First, you child dies. You learn about it, you scream in disbelief, you beg, you bargain, plead and holler. It did not change the reality. And then you feel there is nothing more to say, you have been silenced.

I remember how I wished to shake every person I met by their shoulders, to tell them about Ferdinand. I needed people to acknowledge his existence, I needed my tragedy seen and nodded at, faces of pity.

And then the well-intentioned but poorly executed remarks came, and then I realize I need to go scream someplace else. Otherwise I am deemed unwise, silly, incapable of moving on and too overly egoistic to think that life ought to go the way I wish it to be.

So I came here and I wrote. Mostly in screams, with clenched teeth and shaking fists.Grabbing dirt by the fistfuls and rubbing them them into my hair. Throwing myself in the dust and refusing to budge.

It helped so much, to be able to expend that pent up energy that is at once love, anger, missing, resignation, devastation, defiance and sorrow. I am forever grateful for the sympathetic listening ears and compassion I have found here.

And then, I moved on, as people said I ought to. Life inched back to some semblance of a norm again and then I embarked upon a journey of being randomly tossed about in the sea of grief. Sometimes it was high waters of bitter grief and isolation, sometimes it felt like floating upon gentle waves that gently lull.

As I inch out, day by day, away from that fateful moment of four years ago, my screams became less frequent, and I became less vocal. I  felt less the urge to inject into my answers that I not only had three living daughters but also one son who is not earth-side. I began to think, What is the point? It is never going to change a thing. I may just hear something stupid again or make people feel awkward. It will not bring him back to life, and it does not ameliorate my hurt and grief. This horrible gap between Sophia and Lyra will never be filled. This ache will never cease. People must get so sick of hearing the same old thing again. This grief and recurring feel of horror is not welcomed like the first hint of green in spring. I do not wish to feel that sense of dread when I talk to people.

And so, I walked on. Quieter and at times not even making the effort to part my lips to speak. It does not reflect the ebb of grief, but rather its internalization. First it was something that happened to me, now it is me. At least, a part of me. When I open my eyes in the morning he is there; when I toss about in my sleep, he is there. He is deep within, never here, never gone.

I still miss him deeply, but now it is a silent scream within.

++

Today four years ago was the day we found out he was dead. This post is inspired by Jess‘s wonderful post over at Glow in the Woods.

you have always been here but invisible. It was with Ferdinand’s death that you and your worlds became visible to me. I realized that every day, mothers’ hearts are broken, bent over their babies they will not get to see grow up. Though we may never meet, you have made life after so much more bearable, even beautiful. You are not just company, but also comfort and inspiration. Once again, I thank you.

I need your help here. I have been contacted by a mother whose daughter will only get to keep one of her twins. I know some of you know this story well, and I understand how going back to the beginning of the story once again must hurt. So I appreciate any way you can help. M will have two grand-children, both names starting with L. One is a boy and one will be a girl. Baby girl L may not get to breathe life outside her mother’s womb, while baby boy L is looking healthy. M is wondering about the announcements and how to go about it. I am also wondering about any support sites or groups out there for their circumstances.

Your ideas, suggestions and experiences are going to be most useful and deeply appreciated.

Much love and gratitude,

Janis

It had been most insane and and we are not arriving at sane any time soon.

Often, of course, we troop out and people look us over, size us up, and help us count our children and ascertain their gender, and then inform us, “You have three girls!” Every morning I look and I count, and yes, I have three girls. And a boy, Ferdinand.

We just nod and smile and say nothing. They like to tell us they have three too, but all boys, or that they have one more- four girls! We nod and smile some more.

Last Saturday we have a very nice, retired couple come into our temporary apartment. They had been sent on an assignment to put together the girls’ bunk bed. Somehow our movers did not pack the hardware, they were nowhere to be found, so the company sent out this couple, who specialize in things like that (and also repairing anything that movers had damaged, and they showed us their photo album– they truly can repair anything. However, I was less impressed with what they could do, than with what could happen. For me, that album was a book of miracles and horrors). They looked over the parts, went out and found some hardware, and made some parts themselves, and put the girls’ bed together. They also asked if we would like to try for a boy, “Wouldn’t you want to have a boy?”

R and I looked at each other, and then he smiled weakly and said, “Oh, we are all done.”  There was awkwardness in that room. Maybe they wished they had not asked, and we wished hey hadn’t asked, and I was on the verge of telling them that we do have a son, but he is not alive. I did not because hey were stacking the beds then and I was afraid everything will topple and fall.

