Trees and Flowers

Of all the trees to topple, it is the one that shades Solomon's flowers. I have tears in my eyes surverying my backyard after Hurricane Irene. I am thankful we did not lose power. I am thankful we did not flood in our basement. I am thankful my husband and my children and I are safe. I am saddened by the loss of my tree.

Unforeseen

Unforeseen from TH3Productions on Vimeo.

This video was sent to me out of the blue. It is poignant and timely. I hope you enjoy it.

Due Date

Ugh, another July 28th. Date sucks almost as much as March 8th. Maybe someday it won't?

Answers

Alison came home today freaked out from learning about puberty. I'm not sure how it happened, but she brought up Solomon, or maybe I did.

She asks a lot of questions, I just wish I had better answers. She stated that he would be in 5th grade and she would see him in the hall if he had lived. Well she's right, he would be in 5th grade, if things had gone according to plan. But would I have her? Or Adam?

How did this come to be my life's plan? I have stopped asking but now I have a child who wants answers, sigh.

Anger

I thought losing Solomon would protect me from other ills. I thought he was the 'loss leader' - that by losing him I would have no more sadness. Needless to say I'm wrong.

Without going into details I find myself faced with increasing sadness of an inevitability. And it angers me. And it scares me to be angry again. Anger is the hardest emotion for me to let go of. It is not appeased by food or drink or shopping or exercise. There is no antidote to anger the way crying is to sadness.

So now I face myself struggling to keep the lid on my anger when all I really want to do is scream.

11 years

I know it's not significant in any way but yesterday, Thanksgiving, was eleven years from when I was with my family keeping our big secret, we were pregnant. I see the photos of my with a goofy grin and I just get nauseated. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but yesterday was just rough for me since it was the same date as it was in 1999. Stupid I know but I can't help it sometimes.

Still Sucks

Well, it still sucks. At least I have given up thinking it won't ever won't.
Today was A Walk to Remember. I didn't walk. I attended the memorial part of the service. I kissed Solomon's quilt square and his scrapbook page. And as I stood trying to shelter my candle in the wind, I kept thinking, "my baby died and all I got was this stupid candle." I don't mean to sound cruel, but it just still sucks.

When asked if anyone wanted to speak, I did not go up. I am further down the road of needing to speak about my son and my journey. What I really wanted to do was speak about Tyler Clementi, an 18 year old Rutgers University Student who took his life a few days ago because of the cruelty of others. Tyler was someone's child too. No one should ever have to bury a child.

The Empire State Building

It almost escaped me that today is 'that day' or it used to be what I considered 'that day.' July 28, 2000 is the day I was supposed to give birth to my first beautiful child. But it was not to be how I planned.

I didn't even realize the date until I was in the checkout line at King Kullen this morning. And it would have escaped my psyche altogether if the cashier hadn't handed me back a coupon with an expiration date of yesterday, July 27, 2010. That's when I realized today was 'that day.' Or not.

For years this date held as much significance to me as any other, and those who know me know I keep a mental calendar and can usually recall dates to various events in life, mine and theirs.

July 28 used to stand out in my mind like the Empire State Building, towering over so many of the other dates. But now, ten years later, it's supplanted by far more wonderful dates: Alison's and Adam's birthdates are now the Empire State Buildings in my mental calendar. My joy at having them eclipses this date. I don't feel the grief of this day so strongly any more. I actually feel at peace, for today.

Every Last One

I could not put down Anna Quindlen's latest book, Every Last One. I was completely captivated. It took me a day to read it, starting with snatches of pages early in the morning before anyone was awake. I read on our car ride out to a friends engagement party. En route back I got to the climax and wanted to scream but my husband, children and dad, my fellow passengers, would not have taken my yelling well. I finished by forcing my eyes awake until after midnight. This morning I can still feel the book in me.

I found the most evocative passage on page 200 (the hardcover US edition): "It was not so much I wanted to die; it was just that I could not bear the incessant feeling of being alive." The line was the knockout punch that brought it all home for me.

