Dusk

After de-slugging the pepper patch on Saturday evening, My Beloved and I sat on our tiny patio (the lottery win I'm planning for this Friday will eliminate the "tiny" in that phrase) and watched the evening melt into dusk.

Everything seems to turn grayish-purple in the blue half-light of dusk - skin, grass, trees, fences. It's an ethereal and melancholic sort of time, I find. A time for fairies and gnomes and things hiding just out of sight.

And yes, I'm aware that almost every time is somehow a melancholic time for me. Dawn, noon, dusk, midnight - I can usually find a little melancholy in each of them if I look hard enough.

But you don't have to look hard at dusk. It's there in the deepening shadows, the blue pall, and the impossible stillness.

And in that half-light, as I stared out at the freshly watered lawn, I remembered a hazy, long-ago conversation My Beloved and I had back when we believed we would, I could, have children. He didn't want too many gardens. He wanted lawn - space to play with his children on the grass in our backyard. I agreed, picturing a chubby-legged toddler in a sun bonnet feeling grass on her toes for the first time.

The lawn still has space. Ample. There are gardens too, like our slug-ridden pepper patch. But nothing more.

So as my eyes fought against the dark on Saturday night, my mind drew a tousle-headed boy running in an arc across the lawn towards my chair, his arms thrown open in that glorious way that boys do when they're let loose on a patch of grass in the summer. He ran towards me, his mouth stretched into a crazy, wide open smile - and then he slipped quietly away into the shadows. Just before he reached me.

My mind will always be drawing pictures of the boy, I guess.

I know I'll see him no matter where I go, but I often wonder if a different place might hurt less. He was expected here. This house is missing him. I see where he should have been. I remember the plans I had and the pictures I drew when he was wriggling and kicking inside me.

Dusk falls everywhere. But it falls hard here.

Shut your pie-hole

Dear Perky Young Thing sitting beside me at the hairdresser,

I understand (from the sounds of things) that you're probably blissfully unaware that not every single person can sneeze and get pregnant. And stay pregnant. And birth a live baby. I understand that you're pleased that you were able to have one child and, now, get pregnant with a second one while you're still young. I understand that in a perfect world this makes a lot of sense. You have energy, health and youth on your side.

I get that. I do. And the part of me that didn't want to jam a curling iron in your great gaping pie-hole is happy for you - happy that you get to be young and pregnant and blissfully unaware.

But the crusty, broken-down, 40-year old whose uterus has left a bloody path of destruction in its wake would like to respectfully tell you to keep your opinions about "old mothers" to yourself. She might patiently bite her bottom lip whilst you wax poetic about the joys of being a young mother, but she will come this close to beating you about the head with a full conditioner bottle when you effortlessly slide into an ugly conversation about how terrible it is that Kelly Preston is pregnant at 47.

Honestly, Perky Young Thing, you were dangerously close to getting a new one ripped for you. You are clearly unaware of how horribly insensitive your comments were, and how inappropriate it is to sit there on your pregnant pedestal judging older mothers with such open scorn and smugness oozing from your lips when you have no idea who is in earshot - or what struggles they might have endured to bring a child home. Or not, as the case may be.

My God, Perky Young Thing, what if I'd been pregnant??

You were saved by the hairdryer which finally drowned out your incessant prosthelytizing (which, in case you hadn't noticed, even your own hairdresser wasn't buying into. I should have tipped her too.).

One of the reasons we decided to stop trying was because we are now both in our 40s. After all we've been through we knew, at a certain point, that we simply didn't have the energy to continue and risk facing any additional hardships or loss.

We have become old before our time, Perky Young Thing. But it was OUR choice to make this incredibly difficult and personal decision based on what we've been through, and I will defend to my death every "old mother's" right to decide when she is finished adding to her family.

Now quit your yapping, keep your eyes on your own uterus - and, by the way, stop getting your hair dyed while you're pregnant.

Regards,
The barren, ferocious hag to your right

Now I lay me down to sleep

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep offers remembrance photography - photographs taken by volunteer professional photographers - to parents suffering the loss of a baby. Their entire network of affiliated photographers graciously donate their time and talents so that NILMDTS can offer this invaluable service to grieving families at no cost. The heirloom photographs of these beautiful babies are an important part of the healing process.

That's why donations are greatly needed and  so greatly appreciated.

In celebration of their 5th anniversary, they have started a $5 donation campaign and are asking people to donate $5 to this very worthy and important cause.

If you're so inclined, you can donate here. 

NILMDTS wasn't around when Thomas died. I can only imagine the beautiful photographs we might have today if they were...

A bit of housekeeping...

Dear bloggers,

Does anyone have any idea why I'm able to post comments to some Blogger blogs and not others? The blogs I'm having trouble with are ones that provide a list of "identities" to choose from (Google account, Open ID, TypePad, etc.) when commenting. The thing is, no matter which identity I choose - even if I opt for "anonymous" out of desperation - my comments just don't go through.

It's weird. And frustrating. And I have no idea how to remedy this situation...

Help!

Signed,
A confused simpleton

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.

Brain drain

The first morning at the cottage I spent a half hour on the dock watching a duck paddle along the shoreline preening himself and feeding on whatever it is ducks scoop up when their little white bums are pointing to the heavens.

A half hour, just sitting there.

I had a book in my lap - I was prepared to be mildly productive - but instead I sat in the sunshine and watched a duck.

For the next half hour I lay on my tummy with my head over the edge of the dock watching the fish while they watched me. I put my palms on the surface of the water, feeling the cool. I examined the strange, greeny-peach of my skin when submerged. I kept an eye out for dock spiders. I heard the whistling thrum of wing beats as birds flew above me.

I heard everything. Even the tiniest sounds were magnified by the absence of the constant ambient noise I'm so used to here in the suburb where careless sounds crash into me all day long.

I breathed in. I breathed out.

We made fire. And we used that fire to cook marshmallows which, of course, we paired with chocolate and graham crackers.

I cleaned my sticky fingers in the lake.

I marinated in bonfire smoke.

I listened to forest creatures scurry in the underbrush.

I trained my flashlight on the bush looking for bear eyes every now and then.

I waved to an old couple in a passing boat - the only people we ever saw.

I watched the sparks fly high into the dimming night sky.

I got eaten alive by mosquitoes who took the absence of bug spray as an invitation to dine on my exposed ankles and toes.

I used bonfire tending skills I learned from my grandpa, passing them on to My Beloved.


I thought about those bonfires of the 70s - at a cottage, now long gone, not far from this one - and about those who will never again sit by the shores of a lake listening to the cracks and pops of a roaring fire.

I resisted the melancholy.

I laughed at My Beloved while he put his camera and hair in mortal danger in an effort to capture the perfect fire shot.

I relaxed as much as it was humanly possible for me to relax after months of being tied up in knots worrying about my dad - who continues to defy the odds by being here.

I broke the silence. I called to check in every day but one.

It was necessary if I was to continue to breathe.

And I did. Fresh, clean, quiet air.

Too short. Too short.

Wish I was there.

Thank plinking you hear? It's me. And my mid-life crisis

I think I may have officially started my mid-life crisis.

