Luck

Father's Day was almost as bad as Mother's Day. Before I won the unlucky lottery, I was very, very lucky in finding a wonderful guy. Brendan is all that I could ever want in a husband plus some. He is funny, sweet, smart, attractive, and easy to be around. He is, to be totally cliche, my best friend, the person I most want to spend time with on any given day. I could go on and on about what makes him such a wonderful partner, but I think you get my point.

I was so looking forward to seeing him as a dad. He doesn't have much experience with babies so he is a bit timid around them, but I know he would have been amazing with Colden had he gotten the chance. It is awful to see him hurting instead of seeing him bonding with his son. He works so hard to take care of me that sometimes he doesn't show his own feelings, but losing Colden has broken his heart too.

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We're going on vacation to Yellowstone National Park tomorrow. I am looking forward to it, mostly because I am so looking forward to being away from work for almost two weeks. And it will certainly be beautiful as well. But I tired quickly of hearing people tell us we're "lucky" to get to get away like that. Um, no. Not so much. I would rather be home with my baby in my arms, thank you very much.

But anyway... Colden is coming with us in spirit at least. I sewed a patch on my backpack with the name and picture of his mountain, and we're bringing his national park book. Did you ever have one as a kid? I didn't because there weren't a whole lot of big parks on the east coast, but Brendan lived in Washington so his slightly hippy parents got him one. You take it with you to every national park and get a stamp as a record of where you've been. We bought one for Colden last year when we went to Zion in Utah. I was 5 months pregnant and filled with the glow of certainty that he'd be here in my arms, safe and happy in another few months. I was just giggly and silly and laughing about how this was his first trip with us and his book would have ever park he ever visited, even in the womb.

I never even considered that it'd become a memorial book, but so much has changed. What's one more crappy thing in the scheme of things? No, I think it's good to make rituals and personify our grief in some way, and bringing his book on our trip lets me do that. I am reminded of my babylost friend Laura. She took a trip to Mexico a few months after losing her son and got a sombrero for her grief. She even fed it a chip one night. That made me laugh and yet it also made sense to me. I am just hoping to be able to get a stamp for Colden's book without bursting into tears. Wish me luck...

Missing Colden

I haven't been writing, haven't known what to say or how to say it. Time just passes by so quickly. I heard a quote on the radio the other day that was attributed to Woody Allen, "Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. "

A few weeks after Colden died my mom said something to me that I didn't really understand and yet hurt my feelings. She said something that indicated that she thought I would process this grief faster than other people do. I think she was clumsily trying to say that she thinks I'm a strong person, but it still stung. Does she think I'm not a feeling, loving person? That I will just get over Colden? How can this being saying something even remotely positive about me?

So now here I am 6 impossible months later, 6 months that I am still stunned I have survived, and I am better and yet not. Not better in the sense that other people might assume, that they in fact seem to crave. That better would mean moving on. It would mean living, loving, laughing the way I had before. That better would mean that my smile was fully real or that I didn't cringe still every time someone asks casually how I'm doing. But I am better in the sense of coping, going to work and even being successful in that crazy, meaningless corporate environment, being a friend, a sister, a partner. I am social, mostly. I am still the same bossy, decisive, driven person that I have been. I am down to crying once a week or so rather than every day or hour.

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I am as functional as I am. I mean, I fake it a lot, and faking being okay seems to directly help me be more functional. But I don't know if that's a good thing. Was my mom right? Even if she was, I don't know why or what it says about me as a person. Do people believe that I have just moved on? I still miss him with all that I am, still long for the family life we could have had together and the chance to see him grow up. But life just keeps going on. I am aparently not inclined to just hole up at home so I keep on going with it. Also, I feel more distant for him. The life I imagined for us seems hazy, like a dream I was silly enough to conjure up.

But today the events of Wednesday, December 17th weigh heavily on me. It is even the same day of the week. I think about how exhausted I was that morning and yet still happy, blissfully ignorant that he was already dead inside me. I know that if he had not died, I would likely have not gone into labor, so tomorrow would not be his 6 month birthday. And yet I cannot help play an endless loop of what ifs and should have beens in my mind. What would he look like? What would he be doing? What would like be like if I were actually okay rather than just pretending, even to myself.

