha...? Huh??

Me, people. There are impossibly tiny little women (in impossibly high heels and flirty little skirts) in our dance class. I'm 40, with easily that many pounds to lose, and always sweating withing minutes of the music starting.

I'm a sweaty hippo in a tutu, really.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, one of the best in the class.

Now I know it's not saying all that much - some people in that stuffy elementary school gym can barely walk, let alone dance - but I've never been good at anything requiring physical endurance and/or coordination. And my body has failed me (us, really) so many times since we lost our first baby seven years ago that I'm totally unaccustomed - and thoroughly unprepared - to hear it being praised by anyone. For anything.

But whaddaya know. It can dance.

Picture this

On Saturday night, for no other reason that it suddenly occurred to me that I wanted to, I posted an album of Thomas-related photos on Facebook.

I think the idea sparked to life after I saw a picture Loribeth posted there of the beautiful plaque on her sweet baby girl's niche. It was such an intimate and lovely thing to see, and it allowed me to know her just a little bit more than I had before, which is something so precious when you're talking about a baby that has died. There isn't much to know - that's the unfortunate truth. Every little thing is to be cherished.

So I set about digging through my photos with a strange sort of urgency and excitement. Having suddenly discovered that it was the right time to share all those sweet memories of my pregnancy and Thomas' short life, I couldn't wait to post the pictures.

I was, if you squinted and looked at just the right angle, going to be almost normal - just like any mom who posts pictures of her pregnancy, nursery, and the baby that followed on Facebook.

You know, normal but for the part in the photo essay where you see a grave marker - and stop seeing pictures of the baby.

Details, details, details.

It took an hour or so to choose, download and caption the photos.

Dozens of kind, loving thoughts now litter the comment section below the album - words I will carry in my heart forever because they are so heartfelt and so loving. That wasn't a surprise (I'm friends with some really, really great people) - it was my reaction that caught me off guard.

I was touched. Happy. Grateful.

And then, somehow, confused. Because in the midst of reveling in the joy of hearing people say what a lovely boy he was, and how much they appreciated the album, and how hard it must have been for me to post it, I started feeling a slow, creeping kind of sadness.

My boy - my story - disturbs people. It makes them uncomfortable and sorry and sad.

Which, I mean - duh. Of course it does. Of course.

But somehow in the midst of my photo posting frenzy, I kind of forgot that bit. I was thisclose to being normal - posting pictures of me pregnant and smiling, of My Beloved painting the nursery, of me cutting the cake at my shower - and my excitement at doing a regular old thing like sharing baby photos with friends made me forget that we aren't really regular people anymore.

My balloon didn't burst, exactly. But the slow leak did it in just the same.

I feel a bit foolish for having tricked myself the way I did. I look back and see a crazed woman madly scouring her photo archives with reckless abandon and unbridled glee, totally oblivious to the crash that was of course going to come - and I'm amazed at her naivete.

After more than five and a half years you'd think I'd know better. I mean, really.

But still, the brief feeling of normalcy was quite nice. And, in the end, totally worth it.

And besides, I'm glad that my friends might now feel that they know Thomas a tiny bit better than they did before - just like I feel a lovely sort of peace and closeness for knowing Loribeth's Katie just that much more now too.

This little light of mine...

...I'm going to let it shine in memory of Thomas, his four wee sibilings, 

and all their friends now playing together in God's garden.

 With love forever, and ever, and ever.

 Until we meet again. ox

Fire

On Friday as I was leaving the dialysis waiting area after my dad was summoned in for his "oil change" (as he used to call it when his mind was still a little fuzzy), I stopped briefly to talk to one of the hospital volunteers.

She's an older lady herself - probably in her mid 60s - and I have long suspected that she has a tiny bit of a crush on my dad. She lights up when she sees him, teases him like a schoolgirl, and has also been known to pet him. Like, literally - she strokes his arm like she's petting a cat. Friday she went to far as to pat his face, cupping his chin in her hand for a brief moment.

