Selfish and Judgemental

There is still a part of me, a larger part than I would like to admit, who yells in my head everytime someone pretends to understand what it was like. Someone who thinks that because they've experienced death they know what I went through. There's a person in my head that screams:

"No, you don't understand. This was my child. She died. I named her. I felt her move. I told her I loved her every day that she lived. She lived in me. She died in me. I went through labor knowing that my child was dead. The first time I saw my daughter's face, she was dead. The only time I ever held her in my arms, she was dead. I didn't get to plan a birthday party or a wedding or a graduation party or any of those fun things, but I did get to plan her funeral. That's not normal..."

I know that lots of people go through lots of things. On an intellectual level, I know that what happened to me and to my daughter and to my family isn't that special. But there's still that loud selfish part of me that just wanted to yell at the world, that just wants to try to make people see how horrible and dark and macabre any of that was to go through...and is to live with. 

With every passing month, passing year, it fades from people's memories. And there's a part of me that still, everyday, is amazed that I'm still going on. That I'm managing to get up everyday and live my life and be a normal person. It still harder everyday then I can understand or explain. When people don't acknowledge it or don't notice it, I just wish I could make them feel for one second, just one second in their life, what I feel and what I felt and what I will continue to feel for the rest of my life. If they knew how hard it was, maybe they wouldn't pretend to understand.

And the thought makes me feel very selfish

Feeling Weak

One of my biggest problems in working through loss and in creating a new life for myself has been with self-worth and motivation. Some days I feel really good. Other days, like today...

I have to remind myself that I'm not special. Everyone has things they have to get through and live with. In quiet moments, I find myself denying this in my head....No, your issues aren't the same as mine. No, what I went through and continue to go through are catastrophic.  Why don't you people see that? ... but it's inaccurate.  I'm not special.

I am still surprised people don't care and/or are so resistant to allowing her to be a part of my life.. I know Charlotte died over two years ago. I still want to talk about her though. Sometimes I mention her in conversation with people that know about her...just because it's real, and you should be able to say real things.

The look that comes over their face generally is like they just heard me pass gas while talking and are pretending not to notice.

I said something yesterday about having given birth to three kids, and the person I was talking to literally froze as though I had pointed a gun at her or turned her to stone. I'm bothered that so many still want it hidden, even unconsciously.

Worst, it makes me question my worth.

Am I trying to be broken so people will pity me? I don't think so, but I worry that's what people will/do think. I don't talk about Charlotte like I want sympathy, or at least I don't intend to, but I worry about the perception.  To me, she's just my daughter. She died, but she's still my daughter.  She's not a secret, or taboo, or a hidden pain. She's just a little girl.

Are the people I've chosen to surround myself with not actually that interested in what I have to say? This is an old issue for me. Real friends (and family, though that's a different issue) would want to be there for me and support me in whatever way I need, even if it takes them out of their comfort zones. Right? Isn't that the cornerstone of friendship: wanting to support your friends when and how they need it? So, what does that say about me? It's a cold reality to notice that, when you really need it, most of your support base falls apart.

I think that is why today is a weak day. In the beginning, right after Charlotte's death, when I really needed support and compassion all the time, it was really apparent that it wasn't coming. My isolation and lonliness were glaringly obvious, and it fed my depression which went generally unchecked. Now I don't need constant support. I've beaten back the depression most days. Many friendships have formed or reformed over the scars of abandonment because I don't feel constantly let down by those around me. Every once in a while, though, those friendships scrape at the scars. In those small moments where I still expect a little compassion, when I mention Charlotte's name, when I say I had three children, when I forget that people don't want to be friends with that part of me, it still cuts. Not as fresh, not as deep, not as painful, but I still can bleed and be made to feel weak. Or allow myself to feel week, depending upon your viewpoint.

I want it to be different.

I feel like maybe it's a defect in me. If I were a cooler person, more fun, more worthy of being someone's friend, maybe they would be willing to embrace my damaged edges. I have a Facebook friend who also had a daughter who died before birth, and the support she gets is astounding.  Is she inherently better than  me? Does she choose her friends more wisely than me? To be honest, people on Facebook get more support for a pet's death than I got for my daughter's death. That must be on me somehow.

Right?

Sometimes I want to be harsh with people. I want to use the harsh words instead of euphemisms. I want to tell them about what it felt like to go through labor and delivery, to writhe in pain that seems unending, all while knowing your child is already dead. I want to tell them how it felt to call a funeral home and make arrangements for the transportation of my child's body. I want to tell them how I imagined her lying cold and alone in the morgue and how I didn't take her little hat home with us so that she could stay warm. I want to tell them how I held my breath every time I listened for a heartbeat when I was pregnant with Ethan, how I felt weak with relief every time I heard it. I want to tell them that I still cry when I think about the fact that my daughter is dead because it never stops hurting. I want to tell them that for a solid six months after she died it was a fucking heroic feat that I managed to get out of bed every morning and care for Mia and live my life. I want to tell it was and is incredibly hard. I want to tell them that they made it worse....

On weak days, the power of my anger still surprises me. The people who called me strong seem like liars on weak days.

Tomorrow I'll be better. Weak days are only days two years later, they aren't weak months.

I wish I felt as strong as the people who DID and DO support me seem to think I am. I want to be the person they seem to think I am rather than the vitriolic, bitter, weak version of myself I am as I  write this. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud on weak days.

No longer appreciating noble sacrifice

I just finished reading the Divergent trilogy. I hated the third book. (Note-spoilers ahead)

First, I hated the general plot of the third book. It was just bad. The allure of the first book, for me, was a relatively normal girl surviving. It was small. She didn't take on the world (too much) or society or much of anything else. It was more about her identity than about major sweeping political movements. Book two pushed the envelope on that. Book three was painful. Suddenly we're starting a revolution and taking on the post-apocalyptic government and challenging widespread social norms? Reign it in dude. She's a teenager.

More importantly, I struggled with the ending. I embraced the ending of the Hunger Games. I appreciated the broken symbol learning to survive in the new world with the logical relationship choice given her experiences. The ending of Divergent I couldn't get behind. It hinged on the concept of noble sacrifice. I used to get behind that. I used to find the romance and the bravery alluring. The scene in Man in the Iron Mask when they charge the line, accepting their deaths and showing such bravery, used to be beautiful and honorable to me.

Yeah, sorry, but fuck noble sacrifice.

Watching a main character learn to live with the loss of the love of his life isn't romantic. His symbolic goodbye is not liberating, as I think was the intention. I know this series couldn't really end with a happily ever after, but...I have a hard time appreciating a book in which a character in which I invested three books of my time just dies. She's dead. You killed off the protagonist.  No. Nope. Not ok.