In a foggy haze of sleeplessness, my synapses firing on nothing more than nervous energy, I decided to teach myself the ukulele just days after my dad was finally (finally) released from the hospital. I'm not totally sure my sudden desire to master the uke has anything to do with his discharge, but historically I do seem to manage being in the throes of chaos and uncertainty a little better when I actively take control over something I can control.

Even if it is a funny little four-stringed instrument.

Right after Thomas died, it was redecorating the nursery - with a vengeance I can only describe as pathological. When we were 7 months into trying to conceive early the next year, it was Weight Watchers. When we decided to stop actively trying to get pregnant, officially forgoing more surgery and medical intervention, it was crochet (the great crochet square a day odyssey of 2009).

And now, the ukulele.

I'm such a tied up little knot of anxiety these days - worrying about my dad, worrying about my mom, worrying that I'm worrying about them too much at the expense of my poor, neglected Beloved - and so shutting that part of my brain off and focusing instead on how to twist my fingers into the (really unnatural feeling) positions needed to make sweet, plinky music sing from the belly of the ukulele for a little while just feels so, so good.

I suck at it, but I carry on.

Hmmm, that feels familiar...

We're heading up north to a rented cottage in a few weeks, and the ukulele and my brand new Teach Yourself Ukulele book are coming along for the ride. I'm dreaming of a sun dappled deck, early morning mist rising off the lake, the crackling of a bonfire, and mastery of the Dm7 chord.

I absolutely understand that this is a pretty useless skill to master. There's not much call for barren, angst-ridden, 40-year old ukulele players who drive old men to dialysis and write corporate communications by day and strum badly but determinedly into the night (something My Beloved has already pointed out is kind of annoying - no more ukulele in bed, apparently). But I just don't give a hairy rat's ass.


Some day this will come in handy. Some day I will amaze and astonish someone with my mad uke skills. Or bad uke skills, as the case may be. But still - I will astonish. Or at least amuse.

And it will all be worth it.

In the meantime, right now there's nothing better than this kind of mindless distraction. Or the feeling of once again having control over something. Anything.

And her reply...

"Many thanks for taking the time to write this, for your kind way of expressing a disagreement, for your sharing of personal details, and for your very thoughtful advice of your own.

I did receive another well-expressed note like this and have already worked it into a future column.... by way of educating readers further about this sensitive topic, to show the deeper areas than those on which I touched.

May I say - not to excuse myself, but to explain - that anyone who is deeply grieving cannot possibly get enough solace from the 50-100 words of an answer in a general audience newspaper advice column.

I do try to show my compassion, which I genuinely feel....and I do try to offer some possible ways to bring new thinking to the situation, such as that the friends and family who don't mention a subject may actually be trying to be kind, not dismissive.

I thank you for understanding most of my approach, and for deepening my understanding."
 
I wholeheartedly agree that a 100-word column can't possibly provide enough solace for a woman grieving her lost children and her dreams of motherhood, which is why wasting a paragraph on the whole "filling the void" thing bothered me so much, I suspect. 

Well, that and the fact that it was just atrocious advice.

But I give her endless credit for responding so kindly and promptly, and for deciding to tackle the subject again in an upcoming column now that she's heard from those of us on the inside. 

This is such a quiet little world, this childless place, and it's nice to know that people are listening to our whispers and trying to do their best to understand.

It's all anyone can ask for, really.

Because if no one ever tells her...how will she know?

I have become a bit of a letter writer in my advancing years. When something touches a nerve, I march up to my computer and pound out a missive. Most of which I send.

When I read a local advice columnist's piss-poor advice to an infertile woman struggling with Mother's Day blues the other day, I knew a letter was coming.

And this morning, this is what I sent:

 Dear Ellie,

I absolutely understand that the advice you give comes from a place of goodness and a desire to help - an admirable thing in today’s “it’s all about me” sort of world.

But I found myself wincing when I read the advice you gave to the childless woman who struggles with her sorrow on Mother’s Day (May 31/10). You were right to point out that her friends and family care, and that they show it by continuing to invite her to events and making her part of their lives. And you were correct in suggesting that she continue to seek counseling to deal with the lifelong after-effects of a battle with infertility.

But oh Ellie, to suggest that she become a foster parent or volunteer with children as a means of “filling the void”? Really?!

I lost five babies during my long, bloody battle to become a mother, one 20 hours after he was born due to a birth injury. Now at 40, I am in the process of dealing with the reality that I will always be a childless mother – an invisible mother, if you will. With that knowledge and experience under my belt, I can tell you with absolute certainty that your “filling the void” suggestion is akin to telling a woman dying of dehydration that while she can’t have a drink, she should take solace in the knowledge that she can clean your pool. That, in fact, cleaning a pool is good for her and will help her “move past” her unquenchable thirst.

Other people’s children will never fill the void left by the five I lost. This is something I think it’s impossible for you to understand, having successfully brought children of your own into the world. And so I would urge you to be very careful when doling out advice about something you can’t possibly fully understand. Volunteering with children may not make this woman “thrive”, as you suggest. It might only exacerbate the feelings of loss and the trauma associated with it. Spending time with children is always challenging for an infertile person living in a fertile world. There is always a little pain (or sometimes a lot of pain) mixed in with the joy of being with children. It hasn’t helped me “thrive”. It has merely helped me learn coping mechanisms to protect my still tender heart.

We foster a child through World Vision and I am glad that we’re able to do so, but I rarely think about it. I do, however, think about my son every single day.

Better advice would have been to tell her that the seasonal Mother’s Day blues are a pretty normal event for an infertile woman who has the cumulative trauma of multiple losses making it worse – not to mention a failed marriage, poor thing. Telling her to be kind to herself – to treat herself well and not beat herself up over the feelings of loss that very naturally arise during the annual celebration of motherhood – would have been far more helpful than telling her to suck it up and go help someone else.

Avoiding all situations where children will be present is impractical and unhealthy. I agree. I happen to think a little immersion therapy every now and then is a good, healthy thing. But knowing it’s okay to feel some degree of sadness in those situations – and knowing it’s okay to politely say your good-byes when you’ve had enough – is also very important. It would have been nice if you’d told her that.

She asked how she can make people understand how much she wishes she was a mother. You might have told her to start writing a journal or a blog documenting her feelings, and to connect with other like-minded blogging women. There is strength in numbers. You also might have told her to look for childless-not-by-choice support groups online or in her community so she’d know she’s not alone. You might have told her to actually sit down and talk to the people closest to her and tell them what’s going on in her head so that they will, finally, understand how much she is hurting and how important it is to her that they know where she’s coming from. This is the only way they’ll truly know how to help and what to say – or, more importantly, what not to say.

Being understood by those around you is critical when you’re facing this kind of challenge. Believe me. Being told to find something to “fill the void” is thoughtless at best, cruel at worst.

As I said, I know you meant well, but you were way, way off the mark on this one. And I just needed you to know.

Regards,
Kristin Z.

80

Last year, at your request, we made you barbecued leg of lamb and pineapple upside down cake for your birthday celebration; and we laughed all night long, stuffed and happy. This year I brought you coffee-from-the-outside to have with your afternoon snack of Digestive cookies in the hospital, your proper celebration - and release - delayed by frustratingly poor internal communication.