What Would Happen If I Told the Truth on Facebook?

Spreading Colden's Ashes

All the initial decisions we made were based on instinct rather than thoughtful determinition. Did we want to hold him? Yes. Did we want an autopsy? Yes. What did we want to do with his body? Cremation. We also immediately decided not to hold a service, not because we didn't want to honor him but due to my instinctual knowledge that I just couldn't handle it. Instead we agreed very early on that we would spread his ashes on his mountain--the mountain we named him after, just the two of us. I wanted to do it on Mother's Day because I found out I was pregnant last year on Mother's Day.

Despite our initial decision to do this, I was dreading this weekend coming. But once we actually started hiking, it almost felt okay, purposeful. On Friday we hiked in 3 miles with our backpacks on, carrying all of our stuff. We stopped at a lean-to for the night. Since it was early in the season we saw only a few people, mostly Canadians, and had the lean-to to ourselves. We got there pretty early and didn't have a lot to do. We should have brought scrabble or a book. I was restless, not wanting to do think about what we were going to do the next day. We had dinner, drank a couple of adult juice boxes, as Brendan calls the small boxes of wine we brought, and went to sleep early.

The next day we started hiking at about 8:30am. It was immediately tougher. We had left the big backpacks at the lean-to since the 7.5 mile loop we were about to do would bring us back to the morning's starting point, but the terrain was pretty steep. It gave me something to focus on. We walked for about an hour or so when we got to Lake Arnold where we got more water. Then it started raining on us and we hit the first patches of snow. At first the snow was really neat--snow in May, pretty cool. But there just kept being more and more snow. You had to walk right in the center to avoid breaking through and there was running water underneath so every once in a while you'd break through anyway. I fell in up to my upper thigh quite a few times. It was exausting going uphill so steeply on tricky terrain. Around 1pm we got to the top of Colden Mountain. The peak was all socked in, with no view at all

All of a sudden Brendan and I didn't really know what to do. This was what were here for, but how to do it? At least it had stopped raining.

I had carried him. It was really important to me to do it myself, to carry him as I had once carried him within me. So I took that awful little white box from the funeral home, and I opened it. Inside was a tragic little plastic bag of ashes wrapped with a twist tie. I opened that too. It was more material than I expected but how could this represent the sum total of his beautiful little body? We stood there together holding each other up for a few minutes. We said goodbye outloud between sobs and Brendan let the contents of the bag loose in the wind. Afterwards he landed in my arms so hard I almost fell over. We just held on to each other for several moments.

We had also carried three small rocks with us, one for each of us. We left them together on the top of a cairn.

We only had a few more minutes at the summit to ourselves before a family of three showed up. I thought about how we'd never get to do a hike with Colden alive and us a family together. Did they know how lucky they are?

We had a quick bite to eat and then started down. For just a few moments as we left the summit the sky cleared and we could see beautiful vistas in all directions. Directly below us was Lake Colden and we were heading that way. This side is much, much steeper. There were so many steep slabs of rock, running with water. Our progress really slowed and it took a ton of concentration to negotiate them. Hurting yourself out there could really cause trouble, especially since we didn't have a sleeping bag with us to ward off hypothermia. We really had to keep moving. As we continued downwards a thunderstorm blew in on top of us. Rain started pouring down. Thunder. Lightening. And so much rain.

We reached Lake Colden a little after 3pm. I thought the terrain would be much easier once we made it that far because we'd lost most of the elevation already even though we still had 3 miles left to get back where we started that morning. But the trail was still really rough, slinking over and under boulders, through mud pits and across streams. Some time during this section it hailed on us, wasabi bean-sized chunks that came down for about 10 minutes. My mood was at a major low point. I was so tired physically and emotionally but too wet to sit anywhere and rest. My boots were squishy around my achy feet. We just had to keep going.

Finally we got back to the starting point for the morning. Originally we had planned to stay at the lean-to another night but many forces combined to convince us to grab the heavier packs and hike the remaining 3 miles to the trail head right then. I could barely hold myself up the last mile or two. Momentum and my trekking poles were pretty much all that kept me upright. We got to the car at 8pm, having travelled only 10.5 miles in 10 or 11 hours of hiking, but it was a really tough hike in ways that I can't even begin to describe here.

