I was in the grocery store yesterday afternoon and ran into Jan, one of Piglet's favorite nurses. It was nice to see her. I loved his nurses. His angels. We small talked for a while, she congratulated me on Baby J, then peeked into his sling to look at him. Immediately she gasped a little and said "Oh, he looks so much like Piglet."
Finally. I could have cried. Finally.
Someone who recognizes that. Who will let it be recognized. Who won't just ignore the fact as if I haven't noticed the resemblance yet and maybe I won't if no one points it out to me. As if brotherly resemblance is a bad thing. As if all my memories and reminders of Piglet are bad and painful and he should just be forgotten. Everyone here - the husband, his parents, my dad - everyone who knew him the best - won't say Baby J looks like him. When I say it, they just look at me kind of sadly like, oh, poor Katie, she's still hanging on.
Well, fuck that. He looks like Piglet. That's OKAY. Yes, sometimes that hurts. Sometimes my mind still calls him Piglet if I'm tired and kind of down already. Maybe sometimes I wish Baby J didn't look so much like him, because my own capacity for comparison scares me at times. But mostly, well, it seems natural. They're brothers. Hell, people used to ask me and my brother if we were twins, and he's two years younger and male (used to piss me off royally, that).
Anyway. So when Jan said that, I just smiled and said "yeah, he does." Nice to have someone agree. I'm not so crazy as you might think.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
worth a thousand words?
Well, I hope this works. I'm used to using html tags and usually consider myself fairly computer savvy, but I don't recognize much of this code the 'upload to blogger' option gave me. We'll see!
Like I was telling Lori, our family has yet to enter the 21st century - we own no digital camera, camera phone, or even a scanner, so I don't usually even have the opportunity to post pictures online. However, the hospital so kindly sent us a couple pictures from Baby J's second day of life (in the hopes that we'd spend too much money ordering prints - no thanks, will stick to our own "old fashioned" camera for that!).
But with no further ado, here he is, upon request - Baby J:
Like I was telling Lori, our family has yet to enter the 21st century - we own no digital camera, camera phone, or even a scanner, so I don't usually even have the opportunity to post pictures online. However, the hospital so kindly sent us a couple pictures from Baby J's second day of life (in the hopes that we'd spend too much money ordering prints - no thanks, will stick to our own "old fashioned" camera for that!).
But with no further ado, here he is, upon request - Baby J:
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
was in the spring, then spring became the summer*
Deep breath, self.
Back in the land of the blogging...For a moment, at least. Moments are all I seem to have time for lately. That's okay with me.
(I should preface this post with a sensitivity warning. I know how it is to read or hear about other people's triumphs when you're so heavy with grief. I know.)
The number of my living children now equals the number of those I grieve (I had to change my profile slightly). Piglet and my other children now have a little brother. The circumstances of his birth were surprisingly undramatic, when compared to the grief and the anxiety and way-too-close calls that characterized my pregnancy. He and I did not quite make it to our (my and his by proxy) goal of full term, 38 weeks, but we made it as close as we could. 37 weeks and healthy and with the best set of lungs any of my children have ever had. My first experience of being able to hold my child minutes after his birth, my first opportunity to return home from the hospital not empty-handed and empty-hearted.
Baby J is now just shy of 3 weeks old and he has no idea of the amount of joy he has brought to our lives. He's still in that newborn bewildered at life/trying to figure out why the hell he had to come out here stage, but his very favorite thing in life is cuddling with Mama, so that's all perfectly fine with me. Delirious joy, that's how I've been describing it.
This post is strangely hard to write.
Probably because I know what's coming.
(See, it's very easy, relatively, for me to write/blog about Piglet. It's extremely difficult, still, for me to speak aloud of him. I'm finding that it's exactly the opposite with Baby J. I wonder if there's something to that, or if it's just me and my neuroses. I might be rambling here, already...)
I was saying that I know what's coming, and what's coming is hard. Because, see, what's coming is that this entire experience is very hard. Joyous, absolutely. Relieving, incredibly. Healing, definitely (in a way). And also incredibly painful. It's painful in a different way than the rest of the grief process has been, but painful nonetheless. I've wanted so badly to not let myself compare Baby J and my experiences now with Piglet and what we experienced with him - and yet I'm finding that's nearly, if not absolutely, impossible.
