From the very moment I handed
Jack to Sean for the last time and watched as he passed him to the nurse for
the last time I have been terrified. I
have been terrified that I would forget what he felt like in my arms. I knew that I wouldn’t forget him or my
moments holding him, but I worried that the way he felt, physically, would blur
in my memory. I have tried to convince
myself whenever the fear becomes overwhelming that if I close my eyes I can
remember clear enough to settle, but the dread that almost 9 months later that
I don’t really remember. And that, the
thought that he has been gone longer than I was even pregnant with him, just
about crushes me beneath the weight of the fact. So when the mail arrived one
day last week, I felt a sense of relief that has been lost to me since January
25th.
In the early days, when I was
desperate to find anything that would make me feel like life wasn't over and that
a mother could actually survive life without her newborn baby, I came across a
list on Pinterest. It was a list
suggesting things that people could give a grieving mother. I remember thinking to myself, “Can someone
give me my baby back? Because that is
all I’ll ever want.” I knew even then it
wasn’t fair, that people would do anything to offer some sort of comfort during
times like that. I looked through and
saw a bunch of things you’d expect to see; garden statues, jewelry, things like
that. One gift that caught my eye, I
couldn’t get out of my mind for days.
It was called a Molly Bear. They are bears made by a not-for-profit group
for families that have lost their babies one year or younger. More than that they are customized to weigh
exactly what these children weighed the last time their loved ones held them. They asked for a twenty dollar donation in order to be placed
on their waiting list and there was only one day a month to submit your name
and request. I joined the waiting list
on February 28th, after setting a cellphone reminder for myself
weeks earlier. I didn’t tell anyone I’d
done this, afraid I’d be thought of as a “crazy” lady, looking for a doll to
cradle like you see in creepy TV movies.
But I did check the list almost religiously to see when my name would
show up. It did about a month
later. I was number 10,045. That broke my heart. Not because I would have to wait quite a
while since they were only in production for number in the low 9,000 and the
group of people making the bears is very small.
It killed me that there were 10,044 other people desperate to “hold”
their babies again.
Months went by and I began to
worry I’d been scammed out of twenty bucks, that some sicko was preying on the
broken hearts of mothers and fathers living without their children. Sean would nervously ask me when I thought
I’d get my bear, probably doubting I ever would. And then, a few weeks ago I got an email
asking me to confirm the information I’d provided months before, as they would
begin making our bear soon. Soon.
Last week Sean and Kennedy
surprised me at work one day. Sean had
been watching Kennedy during the days because his mom and step-dad were on Long
Island to say goodbye to Bill’s 95-year-old father. No matter how long a person lives it is never
any easier to say goodbye and it broke our hearts to tell Kennedy that Papa
Walter has died and, worse still, that she understood what that meant. So when they came to see me they had a bag
with them and Kennedy said I got a present from Papa Walter. Confused, I reached in the bag to pull out my
Molly Bear. I cried right way. Hysterically.
I closed my eyes and was right back at CHOP, holding all 4lbs 9oz of my
Jack Holden. I cried because I was so sad that this was as good as it was ever
going to get for us. I cried because I
was so happy that I really did remember what it felt like to have him in my
arms, his tiny weight against my chest.
I cried, relieved that my heart, truly, could never forget any part of
him. I looked over at Sean, with tears
in his eyes too, and I loved him. I
loved him for knowing that this couldn’t have waited until I got home; that it
was worth ruining yet another face of makeup at work and telling kids I just
have really severe allergies. I passed
the bear to Kennedy and we watched our little girl feel how little her brother
had been and even laughed that she still said he was heavy.
When I got home that night, our
special bear was waiting for me on my bed.
I crawled in and snuggled with Kennedy and the bear, closed my eyes, and
let myself imagine for just a moment, that it is what it would have felt like
to cuddle both of babies after a long day at work. And it did my soul a bit of good.
We also made a trip to Boston
over the weekend with my sister and her family to run the Tufts Health Plan 10K
for Women with my friend Jen. We had a great
visit, got some great food and photos in, run a kids 1K with our little ones, proud that they were excited to be like their mamas, and had a pretty good run ourselves too. My feet cramped for a majority of my 6.21 miles
and resulted in my having to walk almost a whole mile of it. I forced Sara to keep running, as she’d been
training so hard for her first big race, and Jen and I walked for a bit. When we had a mile to go I decided,
regardless how it hurt, I would run to the finish. As we approached the home stretch I saw my
sister step off the curb and run over to me.
She ran the rest of the way with us to the finish. When we’d stopped I thanked her for coming
back and she told me she didn’t come back, she’d stopped to wait for me to
catch up. She has done that for me over
and over again these last nine months.
I'd like to think the ray of light next to them is Jack :)
No matter how slow I move
sometimes because of the pain I may be in, she waits for me so we can cross the
lines together.
*If you are ever looking for a good charity to donate to consider Molly Bears. While they ask for a $20 donation from each recipient, it costs over $45 to make and send each bear to waiting families. Click here to donate.
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