But you're still here. You're still here.

And maybe, just maybe, tomorrow you'll be home.

I love you. Happy birthday, dad.

oxox

Will wonders never cease?

I spent close to a half an hour snuggling with my brand new nephew yesterday after meeting him for the very first time. Yeah, on Mother's Day.

And I didn't die.

Imagine that.

The haves and have nots

Ahhhhhh. I'm sitting alone in my office with the (finally) cool breeze bringing in the earthy smell of new rain and damp pavement, and it's just so peaceful. If it weren't for the fact that I'm sitting in the office because I have a ton of work still left to do tonight, it would be perfection.

Except for the odd rumble of thunder and the chirp of spring birds, it's quiet. So, so blissfully quiet. I suppose the fact that it's nearly 8:00pm on a weeknight is part of the reason. All the little ones who are usually out in the street playing during the day are, I presume, getting read their bedtimes stories right about now. Snug in their jammies, fresh from the bath.

But it was a little less quiet a few minutes ago. The unmistakable sound of a most excellently delivered tantrum, Oscar-worthy in fact, came pealing in through the open window along with the evening  breeze.

I stood at the screen listening to the fracas - sobs, angry screams, and "daddeeeee, daddeeeee, dadeeeeeeeee!!!" - and breathed a sight of relief as I turned to sit back down at the computer.

I sighed. I sighed because it's not me trying to cope with a 3 year-old who has just copped an, "I don't want to go to bed and you can't make me" attitude. I sighed because tonight my only responsibility, other than getting cat food and picking up My Beloved at the train, is to myself. I sighed because right now it seems easier to be me than them. 

It was a happy sigh. And kind of a relieved one.

And this is a startling turn of events. Easier to be me than them? Huh?!

I don't know if this is some sort of a self defense mechanism at work, or just that magical ability humans have to adapt and accept and push on. But this has been happening quite a bit lately. I just haven't wanted to admit it because it seems, well, wrong. In fact it seems all kinds of wrong to be seeing the silver lining in such a dark and awful sky, doesn't it? I mean seriously, doesn't it??

I've become so accustomed to focusing on the negative - on what's missing -  that it seems wrong to, every once in a while, actually be happy with my life. Just the way it is.

Not that it's wrong to be happy, but wrong to be happy about this.

This can't be right, can it? Is this even allowed?!

I'm not happy that my son is dead and I miscarried his four siblings. But sometimes I'm incredibly happy with the peaceful life we've managed to carve out since, and sometimes that happiness is directly related to the stress I know we don't - and will never have to - endure. Like bedtime tantrums, for example. Hell, any kind of tantrums. And messes too, dirty diapers included.

Of course it goes without saying that I would trade in all my new-found peace to have Thomas back. In a heartbeat. But since that isn't an option, I'm going to try to stop feeling guilty for enjoying the things our live has given us, even if we have them because of what was taken away.

Full up

It seems like my dad is finally, finally, finally on the mend. He's been moved to the hospital's rehab unit and is receiving daily physiotherapy to regain the strength he lost while he was bedridden for nearly three weeks. He's lucid, getting stronger, and looking better each time I see him. Despite the rigors of dialysis on his frail body and the infection that still plagues it, he is fighting hard to get home to his chair in the window.

And I think he's going to make it. Maybe even by his 80th birthday on the 17th.

But still, I walk on eggshells. I'm haunted by the things I saw and heard when we thought he was going to die. I'm haunted by the way he looked and sounded when he didn't know who I was and couldn't stay awake long enough to figure it out. I'm haunted by the mumbled gibberish and the pieces of stories he told that made no sense.

I'm haunted each time I have to go back into the hospital where Thomas died.

I'm no longer quite as afraid of what I might find when I step into his room. But I barely breathe, just the same. I stare at him, willing him to stay alive while I nervously make small talk because I've long ago run out of things to say to a man who can't remember most of the last 8 weeks.

The fact that I have no life is a topic for another blog, but it would be useful if I did. I need more fodder for conversation.

In my eyes, he's like a tiny sheet of gold foil. Precious and fragile. Able to be swept from me by the smallest breeze. Gone in an instant. I hover around him, on full alert, like a parent with a toddler taking its first steps. I think he's going to choke. I think he's going to fall. I think his heart is going to stop, right there in front of me.

I'm trying to be here, present in my own life; a wife to my husband, a support to my friends, a competent writer to my clients, a keeper of house and home. But I'm trying to be there too, with him. With my mom. Doing what I can to help make all this a little easier, if possible.

I need two of me. Maybe three. And I need to sleep through the night and not be plagued by the kind of weird dream I had last night. I need to remember how to relax, decompress, and enjoy moments of peace.

There should be a special store for people who need these sorts of thing. Or, barring that, the universe needs to pony up and start being a little more equitable in its dishing out of random shit.

The universe is being an ass.

Thanks, random strangers

I was feeling kind of blue last night, and found myself reaching out into the ether for some random stranger comfort. Not because my only sources of support that are connected to me by wires and keyboards, but because sometimes you just need a little random stranger comfort to carry you over the rough patches. There's nothing like knowing you're not alone to keep the crazies at bay. And your shoulders slightly less knotted up. And your jaw less clenched.

So anyway, there I was poking about looking for solace when I stumbled across a chat board for people just like me: childless not by choice.

I didn't stay long - sometimes I worry about indulging the hungry little part of my soul that wants to feed on every scrap of self pity it can find, getting fat and self-satisfied in the process. But I did stay and read for a little while.

Long enough to discover that maybe I've been a little too hard on myself. Just maybe.

I take out my invisible hittin' stick every time I feel even the slightest twinge of jealousy. Every time I feel sorry for myself. Every time I wish I was her instead of me. Every time I feel sorrow before I feel joy.

I'm hittin' myself all. the. time.

As for the ladies on the CNBC board? I didn't see a single stick in the bunch. They were out there, warts and all, talking about the unfairness of a life not chosen. About how much it hurts. About the insensitive things people have said to them. About the people who have not been careful with their still tender hearts. About how they're moving on as best they can with those un-chosen lives.

And I sat there dumbfounded.

Because, from what I read, it sounds like it's okay to feel the way I do. Or, at the very least, it's normal.

It's okay to sit in church and feel a dull ache in my heart when I see family after family after family filling up the pews around me. It's okay to feel lonely when I'm always the only "mother" who doesn't belong. It's okay to wish I was outside with the gaggle of parents and toddlers filling the street on a warm Saturday night. It's okay to feel sad before I feel happy when I hear that a friend or family member is pregnant. It's okay to need to look away when I see a round, baby-filled belly.

It's all, it seems, totally okay.

I know it could simply be a case of a group of like-minded people simply feeling safe enough to voice these thoughts within the confines of their own little board. But the simple fact that there is a board populated by people who feel these sorts of things is very validating, I think.

It's not okay to make people feel uncomfortable or guilty that they have and you don't. It's not okay to be cruel or hurtful out of some misguided sense of cosmic entitlement based on the shitstorms you've faced. But it's okay to hurt, in your own little heart. And it's okay to do what it takes to make that pain hurt a little less whenever you can.

Good to know.

Jam jars on the windowsill

Oh, my heart.

