It's a ONEderful Life

Getting back to normal after the summer always proves difficult. It seems like in the summer months we settle into this laziness where every day may as well be a Saturday and our sense of urgency is nowhere to be found.  What’s for dinner? Who knows.  What are we doing today? No plans, really.  Didn’t get the to-do list done? Who cares-we’ll try tomorrow.  And so when it was time to get back to business with work and school it is all we can do to get our acts together and be up and ready to go on time and without coming apart at the seams.  On top of that my work schedule has changed and I am in early (and out early), leaving Sean to get the kids ready for the day. Throw in a first birthday party and you’d think it would be a recipe for a chaotic, epic disaster- at the very least a mama meltdown, right?  Normally, yes.  

However three weeks ago (I’m late-I get it-I told you we are trying to get our acts together!), for a lady that is usually her worst self right before a party, I was a pretty cool customer. There was no crying, and yelling (well except when my darling husband decided to weed-whack the overgrown garden thirty minutes before the party was starting.... listen, everyone has limits) and everything was ready to go before the first guests arrived.  Carter’s First Birthday Party had arrived and the fact of the matter is the whole world could have been crashing down around me and I don’t think I would have cared.  I was celebrating my sweet rainbow baby’s first birthday; my very own Harry Potter-the boy that lived.  There was nothing that could take away from the happiness that it was bringing me.

I had spent the weeks leading up to it planning all the little details-the ones I’m constantly reminded that the kids wouldn’t notice anyway. I think my hope is when they grown up and sift through the artifacts of our past they will see how much love I put into their celebrations.  That to me, their birthdays were so much more than cake and paper plates; that it was a day for me to try and reciprocate the joy they brought to me and their dad every other day of the year.  And so I glued sticks to frames, and moss to letters and all of the other little things that would turn the backyard into a little woodland party.  

And because I have some of the best family and most talented people to call my friends my big guy had delicious treats, a gorgeous cake and some of the cutest little cookies you ever did see.  

So many of the people that have followed along with Sean and I over the last year, sharing in the joy of becoming parents again after so much heartache; many of the people that have loved watching this baby boy grow over the last year and change our world for the better came to celebrate this happy day with us.  That was the part that meant everything.  These were the same people that stood by us in the darkness and have been there waiting patiently when we found the light again.  

Watching Carter follow around his big friends, and point to all of the things that blow his little mind, seeing him push his cake around but not into trying it, sitting with him and my grandma as she sang the same song to him she has sung to all of her grand and great-grandchildren: these were all of the moments I had felt so robbed of these last three and a half years; the secondary losses.  And so though I tried my damnedest to make this only about Carter, his big brother was never far from my mind, with my heart wishing I had gotten those moments with Jack too.  

There was one point where my sister was taking a photo of us, that this boy touched my face and looked at me square in the eye and all I could think was, ‘thank you.’  I don’t know who it was directed to, Carter- for being everything I needed so badly, Jack- for picking this little guy out for us, Sean-for giving us this beautiful life and hanging on unwaveringly while we made it through the worst of it, or maybe even the universe.  In any case, my heart was full of gratitude and love. 

My life will never feel perfect again, the naivety of that notion died with my first son, but there is a sense of peace in my heart again that has been missing for a long time; and it’s a pretty wonderful feeling. And I’ll take that any day of the year and twice on the day of a party.  

Forever Tied

I’ve followed the news story for the last 2 weeks; the orca whale mama, J-35 or Tahlequah, that has been carrying her baby- who died just thirty minutes after she gave birth to it- with her, unable to let it go.  Reading with tears pouring down my cheeks, and praying for that poor animal that she would find the strength to let it go, I knew this story all too well.  Just last night, I sat with Sean after having a little coffee table dinner date and we talked about it.  I cried, telling him I feel like it would be better if these marine biologists monitoring the whale pod would just separate her from the dead calf because there was no way she could do it herself at that point.  But I knew in my heart that be would wrong too.  I cried because I felt for her and it was all too real; I knew what it was going to take for this poor mama to let her baby go.  And today when I learned she was spotted and was no longer pushing her baby at the surface of the water, my heart broke.  She had done it; after seventeen days and over one thousand miles, somehow she let her baby go.  At least physically. 

(PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBIN W. BAIRD, CASCADIA RESEARCH)
National Geographic 

I often think about the moment we handed our sweet baby Jack back to the nurses, knowing we would never have him in our arms again.  And I know that as I sat in the hospital holding Carter almost one year ago, I sobbed as I thought of that moment, wondering, as I held my precious, warm, pink baby, how I ever managed to give his older brother back.  My mind reeling knowing I could never hand over the boy I was holding in my arms. To this day I don’t know how. Well that’s not entirely true.  I gave him to Sean and I asked him to do it because I couldn’t bare to do it myself.  That is something I’ve always prayed that deep down he didn’t resent me for-asking him to do the worst thing he’d ever have to do; to be stronger than I could be in that moment.

I’ve wondered, sometimes ruminated, about whether I should have kept Jack with us longer in the room; did we give him over too quickly? But as I’ve followed my ocean mammal counterpart all of these days, I know we did what we had to do, that every moment that past, the more my heart was attaching itself and the more impossible it would be for me to tear myself from him.  So I wonder, what gave her the strength after sixteen days?  Was it her family pod that followed, patiently, along with her?  Did they just know that she needed more time- to grasp what had happened- to digest that her baby was really gone?  Because I can relate to that as well.

The reports say she appeared to be in good spirits.  I hope that it’s true and not just wishful thinking or anthropomorphizing on the part of the scientists.  I hope they know too that maybe she is just having a good day and that there could be bad days ahead as well.  I hope they realize that just because she let her calf’s body go she grieves still; that she is forever tied to that baby.  

Do I feel silly for feeling so emotionally invested in this? A little.  But us grieving mothers have to feel for each other, to offer up silent encouragement, and the “I feel for you” sentiments.  I hope that this mama takes care of herself and her pod continues to surround her.  And though she may never know it, the world knows her baby was here- even if only for a brief time- and it’s life mattered and the love she showed her little one did not go unnoticed.