Sunday at Grandma's - Mother's Day, by Lindsey (Special Edition)

  "No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you, after all you are the only one who knows how my heart sounds from the inside."

Mother's Day.

I never really put much thought into it.  When I was young, we would buy mom a card. Since her birthday always falls around or on Mother's Day, we would try to convince dad to buy her expensive gifts, like a new couch.  But, as I got older and moved away, I would just make sure that I called mom to say, "Happy Mother's Day" and that would be it.  Now I know there is so much more to it.

It's a day to honor one of the most special relationships you can ever have.  I mean, a child lives inside of their mother.  It's amazing really, when you think about it. We are physically carried into this world by our mothers and if we are fortunate enough, our mother's continue to carry us through life. They are there for us when we fall as we are learning how to walk.  Or when you crash your car at the end of the driveway when you are 16 and she hands you her car keys and makes you drive to school to face your fears. Or when the hardest moment in your life happens, the death of your own child before birth.  She rushes to your side, knocking your husband out of the way and jumps into the hospital bed next to you.  Trying to hold the little girl she still sees in you, trying to be strong, while her heart is breaking for you and for her dreams of being a grandma.

That's my relationship with my mom.  I think I took it for granted all these years.  But, today I want to thank her for being my mom.  For carrying me into this world and through this life.  I will surly miss her in a way that words can not describe when she passes some day, as I am sure she misses her own mother.  But, today I am lucky to have her with me and throughout my life.

When it comes to my relationship with my own daughter, I am not as lucky.  I will never have a Mother's Day with her in my arms.  I will never be able to catch her as she falls while learning to walk.  I will never be able to teach her how to face her fears or hold her to comfort her pain.  When Nora died, a part of me died too.  The part that hoped for and dreamed of being the mom I had to my own daughter.  I grieve this and all the years I will never have to get to know the person she would have become.

However, something magical happened when Nora was delivered into this world. She might not have been alive but a part of me was born even though she had died.  It's as if her death and delivery was my rebirth. My own mother birthed me into this world and carried me through it, but Nora transformed me.  She made me into a mother and cracked me open to all the pain and suffering that is in this life.  Through that suffering, and her, I have found true unconditional love.  A love so deep that even death can not take it away.    

It sounds corny, but I understand the quote now, "No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you, after all you are the only one who knows how my heart sounds from the inside." I get it now.  I know, what it is like to be a mother.  It's a gift.  It's a sacrifice.  It's a wild ride. It's scary as all hell.  It's full of beauty and grace.  It's a mother's love.  It's timeless, endless, and it defies death.  It's the best love there is.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, to my grandmother, to my mother-in-law, to me, to the moms with living children, and to the moms with children gone too soon.  May peace and happiness find you on this very special of days...

Mother's Day.    

Letters to Nora - January 15th, 2013

January 15th, 2013

Dear Sweet Nora,

I wanted to write to you the story I read when your dad and I were trying to conceive you.  I hoped and dreamed and wished for you so.  Then I cam across this African story called a "Child's Song."  So honey, I am going to tell you the story now and imagine that you are in my arms as I read you a story to fall asleep.  Here I go.  Are you comfortable sweet girl, because it's story time before bed.  

A Child'S Song ~ by Sobonfu Some

There is a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they've been born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was thought in its mother's mind.  

And when a women decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come.  And after she has heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child's father and teaches it to him.  And then they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it. 

And then when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches the child's song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child's song to welcome it. And then as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child's song.  If the child falls and hurts its knee, someone picks it up and signs its song to him or her.  Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rights of puberty, then as a waY of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

And it goes this way through the child's life.  In marriage, the songs are sung, together.  And finally, when this child is lying in bed ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing - for the last time, the song of that person.

At times I can feel your song, honey.  I know when I was pregnant with you I caught myself humming, not sure what it was, it wasn't a song I knew from pop culture or the radio, it was my own tune, that I now believe is your tune. I hum it now and it makes me sad.  It doesn't come as easily as it did before.  Probably because your no longer inside of me. 

I miss you so much, honey.  Oh, how your dad and I wanted to see you grow up, see what kind of person you would have become.  I wish I could have seen your smile and your eyes.

Honey, I know it's early to be thinking about it, and I would never be able to replace you in my heart or soul, but do you think your dad and I will have other children?  Maybe a sister or brother for you?  If you have any sway in the power of the universe, please help your dad and I get pregnant with a brother or sister for you, and one that will be healthy, happy, beautiful (like you), and out live your dad and I by 70+ years.

