.neon in fog.

Memories are tricky beasts.  Some memories can hit you with the strength of a hammer yet when you try to hold on to others they fall through your fingers like water. Why is it that we so easily remember some things and not others?  The things I want to remember so quickly seem to fall into the crevices of forgetfulness, while the ones I wish were a little less vivid seem to glow in my mind like neon lights.

Those neon lights are surrounded in fog and they flash in reds and blues:

"I'm sorry we are meeting under these circumstances.  I have bad news...."
"He's probably had the SVT for at least a week..."
"This happens so rarely, I see maybe one or two cases like this a year..."
"Normally we would send you straight to the hospital but I've spoken to the cardiologist on the phone and we both feel that at this point another night probably won't change the outcome...."
"Dr. Brown said that your blood work came back from last night and it is worse than it was before.  She says we need to go in for the c-section this afternoon..."

Other memories are shrouded in fog and I can hardly remember the first six months of the pregnancy anymore. 

Those memories, when I can pull them out of the fog, come in discreet packets.

The other day Leif and I went for a walk around the reservoir and I remembered that we used to walk that same path at least once a week before we got the news that sent us over the proverbial falls in only a barrel. We went partially to baby-watch...to observe what type of strollers people were using.  We went partially to imagine ourselves there with our own son.  Many times we would swing by on our way home and get a couple of scoops of our favorite gelato because I was, after all, still having trouble putting on weight during the pregnancy. 

Up until that terrible day Leif had taken a daily picture of me in the same outfit and in the position with the intent of doing a time lapse video after George was born.  I used to get so frustrated with those pictures.  Leif was so excited about the project and sometimes I would make such a fuss about having to change into that same outfit every night.  I was foolish and thoughtless.  Now there are loads of pictures of me hidden somewhere on his hard drive.  If ever he were to put them together I would want him to name it "The Girl Who Stayed Pregnant Forever."  Because really, in those pictures time froze when I was 24 weeks pregnant.  We don't have a single photograph of me after we got George's diagnosis.

I still have an unfinished blog post about my 23rd week of pregnancy.  It rambles on about feeling his movements and how I was increasingly getting uncomfortable.  I was working on it when we left the house to go to that first Perinatologist's appointment.  We were just going to get better views of his kidneys and the flow through the cord.  I wasn't concerned.  Besides bad things didn't happen to me.  Bad things didn't happen to Leif.  Now I occasionally look back at that unfinished post and wonder if I should publish it one day.  Right now it is just a reminder, a preserved memory, that life took such a dramatic turn later that day that the person who wrote that post doesn't exist anymore.  Parts of her are still here but I am not that naive young mother-to-be anymore.

So yes, if I try hard enough I can remember, vaguely, that part of my pregnancy when we were happy and all was right in the world. 

Leif first felt him move while we were in the hospital.  I want to remember that moment forever.  Somewhere I think we still have video of the ultrasound when we found out he was a boy.  Even without the video I remember our excitement on that day.  I also recall discussing with my sister the invitations and date for the baby shower.  I have one of the invitations, which were never sent out, saved in a drawer.  I think I will always keep that around.  And the blankets our mothers made for him will always be reminders of how much he was loved.

I want to remember more of those things and hopefully it will cut some of the bitterness still left in my mouth.  I want to remember more laughter and less tears.  More visits with friends and less visits with doctors.  More prenatal vitamins and less cardiac medications.  More morning sickness and less digoxin toxicity. 

More joy.  Less grief. 

Memories are tricky beasts.  Sometimes the only way to hold on to them is to forcibly pin them down with words.  Like butterfly specimens underneath dusty glass.  I guess that is why I chose to do this. Because even when I forget, and there will come a time as my wounds slowly heal that I will begin to forget and a time when more memories will start to blend in with the fog, there is proof that once upon a time I remembered everything.

.breeleifamorph.

Breeleifamorph from .daily.amos. on Vimeo.

Metamorphosis art installation by Alex Andre at Dwell on Design.

.riding on the metro.

