The last few days

I admit I never do the "What would Lucy be doing now?" thing. It is not my nature. It means I have to pretend she was born perfectly fine. Since I don't know what killed her, I don't know that even if I turned back time and made them induce me when I know she was alive, that she would have been fine. So, before I even get to the point of imagining a tottering baby girl, I am caught in the logistics of my fantasy world.

Sometimes I wish I could imagine her in some other state than dead newborn, like kindergartener, teenager, even mother...but I just can't. I don't have the internal workings for that, just like I also do not understand how men or women can picture different men or women naked. I cannot picture random strangers, or even people I know, without clothes. I get caught up in the idea that perhaps, somewhere, they have a scar I do not know about.

Still, nine months seems to have a kind of significance in the first year after loss. I didn't really worry about the build up of this day, just that autumn equinox was coming. A change of season means my Lucy blows her beautiful wind over me, reminding me that life is moving forward. Her loss on winter solstice somehow connects all change of seasons to her.

But I just wasn't so hung up on this month anniversary, until this weekend. I walked in the room to find Beatrice and Sam watching videos of Beatrice from her first days to this year. We post videos on yo.u tu.be for Sam's distant and spread out family. And when we got to nine months...the tears began. Such a concrete reminder of what Lucy was missing, what she would have looked like, what I wish I could see her do, but I also couldn't turn away. I wanted to move forward, see Beatrice grow up into the sassy two year old she is. I just miss, Lucy. I miss what I don't know about her.

:::

We attended an actual wedding/public event on Friday night. It has happened a few times this month, but this one was an evening wedding. The bride started as a work colleague and ended up a close neighbor. And one of those amazing neighbors who leaves loaves of banana chocolate bread on our porch with a note, "Made some bread for Bea. Love, K." She is amazing. I was telling my husband on the train ride home that I always thought she was like a perfect woman. Elegant. Graceful. Tough. Adaptable. Easy-going. Serious. Fun.

The wedding was gorgeous. Basically, I weep from the first indication a bride is in the room. I think that might be my only psychic ability. I am like the K-Mart blue light going off, I begin weeping and my husband looks around the room, "Where is she?"

I have no idea what I thought would happen at this wedding. And I have no idea why it didn't occur to me that I would be grilled asked questions about the last two and half years of my life. I mean, I sat at a table filled with people I had spent many many years working with in a very corporate, very professional work environment whose last experience with me was my baby shower for Beatrice. The next day, I gave birth to her.

"So, what have you been up to?"

Crying? Mourning? Cursing God? Finding meaning in this world? Mostly I just sort of smiled and said, "A ton and not much." And they ask me what I'm doing and I say staying at home with my daughter. I always feel like they are waiting for more information. I also paint. And write. Edit. Grieve. Read a shitload of books. Walk the dog, and recite the same damned children's book fifteen times a day, sing songs about spiders and stars...and yet, what do I say? Overlord? House goddess? I'm the mommy?

After the first time, I just sort of hung there, awkward and self-conscious, because then the inevitable question after someone asks a stay-at-home mother what she does is "How many kids do you have?"

Even if I say one, they inevitably follow up with, "I thought you had two? Weren't you pregnant?" And then the story. And then the awkwardness...it isn't easy to talk about your baby's death at a happy lovely event. I feel totally practiced in the market. Near the fish monger, I can say it in an elegant, kind, compassionate way. I nod and listen and share. I am out of my element in evening wear with "We are Family" blaring in the background. I could only say, "Our youngest daughter died last December."

The above paragraph makes what I said sound somewhat coherent. Never did I say anything that didn't sound like a rambling messy emotional blah when talking about Lucy. And I would hold Sam's hand very tightly, close my eyes and think:

I'm sorry, Lucy. You are more than that one sentence to me, love.

When Lucy died, I didn't know what to do. I had researched announcements before her birth. I just wanted to do something beautiful and lovely and cool. In fact, I held off on Christmas cards, because I wanted something to announce her birth as well as blessings to our friends for a beautiful new year. But after she died, I just couldn't mail anything to anyone. So, I sent an email that said we had sad news, and we need some days to receive calls and visits, and please no flowers, especially white ones, and we want to hear your news too, and we will need you, but give us time to process this new reality, and please please we beg you, friends, tell everyone who ever knew us so we don't have to speak this out loud again.

:::

So many of these people were people I spent my single years with, hitting happy hours, lingering in cubicle doorways with lattes and one-liners, sharing emails about some jackass at some meeting. It felt so strange to have left that job one person--a creative, funny, light-hearted person--and been seen years later as a grieving, broken mother. I think for me the most awkward part of the night was not telling people Lucy died, though that was certainly awkward, but was this strange interaction I had with someone who friended me on FB before Lucy died. Turned out that we were due within weeks of each other. As you can imagine, I was incredibly happy for her first baby being healthy and happy only a few weeks after my baby died. But I couldn't see the constant updates, the pictures of her girl...the new family obsession. I hid her for a while. Every once in a while, I would check in, make sure everyone was healthy, and then rehide. Anyway, she said something about FB, and catching up on our lives, and I said, "Yes, it is good for that, even if Facebook is a little lame." And she looked at her husband and said, "Well, I don't think it is lame. I don't think it is lame at all."

Slap me across the face. That is what it felt like. I wanted to explain. I am not a horribly negative person. Honestly. Fac.ebook IS lame if you are mourning your child. It IS lame if you have to read people complaining about their baby's gender, or naptime when yours just died. It is lame when you are dealing with questions of grief and mortality and someone is updating you on their breakfast menu. And yet, FB also saved my sanity some days. I played Scrabble instead of lie on my bed screaming for three hours while my two year old slept. I spent insomniatic nights taking hundreds of shitty quizzes instead of reliving the moments I found out my child was dead. So, yes, I think I have some right to call Facebook lame, yet still appreciate its existence. But instead I just turned red and felt stupid, and wanted to cry, and decided to leave before the cake. Bad form, perhaps. Self-preserving, definitely.

The awkward moments of telling people about Lucy came and went. The mothers I told wept, and the fathers pursed their lips and nodded. No one asked us what happened. No one asked us to explain. They just said, "Sorry, so so sorry." Everything but us was appropriate. And we said, "Sorry, so so sorry too." And we tried to pretend that Lucy's death didn't just stamp us as the people you don't want to end up sitting next to at a wedding. Incidentally, I had a lovely conversation sitting next to a woman who was 36 weeks pregnant.

But most people, staring open-eyed at me after the question, "What are you doing now?" Just got the standard line.

A ton and not much.