I miss you.  I love you. I wish you were here, so does your daddy.  He misses you a lot and it pains me to see him like this.  For both of us it hurts so much, honey, because we loved you so much already.

Love Always & Forever,

Mom 

Letters to Nora - February 2nd, 2013

February 2nd, 2013

Dear Sweet Nora,

I am going back to work tomorrow.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I'm going back early, because I was supposed to stay home for three months taking care of you, but things didn't work out that way.  

I think about you everyday, even if I don't write.  I miss you, but I am starting to accept the idea that you are not here and that is the way it is.  It just is.  I'm trying to take care of myself the best I can by eating healthy, exercising, and being kind to myself.  Your dad is doing the same.  He is doing okay, but he misses you very much.  

Nora, I think about how you used to go to work with me, in my belly.  When I was pregnant with you, I would worry about what you would hear from all my client's crazy stories that I work with.  I was going to tell you when you were older, how you helped mommy in her therapy sessions in her belly.  He.He.

Also, while you were in my belly you traveled where your dad and I traveled.  When you were just forming, we went to Hawaii and I was crazy with morning sickness and had this intense ability to smell everything.  Your dad that I was nuts and we called it pregnancy nose or a really unfortunate super power, right.  

You also traveled with us to your dad's graduation from his master's program in Washington D.C.  I was so proud of him and it was that weekend, right after his ceremony that my belly popped out and decided to let you show to the world.  It was exciting.

Oh Nora, how I miss those times.  How I miss you.  I hope that you are safe wherever you are.  Nora,  I don't believe in God in the religious sense, but some how I know that you are still with me, in some shape or some form.  If it is even only in my memory.  But I still feel you, not like I feel you in my body, but I still feel your presence.  

Good night honey.  I will love you forever.

Love Always & Forever,

Mom

Sitting With Grief

I sat down in her room on my meditation cushion. I turned on the YouTube guided meditation about grief and closed my eyes.  I don’t remember the words of the meditation, but I do remember the pulsating sound and hypnotic rhythm of the gentle music.  As my eyes closed and I sunk into myself I remembered being told to take three deep breaths.  I breathed in, I breathed out, I breathed in, and I breathed out. Tears started rolling down my face from both closed eyes and it felt as if light was filling my body.  The tears were shear pain and longing.  That is the only way I can describe it, my words fail as I try to capture an image of the overwhelming but comforting emotions.

As I felt the tears fall from the base of my chin down to my chest and roll down and graze my breasts a thought came to mind, “This is where she was supposed to be.  She was supposed to be there, feeding, suckling, living against my breast, but she wasn’t there.”  I let the thought go as I pulled my left hand to my heart and my right over where she used to live, my now empty uterus, her lonely home no longer in use.  I cried more deep silent tears and I inhaled and exhaled as I immersed myself in their wetness, yet warm pain.

Then as I breathed and sat with my grief, I heard a word, “Mom”, I hear it again “Mom” over and over again.  It’s Nora, she is talking to me.  All she is doing is repeating, “Mom, Mom, Mom,” but in such a comforting way that a smile moved across my tortured face.

Then my mind takes me to a beach, where Nora and I are dancing in the sand.  I hear the waves hitting the shore and see our feet in the sand as we walk hand in hand. She is a little girl, probably 4 years old.  She wears a yellow dress and I am in a maxi dress, as we are frolicking together on the beach.  There is no longing in this place, there is no pain.  Her chocolate color hair is pulled back in pig tails and she and I are laughing and giggling.  She points to things and says their name, inquisitively asking me questions.  I smile and laugh in the image, but in my reality I know that I sit on a cushion with my eyes closed, watching all this in my mind’s eye as if I were watching a home video of Nora and me.  At this realization a wail comes out of my mouth as I long for this image to be true.

Then I hear myself asking, “Why?  Why can’t I have you?” and she just responds as a wise old soul would, “No one can have anyone, mommy.”  I wail again as I know she is right, but I also marvel at the brilliant soul she is, so wise, so full of love, so special.  I hear her again when I say, “Why?” and she just repeats, “Mom, Mom, Mom.”  I ask her if I will have other children and she says yes.  I ask if I will have another girl and she says no, and I ache inside.  Then all of the sudden I have this desperate need to open up her urn that is behind me and find her.  I want to see her again, feel her, hold her; a part of me even envisions eating and consuming her ashes so that she is inside me again.  Then I hear her, I hear her child like voice say, “I am not there.  You will not find me there,” and she shows me an image of the breeze in the trees and the stars in the sky and she says I am here and here and here.  I cringe and cry more deeply again because I know this is true.