My mom and dad still live in the same house they bought when they were first married; a little bungalow in a now all grown up neighbourhood just west of Toronto. I pass by my old elementary school every time I visit, as well as all the other haunts that make up the geographical landscape of my childhood.

The corner store, my (still) best friend Michelle's old street, my grandma and grandpa's house (which I never fully forgave them for selling since it meant I was no longer the only person I knew who had grandparents living on the very same block, less than two minutes away by foot), the church where I had my first communion, confirmation and grade 8 graduation. They're all still there, every time I come "home".

As I drove past my elementary school yesterday, on the way to the hospital by way of my ancestral home, I happened to catch sight of a tiny clumped-up bunch of kids squatting amidst the dandelions on the boulevard.

Little boys, about Kindergarten age. A whole flock of them, all furiously picking away, their little hands crammed full of the yellow weeds which were, of course, destined for empty jam jars on kitchen windowsills. After kisses and smiles and snuggles of thanks.

Its a right of passage, creating that first glorious dandelion bouquet. I remember doing it myself. And I remember how proud I was when I got the reaction I'd hoped for:  a gasp of pure joy and a hug from my mom, who I would have done anything to please. I remember standing by the sink while she filled a jar with water and lovingly put that scraggly bunch of half dead weeds in the window, as though it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever been given. Maybe even better than the L'Eggs panty hose I gave her every Christmas, complete with the plastic egg container that she'd always give me back to play with.

Truly the gift that gave twice, those L'Eggs.

I've thought about my dandelion-less future before. I think I've even blogged about it. No, this wasn't the first time it had dawned on me that I would never have a jam jar filled with weeds on my own kitchen windowsill. I don't think there there are too many things I'll be missing that haven't already worn a deep groove in my brain, they've crossed it so many times in the last five years. 

But it was the first time I saw a group of boys Thomas' age gathering dandelions. And it took my breath away. I literally gasped, and then did what you'd expect some steroetypical infertile, childless heroin from a bad Hallmark movie to do - I pressed my left hand into my chest above my heart, as if to stop the ache. And I held my breath, my mouth agape as I continued past the school and around the corner to my mom's house.

Loss is a strange sort of claustrophobia. I wanted Thomas back so badly in those first few moments after seeing the dandelion boys that I wanted to crawl out of my skin, scream, tear apart the steel on my car with my bare hands. Do something, anything, to get him back. To see him, touch him, talk to him.

But, of course, there was nothing to be done but pry my hand off my heart, close my mouth and drive on.

And so I did.

I still like dandelions. I still smile at the memory of picking them and marveling at the thought that there were hundreds of them available - as far as the eye could see - all free and all waiting to be collected and given to my mom.

Jam jars on the windowsill.

40. Whattaya know.

What half drunk, whiny-ass attention whore wrote that post yesterday?

It couldn't have been me as I am perfect in every way.

So, as it turns out 40 doesn't feel any different than 39. Not a bit. I still have bags under my eyes and a disturbing amount of gray in my hair. I still love and am loved by my wonderful family and friends. I still play with yarn and dig in the dirt every chance I get. A fat, furry little black and white kitten and his fat old tabby striped sister both still purred for me this morning. A man I adore whispered that he loved me using the endearing nickname he gave me 11 years ago. I still miss my boy. I still find peace in the sound of the birds singing on a spring morning. I'm still neurotic with a dash of OCD. I'm still shy but experienced enough to hide it well. I still find Peter Boyle's song and dance number in Young Frankenstein fall-off-the-couch funny, even though My Beloved doesn't get it. I still wish I didn't have a busted uterus. I still secretly think that if someone important heard me singing in the shower or in my car I'd get a recording contract like that. I still like pancakes on Sunday morning. Orange and red autumn leaves still take my breath away. I still eat chocolate chips when I've run out of proper chocolate. And speaking of chocolate, sometimes I still have dessert after breakfast.

I'm not a girl anymore. The 30s beat that out of me. Soundly.

But I'm still here.

And so yeah, 40's not so bad. Not at all.

On the eve of 40

Good Lord. 40 tomorrow - which seems wholly impossible since I was just 16 five minutes ago. I swear.

I've decided to start the celebration early. I'm finishing up a glass of baco noir (yeah, blogging whilst drinking) and enjoying the gentle wine-y buzz of a late afternoon tipple. Although I may have just swallowed a fruit fly. I don't care, but I might have.

And speaking of birthdays...

The thirties were, to be perfectly honest and rather blunt, one long and horrific bloodbath of a decade. Seriously, from 33 on. I'm glad to be rid of them. With the exception of marrying My Beloved, the 30s were the worst 10 years I've ever known. The 30s taught me that my body is thoroughly and completely inadequate - that it won't support life. The 30s brought me the greatest sorrow I have ever known, and with it the incurable and lifelong plague of endless guilt. And a crisis of confidence too. One that seems to leach into every area of my life.

The 30s were a bitch.

I became a mother, yes. And I am endlessly grateful for ever single second I had with Thomas. And I would do it all again for each one of those blissful moments.

But I am not the mother I intended to be. Let's not kid ourselves. This is not how it was supposed to be. This is not how it should have turned out, dammit.

Last night I got thinking about what it might be like if I find myself in my dad's situation one day: 80, hospitalized, desperately sick.

In the first few weeks of his illness, I kept saying how glad I was that our children would never worry the way I have - that they'd never find themselves lying prone on the floor, sobbing at the thought of me weak and confused in a hospital bed.

Because, of course, all our children are dead.

And still, I was comforted by the fact that they would be spared this anguish. 

I know all the flaws in this logic. I do. Yeah sure, I won't be worrying my kids when I'm old and frail, but I also won't have had the benefit of all that extra love in my life. The extra life in my life.

Every time I go into the hospital I take my dad a coffee and a newspaper. Simple pleasures he can now, finally, enjoy. And I get him a fresh cup of ice water, clean up his room a bit and ask if there's anything else I can do. Anything else I can bring. Any other way I can make him more comfortable.

Last night it dawned on me that there will be no one who cares enough about me to do this when I'm old. We have nieces and nephews, of course, but they have parents. They are not obligated to act as surrogate children when we're old, and I would never expect them to.

And so I'm quietly tortured by the notion that I'm going to be all alone one day and no one will come to see me. No one will be there to get me a fresh drink or find me a warmer blanket or stroke my arm and tell me how much they love me.

This is what it means to have no children.

Fuck.

I realize people don't procreate in order to supply themselves with a nursing staff for later in life. But it's certainly one of the fringe benefits of growing people who love you - who would do anything for you, like I would do for my mom and dad. They will always love you, your children. They will always be there for you. Unless they're not. Unless they're dead.

So, friends, this is what the 30s brought me: fodder for my midlife crisis. Fueled by baco noir.

Niiiiiiiice.

Happy birthday to me.

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.

And finally...

...some good news.

Although I'm hesitant to broadcast it, lest the spiteful gods hear me and snatch it all away again, it seems like my dad is finally on the mend. As mended as an almost 80-year who is patched together with spit and tape can be, that is.

