Let it Be

I sat on the couch tonight with three babies in my lap. One asleep and the two older ones jockeying for position. The house is lit up in a weird festive display of taco lights as we prepare to celebrate Baby K's second birthday. The glow and warmth they provide are everything Christmas is made of and I almost forget what they are until I catch a glimpse of the pile of plastic cheese out of the corner of my eye. There we sat in our Mexican glow, Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving Special entrancing the kids, the whole house filling up with the smell of apple and peach pies, constantly reminding of the holiday that awaits us tomorrow. But I didn't cry.

I thought back to the Thanksgiving four years ago. The tall, articulate five year old now sprawled across my lap was just barely one. Today, just like that day, she sported fine curls and new Christmas pjs. Her eyes followed Charlie Brown and her shoulders swayed to the characters' songs. I can see that whole night so clearly in my head. That last night of normalcy. That last night before heartbreak. I remembered every conversation, smell, and taste from that night and my thoughts skipped ahead to the next day. But I didn't cry.

Friends have reached out this week with kind words and thinking of yous, their love never ending. My heart swelled with their generosity but my hands didn't shake. I heard Joe Biden speak on grief and nodded my head in agreement at the truth in his words. I didn't internally argue back that he doesn't know my grief. I showed B the slideshow from Momma's funeral again, pausing to explain whose baby picture is whose, laughing when she talked about Uncle Albert's head being lopsided and agreeing that Papa is so much better without the mustache. But I didn't cry.

In fact, I don't think I have cried at all this week. There has been no holding my breath or marveling at the fact that I am now the master of ceremonies. It has all seemed rather status quo, full of turkey crafts and pumpkin baking and kids hyped up and off schedule. There has been the usual longing - when I stare at her grandbabies that she will never meet. When I tell the car to call an old friend and instead her name pops up as the option. When I see my friends excited to head home to full houses for the holidays. The longing persists. But there are no tears.

Maybe it is the time passing. Or the insurmountable to do list of having three leaving room for little else. Geez, maybe it is the post baby Zoloft mellowing me out. It feels, though, like a corner turned. That the sheer weight of grief has lifted and no longer are my shoulders slumped in sadness.

The grief that has defined me for four years seems to be taking second place to other aspects of my life. To motherhood and marriage. To a desire to return to the girl I was. The one who laughed easily and enjoyed life to it's fullest. And so I don't cry.

I don't feel like I wear my grief on my chest anymore. It no longer enters a room before I do, announcing the sad little motherless daughter in it's wake. It still exists, of course, omnipresent in every moment, announcing itself in subtle ways and when I least expect it. Suddenly, though, it doesn't feel like it defines me.

Or, maybe I don't want it to define me anymore. Maybe I am ready to let it go. Not let her go, of course. No, she is intertwined in my every memory, feeling like every bit a part of me as my own children do. But maybe I am just ready to let the active, gnashing of the teeth, desperate grief go.

I know what came of this Thanksgiving four years ago. I have relived it over and over and thought if only that one day didn't happen. But it did, and from it sprung unexpected and crippling heartache and a loss that will never be filled. Those things have been so clear to me since the day we said good bye.

Now, though, I also know that a stronger family arose from those ashes. That my idea of motherhood was altered permanently and for the better, giving me more patience and love for the chaos around me. My faith grew as I watched my sweet daddy repeat "God is good. No matter what." next to his sweetheart's deathbed and every day for the four years following. Old friendships were renewed and new ones strengthened as those around me sustained us during the longest nights.

And so I don't cry. Not every day anymore. Though I think of her every hour and see her in almost everything I do, I don't cry. I head into Thanksgiving with a heart brimming over with love for the years I had her. I say thanks, too, for the four years since, that have shaped me probably more than any in my entire life. And I smile.

A love letter to my son

My darling Will, my sweet little buddy,

A few days from now, with you in some sort of themed smock that your daddy will roll his eyes at and with your sisters jumping all around you, we will lay you down on your monthly blanket and mark that you have been here for three months. Three months - or 13 weeks + 1 day because baby age math is weird - you joined our family. Right on time but almost a whole pound smaller than your sisters, there you were - our dark haired, bright eyed boy. The baby we had all prayed for ... but, as she will remind us all in perpetuum, that your big sister B had prayed for first. 

I wasn't afraid gearing up to your arrival. Your pregnancy had been healthier and easier than both your sisters'. As a family, we had done the traumatic birth. The stint in the NICU. The transition for our first babies to get a new baby. The postpartum depression. We had conquered it all and come out with full hearts and an overflowing home. I felt prepared and excited. I was ready for new baby smell and close snuggles and those long hours in the middle of the night, just you and me, rocking, nursing, softly singing lullabies, getting to know one another now that we were not physically bound to one another.

Then you arrived and, in every way, you were perfect. A masculine version of your sisters at birth, I cried huge, happy tears the first time they placed you on my chest. Sure, you were actively peeing on my chest every chance you got, but you also immediately nestled into my neck, knowing instinctively that you were home.

