Baby Bee

I wasn't surprised at all to see this post recently.  The universe sends crazy things your way at crazy times.

My mom gave me the Betsy-Tacy books for Christmas one year, probably when I was seven or eight.  She loved those books and when she found the newer editions back in the eighties, she knew she had to give them to me.  I loved those books, too.  I still do.  I have all my original books, plus the new editions from a few years ago.  I identified as a Betsy, so did my mom, and the minute I found out I was having a little girl I knew she would be a Betsy.  She would have been a Betsy, but she turned out to be a Bee.  

As soon as I got up the courage I went into Ramona's room to get my copy of The Betsy-Tacy Treasury.  I had put it on her bookshelf along with her books, toys, piggy banks, and other carefully chosen gifts from family and friends.  It was my contribution, my gift to her, a hopeful love of reading.  I read her the first book while she was still alive, safe inside me.  I skipped the Bee part, though.  I read it to myself and I thought, what a terrible thing it must be to lose a child so small and young.  To lose all that potential.  How do live the rest of your life without that child?  Reading that part as a little girl wasn't nearly as shocking to me as it is to adults reading it for the first time.  I've read so many reviews of Betsy-Tacy that warn readers of the death of a baby.  I wasn't traumatized by that passage.  I just always felt sad for Tacy because her baby sister died.  I read that passage again days after Ramona's birth and instead of feeling sad for Tacy, I grieved for Mrs. Kelly.  I'd never given her feelings much thought before.  The story is told from a child's point of view, the one line you get about Mrs. Kelly is something along the lines of "Mama feels awful bad."    

Now I have my Bee.  And I feel awful bad.  Now I'm beginning to learn how to live without her.  The 'new normal,' baby loss mom's call it.  I don't like to look back, to think about what ifs, but I do my fair share of magical thinking. I imagine my life with her to the point where it almost feels real, like an alternate universe where she lived and she's two months old now.  I dress her in tiny clothes and marvel over her perfect lips that are an exact copy of Kyle's.  I smooth down her wavy brown hair and slide on the hairbows I made for her.  I finish knitting the blanket that I thought I had all the time in the world to complete after she was born.  My mother and I take her on a trip to Mankato, the real Deep Valley, to show her all the wonderful places from the books we've read together.

That isn't real, though.  The reality is empty arms, sleepless nights, and a room full of brightly colored dresses, toys, and blankets, hoping the birds will bring my baby girl a message:  I love you, I love you, I love you.