I took the car in today to get serviced and to have a "funny" noise checked out, which I figured would be pretty quick.  Apparently I was part of some big psychic wave of people who decided that today would also be an ideal time to take their car to get serviced.  They said it would take all day and that I could pick it up by five.  But I had to be home by two because the pest control guy was coming to spray for ants (Every flipping summer we get ants.  I guess it is because they need water.  Asshole ants ).  Even if I didn't have to be back by two, if you have ever tried to drive from the west side of LA to the east side of LA on a holiday weekend during rush hour, you know I am only half joking when I say that I would rather gnaw off my own arm. And not even my left one but my right arm, the one I use to stuff baked cheese poofs in my mouth.

Oh yeah, and I also need to study.  There is that too.  I am on a schedule, dammit. 

I was fourteen miles away from my house, which might as well be 14 light years thanks to the way this city is laid out.  So I call Leif and ask him if he can come please pick me up during lunch.  He can't take a lunch break and he thinks because of the holiday weekend that traffic is going to be crap, which means it would take him an hour and a half round trip.  He is right of course, but I pout anyway.  So my options are to take the bus or wait until our car is ready and brave rush hour traffic traveling east on the 10 freeway.

It takes me two and a half hours to get home by bus. 

I try to use this time to be productive and read my review book but I can't because I am either a) getting car sick or b) listening to the gentleman sitting next to me talk about all the summer movies he wants to see.  Talking to this dude about all of his most anticipated summer blockbusters is the best part of the ride home.  He is a likable sort of person.  I think his name is Manuel.  He really, really likes the trailer for some movie about spy cats and dogs and is really, really excited to see a movie called The Expendables.

Of course, while I am walking the three blocks to my house from the last bus stop I realize that I do not have my keys.  Because they are with the car...14 miles in the opposite direction.  But, I think, it should not be a problem since my landlord must be home for the pest control dude too.  I get home, knock on her door.  No answer.

So, I call Leif at work.  

He shows up about twenty minutes later and as soon as he opens the gate our landlord pops her head out.  She was home the whole time. 

The pest control guy comes and says to me that he can't spray inside because I needed to clear out all my cupboards in the kitchen.  Oh.  That.  I didn't do that.  Oh well, he will be back next month and he sprayed outside so it shouldn't be a problem.

At least I don't have to walk the mile to the nearest coffee shop because I can't be in the house for three hours after he sprays inside.  That is a plus.

The next great drummer and his friends are home.  That is a negative.

At 3:00 the mechanic calls.  The car is ready early.  They couldn't get the car to make the funny noise when the engine turns on but they did take a look.  They suggest trying to record the funny noise next time. Oh yeah, and they did change the oil.  That will be 123 dollars please.

If there were rocks over here, I would totally be kicking them right now.

.feathers friended.

(Leif came up with this post's title.  He's very clever.)

So here is the deal, in case you weren't already in on the secret.  Birds?  They're stupid.  Now, I am not making a generalization here.  Not all birds are stupid.  Just Red House Finches because those are the ones that we've got nesting and hanging around our house.

Why are they stupid?  Because it took them weeks to figure out that there was birdseed in the bird feeder, and that was only after our help.  We had to start by putting seed out on the porch and the railing.  That took them five days to figure out and it was directly beneath their nest.  Once one of them figured that there was food less than two feet away, suddenly there were four birds.  Then six birds...then eight birds.  Lord knows where they came from.  If spontaneous generation hadn't already been scientifically disproved I would be suspicious.

About a week went by with us continuing to put birdseed out on the porch in the hopes that one of them would land on the bird feeder and make a very pleasant discovery.  Finally I got fed up with the birds' obvious lack of consideration for my porch and so I decided to make finding the bird feeder tremendously easy for them.  We went to the pet store and got one of those bird treat stick thingies and I tied it to the bird feeder.  I watched those boogers try to figure out how to land on that thing for a good two hours (I know.  Who has free time to do that kind of shit?  Me, that's who).  Success! 