There was an evening Eric came home from work to find me in the fetal position in our bedroom, gasping for air as I could not control my tears. The pain was ravaging the wound still so new. My understanding that people just didn't get it growing until I felt it would swallow me up. I told Eric I didn't want to die but the idea of living without the baby, for I did not know his name right then, was too much for me - I couldn't do it. I think it was one of the few times in our marriage Eric was actually afraid.

The next line in the book: "And then it occurred to me that I was already dead, that what was left behind was a carapace, like the shells of cicadas we found a few summers ago." This is what Eric knew way before me, that I was gone, the woman he had just wooed and wed and created life with was not there anymore and I know he wondered "where did my wife go?" and that was just the beginning.

Laura Mann

http://www.dhatrifoundation.org/home
Sometimes life just sucks. Laura Mann died yesterday. She was a cousin through marriage. I loved her. And not only that, I liked her. She was that rare combination of warmth, empathy, acceptance and perseverance. She will be missed by so many and for so long.

Time Flies

It has certainly been awhile since I posted, not because I haven't thought about Solomon, just that I haven't felt like posting. Eric and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in a few days, which means I am closer to re-living my experiences with Solomon's pregnancy. I go months without recalling anything and then some moment of the experience will creep back into my mind.

Like the other day, I received notification in the mail about the new "Red Light Cameras" that have been installed in my town. And it reminded me of the first time I drove my Buick Skyhawk after losing Solomon. I was traveling north on Jerusalem Avenue in Levittown heading towards my therapist in Sysosset and as I approached the first intersection with a traffic light I drove right through it. I was 4 blocks past when I realized the light had been red and I didn't stop. I wasn't freaked out or anything until I arrived at the therapist's office and realized I could have hurt someone. That was the worst part of that particular moment.

Communion

Yesterday was Rebecca's communion. It was really great to share the day with my best friend and her family. I looked at a photo album from Rebecca's baptism and saw Solomon's mom. Rebecca and Solomon were supposed to be born within days of each other. Rebecca and Solomon were supposed to be friends.

In the photo album is the "after" Amy - the one who lost Solomon. I am smiling because I am so thrilled for my friend. I am smiling because I am pregnant AGAIN. That baby wouldn't arrive either, but I didn't know that then.

I still have the outfit I wore to Rebecca's baptism and toyed with wearing it yesterday. How ironic that would have been if I did.

Miss you S.

Passover 2009

Tomorrow I will host my first seder as Eric's wife, in our home. It is 2009.

The first seder we spent as a married couple I was in mourning. I will forever have my mother-in-law's face imprinted in my memory from when we arrived at her sister's house for Passover. I know it was a look of concern, but what I felt (and still do on occasion) is FAILURE. I ran to the bathroom and just burst into tears.

"Next year in maternity clothes" was what I uttered when everyone else state strongly, "next year in Jerusalem."

And here I am hosting my first seder. Solomon is missing. My grandmother in missing. I will lay the table with our glass dishes and my grandmother's kiddush cup for Elijah. I will engage Alison and Adam (hopefully) in the seder. Hopefully I will make things easier for my family, my parents especially.

The holiday of Passover is about freedom. Those who grieve are never really free from it.

The Day of Why

It is now 8:51pm and I am waiting to exhale. This is always the worst day for me, every year. It is easier, I'll grant you that, than last year and last year was easier than the one before. But I can feel the stress of the day in my body, the tension upon awakening knowing this is "that day."

Solomon would be 9 today if he had lived. And if he had lived, I wonder how he would be. I get so emotional when I see special needs kids, and thank God every day for the normalness my children exhibit.

Today is the only day of the year I give myself permission to ask the whys? Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to him? Why did this happen to us?

What did I do to deserve this? Technically, not a why question, but something wondered always in the recesses of my mind, my only answer being so I would know what real stress and heartache are, as opposed to the daily stresses and heartaches of every day life.

I just don't think that's a good enough answer.

Ash Wednesday

I just realized it is Ash Wednesday, not a holiday of significance for me but it is the day I delivered Solomon. March 8, 2000 was also Ash Wednesday. When I delivered him, only Eric and my doctor were in the room with me. When all was done, I remember my nurse returning, she had gone to church on her lunch break. It's curious what gets remembered and when.