So we began, on cloud nine with you. You rarely made a peep those first few weeks save for a faint coo here and there. Our friends called you a dream and we all made too many bad jokes about the juxtaposition of your sweet, angelic face sound asleep with your sisters in the background, typically on a trampoline or playing some sort of instrument they had clearly been given by someone without kids. Somehow my songs to you became "Danny Boy" and "Oh, Shenandoah," and the opening verses would quickly see your already heavy eyes grow heavier, and your body would fall peacefully limp in my arms.

Of course, during those first few weeks, we had the usual challenges of three. B crying because she didn't want to leave you. K not sure what her new role was as big sister but still a baby in need of much attention and affection. The dogs flabbergasted that there was yet another little one added to our zoo. It was all manageable chaos, though. Happy, wonderful, manageable chaos.

Then the crying started. The non stop, soul wrenching, painful crying. The kind of crying that made strangers wince in empathy and ask me if you were okay. The kind of crying that invited everyone and their mother to instantly give me advice.

It is colic. You will be walking the halls for the next six months. It's not colic, that's not a real thing.

Go dairy free. Try gluten free. Have you cut out meat? Soy? Oranges? 

You are dehydrated. You are drinking too much water. 

Switch to formula. He will be fine. 

Try this bottle. No, try this bottle. 

Feed on demand. Feed on schedule. 

Everyone had advice to give and anecdotes about the magic trick for instant health, but the crying continued. And walk the halls we did. In between doctor's appointments and lactation consultants, we walked the halls. I carried you in whatever position would stop your pitiful sobs, knowing it would only work for a few minutes and then I'd be searching for a new one. I cut a trail through our downstairs, stepping over crayons and dolls I had let your sisters throw everywhere because all my energy was hyper-focused on you and the crying. Sonny Girl always walked dutifully behind, her old girl legs keeping up no matter the time of day. Sometimes, I walked with K on my other hip, my hot tears falling on both your heads from the pure exhaustion and overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Sometimes I tiptoed, fearfully of waking the whole house up as we paced at 2, 3, or 4 in the morning.

Then I'd finally get you to sleep and lay you in your crib, and the prayers would pour out of me. Lord, tell me what to do. Lord, help me help him. Please help him to wake rested and feeling better. Please help me not to fail him. 

Because that is what it felt like, my darling boy. Like I was failing you. Because suddenly something that had seemed so natural for your sisters - the one motherhood area where I never felt like I fell short - was failing you. I couldn't feed you. I was making you sick. And we talked to the doctors and the consultants and they all agreed formula would be worse for you and to just keep trying. But trying only to see you scream in pain felt like failure. Even though you were gaining weight and everyone said it must just be a phase, it all felt like failure.

Every instinct in my body tells me to love and protect you. To wrap you and your sisters in a cocoon in the small section of the world where we live and keep you safe and happy for as long as I can. Yet suddenly, I was the one introducing the danger.

And like clockwork, the postpartum depression reared its ugly head. On a beautiful October day in Georgia, it waltzed right in, ready to regain control. Maybe it was the sleep exhaustion and worry. Maybe it was the family history or my personal postpartum history. Maybe it was me still grieving your grandmother, or the stress of three, or a million other things - but it was back. And it all ended with a sobbing call to your daddy in the middle of the day that something is wrong with me. 

Immediately, our tribe rallied. They brought meals, organized play dates, texted, called, and loved on all five of us. And they prayed. Oh, how they prayed for you and for me.

Slowly, oh so slowly, we both started to find our way out. With the help of amazing professionals for both of us and great meds for me (no shame in better living through science), we both grew healthier.  Your cry - that kick in the gut, send shivers down your spine cry - has been replaced with a wide smile. Your thrashing in pain is now an excited movement when you hear your sisters' voices or see your daddy when he arrives home from work. The pain that had turned to numbness for me has since turned again, to an amazing joy at seeing you thrive and blossom.

Yes, we are still both in the thick of it. We still have our long days and longer nights and there are moments where I catch a glimpse of those early weeks of confusion and heartache. But together, we are pulling out of it.

As we approach your three months milestone, I have hope. Hope for the happy days ahead and the love you have already brought to us continuing to multiply tenfold. Hope that you will find a family of friends like ours one day that will rally around you in your darkest moments, not asking "why" but just simply "how can I help?" Hope that the lightness in your days will continue to be outnumbered by the dark.

Your smile, my little buddy, is everything to me right now. So large, it encompasses both of your giant cheeks and eclipses the rest of your face. It was fought for, that smile. By you and by me and by everyone that loves us. It is a trophy to mark the end of three hard months and the start of a new chapter in our story. It is a smile I wouldn't trade for anything in the entire world and one I will hold close in my heart for the rest of my days. I love you, Buddy. Now, always, and forever.