There's a Baby Missing

"There's a baby missing."
There is, but it is not the one you call yours.
He had soft brown hair that curled in tufts of fuzz around his ears,
and pretty blue eyes like his father.
He laughed at being raised in the air,
and had a ready smile even for strangers.
Don't you remember that he shared it with you?
You seem to all have forgotten.
You never mention his name,
like the pain is not worth the memory
of one little boy.
I see my son in the babies,
the should have been Perry
and the horror of just his corpse.
But I have to smile,
pretend it is all ok.
The camera flashes.

And I will never be the same.

Pictures

I think a lot about pictures today. Perhaps it is because I picked out images to go on Perry's card and to give to his stone artist. It hit me really hard because as I was thinking how I should have sent out a birth announcement or a one year birthday invitation with his picture on it (rather than a memorial cars with a safe sleep message), I rounded the corner at a highschool our engine company was visiting, there was a very long line of baby pictures for all the graduating seniors.

The theme of this week for me seems to regret for all the things he will not do, the graduations, road trips, and wedding that he will never have. The senior photos, the upcoming wedding of my SIL, and a trip in a small plane for the first time without him.

So I will cry today and then paint on a happy face. Because everyone wants to be happy and sadness has no place in our society. You hide it, avoid it, and cover it up (with pills if necessary). But unfortunately that's not for me. That doesn't allow me to face it. Before you can get to your new normal you have to fully experience and understand your loss. You have to get familiar with it so it can finally blend into the background of your life instead of sitting in the center glaring as you try to pretend it is not there. Hiding it will just allow it to pop up later, the pain to breed and multiply under the skin until it works towards the surface.

The problem is facing grief in a society that pretends it doesn't exist is a difficult proposition. To an extent you are forced to compartmentalize yourself, but it doesn't always work well. Everyone always tells you if you are 'yourself' everywhere then that is the best policy, but the reality is that we almost all have multiple roles. How many working parents act like work is the most important thing on the job, but family is when they are off? Whether or not this can ever really work is questionable. Something has to give at times... and that's when you figure out what is really important as it reflects in your decisions. You will always begin to excel in one area and neglect the other with this extreme split. Grief is sort of like that, at times you have to make a choice about how to be honest with others even when they would rather you pretend. So I try to cheat a little. Hidden babysocks in pockets at work or pictures on a bracelet. And I try not to pretend too much, but I do not necessarily volunteer my thoughts. But if I were honest there are times I paste on a smile or my laughter is hollow, I make the decision to pay for it later rather than make someone else uncomfortable.

In general I tend to think that when I can fully face things as they happen in my mind, I am better off. This delay of emotions just make it feel like there are two seperate painful events rather than just the initial moment something hits me.

But it is just not a choice you can always make and stay employed, or keep friends, or prevent family members from being alienated. Because a lot of people really just do not get it. But when you pretend sometimes you feel like you have lost those people anyway because it is no longer an honest relationship. I think that is why so many people who lose children shift to new friends or drift from family for a time.

You just get tired of lying.

5 Months

Almost 5 months you have been gone
about as long as you lived
I want to blame
or know why
but nothing will bring you back.
People begin to say nothing
perhaps they think I should be over you
or the awkwardness is too much.
I find it harder this week than in the past month,
your loss seems raw today-
perhaps I know that you are gone
no platitudes can fix that.
Only faith gives me hope,
but it is so bitter to find you in faith
instead of my arms.
You were my son,
the one who smiled
when others around you
cried in self pity.
You were the only good change
in years of stagnation and disappointment,
you showed me a bright present and future.
All that has changed now.
All the silly things that seemed important are back in line,
but my bright star has burned out.
The room is even darker than before
now that I know what should be.

Ohana

One of the movies that I had never watched is, of all things, an animated Disney movie. Yes, stunning I know, as it seems to be the duty of every Mother of a small child to learn the titles and characters by heart so you can fully enter the world of your child.

It was a movie that came and went rather quietly, and in some ways I felt like I have not seen this particular movie before because we needed it now.

So what is this movie? Lilo and Stitch. Silly perhaps to find any sort of deep meaning in a cartoon, but there it is. When searching for movies to watch for a couple nights Mom and Dad were totally exhausted, I came upon this movie in the lending library on vacation and Emily instantly became excited (it is one of the stories in her big red Disney book).

It's about a little mutant monster who escapes to earth and lands in Hawaii. He finds a home with two Sisters who have lost parents in a car accident.

The younger Sister argues against returning Stich because he is now "Ohana" or family. A simple concept right? Not so simple.

Lilo explains "'Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten."

A Western critic raved that Ohana was great because the family came to include Stitch, David, an X CIA agent, and a mad scientist after beginning with just two girls. But he missed a big part. In the end credits, the photo of Lilo with her complete family was actually her Mom, Dad, Sister, Herself, and Stich taped in.

The Western critic didn't get that the family ALWAYS included their Mom and Dad.

What a wonderful concept- that family is never forgotten.

Ohana. Why should we love them any less?