Were it not for the fact that she's a very kind woman - and really no competition for my mom since my dad has only ever had eyes for her - I would probably have already issued a passive aggressive smackdown. But she's entirely too sweet for that sort of thing. And, really, why should I mind that someone shows my dad a little extra kindness?

There's often not enough to go around in this world. That he gets extra doses when she's on call is fine by me.

So on my way out on Friday, she asked me if I thought it upset him that she pokes fun at him. I smiled and told her no, that he eats that sort of thing up (he is a man, after all).

She then went on to say how sweet he is, and that he seems like a good, kind person who has lived a good, happy life. She sees a lot of old, broken people filing past her as she greets them and checks their names off the list. My dad is no exception, held together by spit and tape the way he is. But she has somehow managed to see beyond the old, sick man he's become so dreadfully quickly. I don't know what her gift is, but with just the briefest of contact each week, she was able to see right into his soul. And was kind enough to tell me what she saw.

It's what I see too, of course, but it made me feel so good to know that what I know isn't a secret - that it's still obvious, even in the hardest and saddest of circumstances. As beaten down and as sad as I know he sometimes feels, he still radiates an inner light that is visible for miles.

As I drove back to have lunch with my mom, I thought about how incredible it is to have someone see you that way; to have someone feel the goodness and kindness radiating from you like the heat from a bonfire on a chilly autumn night.

So along with learning the ukulele (which I'm still determined to do, despite evidence to the contrary in the form of a thick layer of dust on the poor little thing), my new life goal is to try to be the kind of person my dad is so that one day someone who doesn't know me - or anything about me - might feel that kind of warmth too.

Maybe this isn't something you can aspire to. Maybe it's just something you have to have without trying - or even knowing. But I will never forget that conversation with the hospital volunteer, or the light my dad manages to bring to her face with the power of his own.

Thanksgiving Day, 2010

This, this is what I'm thankful for this year.

I love you, dad.

ox

Perspective

Time has given me the ability to understand that what I see - and the way I see it - is coloured by the lens of loss.

This notion is true for everyone, of course. We all see the world based on things that have happened to us: people we've met, jobs we've had, loves we've lost, struggles we've faced, triumphs we've celebrated - our life experiences make us see things in a way unique only to us.

So I'm biased, is what I'm saying.

I see a mother wishing away her weekend because she's tired of being with her kids and I want to scream. I hear conversations about how parenting is mostly joyless drudgery (at lot - it seems like a trendy opinion these days) and I reel with the force of a hand slap to the face.

I stand mute while these conversations swirl around me because I know that my opinion won't count. I am the one who sees motherhood through rose coloured glasses. They know that, and I know that. I can still conjure that dreamy, once-upon-a-time vision of a warm, sleepy baby tucked into my arms while I rock him gently back to sleep in the middle of the night, singing softly and marveling at his beauty while my heart bursts with love and pride.

Seriously, I can still see it, plain as day. 

In that vision I am beautiful, love radiating from my glowing face in the dim light of the man-in-the-moon lamp, tendrils of hair cascading just so, my robe crisply white, my slippers fluffy and new. I am not haggard, half-asleep, dirty, disheveled, or vomited-upon. I'm not even in a bad mood. I'm happy to be up in the middle of the night. Happy.

Is that how it would have been? I'm guessing probably no. Not every time. Maybe not even once (except for the glowing with love bit - I'm sure that would always have been true).

But in the absence of any personal evidence to prove this vision fraudulent, that's the movie that plays in my head. And so to hear parenting so cruelly maligned is always a bit of a shock. Almost a personal affront to the life I wanted so very, very badly - and to that lovely vision I hold so dear. It flat out makes me angry to hear those who have it treat it like a head cold they wish they could medicate away.

But I understand it's not fair of me to judge. I really do, despite evidence to the contrary. And I understand that I can't help but see the experience of parenting in a way those with living children never will. It's just that all that annoying understanding creates such a war between my head and my heart.