Everything I'm getting to do now with Baby J is something else I didn't and never will get to do with Piglet. Those reminders hurt. There are moments when I'm holding Baby J and feeling overwhelmed by the absolute, pure joy of having him, and out of nowhere I'll dissolve into tears over missing this with Piglet.
And if I'm being completely honest, Baby J looks a lot like Piglet did. I think they would have been carbon copies, older and younger versions of each other. Sometimes I'll be holding Baby J and my mind will call him Piglet - just for an instant. I haven't slipped up and said so aloud yet. I hate that there's that possibility.
I want to - and do - celebrate Baby J's uniqueness. I love him completely, on his own, without expectation or comparison. And still I ache for his brother. I don't know how to feel anything else, anything other than this strange disconnect.
Talk about highs and lows, peaks and valleys. Thankfully, the past three weeks have been mostly highs.
-----
*Those of you who are familiar with Neil Diamond's song Sweet Caroline will be singing the next line of the title of this post with me: who'd have believed you'd come along? Apologies if it's now stuck in your head.
Back in the land of the blogging...For a moment, at least. Moments are all I seem to have time for lately. That's okay with me.
(I should preface this post with a sensitivity warning. I know how it is to read or hear about other people's triumphs when you're so heavy with grief. I know.)
The number of my living children now equals the number of those I grieve (I had to change my profile slightly). Piglet and my other children now have a little brother. The circumstances of his birth were surprisingly undramatic, when compared to the grief and the anxiety and way-too-close calls that characterized my pregnancy. He and I did not quite make it to our (my and his by proxy) goal of full term, 38 weeks, but we made it as close as we could. 37 weeks and healthy and with the best set of lungs any of my children have ever had. My first experience of being able to hold my child minutes after his birth, my first opportunity to return home from the hospital not empty-handed and empty-hearted.
Baby J is now just shy of 3 weeks old and he has no idea of the amount of joy he has brought to our lives. He's still in that newborn bewildered at life/trying to figure out why the hell he had to come out here stage, but his very favorite thing in life is cuddling with Mama, so that's all perfectly fine with me. Delirious joy, that's how I've been describing it.
This post is strangely hard to write.
Probably because I know what's coming.
(See, it's very easy, relatively, for me to write/blog about Piglet. It's extremely difficult, still, for me to speak aloud of him. I'm finding that it's exactly the opposite with Baby J. I wonder if there's something to that, or if it's just me and my neuroses. I might be rambling here, already...)
I was saying that I know what's coming, and what's coming is hard. Because, see, what's coming is that this entire experience is very hard. Joyous, absolutely. Relieving, incredibly. Healing, definitely (in a way). And also incredibly painful. It's painful in a different way than the rest of the grief process has been, but painful nonetheless. I've wanted so badly to not let myself compare Baby J and my experiences now with Piglet and what we experienced with him - and yet I'm finding that's nearly, if not absolutely, impossible.
Everything I'm getting to do now with Baby J is something else I didn't and never will get to do with Piglet. Those reminders hurt. There are moments when I'm holding Baby J and feeling overwhelmed by the absolute, pure joy of having him, and out of nowhere I'll dissolve into tears over missing this with Piglet.
And if I'm being completely honest, Baby J looks a lot like Piglet did. I think they would have been carbon copies, older and younger versions of each other. Sometimes I'll be holding Baby J and my mind will call him Piglet - just for an instant. I haven't slipped up and said so aloud yet. I hate that there's that possibility.
I want to - and do - celebrate Baby J's uniqueness. I love him completely, on his own, without expectation or comparison. And still I ache for his brother. I don't know how to feel anything else, anything other than this strange disconnect.
Talk about highs and lows, peaks and valleys. Thankfully, the past three weeks have been mostly highs.
-----
*Those of you who are familiar with Neil Diamond's song Sweet Caroline will be singing the next line of the title of this post with me: who'd have believed you'd come along? Apologies if it's now stuck in your head.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
April (was) poetry month
Once again I've not been online much lately. It's becoming harder and harder for me to do so on a consistent basis these days. Two major reasons are that I'm finally off bedrest, and that the weather is finally very nice here and we're spending more time outside than in. Of course, other reasons are always in play...
In lieu of an intensely personal post which I'm not ready to write at the moment, and because April (even though - oops - it's after midnight so it's technically May now) is indeed poetry month:
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
~Dirge Without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay
In lieu of an intensely personal post which I'm not ready to write at the moment, and because April (even though - oops - it's after midnight so it's technically May now) is indeed poetry month:
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
~Dirge Without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Monday, April 16, 2007
Makes me that much stronger?