I ache for her.  But all I hear is my strong little girl say, “I love you mommy," and I can feel her leaving, the mediation music is slowing.  I don't know if she was there or if it was me, but the image is fading now and I feel scared.  I say I don’t want to forget, I don’t want to leave.  And there is no voice this time, but I am reassured from somewhere deep inside that everything is okay.  A part of me knows she is never gone, she is always here. She is always with me.

I begin to allow myself to float back to the here and now. I have one more flash of the scene of us on the beach and then my eyes open and through the puddles of water at their base I see the light of the computer in front of me on her nursery floor where I sit cross-legged on the cushion.

I grab for my computer.  I hurry to write it all down as I don’t want to forget.  I need this memory.  I need this moment.  I write, typing quickly with no attention to spelling or even coherence.  I need her essence I don’t want to lose her again.  The words come flowing out…my fingers move fast…and the tears swell up from a deep lonely place inside and pour out of my eyes and the words flood the page.

I take a deep breath.  A part of me is calmed.  A part of me is reassured.  I take a deep breath again and I sit in peace.

Letters to Nora - January 11th, 2013, Again

Today in Letters to Nora I wanted to highlight another blogging Mommy who is doing great things with her blog Love you, Mom.  Kayla is a blogging Mommy who collects letters from moms to their children, be it children who are alive, deceased, teenagers, or toddlers.  It's a great way for us moms to show our love for our children through letters and also connect with other mothers through story telling.   If you are a mom who wants to share a letter you wrote to your son or daughter there is a space for your letter on Love you, Mom.  Check out her blog, because today she highlights one of my letters to Nora.  Thank you, Kayla, for bringing Moms of all kinds together through our letters.

January 11th, 2013

Dear Nora,

I wanted to write to you again tonight.  Oh, how I can't get enough of you, but you are not here.  I am drawn to your picture and think of you always.  I wanted to tell you about the day I found out I was pregnant with you.

I had a feeling, a feeling that I was pregnant, but you see, I shouldn't have been.  Your dad and I only made love twice without protection that month due to a procedure I was going to have. You must have happened after the procedure.  This is when you must have implanted into my uterus wall, because at my job which was at a high school, on April 17h, I took a pregnancy test in the bathroom stall after the students left.  I felt like a teenager, and as I stared at myself in the mirror holding the pee stick, I slowly saw the blue plus sign appear in the small circular window.  The test was positive!  I was pregnant, with you!   I didn't believe it, so I took another and it confirmed the first.

I didn't tell your dad that night because we had just packed up the condo and the next morning we were going to sign our mortgage on our new home and I had a plan of how I wanted to tell him.  I prepared by putting a green ribbon around the pregnancy test and kept it in my purse for safe keeping.  I had planned on giving it to your dad after we went to the new house that day and was going to present the pregnancy test to him in your room.

However, our closing kept getting pushed back form 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and we were stuck in the condo waiting because there was a spring rainstorm that day.  All I could do was think about telling him and it seemed as if I couldn't wait for my plan.  I had tossed and turned all night out of excitement and anticipation of sharing the news with him.  I never keep secrets from your dad so this was killing me.  

As we waited in our old condo, with both of us sitting on our mattress now laying on the floor, waiting to be moved, I grabbed my purse and pulled out the pregnancy test and handed it to your dad. He gave me an inquisitive look and then a look of shock and happiness grew on his face.  He looked up at me and said, "Are we pregnant?" with a tear of joy sliding down his cheek and I said, "Yes."  

We embraced and I was so happy that I could make him this happy, Nora.  The rest of our pregnancy together was filled with joyful moments, excitement about what was to come, and planning with great anticipation for your arrival.  I am so sorry, honey, that it ended so soon.  Oh, how I had so many plans for us with you.  But I am grateful for the joy you have given us in the short time we had together.  If I had to do it all over again, and I couldn't change the outcome, I would still do it.  It was such a great year 2012.  Except for the last two days, honey, which have been the saddest of my life.

I love you sweet Nora, always & forever.

