birthdays

Three years ago, I gave birth to a live kicking baby. I was in awe, mesmerized at his mere survival in my womb of death. My sister and I always joke that as a baby, Thor looked like a snake that swallowed a baby pig with his gigantic newborn belly and goodnaturedness. (Are snakes goodnatured?) Still, a baby Buddha. All smiles and farts. Big belly and huge smile, arms stretched far overhead. His long limbs hang over me now,  more than half of my length, the impending man in him stretching his little bits farther than his age. He will be tall and broad and handsome like his Papi. I can see the man in him, and I want to bundle him up and eat his tummy because I can and this time is so fleeting, I feel it gone already.

It hardly seems possible that three years ago happened. I was filled with anxiety and anger and grief and rebellion and Thor. There seems none of that anymore. I'm still learning to live without a baby in my belly, or a child at my tit. And that my body is something is my own.

Thor is so funny. So animated. So emotive. So sweet, and demanding in a way only a three year old can be demanding. How can someone so annoying be so cute? He asks me now after every statement and request and instruction, "Why, Mama? Why?" And I want to bundle that curiosity into bouquets I can give to my most seasoned friends.

Remember when you wanted to know why?

Whenever we leave to head out to the Indian restaurant for dinner, which we do most Wednesdays, Beezus says to Thomas, "Aren't you excited? We are going to see your friends!" And he nods vigorously. The night before he was born, we went for Indian food at our favorite restaurant. I told them I would have the baby the next day, and they cheered and gave me a mango lassi. Now, when we walk in, the men all scream, "THOMAS!" And he runs in their arms. My introverted little baby, the one that will not speak aloud in crowds, runs out from behind my legs, and into the arms of these Indian waiters. By all rights, these men should be strangers, mustachioed strangers in particular seem to instill some sort of inherent fear in little ones, but not Thor. They hold him and rustle his hair and pretend to take his cars, and he laughs. He loves them, and them he, as though in some past life, they walked arm in arm down the street of Jaipur as equals. When he runs to them, I always think of that night before his birth when they held my husband and I in some ancient ritual. They fed us rich foods with cashew, coconut, curry, spicing it up to move things forward. They celebrated without knowledge of Lucia's death or my fear, just because pregnant mamas should be celebrated and babies welcomed. It is then they forever held my Thor in their food, a basket of naan with navartan korma, and watched him become three. During my labor dinner, I let go of the fear and anxiety. I had done all I could do--now I had to birth him. There is a joy in the birthing that I had forgotten in my pregnancy with Thor. Ruled as I was by the fear of stillbirth. The Indian food, the Indian men with crosses tattooed on their hands and red vests, brought in the joy.

Thomas' favorite color is truck, his favorite animal is a truck and he wants to be a truck when he grows up. He only wanted a baby truck for his birthday, and a truck cake, yes, Mama. I wrap him up and kiss each eyelid. He squirms out of my embrace.

"Too many kisses, Mama."
"There's never too many kisses," and I laugh. He screams.
"NOT FUNNY!" He stomps and juts out his bottom lip, crosses his arms. Growls at me. He is Sam's familiar, and I nurture that connection, because it seems ancient and soulful. I buzz around him, and try too hard for kisses. I can see that teenager, not wanting to acknowledge his little brown mama, and me waving like a fool at the curb of the movie theater. "BYE HONEY! I LOVE YOU!"

I have this sense of generations, watching my children, imagining myself as their children's grandmother, already that feeling of what will come simultaneously living full in the here and now. I suppose children do that to you, remind you of your mortality force you to be present. That existential pull and pondering, my death and my parenting and my grandparenting, stood on my chest as I baked the truck cake. Will I do this for his son one day? And if I am here, I will, and if not, then I will be the breath that helps him blow out the three candles on his cake.

My littles are born within a week of each other. My little Thor turned three on the first. Beezus turned six on the sixth. My neighbor says this is Bea's magic year--six on the sixth. Six seems magical to me. I remember reading that six is the age where one's true nature emerges. When I first read about mizuko jizo, there is this idea that being is poured into the body like water, slowly through years. Mizuko, meaning water, represents the idea that the child is all water, and no being yet. The Japanese idea is that this process continues until the child is six. Six is the year you become who you are meant to be.

Six, from my thirty-nine year old point of view, is this place of wonder and curiosity and kindness and generosity. I am in awe of this girl. She weaves flowers into her hair, and tells me stories of fairies and miracles and tries to convince me that she moved something with her mind.

Six. Three. These ages that seem distant and yet feel piled on top of one another, because all of it happened so fast. Beezus, then Lucy, then Thor in three years. Three babies, and a mess of a mother trying to figure out how to do all this parenting and grieving and arting and becoming who I am. When they speak, and think, and make art, and sit silently to clear their little minds, and tell me about the world, I cannot believe how creative, interesting, amazing they are. As I write this, my daughter writes in her dream journal and draws the dream she had last night. She wears fairy wings, and flowers in her hair. Thomas is pretending it is raining, and he is jumping in puddles behind me. My kids. My children. And of course, there is the ache between them that I have somehow made peace with. This acceptance feels natural now, when three years ago, I was absolutely certain I wasn't ever going to feel acceptance, hell I wasn't even aiming for acceptance, or peace, and most definitely not healing. That was not my goal, and yet here it is. Lucy died, and she is still part of our life. I could never imagine how to integrate her into our lives. It seemed so forced to have a dead child and make her live in our family, and yet she does. When I try to explain it to others, it sounds strange and morbid. I think others who have lost children know this life our babies have after they die. She changed each one of us, and I think we are better for her life, wiser for her death. It is the way it is, and we cannot change that. But we have accepted that the past is not open to change, but her life, how we perceive her place in our family, is.

On the night before Beezus' birthday, I told her that if she woke early, she should come into my room and wake me up. I didn't care what time it was. And at 5:50 am, she poked me under the covers. "It's my birthday and I'm awake," she whispered.

I kissed her and wished her birthday happiness, and I saw it was still dark. "So, my love, should we..." And she nodded, "Mama, can we watch the sunrise outside?" And we ran downstairs, she grabbed her juice, and I grabbed coffee, and we took blankets and curled up on the big wicker chairs on the deck, and watched the sunrise. We giggled and listened to the birds and talked about her birthday party. We meditated and I did reiki on her, then we made a garden tea party with paper flowers and butterflies and pinkplosion, and cupcakes in tea cups, and a parade with handmade crowns while the girls held sunflowers and instruments and marched around declaring it BEEZUS' BIRTHDAY!

I ache for things between us to remain trusting and open. When I play guitar, she sings with me. Joni Mitchell and the Beatles and the Stones and when I hear her voice, I want to cry for its beauty. When we lay in the moss, and let it tickle our cheeks and stare into each other's eyes, I always say, "Thank you for letting me be your mother." And she says, "You're welcome." And I remember the year after Lucy's death, when I just stared at her in wonder at her mere survival--breathing in and breathing out. And we talked constantly, and read folktales constantly, and painted constantly, and were just together constantly. It is so different now, but when see that time in each other. This is the seed we plant for all our life--unconditional love and open ears and perfect compassion for one another. It is my wish when I blow my mama candle out this year.

tree

Mama, was I wish you once made?

Yes, my baby.

Was I wish on a star or on a dandelion?

You were every wish I ever made on anything I could wish upon.

Was I born a fairy or a girl?

A fairy, my angel, with little invisible wings. Your fairy power is to make everything bright and lovely. You do that by being exactly who you are.

It is?

Yes, my baby.

Mama?

Yes, my love.

Can we pray to the angels?

Yes, my love. What would you like to pray?

I want to pray that I am kind to my friends and my friends are kind to me.

That is a lovely prayer.

Well, can we pray it?

You just did pray it.