::

We have been looking for a house that we can call home. It had not been easy finding something we like. Either too old requiring too much work, too small, too compartmentalized, or the kitchen was a joke. But in any case, we will need our house in AZ to sell first, so we are keeping fingers very crossed that it goes fast.

Still we are looking, to get an idea of the market, and it had been helpful understanding the houses here. So many different issues we have to consider, and we realize there will also be more work maintaining a house here than back in Phoenix, due to climate differences.

Yesterday we went to an open house. The neighborhood was great and beautiful. The house was old, but we liked the good-sized rooms and the screened porch and the yard was decent and green. R had some concerns with regard the heating/cooling elements and while the realtor answered our questions she told us the seller was “very motivated” (meaning, she had lowered the price by 40 thousand, and will even do so further, as she wanted the house off her hands). But I think she also did not want us to think it was because the house had major problems so she offered, “Her husband passed away, and this is a lot of house for her. She is anxious to sell it.”

The house has been on the market for four months.

I have no idea how long they lived in the house, but from the looks of it, it was a long time. I don’t know how he died, but I could viscerally feel how the past months had been for her. I still freshly remember packing up the cabin, putting away Ferdinand’s things and my heart is still broken. As we walked back out to our car, I felt tears rising, and as I stood and waited for R to scoop out the front and back yard, I looked up at the sky and see the green tree tops and I wondered if I was wanting to cry for myself or for the female owner of the house.

It was a lovely, old house. Walking through and seeing everything you can sense a lot of happy memories in there and all the work that had been done there. There was a library lined with books. And a lot of baby/toddler stuff, which must have been the grandchildren, and I imagine the male owner being missed by so many people. I selfishly thought of myself too, what if one day I am on my own, it will totally break me to have to deal with everything and then have the house cleaned and beautifully decorated, so strangers can come walk through and peek into bits of our private lives, and maybe, buy it from me. What will I be selling then? Memories, or parts of a heart?

Life is so crazy in that way. How happy memories can turn bittersweet with a change of events. We have, in order to lose. The very same thing that brought you joy can and will bring you sorrow too.

::

In two months, it will be Ferdinand’s birthday, and once again we will remember it and celebrate without his presence, his absence every poignant, our hearts ever aching.

But this will be the first time I am getting through that day without friends by my side. We will have just moved to a new state, a new city, with much to learn and adapt to, and I do wonder how and if all that stress and distractions will affect my grief on that particular day. I wonder if that day will be different being far away from the place when it all happened, where my life changed forever.

Packing up at the cabin a few days was tough. We are selling the cabin. This is the place where I had spent some of the best days of my life, and also some of my worst. We spent many days and moments there anticipating Ferdinand’s birth. I had my Blessingway at the cabin, and R drove the birthing pool in the midst of a drizzle, winding along the mountain roads, so I could have my dream water birth. Yet right there, at our much-loved cabin, we did not find his heartbeat. In that cabin I had bawled loudly and cried my heart out. I had clawed at the carpet and walked circles around the gliding chair that we had hunted down and brought up to the cabin, imagining the amount of time I will spend there, nursing my sweet baby son. I had filled drawers with baby clothes and then I had emptied those same items with a bleeding heart, clenched teeth, aching empty arms and a tearful face. I hid there, away from people, and I listened numbly to the flow of the river, the birds’ calls, and wondered if I will ever come to life again. Boxing up the last of our possessions there, I cried. Memories came flooding back and I remembered that shock and hurt all over again, every second of the fateful event playing out in my head: loud, defined and clear.

In my heart I whispered, “Don’t worry, Ferdinand, I am taking you with us.”

But that may just be silly. For, so often during my mundane days when my thoughts turn to my son, and I plead to myself, “I so wish he is here. How I wish to have my son and watch him grow.” And almost as often I hear a voice in my head, firm and loving, the voice of my son saying, “You do not need me to be happy, mama. You are OK, you can be happy.”

And that always makes me cry, my back turned to the world, rinsing out the dishes.

As I walk further out on my grief journey, I sometimes feel stronger. The urge to grab strangers by their shoulders and hiss to them that my son had died has diminished. I talk less about him, and I write less. But I do not love less, miss less or grieve less.

Just different.