He's still in that godforsaken hospital - 5 weeks today - but he's now lucid almost 100% of the time,  receiving physiotherapy in preparation for leaving the hospital, and slowly but surely getting all his health issues sorted out. Including the new ones introduced by the stellar staff and the hospital's motley collection of germs and bacteria.

Don't get me started.

I can't even count the number of times I was sure this wouldn't end happily. I've never seen him look so old, frail or sick - some days so much so that I'm sure I physically recoiled at the sight of him. And the confusion (a result of the build-up of toxins in his body from the undiagnosed kidney failure) is something I hope never, ever, ever to have to see in him again.

It broke my heart when I'd say goodbye and he'd ask if he was coming home too, or when he was sure he was in an office building from his long ago working career, or when he was too weak and confused to feed himself, or when he thought I was his mother. And especially when I looked into his eyes and knew he had no idea who I was.

We are the lucky ones, my family and I, because he has come back to us. I can't imagine what it's like for the families of people with dementia for whom this is a permanent state. My good God, I don't know how they do it. Just a few weeks of this has left me utterly exhausted, body and mind. How people do this for years is absolutely beyond me, but I have a tremendous new respect for those caring for loved ones who are disappearing right before their eyes.

My birthday is next week. Time has a way of changing what you wish for. Five years ago, having just lost Thomas,  I would have thought that my dearest wish upon turning 40 would be to have another child. Today, I just want my dad home. And I want him to stay there for as long as the gods can possibly spare him.

I've asked them for a lot of things over the past five years. I'm hoping they'll finally give me this one.

I never prepared for this

But then again, who does? Who can?

My dad is in the hospital. Three weeks tomorrow. Last weekend he nearly died from septic shock after somehow contracting pneumonia, a blood infection, and a urinary tract infection.

He was this close to being released. This close to being back home in his chair in the window. In his own bed. In his little garden checking for spring buds.

Now sometimes he doesn't even know who I am. His blue eyes stare blankly back at me without so much as a flicker of recognition. This morning he thought he was talking to his mother on the phone. She's been dead for 44 years. He was talking to my mom.

I'm not prepared for this.

The staff seems nonplussed by his confusion. They brush it off and hint vaguely that it should go away once his body finishes fighting so hard.

His brief moments of lucidity keep me sane. But they're few and far between and until we get definitive word from his ever-elusive doctor that this will go away, I can barely breathe.

Three weeks ago tomorrow was Thomas' birthday. We spent it in the ER watching my dad gasp for breath in the morning, then cleaning up the mess the paramedics made of my mom and dad's house in the afternoon.

I'm not equipped for this.

I'm just not.

Missing

To the moon and back, little one. To the moon and back.
oxox

Five years

Close your eyes,
Have no fear,
The monsters gone,
He's on the run and your daddy's here,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Before you go to sleep,
Say a little prayer,
Every day in every way,
It's getting better and better,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Out on the ocean sailing away,
I can hardly wait,
To see you to come of age,
But I guess we'll both,
Just have to be patient,
Yes it's a long way to go,
But in the meantime,

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is just what happens to you,
While your busy making other plans,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

~ John Lennon

With all the love my heart can hold, birthday kisses and hugs to heaven, my sweet, sweet little boy. I miss you and I'll love you forever and a day.

Love, Mommy

Happy

I glanced up at the commercial and saw a family sitting on impossibly clean white couches. A child nestled up to her mother, the mother wearing a Mona Lisa smile of contentment. A Dad watched television across the room on an equally clean white couch with another child. Or maybe it was a dog.

I was fixated on the mother.

It was jut a commercial. She was paid to look serene. But it made me think about how different my life is than it could have been. And I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Not surprisingly.

I have a lot of joy in my life. But I am not who I was.

I recently read about a woman who was told, upon losing her child, that she would be okay again. She would be happy. But never like she was.

Truer words.

I will never be happy like I was. I will never, ever be able to see things the way I used to. Everything is filtered through a lens of loss.

And some days, particularly lovely sunny ones when I want to shed the weight of my sorrows like a child taking off its shoes and walking in spring grass for the first time after a long winter, it's hard to know I'll be fitted with this lens for the rest of my life.

It makes me tired. But also determined to continue to fight for whatever happiness is still left for me.

It's why I dug out my wedding tiara and an old fake pearl necklace and wore them to my sister's Oscar party last night. Along with a sweatshirt and jeans.

It's why I'm crocheting the world's largest, gaudiest afghan for our bed, which I'm aiming to have finished by tomorrow night. A little extra comfort is a good idea for tomorrow, I think.

It's why I have a shelf of seedlings basking in the sun by the sliding glass doors in the kitchen, and why I've been dreaming of digging in the dirt for weeks.

It's why I'm so grateful that more than 6400 people are signed up to do Random Acts of Kindness tomorrow.

I miss my boy. I miss the life we almost had. I miss being a mother to a living child and all the joys and sorrows that life would have held. Sticky kisses, crayon art, dandelion bouquets. I miss it all.

And I am not the same.

But I am fighting hard for happy.

It's like Monday all week long...

Today at a light I found myself stopped behind some big brown minivan/SUV type thing with a cute little round bumper sticker that read, "I love my twins!" in happy red lettering.

And all I could do was shake my head, look to the sky, smile and admit defeat.

You go me, God. You got me good.

I'm so wracked with anxiety over my dad's health that I have to concentrate on remembering how to walk. Breathe. Blink. I'm hurting from missing my little boy so much that I'm surprised I'm not actually bleeding.

So, you know, good to know some happy family out there loves their twins and feels the need to tell every car that happens to be driving behind them about their familial joy. Couldn't have lived another moment without knowing that the brown minivan/SUV people love those rascally little twins.

I would have loved mine too.

There's never a good time of year for someone you love to be seriously ill. Never. But right now? My God, my mental resources are so depleted from the double whammy, I don't know what to do with myself.

So I've been walking. Somewhat obsessively. I found a site that lets you map your routes and then post them in a training log that adds up your accumulating kilometers and keeps track of the number of calories you've burned to date. This is the perfect thing for someone who desperately needs to fixate on something she can control.

11.6km so far this week.

If only I could outrun my fear and sorrow I'd be set.

An open letter

Dear March,

So, you're back. You unpredictably cruel month, you.

You dangle the promise of spring before our hungry, winter-weary eyes with your thaws and balmy winds. And then you mock our need for your kindness with unexpected winter storms.

You're a sonofabitch.

I used to love you. I did. I loved the smell of your air, rich with earthy dampness. I loved your melting, dirty snow running in rivers down the streets. I loved your rushing, swollen rivers straining at their banks. I used to breathe you in deeply, marvel at your promise, urge you on eagerly knowing the treasures you held in store.

I was one of your biggest supporters.

Until.

And now you are just something to be endured. You are April's ugly, mean-spirited neighbour. We can't avoid you, so we just smile through gritted teeth and wait you out, hoping you'll move but knowing you never will. You'll be here, year after year after year.

You are endless, March.

I don't have to like you anymore, but I won't let you beat me. I will stand up to your cruelty and replace it with kindness. I will take your gloom and throw light on it. I will bundle up against your chill and stay warm. All month long, you bastard.

I will meet you head on and win. Not because I don't have any choice - but because I have chosen to fight.