Now they fight over who gets to be in the bird feeder. 

Yes they are stupid.  Very, very stupid.  But being stupid has never stopped me from loving something.  They really are the closet thing to a pet I can have since God decided it would be funny to make me allergic to every single cute animal on the planet.

So here they are.  My Red House Finches and the interloper, the Black-throated Sparrow (who totally dominates the poor finches).

Black-throated Sparrow (or Dennis, as Leif likes to call him).

.strawberries are fruit.

The last couple of days I've had strawberries on the brain.  Mostly this is because I've been studying all about infectious disease recently. 

Strawberry tongue?  You may have Scarlet Fever! 
Strawberry cervix?  You may have picked yourself up a nasty case of Trichomonas. 

Cervix meet Trichomonas.  Trichomonas meet Cervix.

Trichomonas looks strikingly like this guy, no?  Distant relations perhaps?

You can thank me later for not also including here what a strawberry cervix looks like.  Somethings are better left to the imagination.  Like perineal tears and what those things taste like that the Doozers from Fraggle Rock make.

So...strawberries.  They're in season now.

This weekend I am making something delicious with them.

It will either be...

This.

Strawberry Galette

From Martha Stewart

Or....

This.

Strawberry Cream Cake

Also from Martha Stewart

And no, it is not for the 4th of July.  I don't need a reason to make something sweet and mightily unhealthy.  I need a reason not to.

.just another day.

Two weeks ago today George's due date came and went with not much more than regretful thoughts of what should have been and imagined scenarios of how wonderful things could have been.  There was no fanfare, no congratulatory flowers or nervous excitement.  There was no car seat or stack of diapers ready to be used.

There was no baby.

Instead there were hushed voice mail messages, consolatory texts, and emails heavy with sadness from family and friends.  None of which I knew how to respond to except to thank them for remembering him.  Because memory is the only thing left for him now.

And of course there were tears.  I never realized how many varieties of tears actually exist in the world until now.  Frustrated tears, sorrowful tears, angry tears, exhausted tears, and guilty tears.  So, so many guilty tears for so, so many different reasons.

I never wrote much about our attempted island escape that day because I was never really sure of what to write that I had not already written in one way or another.  But having that day come and go was like losing him all over again.  As Leif described it, that day was the point in time where the shadow life started and we, here in this life, were still left with the reality of what happened. 

We could not fix his heart.  We could not save his life. 

...if only we had caught the tachycardia a week earlier...
                                        and
...if only he had been a few weeks older when it started...

We could not manipulate time.

Modern medicine failed, despite everyone's best efforts.

And so George has two birthdays.

I find myself slowly resolving into acceptance of the things that I could not have changed and fixating on things that I had the power to change but didn't.  I should have brought the baby blankets my mom and Leif's mom made for him to his delivery.  I should have made sure they gave us the cap he wore.  I should have told the Anesthesiologists to stop being so fucking normal and fine with what was going on while I was on the table waiting to say hello and goodbye to our baby.  I should have taken more photographs. 

I should have spent more time with him.
I should have spent more time with him.
I should have spent more time with him. 

Everyday I still miss him and everyday I still wish for him back.  Yet these last few days have been good ones, I swear.  I can say his name without my eyes brimming with tears or my voice trembling with sadness.  I can laugh and it is not just pretense.  I can make jokes and not feel like I am betraying my son's memory by feeling happy.  I can look at the future and not see a solid black wall of nothingness.

God, had I known therapy would be this awesome I would have started long ago, when I didn't even need it.

I know these last few days are probably just a brief break but this feeling of some kind of normalcy is welcome.  Soon enough I am sure that I will find myself struggling with the same feelings of sorrow and longing that I have become accustomed to.  They will start to creep in around the edges before long but I know that this is just the nature of the beast called Grief.

.in other news.

Today Marc and Natalie are celebrating their first wedding anniversary.

I had more fun at their wedding than I have ever had at any other wedding.  Maybe even our own. 

Wishing you two a very Happy Anniversary and many more to come.