new snags

We went to some friends’ for Thanksgiving. My husband and I and our new little daughter Rhythm Grey; she is six months now.

I guess I thought they knew… I know Joe knows.

Maybe his wife doesn’t know… I don’t know. But I know that people can know and not know. Sometimes people don’t realize when things hurt. People don’t know all of the little things that make us feel devastated all over again. And I imagine those things are different for every one of us, and that those things are different over time as well.

We were in the kitchen. The kitchen was too small. She and her sister began talking about breasts… breastfeeding, and breast-size following children. I don’t know how it came up. There was champagne. Then she warned me (and this is when I thought to myself – ohmygod she doesn’t know…) -she warned me never to leave my daughter alone for a day, lest she refuse the breast, and wean all-of-a-sudden, cold-turkey if you will… and I thought, ohmygod, she must not know. I froze. My heart was in my throat. I wanted to die. Please no, not now, don’t do this… my zen milk… you have no idea – pain and engorgement, no idea. I know you want to share, but…

The kitchen was too small. I couldn’t run away. I found some other people to talk to for awhile in another room, until that got weird too, and I went back to the kitchen; and then there was turkey.

I was supposed to call her today. We were supposed to get together. But-then there is this sensitive boundary I put up in defense, in those moments I needed to protect myself from that conversation, and I don’t know when I will call her. I’m sorry, but it is easier to hide…

It is like a snag in a sweater, but this time it is in the fabric of my being. I can feel it when I run my hand over…

old snags

“Mommmmmmmeeeeee….”

I heard it hollered from our neighbor’s house. Some neighbor kid hollering mommeee.

I tumbled out our back door and I collapsed on our back steps, crushed and in tears.

I was supposed to be mommy. I was supposed to be…

Where was my baby….

Where was my son…

Some neighbor kid hollered “mommmieee.” I could hear through the walls of our neighbor’s house and I cried and cried.

I was supposed to be mommy. I was supposed to be…

little snags

It is a classic scene from a movie. I picture black and white, or sepia film, maybe in the 1920s or some other classic era. There is a man dressed nice, in wool, and a hat, a nice hat. He is walking briskly, on a sidewalk, steeped in his own world, heading someplace, and then a child catches him by the hand, snapping him out of it and into a reverie of a different kind. He stops, and stares, mesmerized by the child’s gaze.

It is this little snag like this… everyday; I am minding my own business, and suddenly my son catches me… the thought of him, of his hands, of him, of something. But he is gone… and there is nothing I can do but daydream his lovely little self when he catches me.

It was like this today when my daughter at six months clutched at the sensitive skin of my breast while nursing. I grabbed at her hand slipping my thumb inside her grasp and caught her thumb with my gaze and somehow it plugged right  into my memory… I thought of her brother’s hands. And how her brother’s hands looked like daddy’s hands…

It happened yesterday, at the windowsill in the kitchen. My daughter grabbed at  his footprints in the frame, and after stabilizing the frame, I lifted my son’s little cast hand from the sill and placed in her hand without letting go. I cannot explain this feeling. This is a sad sad feeling…

It happened yesterday too when some friends came over to visit; they brought our dog’s brother over to visit. We were outside watching them play, the two dog brothers… and it made me so sad saying, “that’s Wink’s brother…“

It will be sad for me, teaching her what a brother is, without hers.

In the shower this morning, in the mirror with my little girl, alone at night, awake in bed, seeing her look up at his ashes, it happens in many moments, all of the time, my little snags.

I know she will ask someday about his photo – “who’s that?” and I will say, “that is your brother.” We will cross that bridge when we come to it. That will be more than a little snag, but no matter how much I prepare my thoughts, it will still catch me off guard. Oh so many kings of sad, old sad, new sad, comfortable shoe sad…

why today?

why today? why is today so hard? there is nothing special about today… My heart is broken all over again. I am sobbing. I want my baby back. He was my baby, he was my child, he was my son. I want to see him grow I want to see him run and smile and be a boy. I want to see him live.

why today? why has this come crashing down on me now?

As my daughter grows… as I see her becoming… I want to see him grow too… I want to give him what he does not have. I want to see him live.

I want to love him now, in the world, out loud. I want to look at him and love him, I want to pick him up and hug him. I want to hear him and love him. I want to see him and love him. I just want to love him and love him and he is not here. I love him. I want my baby back.

Identity shorthand

“wife, mother-of-two” constitutes identity shorthand…

It came up in a conversation with an editor – not exactly like that, but, the questions were directed toward what to include in a query, and the answers include a short bio, and defining characteristics, such as, “Gwenzen lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband and two children.” But this isn’t true. Spilt milk…

I don’t live with my two children, I live with my husband and my daughter and the ashes of my son. But who in the world says that!? My identity is fractured, it is semantically unsupported. Am I even a mother of two? Yes. As soon as I wrote that out, I realized the answer was most certainly yes. Never doubt that.

Shot through the heart

Sometimes you are just living your life, minding your own business, and then you get shot through the heart with a sudden reminder of the blinding pain of it all. Yesterday, Friday the 13th, it came in the form of the evil woman whose negligence led directly to my son’s death.

Three Cups of Tea

I went to see Greg Mortenson speak tonight and I am very tired, as it has gotten very late, but I wish to put down a few notes or words anyway to expand on later. Some of his points were so interesting from a loss perspective. One of three things women said in these countries – of Pakistan and Afghanistan, was that they didn’t want their babies to die. Another was, they wanted their children to have an education, and I can’t even remember the third – but – I can identify with the first two firsthand. We do not want our babies to die. As women. As mothers. We – I – know. I know. It has sparked a lot of thought that I am sure will be interesting to listen to in my own head over the next days and weeks, and perhaps months. My doctor, my friend, who delivered River, who delivered my daughter – she went to Pakistan. There were slides of her in Greg’s lecture. Much thought, much thought. I will sleep on it.

awake in the dark

Well, here I am again, lying awake in the dark in the middle of the night for the fifth night in a row. I don’t even know if I am tired anymore. I think about River’s ashes. I think about him. I listen to the wind. I strain to hear my daughter breathing. I listen to my husband snore. Sometimes I strain to hear my husband breathing. My guts are churning. I must have gotten slipped some wheat. I just worry so much. I wish I could get some sleep…

missing piece

I apologize to those who are reading this who may be sensitive to my discussing my living child. As she is our second child, it is in this juxtaposition, that I am able to relate to my lost son sometimes…and this is what happened this morning…

This morning, baby and I were cuddled in bed and ready to get up, daddy came in to talk and play. With both our faces close, my daughter reached out and clutched at my husband’s face. I watched with wonder as she explored with her hands and eyes. She put her hands on my face as well… but her brother’s face was missing. I felt very sad that he would never have his face pawed at by this little sweetie. He was a missing piece in this precious little family session of face pawing.

more about zen milk

There are so many reasons for zen milk, I mean the title zen milk, and the way of mothers’ milk – to explain my place in motherhood, my relationship to life, and love, and children, and the universe…

so more about zen milk:

When you love your baby your body releases oxytocin, a love hormone. Oxytocin produces let down of milk and the breasts get full. This is the way of milk, the zen of milk, to follow love, to flow with love. Love makes milk, and this is the way – the way of milk. Those two weeks, and I am rounding down, those two weeks of milk were the most painful time of my entire life. Loving my dead son, and having that milk come in… and loving him and missing him more, and more milk came in, and it kept coming and coming and all the books say to nurse your baby, but there is no baby…

It is not normal engorgement when you lose your child. Your body is telling you that this is wrong. Life is out of order. And this is the way of milk, zen milk.