The worst of it is that I can't say anything. Obviously I can't contribute to conversations about the difficulty of day-to-day parenting (although it's not like I don't have a clue how hard parenting can be; I had to take my child off life support. I get that it's hard). And if I chose to point out that parents should shut up and be grateful for the gifts they were lucky enough to be given every time someone within earshot complained about their kid, I'm sure I'd find my Christmas card list diminish rather quickly.

Parents who have living children see their lives through that lens. They aren't supposed to put on my glasses and see it my way. They can't. They have their perspective, I have mine.

So I stay quiet. Mostly. You know, except for blogging.

And I try - I really, really do try - to keep it all in perspective, knowing that my vision of motherhood is still, and always will be, just a lovely dream playing quietly in my head.

It's my world too

Today I got trapped behind a woman with twins at the grocery store who seemed hellbent on telling me all about the apparent lack of two-seater shopping carts at stores in our town. She blocked my cart, then took her sweet time strapping her twins into hers as she blabbed on and on about the galling absence of the elusive two-seater. Her eyes waggled out of their sockets with outrage and disbelief at the magnitude of this horrible injustice. Like the universe somehow always owed her a convenient spot to stick her kids simply because she managed to have two of them at the same time (who, by the way, were totally old enough to walk nicely beside the cart, if you ask me).

My mistake was agreeing that the seat part on the new FreshCo carts is hard to open. But the thing is, that's where I put my purse, not my kids.

I started to explain that I use the area where you'd normally put a child as my handy purse-holder - that would have been my contribution to the conversation - but agreement was all she needed to assume that we had common ground. And she was off.

After the initial vent subsided, I learned how difficult twin wrangling is, and got a verbal map of all the stores in our area with two-seater carts. Which is all such useful information for me, isn't it?

I'm used to this sort of thing. It usually ends up being more amusing to me than anything else now - in that Murphy's Law/ Born Loser sort of way. Unless the person is particularly annoying, in which case I'd probably be irritated even if I had living children.

But there is still a little part of me that squirms under the weight of my history when this sort of thing happens.

Because, of course, in situations like this I'm a fraud. I nod in agreement, as though I know anything about things like putting kids in shopping carts or twin wrangling - or need directions to the stores with the best kind carts for multiple kids. But I nod just the same, and smile sympathetically.

Or, even worse, knowingly.

No one can tell I'm lying. No one can possibly imagine the internal dialogue I'm having at the same time - prepping my answers, absorbing landmines, concentrating on arranging my face into something that I think probably looks normal, relaxed, and appropriate. Acting, acting, acting. 

And then I walk away feeling like I've just been sliced out of a picture. Neatly and with surgical precision, I lift right out of the "normal" world around me as soon as someone reminds me that I don't actually belong there - that I will always be different because I have this whole other life that people who worry about the lack of two-seater shopping carts can't begin to fathom even exists.

Of course I have the right to explain that my world looks different; that my purse is in the spot where children are intended to be because all my children happen to be dead. But most of the time this is simply impractical. It's easier to nod and agree than it is to tell my story in the fleeting snippet of time you generally give to strangers at the grocery store. My story isn't quick or easy. And, let's be honest, most people simply don't want to hear that kind of story anyway.

So I just carry on living my double life, being normal until I'm reminded I'm not. And being me until I'm required to play some other, more palatable and socially acceptable role. 

Lucky for me I'm not half bad at faking it.

* CLICK *

Ugh, I intended for this post to be a photo retrospective of sorts - a cool visual way to end ICLW week. But I just made the fatal error of spending a bit too much time looking at the photos we have of Thomas in the hospital. And now, well, I'm spent.

The very hospital-y shots we have of him are always so shocking. Precious, of course, but startling. In my mind, he's the peaceful, gorgeous baby in the pictures we have framed in our bedroom and living room. No tubes, no wires - no obvious evidence of a hospital. The ones in which the hospital is not disguised, however, always take my breath away. In a bad way.

