Oscar fell in love with the Rainbow Connection a few months ago, and it took me probably twenty broken-voiced tries to be able to sing it through to him without sobbing.

your last line reminds me of Sinead O'Connor's "each of these, my three babies, i will carry with me...the face on you, the smell of you, will always be with me." it's been on my mind a lot lately, a refrain i cannot quite shake.

i just blew up my post in squarespace by accident - it bumps you out! without warning! alas! - and so i am wandering disheartened and weepy, and came here and was reminded that posts and words are little to lose, can be rebuilt. sleep to you tonight, friend, and peace.

still thinking of you and your boys and holding you close in my mind and heart. there are flowers on my dresser put together by my mama, made for you and yours. as bon said, wishing you some peace.

Oh kate. my heart aches for you, that people would actually tell you to 'get over it'? I feel sorry for them, whomever they are. It's their demons that are stuffed somewhere, strangled, sufficated, lost in karma. If we don't hold our dark demon out there, give it life, share it and call it our own, how will it ever become the light that guides?

because you don't force false light to cover the dark, you have blessed me over and over again. thank you.

mb

Sometimes those toddlers of ours keep our heads above water, I think. Peaceful dweems tonight, sweet Kate.

this one got me right here, in my heart...they way it seems to echo the pattern of thoughts in your mind, rambling and brilliant and bittersweet at once.

holding you tenderly in these weeks. remembering your journey, yours sons, your son.

i love you. i do, i do, i do.

xoxo

leigh

Peace Kate. Rememberance and peace.

I always hated "lost"-the impression that my loved one just up and walked away, or that I misplaced her. Dead cleared everything up, and helped people decide where they stood, including myself.

And if it makes you feel better, Anne Murray makes me into a blubbery mess because my mother loved it. So lame...

I cannot even begin to imagine how you've felt over the last year. I know one thing though, your strength puts my generic mama strength to shame.

Thank you for writing so honestly. Your writing is beautiful and true, and not always easy to read, but I'm always, always glad that I did. I learn something every time.

(It goes without saying that it's much easier for me to read than it is for you to write. I'm just a humble bystander.)

peace

Rainbow connection kills me, too. Dammit.

We all do different things, but I just started blurting out "dead" from square one. baby? "She died." How many? "One living, one dead." i just don't like to cut corners there, and somehow I feel that putting out the bluntness lets people know I'm not about to spare them anything, either.

What kills me is explaining "dead" to Bella. All the simple sentences, all lined up, so analytical and plain just break me. No eating. No sleeping. no crying. No heartbeat. not happy, but not sad either. Wishing you so much peace in this space, Kate. It's not easy the space after -- and especially the space after that.

I think reunion is one of the most beautiful words there is.

Stolen more than lost I think.

that reunion will happen. why wouldn't it?

this might be my favorite post of yours yet. i'm not totally sure why ... but i think it sings to me.

love it.

Yikes. All of it. Crying my eyes out, Kate...that song...your sweet boy speaks to you. Someday you'll find it...the connection. But actually, I think you've found it already.

Thank goodness for little boys who like to be big. GO EVAN! I like chocolate chip cookies for bwekkfist too!

I wish you peace Kate.

Sweet are reunions. Thinking of you.

'To exactly these children, all three.'

Amen, Kate. You will always have three children.

In so many ways, I feel that your Liam is an active part of your life. Perhaps because you truly do include him in your doings, by way of your thoughts, your heart, and your mama-desire to never forget that while he isn't a physical presence, he IS there. And that is beautiful.

You always continue to find the heart in your days, even when things feel heavy. I so admire that in you. I really feel for you, friend, in what you have endured. And you will always be one of my most important prayers through the days...

oh Kate... my heart breaks for you.
How do you get *over* something that is inside of you, right inside the depths of you? How do you pry that thing out,lay it on the floor and walk over it?
Love to you.

Much peace to you Kate. It is all I know to say, to give.

For my thoughts are muddled, my heart broken, my soul questioning.

I send to you, as always, MamaMojo.

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death."

(from The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot)

saw this in my archives a moment ago, and thought of you, and this post of yours I read earlier today.

Sunday at the cemetery I caught myself finding a nice way to say what I was doing there, and immediately scoffed at my ability to do that. Sure, go ahead, pretend that it's a good thing, an ok thing, a thing like any other. Psha, you know?
It will never be ok. And yet, these are the children we have, and no, I wouldn't trade them either. Any of them.

I am speechless tonight. You are in my thoughts and prayers, Kate.

Much love,
ashley

Beautiful. Love the five of you.

I always read, rarely comment, because your words are so very perfect on their own -- I can't add anything significant. I think of you all on a near-daily basis, and send you invisible, virtual warmth.

What Kristin said. And maybe we should all have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast more often. And dreams of monkeys on ferris wheels.

Not original, but...Ditto what Kristin & Hannah said. I'm consistently inspired by your writing and both weepy and bouyed by your experiences. I found myself actually referring to you as 'someone I know' in conversation the other day about loss and writing. Crazy, yes? Especially since you don't know me at all. I strive to be so open about my own struggles and partly because of your blog I've started writing again, albeit offline. Someday I'll be brave enough to post my deepest self online. For now, my blog is a bit too mundane. Thank you, Kate, for continuing to put yourself out there. It means a lot to so many. Truly.

I keep trying to say something that will lend itself to your words.

Ahh! Believe it or not your "muddle" ministers to me in a thousand ways. Coming from the "Christian" community where you don't get in the club unless you have some spritiually pat answers for all horrible things you are refreshing because no matter how much a person believes in Jesus or whatever they hang their spiritual hat on it's selling it all so short by not letting the world just see that stuff hurts, as it should.