She hands me a drawing and runs off with her yoga mat. She giggles with her friends, and finds her shoes. I glance at the paper, and it is a tree. Not just a tree, but a tree with stars and the word "love" written across every branch. It has hearts and a squirrel climbing the tree. It says, "I love you." and then her name. The drawing looks like a heart exploding with love.

"It is a tree growing love." The yoga teacher explains to me.

"That is beautiful." I'm prone to emoting these days. I hide it behind fidgeting, but I get choked up.

"I told them to draw a seed, " the teacher points to a heart drawn at the bottom of the trunk. "Then they were supposed to draw the tree from it. She wanted her tree to grow love."

"Wow."

"Exactly, WOW. She is such a cool little person. She did that all by herself. I did not prompt her to draw love."

I don't know what to say. I am verklempt. I am proud, amazed at how much she has to teach me every day. I have no right to be proud; she does not belong to me, but I'm proud nonetheless. I wonder some days, when hits and kicks are exchanged and toys are begged for and extra candy stolen, if my compassion-nagging works, if my focus on our highest self, on banishing materialism, on other people, on love is sinking in. I wonder if I am doing anything positive here by staying home. I know the children are safe, but am I showing them every possibility a woman has? Or just one traditional role?

My daughter is a heart. A pumping, beating, lovely heart of a girl I am privileged to parent. And this little crayon picture humbles me. My best self wants to grow love. If my yoga teacher asked me to finish the sentence, "My tree grows..."  My seed might look like God, and my tree compassion. Those things are intangible, un-drawable. Unable to be articulated nor drawn, and if pushed further, perhaps I would have drawn a tree sprouting love too. My best self likes to think so.

There are days I feel so alone on the Island of Kid. I woke up this morning, for instance, and watched the Backyardigans before I realized that the kids had left the room. I was thinking about race and little creatures dancing together and what this show teaches kids. I sing songs, and tease them. Sometimes I lose my temper and say things like, "I am incredibly disappointed in this behavior." And then tsk, and wish that shame were not my go-to. I leave the laundry build up too long. I just really want to go to work some days. It's not that they are not lovely. Or that they are naughty children. They are lovely, and very well-behaved children. It is just that I don't always like who I am--my lack of patience, my selfishness, my extreme introversion. Some days, I just want a nap. I don't like what being home alone all day brings out of me--not every day, or every week, even. But when I get stuck in my head, or I feel busy and bored, and I grumble and growl at the kidlets, I wonder if my being home helps anyone. Some days, I just don't want to think in pink and light blue and clean-up songs or read the same book a thousand times or talk about unicorns and fire trucks. I don't want to decide breakfast, lunch, dinner, and three snacks for myself, let alone three other people and a dog. Those days are much fewer than I imagined before babies, but they come. The guilt comes with it. Because I know this is a choice for us that few families get to make, and Lucia's death makes their living so precious and not taken for granted.

But when she brings me a picture of a tree blossoming love, I know she is bringing me this self-portrait we painted together. The picture of what my parenting is about--the principles we want to bestow upon our children. Choose love, I whisper for five years, little niggling pushes toward compassion. She translated those whispers into prayers. She asked for help with the love and friendship. That is a gift I wanted to give my children--knowing her limitations, asking for help, turning control over. It is a skill I am only now learning. I still find it immensely difficult to ask for help, even as I preach it to my children. But the truth is (and I am sharing it sheepishly with you) this picture answered my desperate prayer:

Show me my path, please. Help me understand how to parent these babies in a way that is best for their souls. Help me be the best mother I can be. Help me understand what I am doing right, not just wrong.

Thank you, Daughter.

shy

He hides himself in the folds of my yoga pants and whimpers.

There are people, Mama. People. 

He doesn't say it, but I know what he is thinking. He is afraid of humans, my little Thor. I give him a hammer and a lightning bolt, but he still cowers. At the playground, he holds my hand and watches, and I push him gently toward a manageable slide. "Go play, my angel. Go play." And he shakes his head and reaches up.

No, Mama. No. No.

I take him in my arms, and stand on the sidelines watching the other children play. Watching Beezus slide down the fireman's pole, and talk to other children, and try the monkey bars. He still struggles with the talk. I hear him try sentences on for size, rolling around in his mouth. Aspirating after each word. I want to encourage him, but I don't understand what he is saying. He repeats the phrase again. Then out of the blue, he will perfectly pronounce 'garbage truck.' Most often, he won't speak at all. People ask him, "What's your name?" Or "Why aren't you talking?" Or "Don't tell me you're shy."

I smile and answer for him. I tell people that he is in speech therapy, so they know we are working on this, and I spell the word S-H-Y. They seem to want answers for the reason that he is the size of a four year old, but doesn't speak yet. They look at Beezus and say that his sister is probably speaking for him, and I nod and laugh, and all the while, I think that Thor knows exactly what we are saying and is living his fate.

The speech therapist wonders if he is lacking confidence, since he seems to whisper the right answer and then not repeat it aloud. She mentions selective mutism. She says he is probably the brightest child she works with. He follows complicated, even unexpected directions. He's smart and patient and lovely, she says. Almost much too patient and smart for a child his age. He's like the opposite of hyperactive.

Hypoactive? I think.

I wonder if shy is a bad trait or a good one. I felt emboldened recently at the spate of articles and books talking about shyness being a good trait. We are a family of shy. And shy is something everyone thinks you need to get over to be successful. It seems good to me to talk when you feel moved to talk, instead of filling empty space with noise. Thor sits in meditation. He giggles incessantly, and plays with his sister like he is four. Later, I look up selective mutism. Social Anxiety Disorder pops up. Shyness. Psychiatrist. Special classes. Therapy.

The nights have grown more pleasant. Almost cool, and I open the door to my studio. The wind chimes ring. The mosquitoes smell the warmth and buzz around me as I read about all the things I should be doing with Thor. He is two and I am reading about SSRIs. It feels so wrong. I caused this with my anxiety during his pregnancy, the thought immediately pops into my head. I've been waiting to find out how I messed up Thor, and here it is. I am convinced of it. It covers me like a wet, scratchy blanket. I can't escape it. It is heavy and uncomfortable and larger than our house. I will never escape accusation and blame. I am the causer of psychiatric disorders! He is too attached! BAD MOTHER! BAD! And as I start that line of thinking, I stop. I take in a long, cleansing breath, and let that abuse float out my studio door with the mosquitoes. It doesn't help me parent him better to believe it is my fault.

My baby Thor is sweet and lovely. He needs to sleep with his feet over someone, like he is the King of Siam. He wants to be fanned and fed grapes and he likes to dance to music about the moon and goddesses. He likes to grab my face in both his hands, and stare into my eyes and then kiss me on the mouth. He is quiet and shy and afraid sometimes and I realize I have been approaching him all wrong. There is nothing wrong with him. Instead of losing patience, I need to reassure him that shyness can be a successful way of being. I need to stop making excuses or explaining all this. I want him comfortable so others can see the loving, confident, creative, amazing child I am privileged to mother everyday. What I created is a child who trusts me, who practices discernment in social situations, and fears strangers asking what is wrong with him. I understand where he is coming from.

Let people wonder, ask, gawk. Let them call me controlling, or too attached. Let them think I am a bad mother. I can handle that. What Thor needs is to know nothing is expected of him but his security. All he needs to do is feel safe, and then nature will do the rest. So my job now is not to get him to talk, but to get him to relax.

Find it in my skirts, my son. Find it on my lap. Then grow strong. Grab your hammer. Change the world.

amazing grace

Having a two year old is exhausting and wonderful. It is sad to admit that I have almost no recollection of Beatrice's two. I was four months into grief when we celebrated two with sushi and pizzi. I remember delighting in her, asking her how she lived so easily. I remember cuddling with her for hours, watching movies. I remember painting with her. I remember having long conversations with her, and reading her long, intricate folktales of Inuit peoples and Mexican Indians.