So this is going to have to do, this funny shot of me covered in cats. It was late summer of 2004, and I was doing what I did best during the first 10 weeks or so of my pregnancy with Thomas. Tired? Who me?

Whilst I was making good use of the couch, I became a mattress for Lucy (our cat) and my sister's two kittens who we were cat-sitting that week.

Apparently cats dig you when you're pregnant. Like, a lot.

Luckily Lucy still digs me now, pregnant or not, which is pretty nice. Pretty nice indeed.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by for ICLW! It was so nice to "meet" you, and I appreciate your visits and your comments more than you know!

Acceptance

I feel, for the most part, that I'm on the upswing in terms of accepting a childless life. I had some scary complications (both after Thomas was born and after I lost the twins) that made the idea of continuing to try less appealing than it otherwise would have been, and I love the life I've built with My Beloved in the last few years since my most recent loss. Plus an end to the crazed hamster wheel of shots, drugs, raging hormones, timed sex, and dildo cams? Well, that's been nice too. Very, very nice indeed.

I feel almost normal.

Actually, in truth, I probably now feel as normal as I ever will.

The big secret no one ever tells you is that sorrow doesn't go away. Time doesn't heal all wounds. It simply makes the scars less angry and harder for people to see. But the scars, they stay etched on your soul for the rest of your life. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, because there's nothing worse than thinking you should have to stop missing your baby - that that's the healthy thing to do.

I assume no mother with living children ever simply forgets they exist. And so just like those moms, I never forget my son. And I will never forget the other three times I found out I was pregnant, nor the hope and joy those positive tests brought to my life and to the lives of the people who couldn't wait for those children to be born.

But the thing is, that's all feeling more and more like a chapter I just finished reading. Trying to conceive, miscarriages, losing Thomas, fertility treatments - that all belongs to a different part of my life.

I've gently, quietly turned a page. Almost without noticing.

Maybe it's partly because I'm so focused on my mom & dad and the extra help they need right now, I don't know. But it really does feel like the time for children has well and truly passed, and the idea doesn't fill me with the same overwhelming grief it once did.

It's a decision we made about a year ago, but it's settling in with me in a comfortable sort of way now. And I'm as surprised as anyone that I'm making peace with the hand we were dealt. Because it was a fucking awful hand - right out of one of the most horrific nightmares imaginable.

It'll never be fair that we didn't get to be parents to living children. And I will always grieve for that beautiful life I thought we'd have. I want to scoop up those two silly kids who sat on my sister's patio and talked about having children on one of their first dates back in the summer of 1999. I want to scoop them up, hold them close and tell them how sorry I am that things turned out this way instead.

And then I want to tell them how proud and amazed I am of the way they're going to weather the shitstorms to come.

It shouldn't have been this way. But somehow we're making it work.

Imagine that.

Happy X2

So, the dancing? In a word, Fabulous!

Not us, of course. We were mediocre at best, really. We stepped on each other (a lot), we lost concentration and laughed, we made stupid jokes and giggled when we should have been listening, our basic cha-cha looked more like a pot bellied pig and a giraffe having a synchronized seizure, the waltz made my right bum cheek ache (I don't think the waltz is supposed to hurt), and I was scolded by My Beloved more than once for leading (because apparently it's the man that leads. Hunh).

But still, fantastic. A solid hour in his arms - and no room in our dance-challenged brains for any of our cares or woes.

Perfection.

And then today, after paying for a cab ride back to the train station from a meeting, I was handed a toonie (Canadian for a $2.00 coin), and two caramels by the cab driver.

The toonie, he said, was for a cup of coffee. And the caramels? Something sweet to go with it.

In the history of cab rides has anyone ever been given money back at the end of the trip? AND candy, for heaven's sake?! I've been wracking my brain all afternoon trying to figure this out. But since there's no logical explanation for it, I'm just going to assume that he had a good reason for doing such an unexpected and kind thing for a total stranger.

And I'm going to remember how this feels, and pass it on.