See...there's no nobility in grief. When we view the new, improved world through the eyes of a grief-stricken man, I can't really appreciate it. I wonder if that was the point? Every major shift in the world is viewed, of necessity,  through the eyes of grief. Real life rarely even has happy endings....even if it is happy.

But I want that from a book. I want a happy ending or a cathartic crying jag. I don't want a reality where the main character...goes on. Deals with life and death and grief. I know what that feels like, and it's hard. It's more bleak sometimes than the post-apocalyptic world in which it was set, especially at the start. I don't need fiction for that.

I'm mad about her sacrifice. Death is not noble. ..or at least, I've lost perspective to see it as such.

Windchimes

Right after Charlotte died, I remember looking online for something special for her. I wanted something that would be prominent and have an important place in my home to serve as her memorial, without seeming dark and Gothic and negative. 

I considered many things: a garden stone, a small statue, a plant....knick knacks seem to lack value, though, and if my thumb isn't exactly dark brown,  it is at least a concerning sickly olive color. Killing Charlotte's memorial tree or bush or flower just seemed far too darkly symbolic.

 I finally decided on a wind chime. I wrote about Tibetan prayer flags in October 2012 as a part of my reasoning for choosing windchimes. Please read about my rationale HERE, as  I love the spiritual and symbolic significance.

Every time the wind blows, I think of my little girl. I don't know what she's trying to tell me in those moments, but it's become my reminder to stop and step back and observe myself, my family, my life. It makes me want to be a better person. A better Mom. Someone an angel could be proud of.

I read a post on the grief and loss board recently from a woman who was mad about her friends at work giving her a wind chime. It actually made me a little sad. A tiny narcissistic part of me wonders if they got the idea from reading my blog. Silly, yes, but it was disappointing how much my most healing symbol became such a point of pain for this woman. 

I want to be reminded of Charlotte. When the wind blows and the chimes sound, I can hear theM throughout my home. It never fails to make me smile. Charlotte is saying hello. She's always near.

I always quietly say the same thing:

"I hear you, baby girl. I love you, too. I will never stop thinking of you. Thank you."

Feeling like myself...I think.

I think I'm starting to feel like my old self again.

That's a strange thought, because I'm not sure what my old self is, or when the last time I felt it was. I'm not even sure if it is my old self, because I have no real, clear conscious memory of it.

I wrote this post two months after Charlotte died, now over two years ago. Since then I've been absolutely blessed to have a happy, healthy, beautiful little rainbow baby, my son, Ethan, and Mia, my little princess, continues to be healthy and happy and smart and beautiful. I still have a husband who loves and supports me and makes me feel special and important. I have a million things to be thankful for. It's overwhelming how lucky I feel every day....but I've been living as the embittered woman in mourning from the above mentioned post.

For....wait for it...OVER FIVE YEARS I have been giving myself permission to feel overwhelmed and depressed and defeatist. I really truly believed that I wasn't capable of doing better. Allow me to give you a few examples...

1) Working Out: Since Mia was born, which was 2011, I allowed myself to believe that I didn't have time to work out. It makes logical sense, and I could easily explain it away. I can only work out when she's asleep (still true). This means I can work out during nap time or after bedtime. During nap time I'm either still at school and/or on my way home, and after bedtime is my ME time...and everyone deserves me time, right? Especially working moms whose husbands work night shift.

2. Cleaning: While I am always happier when the house is clean, again, I told myself I just didn't have time. Cleaning takes a lot of time, and I just didn't have that time with Mia (and then Ethan) running around and just undoing it anyway. I did only what was absolutely necessary as late as was absolutely possible. When we ran out of forks and/or there was no more room in the sink, I did dishes. When the playroom was unnavigable I put away the toys. When the bathrooms were on the edge of total embarrassment, I cleaned them. And so on and so forth. For the last few years, my housekeeping has been walking the edge of eww. I am not proud of this.

3. Laundry: This one is bad. As with housekeeping, laundry has been done in this house as a matter of necessity. When we run out of underwear, I do laundry. Unfortunately, unlike forks, I didn't do ALL the laundry. I just did enough to keep us in underwear. This means the clothes on the bottom of my laundry pile have been there for a while. As in over a year. At one point i bought my husband more underwear to further put off how much laundry I had to do. I am not proud of this. I am confessing this to serve as a cautionary tale.

4. Food: As said in the above-mentioned post, I am a comfort eater. I am conscious of this. Since my first miscarriage in 2009 (hence the six years) I had gained up to...wait for it...70 pounds. Now, to be fair, some of this is pregnancy weight that never went away (as though it is the weight's job to go away and not mine to send it on its way). For the last six years, I have mostly considered myself a lost cause. I'm a mess no matter what...bring on the cheesecake. 

I have been vaguely surprised that my husband hasn't had more reaction to this. I think a part of me had been waiting for him to say something...like I wanted him to be the catalyst for my changes. This is dumb.

Now, I have had brief flirtation with not failing at life over the last six years. They usually last about two weeks, during which I shift into gear and briefly remember what it's like to be a functional human being.  At the end of those two weeks....I kid you not....I have gotten pregnant. Every time. First with Mia, then with Charlotte, then with Ethan. Tomorrow marks two weeks since I have been actively trying to be a real person again. I had my tubes tied after Ethan, so, barring an act of God, I won't have an excuse to back down this time.

They say it takes 21 days to make something habit. If I can make it one more week, maybe this new lifestyle will become habit.

Here's a typical day in the new Life of Kait:

5:30-6am-Wake, shower, and dress in the clothes I organized by outfit on Sunday night so it is ready to go.
6:00-6:30am-Wake and dress kids and grab premade lunch and breakfast from fridge. Grab kids' cups and granola bars, also set out in advance. Take kids to daycare.
7am-2pm-Work
2:30-3pm-Work out with other teachers.
3:30-5pm-Tidy house and put away toys.
5-8:30pm-Time with kids
8:30-11:30pm-Put away toys and tidy, do dishes and fold laundry, deep clean one room, set out things for tomorrow, and relax.

Ironically, I feel like I have more time and energy now than I did before. I feel more confident and content because I'm not going home to a house that embarrasses me and makes me feel like I have a million things to do.

I don't remember the last time I felt like this. That is not, in any way, a hyperbole. I don't even know if this is my old self. At some point in the six years of relative apathy, did the counterfeit, lazy me become the "real" me? 

Please note: While I have been lazy and apathetic, I have loved my husband and my children with reckless abandon. I have never taken time with my family for granted, and I value every day spent with them.

How long does the current me, the one I'm actually PROUD of, have to last to become the new me? This is NOT  a New Year's resolution. This is just a new start with a new set of priorities. It's socially acceptable to allow New Year's reolutioms to lapse. I don't want to do this.

One more week, I hope, will make it a habit to care about what my life is like.