Love Always & Forever, 

Mom     

Her Name is "Honor"

Well her name is Nora, but it means "woman of honor" in Latin, or "light" in Arabic.  Even better in Hebrew Nora means "awesome."  I think my daughter is pretty awesome.  She is the light of my life, even if she is no longer with me, and now all I must do is "honor" her memory here on earth.  It's kind of bizzare how her name has forshadowed her future.

Before Nora's death I never much believed in fate and I'm still unclear if I do or not.  However, since she passed away I sometimes get this feeling that the concept of linear time does not exist.  That I am living my life at every age and every stage all at the same time in different parts of the universe and my reality is just the moment that I am aware of.  I know this is trippy, but I say this because I feel as if my daughter was just destined to be "Nora" because a different Lindsey had already determined it to be so and knew that I would spend the rest of my life honoring her instead of being with her.

For instance, when Nick and I were searching for baby names, we could never settle on a boy's name, we had a whole list that we liked, but when searching for girls names we never even created a list because we couldn't agree on anyone girl name that we liked.  Then one night, as I was laying in bed, I came across the name Nora and I loved the meaning.  I wanted a strong name for my daughter as she grew.  I wanted her to grow into a "woman of honor" because I believed she had great things ahead of her.  She was going to be someone special to the world.

So I turned over in bed and said to my husband, "What about Nora?  Nora Kelly?" Nora was a deriviate of Norine which is my mother's middle name, and Kelly was Nick's mom's madian name. The perfect combination for our little girl to be, if she was a little girl, we didn't know at this point. 

Nick paused for a moment as he thought about my suggestion and said, "I like that.  I like that a lot."  And in his soft, quite, reassuring voice he repeated her name out loud, "Nora. Nora Kelly." and a smile formed on his face and he said, "Yes, if it's a girl we will call her Nora." 

Then, at our 20 week ultrasound, we got to see how big our baby had gotten.  The baby was moving and rolling around and sticking it's tongue out at us.  Thirty minutes into the appointment I finally asked the ultrasound tech the gender of our baby.  I had a clue because I did not see any little manliness and with a joyful tone the ultrasound tech said, "It's a girl!"  Nick and I said "A girl?!"  And were in shock at the revelation.  Immediately I thought about the stages of raising a girl: her with pigtails in sundresses, and then her tomboy phase, and then the day Nick would walk her down the isle at her wedding.  I was overwhelemed by the responsiblity of this, but somewhere inside I knew she was going to be a girl, so I was comforted by my intuition being right.

As we left the appointment, with wonderful news that every organ of our little girl was perfect, Nick and I walked out together holding hands and looking at the first pictures of our daughter and Nick said as he stared at the picture, "So this is Nora."  I smiled and said, "Well I guess we have decided on a name."  He smiled back and leaned in to kiss me.  We were a happy family that day.

"So what's in a name?"  I believe that we name our children based on the faith and hope we have for their spirits and their journeys in this life.  I believe that we, as expecting parents, are already parents on a different universal plain.  And on this plain, our "other" selves are already parents, who are somehow speaking to us and letting us know intuitively that or children have a destiny, and their name is the first step towards defining our child's journey.

Nora is my light, and I do believe she is awesome.  Why wouldn't she be?  After all, her mom and dad are pretty cool.  And even though she does not walk beside me in this life, I will honor her everyday of mine, moving forward in whatever way I can because I believe that my little girl, in some alternate universe, got to grow up into a "woman of honor."

~Still Breathing...Lindsey

Letters to Nora - March 12th, 2013

March 12th, 2013

Dear Sweet Nora,

I have found writing again.  The space that has been left empty in my heart by your absence has been driving me to fill it.  I am moved to create, to form, to produce, to give birth.  I guess I do this because that is what my life was the last nine months with you.  You were my novel, my poem, my sonnet.  You were the love in my words made into life.  But now, words are all I have of you.  Not even many memories to call our own.  

But, Nora, how you have opened my world even in your absence. I was expecting to grow and change when you were born into this world, as all parents will.  I wanted to blossom, to transform, to become.  I wanted to find a new role; a new meaning in life.  I was so nervous for this, so fearful, so scared, but so eager to take on this challenge of change.  However, this transformation did not come in its expected form, as most profound changes often do.

Your death resulted in my rebirth of sorts.  In order to fill the void inside of me, I have revived parts of me that have lain dormant for days, weeks, years.  Parts of me I have not seen since my days as a child.  Your death brought me closer to my inner voice, my inner truth.  I draw on this well within me, this well of love and peace, where I believe you reside.  I feel once again connected to all parts of me.  It’s as if my body and soul are meeting again, in an effort to find you, to feel you there. 

