You Slipped Away Before I Ever Got To Hold You
There’s a little something that pulls at my heart this time of year.
I don’t talk about this stuff very much any more. I talked and talked and talked about it a lot for awhile. I even mentioned it a few straggling times once I’d mostly grown quiet about it. A lot of friends and strangers questioned my resistance to healing. I don’t know if this is just something about me, an excessive emotionality that disallows me from ever really letting go of the deepest pains.
Maybe everyone is like this. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t.
It still hurts me at this time of year when I think about the babies who are not here, the one who was due on Christmas Eve, the one who quietly died in my womb in December and then had to be removed. Two of my kids won’t get presents from Santa this month, nothing to do with being naughty. They just didn’t make it. They never had a chance to be naughty. They slipped away before I ever had a chance to hold either of them.
I’ve always loved Christmas. I still do. But this little something pulls at my heart now too. It’s a melancholy kind of joy I feel nowadays during the holidays.
I choose to feel the happiness of the season, because most of the time, I do have a choice.
But when the tears come, I let them take over for awhile. That’s a choice, too. A mostly healthy one, I think, regardless of what anyone else might believe. When they dry up again, I hold onto all the joy I can find, and while I let the pain visit, the joy is where I remind myself to dwell.
May you all find the greatest joys and dwell in them for the rest of this year and into the New Year. xo
You take the good, you take the bad…
Lions stalk the Jungles around us in August.
This August, Leo was hiding behind one of those particularly bushy and leafy plants in the Jungle, doing his Kingly Duties without me noticing him too much.
As the end of August neared, I walked past his hiding spot. I was expecting there to be a Virgin hanging around somewhere by that time, but it seems he ate her up, and when he saw me, he roared and reached out with a giant, furry paw and gave me a whap.
This was no friendly cat batting. His claws were out, and he threw me into September in a painful way. I landed in the Ninth Month ‘O The Year hard on my ass and with jagged claw marks on my heart.
It was September, I realized with a jar, and midway through this month, it would be a year since I’d conceived the boy who had then died 3 months later.
A deep, aching sorrow captured me for awhile. On a few occasions I cried it out. One late night, in particular, left me on the living room floor doing what is known well as The Ugly Cry. Oh, that it was. Ugly with a side of Stinkin, Holy Hell.
For twenty minutes, I lay in a heap, pouring it all out into the carpet.
My face was a swollen mess the entire next day; my head throbbed.
But life keeps moving, and you kind of flow with it most of the time. I got back to flowing. In fact, I threw myself at going, even. Lions be damned… bikes, and hikes, and picnics… oh my!
I can laugh in the sun as well as I can cry in the dark, it seems.
But then, can’t we all? Yes is the answer. (Remind yourself of that if you need to, sometimes. It can be easy to forget.)
Then I realized as the end of September ran out that someone resembling Lady Justice had me sitting on her outward facing scale. Before I could throw something on the opposing one to keep things steady, she dumped me face-first into October, and crashing into another of those dates I can never seem to forget.
I knew, of course, the whole time I was flying down the bike path with the wind slicing past my grin and throwing out my pony tail in whips and flips behind me, that this next bump was coming. Of course I did.
Today is that date, and it marks one year since the last time I realized I was pregnant. It’s been a year since I spied that little pink cross next to that little pink line.
It was an odd day one year ago, emailing my husband a photo of the pregnancy test with a message that spoke of my fear, instead of joy. A few weeks prior to that, I had finally come to terms with emotions and thoughts I’d been having and I felt sure enough about what I had decided to announce it out loud.
“I really just don’t want to be pregnant again right now. Maybe one day, but not any time soon.”
Soon after, I began having… those strange, but familiar sensations. You know, the bloating, the craving, the heightened senses. When my period was late, I pulled out an extra pee stick that was in the bathroom, and sure enough, it was time to turn off the neon vacancy sign on this lady’s uterus.
I was struck almost simultaneously with fear, anger, disgust, disappointment, guilt, sadness, and grief.
The irony of the situation did not escape me. Luckily, a new set of emotions rose quite quickly from deep inside, as well: Hope. Longing. Joy.
Guarded, those three were. But they were there, unmistakably.
You can follow posts back through my miscarriage tag and find me talking about the feelings I had being pregnant again after a miscarriage earlier that year. You can obviously also read the posts that detail what I went through emotionally when this new baby also died, in early December.
This, right now and through December, is a hard span of time for me – it is the first anniversary of the pregnancy that ended in a second miscarriage. I know, it’s confusing. But I think the first anniversaries are hardest. I tend to believe that while the dates will always have a sting, these initial ones offer the deepest blows.
