how you feel

is this how you feel? the way i feel right now, when i read about this mother, when i dive into her words and feel her agony.. is this how you feel when you read about me?

it's hard to feel this for another person. so thank you.. thank you for trying to feel it with me.

discretion advised.

Thursday, October 1, 2009
Six Months

William is still inside me, stuck, a lump in my throat I can't get past.

Today he feels unreal.

Did I really kiss the cooling forehead of my dead baby six months ago today? Did I really hand him back to a nurse? Did I give him to her, as if he were an empty plate and she a waitress clearing what was no longer needed from the restaurant table?

'Here, we're done with this, you can have it now.'

Was that me? Was that my son?

It couldn't be. If something so horrible, so heinous, so impossible had really happened to me, I'm sure I would never have given him away. I'm certain I would never have handed him over and gone home and watched American Idol and wondered why I couldn't breathe as I laid there in the dark and wished it all away.

If something so unbelievable had happened to me, I'm sure I would have died. I'm sure I couldn't have survived such a loss. I'm sure I would have slit my wrists or been locked in a padded room or been put on serious medication to keep myself from falling apart.

And if something like that, something so unthinkable, had happened to me once, and I managed somehow to make it through, I'm certain that another loss would truly crush me. Even the smallest potential of life, gone in an unexpected rush of blood and tissue, would surely bring me to my knees. I would spend days, weeks, months, completely incapacitated, unshowered, undone.

I did laundry today. I washed dishes. I wrote a poem. I washed one child's face and kissed another's boo-boo. How is any of that possible?

'You're so strong. A rock. I would have died. I couldn't have handled it. I don't know what I would have done.'

No. No, you don't. You don't know what you'll do, when you look into the dark, gaping mouth of your dead son and see the abyss looking back at you. You think you'll go crazy. You think you'll die. You think you will come undone.

But the horror isn't the reality of death, no bigger than a sack of sugar in your arms... the horror is in the living. The horror comes six months later, when you realize you're living your life, still shopping and cooking and laughing and typing and breathing and trying. And failing.

I wish I'd died. Or I wish I had been utterly shaken and changed and transformed into some sort of selfless human tribute to the precious lost life of my sweet, perfect baby.

But I am, still, and that's all. I didn't shatter, I didn't collapse, I didn't rise from the ashes of my dead son like a glorious phoenix. Six months later, I'm just here, and nothing much has changed, aside from the gaping hole in my chest I feel every minute but no one else can see.


john and i are fighting colds right now. we stayed in bed until after 4pm, until we remembered the yankees were on. our bodies seem to be in sync right now. we definitely have the same germ, and must have caught it together, because we started feeling bad at the same time and are recovering at the same rate. we both have stomach aches along with our colds, as if the sickness seeps down into there. it's disgusting.. there are dirty tissues everywhere and the sounds of the ill echoing through our house, sneezing, coughing, moaning. while we were eating, i gasped between bites because i couldnt breathe through my nose.. we were sniffling and clumsily dropping food all over the table and the floor. john decided to drink a soda because the carbonation he thinks breaks up the congestion. so you can add the sounds of a large male ape burping to the current music of this house. it's nasty, but we caught ourselves laughing at each other. he said "look at us, we sound like a pair of 600lb disgusting people right now." he got up to do the dishes and let out another belch. i was in hysterics, but as it often does, the laughing turns to crying. laughing and crying are not opposites.. they are just the two extremes of emotion. john said "come here" and motioned me into the kitchen where he was. we embraced. his arms can completely envelop me. i dont ever feel small, except next to him, inside of him. i said "oh john.. we would have had so much fun." back in those days where i could laugh without crying. back in those lazy mondays where everyone else has to work, and we are off, without a care in the world. i cant stand that thought.. that no matter what i do in life, now i'll always have "a care in the world." my missing daughter.

i wondered if it was too lewd to share about our sickness.. but noting is quite as horrifying as the words that come with reliving the day you had to hold your dead child in your arms and say goodbye.

i feel just like that other mother; how on earth are we surviving this?

we would have had so much fun..