Fall and Love

Fall is in the air and we are inhaling it deeply in big, monstrous breaths.  This is my time of year.  I finally stop sweating, the bugs have begun to retreat, and everything begins to take on this gorgeous orange-yellow-red hue.  It’s perfect.  Though life has not slowed down one iota for us over here, we made sure to cram in a good ole’fashioned picking weekend filled to the brim with all that is fall.

 

I’m not a full-blown “PSL” nut but I’m damn close and I flew that flag high last weekend.  We certainly had a fall hangover; complete with cider donut sugar covered fingers and I may still be feeling the effects.   It was a day full of family and fun, and full bellies and all the things that make me yearn for this time of year for the other 276 days of the calendar.

This past week had us planning for Jack’s Herd’s Random Acts of Kindness day, which took place on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day on October 15^th.  We made and printed cards and brainstormed different ways to spread some kindness through this world in memory of Jack and all of the other angel babies this earth has lost.  So when Saturday rolled around, me and so many of the people I am lucky to call mine, set out to send some good juju out there.  It was amazing in so many ways.  It was like I took a heaping dose of healing love because I felt good and, truth be told, I needed it to prepare me for the weekend I was heading into. 

I had made plans to make our annual trip to Boston to visit our friends, Jen and Andrew, and their new addition, baby Oliver.  As with everything these busy days, I didn’t think to check the calendar and Sean was double-booked so he was out and it became a Mommy and Kennedy visit. I was nervous.  We made plans to stay in their new apartment they recently moved into and I suddenly was terrified I wouldn't be able to handle staying there with a brand new baby overnight and without Sean to top it off.  As we drove, Kennedy excitedly talked about holding the baby and we covered the rules: quiet voices, clean hands, and no wild stuff.  She assured me, clearly annoyed that I had implied anything else would happen, that I didn’t have to tell her that.

The moment we stepped foot into their gorgeous new life, my loving friends that looked like naturals welcoming us with open arms, my nervousness dissolved and it was my bold little lady that clamed-up.  She got incredibly quiet and hid behind my legs, unsure of what to make of a situation that was so foreign to anything she could remember.  She has been around new babies but not in the last year and half where she would have any clear memories.  So while we settled in, washed hands and prepared to meet little Oliver formally, she kept whispering, “Mama, you have to help me.”

 The second she held him though, the big sister buried within her heart showed through with a light that I would only be able to describe as magnificent.  She kissed his amazingly chubby cheeks, patted his bum, and even sang the song, word for word, that I sing her at bed every night.  I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t tear the precariously placed stitches of my broken heart but I held myself together.  That is, until I was in the bathroom and I could hear Kennedy, in her little pixie voice, tell Jen, “We don’t have a baby anymore, he died, but I’m still a big sister,” and my beautiful friend, whose presence soothes me immeasurably, responded, “Yes I know we are all still so sad and yes, you are such a wonderful big sister.”  With that the tears, which I knew would come, flowed freely; I got myself together quickly and from then on it was genuine smiles and happiness and all the love a one-month-old evokes.

We took walks, enjoyed a final meal at a favorite restaurant that would close its door that night for the last night, and passed the little bundle of love around, taking turns with the shushing, bouncing, parent walk that was like riding a bike.  As I rocked this gorgeous little boy to sleep last night, my heart couldn't help but remind me of what could have been.  My empty arms felt as full as my heart and, though there was a definite sadness within me, I mostly felt grateful; grateful to my friends for sharing their baby boy with my little girl and me for a few days.

Sean and our parents sent a lantern up to our boy at the Ohana Foundation’s 2^nd Annual Wave of Light.  I was sad to miss it but my heart knew where it needed to be this weekend and so in my absence this amazing man showed me, yet again, what a wonderful daddy he is.

It is weekends like these past two that show me that even though grief is still very much woven into the fabric that is my life, there is still so much good that shines through. 

Off to eat a slice of Pumpkin Spice Swirl bread…