nocturnal
Today is their birthday.
Last night I thought I’m going to look back at those pictures, see just how small Ben was when he was born and was aghast as the rest of the world must have been. Now that I know him beyond the abstractions of the NICU—his giggles and his big brother idolatry and his koala bear hugs—the realization of how close we came to losing him is a vice around my throat.
Last night I realized how everyone else must have seen our doom when we could not. We were too busy doing what we were told, too busy straining to see beyond the wires and the tubes and the swelling, too busy trying to give them love through the portholes of a hot plastic box. Thinking in desperation Liam is just mellow, a patient, old soul. Last night I felt like a fool.
Last night I sought out Liam, mute and still, his limbs and face buried under an impenetrable web of wires and ventilators and sensors, tangled up next to Ben. Pulled magnetically to fish beyond the highly edited flickrstream for the outtakes, searching for something of my son that perhaps I hadn’t seen before. All I am given is undiscovered angles of horror and heartbreak.
Last night it occurred to me just how gravely injured he’d been. Always grimacing as if in pain or at least in purgatory, his face relaxed only when he was in the deepest of medicated sleeps. When his eyes were open his face was screwed up into an expression of frustrated shock as if to say why am I still here?
Last night I hated my body, hated it so much.
Last night I vaguely considered a tattoo for the first time in my life. Earlier in the day I’d opened the sailmaker’s chest to see a few snips of Liam’s hair in a tiny zip-lock bag. It’s darker than I remember and it dawned on me that I was looking at the hair of a dead baby, cut from him after he finally stopped breathing.
Then I looked at Ben who sat in his highchair grinning broadly with one solitary cheerio stuck to the spit on his chin and with Liam’s hair between my fingers I went to the car to get the camera and Oh lili, isn’t this lovely, you’ve never been outside before. It’s sunny and the birds are chirping, and soon the peeper frogs will start to sing, and doesn’t that breeze feel wonderful and I felt pathetic, standing there in the grass holding a zip-lock bag containing all that’s left of my baby, holding it up to the sun so that he could feel that the winter’s grip is gone, that the warmth has come back.
I wonder if they could put his hair into some ink and brand him onto my skin somewhere, somewhere secret, so he would always be with me. I hope it would hurt like a sonofabitch.
Last night I stood in the bathroom with Liam’s ceramic hole-in-heart. It has started, so I’ll put his heart on a new string and I’ll wear it for his six weeks and that will give me something to hold on to but the new string didn’t fit through the hole and I thought well shit, maybe not, and maybe that’s just silly anyway and I put the heart back inside the sailmaker’s chest and went back to bed and just lay there next to Justin’s breathing, goggle-eyed and clipped short like a hunted animal hiding in the dark.
I'm often amazed that you're still here. I'm going to try and be myself again, I am. I've got other stories to tell you, if you care to hear them, about pirates in the forest and 10-foot swells and fetish parties and aliens and past lives and the smell of gunpowder and the deserted farm up the cove that we skulk past, eyeing hungrily with financial hopelessness and unrequited love. But today I have to cry. So thanks for your patience and your presence, strangers and friends.
Monday, May 5, 2008 in from three to two
Reader Comments (141)
Happy birthday to Liam. Happy Birthday to Ben.
They've been on my calendar for months. Circled in red. In my thoughts.
You, in my thoughts as well.
It is impossible for me to understand where you are today. I have not lived it. But.
My heart and soul ache with you. Not in the same degree. But mama to mama, pain nonetheless.
Also, soaring joy for Ben's first earth birthday.
Many, many hugs to you today, Kate. Take all you can get.
And if you apologize again for bleeding emotions onto your blog, YOUR blog, I will be forced to pelt you with wine, biscuits, warm fires, and good friends.
If we did not want to be here, we would not be here.
BIG HUG.
Take your time, Kate. You're an inspiration for your strength and your love. May today's tears help quiet the animal inside you.
You have to linger with it now, or you'll be held tight forever by the grip of grief.
Don't worry about us. Your honesty and you're amazing writing are why we're here.
Hope today is manageable.
