Pre-birthday jitters

My still born's birth day is in 2 days. I think about it a lot;or more to the point, the fact pops into my head a lot. Then it gets quickly rerouted under a pile of other avoided thoughts in my mind. Certainly this sorting isn't conscious, but it's real. My infant death daughter, Claire, with her shimmery copper hair, had her own birth day just two months ago and I did the same thing leading up to it. I have been doing the same procrastinating and avoiding each and every passing birthday - combined now there have been 9 (well, will be in two days). So I think 9 times over this behavior can be considered a pattern!
My heart feels the reality and the love and the loss but my mind doesn't want to linger there for long. No answers yet, just an observation.
One day, hopefully soon, I will write about Claire's special 4th birthday. It was a powerful one that I am still recovering from. This birthday particularly struck my daughter this year. And for Jackson's 5th year birth day service? I've decided to veer from our "normal" service and do something less monetary but nonetheless vital: write. I've decided that I will write a piece about his life/birth/impact/etc. I AVOID it like I do the planning of these babies birthdays, even while it hurts me to do so. I never feel completely at peace if I'm not writing about it in some fashion.
While I still don't understand the losses or my life in any sense, really, one tiny solid gem I do have is this: that the stories must be written. Jackson told me there was a mission for me and my husband in his death. So here's to discovering it, to living it. This year I am giving service to myself. (Sad that I really do need it this year. But that's okay, right? We all need some servicing now and then.) I am going to sit with that side of me that avoids the pain and the plans and the memories and I am going to allow her to come to the top of the pile. Then I am going to write about it. Somehow I know that this would greatly please my son.

Cradles at the Graves

     I'm going to AZ soon. One must do on the trip is a visit to the graveyard. Urgency compels me to check in and make sure it's safe and intact (it's a private graveyard in the high desert). But I dread the visit secretly. I haven't told even my husband (have I? hmmm...can't recall) how going there makes me feel helpless. And I HATE feeling helpless in regards to my babies! As other parents know, not getting to save your child's life is undermining enough. I hate going to the grave and wanting to make it better while physically unable to do much. I want a tree, or two or three growing there. Mesquites grow naturally. We might prune a few into trees and with just the magic of the sheers and time receive a beautiful shade source. But the Haught family has some powerful aversion to mesquites and my husband forbids it. My mom and step dad planted a Palo Verde once, to commemorate a birthday. It was gone when I came back a few months later. Apparently the Haught aversion extends to Palo Verdes as well. Desert Landscaping doesn't translate well into Peaceful Haloed Gravesides. So I feel helpless and maybe just a tad resentful of this hand tying!
     Nature itself seems to push down my high imaginations for my family's gravesides.
One thing thrives in the graveyard - red ants! They love Jackson's grave. Each visit we faithfully eradicate the ant hills and each time in between the visits the bustling ants build another home.
Still, I would not trade my helpless frustrations for a public graveyard. In AZ so many cemeteries require only silk flowers - NOT my ideal gift of love to my babies. In Coupeville, Washington, where I currently live, the town cemetery forbids silk flowers! I just discovered that gem this weekend while on a rambling drive by the seaside cemetery. That's one thing about the small town I really love! Maybe I aught to empowering myself with my graveyard and only allow real flowers to be placed there!

A gift I recently was regifted... Just found this!

Kelly,
Christmas is around corner and I just wanted to let you know that you and your family are in my thoughts.
I am being a secret santa to one of my best friend who became a single mother of 2 young girls last year.

Instead of buying gifts to each other or to our family, we decided to send cash to her in memories of Jackson and Clair.

She won't know who it came from, but she'll know that she's rememberd and loved, and that someone wanted to be extra nice to her because of 2 angels I know.

I think of you and your babies a lot, and i hope you and your family will feel their presense close always, especially this Christmas season.

Love,
XXXX

Christmas Remembrances & New Years Reflections

 

     An abrupt, tender surprise during our Christmas tree decorating: Ornaments with Claire and Jackson's photos, made as gifts in past years to help us get through the holiday without them. A sweet, sad surprise. What a great gift! Highly recommend them.

     Trey holding the ornament depicting his older brother, without whose death Trey would not have been born, brought happy feelings. Trey has been my light, my joy, the energy pushing my life forward. If I didn't have him to hang the ornament, it may look more dismal and less glittery. I'm so blessed that I have been able to bear children after losing them. It's not a gift that I ever take for granted. Just yesterday I was out running up a windy path overlooking the ocean and I had to pause in gratitude. I was thankful - I am thankful I'm alive and happy enough to take in such scenes:

 

I think of my body growing 6 intricate little beings, conceiving 8, being cut open 3 different times to deliver them; it's amazing that I can run! It's a testament to the power of the human body to heal and regenerate, and to the human spirit to heal and deepen. My life is deeper in love because of my babies dying. I hold parenting in highest respect - even here in Washington where many people look down at stay at home moms. (Yes, I am in Washington now! That's another post in itself.)  I admire families that have buried little ones. I feel so much love for them! I feel like you are my own family. Your kids are with my kids. Your trials take similar outlines as mine.

Now I'm rambling. So here is a very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! I love the baby loss community. I don't blog often, but there isn't a day that I don't think of the kids - both my own and others'.