There's nothing more you can take from me, but even though I'm empty-handed and broken-hearted you still haven't won.

I just thought you should know that.

Until next year,

Kristin

Dad

I know her well enough to know that the phrase, "Don't worry, everything is okay...", means nothing when it's said with palpable fear that I recognize from 26 years of straining to hear the truth in words meant to comfort and distract.

Everything is not okay. I've known that for a while. When I opened up my eyes from the deep sleep of babyloss grief and saw just how old they've become in the last few years, I knew everything was not okay. Not anymore.

I've just pretended otherwise because it was easier that admitting that his heart is failing rapidly. I can't bear to think of that heart being stilled. I can't bear it. So I've been stubbornly burying my head as far down into the sand as it'll possibly go and pretending that I can't hear or see what is achingly obvious.

His heart is failing.

In February 1984, during an ordinary school lunch period, I found out that fathers aren't immortal. I found out that a dad so strong he used to be able to turn me upside down, lifet me up and let me walk on the ceiling, is only as strong as his heart.

In June 1998 I comforted myself with the knowledge that he probably had another 10 - 15 years, according to the doctor who implanted the defibrillator following his sudden cardiac arrest.

In August 2004, while pregnant with Thomas, I learned that even sickly fathers can be as strong as an ox; that they can survive defibrillator replacement surgery at 74 and thrive in only the way a stubborn Irish father with a bum ticker can.

I won't grieve before it's time. I won't. He would hate that as much as he hates knowing he's eventually going to be the cause of such awful grief.

So I won't.

But I can't promise I won't still cry every once in a while. Someone with a heart as loved as his should expect nothing less.

WOW...

I think we're going to reach the 5000 member goal for Thomas' Random Act of Kindness group. With still more than two weeks to go, we're sitting at 4755 members!

I remain in constant awe of the love and support that's out there when you simply reach out your hand and ask for it.

Thank you.

A six month span

Then (July '09)


And now (January '10)



And some random beauty shots which, although providing a certain amount of evidence to the contrary, do not mean that I'm turning into the crazy cat lady.

Mostly.

Crushing

I have a bit of a girl crush on Dawn French these days. She's absolutely (and justifiably) unapologetic about her waist size, and funny as a stitch to boot. You can't beat that in a lady.

My Beloved and I devoured The Vicar of Dibley after Thomas died, watching back-to-back episodes day after day to soothe our wounded souls. Britcoms have proven to be an excellent salve, we've discovered. The British (and undeniably better) version of The Office had similar healing properties.

But Dawn is my girl.

I've been reading her autobiography, "Dear Fatty", for the last couple of weeks. Beyond her obvious comedic prowess and success in her field, I didn't know anything about her, so Dear Fatty has been an interesting read. And a funny one, of course. Written in letter form to friends, family and, on occasion, to Madonna and 1960s teen idols, it's a fascinating way to learn more about her.

Of course, I should have known that no life passes without sorrow. No soul makes it through life unscathed. And she is no exception. Her father committed suicide when she was 19. Many of the letters are addressed to him, posthumous ramblings about things in her life that he has missed since he left. Very touching and bittersweet.

One passage struck me so much that I dog-eared the page on which I found it - something I almost never do, along with cracking the spines of my books.

It was this:

"My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that...It's a process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I become."

And isn't this what we all do, we babyloss survivors? We just keep walking. We walk until we've figured out who we are now. We walk until believe we are as strong as they tell us we are. We walk until we find our way. We just keep walking.

God, I love Dawn French.

Waiting and praying

I inherited my inability to wait patiently from my father. He would (and did) drive thousands of miles to collect me and/or my sibling from various places/schools/homes/malls/jobs/ when we were younger without a moment's hesitation. And happily at that. But heaven forbid we make him wait one minute beyond that four hour drive - or five minute drive. He wasn't the least bit bothered by the length of time it took to reach his child, only the time spent waiting for her once he arrived.

And yeah, I'm kind of like that. Minus the kids waiting to be picked up, of course.

So after Mass I always sit in the pew and wait until the hoards file out of the church and start to vacate the parking lot, because my hackles rise almost instantly when I'm faced with the prospect of a waiting in my car. And then sitting in stop and go traffic until I can turn onto the main road home.

Sometimes I sit in my pew and watch the little groups chatting after Mass. Other times I kneel with my eyes closed in what would appear to be prayer, but usually actually isn't. I have trouble concentrating on prayer when people are moving and chatting around me. I'm entirely too nosy for after Mass prayer.

Why I bother making it look as though I'm praying is beyond me. Maybe I'm secretly hoping that God won't notice I'm planning the week's meals in my head. Maybe I'm hoping he'll just take a quick glance at my exceptional praying form (head bowed, eyes closed) and give me a gold star that I can redeem later in life.

I could use a gold star. He owes me.

Which brings me to the point of all this.

Last Sunday whilst I was kneeling in what no one would ever suspect wasn't prayer, I happened to look up and see an extremely pregnant woman standing at the foot of the altar staring up at the depiction of Jesus and his disciples. She was deep in thought (or maybe prayer, who am I to judge?) and was patting her belly very deliberately, as though punctuating whatever words were running through her mind with each little pat.

I froze in horror. And in my mind I screamed, "No, no, no - it won't make any difference! What will be, will be no matter how fervent those prayers are - no matter how hard you plead!"

And that seems like an awful reaction.

But I still think it's true. God help me, I do.

I admit that sometimes I still whisper quiet, tentative prayers for people who I think need them. I have asked God to cure. To save. Even since Thomas, I have uttered those words. Even when I know how utterly and completely they failed when I prayed them nearly five years ago.

And that's why I'm not sure they make any difference at all, those frantic, pleading kind of prayers.

Because, if you've noticed, people still die no matter how many people are busily begging for a different outcome. Because that's when they were supposed to die. Period.

I believe in God. I believe in miracles. I believe in the power of prayer - but only in so much as it can bring comfort to the helpless who have no other recourse but to beg, so that they feel they've done something. Anything.

I just don't believe in that kind of prayer anymore. There are other kinds, of course. Prayers of gratitude? Those are fine. Prayers for guidance and clarity? Also fine. But prayers to save the lives of others? I don't think anyone here has that kind of power, no matter how fervent the words, or how many of us are saying them.

I don't see this as a weakness or some little chink in my armor of faith. I see this as a realistic way to proceed from this point on. To ask God to save someone when it's their time to die only sets me up for the kind of confusion, feelings of betrayal and all-consuming anger I felt when Thomas died.

I hope the woman at Mass has a healthy child. But I can't pray for that because it's already decided.

No matter what I want. It's already decided.

A request...

It's joining this...if you could.

5000 members by March 9th is a big goal, but that many random acts of kindness done in the name of a little boy who was here just 20 hours would be incredible. Incredible.

And so very, very appreciated.

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.

It doesn't matter how gentle you are, Dr.

I think it's safe to say that nobody likes the dentist. But I've found an interesting challenge in dentistry these days.

Let me backtrack...

I had braces when I was 12. And before the braces, four molar extractions. All at the same time. Which resulted in a low grade fever and a bloody, drooling mess of a girl. After that, followed by the agony of a year of orthodontic torture in the form of regular brace tightening (which, I'm positive, is some modern relative of medieval torture), there was very little a dentist could do to scare me.