I have no recollection if she was interested in using the potty. I don't remember how many words she had, or if her molars came in (they must have, they are here.) I don't know when she said "I love you" for the first time, or if she sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as much as Thor does. I missed Lucia and appreciated Beezus with every ounce of me, but I couldn't commit either of them to memory. They were like sand. Every moment gone before it came.

Thor is severely speech delayed. I had no idea he was delayed, because I had no idea what to expect. I don't remember how many words Beezus had. I only realized because when I hung out with other two year olds, he didn't speak and they did.

He is slowly learning words, and talking. The speech therapist tells me that he is incredibly smart, above or at all his milestones, perhaps just a little lazy with his mouth movements. He'd rather say every word with a D. It is a very common speech delay for little bros. He gets so excited when his teacher is coming over, and he sits in front of her playing games with her. I hear him say Chicken perfectly. Pig. Cow. Boy. He raises his hand like he is in school, even though she is always calling on him and he is the only one answering. I like his teacher, she is kind and smiles at his little flirts and idiosyncrasies.

I feel like we are just starting summer. Guests and trips, then appointments and dentists and biopsies and food shopping and maybe we will never sit still again, wondering what to do. I think about making a schedule for us, but with what time? Every day is another appointment. Beezus keeps asking me, "Do you have my schedule yet?" She is a child run by routine. I am a mother run by routine, but I still can't construct anything schedule-y.

The yard is dry and our tomatoes seem to have some strange scorched disease. This summer has been brutal, and we spend more time inside than out right now. I hung my spider plant on the deck with my wind chimes that play the first notes of Amazing Grace. When the wind blows, it sometimes sounds like a song I once heard, and other times, divinely, I hear the beginning of Amazing Grace. Just a few notes, but like a prayer I whisper the words.

Amazing Grace. 
How sweet the sound,
 that saved a wretch like me. 
I once was lost, but now, I'm found.

I still feel lost some days. The psychic told me that someone cursed me, and I feel like that was the curse. Wandering the halls of my brain, slamming doors and blowing out candles, haunting myself, pushing my own hand up to drop the groceries I just bought. Someone tells me to lay my necklaces and crystals outside to soak up the sun and the moon energy, and they will shine brighter. Protect me more. I keep buying protection jewelry. Big golden shields to wear over my heart. Angel wings with turquoise. Black tourmaline and labradorite and clear crystals. I feel exposed and vulnerable. Drained by something.  I washed my home with protection oils while wearing all white. I walked around chanting with sage and cedar and incense and I don't feel the least bit self-conscious telling you that I am buying stones to grid my home. 


I don't even know what I believe anymore. All of those things seem ridiculous to some part of me. I have these dreams that I am battling against horned men. Their horns curl around their ears and my only defense is sending someone else in there against them. I don't even believe in the devil, and yet he appears to me. And I always win, but I don't know what the metaphor is anymore. I sit with it and seek answers from oracles and psychics and astrologers and they always tell me that my heart knows what the answer is. 


I have everything I ever dreamed. My daughter died, and I still say that. I appreciate that she was here at all, teaching me about the depths of my darkness and grief. I was a broken person, but I was not smashed. I was able to be found. I am back together. I easily remember all those days


I meditate on the blessings of these days--two year old Thor, five year old Beezus. They play together, and cling to each other, and tell me stories and bark like puppies and ask me questions about the moons and spells and sisters dying and butterflies. I love watching them draw people, and stories. I love learning about which books are their favorite, and not one moment in the day that I don't find something absolutely charming about them. I remember this time, like Beezus will too. That is the grace I walk into every morning. It is easy to imagine I am in control of something like curses and removals and my fate, but I control nothing. I never did. Clinging to that illusion is what is the curse, I think. My heart is telling me that. I must walk through each bloody hot wretched day and grid myself with their love. I am these people's mother. My job is to teach them what it is to be human. That is the sacred place of definitely-not-cursed. 

little birds

What is that, Mama?

I look down at a featherless little bird. Without formed eyes. A swollen bird fetus on our front step.

It is a dead baby bird, my love.
How did it die?
I don't know, my love.
Maybe it was an eagle.
I don't think it was an eagle. 
Or a hawk.
Perhaps. It probably just fell out of a nest, shell broken, and was dragged here by some animal, like the neighbor cat Tae-bo.
Or an eagle.
Or an eagle.
Why do birds die, Mama?
Because everything dies, baby.
But it's little.
Yes. Sometimes little things die.
Is the baby going to die?
I hope not, baby. 
Mama?
Yes, baby?
I think I saw an eagle.

beezus

I dreamed her before I met her. She told me that she waited for me to have babies so I could be her mommy, and she was so happy. She had curly blonde hair and blue eyes and she was a newborn that looked like a nine month old. A television newborn. I had such a strong sense of her in that dream. She told me that her name was Stephanie, but I could call her any name I wanted. And I coaxed her into nursing. She told me she liked chicken noodle soup, and I laughed. I woke and thought it was a silly dream. Me? Having a blonde blue eyed baby?

It was the Pink Moon.

Beezus kept reminding me that on her birthday, the Pink Moon was coming. It will rise in the windows as we read books together and talk about what animals we can find in the knots of our heart pine ceilings. We will light candles, and chant, and smudge ourselves on the Pink Moon, that is what she said. We will make spells like good witches. We will make a wish on the stars, and the giant orb of princess pink.

She paints the world glitter and love and unicorns and a kind of magic that makes me want to shout her word's from the highest point in the suburbs, like my rooftop. "SHE SAID WE ARE MADE OF DANDELIONS AND GIGGLES! BELIEVE HER! SHE IS FIVE ON THE PINK MOON!"

She thought the moon would be actually pink, and when it came up and we stepped outside in our jammies, searching the sky she said, "IT IS PINK! THE MOON IS PINK ON MY BIRTHDAY!"

She still sings her favorite song as she skips. She always skips.

She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything that she wants to do.

When she was born, I was not afraid. I was strong, brave and thought I could do anything I wanted to do. I labored for 21 hours, feeling every contractions, slowly building to a place of pain-chaos and then she was born. I don't remember much of it, except that my eyes were closed most of the time, and I think I fell asleep in fifteen second intervals. I hung onto my husband's neck and he kept asking me if I was sure I didn't want an epidural. I said, "No, I'm meditating." And I was as present as I have ever been. I don't know if that is meditating, but it was something.

I bounced on a ball, and walked around, and took shower after shower, but they were never hot enough, or long enough, or helpful enough. She was a full back labor, and I couldn't find a perch, couldn't sit, couldn't lie down on the bed. I didn't know that babies die in labor. I mean, I knew, but I didn't know. I didn't know what that would mean in every day life, after her birth. I didn't know they could die in me during labor. I was ignorant. I was having my first baby. I am grateful not to have known, and now grateful I do know.

I birthed her sitting up, and held her hair in my hands before she came out fully, and she was so blonde and blue-eyed, I laughed in spite of myself.

When you are five, you remember. You remember every part of your life, if you want. Beezus doesn't remember a time before Lucy died, or Thomas lived. She doesn't remember being three, not really. She was always the big sister. She doesn't remember not grieving Lucia. She said she remembers being born and thinking, "YAY! That is my mommy!" But I'm not sure I believe her.