Dear faceless community of people I hope are reading my words. Yes, you. I need you to care. While I should be able to sustain a good lifestyle for my own sake, and that of my family, it's hard. I need external support.

There are no meetings for Apathetic Anonymous. Hi, my name is Kait, and I am bad at existing.

Nope. Not a thing.

I've shared a lot of things here that I'm not proud of. Things that I am downright ashamed of. I did that to make myself accountable to someone. You now have a window into my motivation and my excuses. Don't let me slide, faceless readers.

I am starting to feel like my old self again. I think. Or maybe, I'm starting to feel like the self I want to be. I think that's ok, too.

I wonder

I struggled with emotions towards my nurses during Charlotte's birth. They were very nice and considerate, but it just felt so routine. I felt like I was unspecial.  That's not a word.

I remember vividly hearing the nurses and orderlies and anesthesiologist chatting, perfectly normally, on the way to the OR for my D&C to remove the placenta, less than 2 hours after Charlotte's birth. The normalcy of it was surreal. I wondered if they remembered that I was awake.

I was angry in the following weeks. I felt like I should have mattered more. Like I was just a statistic. A cautionary tale. Easily forgettable.

I read this article tonight. It makes me wonder. Do my nurses remember me? I remember them. Lori and Roberta. I have no clear memory of what they looked like, but I remember them. So do I believe, "...if you've ever been the family that didn't take your baby home, please know -- please really know -- that there's still a nurse out there thinking of you."? 

I don't know. I'd like to think that's true. It never felt that way, though. I wish it did.

I remember someone commenting one time that the nurses really did care. I think maybe it was on my original Time with Charlotte writing, as I have a brief aside somewhere in the middle about how it felt routine.

I asked Lori how often they dealt with people like me. Births like mine. She said sometimes they go months without one, and sometimes... She told me there was another woman down the hall like me.  

Was the routine a coping strategy?  Are nurses allowed to show emotions? Do they allow themselves to feel the emotions? 

For me, I felt the most emotionally unstable and overwhelmed as I have ever felt. While the nurses were very nice and very respectful, I think in a way that their lack of emotion made me feel like my emotions weren't valid. To the medical community, I was just another day at work, though a sad one.

I like the idea what they really cared. That they might remember. That what happened to my family was big enough to warrant a real reaction. 

A part of me has always been a little ashamed of how much a part of my life this became because it wasn't even particularly noteworthy in the hospital in which it happened, or so I assumed. It would be nice if that assumption was wrong.

Everyone thinks they are special...how many really are?

On Becoming a Rainbow Mother

They call a child conceived after a loss a rainbow baby. It's the beauty after the storm.  I embrace that terminology, mostly because it's the commonly accepted vernacular.

I don't think it's the baby himself, though . The death is the storm, but not the baby.  No stillbirth mother, to my knowledge, views her child as a storm. The death is the storm. The chance of new life, the happiness and joy being, at least in part, restored by a new pregnancy, a new baby, that is the rainbow. The Mama finally feels the rainbow. To be clear, the rainbow doesn't erase the storm, nor does it make us forget. The rainbow is simply a moment of beauty and grace.

I hate, with a passion, when people, consciously or not, dampen the spirits and happiness of a rainbow mother. 

A "normal" mother is showered in love and happiness and excitement. If anyone even thinks of miscarriage or loss, they would never say it. You just don't say that to a pregnant woman. Ignorance is bliss. It's all hugs, and kisses, and congratulations, and tears.

A rainbow mama, particularly a stillbirth rainbow mama, doesn't get that. She's scared, but this is her rainbow. She deserves celebration and joy as much, if not more, than the "normal". Why, then, is it so hard to come by?

Voices are hushed. In lieu of exuberance and excitement there is a quiet promise to pray for you. In lieu of congratulations and hugs there is a worried look in the eye, a tightening of the mouth, a pitying tilt of the head. In lieu of joy there is doubt. In lieu of hugs there is a distant arm pat.

This is bullshit.

We are not broken. A rainbow Mama NEEDS to celebrate. A rainbow Mama has already lost a child. Why must she lose her hope and joy as well? Why must she be made to fear more than she already does? Why must she get less? Why must it be this way?

Please, just hug the rainbow Mama. Tell her congratulations and MEAN it. It's not that hard.

The journey doesn't end

Right after Charlotte died, in the midst of all of the haze of anger and sadness, I got this feeling that I was embarking on a long journey. Like each day living with and coping with my grief was a footstep that was taking me somewhere. Months later, I started to feel like you do on a trip....so anxious to get there so that you can enjoy the beach or wherever it is you're headed.

I've recently realized that this journey doesn't end. There is no beach, not really. I did set out on a journey, but it's one that just goes on. The scenery has gotten nicer. The drive has become more comfortable.  But there is no destination. (I am illogical bothered that in my last paragraph I talked about it as a journey of steps but have now mixed my metaphor by placing myself in a car. Once an English major, always...)

I don't mean this as bleak as it may sound. It's not that life is this unending journey of pain. Far from it. It's just that there is no end point. There is no point at which I will arrive at the end of my daughter's death and say, "I'm here!" The journey of grief is one that becomes a part of my journey of life, and that's ok.

I still miss Charlotte every day. I still think of her every day. She's my daughter, and being her mother is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes.

I love being her mother.

That said, some days the journey is still hard. Some days I need someone to remind me that I'm still moving. Some days it's harder to appreciate the scenery.

The journey doesn't end. It just goes on. I'm learning to embrace that.

Tiny moments

When I feel really down, there's almost always a tiny moment that redeems me.

It was cold, windy, and damp this morning. I'd stayed up too late to finish The Fault in Our Stars, with which I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I was assured over and over again (granted, by students, but still...) that it was wonderful and would make me cry SO hard...and, despite a few quiet tears, I just found it a little depressing. No real cathartic sobbing, as I was promised. I had a bit of a tiring day yesterday, so two hours sleep felt pretty paltry. We had four delayed openings right on the heels of a two week winter break, so the 5am alarm was even more jarring. Long story short (too late) it was a rough morning.

In the dark of the driveway in front of the day care lady's house, Mia asked, "Is Charlotte watching out for me, Mama?" So simply, as if she'd asked why it's dark out or where is her grandma. It's too cold for butterflies. I don't know what her little head was thinking about. I quickly answered, "Of course, sweetheart. She's always looking out for us, isn't she?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she said, "Charlotte's nice."

Yes, she is, Mia. You're right.

Assumptions on Stillbirth Funerals

I got a Kindle book yesterday. Have been reading more over winter break. Since I have amazon Prime, I decided to try the free book borrow feature, and I found one that was a stillbirth mommy memoir. This is apparently a genre. A small genre, but a genre none the less.