Now They Are Both Curious

I don't know how it came up but now they are both curious. Alison must have said something to Adam. The other night she asked me again the name of the baby who died, and Adam asked what baby? Without going through the gory details I told them as calmly as I could the baby's heart didn't work and he died in my tummy. I feel I am usually good with words and I have been preparing and planning for this for years and now that it's here, I am just at a loss. Again.

A Passing Nightmare

I am home now almost 24 hours after a passing nightmare. Adam has been sick since October 13 and while the initial ailment resolved fairly quickly, a secondary one set in. We went from "check in in the morning if he is still running a fever" to "I have to send you to the ER at the hospital."

Losing Solomon was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. But lying in the hospital chair-bed, next to Adam's silently dripping IV, I realized it could not have been. Solomon's loss was losing a dream, but the reality that I was here with a sick kid was a living nightmare. The panic took root in my bones, and while we are out of the woods now, my body has not relaxed.

Luckily, whatever was ailing Adam has seemed to pass. He has been fever-free for 72 hours. He is so drugged up for a broad range of possible illness that I know all the bad germs are almost gone. He is eating his restricted diet and will return to school Monday [god willing] on restricted activities.

But he is fine, and he is home.

Questions

I woke up last Saturday morning with an inkling that this might be the day, the day when Alison or Adam has questions. I mentioned this to Eric who replied, "You say that every year." And that is true. But this year I was right.

Alison accompanied me on this years Walk To Remember - chosing this activity over watching her brother play soccer, or should I say run around the soccer field with a group of 5 year old boys with a soccer ball in the midst.

The walk was proceding and it was a good half hour before Ali said anything. She asked if we could see our page. I knew she meant the scrapbook page I had done for Solomon, so we walked over to it and I showed her. Then she asked if we could see our quilt square. So I walked her over to where the quilt was displayed and showed her. Her first reaction was to ask, "Who was born on March 8?" I told her, "the baby." She asked, naturally, "What baby?" and I told her, "the baby who died in my tummy before you were born." She seemed to take my remarks in and felt satisfied. Until...

Until my friend's daughter asked her, "Was the baby who died a girl or a boy?" And Alison in her sweet voice replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about." So I told her the baby was a boy and his name was Solomon, Solomon was the baby who died in my tummy before you were born. Again she took in my remarks and seemed satisfied.

I have no idea what she thinks. She knows a photo of our family adorns a book cover but I don't think she understands why or what the book is about.

I wonder if I handled her questions ok, and appreciate that she didn't ask more than I was willing to answer. For my children, life's questions will forever go beyond "where do babies come from?"

School Year

I just got off the telephone with Patty, Patty who understands.

I am missing my children something awful.

When pregnant with Alison, I didn't believe I was having a baby. I felt if I ever got to give birth, it would be to nothingness. When I was pregnant with Adam, I swore until the moment of delivery I would have another daughter, a sister for Alison, named Julia Elizabeth. When my doctor pronounced, "It's A Boy," all I could think was "how could my daughter have a penis?" Perhaps it was the drugs from the c-section, but the thought rolled around in my head for weeks afterwards.

I find myself calm at this moment, after being in tears just a short while ago. I felt weepy for Solomon on the first day of school - he would have been a third-grader like so many of my friends' kids. But now, with both Alison and Adam in school, I feel a different kind of loss, one that is much harder to describe to someone who isn't like me. So I called who I knew would help.

And she did.

The Day Before

I remember this day, August 13, 2001, quite clearly. Actually, the evening.

I had a routine OB appointment. I was humongous, strapped to the monitor. I looked like a whale. Eric took a photo for posterity. We had just received our first digital camera and this was the test shot.

Dr. E. proceeded to tell me everything was fine. Yes, everything pregnancy-wise was. But I was a nervous wreck. I had spent the prior 37 weeks and 6 days alternating between fear of never having a living child and denial that I was even pregnant.

I asked Dr. E. about an early delivery. The thought of two more weeks felt like two more years. He uttered magic words, "if you wake up tomorrow and you feel the baby is moving less, call the office and we will get you delivered."

That's all it took. And my journey of grief was ending.