Last year, I wrote this about Beatrice:

I fix myself on her. She is magic. I am convinced. If I stare at her long enough, she might not disappear. If I keep her under my wing, tuck her behind my leg, tell her stories about princesses and ladybugs, brush her hair gently, touch her nose, smell her neck, maybe she will stay. Maybe she won’t trust the person she shouldn’t trust. If I just watch her chest rise and fall while she sleeps, if I study every crease on the bottoms of her feet, she won’t leave and never come back. The other one disappeared, and never came home. It seems a strange habit to try to control the passage of time by sheer will. I tattoo each moment on the sand of my neural pathways, only to watch them wash away with the tide. There she goes--my baby turns into a girl. My girl turns into a woman.
Ironically, the only permanent thing I know in my life is that Lucy is dead. Everything else I can hold in my arms is a lesson in impermanence and that scares the shit out of me. It humbles me, rather. Fear is something I am trying to let go of, though I am a house of cards built on fears. Time blows through the room. And suddenly, Beatrice is eating her sushi with chopsticks, and telling me jokes, and washing her own toes, and her brother’s too.

I could write it again in other words, but that is all I want to say. I want to keep each moment, capture it in a jar, hold it and shake it and stare at it, but like the butterfly, the moment needs its lid opened, or it will die a horrific death while you watch. It needs to move into the next moment and the next until you are holding a precocious, empathic, lanky, lovely girl in your arms who tells you the future and the past and who you think is the most amazing creature you have ever met.

deer

My daughter asks me for a sister. One that is alive and plays.

She begs me for another.

"OH, pppppleeeeeeease, Mama. Please. Lucy is dead. You can't bring her back, Mommy. But we can still have a little sister who is cute."

My husband agrees. He nods and points his thumb at her. "Getta load of the girl. She is making a decent argument," he seems to say, smirking and devilish. I tell her that she may get a brother. There is no guarantee it would be a sister.

"That is okay. I will play with a brother too. I promise. "

She wears the deer antlers we made and sings a reindeer song. That is what she calls it. It sounds like shrieks and gurgles and whinnies. She gallops through the house. She looks like a woodland creature, some kind of fairy nymph that pops out of a knot in a tree and blows a forgetting dust into your face.

I want to try for another fawn. I do. Sometimes, particularly after baby showers and holding newborns, the idea seems incredibly good. They smell like vanilla and breastmilk and malted milk balls. Their feet are as tiny and soft as mosses under our favorite tree and their voices are bells, clear and fine reminding us of something bigger. But even the fairy dust can't help me forget the anxiety of Thor's pregnancy and the raw pain of Lucy's death. And I said I was done, dammit. Done. Yet this doesn't feel done. They cry for another fawn. I wonder if I feel that tug to have more babies because Lucia died. I wonder if we will always feel like there should be just one more baby, because there should be one more baby. Or rather there was one more baby. It is a riddle I cannot figure out. A Chinese handcuff--one idea goes in this side, and the other on the opposite side, and struggling only makes them tight and claustrophobic, inescapable.

I am too grounded in my comfort for a newborn. It is different when the bottoms of your feet hurt in the morning, and you have grey hair. I am already the oldest mom in the line waiting. The crow's feet and the paunch.

I ache, sometimes. I yearn. My uterus reaches up and opens its hands and moans, "Just. One. More."

She says a sister would play deer with her. Her brother wants to rip the antlers to pieces. Chew them and bury them and transform them into the trees. He is the Trickster, hiding and ripping and causing a beautiful chaos.  I try to explain to her the myth. He is playing a different role than deer. He is something else entirely.

I admit that the boy seems completely uninterested in having to share me with anyone. He wants to be on me. All night. All day. He grabs each cheek and stares into my face when I am talking to Beezus. If she climbs on my lap, he pushes, like a linebacker, all shoulders squaring off. And she screams, "She's my mommy too, Thor." He tries to move her off me. I find it so endearing and lovely to be wanted. I am wanted. I can't believe these children want me, and then I remember that I am their mother.

I am a mother!
I am thirty-eight!
I have three kids and a house and two trucks!
I clean the house every day and make dinner every night and listen to NPR!
I spend 24 hours a day with the kids and I'm not sick of them!

These things surprise me. Constantly. Do they surprise everyone?

My husband woke late this morning. We had a rough night with the kids. He was kicked in the neck, and went to sleep in the bunk bed with the little magical deer fairy who had a nightmare. I woke up with Thor sitting on my shoulder, repeating the word DOWN!  and pointing to the stairs. In the morning, after the neck kicks, my husband whispered, as the children ran with juice toward the fire.

"The middle of the night makes parenting so challenging," he said. His voice weary, defeated. "I wish I were twenty-five."
"If you were twenty-five, you wouldn't have the patience for the middle of the night."
"Very true, but at least I would be 25."

I am tired. I am not 25.
And I am thinking about deer.

What are you thinking about? What do you think? Will we always want one more when we are missing one?

christmas

No one in this house dresses on Christmas. I don't cook. We play with our toys in front of the fire. Nap. Watch the movies Santa brought (Kung-Fu Panda I & II). We listen to the last of the Christmas music. We read the books once wrapped in red and green paper while under blankets (this year, the kids got the Last Wild Witch, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Conejito). I drink coffee. We eat leftovers and large clunky candy canes from Hammonds. I don't want to go anywhere. That is the last of the grief rituals we have. Prepare for a bad day. Hunker down. Make a weep-friendly zone. Play when you can.

My children were Santa-happy this year. Santa this and Santa that. Beezus told me this morning she heard Rudolph's nose when the reindeer were on our roof. You know, the noise his nose makes when it is blinking on the 1964 TV special. I thought I saw the Easter Bunny when I was a kid. Standing in my living room. I was four. And the Easter Bunny looked like the one from Hess' Department Store. He filled our baskets. The crazy thing is that my sister has the same exact memory. So, yeah, the Rudolph thing, I get it. I also completely support that delusion, because it might buy me a year or so before she notices me and Santa have the same exact taste in toys.

This year, Beezus wanted robotic animals. Perhaps in Japanese Astrology, 2011 was the year of the Robot Kitty. Specifically, she wanted a white cat that meows and purrs and walks, and a dog too, with a leash. A robot dog. I remind her that she has a real dog and his name is Jack and she is welcome to walk him any dang minute of the day. She rolls her eyes and sighs. This robot doggie is white and has a leash. It is small and fluffy and has a pink bow and is named GoGo, she explains. I roll my eyes and sigh. The robot kitty cat has been meowing for weeks in the basement. It drives me insane. I would hear it and say something like, "I think I just got a text message."

This year I received some glass blown straws, and silver Mexican earrings, and socks I wrapped for myself. I love everything. Particularly watching Thor open one gift at a time and just play, even though more gifts sit there wrapped. Beezus tells me repeatedly that Thor still has gifts to open and should she help him? "I have a new matchbox car," he seems to say like a little monk, "Why do I need more?"

Something has been nagging at me all season. It is this thing I haven't quite articulated yet. And I'm not sure how to explain why it is so difficult. So I will just explain it. Beezus and Thor are almost exactly three years apart. His birthday falls five days before hers, but essentially, they hit the same milestones at the same time of the year.

You know what I am saying?

So, Thor is exactly the same age Beezus was when Lucy died.

I don't remember Christmas 2008. Lucia was dead four days. After the funeral home picked up her body on Christmas Eve, the funeral director was at our house asking what kind of urn we wanted. On Christmas Eve. Christmas morning, I was three days post-partum. Beezus received a play kitchen that year. I only know that because I saw a picture of her playing with the kitchen Christmas morning. There was a bow on it.