The book begins with the funeral. Here is where I need to own up to my assumptions. I jumped to the conclusion that, since they were having a funeral (casket, readings, burial, etc), she was a full-term stillborn momma. She wasn't. She was just like me. Well, not just like me, but like me in duration of pregnancy....two weeks less, actually, which is technically a late term miscarriage instead of stillbirth. No one will ever say that to her, but it's accurate. I don't know why. It's a stupid distinction, if you ask me, and I maintain that mothers be allowed to feel and mourn however they want. But that's not the point...

We didn't have a funeral for Charlotte. I didn't want to. There is no decision more painful and surreal than deciding what to do with the body of your dead child. It was literally a consious step-back moment that I remember from that day in the hospital. How do you even explain that to a funeral home? No one ever expects to make that decision, so it's a very absurdist situation. Or it at least feels it.

I felt like no one really knew her or loved her the way Mike and I did. I didn't think people would understand. I didn't think people would understand how to mourn for her in the way I needed to mourn, so I didn't want to see them screw it up. No one ever questioned our decision.

I found myself jealous of this random writer-woman and her funeral with a tiny casket. Charlotte was cremated. That was my choice. I couldn't understand or handle the thought of having her be away from us. I wanted to keep her with me. The first few days were the hardest, when we waited for all the paperwork to process and her body to be sent to the funeral home for cremation. I just wanted her with me. I brought her cremains to the beach with us when we went to the beach two weeks later. I just wanted her nearby. The closest we had to a funeral was placing her cremains in the silver heart box I picked out and later arranging her shelf on the curio cabinet. No mourners, besides her parents. No casket, just a little box. As a side note, there is a catalogue of urns that the funeral home had of all shapes and sizes, including cremain jewelry: keep your loved one with you (quite literally) every day. Nope. Not me. I considered a tattoo, but that's as far as it went. She's with me beyond physical, I know.

But still...I was jealous of this woman and her funeral. I wonder now if our reticence to have a funeral made it seem like we didn't want to mourn in a traditional sense. I wonder, if we had a funeral, if people might have understood more. I wonder, if we had a funeral, if maybe it would have legitimized or at least formalized our pain that I'm still so surprised people just didn't understand.  I wonder, if we had a funeral, if things might not have been so lonely and disappointing.

I wonder, if we had a funeral, if people still wouldn't care or wouldn't get it. I wonder if people would even come. I wonder if that would be worse.

I don't know if I'll read the rest of the book.

On Being Annoying

So, every time I try to think about verbalizing this, I think of the Muppets (the recent movie) and i think that might invalidate the depth of my feelings on the subject. There's a moment when they go to get Animal out of therapy, and Jack Black whispers, "we don't use the word drum...it's his trigger word."

"Annoying" is my trigger word.

It doesn't even have to be verbalized. When I know someone is annoyed by me or thinks I am annoying in general, it triggers me. Instant shame spiral: dark emotions swirling, self-doubting pit. I can't stop it. I wish I could.

This happened to me yesterday. It wasn't verbalized, but then, it doesn't have to be. I got the meaning, and the darkness swirled.

I'm still in the pit, a bit. I don't want to be in the pit. I don't want to have trigger words. I don't want to constantly question my status in every relationship I have.

I do, though.

It's that whole adolescent scarring thing rearing it's ugly head again. I hate HATE being perceived as annoying. It just makes me feel....unlovable. Unloved. Alone. Hopeless. It puts a filter on my life for a few days until the darkness clears. It's like the ani-rose colored glasses, and it sucks. A lot. I question everyone and everything.

I'm trying really hard to claw my way out of my pit today. Hence the rambling post. I want to enjoy Christmas with my kids. I found myself snapping at Mia this morning when it wasn't her fault, and I don't like that about myself.

Can I get a little divine intervention, maybe? Could use a butterfly today. It would be a great day for a sign.

Trust

I sent my husband a text last night (he was working) that I think sums up my life fairly well. The true measure of how much I trust someone is if I choose to open up to them about Charlotte, with bonus points for those with whom I share my blog. Most people don't have something that concrete. It wasn't really a conscious thing...until my epiphany last night, that is...but I literally can count the people that I really trust. There isn't a grey area. That said, I can count on two hands the number of people I put into this category. I don't know if that says something good or bad about me. I suppose it's good that I'm selective, yes? I'll just gloss over the paranoid, untrusting background and go with selective. Yes. I'm selective.

*My messed up moment of the day: as I wrote the above paragraph, I actually paused, concerned that my writing this would make the people on the trusted list uncomfortable. By definition, those on the list are the ones that would read this.  You know those people who think they're a closer friend of yours than you thought? The ones who want to hang out when you were really just study group partners? The ones that are the clingy girlfriend who wants to send out Christmas cards together before you've reached the appropriate stage of your relationship?

Yeah....I don't want to be like that. Then again, I literally JUST said that the people on that very short list are the people I trust. I think I need to trust that they're cool being on my short list. So...you don't mind sending a metaphorical Christmas card with me, do you?

Due date +2 years.

It's been two years since Charlotte should have been born.  She would be two.  Wow.  

I was in Richmond today.  It was an hour and a half drive.  I listened to Christmas music the whole way (thanks to my wonderful husband finally putting music on my phone and my awesome bluetooth stereo in my car), but I had a lot of time to think.  

It's funny, really.  The first year, her due date was ridiculously hard.  It was symbolic.  It should have been her birthday.  It was representative of everything that should have been and so very clearly wasn't.  But it's been two years.  It's not her birthday anymore.  Her birthday is in July.  The fifth of December only has meaning in that it helps me mark time.  I'll be honest: I actually had forgotten the exact date until I saw my timehop this morning which had a few images I posted on facebook two years ago.  

I don't know how to feel about that.  A paranoid piece of me worries that it means I'm forgetting her. I know that's not true.  I know that I think about her every day.  I know that I listen for the wind chimes all the time.  They're blowing right now, as a matter of fact, and I can hear them as I sit in the office.  

I know it's just that the day she was born, the day Mike and I got to spend with her, is her celebration, and so that is the day we remember her.  We choose to celebrate her life, not mourn what should have been.  This is why the 22nd of July is so important and the 5th of December has faded a bit.  The 5th of December is really kind of arbitrary, as she was actually born four months before that.  The date was just the symbol of the life that never was.  A part of me feels guilty for that, though.  A part of me WANTS to still mourn and moan and cry and be tortured.  I mean, I do still cry.  For everything and nothing, just as it was two years ago.  But it's different.  I can't explain it.  I feel compelled to try, obviously, but I don't seem to have the words.  