Nora, no matter how much pain this union of fruitless searching brings, I cherish it.  I cherish it because it brings me comfort.  It is as if the writing, the creativity, the voice within, is a surgeon slowly suturing the wound on my heart by pulling the thread and needle through each inch of the torn apart vessel, doing his best to save the heart, to save me from joining you in that dark abyss.  Little does this doctor know that even if he were to give me a transplant, he would not be able to heal my grief.  There will always be a scar from where the new one is attached to my body.   There will always be a little reminder of the broken heart that was once there.  

But, writing, the creativity, the voice within me, is slowly touching the pain, washing it away in spurts, like a rain shower in the sun that blurs the side walk chalk left by the children.  The pain will always be, in some form or another, but maybe the pain, like my writing, can create, form, produce, and give birth to a new piece of art, like the rain changes a chalk ‘life-like’ portrait into a Picasso.

So I guess what I am saying, Nora, is your essence, your being, has moved me, changed me, brought me back to a child’s wonder while at the same time it has aged my soul.  I wish this could have happened with you in my arms instead of in my mind.  I really do wish all of that. I really do.

Love Always & Forever, 

Mom 

Forever Waiting for My Little Girl

Waiting.  Waiting for her crib to be used.  Waiting for her clothes to be worn.  Waiting.  Waiting for her to come home.  Sometimes it feels like I am forever waiting for my little girl, who will never come.

One of the challenging parts about losing a child during pregnancy is that I, at times, still anticipate that she will be coming home, even though I know she never will.  Right after I delivered Nora and I came home empty handed without a baby, I would still walk by her room at night and think to myself, "Oh, I can't wait until Nora sees her room."  It was strange.  I knew this would never happen, but my whole experience of her, during my pregnancy, was that of just waiting to meet her, waiting to experience her.  Even though she was no longer in my belly, a part of me still thought she would come home.

This slowly faded, but at times I still think about Nora as if she is yet to be born.  Like yesterday when I was walking out to get the mail from the mailbox at the end of our concrete driveway after work.  As I was walking I thought to myself, "It's going to be so fun for Nora and I to someday write with sidewalk chalk on our driveway in the Spring when she gets older."  And then if felt like I got punched in the gut and I became a little nauseous, for in the same split second that I had this happy thought, I realized it would never come to be.  I continued to get the mail and walk into the house where my now broken dreams lived.

It's also frustrating because it seems that these flash forwards of the future that will never be happen at the strangest times, times when I am not thinking about her at all and am actually enjoying myself and not focused on my grief.  Maybe it's that in these moments, I have forgotten about my present pain and live in a place of imaginary and unrealistic hope.

For instance, I was out at a fancy restaurant for my friends 30th birthday when I ordered espresso as an after dinner drink.  I saw the cute miniature cup that my coffee came in that looked like a child's tea cup.  In that moment I had a vision of Nora, about four years old, sitting at a little play table in her room having a tea party with George our dog, a little shih tzu.  I smiled to myself and stayed in this imaginary future, where I peak in on Nora sipping her pretend tea and talking to George who she has forced to play tea party with her and has dressed him in a silly hat and made him sit on her little chair across from her while she jabbers away.  In this vision, I see myself smiling in on Nora and George as I silently watch from a distance and see my handsome little dog giving me a look of "please help me" along with, "I will do anything for this cute little girl."

At the dinner table, in my real life, I stayed in this dream of the future that will never be for a moment more, before I returned to the party at hand.  Instead of feeling as if I was going to vomit, this time I was slowly brought back to reality and only felt as if my heart had been stepped on.  I guess that's a little better?     

To me it is strange that I have these comforting thoughts of the future about my deceased daughter.  It's as if I am still waiting with anticipation for her to come home and grow up into the little girl I was excited to meet and guide through life. I wonder if this confusing phenomenon ever goes away?  I wonder if I really ever want it too?  I guess a part of me will be forever waiting for my little girl. 

Letters to Nora - January, 26th, 2013

January 26th, 2013

My Dear Sweet Nora,

It has been a few days, and I really don't have much to say.  I just miss you.  I wanted to write to spend time with you, focus on you.  But rest assured, I think about you everyday, many times a day.  Tonight I have been staring at your picture that is next to my bed.  Oh, honey how I miss you, and wish I could have seen you smile.