Painting the town red-ish

A few weeks ago I boldly proclaimed that my goal was to do at least one thing a month that we couldn't do if we had kids. Not to gloat, as you'll recall, just to try to make the best of a situation we never wanted to be in, in the first place.

It was my attempt at silver-lining hunting, driven by a deep desire not to waste the rest of my life wishing for what I've lost and pining for what I can't have. Clearly I'm going to wish and pine for the rest of my life (who are we kidding?!) - I just want to make sure I do other stuff too.

The thing is, in all honestly, I can't exactly figure out what we can do that babysitter-enabled people can't. Which is a bit of a pisser, really.

So, for the sake of argument, let's just assume that no parents can ever find babysitters. Like, ever. Or if they can, they find they have to cancel their fancy evening plans because the baby sitter gets sick. Or has a really important term paper she needs to work on.  Or gets grounded for sneaking out of the house to go see a Justin Beiber concert or some such thing.

Let's just pretend.

Okay, so having said that - the thing we're doing this month that we clearly could never do if we had children is go dancin'! Yeah, that's right, I've persuaded My Beloved to take Ballroom dancing lessons at my church, and tonight is our first class.

This is probably akin to the agony of a root canal to most men, but My Beloved is awesome beyond all comprehension and won't refuse me the simple pleasure of dancing cheek to cheek.

Or cheek to teat, really. He's very tall.

Part of the lure is our ability to pay-as-we-go. If it's boring, bad or really, really embarrassing we need never return.

But I'm hoping we'll like it. And not fall down, and stuff.

We shall see.

In the meantime, I have my fingers crossed and my dancin' shoes on!

A wee bit about me for ICLW

Oy, where to start.

I guess the beginning, which, for this blog, was January 2005. My internet adventure was inspired by a good friend's dad who wrote some of the sweetest, funniest things in the last few months of his life while he battled cancer. Yeah, while he battled cancer.

I wanted to do that. To write interesting, funny things about the ordinary bits of my very ordinary life.

I was pregnant with our first child at the time. Thomas. I had already had two miscarriages, one on October 25th, 2003 and a second in March 2004.

Thomas outlived them both. He slipped silently into the world at 5:30pm on March 9th, 2005. The only sound I ever heard him make was one little gasp as I held him while he lay dying.

He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. He still is. I will die knowing there was nothing more beautiful on this earth than the face of my son.

I had a massive placental abruption during delivery. I lived. He died. He was perfect, healthy and strong, but 12 minutes without oxygen was too much for his tiny body. He passed away 20 hours after he was born.

My blog, which was never intended to be a blog about loss, infertility and, eventually, living without children, became anything but ordinary. It became therapy. Really, really fast.

I battled secondary infertility after a bout with septicemia post c-section left me riddled with scar tissue. Armed with nothing more than a severely damaged psyche, one blocked fallopian tube, a misshapen uterus, and the aforementioned scar tissue, I fought the good fight.

We almost won - twice, really - with twins, conceived in late spring 2007.

But they're gone too. Lost at 12 weeks.

And so it's still only the two of us. And that's just the way it's going to be.

My goal is to be living proof that sometimes that's okay. Sometimes the "happy ending" everyone desperately hope you'll get is one that looks just like ours. Because we are happy, in our own little way. We are sad too, of course. We miss what we almost had - every second of every day we miss that boy's sweet little face. But I think we're as happy as you can be with a history like ours.

Yeah, it's not exactly a fairy tale - but it is my story.

And, damn it, I'm writing is as best I can.

Help make October 15th Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day in Ontario!

The Perinatal Bereavement Society of Ontario (PBSO) is working towards having October 15th officially recognized as Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day in Ontario. If you or someone you know has been touched by perinatal loss, please consider contacting your MPP and asking him/her to support this effort. It would mean a lot to bereaved parents in Ontario to have an official day during which to remember and honour our little souls.

The hope is that promoting awareness of pregnancy and infant loss will also increase the likelihood that bereaved parents will receive greater understanding and support from family, friends, co-workers, and health care providers as they face the challenges of this very complicated, life-altering and lifelong grief. 

