Bright Spots

I've had two good days in a row.  I could speculate as to why they were good:  I got good sleep, my sister came over, my kids needed me to be okay, but the truth is that there is no rhyme or reason in grief.  Sometimes  I feel Tabitha's absence deeply, painfully and other times I can miss her and be okay with the missing.  Either way, life continues go forward.  I sleep, I wake up, I feed children, change diapers, go grocery shopping, drive kids to school, pick kids up from school, pick up the living room (or leave it a mess) kiss owies, fold laundry, snuggle babies, and then do it all again.  I try to take advantage of the good days, knowing that the bad days are for mere survival.

Today a bright spot to my day was watching Colin perform in his school's poetry recitation contest.  This is an annual contest, but until this year Colin was too nervous to even participate.  I was quite surprised to learn that he had memorized a poem (with a supportive teacher and time in class) and when he performed it for me complete with actions and voices I was thrilled for him.  He chose The Adventures of Isabelle by Ogden Nash.  Before now, he has been scared to death to get up in front of people.  He was chosen as one of the two from his class to compete in front of judges and the whole elementary school.  He was confident, entertaining and was practically giddy when he was awarded first place in his division.

He has already started memorizing his selection for next year.  He has decided he wants to do The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.  It's a long poem, but he already has a good chunk of it memorized and he's pretty good at doing things he sets his mind to.

Dreaming

When Taleah died, I didn't dream about her for months.  I remember another angel mom talking about her dreams of her child as almost visitations and a chance to have that child alive again for a brief time.  I wished and hoped and prayed to dream about Taleah and then after a long time I did.  The dream had something to do with a birthday and in it Taleah was alive and happy.  It was a beautiful dream ... and then I woke up.  Reality came crashing down and I spent the next hour bawling over the death of my child.  I never asked to dream about her again and I didn't for a very, very long time.

Because of that experience, this time around I have had no desire whatsoever to dream about Tabitha, but of course that means that I have dreamed about her over and over again.  The dreams are not happy, they are full of anxiety and loss.

I have dreamed that I parked Tabitha's wheelchair somewhere and I can't remember where.  I have dreamed that I am separated from her by a dangerous, busy street and I can't get to her.  I have dreamed that I took her for a simple check up only to find that she had life threatening cancer.

Last night was the worst. Yesterday I broke out in hives again, I'm sure as a stress response, and took a couple of Benadryl to relieve the itching.  I think the Benadryl did a number on my sleep, because even though I was tired and groggy, I woke up over and over again.  Each time I woke up I remembered a dream and each one of them was sad or frantic.  I woke up from the worst one at about 3:00 in the morning.  I dreamed that Tabitha was dead, but someone forgot to put her in the casket and so she was in a crypt on top of the casket, all layed out in her Alice dress.  I was afraid to pick her up and put her in her casket for fear of the state her body was in.  At one point I realized her eyes were open and she was looking at me, but because I knew it couldn't be true, I was doing my best to ignore it. There was a lot more detail to this dream, but the images are so impacting and so negative I don't want to put them in anyone else's mind.

Angel Sewing

I used to be an extrovert.  Up until about five years ago I loved social gatherings of all sorts.  I loved parties and dinners and get togethers.  Somewhere in the last five or six years I have lost that.  I think it happened around the time we adopted Mariah and Evan.  The year after we adopted those two was crazy, even for me.  When I went to Africa I had four children: 12, 9, 3 and 14 months.  I came back with two children ages one month and almost 3.  To add to that we found out shortly after our return that we were pregnant.  Let me tell you, having four children under four AND being pregnant made it nearly impossible to leave the house.  When we had Tabitha we then had five children under five with one of them being medically fragile.  

I cocooned myself in my house with all of my little children and focused on them and on us.  There was not much that happened outside that circle of people that I participated in and at the time it was fine with me. I just figured there was a time and season for social and at the moment my focus was on all the sweet little people who needed their mama to be present for them.  Somewhere in all of that I swung from extrovert to introvert with a touch (or more) of social anxiety. 

My friend Jo, who has been a friend for nearly 15 years, invited me to join her at one of her favorite activities.  She joins with several other women to sew outfits that are donated for the use of babies who die during or shortly after birth.  The group was started by an angel mommy who lost a child to Potter's Syndrome several years ago.   Jo assured me it would be a safe place for me to feel what I'm feeling now, that there would be other angel mommies and  that I could come as I am, which is a little broken right now.  

It was hard for me to think about opening myself up, but I knew this, of all places, would be a soft place to land.  My sister, Megan, agreed to go with me and we were off.

What I found when I arrived at the door was a house full of women engaged in cutting, beading, sewing,  and threading.  I joined in and was quickly put at ease.  The more I talked, the more I realized that in this particular group, there were more mothers who had lost children than had not lost children.  Women spoke candidly about their beloved children's passing and the impact that had on their lives.  As we talked, we took part in the creating of the tiniest little baby outfits you've ever seen and every one of them was intended for a child who was not long for this Earth. 

I am very grateful that Jo pushed me into something that was uncomfortable, my discomfort quickly dissipated and was replaced by love and acceptance.

One Day at a Time

On October 27th at just past 11:00 p.m., my five year old daughter died.  Her name was Tabitha.

That day was eight years, three months and five days after my four year old daughter died of the same genetic condition, Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  Her name was Taleah.

I remember, after Taleah died, thinking I could never be whole again, could never come out of the darkness after her death.  But I did.  Sometimes it felt like I was clawing my way out inch by inch only to be sucked back in by the most trivial of memories, but day by day, hour by hour things got better.  I would say it took a solid two years to be "okay" again, but eventually it happened.

I cling to the thought that while I am so engulfed in the missing of my Tabitha, that I was just as engulfed by the missing of my Taleah and yet eventually there was peace and joy and a sweet yearning that replaced the sucking, swirling, bone-deep grief that initially consumed me. 

When Taleah flew, Ethan was ten, Natalie was seven and Colin was a 10 month old baby.  Colin saved me, in a way.  As a baby, he didn't care that we were grieving, he paid no attention to whether we were having a good day or bad, he just wanted to be fed and changed and loved.  He laughed when he was happy and practically demand we laugh along.  He needed me to be his mother and so I did and in doing so he created a lifeline that I could cling to.

Our family has grown by leaps and bounds since then.  Ethan is an 18 year old college student, Natalie is almost 15, Colin 9.  We also have Jaxon who is 7. In 2006 I traveled to Zambia to bring Mariah, now 6 and Evan now 8 to our family.  Because we felt there was still room in our hearts and home, we became foster parents and now J who is 15, M who is 7 and S who is 7 months old are loved additions to our family.  Just like Colin offered a lifeline when Taleah died, S offers the same this time around.  He claps and giggles and squeals and loves with reckless abandon.

I am glad he is here to pull me up because right now the pain is wild and raw and nearly unbearable.