The one on the left is Colden Mountain in the Adirondacks of NY. It's a good place for him to be given that he can't be with us. Soon I'll try to write about Mother's Day itself.

Probably Crazy

I used to commute an hour each way to work. Then I got pregnant and really started thinking about how life was going to work, what daycare we could use, how we'd manage our time. So we really worked on getting my husband a job closer to mine and we moved farther south to be near to my office and his new work place. We also got a bigger apartment. We wanted a second bedroom for the baby and a washer/dryer so we could give up on the laundry mat. We started really saving for a house.

Now here we are with this apartment that costs $500 more in rent than our last place (but at least it's much closer to work and is cute) with a second bedroom. That bedroom door always stays shut. All of the baby things are in there pretty much undisturbed. The day I got home from the hospital my mom got there first and gathered all the baby things that were casually laying about from around the apartment so we didn't have to face it all around us. I appreciated that. It must have been so hard for her. My sister said she stayed outside while my mom did it and heard mom wailing with grief.

Aside from some borrowed things that I packed up and gave back, it all still sits in his room unused. Expensive breast pump, stroller, clothes, crib, all of it things I wonder if I'll ever be able to use even if I can get up the courage to try again. I think about donating it all, getting rid of it all in one fell swoop, but the practical side of me doesn't want to have to buy it all again. I'll certainly never have another shower again.

Okay so here's the crazy part: I still feel a strong urge to fix up his room. It wasn't finished. I never found the right curtain for his window, never got the wall hanging that I wanted hung up. I've learned to sew since then and I keep thinking about making a curtain since I couldn't find one I really liked. So now I am the nut who keeps thinking about decorating her dead baby's room who may one day just freak out and give away all of his stuff instead. Probably crazy may not be a strong enough phrase.

Too much for one post

I did the March for Babies walk this past Sunday. We got a ton of support--over 30 walkers and about $16,000 raised. People seem to think I should feel good about this, but I don't. Raising money for healthy babies isn't a good thing, it's a duty. I just want Colden back alive. And since I can't have that, I feel compelled to contribute to the reduction of babyloss to the fullest extent that I can.

I don't feel bad that I took advantage of the fact that people want to be able to write a check to make us feel better, but it does bug me that I have to find a response for all of their exhuberant exclamations about how great our efforts are.

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Lately I have been feeling so down on the possibility of having another baby. It feels inevitable to face another tragedy. Will that feeling subside at some point?

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My dear friend (we met in 8th grade spanish class) has been trying to be supportive and I feel like an ass. I criticize my friends who don't try but now I can't seem to open up to her either, even though she's trying hard. She wants to know how I'm really feeling? I don't know that I can get the words out. I don't even know where to begin. She asked how I was doing at the walk and I had to wave her off.

Masks

I wear the "I'm okay" mask to work every day and sometimes I even fool myself. But work is a country filled with landmines. In this corner is the poster of the bulging pregnant woman, hand on her belly and smile on her face. Down that hallway sits the proud mom whose cubicle is overflowing with baby pictures. I walk by trying not glance in and answer three variations on "hey, how are you?" by well-meaning co-workers as I make my way towards the bathroom. Have I mentioned that I hate that question? Everyone asks it, but no one expects a real answer. I think maybe they believe my acting.

My boss adopted a newborn baby about a month after Colden died. He complains about being kept up at night by his son and casually says his kid doesn't have many skills. He breaths so shut the hell up, I think to myself while nodding and smiling.

The mask gets me through most days, but it's hard to get it off once I get home, hard to feel authentic feelings and not keep pretending. It's especially hard for me to talk (outloud) about how I really feel. What is there really to say? I am sad. I hurt. I long for what could and should have been. I am afraid. But most of that I keep to myself except for within this space. I don't say those things because I don't want to hear my friends inane comments that seem so lacking in understanding or feeling. I especially don't want to see their blank stares when they have nothing to say.

I honestly don't know if pretending to be okay and not opening up about Colden, about the hole in my life and the weight of grief in my body will ultimately be a good or bad thing. Am I protecting myself from insensitivity or failing to process my grief? Doing what needs to get done or failing to let people know the true me? I wonder if I will ever feel understood by the non-babylost ever again.