See, I don't remember much of Beezus at this age. I have been told I was a good mother to her, that I seemed completely absorbed in whatever she was doing right at that moment. I remember reading my journals and blogs around that time that being with Beezus made me very present. That I felt moments of happiness because her spirit is this large happy Buddha spirit and I could turn off some of the refrain: "Lucy is dead. I can't believe Lucy is dead." But that Christmas, I wailed most of the day. I have snippets, like a dream vignette in a movie. I remember wondering how I was going to live this life. I remember wondering if you can die from obsessive thinking and heartbreak. I remember being so afraid of Beezus dying, and wanting to hold her and not let her out. I wondered if every Christmas would be so fucking terrible and gut-wrenching. I didn't think I would ever like the holidays again. I wondered if I would have a stocking for Lucy or not the next year, because I had already filled her stocking when she died. (Incidentally, we don't hang a stocking for her, but we do hang all the ornaments with her name sent to us on her first birthday.) In 2008, we ate carrots for Christmas, because we simply couldn't function enough to cook anything else. We didn't even peel the carrots, we ate those little silly carrots that are made little by some machine.


Thor is still so little. I can't believe it. It keeps catching me off-guard. He doesn't quite talk, nor does he not talk. He communicates through a series of half-words, grunts, hand gestures, real words, and emotional responses like kicking shit and throwing himself on the ground. This week, he began grabbing a pillow, putting it down, and then throwing himself on it to have a tantrum. I admire his dedication to comfort. He likes cars, and making roads for his cars. He likes making off-road terrain for his cars, like my belly or my head. He kisses and draws and paints and sings songs. So many songs. So many heartbreaking songs.

Fuck.

There are so many layers to her death, so much that changed that day. I remember one thing specifically about Christmas 2008. I sat with a heating pad on my belly, uterus still contracting, on the couch. My milk came in that day, so my breasts formed hard painful pulsing lumps of grief. I tucked cabbage into my bra, and ice packs. Milk ran down my belly. Beezus wanted mostly nothing to do with me. The baby was dead. And I was sad. On Christmas, she came near me and crawled on my lap. It had been the first time nearly in two days that she wanted comfort from me. Sam left the room. I had begun to cry because her distance was so hard for me after Lucy's death. I couldn't bear it. Beezus rested her head on my breast, and I said, "Do you understand what is happening, Beezus?'

She shook her head no.

And I said, "Remember the baby in Mama's belly?" And she touched my belly.

"The baby died. Something happened. Lucy died. She is never coming to live with us. That is why Mami and Daddy are crying and sad. We will not always cry this much, but right now, we are so sad." And she stared at me. I had no idea if she understood what I was saying, but I cried and she kept hugging me.

That is what I remember about Christmas 2008. And I guess, stupidly, I thought Beezus understood that Lucy was dead. I thought that conversation gave her a kind of compassion and understanding. I see Thor now, and I can't believe how little he is. He is 20 months old. And I don't know if he gets that he has a sister that died either. After I post this, I am going to lie on the floor in front of the fire and drink a cafe au lait. I warm the milk in the microwave and use the little frother and pour in Kenya AA. It is a respite and a comfort to drink coffee that way. That is something Lucy's death taught me, to enjoy a moment of peace even if it is couched with a thousand torturous moments of grief.

pilgrims and indians.

My daughter came home wearing a pilgrim hat today.

She has this sort of light brown strawberry blonde hair, and she wore a little jumper today with flowers on it. A pair of pink sparkly Mary Janes. She looked edible, that is how adorable it was, except that my insides went all haywire. We are Native peoples, not pilgrims. And what is she learning about American Thanksgiving? She is in pre-kindergarten. What blanks can I fill in? Small pox? Mass execution? Guns? Reservations?

Howard Zinn bounces through my head, and I kneel in front of her and say, "We are Native American people, Beezus. We are the Indians." And yet, I suppose, she, like me, is part pilgrim. She doesn't understand, and I don't know how to explain. She is little and the myth of Thanksgiving is beautiful, healing, forgiving and compassionate. I want her to learn about gratitude. I want her to share her harvests. Strangers sharing a meal, making peace, giving thanks--those are good things, but the whole white-washing-the-relationship-between-white-people-and-the-Native-Americans-through-Thanksgiving-thing depresses me.

I had to make sense of who I was, culturally and ethnically, eventually. How I identified, who I am, what I hold as my cultural heritage.  And now I have to help my children make sense of that. I am a first generation American. My mother came to this country, but her people have been on this continent for a long long time. My mother is Central American. Her family is a mix of European and native--mestizo. In this country, my family were at one point aliens. Foreigners even though their history on this land spans longer than the people making those rules.

I have a pipe-smoking Indian great-grandmother who wore weavings and braided her hair together in a long loopy braid. And another who was Italian and Spanish who grew up in Panama cooking paella and spaghetti. My father is Irish and German. But what I look like is brown. Brown and not white. That is what people see--the brown. The Latina. That is how they treat me. And because I get ignored at jewelry counters, and followed in malls. I identify as a Latina, because I am treated by people as a Latina. I am brown. It does not deny my white father.

When I was younger, thinner and more beautiful, I would get asked where I was from on a daily basis as I walked down the street, waited to come into my building at work, buying my coffee. Mostly from men, sometimes from older women. It was a conversation starter, I suppose. I looked exotic, not American. People have asked me if I am from India, Turkey, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spain, Italy, Mexico. People have wondered if I am half-African-American. Sometimes they would ask me in loud halting English, like my first language had me translating each well wisher. I would answer "Schnecksville, Pennsylvania," because it was like a giant eff off to the idea what it means to be a Latina.

I once dated a man who told me he could hear my Spanish accent when I got mad. Spanish is not my first language, or even really my second. I do not have a Spanish accent. I am able to communicate enough in Spanish to find a communist camp and get us hydrated, but I wouldn't exactly say I am fluent. We all project something onto the person we are with, what we want them to be, why we chose them them in the first place, but there was something about that comment that felt so alienating, so objectifying. In that moment, my identity felt so confused, even to me. I had always felt in between races, cultures, identities. I was seen as white in Latino communities and Latino in white ones. But the Latinos would approach me to say, "Speak Spanish more. We need you. We need you working in our communities, smashing the stereotypes that people have of Latinos." And I felt like I fit precisely because I don't fit.

A couple Halloweens ago, I was dressed as Frida Kahlo. I was drinking beers with my neighbors, and I said something about how I am turning into that crazy Chicana who dresses like Frida slowly once a week, then every third day, then every other day, then every day. And my neighbor said, "Oh, honey, you are white." And someone else nodded, and I grew red hot with confused anger.

Do you think I am white because I live in a nice house in the suburbs?
Because I am not doing your lawn?
Because I am not taking care of your children?
You think I am white because I am smart and articulate?
Because I am confident and look you in the eyes when I speak?
Because I dress in black and listen to the Smiths when I get depressed?
Why do you think I am white? Because of the color of my skin? Because of my voice? Because of what?

I said nothing.

It shames me that I say nothing. But I don't. There is a historical and upsetting history of white people passing laws about what it means to be white or black or Native American and making judgments on who is and isn't white. White people assigning racial identity has a long and dark history. Just because you have never met a "Latina Nerd", or a successful, articulate Latina does not mean they don't exist. There is not one way to be Latina, just like there is not just one way to be white. People who diverge from the racial stereotypes about money, education, articulateness, skin tones, and music preferences are not diverging from their own race. I hear it said about our president, the mayor the city near where I reside. It makes me bristle, because I understand what that feels like to be told that even though you are brown, you are not brown enough. I know what it feels like to be told you are not white enough too. I am both in equal measures. I am not white. I am not brown. I am not not white. I am not not brown.

When I just had Beezus, she of the blue eyes and blonde hair, people would approach me and talk about how beautiful she is. Coo at her and then turn to me.

"Is she yours?" 
"Are you the babysitter?" 
"The Nanny?" 
"Her mother must be jealous at how much she loves you."

That is a role people understand--brown lady caring for a white baby fits what it means to be a Latina in the well-to-do suburbs of New Jersey. But brown lady who gives birth to a white baby is confusing. Now with Thomas in my arms, my little baby with brown eyes and olive skin, people seems to understand something more about our family. That we don't neatly fit into a box marked Pilgrim. or Indian.