A christian music artist said this, "Christians are somehow prone to talking more about where they’ve been instead of where they are. Very few people want to speak up while they are in process… They’d rather wait until their junk is resolved, so they can give a “testimony” about the happy ending. "

I sometimes think that fatal flaw is what makes faith so darn hard, even for me, as certain as I am I still feel like Willis from Different Strokes looking up at this big confusing and let's face it alarmingly permissive God and saying, "What you talking bout Lord".

Anyways that was a really long way of saying you are still my daily breath of fresh air from all the pat, "resolved" stuff. I rather like your mess Kate because it so resembles mine. Hang in there, I am praying for a fresh wind for you this week.

i think "claustrophobic tangle" is the most honest way to describe the journey of grief- i used to say (much less elegantly) it was like being 10 feet deep in a giant vat of jello...suffocating, distorting the reality around you that you could see but not be a part of, sticky, muffled.

rainbow connection was always the most melancholy song for me as a kid, something about those notes picked out on kermits banjo, the searching for the connection to what is deeper than knowledge of what we've lost.

peace and light, kate, you are so normal.

reading your words seems to bring all the emotions I tend to stuff and deny to the surface. I thank you for that. you're helping another soul here - in the midst of your own unbearable layers. I've gone the other route, tried to forget, move on too quickly. but lingering is so very important for healing i know. thanks for helpig me slow down.

You are such an amazing, beautiful person. I read your blog this time last year, absorbed your crystalline, beautiful, bold and painful posts about Liam into the depths of my soul. I was going through post partum depression that I had not expected to be so intense and your words seared me. I honor you. (MB is an old friend and directed me to you . .)

Kate,
Does it count...?
does it count...?
if...?
the answer is yes, I think, even without asking.
so...
I am here with you, so many of us are, in loss as well as in joy.

I love the rainbow connection. I usually sing it to my kids every day or two for bedtime. The Sarah McLachlan version. It's fun to sing too - sufficiently challenging to make me want to sing it repeatedly.

You know, It's almost two years now and it still hurts like fuck that Anna's gone and I still miss her and life still just seems weird and broken a lot. "Don't you dare rush me" indeed. I doubt at this point there'll really be any getting over it. I guess I'm living with it. But it doesn't really feel all that normal.

I type, erase, type, erase. My words can't convey exatly the right sentiment. I wouldn't dare rush you; I trust you'll find peace in your own time, in your own way.

Kate,
It feels so selfish to read your words, and yet I do, over and over and over again. Possibly because you put words to the wordless, the unimaginable. I feel guilty for needing and thankful for reading every syllable you write.

Monkeys on Fewwis Wheels. Sweet, sweet Evan.

Take all the time you need, Kate. Turn your inside-out umbrella into the wind if you have to.

So sorry. I have some really good days and some really bad even a year later. I just celebrated Justin's first birthday and it was hard to have one high chair and one cake and one set of presents. I too feel like I wouldn't trade anything!

I don't have the right words, does anyone ever?
I walk along with you through your journey, through your words.
Thank you for sharing with us...it means the world.

You have a beautiful talent. Thank you for taking your experiences and turning them into words that connect the rest of us to you and to ourselves.

I am putting together a "Preemie Graduate" board for our NICU, doctors and nurses have been waiting for me to bring it to the unit since I became their "Head Parent" for our "NICU graduate parent council". I have lined up pictures of babies in their incubators and then a contemporary pic, one showing the toddler walking, or eating, and I was amazed at how little we hold on to, celebrate, we mothers of twins. So many babies make it and so many don't, and yet I believe that they are all where they are supposed to be, here with us or there with Him, and I feel it is all right.
You are not alone, there are many Many MANY of us here with you, in heart and mind.
L

had the pleasure of meeting three of the men in your life today. evan was so shy;) "no thanks, I don't want a bite of your cookie but yes, it does look good!" wish I was a photographer with a better camera, I saw a great shot of the three of them watching the sheep being sheared oh well, maybe another time...

I just came across your blog and I felt compelled to write.

I'm a pediatrician and remember the long days walking the NICU floors. I prayed for the babies and their families. I prayed for guidance to make the right call and help these babies survive.

There was one little guy that I became particularly close to. Now years later I still cry for that little boy. I still cry when I remember their faces as he died and I could help him. I tried but I couldn't make his lungs stronger, bigger or healthier.

Bless you on your journey. Thank you for sharing your story. Just as I remember and mourn my patient,know that Liam is remembered. He was tiny but he touched many people and they will always remember him.

I realized a few months ago that I can sing Laurie Berkner's "I'm Not Perfect" to my kids without crying. It took me a long time. Despite the easiness with which I write gushing comments I don't write fan letters, but I sent her one for that song. I know she didn't mean it for special needs kids, but it sure hit me in the heart the very first time I heard it. I'm pretty sure that my son thought that it was supposed to be sung in a shaky voice with tears running down your face.

To anyone out there that wants to own the song, we got it on the "Jack's Big Music Show" cd (Season 1).

I know I've said it before. I know others have too, and I know it might get old, but I love the way you unfold these glimpses into your life, into daily life. I am floored by your gift for words, your way of reflecting on the world around you, on processing and soldiering on, on honesty.

twice the barf.
i would have never imagined how poignant that phrase could be. but that's what got me this time.
i have probably 20 more minutes of quiet in this house and i should be doing- you know all the stuff there is to do-, but i can't pull away from your words, the image of you, the rainbow connection, and not one, but two barfing boys in my mind's eye... your happiness at twice the barf. keep those calls flowing, they're pure and important.

That last paragraph tells me you're farther along in your "grief process" than people seem to think.

Re: Evan fixing breakfast...be glad he didn't try to make you coffee...been there. :)