Your dad brought home a necklace for me on Friday.  It's the necklace that has your footprint in it, your real footprint! I wear it around my neck all the time and with pride.  Along with the ring your dad and I picked out as my "push gift" for giving birth to you, for becoming your mom.  I call it Nora's ring.

Your dad misses you a lot.  He is a wonderful man.  Very sweet, yet strong and compassionate.  He is having a hard time with you not being here.  Oh, Nora, how I wish you got to experience him like I do.  He loved you so much, from the minute I told him we were pregnant, probably even before that.  He's a good man and an even better dad.  He's our hero, yours and mine.  I'm sure you would have been a daddy's girl.  I would have liked that and I know he would have loved it.  I envision a miniature me running around, following your dad, so curious about everything he does and I'm sure you would have looked up at him with so much love and admiration.  I know I do. 

Honey, I could talk about your dad forever.  I love him so much, and you were made from that love.  We did a good job with you.  You were so beautiful!  And you brought us great joy for the time you were with us.  We are both thankful for that.  As you know, your dad and I hope to have little brothers or sisters for you some day.  I hope that happens, not to replace you Nora, but to have other children, made from your dad and mine's love, like you, to give all our love to in this life.  We wish that would have been you.  We wish we could love you by holding you in our arms, watching you grow, and guiding you.  But instead we are forced to love you from afar.

Am I a mom, Nora?  I know that I am your mom, so I guess, yes.  I am a mom.  Thank you for giving me that sweetie.  Oh, honey, how I miss you.  I wish I could give you a good night kiss tonight.  

Kisses and cuddles.

Love Always & Forever,

Mom

Sunday's at Grandmas: An Aunt's Perspective

Coping Mechanisms and an Irish Blessing--From Nora's Awesome Aunt Kristi

I have many ways that I cope with the horrible situation my family has endured.  One way is through avoidance; pushing my desperate sadness to the deepest nooks and crannies of my brain, only allowing it to surface when I am too overwhelmed to keep it at bay any longer.  Another way is through giving my grief a horrible inappropriate cynicism and sarcasm lens when I am speaking with my husband or alone with my thoughts.  I also get angry, resentful, negative.  Sometimes I am able to channel my grief into productivity (often when I think about how much worse my sister and her husband must feel).

But other times I cope by imagining.  I don't imagine that Nora is here, because she's not, but I imagine that there is an alternate universe where everything had gone according to plan.  I often use this mechanism when I am deeply, deeply sad about the situation and need to have a ray of sunshine to give me hope.

This alternate universe gives me hope.  To me, a happy family--my happy family--exists there with a beautiful, perfect Nora to spoil.  She is healthy and happy and every day there is a new story to share about her growth.  She grows cuter every day.  Giggles and laughs at her awesome aunt and crazy uncle.  Coos into the phone to her grandparents.  And overall is just a peanut of happiness and sunshine for that family.

Today I am thinking about that alternate universe.

St. Patrick's Day is special in my household.  We inherited this from our Irish grandmother, who always took this holiday to the extreme!  It was a holiday we celebrated with the traditional corned beef and cabbage meal and everyone was expected to wear green (except for my German grandfather who would wear orange in protest of the day!).  I really looked forward to watching Nora be introduced to this crazy family holiday.  The cute outfits she would inevitably wear (covered with shamrocks and green that her great-grandma inevitably sent her).

So today I think of that alternate universe and imagine how much fun they are having.  Nora is being passed around wearing the cutest Irish outfit for a baby.  Two weary-eyed parents are happy for the relief but also enjoy sharing their daughter with everyone.  People are laughing and having fun.  Darkness does not shadow this family.  They are at peace and their hearts are filled with love, all because a tiny little girl brought this bliss into their lives.

I am not jealous of this universe because I believe my family's loss was able to give this family their hope and happiness.  Some sort of cosmic check and balance.  For some reason, it is easier for me to believe in this alternate universe as opposed to imagining my niece as an angel in heaven (an issue that I have lots of thoughts on that I most likely will not share on this blog).  I believe in energy and existence, and for now I am content imagining that Nora is existing somewhere else.

Perhaps this doesn't make sense and seems silly, but I've never been one to be serious, and in all honesty, this alternate universe I have created sounds pretty awesome.  So today, I am happy for this alternate universe.  I share in their joy and love and wish them the best with this Irish blessing:

May joy and peace surround you,

Contentment latch your door,

And happiness be with you now

And bless you evermore!