I am sharing this today, because that is how all these things feel to me--PICK WHO YOU ARE. Mark a box. White. Latino. Native American. And if so, which type? What nation? Are you an alien? Are you legal? Are you illegal? You must be something. Who are you? Let's define you. What is the color of your skin? Where are your people from? What kind of music do you like? What sneakers do you wear? What side of the Thanksgiving table are you sitting? Maize or creamed corn?

I am many things. My children are even more. I talk to Beezus about the Native Americans, the Five Hundred Nations, the myths and the religion, the food and the connection to the earth. I don't speak of the mass slaughter, the disease, the humiliation. I do not speak of Leonard Peltier or Chiapas. One day, but not today. I tell her about the reservations, the loss of their language, the racism. We pray for the people suffering. I speak in ways that explain why the Pilgrims told the story of Thanksgiving and not the Indians. And I include her.

You are Native American. We are Native American. We are part pilgrim too. We have a little bit of all parts of this country. And for that I am grateful. I am grateful to feel a little bit a part of everything. I am grateful to be part of your tribe.

everything in my heart, I love

Do you know how much I love you?

 He shakes his head, both back and forth and right to left. Smiling. Flirting.

I love you as much as the sky, and all the stars, plus infinity and an apple.

He shakes his head again. No. He says no with his whole body, moving from leg to leg, like a vehement, Tribal No Dance.

Oh, but I do, my love. I love you as much as everything. It is too much for my heart to contain, so I must scoop you up and shower you with kisses.
He giggles. A full-body no turns into a full-body giggle. It is the dance we do together. Nos and kisses. He says no. We kiss. We sit nose to nose. Lots of nos and noses. They are starting to look alike, Beezus and Thor, and like me. Can you ooze gratitude? Can you stink of love? Because it emanates from me. I reek of it.

Thor's eighteen month appointment was yesterday. He has grown two inches in three months. He cries when he sees the Dastardly Nurse and her evil sidekick the Doctor. Everything is terrible in that place. Everything is terrible when you are eighteen months and have to sit still in your diaper. The nurse asks me every appointment how many siblings he has. It is the question that follows, "Does he live with both parents?" and precedes, "Any pets in the home?" And so I know they mean, "How many siblings in the home?" But it always catches me up. I don't know how to answer it. So, I stammer a "One" and wonder for the next half an hour if I should correct it. This is my pediatrician. The same one I have had since Beezus was born four and a half years ago. It seems strange that they don't know about Lucia, but they don't. I was pregnant, then I wasn't, then I had another baby. They never cared for our second daughter. She died before pediatricians. They skipped over that chapter in our daughters' lives. Maybe they didn't realize Lucia lived and died and Beezus and Sam and now Thor and I grieve and mourn and scramble. Maybe they didn't care. (And it is okay that they didn't and don't care.)

Our family is beautiful with him. It was beautiful with the two of us, then her, then her, then him. And a little tail wagging him in the background. Even if the second her died. Even if. Maybe because. Sometimes I think Lucia created our family's beauty, just like she would have if she lived. I have to think that, or I will think something else. Each member of our family is a different element of its beauty. I used to say things in the beginning like, "It isn't supposed to be this way." "She should be here." But now, I don't.  It just is this way. I don't know if that is resignation or acceptance. Those things are different, but they get you to the same place. Just like defeat and surrender.

Thor carries a baby doll around now. Santa brought him a little cloth boy doll named Lucas. In boy style, he played with the box rather than the baby. He was eight months old at the time. I thought I could use the doll as a bartering tool when he grabbed Beezus' doll Stella, or Babydoll. That never worked, incidentally. But in lieu of a blankie, or binky, or wooby, or strange shoe, he has grown attached to the doll in the last week. He sleeps with Lucas in the crook of his arm. Sam tried to remove him one night, just ease it out slowly imagining horrors of suffocation by baby doll, but Thor's eyes opened suddenly. He gave Sam the stink eye and he grabbed Lucas again, pulled him close, closed his eyes, and fell back to sleep. He has taken to carrying the little boy doll with him everywhere, kissing him, making the little boy kiss me. He cried yesterday when he didn't have it in the car, and I ran inside and searched for it.

He can have his baby, even if I can't have mine.

He smiled, shook his little hands in exuberance as he tucked Lucas under an arm. When he grows up, he will be a Daddy Bunny.

The soundtrack of our life is Beezus. She sings now, all the time. She writes her own lyrics. She skips and sings, arms raised above her head.

Everything in my heart, I love love love. (click click)
Everything in my heart, I love.
Everything, everything, everything.

When she isn't singing, she is talking. The teacher told me she is very quiet at school. I thought she was teasing me. But then I pictured Beezus tucking herself behind my knees, peeking out. She has always been shy in front of others, a quiet observer, so yeah, I get that. I accompanied her class on a pumpkin picking field trip a few weeks ago and sat next to the teacher. The teacher told me that a boy has a crush on Beezus. He chases her everyday, but he never catches her. I asked Beezus about it, and she said, "All the boys chase me, but I am too fast." And I say a little prayer, "Let her be too fast for a long time, Lord."

As we drove to Thor's eighteen month appointment, Beezus sang a brand new song.

The Earth is better than my heart. The Earth is better than my heart.

Are you saying, 'The Earth is bigger than my heart' or 'Better than my heart'?

BETTER!

Oh. What does that mean?

It means the Earth is better than my heart.

Oh, okay.

sunday haircuts

"Are you ready for your haircut, baby?"

He tugs on his hair. His long nods move his entire body. He teeters into the bathroom.

We debate whether or not to undress him. We debate if I should hold him, or let him be. Meanwhile, he sits on the stepstool, waiting. This whole ordeal has something to do with his hair, he has figured that out. He bends his head down so I can see his mop of a hair. I kiss him, and muss it all up. I love when he gets his hair cut. It makes him look like a big boy. I ask Sam to keep the top a little long.

"The Ivy Leaguer, please." No one laughs.

Thomas sits for a moment before he realizes Sam is pulling out the clippers. And then he remembers that they are loud. He cries, exaggerates tears. He covers his face in his hands and buries them in Sam's leg. Sam is always so skilled at these things. He just starts, through the tears and stomps. He knows how to hold more reassuringly than me, more adeptly maneuvering the children into place to cut, tweeze, pull, brush, dress, or wrap. It is the nurse in him. Something he must have learned in a classroom, I think. Or perhaps it is just the confidence that he possesses. He exudes trust and ability. I used to watch him dress Beezus in the first days of her life, head tilted like the Victor dog trying to memorize each gesture. I'd try to imitate his movements the next day, but would inevitably, somehow, make the baby cry. It took me six months to figure out how to get a shirt on and off effectively. I would end up just pulling hard, upwards. It is the way of my people. If you pull hard enough towards the hole, it will come off.

I sit in front of Thomas, cross-legged. Trying to comfort him, my hand brushing his leg. "It is okay, mijo. It is going to be okay. It won't be long." I am making it worse, I think. So I grab the phone, set up the camera. It is an elegant dance between father and son. Sam adjusts to the boy, moves with him. He manages to cut his hair in the back and sides without holding him down. It isn't until the last clean up, that he gently holds his jaw in his big Daddy hands, steadying his head for the last details.

Beezus always collects the hair in a little bag. She saw me do this when I first cut his hair. A lock of hair for his box. Now it is all of it. She keeps it in some magical treasure chest. I still haven't found where, but I suspect it will be a creepy, horrifying affair when I do.

"Mama, do we want the birds to make a nest of our hair or not?"
"Not."
"Oh, okay. I'll keep it safe for Thomas."