In the months after her death, I was angry.  I'm still angry in a lot of ways, but it's not as it was.  I was mired in this pit of self-doubt and fear and anger.  If anyone had cared to notice, I was pretty severely depressed.  I'm not sure too many people noticed...and I'm not going to dwell on that thought too much, because nothing good will come of it.  

Now, today...I'm still sad.  I still mourn for my daughter.  But I work on celebrating her as much as I can.  It's absolutely beautiful to hear Mia talking about her Angel Sister.  She is starting to understand a little, and that really warms my heart.  Ethan will grow into it as well.  Mike and I said from the outset that we wanted it to be a normal part of their lives.  It's not scary or dark.  It's not a secret.  Charlotte is their sister. She's just an angel.  We are lucky enough to have an angel sister to watch out for us and protect us.  That part has won out over the should haves.  

I'm starting to feel like maybe I've earned some of those comments people made two years ago about how strong I am...I didn't feel strong then.  I felt weak and powerless and hopeless in a lot of ways.  I got through, with the majority of my dignity and sanity intact, and now I'm actually managing to follow through on what I said I would do, really believing what I told myself I had to believe.  It took me over two years, but I'm starting to truly be grateful instead of bitter.

I'm still sad. I'm still bitter.  I still want things to be different in so many ways.  Two years later, I'm finally  not drowning in those feelings.  Two years later, I can breathe a bit.  Two years later, while the shore might not be in sight, I have hope that this part of my life, my family's life, will actually be the positive more than the negative.

I still miss her every day.  I miss her today.

Christmas Shopping for Charlotte

We went Christmas shopping for Charlotte on Wednesday night,  Mike and I had our first date night since we went to the beach in August.  As a side note, it occurs to me that we don't go on enough date nights.  Regardless, we went to Tysons to exchange Mike's Kinect at the Microsoft store and to to Coastal Flats where we had a gift card.  Since we were there and together, we decided to do Charlotte's Christmas shopping.

It's still a hard thing.  The theory is that we get her what we WOULD have gotten her had she lived. Had she lived, she would have just turned two.  Wow.  Walking and talking and following Mia like the proverbial shadow.  We took it extra literal this year, thinking about how the presents we got Charlotte would fit in with the presents we were getting for Mia.  In a world in which Charlotte exists, Ethan doesn't. That's such a strange alternate reality, but it's the truth.

We're getting Mia a Lego table for Christmas, so we got Charlotte a set of Lego Duplo blocks. There's a Lego store in Tysons.  We thought, if we got real Lego's for Mia, Charlotte would have liked to have her own set of blocks which would also work on the table.  Then we went to the Disney store and got her some Frozen stuffed animals.  Mia is still obsessed with Frozen, but Charlotte would be too young to have the barbie dolls and too many dress up clothes, so we got a stuffed doll version of Elsa and Olaf.  Mia would probably have stolen them. Or maybe they would have played together.

See, this is the hard part.  This is the time of year I really think of the what ifs.  I would never, ever wish that Ethan wasn't with us.  Still, thinking of having Charlotte with us is so surreal, and it's something I long for so much.  I would have three kids in an instant if I could have them all with me. Sign me up.  It's so strange to go through and buy all the toys for Charlotte that it seems like she would like, that it seems like would fit with Mia's toys and who I think Charlotte would be by now, and then to give them away.  I give them to a kid who will have a nicer Christmas because of Charlotte, but she's not the kid I bought them for.  I bought them for my daughter.

I write that so much on this blog.  My daughter.  It's one of the only places I can put those words out there without the unintentional crazy gothic woman subtext.  People don't understand.  I think maybe they think I don't need to say it anymore.  I think maybe they think Ethan healed the wound.  In some ways he did.  I see some angel in that kid.  In other ways, I have to remind myself that I'm not crazy.  Sometimes I have to say it out loud, just to make sure I'm still real.  I had one daughter.  Then I had another daughter.  She died.  I had a son.  My daughter still died.  It's real.  She's real.  Being a mother to an angel is a part of who I am.  It's a part of what my family is.  But I digress.

I need to go give the gifts to Toys for Tots this week.  I actually still have some gifts from last Christmas that I need to give to Toys for Tots.  We did Charlotte's shopping so late last year that Toys for Tots had stopped accepting donations...so I held on to them.  That's dumb.  But somehow....they had to be Christmas presents.  Not just presents.  I've lost my mind.

Charlotte's second birthday

I can't believe it's been two years.  I know that Ethan is now almost 10 months old, so it has to have been that long, but in so many ways it still feels like it was just yesterday...

I always feel like we don't do enough for her birthday.  I say always...it's only her second birthday...but still... I don't know what would be enough.  I don't know that "enough" exists.  Mike keeps telling me it was perfect. I suppose I'll have to take his word on it.

We did a balloon release this year.  I got four purple balloons while Mia was at camp yesterday morning, and then we took them to Leesylvania State Park and had a picnic lunch.  I also got cupcakes from Confections and brought candles to light and sing happy birthday.

And then it was messy.

I wanted to do the balloon release last, after lunch and cupcakes and happy birthday...but then while we were eating two of the balloons popped when the wind blew them onto the grass.  I didn't see anything sharp, but the wind was a little brutal, and before I knew it we were down to two.  I had wanted to have one balloon from each of us: Me, Mike, Mia, and Ethan.  It turned into one from the kids and one from the parents.  It suddenly occurs to me that we had two balloons for her 2nd birthday...that's a little fitting and it makes me feel a little better about the balloon carnage.

I brought a marker and we wrote messages to Charlotte on them. I asked Mia what she wanted to write on her balloon to send up to Charlotte.  She said, "Happy Birthday, Charlotte!"  I wrote that.  Then I asked if she wanted to say anything else.  She said, "Do you want a cupcake, Charlotte?"  Then she asked me to draw a cupcake on the balloon so we could send Charlotte a cupcake.  I love my kid.

Then we wrote on our balloon: simple messages of love and gratitude.

We went into the middle of the field to release them.  I was worried they wouldn't clear the trees because of the wind.  Mike and Mia both held the ribbons while Mike held Ethan, and then on the count of three they let go.  Mia waved goodbye.

They did clear the trees...barely...thank goodness.  I almost cried when the two other balloons popped...if the last two got stuck in trees or were popped as well, I might have lost it.

Then we finished lunch and went to light the candles.  Remember that brutal wind I mentioned?  Yeah.  Seriously, I have these grand, idealistic visions of how things will be and how things will go, and then there's reality and it's so darn messy. Mike finally was able to turn his back to the wind and light the candles right in front of him.  Mia blew them out...or at least tried to and then the wind did it for her and she luckily didn't notice.  We sang happy birthday.

When Mia was a baby, I didn't let her have cake until her first birthday.  I wanted her first real taste of cake to be special.  Ethan's only ten months old, but I thought this was a special circumstance.  It seemed important that we ALL participate in the celebration.  

