amsterdam

Last week Leif and I went to Amsterdam to visit friends, N and M.  It was kind of a last hurrah before I start work on Monday and before our friend delivers her son in another week or so.  We probably won't seem them for another year so we really felt the push to make the trip while we still were able to do so.  Our friends were troopers to have visitors there so close to the impending birth of their first child.  Even at 38 weeks pregnant, N was pretty adept at keeping up with the rest of us.

The trip was very easy and incredibly difficult at the same time, as I am sure most of my "readers" can imagine.  Easy to be with our best friends (including another couple who flew in from Hawaii for a 48 hour period just to hang out with the four of us since they get free flights) but difficult to be around an atmosphere of baby-ness for such long stretches of time.  Hours and hours would go by and I would be having a great time, the way I always used to when together with old friends, only to be struck by some random thing and be immediately yanked back to my reality.  I would recover from the jolt and the cycle would begin anew.

On the 31st of this month it will be ten months since George was born and then died.  During this time I've done a fairly good job of creating for myself an insular world where the idea that other people frequently have healthy pregnancies and living babies does not often penetrate.  I can't say for sure if that has been an entirely healthy way of living but I can say that for a long time it was a necessity for me.  Yet living in such an insular world cannot last forever and I think it was important for me, in more ways than one, to make this trip. 

Many times during our trip I felt completely separated from what was going on around me.  I watched and listened to our friends have lively discussions about birth plans, birthing experiences, and parenthood but I don't think I was ever really engaged in any of these conversations beyond the superficial.*  The pregnancy and birth experience that Leif and I had simply does not bear any resemblance to those of most people.  I can't really relate in any meaningful way to their experiences and so while most times I was comfortable and at ease with these topics I never felt like a participant in them.  An observer from across the great grief divide.   Many times I just listened because what I could/would add may not have been appropriate to the discussion at hand.

An example...

I had a brief discussion with N about the American custom of baby showers versus the Dutch custom of sending out announcements only after the arrival of the baby.  I immediately thought about how much I preferred the Dutch custom to the American custom because it circumvents the problem of what to do with all the gifts if the baby dies.  Normally I keep such thoughts to myself, especially when it comes to sharing them with a very pregnant woman, but I blurted out what I was thinking and effectively killed the conversation.  As much as N and M try to temper what they talk about in relation to the birth of their child, I also try to do the same.  Usually I'm more successful than that.

But I learned through this experience -and here I am referring to both George's death and this particular trip- that I am never going to be able to look at things like pregnancy, birth and parenthood in the same light again.  The pure joy and excitement associated with these things has been rinsed away and what is left is what I think of as a patina.  I've weathered.  

Leif finally sorted through all of our photographs from the trip.  As I was looking at them again I was struck by how impressive it is that photographs are able to sum up experiences and emotions.  

 It never ceases to amaze me how many versions of myself exist inside.

Some, I'm sure, that are still left to discover.

*Important to note here is that our friends are all very cognizant of our feelings and make their best effort to always consider them.  I can imagine how uncomfortable it must also be for them since they are probably never certain where our limits are.  They do a great job and I try also to do the best I can for them.  I am genuinely happy for them and wish them a very easy birth and nothing but joyful days ahead.

something has swallowed my voice.

what compelled me to write here has not been itching inside for weeks and weeks.

so silence has become my companion.

not unwelcome.

i am tired of living in the land of death.

i know i can never leave, i would not want to.

he is in the land of death and so i will also forever remain.

but i am tired and need some distraction.

time away.

for now but not forever.

the year of the rainmaker

The world hums.  A vibration of life and the passage of time and I feel it resonating in my bones.  The only two things to be sure of in life are change and death.  One inevitable and the other unavoidable and permanent.  Oh yes, and it is the permanence that is the very heart of every tear and every wail and every silent scream for the rest of my life.

Awaking in a new place for the first time this morning- change.  But the first thought in the lightening blue of dawn is a familiar one; how could this have happened to him?  Followed by a new one; today he died this year but tomorrow he died last year.

And "last year" seems so far away.  So very dead for so very long and so very long just keeps getting longer.  The slow progression of afternoon shadows, growing until the night comes to absorb them.

This year.  For eight more hours it is still The Year of George.

to remember him

I went to buy toys today to give to the Children's Hospital in memory of George for the Holidays.   It is something that I think I will be doing every year and with toys for whatever age group he would be a part of.  I bought toys that were age appropriate for both nine month olds and for six month olds because I can never seem to reconcile in my mind how old he would be right now if he had not died.  Six months if his heart had never started beating too fast or nearly nine months had by some enormous stroke of luck he survived after having five weeks of heart failure and being born at 29 weeks gestation.