I've included a link to the PBSO website where you'll find sample letters (for bereaved parents or supporters) with all the information you'll need, including how to find and contact your MPP.

Please consider helping out by writing to your MPP. 

Please?

Firth and Saunders

I recently read that men have a preferred sex while women have a more preferred sex. Which totally explains how I currently have a crush on both Colin Firth and Jennifer Saunders.

I will swing both ways, apparently, as long as the object of my affection is English. And in show business. And attractive. And talented.

So anyway...

Colin and I went to the movies together on Friday night. We totally, totally did.

My absolutely fabulous sister snagged four tickets to the Toronto International Film Festival's premiere of The King's Speech on what was Mr. Firth's 50th birthday. He attended the gala premiere, of course, where I (and about two hundred other people) witnessed his utter and complete gloriousness on the red carpet.

I only caught a glimpse, really. I was rushing back from the ticket office with our tickets when I heard, "COLIN! COLIN! COLIN!", from the frenzied crowd on the red carpet just as he moved his way into the media tent.

But a glimpse of Colin Firth is nothing to sniff at.

Oooh, it would have been nice to actually sniff him...can you imagine?!

Anyway, Colin Firth, Geoffry Rush, and the film's director, writer and some other people (whose names and titles escape me because they were introduced to the audience after Colin Firth, thus rendering me completely incapable of paying any attention to them whatsoever) all sat in the theatre and watched the movie along with us.

It was a big theatre, and I didn't actually know they were in the audience until after the film ended, but it still totally counts.

I went to the movies with Colin Firth.

As for Jennifer Saunders, I've spent the last two weeks blowing through the entire 5 seasons of Absolutely Fabulous (including specials and extras). I can't believe it took me 40 years to discover the awesomeness of AbFab.

Where. Have. I. Been?!

I now want to be her. Not the charmingly amoral character she plays, but her. That career. I want that career.

Never mind that I'm nowhere near anything resembling an actress, have never taken any acting classes, and have no desire to actually be an actress. I just think it would be amazing to write something that clever; to put something so awesome out into the world that it has the power to inspire a 40-year old, musty-brained copywriter to want to do more with the words in her head.

So when I grow up I want to be Jennifer Saunders.

Failing that, I would also consider becoming Colin Firth's second wife when My Beloved chucks me after reading this post.

Stay tuned...

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.

Because sometimes we all need a little magic...

Magic Cookie Bars

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups sweetened, flaked coconut

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup pecan pieces

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Dump graham crumbs into a  9" X 13" pan. Pour melted butter over top of crumbs and mix until all the butter is thoroughly incorporated into the crumbs. Firmly press crumbs into the bottom of the pan to form a solid crust.

Evenly pour coconut over crust. Evenly pour chocolate chips over coconut. Evenly pour pecans over chocolate. Evenly pour entire can of sweetened condensed milk over everything.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 - 30 minutes. Top should be golden brown around the edges, and starting to brown in the centre.

Remove and cool completely before cutting.

Visual inspiration courtesy of my first annual Family Christmas Tea, circa 2005 

(that's them on the left!)

Now go. Off with you. Make sweets. That's an order.

Miscellaneous Monday

I could not sleep last night. I used every last one of my special Jedi mind tricks to try to calm down and lull myself to sleep, but my stubborn brain fought off each and every attempt until well past 2:00am when I finally, mercifully, conked out.

As a result, I'm operating in a general haze of stupidness today.

Thus I am perfectly primed for The Bachelor Pad tonight.

Yeah, that's right - I watch crap reality TV that actually makes me stupider for having watched it. And I don't care. It will give my racing brain something else to digest tonight instead of my own worries. With any luck my noggin, thoroughly drunk on garbage-y TV, will burp, fart, and pass out early.
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I'm going to the premiere of The King's Speech at the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Colin Firth - who owes me $40 for last year's The Picture of Dorian Gray premiere that I went to ONLY because he was going to there, except that he wasn't (!!!) - will be in attendance too.

