Monday, July 6th
Dear Sebastian,
It’s that time of year, when you are up at the surface of my heart.
A week ago, at book club, someone asked about you. We were discussing Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (my pick, because I love her), a story in which the main character experienced baby loss as a teenager. My friend K asked if it was upsetting for me to read. I’m not sure what I said in the moment, but I appreciated the question. She understood that it’s been a long time, but time does not erase grief.
Being reminded of you, after all these years, does not upset me. The path that I tread in my mind when I think of you is not a raw gash in the land, as it once was. It’s worn smooth by many, many passes, by love and time, enough to walk – gently – even with tender bare feet. It’s edged with tiny flowers and green things. It’s mostly beautiful. Because it’s yours, and you are love.
There is that pond at the end of the path, though, in which I sometimes immerse myself. That’s where you surround me, and I let myself sink deep, to where the real sorrow has settled. And even there, I’m grateful for your existence. Never have I wished to wipe you from my life story, even if I could.
Reading Flight Behavior, I empathized with the main character. I mourned for her, and for every real-life babylost parent who has been instructed and expected to hide their grief. Those parents are legion, and should never have been denied their process of sorrow.
The part of the book that hit me more viscerally, though, was about the historical belief, among certain Mexican peoples, that monarch butterflies are the souls of dead children. Written bluntly, just like that. For a second, I wondered: is that why my breath suspends and my heart squeezes every time I see a monarch? But really, I think maybe most of us feel that way when we catch sight of one. I certainly have, since long before I was a mother. There’s just something mystical about a monarch butterfly.
I have seen many of them this summer, and whatever it means, it does my heart good.
Wednesday, July 8th
Here we are, at the You days. It’s been fifteen years since your sweet little soul made its way to the spirit world, five weeks from your due date.
This year, I’m really grateful I am not teaching this week (as I have been the last two years) or travelling or otherwise distracted. Last year, I couldn’t manage to write anything for you, due to busyness. I couldn’t even really acknowledge how wrong it felt not to have at least a small, sacred moment to reflect.
You’d think that after fifteen years, I would understand the arc of loving sadness that I roll through every summer. But I guess it is a little different each year, and somehow I still don’t always recognize it for what it is.
Today, it’s finally sinking in – how scattered and listless I’ve been feeling since school ended, when (I think) I should be feeling carefree, and/or being madly productive. It’s like my powers of executive functioning have evaporated. Looking back on summers past, I realize that this is typical for me (though usually not this severe) at the start of summer. And no doubt it has something to do with letting my brain and body relax from the constant vigilance of teaching. But the thing is, when I do that… you flood in. And I love you… and I almost never let myself spend time on you.
This year, it’s dawning on me that the melancholy is worse for a reason. During the last week of school, folks at the berry farm (our berry farm) announced that they were already closing the strawberry patch – the berries weren’t good because of all the rain. And on their Facebook page, they explained that they’ve gotten rid of the raspberries altogether. The plants were fighting pests and disease, so they’ve been removed.
Gut-punch feeling. For most people, this is an “Oh, that’s a shame!” scenario, but I’ve just figured out that I’m actually grieving about this. The strawberries did make a comeback for a few days, which was uplifting to hear… but my built-in, peaceful little ritual with you, the one that blended my childhood with your eternal baby-soul, is over. Seems like a such a silly thing to be this sad about… berries.
Thursday, July 9th
It’s your birthday – fifteen years since I held you, for as many hours as I could. It’s been a very warm day, sunny with a little breeze, and cicadas singing.
Your Auntie Beth and Uncle Matt came over last night to give hugs and keep us company, which was lovely. It made me think of how the family showed up right after you were born, comforting in their presence, and undeterred by pain.
After dinner, I put last year’s black raspberries in the fridge to thaw for your birthday, feeling desolate that I have none to put away for your sixteenth next year.
Then, this afternoon, your Auntie Emi showed up unexpectedly. I was immersed in the pond with you at that moment, already sitting in the silt. She handed me a little jar of black raspberries that she had harvested from her own small patch, and I basically burst into tears. She gave us a big hug, and said that she had found places on a nearby trail where there were black raspberries growing wild. Maybe, if they’re not finished, we’ll go get some soon. And maybe your birthday cobbler tonight isn’t the last one.
Monday, July 13th
It’s true! There are lots of raspberries in the woods by the river. Emi and I went today to gather some, and it was so much like those forays into the brambles when we were kids. The berries are harder to find (and get at) than at the berry farm, but the shade and the nearness of the river are soothing. We walked a long way, and it was worth it. I’m thrilled to say that we came home with more than enough for me to put away for your birthday next year. There’s even enough for Emi to keep some – although she was ready to give them all.
I am tired and sweaty and a bit scratched-up, and it’s good. It has always feels right to be a little scratched-up around the You days.
Thursday, August 13th
This Sunday, it will be your wonderful Grammie’s birthday – which was also your original due date.
Our lives would be so different if you had lived. It’s an alternate, contradictory reality I can’t really think about too much. I just live inside the paradox: that even as I love our family exactly as it is, my heart will always yearn for you and the life you would have lived.
It has been a busy summer, and I have nonetheless been thinking of you a lot – along with some other sweet spirits out there with you. Since your birthday last summer, two people very dear to me have joined this terrible, sacred club of babylost mamas. One of them has this past week been commemorating the death and birth, one short but interminable year ago, of her precious twins. The other would have welcomed her long-awaited, desperately-wanted miracle baby this summer.
At this stage, they are both still living each day on the shores of the pond, slipping in and out all the time.
It is so, so unfair. They are two of the most beautiful humans I know, and the lives they would build for their children would be, beyond a doubt, magical. I wish so hard that they could be living their alternate realities right now. I remember how mistrustful and betrayed I felt when you died – and I already had your brother. I know you’re not supposed to compare griefs, but mine would have been much worse without him, and the reassurance he provided, to keep my heart afloat.
For both of these wonderful mamas. next steps are much more complicated than they were for me. How can things turn out right? How are these women supposed to get to the point where they can say “I love my family exactly as it is” after suffering this loss? I don’t know the answer, but that is what I’m holding in my heart for them.
May they have all the time and space they need to be in the pond with their babies – and may love buoy them up every time.
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