The Nursery

About six weeks after the loss of Nora (at 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant to stillbirth) I was sitting in my therapist's office for couple's therapy with my husband.  My therapist, Amber, asked me, "So, what have you decided about the nursery?"  The nursery is right next to our bedroom and I walk by her room everyday, sometimes 10 times a day.  So, I had been thinking about this since the day we went home from the hospital without our sweet, baby girl. 

In that moment that Amber asked the question, I was brought back to the days right after Nora's death and the feelings of overwheleming dread and sadness that came after coming home from the hospital and walking by her room for the first time.  I kept the door to her room closed.  Actually, I remember vividly, leaving for the hospital at 2 a.m. on that Sunday morning and walking by her room to go down stairs to get in the car where my husband was eagerly hearding me, and I subconciously closed the door to the nursery before we left.  I wonder, if a part of me knew then that I wasn't coming home with a baby.

So, in the days after the funeral, and when everyone finally left after that first chatotic week of grief, I opened her room back up. I started with just a crack. As if she were actually in her crib sleeping, and I didn't want any noise from the rest of the house to wake her up, but I couldn't bear to close the door all the way out of a mothers' need to be close, watchful.

Then, each day I would open the door slightly more, and as I walked by twinges of pain would surge through my body as I saw her empty carseat, sitting there, staring at me, the object taking on it's own huministic form and talking to me, asking where the baby was and why her, the car seat, had to come home without her. My heart wept for the car seat but I know I was weeping for my baby girl.

The entangled and conflictual realtionship with the nursery continued as the weeks went on.  Two weeks after her death, I couldn't handle my overwheleming loss and pain one night while laying next to my husband in bed.  Tears started silently rolling down my cheeks and I sprang out of bed, and ran towards the only place I had left of her.  I threw myself down on the floor in the middle of the nursery and cried loudly with sobs and enough tears that my husband and I would have to build a boat in her nursery to keep us afloat through the pain.

Nick, my husband, came into the nursery after me along with George, our little dog, and we all wept together on the floor.  My husband trying to comfort me, or trying to find comfort for his sorrow through holding me.  While my little G-man (George), not able to bear the pain of watching or hearing mom sob any longer, began to howl and cry for his lost human sister, that he also never got the chance to know.  In that moment, all three of us used the nursery to connect to the family member that was so wanted, but so missed. 

Now, two and half months later I go into her room.  I call it her room.  I sometimes sit in the rocking chair my parents gave me, that my mother got as a gift from my father when I was born, and look out the window and envision what it would have been like to hold and rock Nora there.  I sometimes go through her clothes that were so nicely put away and are still there, waiting with aniticipation to be worn.  This is the hardest part for me, looking at the clothes that I bought with loving anticipation that she one day would wear; sadness floods me as I realize this will never be.

She is in her room for now.  She sits atop her dresser in an urn with a teddy bear on it, waiting for the day when Nick and I have the courage to release her ashes into the world and once again say goodbye, in another way, at another time.

I already have plans for her room for the future.  Nick and I have talked about changing it in design or getting rid of her clothes.  But Nora was going to have a little brother or sister some day, and with how frugal my husband is, Nora was going to have to pass down her clothes and share her room with her yet to be sibling.  So, we hold onto her nursery for now.  Eagerly waiting for the day that it can be used, instead of reused, by her future brother or sister.

When answering my therapists question about, "Have you decided what you are going to do with the nursery?" I finally answered in that moment, "I think I will be more ready to attend to it, to change it, to reinvent it, when we get pregnant again."  Amber said that this answer made sense, and she also validated that it's good that we haven't made any rash decisions about it yet.



My husband shared with me, that at times he goes into her room and talks to her.  He stops by and chats with her while I'm downstairs in the living room or away at work.  He uses the room to spend time with her still and grieve for our child that will never be.  I'm not ready to take that away from him yet. I'm not ready to take that away from me yet.

By the end of the year, no matter if we are pregnant or not, I plan on 'changing' her room in some way or another, depending on our situation at the time.  I will take time out to spend time with Nora again, by packing up parts of her, memories we have through her possessions, storing them away in a memory box for us to share with our future children.  This will be a time, where I once again slowly and repeatedly say goodbye to my daughter in a new way, in hopes to close a chapter and start a new beginning.