The baby hears his name and screams louder. He is eighteen months now. There are words. There is running. There is rule and instruction following. There is a little ego in there, trying to scream its existence. There are complicated strategies involving the stealing of dolls and opening food bits just to get Beezus mad. She laughs at it, but he still tries.

It is all so tragic--this haircutting business. It is all so horrible. He is trying to tell us. He is angry and scared. And yet, I can't help but want to bottle this moment. I take more photos.

He cries, yes. It is painless. Hair cutting is just sitting still and getting gently tickled. We know this, us seasoned adults. But something changes in them from baby to toddler to kid. And suddenly, they stop crying when their hair is cut, their teeth are being brushed. It is only a short time until they understand that this scalping thing ends. Then we will all gawk and oooo and aaaah, and say "How handsome." And they stop crying. But at eighteen months, it is all so immediate. I just want to capture those times of his still being a baby. The moments I will forget. The moments of tears and clippers.

Sunday haircuts.

There is nothing special, or unusual about the event. No feasts to be cooked. No baseboards to be dusted. No special serving dishes to be washed. No gifts to be made or bought. But it is a holiday nonetheless.

family night

We stand around and take in the room. Or rather, I stand around and take in the room. The jobs, the traffic light, the pictures of little names painted with dots and stripes, the paper dolls holding hands across the side of the room. I am standing in front of a tiny desk with papers that say "Bea's Family."

Do you think we have to sit in that little chair? 

There is a man standing next to me, smiling. He is also flying solo at Family Night, which comforts me. Our babysitter couldn't make it, and we had no one else, so Sam stayed and I went.


Yes. I was waiting for someone else to do it first.

The dad chuckles. Then we spend the next few minutes shuffling uncomfortably, looking around the room at our kid's names. Turns out we are sitting right next to each other, or girls sit right next to each other.  The teacher begins the presentation about pre-kindergarten and what they do here.

This year is about socialization.

For Beezus or for me? I think.

Beezus seems to be fine, comes home every day with new stories of her friends. I, on the other hand, have very rarely interacted with other parents in the four years since she came into the world. I stay home with the kids, play with my nieces and nephews, hang out with my crafty sister. But every day, I walk to the school to pick Beatrice up and drop her off. I wait with the other moms. Recently, I have been chitchatting and it feels okay. Some moms are seasoned, others new school moms like me. I ask the seasoned moms advice on school stuff, and commiserate with the other moms who are going through all of this for the first time too. Some days it is easier than other, but I want to fit into the group of parents more than I wanted to fit in during high school. Maybe fitting in isn't the right phrase. I just want not be noticeable as weird or kooky or grieving or anything. I just want it to be about Beezus. I don't want any parent to think, "But her parents seem weird."

After the presentation, I go to a wall of sheets with interview questions. The questions are what do you want to be, what is your favorite toy, what would you do with a million dollars. One kid writes that he wants to be a priest. I live in a place with a lot of Catholics, but it still surprises me. One kid writes that he wants to be an adult. My daughter writes that she wants to be a doctor. Her favorite animal is a giraffe and if she had a million dollars, she would want ice cream. I would recognize the answers if it had no name on the paper. But it does, large across the top:

BEA.

They call her Bea here. The teacher, all the kids. We call her Bea too, but mixed in with Beatrice, and Beezus and Bea-triche, and Buzz and Bumble Bee. And I realize that her name is her own, she can be called what she chooses, she can become whoever she chooses. The mountain climbing doctor with an all-girl punk rock band called Shark. Man. Attack.

I thought this part of parenting would be so difficult, watching her go out into the world, but I find it so beautiful and comforting that she knows what to do. This week, she is the Line Leader. She pushes her shoulders back, and raises her head, and walks straight away without a wave or a blown kiss. The other kids need her, and she takes it seriously. In the midst of grief and loss and anxiety and fear, we have given her something beautiful and gentle and kind to carry into the world. It is a line of qualities that surprises me, and warms me, and gives me faith in the human spirit.

question two: dealing with living children and grief

Kate: My question, something that's been troubling me since my son was stillborn last year, is how will I explain this to any future children we're lucky enough to have? I know you have young kids, so I'm wondering how do you explain Lucy's death to them? Drew was our first, so I'm just wondering how I will explain this to any brothers and sisters he may have.


I guess I'm just anticipating the worst in the sorts of things kids say. I worry that they're going to ask me why Drew didn't want to come live with us, or why God didn't let Drew come home with us... and I know that I can't get away with the "I don't know" "or just because" answer forever.


Like I said, I currently do not have any other children, but we hope to and this is something that troubles me. I'd love to hear how you discuss Lucy and her death with your living children.


Thank you for your time and for all you do.
Kate

Sarah: I have to repeat a question already asked multiple times. How do you explain Lucy's death to Beezus and Thor? My husband has 3 kids with his exwife. Parker was our first. Benjamin was born 49 weeks after his big brother was born/died. Benjamin knows about his brother, even though he's only 1 y/o. How do we explain it to him as he gets older and starts asking questions, and to their older brother and sisters when they see Parker's pictures and start asking?


Thank you for all that you do!

Kate and Sarah, thank you for these questions.

I worried about this part of my parenting from the moment I found out Lucy had died. Not only did I lose a child, but my daughter lost her sister. And now my son has lost a big sister too and I am in this position in a different way. I struggled with the questions of why this happened, because there was no medical reason for her death. I had no idea how I would answer such blunt questions from people who I suspected were looking at me to be strong. Beezus was twenty-one months. When I arrived back home from the hospital, I explained what happened. She didn't really seem to get it, though she never asked me about the baby after I told her Lucy died. It was like that was enough explanation for her at that time. I cried a lot in the early months and I talked about missing Lucy, because I just couldn't NOT talk about her, and so Lucy became part of our lives, because she is a part of our lives.

I wish I could say it was a very mindful process. It was and it wasn't. It was because I thought about it a great deal, but then the other part is that I also had to be very present with my grief. I worried about my crying and the association of Lucy with grief. I was so torn about it, because I was raised in a home where you just didn't see parents cry. I worried a lot about the effect of that on my children, and the other end of that is that I worried that they would be jealous of Lucy because her grief demanded all of my attention. One day, I asked Beezus if she knows who Lucy is, and she said, "Lucy is Mommy crying." Because all she knew of her sister is that I cried about her.

As she has gotten older, my grief changed and so has Beezus' understanding of Lucy. We have had more candid and deeper conversations about her. That didn't happen until she was three, so there was almost an entire year of virtually no mention of Lucy by Beezus. I think that developmentally between two and three, children begin to become less ego-centric. They start becoming more empathetic, and that is when their questions become more formed. That was my experience, at least.

I bought a few children's books that help when I feel out of my element. One is called When Dinosaurs Die, and it is a general book about death, not just about stillbirth or infant death. It talks about what people do when others die. When I was pregnant with Thomas, I bought it for Beezus, because she was asking me more about what dying meant and who died. And it just kind of does a good job of explaining that people die for lots of reasons, and death makes us feel all kinds of ways, like angry, sad, like we don't want to do anything. Another I bought when Lucy first died was called Something Happened, and it is specifically about stillbirth/infant death. I would suggest that to someone with living children at home who came home without the baby.

How did I bring Lucy up to them? I just do. I never had to have a sit-down conversation one day, because she comes up naturally throughout our day. I just bring her up when she occurs to me. When Beezus was younger, I found that talking to her while we were coloring was good. So, I would ask, "Do you know who Lucy is?" And then just briefly say that she was her sister who died. One way we have integrated Lucia into our lives organically is have some very regular rituals in our home around Lucia. We have, for lack of a better term, an altar. It is in our living room, and where we sit and talk in the evenings. Most people don't realize it is the place where we put things that are meaningful and connect us to Lucy. We call it Lucy's altar. I guess that is what I meant about bringing her up when I need. The kids don't need to be purposefully told about Lucy, because she is part of our daily life. "Let's light Lucy's candle." Sometimes I say, "I miss Lucy right now. I think I will light her candle and meditate a little." Lucy is so interwoven into our daily lives that it doesn't seem weird to talk about her.