I have found ways to cope, and yes, I did moved on.  I can’t really spell out the details, which I sometimes wish I could, or to pen a manual of grief and healing, or to formulate a salve that will soothe all aching mothers’ hearts. Somehow, as the days wear on, I find my strengths and I plodded on. I admit to myself that even as I keep rubbing dust in my hair, and walk around like a living zombie, it just will not change the reality of it all. I allow myself to grieve and I know that there will be sudden rough moments, and I just acknowledge that of the many roles and identities I will assume in my life, one of them is that of a bereaved mother. And I try to use my experience as a bereaved mother to support people who seek others who can understand. I am honored to have walked with and sat with others on their grief journey, and every step of the way, Ferdinand was with me, throwing my heart wide open, shining brightly, healing.

And I know there will always be moments that just lashes at my knees, causing me to keel and break apart. Lately it is the episodes of “Charlie and Lola” that Lyra so enjoy watching. And each time I see her grin or chuckle over the story of Charlie and Lola, my heart breaks a little. I keep thinking the story of Charlie and Lola could well have been the story of Ferdinand and Lyra. I always imagine Ferdinand’s voice when he opens the episode introducing his little sister who is very small and cute. I really wish Lyra has a big brother who just adores her. She is truly adorable and she heals my heart. It is not her obligation, but by being just who she is, she soothes my aching heart. So often she brings me to tears, and I still have not talked to her about Ferdinand yet. I do not really know how, but I do not worry about it, because I know the day will come when I know it, and the words will flow, as will the tears.

Sometimes I wish I will stop with the could-have-been, but sometimes I really just cannot help it.

Some things just will never change: Ferdinand’s stillbirth. Waves crashing on shores. His absence. The moon waxing and waning. People who simply will not understand and acknowledge. Rain. People who refuse to look our way of the bereaved circle. Blossoms. The discomfort over talking about death, especially that of a baby. Falling leaves.

Some things change. I walked on. My son walked along with me. I moved on because it was the only way. My heart will always have a hole, and the cast of grief’s shadow. I got stronger and I live my life different.

But oh, my heart as a bereaved mother, many years out it will be the same. Beautifully scarred. My life, ever perfectly imperfect.

I remember I started, not having that thought cross my mind yet. And then I had conflicted feelings. I wanted to go. I wanted to run far far away so people I know will never ever see my face of grief. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and the reality of what had happened. But I also needed friends. And I know the girls will need their friends. Moreover, I did not have the energy to deal with a move.

Now, we are moving. Two years (and a bit more) after deciding that we would like a change of location, our wish finally came true. And in a timely manner, for R would have to take a drastic pay cut very soon if he stayed with his job. So, I am full of gratefulness of the timing of it all. We are moving way across the country and further north, to upstate New York.

So many changes await us.

Instead of a long summer, we will have to endure a long winter. Different roads, different micro-culture, different lingo. Living without Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Cost.co. We cannot take our friends along with us. The environment is different, and the girls may just try school out for size.

There will be a period of adjustment, and some months living in limbo while getting acquainted with the new place.

I will need to help the girls find new friends, and establish my own community. I will need to seek out and introduce myself to mom groups, sniff out like-minded people and hunt down the places that will fulfil our needs for books and food. Hiking options need to be mapped out, and I am going to start preparing for winter once we settle in.

This will be the first year I am honoring Ferdinand’s anniversary without friends around me.

I have never really called upon my friends, or leaned too heavily upon them, when July 29 rolls around. But there is a difference, knowing they are close by. I wonder how it will be this year. For the past years, the hot summer months preceding Ferdinand’s birthday always suffocated me, and the heat felt like grief is being oppressive and strangling me. Will the cooler summer in New York change how July feels for me? I don’t know. I am still without my son, that’s all.

It’s been all shades of crazy around here, preparing for the move, and so many mixed feelings. One of them is regret. I see how the girls say begin to say goodbye to their friends, and how they reluctantly leave the park and I wish they had been afforded more time with their friends. I took so long to come out of my shell after Ferdinand died. Should I have been braver and less selfish, they would have had more time with their friends. I realize also how I wish I have had more time to get to know some people whom I really like, but again, it was a very long time before the new normal began for me. And even when I attempted to be “normal” again, something in me always held me back. The shadow of grief in my heart kept me close to the comfort and safety of home. In some sense I never really came out of my cave.

I know moving to a new place will force me to put myself out there, and maybe that’s why I pushed so hard for a move. I just wish we could have moved away without regrets.

May 1 is International Babylost Mother’s Day.