It was simple, but it was good.  I also got the kids each a small stuffed animal that I said was Charlotte's birthday present to them.  They both liked them a lot, which was nice.

After the kids went to bed last night, we wrote out her birthday card. It's a lot like last year's card: a list of all the things we believe she had influence on with our thanks and appreciation and love.

As a side note, finding a card for this type of situation is very difficult.  Very few companies make cards relating to the loss of a child...especially cards to the child that has died.

It's gratifying to be able to continue to add to her baby book.  When I first wrote in her baby book, I cried because I thought it would all stop on page five.  No first tooth or first steps or any of that.  Then I realized, when we decided to celebrate July 22nd rather than mourn it, that I could continue adding to her birthday pages.  It's nice to have a tangible thing I can use to prove we still have another daughter.

I always feel like we don't do enough.  It was small and simple and quiet.  I took Ethan outside to listen to the wind chime, and it made him smile.  That was simple, too.  Maybe simple is best.  It's about her.  It's not about me or what I need...it's about loving her.  Loving her is simple.

Two years later

Tomorrow is Charlotte's second birthday.  It doesn't seem possible.  I sit here in my office. Mia is napping.  Ethan is not quite quietly playing in the pack and play behind me.  The box of Charlotte's things is on a shelf three feet away.  I don't know how to feel.

I don't know why or how, but I'm overcome again with frustration and anger that people don't care.  One of my sister's friends (who was old) died on Saturday, and I sent her flowers.  My daughter died.

My daughter died.

My daughter died.

Typing it is so strange, still, two years later.

My daughter died.

I am still surprised and hurt that no one sent us flowers.  I am still surprised that no one ever asks about her.  I am still surprised and hurt...by everything that followed.

I never got to mourn my child.  Not really.  There was no funeral.  No pretty words.  No flowers.  It was as if she never happened.  She did, though.  She was my daughter.

It surprises me how much I am still angry at everyone.  I would have thought that by now I would be different...or indifferent.

My mom mentioned it today when I saw her.  As she was leaving, she said tomorrow would be hard.  It's the 22nd.  She was a little teary.  It made me mad.  I know that's illogical....but you don't get to be sad and cry.  I don't want to comfort you.  You were supposed to comfort me. She was MY daughter.  When I wanted to be sad and cry you WEREN'T THERE FOR ME.  It's not fair to get sad now when I'm trying so hard to celebrate her.

That's what tomorrow is supposed to be.  It's supposed to be a celebration of Charlotte's life and her influence on her family. My family.  Ethan is sitting in a pack and play behind me right now because of Charlotte.  No matter how much I wish it could have been different for her, Ethan wouldn't be here if things didn't happen the way they did.  I can't be sorry Ethan's here.  He's beautiful and perfect and so very, very sweet.  His sister had to die for him to be here.  It's still so hard to put a finger on that emotion.  Bittersweet doesn't cover it, but it's somewhere in that zone.

I always feel like it's not enough.  What we do to celebrate her is not enough.  Tomorrow is such a...such a....day.  A sad day.  A happy day.  It's a celebration.  Charlotte is my daughter.  I miss her all the time, and I always will...but her life was special.  I have to stop crying and celebrate.  It's hard to remember that I'm thankful sometimes.

I looked into planting something in my front flower bed that attracts butterflies.  I want to see more butterflies.  When Mia sees a butterfly now, she talks about Charlotte.  She doesn't really get it, still.  She keeps saying she wants to see Charlotte and asking where Charlotte is.  I tell her that Charlotte's always around, but we can't see her.  I tell her that Charlotte sends butterflies to let us know she's near.  That's a hard concept for a three year old.

This was really disjointed.  I feel disjointed.  That's why I'm writing again.  I know it's been a long time since I've written...and I'm fairly certain that no one will read this.  Still...I needed to talk to someone.  Even if someone is no one.

Charlotte's Legacy

I was out to dinner with my mom a little while ago.  We went to the McDonalds with the play area so Mia could have fun even when it's so cold outside.  I was sitting in the booth with Ethan, my dad was watching Mia play, and I was talking with my mom.

Apparently she told the knitting circle in the retirement community she lives in about LLOST.  Apparently they made about a hundred blankets of varying sizes with matching hats and donated them to the local hospital so that babies like Charlotte will have something nice...like our little purple potholder.    It was very sweet of my mom and them.  My mom said, "It's Charlotte's legacy."

I looked down at Ethan.  No, that's not her legacy....he is.  Ethan wouldn't be here if it were not for Charlotte, in so many ways.  We choose to see her death as a sacrifice so that we could have a strong, healthy child.  We choose to believe that she chose to let go rather than make us or her suffer.  If we hadn't gone through what we went through, Ethan wouldn't be here.

It's a hard thing to grasp.  I wouldn't wish Ethan away for anything in the world, and yet I wouldn't wish Charlotte to die, obviously either.  She had to die so that he could come to be, could live, could be loved.  Yet given the choice I wouldn't have her die.  I can't quite get a handle on the emotions of this. 

They call the birth of a child after a loss a rainbow baby.  It's the light and beauty that comes after the storm and darkness.  This symbol seems confusing to me.  Losing Charlotte was the most painful experience of my life.  It continues to hurt my heart, and I still cry for her loss frequently.  At the same time, I would not, for anything in the world, wish that it hadn't happened to me.  The fact that she lived, even so briefly, even so quietly, is more important than that she died.  Her little soul is watching out for our family now, and I feel so blessed for it.  It was a storm, yes, and it was darkness, yes, but it was also rain...nourishing rain.  Rain makes the flowers grow.  I guess the rainbow isn't a bad symbol.  You can't have a rainbow without the rain.  Ethan wouldn't exist without Charlotte. 

My heart bursts with love for my children.  Charlotte has quite a legacy.

Charlotte's First Birthday

I can't believe it's been a year already.  Charlotte's first birthday was this past Monday, July 22nd.  We happened to be in the Outer Banks with my family.  I'm not going to lie, I was less than thrilled to learn this.  Obviously my family hasn't quite been the rock of support I wanted.  Still, it is what it is.  We were going to celebrate our way regardless.

I'm just briefly going to mention the things we did to celebrate her.  We went to the beach that morning, then after lunch we did what we wanted to do for her:

First we went to the Life is Good store.  They have one in Nags Head.  I wanted to get some of the clothes they have with butterflies in memory of Charlotte, and I also wanted to get a card from there to write down all of the things we were thankful for from her this year.  More on that later. I have a love of Life is Good. Maybe it's silly to get comfort from a line of clothing and slightly overpriced merchandise, but the central message is that there are millions of beautiful and simple things in our lives worth noticing and embracing. Who doesn't need that? Yes, it comes in the form of a $40 t-shirt....but it's a $40 t-shirt that makes me happy and is comfy. Why the hell not?