The other day Beezus woke up in the morning and said, "I had a dream about our whole family going to a carnival. Well, everyone but Lucy and Jack, they stayed at home." And Thomas said "Luuuuz" the other day when we were talking about Lucy. Beezus is at a point where she includes Lucy in all of our family conversations, and she is starting to say that she misses her and having a sister.

I think the way you talk about Drew, Kate, and you talk about Parker, Sarah, and death in general will dictate how your children talk about death and their sibling. I try not to make Lucy be a big dramatic ordeal. I just talk about her, and so do the kids. When they bring her up, I usually don't cry. Sometimes my husband does, though, which is just where we are in terms of expression our grief. And to the questions about death, in our house, we sit with uncertainty, which also did not feel comfortable for me at first as a parent. I was raised in a Catholic home. Most of my theological questions were answered "Because that is how it is". I am raising Beezus and Thor with both a Christian and Buddhist understanding. I answer "I don't know" a lot. But I am comfortable with that answer as a parent. I can only teach them how I made sense of everything.

Honestly, I find it so much easier to talk to children, not just my own, about Lucy's death than to talk to adults, because children are so honest and not weighted with preconceived ideas of death and karma and all that stuff. I remember the first person who came to visit after Lucy died brought her four year old son. And he said to me, "Did you know that Lucy died? It is very sad. " And it made me cry, but also so grateful. How I wished adults would have said something like that to me.


I am just thinking about these questions you bring up. "Why didn't Drew want to come live with us," or "why didn't God let Drew come home with us?" They are profound spiritual questions, and even the most seasoned theologian, I think, would have a difficult time answering them without "I don't know". If Beezus asked me these questions, I think my answers would be, "I don't know, honey. But I think Lucy wanted to live with us. Something just happened. Something the doctors do not understand. Adults try to make sense of the world, but sometimes things are also hard for adults to understand too. My love, God cries with us about Lucy's death. God is sad with us. We loved her very much and she would have loved living with us. But she died."

But I think it is good to be as honest as I can with my children about this part. But part of what I found is that talking about Lucy has been much easier than I anticipated. I think the key is letting the kids lead the conversation based on their maturity level. You may never answer any questions about God and the baby's death. I never have, even though we talk about God and pray in our home. I bring Lucy up sometimes when Beezus says something about her. And I say, "If you ever have questions about Lucy and why she died, you can talk to me about it. Or if you want to look at pictures of her, you can." Beezus does ask me why Lucy died, physically why (Was she sick, mama? Was she hurt, mama?) and I answer all her questions as honestly as I can. I want to reassure her that Lucy died because people die, not because she or we had any control over that.

As my children get older, their questions about Lucy will become more complicated and their grief more palpable, I think. But they will always grow up with Lucy and her death. That is just part of who they are. I wanted to link to this post I wrote before, since I write about this topic as it comes up. Esperanza wrote a beautiful comment about this from the sibling perspective, which is definitely worth a read.

Michelle: my question is do you ever deal with feelings that you just can't take care of your living children because you are trying to take care of your dead child? i am really struggling with this right now as i am the only one who seems to remember xavier. i feel like i have to mother xavier because he is dead and there are others that can 'mother' my living children for me and it breaks my heart that i struggle with this.

Oh, Michelle, your question hit me in the gut. Yes, absolutely. Particularly in the beginning. I haven't felt that way in a long time, come to think of it. Sometimes I feel like I spin my wheels in my house trying to integrate Lucy, or I should say, I feel like I used to spin my wheels. I don't know when it happened, somewhere between 18 months and two years where Lucy's death and my mothering her became integrated into our life. It felt natural and like I wasn't two mothers torn between two ways of being--grieving and mother, or mothering Lucy and mothering everyone else. Rather, I felt like one mother now. But I so frequently get frustrated that I seem to be the keeper of grief in our home. The one to establish rituals. The one to remember Lucia. I guess I mean that my husband does not feel the same impulse to remember and honor her. I asked him once why and he said, "Because you do that for us, and I appreciate it."

Renel: Do you ever wonder how your life would be different or your grieving would be different if you did not have your little boy? How do you think your pregnancy or more so your birth and alive baby after your loss help you heal or do you think it did help you heal if even in a small way? Do you ever feel like you want another baby because there will always be one missing?

Renel, thank you for your comment and your questions. I struggled a great deal with whether or not I wanted to have a third child after Lucia died. I just couldn't imagine him not dying in the womb again and didn't think I could effectively parent Beezus if I lost another child. I was convinced I would have no marriage left. When we finally decided to start trying again, I was sure it wouldn't change anything. So, yes, I do wonder how my life and my grief would be different if I didn't go through pregnancy with Thor.

I can say this: going through pregnancy after loss was the most anxiety-producing, hardest thing I have done aside from losing my second child. It changed everything about me. It took me a long time to recover from that nine month concentration of pure anxiety, fear and hormonal surges. I lost the last of the friends I had during that period, because I simply could not talk to anyone. I couldn't hear platitudes or comfort from people who didn't know what this was like. And unfortunately, pregnancy seemed to break the filter between what I was thinking and what was polite to say. I grieved for Lucy and felt almost no connection to the new pregnancy.

When I went into labor and went to the hospital, I thought I would be a heap of posttraumatic stress, but I wasn't. I began to feel real joy. This was it. This was the end. Whatever happened from this point on, it was out of my hands. I had done everything I could do for this baby. I went to every appointment. I took care of my body. It was then that I realized that control was a complete fucking illusion. I realized that before, but I truly surrendered my will then. I did everything the same as with Lucia, save the extra monitoring. I sort of fell into this sort of resignation that if he dies, he will die without regrets from me. And in that way, I felt free and slightly healed. The period after Lucia died until going to the hospital to give birth was marked by me in a raw state of self-loathing, anger at myself and replaying the ways in which I could have saved her. I cannot control anything in my life and I was going to have a baby. It started sinking in. Thor would be here. It was a gradual to move from grieving Lucy to welcoming a new baby.

Lady Mama wrote a comment on my blog a few months ago which said, " Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." And I think that is it. I began to forgive myself. It didn't just start in the hospital, but I realized it in the hospital. Lucy didn't die because I couldn't love her enough. Lucy didn't die because I did something wrong. Lucy just died.

I'll be honest. I repeated those words over and over for sixteen months, but it took me a long time to get it. I still struggle sometimes with it, and with that understanding.

When Thor was born, he was always his own being, and I never really conflated Lucia and Thor. I will write about that more with Angie's question, but yes, there was something that changed in me when he was born alive, though I don't know if I would call it healed or healing, because there is always the wound of Lucia's death. Thor's birth did nothing to that pain, but the joy it brought helped me be very present with my gratitude and joy instead of always tempering in mourning, if that makes sense. I felt gratitude, so much gratitude that this baby needed me and I could love him. I channeled Lucia love into my children. I also will say that in the first three months, there was nothing that felt overwhelming to me about having a newborn, which was a very different experience than bringing Beezus home.

I think what was healing is that my family felt complete--Beezus, Lucy, Thor. I couldn't imagine life without the three of them. I don't know what I would have felt if Lucy lived, if I would have had a third child, because life didn't work that way. Thomas is here, and it is exactly as it should be. But, yes, you nailed it with your last question. Sometimes I think, we should have another baby. And I realize it is always that desire to fill the hole that Lucy's death left.

I hope this was helpful and not scary. I also invite all people to answer these questions either here or on your own blog. I would love to know how others would answer these questions. You can link your answers in the comment section. Next up might be a lighter post with random questions.