You are a beautiful mother, always, forever more, even if your baby is not with you.

Thank you for walking along, sharing your love, allowing me to lean on, lending your support. Your kind words, your gestures, all means the world to me. Please know that.

This is my flower to you, in love and remembrance.

Read more about International Babylost Mother’s Day on the amazing Carly’s website.

guess what I pulled out from under the bed just now?

A box. Filled with lovely, cute, and handsome clothes you never got to wear.

I have never forgotten about the box, every night aware of its weight sitting on the carpet under the bed when I crawl into bed to snuggle with Lyra. I have never forgotten how I made my way through the stores, looking at boy’s clothes (a new territory to me) and smiled and imagined you wearing the clothes, running, shouting, waving your arm, slinging mud.

Seeing these clothes again filled me with a sore longing for you, my boy. And I had a much-needed cry.

How I miss you.

Your father and I decided we will hang on to the box. Maybe some day one of your sisters will use them on their children, if they have a son. With this world, with life, you just never know.

I still hold hope we meet again.

Till then, know that I love you, and miss you.

Love,

mama

I almost wept. In my heart I just repeated Thank you thank you thank you! Thank you for remembering little Ferdinand!

But at the same time a seed of dread was beginning to sprout in my heart. And rapidly its tendrils grew and entwined and gripped and strangled.

I descended into our digital photo archives and scrolled to the dreaded year, then the awful month, and then the most unforgettable, horrible day(s) of our lives. Life spun backwards, screeching at high speed while I clicked and scrolled, my eyes darting here and there, trying not to see the pain and agony, futilely fending off the sad memories, balling up and trying to roll away from the hurt and shock. But I not only saw those images again. I felt them viscerally. It was like digging into my own raw flesh with nails encrusted with raw, diamond-edged salt.

I found the picture, the touched up one. I sent it off.

But not the memories, not the pain, not the grief. Those stayed. And I sobbed.

Bitterly.

How funny that I recently again came across W.H. Auden’s poem, “Funeral Blues.” I could never write like that, but I know I wished like that after Ferdinand died. I wanted the world to crumble, for the sky to fall and for laughter to be wiped out forever. Eternal darkness, and floods of tears to never subside.

Some days life feels like the crisp, clear, cheery morning after an evening of raging storm. Raindrops quiver on leaves, birds tweet and butterflies flit.

People like to keep pointing to the rainbow that manifests after a storm. I like to remind them that it came after an ugly, formidable storm. I appreciate and cherish the rainbow, I just never forgot the storm.

::

“Funeral Blues” (Song IX/ from “Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

~ Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973)

It is not that my life is not sweet. There are many genuine sweet moments. I just feel it is a shiny, happy carefree woman who has a doting husband and four healthy children, a big bright clean kitchen and a size 4 jeans who gets to name her blog “My Sweet Life.” But when I was setting up the blog I did not have any clever title in my head, and I did not want to wait for a clever title to come along (it may never ever) so I just did it. Strangely that was the title that popped up, I guess because the first few recipes I already had in mind were the sweet stuff.

I had written in one of  my posts there that life cannot be all sweetness, just like our palette tastes not just sweet, but also sour, bitter, salty and spicy.

Some moments of my life are beyond sweet. Others are bittersweet. I know you know what I mean.

The past couple of weeks my heart had been heavy thinking of R’s cousin, N.  N is a very, very sweet lady. When I visited Germany and R’s family for the first time she made an effort to make me feel at home. I could not speak German and so she spoke English with me, even if she had to stop often and think of a word. I know if we had moved to Germany we probably would have gotten along very well and maybe even be good friends. I do not know for sure but that was and is how I feel. After Ferdinand died, she sent a card, several months after. She was the only person on the German side who sent anything. I knew she had given much thought about what to write, and I so appreciate her having taken the effort.

Now, I may need to write her a card, but I am not absolutely sure how I will choose my words.N became a mother three years ago, to a boy born with a cleft palete. That was amended with surgery. Then she fell pregnant with twins. But soon they found out one of the twins had a severe heart condition and will need surgery soon after birth. N had to go on bedrest the last weeks of her pregnancy for various reasons. She had a C-section, and the baby with the heart condition died after birth. The doctors thought maybe the baby had down’s as well. The other baby seems to be doing well but she needed to stay longer at the hospital as she was not recovering well physically.