I laughed in the face of the buzzing drill. I scoffed at Novocaine. I rolled my eyes and sighed at any and all scaling, scraping and prodding using pointy little wands.

Until five years ago.

I had dentistry conquered. And smugly so. But then one day I found myself lying on an operating table hearing the words, "We're having a little trouble stopping the bleeding", and everything changed.

My baby died. And hell folded in on me.

There were complications. Nasty, life-threatening complications. And a few days later there was a moment when I was laying splayed out on my hospital bed waiting for an OB to come fix my leaky c-section wound while two other nurses searched desperately for viable veins in each arm in which to pump the drugs keeping the infection at bay when I completely lost it.

And I've never recovered it.

Fertility treatments added to the weight of the cumulative trauma. As did a subsequent lap, and a D&C that required an overnight stay complete with a balloon catheter in my uterus to stop yet another bout of bleeding after yet another loss.

And so now, when the most gentle dentist I've ever known leans over me to do routine (albeit still unpleasant) dental work, it takes deep breathing, an unwavering focus on my happy place, and absolute nerves of steel to keep from succumbing to the panic of not being in control.

Such a familiar panic.

Which is why I've put off dentistry for a while. And why, in turn, I have a solid month of weekly appointments to deal with the neglect.

The mind is ever fascinating. Secret panic kept locked away always manages to snake its way out. But, I suppose, there's nothing like four weeks of immersion therapy to deal with it.

Guilty

It takes so much energy to chase away the unfounded guilt that I still occasionally find lurking in my head.

I've worked hard to distinguish unfounded guilt from real guilt, so much so that now I can feel it. I know it by its weight, and height, and breadth. I can actually feel it taking up space. In my neck. In my shoulders. On my back.

Today I made my Mother cry. Now, in my defense, it doesn't take much to make my mother cry. She is one of those people whose protective armor is about as strong as cheap cling wrap. And with good reason. She has lived a difficult life in many ways, and is certainly no stranger to the kind of tragedy that crashes in on an otherwise quiet existence, turning it upside-down and inside-out.

But still, I made her cry.

We were talking, in a round about way, about Thomas. About our common sorrow, and how it affects your views of life and death. About the curious ambivalence you have towards both once someone so wee and dear is taken from you.

And, she cried. She choked back tears as she told me that she has nothing to look forward to because what we all thought was going to be our future was suddenly gone one sunny March day. She said part of her died that day too.

And she cried.

And I sat stupidly mute on the other end of the phone searching for the right words. Because I'd made her cry.

And I felt responsible for her grief. For who she is grieving for, and for what she now knows is never coming. For the future she lost so many times over.

It pressed me down to the bed. Held me there. Sat on my back and tried to suffocate me in the blankets.

But I am not responsible for this. In the smallest voice I have, I quietly told guilt that it isn't my fault. That I can't do more than I have. That I can't risk more than I have. That I cannot be held responsible for someone else's sorrow.

I pushed back. I stood up. I shook it off.

But I made my mother cry.

Twenty

The other night I was thinking about writing a "benefits of living a childless life" list, because one point popped into my head and I thought if I concentrated hard enough, more would follow.

The part of me that works hard to please everyone and piss off no one (must be liked; above all else, must. be. liked.) worries that this will sound like a big vat of whiny sour grapes at best, and smugly bitter at worst.

But the part of me that struggles daily to come to terms with this unplanned life is shouting louder today, so here goes:

1. We can (and do) venture out at all hours to wander through the neighbourhood on evening walks together.
2. Our rooms aren't decorated with anything in bright primary coloured plastic.
3. We only trip over our own toys.
4. We can (and do) lay about and read quietly on the weekends.
5. I never have to watch any DVD more than once unless I want to.
6. I don't have an endless loop of nonsensical songs sung by adults in matching jumpsuits playing in my head 24/7.
7. I can have a bath all by myself.
8. I can light candles without worrying that someone is going to get singed.
9. We can put breakables wherever we want.
10. We can stay out as long as we want.
11. We don't have to remember to spell out certain taboo words.
12. We can swear with reckless abandon.
13. No one here randomly pukes, pees or poos on floors, carpet or bedding.
14. We rarely get sick.
15. No one here hates going to bed.
16. No one here hates eating (we have the opposite problem...).
17. There is silence when we need it and only the occasional tantrum.
18. We enjoy uninterrupted sleep.
19. Our car is only dirty because we made it so.
20. No one requires entertaining (okay, sometimes I do...but that's My Beloved's problem).

There. Twenty things.

And yes, I know the list on the other side of the equation is far longer. But the fact remains that if you look hard enough, you can find just enough material to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

It might not be a pretty purse, or one you ever really wanted to use in the first place, but it can be done.

Even though I'd trade everything on this list in a nanosecond for just one great big hug from my boy, I still think it's a decent list. And a valuable exercise too.

Since you asked

I generally don't directly address comments here, for no other reason than it feels kind of strange in some way - like we should be stepping into another room and talking privately, even if the conversation isn't something that actually needs to be private.

But in lieu of actually having a room to step into...

Alex, thank you for your comment. I do understand that you meant no harm, and that you're simply puzzled by my desire for a child and my unwillingness to take additional steps to have one, biologically or otherwise.

The simple answer is: you can't always get what you want. And you have to be wise enough to know when enough is enough - when trying to get what you want means peeling away the last remaining protective layer around your heart and mind, leaving yourself completely exposed with absolutely no guarantee that you haven't just pulled the grenade pin.

Yes, we wanted a child. Children, plural. We lost five of them trying. I could list, in great gory detail, all the steps - the surgeries, ER visits, fertility treatments, catastrophic (and life-threatening) complications, mental and physical damage - that collectively make up our attempts to bring home a live child since we started trying in 2003.

I could, but I won't. Because it probably wouldn't help you to understand. You need to feel what I feel. You need to have seen what I've seen. And there's no way to do that save to climb inside my head and sit there awhile amidst the memories, grief, guilt, fear, and frustration.

I just don't have anything left. My proverbial tank is empty.

We are spent. And so, instead of pushing ourselves to the breaking point by undertaking yet another potentially fruitless campaign, we're choosing instead to live the life we were given. We have learned the hard way that there are no guarantees, and we just don't have it in us to take anymore leaps of faith with our fingers crossed, hoping for a happy ending.

We leapt, Alex. Trust me. Over and over again we've held hands, closed our eyes and leapt.

The thing is, we have happy, right here. Yes, it's a childless version of happy. And yes, I'm bitter and angry sometimes, even still. Clearly. But we do have happy. It's our weird version of it, but it works.

We laugh like idiots. We hold hands when we're out for walks. We send stupid e-mails to each other during the day. We snuggle close at night. We indulge in the simple things that make us happy and let us forget, for just a while, that there are things that make us sad.

And why shouldn't we be allowed to have that fragile peace we've so carefully carved out of the mountain of grief we were handed?

You can't always get what you want. So, as they say, the secret is wanting what you've got.

And that's what we're trying to do. Every day. We know this isn't what we planned. We know there are other options. But this is what we have to do, for a million reasons no one but My Beloved and I will ever totally understand.

