Seven Years Later...

 

Seven years later the pain is not so raw

It is always there but not so suffocating

I go about my life in a completely normal fashion

No one who meets me would ever know

I have had many happy days and memories since then

Days and memories that I know would have been so different with you here

But every once in a while the wounds must breathe

Alone in my car, in a bathroom stall, in a doctor’s office…

I have cried in them all

I still have days when I pull out your chest in my closet and go through everything in it

I relive the entire experience and let the tears flow

Then I fold it neatly back up, put it away, wash my face, and get on with my day

I am not crazy

I am not depressed

I am simply a mother who buried two of her babies

And as long as I live I will have days or moments like that

And that is okay

I have accepted that now

Your brother brings me much joy here on earth and asks so many questions about you

I will show him your stuff one day

But for now it is just for me in my closet and for those moments when I need to relive it a little

Seven years later I am better but never again completely whole until I see you again...

March

Every March the world welcomes spring

And all of the warmth and colors it brings

Blooms awaken from their winter rest

Birds chirp and ready their nest

The sun lingers a little longer each day

Kids are emerging and beginning to play

The world comes alive and fills with glee

But this is not what March means to me

For me it brings the anniversary of a death

The anniversary of the day my baby took his last breath

The marking of another year since I last saw his face

The remembrance of a dark time and place

Another year to wonder what he would be today

Another year when no one will know what to say

Some will be afraid to mention your name to me

Others will offer some form of sympathy

March….a month that I must get through each year

Time marches on I guess….even without you here

The Ending of the Beep

Beep, beep, beep…..silence

I never knew how comforting the beep was until it stopped

Dark, dark, dark

The screen went dark as they turned it off

Why, why, why

My question is just as unanswered today as it was that night

Walk, walk, walk,

Put one foot in front of the other and try to move on

Sob, sob, sob

Mostly in the seclusion of my home is where the tears fall

Years, years, years

The seasons have rolled by five times now since that March

Beat, beat, beat

I watched on a tiny screen as your heart beat in my womb

And I watched on a tiny screen as your heart stopped in my arms

The ending of the beep was the beginning of the dark, the questions, and the tears

The ending of the beep still haunts me

The Cemetery

Blankets of flowers adorn the earth’s floor


I shiver as I open up my car door

With a bouquet in hand I make my way

To the patch of ground where I left you that day

I have been here many times before

Yet each time I tell myself I should come more

I stand and I wonder how long I should stay

What should I bring you…what should I say

I look around at the faded flowers in vases

I close my eyes and see their faces

The faces of other moms, dads, husbands and wives

Who come here to visit and ponder their lives

To cry and to miss their loved one below

And gather the strength to once again go

Five years have passed since I last saw your face

But it never gets easier to leave you in this place

Yet leaving is what I must make myself do

But know that part of my heart is buried here too

The part that died when I lost you that night

And I shiver once more as I drive out of sight

The one thing that comforts me as your grave fades from view

Is knowing your brother is buried with you

Two tiny boys we placed side by side

I am sorry you both suffered and I am sorry you both died

My body failed you and my body failed me

And now I must leave you in this cemetery

It is Raining

It is raining outside
Like any mother I worry about my babies in the rain
I want to keep them nice and dry so they don’t catch a cold
But I can’t put rain boots and a rain coat on my babies
My babies are in the ground
They are in the wet muddy ground
There are many people that would argue that they are not truly there
Sure I know that
But that is where I placed their bodies and I still feel protective of them
I still have that maternal instinct to guard my eggs in the nest
So I worry when it is raining
I worry when it is snowing
I worry when it is storming
I worry when it is windy
I even worry when it is sunny and bright outside
Because even on the sunniest of days it is raining on my heart

The Beating of a Heart

It all started and ended with the beating of a heart

The first time I saw those three beating hearts on that screen my own heart skipped a beat

When I actually got to hear them it was the most precious sound I have ever heard

As a woman who had struggled to get pregnant for so long I couldn’t believe that those wonderful sounds of life were coming from within my womb.

The first crushing blow came when one of those hearts stopped beating 26 weeks later

We don’t know why it stopped they told me sadly

Still I tried to focus on those other two beating hearts

They were hanging on and even though a part of my own heart had just died I had to hang on for them

A few days later as those precious blessings were delivered from my womb I prayed that those two hearts would continue to beat on their own

Every second was so unpredictable and the fear of the unknown scared me to death

When I finally heard that those two little miracles were doing as well as could be expected, a little bit of my own heart started beating again and I could finally breathe for the first time in days

Then two weeks later another blow stopped my heart once again

Brady was sick

For the next five months, every beat of Brady’s heart and every breathe that he took was documented on a little monitor next to his bed

If anything was slightly off, an alarm would sound and a nurse would run to his side

I jumped at every little beep for the first couple of weeks until finally I barely noticed them anymore.

There was no monitor strapped to my heart but if there had been there would surely have been moments when alarms sounded

For my heart stopped numerous times and was broken and crushed every time another bit of bad news was delivered to me

Finally the worst news came of all

Brady’s heart was sick and could not be fixed

So we turned off those monitors and focused instead on loving him with all of our hearts

Then on a cold night in late March, I found myself staring at a screen once again

But this time there was no heartbeat and there was no sound

That little heart had stopped beating and along with it I knew that I had lost a piece of my own heart forever.

The One I Got to Keep

I often dwell on the sons that I lost
But that dwelling comes at a very high cost
Because I almost forget about the son I got to keep
The one who curls up in my lap and drifts off to sleep
The one who plays for hours with trains and blocks
The one who is learning to put on his own shoes and socks
The one who is growing up more and more each day
The one who will one day be all grown up and moving away
So I know I need to savor all of these days
And make a conscience effort to step out of my haze
Because this little boy lived and I need to live too
And he is there each day to make sure that I do
Because he tugs at my hand and tells me to come play
He is a child ready to seize each and every day
Yes this little boy is the one who survived
And when I look at him my spirit is revived
The pain of my loss is so very deep
But I thank God every day for the one I got to keep