When R first broke the news my heart just broke for her. Totally broke. Why does her pregnancies have to be so hard? I thought about the things she is going to hear: at least one baby is still alive. You should feel grateful to at least have one baby. It must be for the best. You must be strong for your boys. You need to move on. He would not have lived long with that condition anyway. There must be a good reason for this.

I thought of how N must feel, laying on the hospital bed, her world fallen apart, her heart breaking. I thought of the other mothers I know, who have lost a twin, or babies soon after birth. I thought of all the grieving mothers and waves upon waves of sorrow just washed over me. In aching for them, I was crying for my own heart.

Right now we can only wait till we hear something from N, for they had not sent out any word yet, made no announcements. No cards, no letters. Just waiting. But in my heart and in my mind I had sent flowers and hugs many times over, and fended off all insensitive words she may have had to hear.

Her twins, and mine- if they had not left- could have been born days within each other.

This other mom, from Val’s martial arts school, had her baby safely, about the same time. Tiny baby. But cute and healthy. Born about the same time as the twins.

That mother will never know my story, or that of N’s. But maybe we don’t know hers either.

Another thing. I noticed many of you have slowed down writing too, especially those who do not stand too far from me on the time-line of grief. I hope this means we are spiraling out and some healing is going on. But maybe it just means we simply have to dust off the shit and get on, even if the wound is still gaping. I know in the past weeks I have experienced several times intense re-visiting of my grief, when I felt the clouds, dark and heavy, standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking out the light, and I did not feel I could breathe. I still sense deep pain in my heart, and disbelief that this is me, and this is my life. I lunge forward, my fists reaching with clenched determination to punch a hole through the dark cloud wall, and it felt soft.

In fact, this morning I thought: sheesh, I do not miss him less. I am missing him even more.

::

An uncle of mine, uncle A, died last Saturday. It was peaceful, he was at home, surrounded by family. It probably was a release for him, having suffered from severe dementia the last several years and being recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. He underwent a colon surgery and then developed a lung infection and suffered several days for that. Then he was discharged. And then I think he decided enough was enough and his body began to shut down.

He had always been quiet and reserved, a rather shy man. I was never really close to him as he seldom shared much, but he would never say no if approached for help. He had always been nice to me, and he will be greatly missed.

It was hard when he had dementia. He became impossible to reason with and often he seemed to be in a world of his own, or perhaps a resilient bubble that we simply could not break through. Sometimes it was hard to be patient with him. Sometimes we forgot to be kind because we felt tested.

What I’ve been thinking is: do we treat someone nicely only if they can treat us back nicely? For some time, uncle A did not treat anyone nicely, because of his dementia, his condition. But before that, he was just this gentle-mannered man who always had a smile lurking on his face. But sometimes it was hard to remember that somewhat elusive smile, and get frustrated by his unreasonable (and baffling) behavior and… not be nice to him.

His condition was dementia. I think we all have a condition: stress, grief, insufficient support, lack of appreciation, low self-esteem, self-loathe, etc.

And it is not always easy to see that someone is experiencing a condition, and still needs to be treated as nicely as possible. We somehow become our condition in other people’s eyes.

And so, in honor of uncle A, I vow to see past your condition, acknowledge it, and still see who you are, beneath that condition.

::

It is crass, I know, to put it here, but it ties in with the theme of this post.

This year I am trying to find ways to generate an income. I have thought about what I can do, if I still wish to stay home with my children, and especially if we continue to homeschool. I have been away from the work force for ten years. Prior to that, I taught in an art college, worked in an art gallery, free-lanced as (art) translator, and was also a teaching assistant (although at that time they gave me an overblown title of “Visiting Scholar”). I have basically stepped away from the art world the past years. Some things simply did not resonate with me anymore. I don’t think I will ever step back in again. My translation assignments had slowed down (to zilch), but the children are growing and it will be good to have a secondary income.

I have looked at books for small business ideas and none appealed to me, mostly because I do not like to sell things. I have been a salesgirl before in my life and I know it is not something I will excel at.

So, I am trying to maintain a food blog that will hopefully generate income. The good thing is, I will have all my favorite recipes in one place even if the blog does not rocket to star status. (And frankly, I’m a little intimidated by what is already out there.) The bad thing is, I almost feel like I need to sell my soul. I need traffic, period. The more the better. Will you please visit my food blog, and tell people about it? Hopefully people will like it and eventually become not just regulars, but friends. I will try to be civil, but I am not sure I can promise, because I have my conditions sometimes.

Maybe I’ll see you there?–

My Sweet Life