As Mia was going down for her nap, Mike read her the children's book we'd gotten from the hospital: "We were going to have a baby but we had an angel instead"  We hadn't read it to her before. It was nice to have it to include her, but it wasn't as fitting as I thought it would be. It's about explaining to a little kid that the baby died, and mom and dad are sad, but it's ok. This is all true, but the tone was a little off for Charlotte's birthday...the day of thanks and celebration we decided to make it. Still, I was glad to have it and to read it.

While she was napping, we went to the grocery store to buy cupcakes for her, and we started drafting out list of things we were thankful for.

After nap time, we went to the Elizabethan Gardens.  It's about a 20 minute drive from our beach house.  On the way, we heard Angel, by Sarah McLaughlin.  That's the song Mike sang to Charlotte while I was in surgery.  Mike has thousands of MP3s on his player, and he told me he hadn't heard that song in months.

It's a beautiful garden with walking paths and flowers and usually it's full of butterflies.  Unfortunately, it had just rained.  I worried we wouldn't find any.  While we walked through, I kept looking for butterflies. 

I had already picked out where I wanted to have the cake and sing happy birthday, since we have been to the gardens many times before. Poor Mike. I get these ideas in my head and I know EXACTLY what I want to do, and I usually forget to tell him about it. He expects it now...we've been together that long.  There's a lovely little gazebo in the back corner.  It's a little hidden, it has a beautiful view of the sound, and it's very quiet.  When we got there, I pulled the cupcakes out of my bag and we lit the candle...purple, of course.      I looked and looked and looked for butterflies

We sang Happy Birthday, just the three of us, then had Mia blow out the candle.

 We ate our cupcakes quietly.  Mia made a mess. It was insanely hot and humid, and the cream cheese icing on the (red velvet) cupcakes was melting. I had wanted everything to be perfect and picturesque, and Iwas a little disappointed with the ridiculousness of the mush. In retrospect, it tasted really good, and Charlotte is my daughter, not a visiting dignitary. She knows how we roll.

As we were getting ready to leave, we saw a butterfly flying between the raindrops. Just the one. I chased it so I could take its picture.

After the gardens, we met my family for dinner.  The all acknowledged her birthday in some way, which I appreciated.  None did so in any way I would have chosen, but I appreciated that they all remembered.  Leslie toasted her (in private to just us) with her glass of wine from the bar.

On the way home from dinner, Angel by Sarah McLaughlin played again.  We cried a little, but mostly happy tears.  We knew she was near, that she knew we love her, that she wasn't gone.

After Mia went to bed, we sat down to write out the card we had gotten at the Life is Good store. 

 It was a hard day.  I cried a lot.  I know we said that we were going to celebrate her on her birthday rather than mourn her, but it still is a little hard.  It's still a little raw.  Still, I think we were grateful and loving more than sad, which is what we want.

Mia is starting to know who she is.  That's good.  It's what we want.  Charlotte will always be Mia's (and Ethan's) Angel Sister, and it was nice to have celebrated this, even if it was a little more bitter than sweet just yet.

Signs

I need to take a moment to talk about, or rather, to write about, some of the signs I've experienced in the last few days. I feel like I spend a lot of my life looking for signs from Charlotte and when I really need them they're so blatant that I can't help but believe in them.

So, about a week ago, we decide to go to my nephew's soccer game. We haven't been to one of his soccer games in months and I have no idea why we decided to go to this one, because it was pretty far away.I took Mia to the park that morning to play, and we got home just a few minutes before we had to leave. She was hot and sweaty and being pretty quiet, but I assumed I had just worn her out at the park. So we get in the car, and we drive to a fast food place to get lunch on the way, because we're running late as usual. We offer food to Mia but she doesn't eat it. I thought this is kind of weird, but I assume she was just tired. Then I'm driving, and we get about an hour away from home, and Mia gets very very quiet. Mike turns around to check on her and she didn't answer. He started asking her questions, and she didn't respond. She starts make a really weird noise, and he said bubbles are coming out of her mouth and her face is a funny colour. I am mediately pull off at the very next exit, as we were on the highway, and as I look up I see that we are literally a quarter mile from a hospital. We get to the hospital, because she's still not responding, & I pull up to the emergency room. When I get out of the car, she starts to cry and whine a little bit, but she's very limp and kind of unresponsive, and I start to freak out a little bit more. It turns out that she had a febrile seizure, which happens in about 10 percent of kids when they spiked a fever. Mia has gone from being perfectly healthy that morning to having a fever of 105 within the span of an hour. Luckily, this type of seizure isn't really damaging, just scary. However, when we had this happen, we happen to be within a quarter mile of the best hospital in the entire area, which we are never ordinarily near, which incidentally had in it a pediatric emergency room separate from the adult emergency room. They took amazing care of her, much better than we would have gotten were we here at the hospital by our house. Incidentally, at the park that morning, we saw some butterflies. I vividly remember telling Mia, " Hey lookMia, a butterfly. Must mean that Charlotte is looking out for us today." And she was. When Mia got sick, she guided us so that Mia got the best care possible.

A little over a week after what happened with Mia, I was on my way to work when someone pulled out in front of me and I was in an accident. I was going close to 40mph, and the woman pulled out only about 10-15 feet in front of me. My car had almost $5000 worth of damage. I was transported to the hospital, and they did an ultrasound on the baby, and he's perfectly fine. The thing is, my airbag really should have gone off, but it didn't. If it had, I don't know if the baby would have been ok. My belly was right there. That morning, as I was walking Mia out to the car, we heard the windchime, and Mia said, "It's Charlotte, Mama." I guess she's looking out for both of her siblings.

Reflections: Post 2-The Vigil

I know I haven't posted in a long time...I feel bad about that.  I've been waiting, trying to finish my thoughts on Chris's death and all the ceremonies and feelings surrounding it...and it's hard to write.  It's harder than it was with Charlotte.  It's not a series of events I feel like I can write chronologically.  I got through writing about the vigil on New Year's Day, but then after that I just have a huge bullet point list of my thoughts and things I wanted to remember.  It think I just have to post it as is.  I don't know that I have the ability to turn my abstract list into prose...at least not now.  Still, here was my description of the candle light vigil...

We learned about the candlelight vigil on Tuesday around 3:30.  I was again rabidly checking facebook, desperate for signs that people cared. I saw it on the Fire and Rescue page first, though it was a reposting of the PWCPD posting.  We called my parents, and they easily agreed to watch Mia while we were gone.  I think they were relatively desperate to help us in any way they could.  I’m glad of this, because I had to lean heavily throughout the week.