Yeah, that's right - I'm going to the movies with Colin Firth.
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I had a great idea this morning. Or maybe it was last night. I don't know, I'm too stupid to remember right now.

Anyway, I thought it would be excellent to make a point of doing something every month that we wouldn't be able to do if we had kids. Not to rub our flexibility and ability to be spontaneous in the faces of those who have to rely on babysitters and plan for early evenings, but to make sure we actually make good use of this life we were given.

We didn't choose it, but it's just sitting here, all wiiiiiide open. And it seems criminal not to use up every last drop of it.

And so that's my new plan.
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Almost six months ago I thought for sure my dad was going to die. A few weeks later, he almost did. And a few weeks after that, he started to crash again while My Beloved and I stood in the hallway outside his hospital room staring stupidly at each other. Helpless.

Today I gave him a kiss on the cheek while he sat at the kitchen table eating his meatball sandwich before dialysis.

I remain in endlessly grateful awe that he's still here.
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I have an adoption post rattling about in my head that I will endeavor to spit out soon.

We are the circus freaks of the infertility world, we black sheep* who choose childlessness over adoption. At best we are objects of curiosity. At worst, we are harshly judged - usually by those who have never had to make these sorts of decisions under these kinds of extraordinary circumstances.

But there are reasons - really good, solid reasons - why we are walking this path instead of the one others may think we should have taken.

And one day I'll talk about it.

But not today. I'm too tired.

*Totally stole "black sheep" from Pamela over at Silent Sorority .

Sometimes when we get bored...

...we put stuff (like furry toy mice) on the cats' heads.

They don't always like it.

Sucks to be them.

Life lessons

When I take my dad to the hospital for dialysis I always go in and wait with him. He doesn't need it - he's perfectly capable of walking in on his own, getting registered and waiting in the outer lounge to be called in for treatment - but I enjoy spending that time with him, just the two of us.

We chat about all kinds of things while he chomps away on his ice chips. Sometimes I stare intently at his face, trying desperately to memorize every little feature while he talks, but I am listening closely too. Hearing the sound of his voice, now weak, but still full of fire and life.

For a hospital waiting area, the dialysis lounge is actually pretty nice. Comfy chairs, dark paneled cupboards, a great ice machine (so I'm told), and a TV, all tucked away from view of the hospital lobby. It's as cozy and as non-threatening as it can possibly be.

But, you know, it's still a hospital waiting room. And there are enough old, sweet faces in there to break your heart a million times over.

I focus on my dad, but when there are lulls in our conversation, my eyes wander to the other souls waiting in the room. And yesterday, I overheard enough of a conversation between one patient and a dietitian to change the way I view my own little world, tragedies and sorrow and all.

She's only in her late 40s, I'd say, and in addition to dealing with renal failure, she is obviously struggling with some form of mental illness - a fact that became very clear yesterday when I overheard part of her discussion with one of the renal dietitians.

As I watched her face register fear and sorrow - flicking back and forth between the two as she told her story -  I thought about my own life. About what's going on right now.

I miss my son. With every single cell in my body, I miss that boy every moment of every day. And I ache for my dad, and for what he's going through - and for the awful toll it's taken on his mind and body over the last five months. And every day I worry that my mom will call and tell me he's gone. And I worry about her too - and my sister. And I wonder if I'm doing the right things, doing enough, saying enough, or maybe saying too little. Or saying too much.

And sometimes I find myself consumed with it all. Worried, sad, distracted. Swallowed whole.

But as I sat in the dialysis waiting room yesterday listening, I thought about the good bits. Dad is still here. There is a Kristin-shaped dent in my mattress next to a Sandy-shaped dent. I wake up to Dibley-the-Wonder-Cat kisses on a regular basis. I laugh until my stomach hurts. I can walk. I can see. I am loved. I love back.

I am still here.

And life, despite all its sorrow, is often so good I can barely breathe.