Happy Birthday to your boys. I'm so, so sorry for your loss.
oh Kate, so many hugs. But what do you mean "I'm going to try and be myself again, I am"? You are, indelibly, the woman and the mother that Liam and Evan and Ben have made you.
I think back to last year, and how we all hoped and prayed and dug in, desperately wishing Liam into good health. If that's foolish, we're all in very good company.
Wishing you so much peace and comfort.
I've not posted before, but have been following your journey for a short time now. Before being a mama I wouldn't have believed my heart could ache like it does for you, a total stranger. But now, having entered into the world of how pregnancy and birth and babies change us at a basic, primal level, I find myself just hoping you can feel the collective ache that others of us have for you, and the love that we can only hope envelopes you from each of our keypads. Your journey speaks to many, no matter that no one's experience is just like yours. What you write helps, so don't feel you have to write about aliens and fetishes unless that's what you feel moved to do. :) I'm here for what you're already putting out there.
{{Hug}}
Tell the stories you need to tell; don't worry about us.
Kiss Ben until he's dizzy.
Breathe.
And know many of us out here are right now praying for your family.
today we cry with you, Kate. Happy birthday to Ben, and to Liam. You are amazing.
You are amazing.
Happy birthday to both your sons.
Take your time, give yourself a break - this is such a hard thing to live through, but you are doing awesome (even if you don't think you are).
Happy Birthday Sweet Ben! Happy Birthday Dear Liam!
Kate all I can say is that no other birthday will ever hurt this bad. As the birthdays roll past you'll be able to feel the joy with out the guilt. You'll be able to remember with out the stabbing pain. You'll be able to celebrate the short life that Liam had but it takes years. And they will always hurt but never this much.
Don't try and be something you aren't for anyone today. It's okay to cry. It's okay to miss him. It's okay.
You are in my thoughts today.
Peace be with you. Please know that we are out here, circling you, so that you can cry and scream and be angry and be joyful and just be.
Happy Birthday to Ben and to Liam. Just another stranger thinking of you and crying with you today.
kate, i want to offer my love and thoughts and energy to you as you walk through this day, the day of your sons' birth. i found you on chance, from another mama who commented about your pictures. now when i read your words and take them in, it is with the hope and desire that it somehow helps. i will always read here to be witness to your writing and as it comes, the healing. i look forward to the stories of pirates and swells, look forward to seeing more photos of the way you capture your world, and more of your words that bring such vivid raw emotion on all ends of the spectrum. sending love.
I feel the same way, looking back, like the universe suckered me into something I couldn't possibly have believed in now that I'm totally awake. I can't even muster the courage to look at the photos where she's devoid of wires because they seem like lies. And I too wonder how much she suffered, just for a few days, just so we could NOT know. NOT know anything.
I actually thought the same thing about her hair, carrying it on me, and then decided it was a bit Angelina Jolie or something and decided against. I hate that we have to even contemplate these silly notions, how to hold all that we have left.
Happy Birthday Ben and Liam, you're both beautiful sons, and your mom is fabulous and cares for you both so very much.
Happy birthday, Ben and Liam. And Kate, congratulations on making it through the year, and on raising Ben to be such a happy, smiley baby, and on honoring Liam's memory so beautifully, and on healing yourself the best you can. You might feel like a failure, but there are so many things you have done this year that speak of success and internal strength. You didn't give up. You hung in there, tooth and nail, and vowed to do the best you could for Ben and Evan. That's all anyone could ever ask of you. Be kind to yourself... it's been a long year.
As I read your parting paragraph, I'm brought up short. I think, "how could I not be here?" Even though I'm new to your blog, I feel the same as if we were friends in real life. Maybe the only thing I can do from here is read your words and shed a tear with you. But were I there, I'd surely be glad to quietly hold your hand or make a cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate and listen to whatever you felt you needed to say. Lucky for you, the distance keeps me quieter and I'm less likely to say something wrong or insensitive (I hope). But I'm still here, quietly lending my heartfelt support, even when you don't know I'm here.
"Last night I realized how everyone else must have seen our doom when we could not. We were too busy doing what we were told, too busy straining to see beyond the wires and the tubes and the swelling, too busy trying to give them love through the portholes of a hot plastic box. Thinking in desperation Liam is just mellow, a patient, old soul. Last night I felt like a fool."