And if you think I should be over this, I forgive you. You don’t understand, and that’s okay. I sincerely hope you never do. If you think I’m dealing with it all so very bravely and I am very strong, you are sweet and kind. I appreciate that, but I’m just like you. Some days I’m so strong. Other days, I’m nothing but Jello. In the sun.
October 3rd is the first blow of that second time when I decided I could let myself hope. I wrote a post about that hope. I damn near internally promised my dead son that I would never give up the hope that he taught me it was okay to have.
And yet? I’ve spent a damn lot of time this past year being pissed off, signing off on hope, and mentally giving the finger to anyone who dared suggest I hold onto it. (Not you, really.)
Did he really teach me, in those short 3 months that it’s okay to hope again?
I have to believe that was the truth, no matter how things turned out. I have to, even if I don’t feel that way every day, you dig? I just have to keep believing that the lesson Davin taught me was true. About hope.
Because if you don’t have hope for something new and maybe even better, if not every day, then at least with some consistency, how do you keep moving forward? How, without hope, can one keep flowing and going, smiling and laughing, growing and loving?
I just don’t think you do, and so I know I still have it. Even if it’s a bit dented and has lost some of its shine.
Today I’m going to be sad, that’s for sure. Really, really sad.
And that’s ok. But I refuse to allow myself to wallow in misery this time. This will actually be difficult for me – it seems I’m an innate misery wallower. (Spell check wants me to change this to “swallower.” So you hear it here first: I don’t spit misery, I swallow it, folks.)
Yesterday, I said, on Twitter:
I got a variety of answers, and lots of support. Thanks to all of you who reached out then, and to those who have done so in the past. Even when you don’t hear back from me, please know that if you’ve done it, you’ve been a part of a support network that I value deeply, that keeps me going, and I thank you sincerely. (Even later, I come back to these posts and read your comments again.)
My favorite response yesterday was from @wbgookin (author of Daddy Is Tired), and I thought I’d share it with you. It is simple, and yet seems powerful to me. That’s the best kind of advice, isn’t it?
It’s what I aim to pull off today, and hopefully any time this same kind of question arises inside of me.
“Be both. Be sad for what might have been, be glad for what is.”
So yes… Today, I’m going to miss Davin. I’m going to be incredibly sad about what could have been, but was not. I am going to wish he was with us while I still rejoice in how wonderful it is to play in the sun at the park with Braden.
I’m going to do the Sad, Sad, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy Dance.
Here’s hoping your Saturday is peaceful and beautiful, even though you live with a sorrow, too.
Another little boy I once spent a lot of time with.
My brother is one of those people you instantly like.
That’s because you didn’t have to grow up with the little brat. He was sneaky, conniving, arrogant, and I damn near thought he was evil sometimes.
Knowing this would only make him smile. I guarantee it to you. This is just part of his charm. And he’s got a lot of it.
Some of my worst childhood memories involve my brother. Can you imagine someone hitting you in the head with a brick and then manipulating the course of events so that you actually get punished for that?
Some of my best childhood memories also involve him, and revolve around my relationship with him. I will never see a Fall Leaf fluttering to the ground without thinking of him and smiling. If you have never Leaf Danced, you should try it sometime, folks.
Overall, the good memories outweigh the bad memories. Which is nice.
He has gone through so very much, changed and grown so dramatically in the past 10 years. He has always been fiercely intelligent, but now he is also becoming a responsible, successful young adult. I’m so proud of him.
Today, he defended his Masters Thesis, and passed. That is Big Shit, people.
And now, it’s time for him to make some very important decisions. These are big, life changing things. Of course, in some way, all decisions we make every day change the paths of our lives. But he’s clearly in a situation where he has to make one of those BIG, FAT nerve-rattling, anxiety-inducing decisions that won’t just gently nudge him over a little on the road. It’s one that could just bump his ass onto the next ferry and take him over to the other shore. Dig?
I’d like him to know that I know he’s going to make the best decision for him. I know that no matter what decision he’ll make, he’s going to be a success, and lead a good life. The core of him and who he is tells me that. There may have been times when I was afraid of which path he would choose, but not anymore. I am not worrying about him anymore, just watching, curious, to see what kind of great things he will accomplish next.
He’s a worrier by nature, so, in case he reads this, how about leaving some encouraging words for him in comments today? I’d really appreciate that. I know you don’t know the specific details, but you know enough to leave some words of encouragement.
Knowing he’s at this point right now reminds me nostalgically, and somewhat painfully, of a time in my life when I had a very similar decision to make.
I wonder which direction the wind in his sail will blow?
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Please don’t forget to read my article at Quirkee.com today! And me love you long time if you comment there. 
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