"You're so strong." "I could never be that strong." "I admire your strength." "You're one of the strongest people I know."
I hear the above, or variations thereof, from so many people who think they're paying me a compliment. Little do they know it's one of the many things I most wish people would shut up about.
Losing my daughter to stillbirth makes me strong? Losing my three month old son makes me strong? If that's true, give me weakness. I'll take that over this "strength" anyday.
The thing is, though, it's not even true. I'm not strong. What people (I guess) perceive as strength is more...resignation. Stubbornness. Tiredness. Frustration with always being the grieving one. I'm not strong. With every loss I feel less of myself here. I'm battered down, barely making it some days, sad, guilt-ridden, boring, everyday, completely normal (well, that one could be debated I'm sure).
I hear the above, or variations thereof, from so many people who think they're paying me a compliment. Little do they know it's one of the many things I most wish people would shut up about.
Losing my daughter to stillbirth makes me strong? Losing my three month old son makes me strong? If that's true, give me weakness. I'll take that over this "strength" anyday.
The thing is, though, it's not even true. I'm not strong. What people (I guess) perceive as strength is more...resignation. Stubbornness. Tiredness. Frustration with always being the grieving one. I'm not strong. With every loss I feel less of myself here. I'm battered down, barely making it some days, sad, guilt-ridden, boring, everyday, completely normal (well, that one could be debated I'm sure).
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Do you believe in rock 'n roll/Can music save your mortal soul?
Music has been so, so important to me in this whole grief process. A couple months after Piglet died, a friend encouraged me to make an iMix for him. This is what I came up with:
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) - Billy Joel
Someday we'll all be gone/but lullaybes go on and on/they never die/that's how you and I will be
Flying Home (Brenda's Song) - Chantal Kreviazuk
I never believed we'd ever live to see/an angel being born and flying home
The Body Breaks - Devendra Banhart
For some reason I've always thought of this as Piglet's song. Something about the fragility of the body...and there's so much love in this song, and besides that, it's just beautiful. It was played at Piglet's funeral.
The body stays and then the body moves on/and I'd really rather not dwell on when yours will be gone
All My Tears - Emmylou Harris
Piglet, from heaven. My hopes for him now.
When I go don't cry for me/in my father's arms I'll be/the wounds this world left on my soul/will all be healed and I'll be whole
My Immortal - Evanescence
It's emo, but it's honest. And I've always thought it a beautiful song.
And if you have to leave/I wish that you would just leave/'cause your presence still lingers here/and it won't leave me alone
For Jeffrey - Heather Duby
I discovered this song thanks to a good friend. It's amazing.
Do you hear me?/I miss you/from this side
Angel Standing By - Jewel
This song has always haunted me.
All through the night I'll be watching over you/and all through the night I'll be standing over you
Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) - John Lennon
My husband has played/sung this to and about both our sons. It's very bittersweet to me now. Things Piglet will never do. But I love it. Also played at Piglet's funeral.
Close your eyes/have no fear/the monster's gone/he's on the run and your daddy's here
Goodbye - Patty Griffin
All my questions.
And I wonder where you are/and if the pain ends when you die/and I wonder if there was/some better way to say goodbye
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Rufus Wainwright
This is a live version that I really like. I guess it's cliche to add it into a mix about a death, but...my mix. It's hopeful.
Birds fly over the rainbow/why then, oh why can't I?
I Will Remember You - Sarah McLachlan
Self-explanatory. And also probably cliche again. I don't mind.
Weep not for the memories
Forever Young - Tim O'Brien
This song is exactly what I wish for all my children. Which, yes, includes Piglet. And like Beautiful Boy, this one's extremely bittersweet. But he is the only one of my children who will truly stay forever young.
May you build a ladder to the stars/and climb on every rung/may you stay forever young
For Good - Wicked soundtrack
I loved being Piglet's mommy, despite everything. I guess that's what this song is about, to me.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?/but because I knew you/I have been changed for good
Takes My Breath Away - Tuck and Patty
This is another one of Piglet's songs. The third one played at his funeral. I wish I could just quote the entire song for you here.
You watch my love grow/like a child/sometimes gentle and sometimes wild/sometimes you just take my breath away
Oh Very Young - Cat Stevens
Oh very young/what will you leave us this time/you’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
Lullabye - Ben Folds Five
Bit of a different selection, but it still fits.
