Posts Tagged ‘Loss of a baby’
Behind.
“Mum, is today William’s angel day”, she asks me
“Yep” I answer and wonder what will come next
but nothing does.
No questions because she knows everything she needs to,
just acceptance that once,
before her time,
there was a brother who didn’t live
and earned his wings when he was only five days old.
It’s early and it’s light
but there is no sun this morning -
not yet.
I don’t know if it will come.
Everything is covered in grey hues and cloud
as if to hide this day.
Blue balloons and a song were all we had left to remember him
but we don’t even have that this year.
Nine years ago food tasted like soap in my mouth
and the days had blurred into this one terrible moment where we would sign papers
and switch off machines
so that our baby could be released from tubes and tapes and wires that
in the end did nothing
but prevent a mother from holding her son and loving him as best she could
in the time they had left together.
My heart hurts this morning
and I am short and impatient with the others
because it feels like it’s only mine that wants to stop and remember now.
The world keeps turning -
just as it did nine years ago
when a small boy with a fuzzy down of hair,
a broken heart
and hands just like his Dad’s
left his life behind him
and left me behind too.
I will always love him
and
I will never forget him
no matter how many years pass.
and for a few moments he was just Will.
The day before Will died
we dressed him in white
and promised him to a god I was uncertain existed.
Still, the thought of him leaving this earth unchristened was too much to shoulder
so the nurses dressed him in satin and lace -
a donated gown for occasions such as this.
The beauty of him broke my heart.
I needed him to belong to someone -
if not to me
then someone (anyone, please, don’t let him be alone wherever it is he was going)
so I promised him away to the universe.
He opened his eyes, when the doctors said he wouldn’t.
He stared right at me
straight into me
and for all the world I wanted to pick him up and hold him.
Instead I asked my husband and my friends the impossible.
I asked it of my family too.
I asked them not to give up on him
even though I already had.
I feel so sad when I think of that moment -
hope and heartbreak all rolled into one sliver of time.
The next morning we dressed him in blue denim overalls and a blue striped shirt
and turned off all of the machines that were keeping his tiny, damaged heart beating.
We held him between us, David and I
and for a few moments he was just Will.
Beautiful and whole
but he didn’t open his eyes even though I wanted it more than anything else.
Even though I begged the uncertain god.
Even though I wished it.
I wonder if he felt us,
our heat,
our love.
Surely, a brain functions at a basic level right up until the very last moment
and touch
and warmth are so primal,
so instinctual.
I tell myself that he knew -
that he didn’t die alone.
When the photos came back to us
every photo of Will that was taken during our mother-father-baby union
had a distinct green – yellow aura.
The colours of healing and freedom,
the colours of release.
My father cussed and rolled his eyes
telling me it was a glitch in the camera
and that I was being illogical
but I knew that was his spirit letting go
and his way of telling me that he felt that we were with him
and that we would all be okay in the end.
October 9th – 15th is remembrance week for all babies lost to miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death.
Lighting a candle, continuing the wave of light, for all of the angels
and remembering my own.
Just.
A courtyard is just a courtyard until you’ve sat in one
waiting for your baby to draw his last breath.
You never do look at them the same.
A signature is just that until you consent for your baby to be allowed to die.
After that, every one feels as though you are signing something away.
Memories swirl and mysteriously imprint,
often at times when you least expect them.
They leave scars on your heart that will never heal
so love grows around them -
finds new pathways.
You see beauty where there is none
and seek belief in things that you would never have believed in
before.
Butterflies
white feathers
signs that an afterlife exists.
How different life would have been, had he have lived, whole.
I am different because he didn’t.
Softer, more accepting that we are not invincible somehow
because he wasn’t
because he lost his fight to be here
because I need him still,
seek him out in my dreams.
I am stronger and yet I’m not.
I didn’t think that I would survive him,
yet here I am.
No matter how often I wish it was he who was gifted life
instead of me
I cannot make it so.
Acceptance is both imprisoning and freeing at once
and memories become your everything.
Its okay to miss a ghost, isn’t it?
A song is just a song until you choose it for your son’s angel day
and then you can never sing it without thinking of him,
without the long grizzly tears of motherhood lost leaking from your soul.
A blue balloon can never be released again
without remembering
without wishing for something that will always be out of reach.
Cellophane butterflies.
In hospital there are no butterflies
and so the girl and I made some.
Cellophane and pipe cleaners,
feathers and ribbons.
They drift, mid air,
with the lazy current of the opening and closing of our door.
They are all the colours of the rainbow and remind me of childhood
and sunshine
and laughter.
They are everything that should be.
It’s strange being here, on William’s birthday.
My past and my present,
my loss and my gain.
It’s strange and symbolic.
The universe has a funny way of reminding you just how amazing it is.
It can ground you
and leave you with a sense of what is really important.
I miss the thought of him, more than anything, I think
because, really, that’s all I have.
I wonder who he would be,
this boy of eight
and all of the other important things that mothers like to know -
like the colour of his hair and foot size
and if his favourite food would be spaghetti bolognese
like his sister before him and his younger brother.
These are things I sometimes think I will ponder until the end of my time.
Some people might think that strange to celebrate a boy who isn’t here
but he was my son
and I loved him before we was even earth side
and just because he isn’t doesn’t mean these feelings leave me.
We are no allowed to leave the hospital today.
A story for tomorrow
but my little earth angel, my sweet girl gave us a big scare
and her health not stable enough to go
but the paed has said we can take her out onto one of the grassy patches
in the hospital grounds.
Dave and the kids are coming and we will have a small picnic together.
Together -
I think our butterfly boy would like that.
Happy birthday sweet boy.
We all miss you.
Very much.