To Ramona on her first birthday

I wrote and shared the following with my online support system, a group of women who have similar stories, similar lives. I've read it at least at least dozen times and each time I feel it lacking.  I have more to say, more feelings, more love, why does it feel like it's missing something, everything? I woke up this morning, not Christmas Eve anymore, but my daughter's birth and death day, and realized nothing I feel can be put into words adequately. I can write about my grief fairly well, sometimes I feel like I really put into words how the day to day feels.  The problems with friends, work, the feelings pregnancies and infants bring to the surface, but some things are beyond explaining.  There is no way to describe my love for her, the yearning that tears my heart apart, the regrets and guilt that claw their way to the front of my mind as I drift off to sleep, destroying any hope of resting my mind for just one night.

C.S. Lewis said this about his lost love:  "Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."  That is Ramona.  She is not a tiny fragment I keep in the depths of my pocket, brought out to examine on occasion, at the 'right ' time, on the special, notable days. She is in me and about me at all times. She is like breathing, blinking, swallowing. All the things you do without thinking, that's how she lives with me. She is part of me, within me, always. There is no way to describe a love like that, it's too huge.  The best you can do is simply feel it.  I feel it today, tomorrow, infinity.  I love you, Ramona.

Dear Ramona,
Tomorrow you will be one. It is not the birthday I pictured for you. I imagined you surrounded by family and friends, laughing and squealing with your little mouth that looks just like your daddy's, unwrapping birthday and Christmas gifts. I dreamed about seeing The Nutcracker with your Aunt Jess and cousin Savannah in a few years. I smiled when I thought about your yearly daddy/daughter Christmas shopping trip and the drum kit your dad wanted to get you and your first ice skates and so much more.

This year will be silent, as silent as a year ago tomorrow at 7:51pm, when you slipped into this world without a cry.

That night a year ago, I was so afraid. Afraid to see you, afraid of my life without you in it, afraid of everything. When I saw your face, I was amazed. You were just as I pictured you, I knew you right away. Your dad and I created a beautiful, perfect little girl, death cannot change that. I cherish every precious second I was able to spend with you, forty weeks and 3 days of bliss and happiness and hopefulness. Now when I am afraid, I try to think about your face, the perfect calm I felt when I looked at you after hours of pain and sadness and fear, and you soothe me.

Tomorrow will be hard. Your family will be together, along with Aunt Jess and Uncle Lloyd and we will be missing you and Savannah, but we will also be celebrating you. You made me a mother and you made your dad a father. We will always be grateful. We will light a candle for you both, and for Wesley and all the other babies who should be here. If death is not the end, I hope you are with Savannah and others who love you. If death is not the end, I hope you are waiting for us. If death is not the end, I hope whatever comes after is where dreams come true. You are my dream, my heart, my life, my little bird.

You are our love, pure and infinite.

Love forever and ever,
Momma

Trust

Trusting people with your grief and with your sadness is not easy.  Kyle and I have what we call our bubble.  These are the people we trust with Ramona's memory and the people who understand how much she means to us.  The people who don't question our sadness, our isolation, our anger, and all the other feelings that come when you lose your only child.

Our bubble is small, but supportive.  We are gradually bringing more people into the bubble, but in the beginning it was hard to let people in.  To let people in, you have to trust they will never question your love and your pain.  They will never question the validity of your child's life.  This is hard for people.  They want to comfort you, and they think that comfort means making it better and putting things in perspective.

There is no perspective when your child dies.  I can assure you.  It is not better that she died before we got to know her.  It did not happen for a reason.  Maybe we'll have more children, but maybe not.  Even if we do, we never get to parent Ramona.  Each day, week, month, eventually years, brings another bundle of firsts we will never experience, that she will never experience.

We go through each day with a smile plastered on our faces, because we know when people ask 'how are you' they don't want to hear 'really shitty.'  A friend asked me if I'd rather not have people ask how we're doing, and I said yes.  I'd rather they not ask.  Not unless they are willing to hear the real answer.  I'm not into small talk anymore.   

Sometimes I get home from work and my face hurts from forcing a smile for nine hours.  My heart hurts from the people who back away when they ask how the baby's doing and I tell them she died. My hands hurt from clenching to restrain myself from typing something I don't mean to people who text or email and don't mention Ramona's name. The one thing I told people brings us comfort when they asked what they can do for us, they can't do.

Her first birthday should be in two weeks.  Some days it looms in the distance, a dark volcano we're slowing moving towards with no way of turning back.  Part of me is nervous that no one will remember, that we'll get the usual cheery "Merry Christmas" messages without a mention of Ramona.  I hope people know better, I hope they remember her and say her name.  Trust is the hardest part about grief.  Trusting people will remember your child, trusting that there is something good on the horizon, trusting the world holds more than suffering. 

A Room

I've been thinking about minimalism and simplicity lately.  If you saw our house, you would probably wonder how that's possible.  We have a lot of emotional and consumerist clutter.  I'm pretty picky about what I keep, but sometimes it's still hard for me to get rid of birthday cards and gifts I don't have use for.  My husband is worse.  He still has a movie ticket stub collection.  Thankfully it's still at his parents' house, because it is not coming into our home.  I love him, but a woman's got to have a code.  That code is 'No ticket stubs. Ever.'

I like the idea of minimalism.  After moving last year, I realized how much useless junk we have.  I don't necessarily want to have zero possessions and all white walls, but I do want less junk.  Less of what I don't love.

This feeling stems from that closed room upstairs.  All the clothes she didn't wear, the toys she didn't play with, the books she didn't read.  I know they are just things, but they are things I'm not willing to part with.  Not now and maybe not ever.

I do not like keeping things simply because they have an emotion attached to them.  One of the first gifts my husband ever bought me was a printer for my digital camera.  It was an amazing gift that only worked for about a year and the supplies were crazy expensive to boot.  I couldn't get rid of that thing for years.  It sat in closet after closet until I realized I would always remember the feeling of opening such a perfect gift from someone so important regardless if I had the printer or not.  I remember it now, eight years later.  He knew I loved my camera and taking pictures, so he gave me this amazingly thoughtful gift.  That's why I love him and married him.

It's different with Ramona's things.  They are just things.  I know this.  She didn't wear the clothes, she didn't play with the toys, I didn't read her the books.  In my rational, practical mind, these are all reasons to not keep them.  The emotion behind them is too strong, though.  I made memories in that room and with her clothes and toys and books.  I washed her dresses and onesies and socks and hung them up and folded them with her inside me.  I rearranged the furniture and debated where to put her blankets and what to put on her shelves.  The top drawer of her dresser was organized to the nth degree with dividers and I was so proud of that drawer.

The night I went into labor, when I thought she was still alive and would be coming home with us on Christmas Day, I went into that room to get my bags.  I was giddy from excitement and fear, the way a first-time mom should feel.  I can faintly remember that feeling.  It bubbled into my chest and I couldn't stop laughing. 

I hold on to the memories of her alive and safe now.  The memories attached to her things were not the memories I thought we'd make, but they are all I have.  So out goes the ugly wrought iron baker's rack, and the faded Beatles glasses that turn our hands black.  I need room for my daughter. 

The good memories are starting to peek through the dark clouds of my mind.  For the longest time all I could remember about her were the darkest, saddest moments, so when I can grab on to a good one, I hold tight.  While her room is just a room, and her things will not bring her to me, I need them more than anything else I possess.  A room that is empty but not.