Yesterday

Yesterday, I received a package from Kodak. I finally ordered a few prints of Lucy. I have been so afraid since my computer crashed of losing them forever. Oh, my beautiful, beautiful girl. Yesterday, though, they were hard. I don’t obsessively look at her picture anymore. When I opened the package, it startled me that she looked so bruised, hurt, and well, so dead. I don’t remember her like that. I don’t even remember her picture like that, even though it has only been a week since I saw them. And when I sit with her picture for a few moments, I only see the Lucy I once held with whom I imagined a lifetime. The one without trauma. The one with the perfect nose, and those lips, and the aching I feel just writing about her. It is almost too much to bear.

Yesterday, they came, along with some prints of Lucia’s name on Christian’s seashore. As I made dinner, I walked into the living room to find Beatrice has taken them out of the package and was throwing them around the room as the dog pounced.

I. Lost. My. Shit.

I wish all the things sacred to us glowed a fiery red and hissed, or somehow triggered a door where clowns and a monkey came into the other side of the room juggling candy, or better yet, the sacred objects should come with the ability to throw chocolates in the other direction to distract approaching mothers, babies and puppies. My meditating mama had hair, as you probably noticed in this picture, but by the time I birthed Lucy, my nephew somehow broke her hair off. No, really, just the hair. It ended up being so apt, because when Lucy died, I wanted to pluck each hair out of my hair and stay bald for the rest of my days. But at the time, I was devastated, even when I knew it was my own fault for leaving her accessible to small hands.

I ran and gathered the photographs, and said over and over again, “NO, no, no, no, no…we do not touch Lucy’s pictures, no. Not now, not ever. NO. No. No. These are not toys.” And then, all at once, I broke into wide sweeping sobs. Bea stared at me, and just said, “Sorry.”

I do my best thinking in water. With a mug of tea, and my hands too wet to write effectively on anything, I memorize my amazingly eloquent, yet fleeting lines, and scamper out of the bath, making puddles in the hall along the way until I somehow get it all out. It is never as brilliant as it was in bubbles. Generally, it is solidly mediocre, or the original intent is lost somewhere between tile and rug. And I usually end up frustrated, cold and with a huge Angie print on a piece of furniture. After dinner, Sam offered to draw me a bath, and make me some tea.

I have not been doing very good. Not at all really.

I needed it—a good soak to clear my mind, and construct something brilliant. When I popped into the bathroom, he was lighting a candle to rest on the edge of the tub. The girl and the dog were giggling and bouncing respectively, so he herded them out and ran them up and down the house. Sometimes the best support is time alone.

The water is never hot enough anymore. I don’t even turn on the cold. Just hot. Sam puts the kettle on for a mug of herbal tea, and the rest to warm the bath. Apparently, I need it to be almost boiling to feel warmth. I sat still by the candlelight, and found myself weeping with my whole body. Being quiet makes me cry now. A lot. I cried because my days and evenings shouldn’t be like this. I shouldn’t have to miss my daughter. I shouldn't have to freak out when a picture of my daughter is on the floor, because I should be able to take more. I shouldn’t be comforted by the stories of suffering and dead babies. It breaks my heart.

Yesterday, in the rain and storms, during extended naptime, before the pictures arrived, I just read the same blogs over and over…it’s what I wanted to do. I was in a deep funk before the pictures. I wanted to remind myself how universal this is. I wanted to read birth stories, and weep. I wanted to know that people survive this. I am comforted by the survivors, even when they are barely surviving. I wanted to cry for us all, for the aching I have for the babies and their parents.

You know, even when I don’t search blogs out, people tell me stories about death. Does this happen to all of us babylost? People tell me stories about how their friends are affected by death, stories about a child's death in their community, stories of disaster, horrible accidents, senseless tragedies...in some way, I think tragedy and compassion are what I have now. In quite another way, it feels so cruel to keep being reminded how chaotic and cruel the universe is. Realizing that others have it worse than me isn't comforting; I simply want to be the last of the sufferers. A dying breed, so to speak. I would search for stories about random acts of kindness perpetrated by perfect strangers if they didn't read like fairy tales to me now. Fantastical. Yesterday, I just wanted to be around the babylost all the time, surrounded by swirling talk of our babies, our community, death, our real life friends, and whatever else comes up.

I am most comfortable in a world where I am alone in person, and together in spirit with perfect strangers crying. And I hate that about me right now.