I walked around those aisles for a good twenty minutes, glassy eyed, before deciding on three plush crib toys that play music when their bellies are squeezed.  I tried to imagine them in the cribs and bringing some fun to their recipients but I had a difficult time going to that place in my head.  Parents zoomed around, stuffing toys in their carts, and I just stood there on the verge of tears the entire time.  I don't even think they noticed the sullen-looking woman with three stuffed animals in her arms and tears in her eyes.

Then I got home and made the mistake of getting on one of those birth club message boards for June 2010.  I was feeling particularly masochistic and wanted to see what all the other babies who were born when George should have been look like and what they were doing.  It was like pulling the curtain back for a brief moment on that alternate life of mine.  I didn't stay long.

After today I am not feeling so brave any longer about the actual trip to the Children's Hospital to drop off the toys.  It isn't a hospital that I associate with George as he was born in another hospital miles away.  But my fear is that when I hand it off to the volunteers they will want to make small talk and I will burst into tears.  Spontaneous human combustion.  Only with tears and snot instead of with fire.  But I will go anyway because it is so incredibly important to me that I do something in his memory this year.

I want to say thank you to Susan, Jenn, and Jennifer who all made ornaments for George this year.  They are so beautiful and because we don't have a tree this year they are sitting on our mantle where I can see them everyday.  Thank you for remembering him and doing something for us to acknowledge his life.  Leif and I both need that acknowledgment so much.

portlandia

Portland is such an awesome city.

It is where young people go to retire.

Where the tattoo ink never runs dry.

Where all the hot girls wear glasses.

and where wearing flannel shirts still looks fly.



Portland + Fred Armisen = This show is going to be Awesome.

employed

I went in today to sign some paperwork and to get the hiring process started.  After my background check is finished and I review/sign the contract I will officially be employed.  

It has been a really difficult process trying to find a job that I felt like was a good match for me.  I sent out so many resumes and went to so many interviews only to find that each place had a pretty significant issue that made me feel very doubtful that it would be a good working situation for me.  This job came along right before I was about to accept a position that I had strong reservations about.  It has nearly everything I had on my dream job wish list and the things that were on that list that it doesn't have were not ones that I was overly concerned about.  The best thing about it is that the group I will be working for is incredibly supportive of their employees and highly values the balance between work and personal life.  

Finally, after so many years of school and all the drama that ensued with my program in regards to graduation because of the the time I had to take off (a whopping two and a half weeks) after my c-section with George, I am going to be able to actually put all my hard work to some use.  

Of course, this does mean my internet time is going to be severely limited...

Oh, my lovely internet, I will miss you and all the things I learn from you.  At least I don't start for another six weeks so I have some time to adjust to life without you in it everyday.

ghost in the kitchen

I got up this morning and helped Leif get ready for work- made him breakfast and ironed his shirt.  He cleaned up the kitchen for me before I got out of bed so it was a fair trade.  After he left I showered and then promptly crawled back into bed.

It is now 1:00 in the afternoon.

I am still in bed.

I feel like there are so many things to take care of and worry about right now that I've made the unconscious decision to turn them all off.  I feel like a circuit has been shorted out.

Click.  Hum.  Silence.

I watched an episode of television while laying in bed and the last scene was of four adult siblings -all with families of their own- hanging out and laughing in the kitchen after Thanksgiving.  In the corner, unbeknownst to them, was their mother quietly observing them and obviously quite proud.   

My "what would he be like" visions used to only go so far- two or three years in the future.  A blond-headed toddler with muddy knees and ruddy cheeks.  A freckled face turned up to ask a question for the thousandth time in one day.  A smile that reminded me of his father.  Now those visions stretch far ahead and I wonder what kind of man he would have become.

Would he have been close to his siblings?
Would he have been a traveller?
What would he have done with his life?
Who would he have fallen in love with?
Would he have had children of his own?

I don't think that these questions will ever go away.  Even if I am lucky to have children in the future and they are able to grow up into adults.   I will forever be the woman observing from the corner her adult children hanging out and laughing in the kitchen, quite proud of them.  But also squinting to see the ghost of their older brother and wondering about the man he would have become.

I don't want to be that woman.  I don't want to carry this around forever.  It is very, very heavy and I am so incredibly tired of this grief.  I want someone to take it away for awhile.  I want to feel, even just for an hour, like the person I was before March 31, 2010.