I get that people will always look at us wonder why, and I get that it probably seems frustratingly simple when you're on the outside looking in.

But from here on the inside, things look very different.

I guess the short answer to your question is that I have done everything I can. It may not look like it to you, but I have.

The truth

My Beloved and I were out for a very chilly walk this morning, and while navigating icy spots along the trail on which we were plodding, it dawned on me that we are very much alone. In circumstance, I mean.

Amongst our closest circle of friends and family, we are a complete oddity. Within that circle there have been probably 10 children born since Thomas died. And two more are expected in 2010. And outside that circle? Countless births. If you include Facebook friends and neighbours, the number probably rockets into the 20s or 30s, if not more. Easily.

And we're still just the two of us. Always walking along life's slippery paths alone, together.

The thought made me so sad, in a way I probably can't explain. Maybe it's the human need to be truly understood; to have someone say, "yeah, I get it", and know that they really do.

We are endlessly grateful and so incredibly fortunate to have such supportive friends and family who, despite not being in our shoes, regularly offer us limitless support, the warmest kind of comfort, and open-armed acceptance into their child-filled worlds.

But we are not of that world. And I'm always aware of that fact.

I'm aware of it when I don't know if a one-year old can have the chips a three-year old has just given her. I'm aware of it when I say "ass" in the presence of a child and have to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep something even worse from popping out. I'm aware of it when my arms tire after just a few minutes holding someone's baby. I'm aware of it when it takes a parent 15 minutes to explain all the rules to me before leaving me to care for their wee one. I'm aware of it when a crying child I'm aching to comfort reaches for its mother instead.

I'm just always aware that I'm different, floundering about in a sea of experts who do know how often babies need to eat and how much sleep they should be getting and how long nap time needs to be.

And I'm aware that this isn't normal. This is not what anyone expects of a woman, for God's sake. We are programmed to care for children. We are built for it, body and soul. It's just not considered "normal" to be without offspring in tow.

And we, the childless, know that. And so there we are; oddities sticking out like proverbial sore thumbs.

I suppose all this self-absorbed, self-pitying ruminating is part of yet another sort of grieving process.

We've lost all our babies and now we know there are no more children in our future. So the settling in process has begun.

I realize I sound markedly less Pollyanna-esque than I did in July. And I promise I was being honest then, abounding in optimism and fortitude and all that good stuff. But I suspect I was trying to convince myself that what I was saying really was true. Or maybe it even was, back then.

But now, five months later, I know a different truth.

This is hard.

Hard.

I'll make it out alive. I'll figure this out like I've figured everything else out since life shat all over me and My Beloved.

But fuck me, it's hard.

NOW I get it...

So here's what I've learned (and it's only taken me five Christmases to figure it out...): Christmas Eve is probably always going to suck. I will wake up with a heavy heart and won't be able to shake the melancholic mood until necessity forces me to put on a happy face at my in-laws' house later in the evening.

But eventually the Christmas spirit (or what now passes for it) will worm its way in, and as the evening progresses my smiles will become genuine and my laughter will feel as real as it sounds.

And wine will help smooth out the rough edges and blur the inevitable sad moments just enough to make it impossible for me to see them too clearly.

And it's okay. It's okay to turn inward and recognize my pain, then move it gently aside and enjoy whatever moments of joy might happen to come my way.

Sorrow needs to be acknowledged. Not indulged, necessarily, but certainly acknowledged. Because it's there. And it ain't going anywhere.

We, the bereaved, spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to be bereaved. And all it does is make us feel guilty and useless when we can't seem to shake the sorrow. Because sorrow cannot be shaken. Period. You can't outrun it, out think it, or out manoeuvre it.

Accepting that things cannot be what they were and allowing ourselves the luxury of feeling our real feelings without shame or guilt is the best gift we can give ourselves at Christmas - and the best hope we have of feeling something besides sorrow once it has been given its due.

I just hope I remember this lesson, which took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out, next year.

Small talk

I spent a fair bit of time at a Christmas cocktail party on Saturday explaining to someone I don't know all that well why we're not pursuing adoption.

It was surreal. As other people's children milled about and groups of people chatted and laughed, I stood by the crab dip trying to make him understand.

Because he asked. And I'm sure when the answer he wasn't expecting met his ears he was instantly sorry that he did. I saw him recoil, just a tiny bit, as his eyes widened in horror.

Not, I don't think, because my answer was, "No, we're not adopting", but because he suddenly realized he'd put me in a position that would require me to justify a childless existence. Because most people don't live that way. Clearly. All you had to do was look around the room.

It's so unfathomable to people. They want us to have children. They want us to be parents to a living child, and they think that if the answer doesn't lie in my uterus, it must lie somewhere else. And I get that, I do, but unfortunately, it's just not that easy. Not for us, for reasons I'm sure we could never properly articulate to anyone's satisfaction if we tried.

Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we're absolutely totally wrong to have made this decision. And maybe we'll change our minds one fine day. But for right now, this is what is right for us, no matter what you think.

No matter what the man beside the crab dip thinks either.

'Tis the season

Nearly five months of silence.

So it's time for some rambling, I think. 'Tis the season, and all.

I realized, probably not for the first time, but for the first time this year, that the things I do at Christmas post-Thomas are things I do to cope with Christmas post-Thomas. The obsessive ornament buying, the totally over the top cookie baking for the annual family Christmas tea we started hosting the year Thomas died, the ornament making party, the explosion of garland, tinsel and lights all over the house.

It's all busy work. And a bit of a disguise.

Which makes me wonder what Christmas would look and feel like if I didn't try so hard to make it magical. If I didn't wear myself out quite so much. If I just took some time to sit and listen and let the season quietly work its way into my soul on its own terms.

I've been doing this - busting my proverbial (and literal) ass in an effort to prove to everyone that I am full of Christmas spirit and also just fine, thank you very much - since that horrible first Christmas without him.

And while I've been so busy trying to demonstrate my fortitude, I haven't really let anyone do anything for me. I haven't let anyone scoop me up, plunk me down and take care of me during this season when my heart feels both so full and so empty I can't fathom that it even knows how to beat anymore.

I haven't shown the people around me that I'm still vulnerable. That while I love Christmas, it also hurts. That maybe I need a little extra TLC these days, or at least a pass if they find me slightly out of sorts at some point during the back-to-back festivities (all of which I promise I really do enjoy in my own way).

I steal moments, finding empty corners of unused rooms in which to regroup. But I do it secretly. As if there's something wrong with needing a moment to breathe.

I've put an inordinate amount energy into avoiding the need for pity by proving my strength, and to my own detriment. Because now, now maybe I want people to take a moment and whisper that they remember. That they miss him too. That he is not forgotten and never, ever will be.

And now they probably won't. Because they think I don't need it.

Or worse, that I don't want it.

Because I've worked very hard to show that I don't.

Stupid, stupid me. Although, in my defense, who the hell is good at grieving? Especially this kind of grieving?

I think I've done well these past four years and nine months. As well as I knew how, anyway. But I've learned some lessons, and I'll be making an effort (because it's always about effort, isn't it?) to tone down the Christmas dog and pony show next year.

I think it's time.

Next year will be for me.