Goodnight, goodnight sweet baby/the world has more for you/than it seems
Hello, Goodbye - Michael W. Smith
Oh, this song. It's one of the very few written explicitly about losing a baby. And it's utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
And so I hold your tiny hand in mine/for the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face/heaven calls for you before it calls for me
I think I have all these songs still on my computer. If anyone would like me to upload mp3s of any for them, just let me know.
What songs would you add?
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) - Billy Joel
Someday we'll all be gone/but lullaybes go on and on/they never die/that's how you and I will be
Flying Home (Brenda's Song) - Chantal Kreviazuk
I never believed we'd ever live to see/an angel being born and flying home
The Body Breaks - Devendra Banhart
For some reason I've always thought of this as Piglet's song. Something about the fragility of the body...and there's so much love in this song, and besides that, it's just beautiful. It was played at Piglet's funeral.
The body stays and then the body moves on/and I'd really rather not dwell on when yours will be gone
All My Tears - Emmylou Harris
Piglet, from heaven. My hopes for him now.
When I go don't cry for me/in my father's arms I'll be/the wounds this world left on my soul/will all be healed and I'll be whole
My Immortal - Evanescence
It's emo, but it's honest. And I've always thought it a beautiful song.
And if you have to leave/I wish that you would just leave/'cause your presence still lingers here/and it won't leave me alone
For Jeffrey - Heather Duby
I discovered this song thanks to a good friend. It's amazing.
Do you hear me?/I miss you/from this side
Angel Standing By - Jewel
This song has always haunted me.
All through the night I'll be watching over you/and all through the night I'll be standing over you
Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) - John Lennon
My husband has played/sung this to and about both our sons. It's very bittersweet to me now. Things Piglet will never do. But I love it. Also played at Piglet's funeral.
Close your eyes/have no fear/the monster's gone/he's on the run and your daddy's here
Goodbye - Patty Griffin
All my questions.
And I wonder where you are/and if the pain ends when you die/and I wonder if there was/some better way to say goodbye
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Rufus Wainwright
This is a live version that I really like. I guess it's cliche to add it into a mix about a death, but...my mix. It's hopeful.
Birds fly over the rainbow/why then, oh why can't I?
I Will Remember You - Sarah McLachlan
Self-explanatory. And also probably cliche again. I don't mind.
Weep not for the memories
Forever Young - Tim O'Brien
This song is exactly what I wish for all my children. Which, yes, includes Piglet. And like Beautiful Boy, this one's extremely bittersweet. But he is the only one of my children who will truly stay forever young.
May you build a ladder to the stars/and climb on every rung/may you stay forever young
For Good - Wicked soundtrack
I loved being Piglet's mommy, despite everything. I guess that's what this song is about, to me.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?/but because I knew you/I have been changed for good
Takes My Breath Away - Tuck and Patty
This is another one of Piglet's songs. The third one played at his funeral. I wish I could just quote the entire song for you here.
You watch my love grow/like a child/sometimes gentle and sometimes wild/sometimes you just take my breath away
Oh Very Young - Cat Stevens
Oh very young/what will you leave us this time/you’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
Lullabye - Ben Folds Five
Bit of a different selection, but it still fits.
Goodnight, goodnight sweet baby/the world has more for you/than it seems
Hello, Goodbye - Michael W. Smith
Oh, this song. It's one of the very few written explicitly about losing a baby. And it's utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
And so I hold your tiny hand in mine/for the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face/heaven calls for you before it calls for me
I think I have all these songs still on my computer. If anyone would like me to upload mp3s of any for them, just let me know.
What songs would you add?
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Ay, there's the rub
I dreamed of Piglet last night. I always have the same dream about him. I'm holding him, he's happy and free of all his leads and tubes and sensors (when I dreamed of him while he was alive, he was always equipment-less. I took it as a sign, but I don't believe in signs anymore, in much the same way I don't believe in statistics, or...I almost said God, but the verdict's still out on Him). Anyway. In this dream, all I'm doing is holding him. I'm happy. I can feel his weight in my arms, I can smell him, he's making his little baby sounds. And then all his equipment just starts to appear, slowly at first until he's all tangled up in it. And then, slowly, he just disappears. And I'm left with this lapful of preemie equipment and no baby.
And people wonder why I never sleep. Insomnia as self-preservation. Interesting concept?
And people wonder why I never sleep. Insomnia as self-preservation. Interesting concept?
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