I’d only been to one other candlelight vigil before, at Mary Washington for the victims of 9/11 soon after the attacks.  As horrible and sad and awful as that experience was, this was my friend.  This was Mike’s friend.  This was a person everyone knew and liked.  This wasn’t a symbol of a country’s loss and of condolences for families somewhere else.  This was for a man we knew, a man who was taken too soon.  This was different.

Mike was relatively frantic.  He usually doesn’t care about details.  He just assumes I’ll get everything taken care of and goes with it.  This week was so different.  He asked me at least six or seven times if I knew where we were going.  He left fifteen minutes early so that we couldn’t possibly be late.  He discussed types of candles to consider bringing.  I later realized that these details were all he could do for Chris.  He was craving to be the perfect mourner.  He couldn’t say to Chris that he cared, couldn’t fix it, couldn’t help.  All he could do was mourn his death with as much perfection and dignity as he possibly could.

They held the vigil in the parking lot of the target right next to the place he died.  I tried hard not to visualize the accident from the pictures I’d seen.  I tried hard not to think of the violent chaos on that street just one day earlier.  I, of course, failed miserably.

I cried as soon as I got out of the car.  This made me feel foolish.  Really, I knew him so little compared to others there.  I saw him a few times a year, that’s all.  A few handfuls of time.  Still, my heart ached with his loss.  A woman who could have been me lost her husband.  Three children that could have been mine lost their father.  So many men like my husband lost their friend.  He didn’t deserve to die.  I know that so few people deserve to die.  Still, more than that, he deserved to live.  To be happy.  To see his positivity and generosity make the world better.

It seemed so strange to me that so few people were crying.  I couldn’t understand.  I still don’t.  Many of the people at the vigil didn’t know him well.  Some came out just to support and remember a fallen officer.  He wasn’t a person to some people, he was a symbol.  I appreciate that, but he was more than that, of course.   Others, who did know him but didn't cry, were officers.  Officers are stoic.  They have to be.  I understand that.  Still, as Mike said, it doesn’t make them less of a man to mourn a friend.  Chris deserved tears.  I shed many.

Target had provided baskets full of candles.  The posts about the vigil asked us to bring our own, but many didn’t have them.  I had brought two jar candles, thinking that they would stay lit in the wind, but I asked Mike to pick up two tapers as well.  As Mike had worried, I also wanted to honor him properly.  I wondered if my scented jar candles were appropriate.  They smelled of honeysuckle.

There were bagpipers there.  They plated “Going Home”, a song I had associated with movies: The Departed and Clear and Present Danger.  They play it at the funerals of the fallen officers and soldiers in those movies.  It always made me cry.  Songs are like that.  I’d never heard it played in real life before.  It cut me to the core.

When we were asked to light our candles, the wind seemed to pick up.  I had brought an Aim and Flame, familiar with trying to light fireworks on the beach.  I lit my taper from the bin, with a Dixie cup around the flame to protect it from the wind.  The man next to me, an officer whose name I don’t know, had no cup around his flame.  It kept blowing out.  I handed him mine, thinking it was important for him, an officer, to have a candle that would stay lit.  I pulled out my honeysuckle jar.  He later got his other candle lit as well, so he held two.  I felt a little guilty for not taking back the first candle, but he didn’t offer and I didn’t want to ask. 

Most of the speeches from the vigil are a blur.  I was surrounded by the scent of honeysuckle.  I remember Chris’s brother, Dale, also an officer, getting up to speak.  I don’t remember what he said.  I remember thinking he was brave and strong for doing it, and I realize now that he was soaking in the support from his friends and brothers in blue.  Dale's friend spoke after that, apparently at his request.  All I remember him saying was something about Chris’s mom making him sandwiches.  I thought he was an odd choice of speaker, but I think now that he was there more for Dale and the family than to actually remember Chris.  They needed that.  Chris’s other brother spoke as well.  I don’t remember anything that he said, but I remember the tears in his voice.  Maybe that was more important.

After the appointed people had spoken, they opened the microphone to anyone who wanted to talk about Chris.  They do this at weddings sometimes, usually with disastrous results.  I wish more people had spoken that night.  An older woman from the citizens’ academy spoke about doing a ride along with Chris.  She talked about how he was driving, reading a map, on the computer, and talking on his cell phone all at once on the way to a call.  I could picture Mike doing that.  Katie got up to speak about Chris being her FTO.  The part of her speech that stuck with me was when she talked about how Chris asked to have a copy of her positive evaluation after she was cut loose, like a proud father.  I could imagine that pride: the puffed up chest, big smile, and twinkling eyes.  A little girl went up with her mother to talk about how Chris used to be her neighbor.  All she said was that she’d miss him.  It was lovely.  I imagine this little girl was probably friends with Paige, Chris's daugher. 

I wished some of his friends would have spoken.  I wish some of his friends there had gotten up and told more stories about him.  After the vigil ended, they stood around in the parking lot telling each other those stories.  Things like going out to get Chinese food, forgetting your wallet, and Chris not letting you pay him back.  Things like driving in a car with him and having him show off his driving skills like he was in the Indy 500, throwing you back in your seat.  Things like him always finding the person in a crowd who felt lonely, or out of place, and starting a conversation with them. This was the story I knew so well.  And caring.  Always caring.  I wished more of those stories were told at the vigil that night, but I suppose they got shared in the way they were meant to be shared.

When the microphone was empty, the chaplain asked us to raise our candles as he said a quick prayer.  Somehow, through the wind, almost all the candles stayed lit.  I don’t remember the prayer, but I remember seeing Mike’s head bowed from the corner of my eye.  The man who never prays.  

And then they said it was over.  Mike turned to me and asked if we should blow our candles out.  I remember saying that I didn’t want to.  The scent of honeysuckle was all around me.  I thought briefly of the stupid Nora Roberts book I just read, in which a ghost’s presence was always accompanied with the strong smell of honeysuckle.  I hoped that Chris’s spirit knew that we cared.  It was freezing cold that night, but somehow the scent and flame of the candle made me feel protected.  I didn’t want to let it go. 

After the ceremony of the vigil, people milled around the parking lot.  These are strange circumstances, these post-memorial social hours.  It seems strange to say things like, “Nice to meet you” at gatherings like this, and yet I found myself meeting many people I didn’t know.  Mike hugged each person he saw.  Mike is not a hugger.  It was touching, really, to see him looking to connect with all of these people, who knew Chris as he had.  Some hugged back hard, others did the one armed man hug.  

We were reluctant to leave.  We milled around the parking lot as it started to clear out.  The cars of the family had long departed.  The tables of coffee and doughnuts provided by the community, so rife with irony, had long ago been picked over.  We just kept looking for one more person to talk to, one more hug to force, one more story to tell.  When does the vigil end?