If you are a fool, then I am too. Then we are all fools. We all hoped, prayed, believed as fiercely as you did - we had to, had to believe.
I've been here, and will stay, as long as you are writing. I'm thinking of all of you today, seeing Liam everywhere. Peace to you in the upcoming weeks. We're holding space for you to do whatever it is that will get you through...
Thinking of you and your boys...hoping you feel the love and peace being wished to you...
I don't comment often, but I wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you today. I'm another stranger sending birthday love for both of your boys. Thank you for sharing your life with us. There is a reason (many reasons) we keep coming back. Peace.
Thinking of you and sending loving thoughts to you and your boys (all of them). Take your time. Lean into it.
I wish I had the right thing to say. Or even a really well-worded attempt. Loving and hoping beyond reason doesn't make you a fool, it's our job as mothers. Happy Birthday Ben and Liam.
Kate- It is never a hardship to read your story. I have been reading for a year as I was directed here by another reader asking that we all give you our love. You have my love, especially today. Such a weird thing, this cyberspace. Birthday blessings to both your boys and I hope you let Ben go face first in some wonderful cake!
happy birthday, sweet Ben and precious Liam.
you are in my heart today {{comforting hugs}}
Happy Birthday Boys.
If you want to get that tattoo, I will hold your hand through it. Mine have helped me heal in ways I didn't think possible, having my love and pain branded on me, sealed to me forever. It's allowed me to release some of what I carried.
Feel what you need today.Let it carry you today.
I wish there is more that I could do for you other than send you a virtual hug, keeping you in my thoughts and prayers, sending you wishes and hopes for many happy days and events to come. Hugs to you and your wonderfully strong family.
Happy birthday to your sweet Ben and Liam, and lots of love to you. I consider it an honor to read about your boys.
my heart broke for you reading this, Kate...the backward glance that reveals your own hopeful vulnerability, that reveals more horror than you were really able to take in at the time, the effort to take what you have of him outside and feeling beaten and pitiful. time is cruel, for all it may bring respite. and it is you who will have to weather that stark cruelty...and i am so very sorry.
but in the other way of things that are not so clearcut, Liam IS outside, part of the sunshine and the air you breathe. that little lock of hair is for you...and maybe for Ben someday. it is not him. it does not need to be.
thinking of you all last night and today...love to beautiful Ben, and to lili, your Liam. happy birthday, day of joy and sorrow. i hope each year brings the joy a little cleaner.
i'm sitting here in the public library with tears streaming down my face, thinking of you, seeing you through your words. 'I hope it would hurt like a sonofabitch.' i get that, i really do. and i feel that as long as i have eyes to read i will still be here, coming back for me, whatever the story. because you express life so beautifully. you radiate, even in the darkness.
Thinking of you and all your boys today Kate. Sending good wishes and hope that the coming year will be more joy, less grief. More happy thoughts of your Liam, less hurt.
<3
Kate:
Your words are so beautiful. It's impossible to read them without stirring so much emotion, even in a stranger who has never met you or your beautiful family.
On this first birthday, I wish you peace, hope, strength, calm...but mostly I wish you JOY. May Ben's celebration be one of great happiness.
Happy Birthday, Ben and Liam.
Wishing you nothing but happiness and peace. Happy Birthday little babies, happy birthday!
If I could I would reach all the way from Texas and give you a huge hug.
Happy Birthday to your boys. Your writing is beautiful and although I don't know you personally (and have only recently stumbled upon this blog) I am so grateful that you are here and that you are able to share yourself so eloquently.
I came across your journal a few posts ago. Your writing is lovely and poetic and makes me look at my babies in another light and makes me hold them tighter. Seriously, you are a beautiful writer and one day you should write a book. I am so sorry for your loss. All my best thoughts to you and yours. Happy birthday, boys. I hope you have a sunny day with your beutiful Ben.
we're here kate. we're always here.
Lots of love for you from a mama in Seattle. I've been reading for ages but don't think I have ever commented before. Your writing is your gift to Liam, and you honor him with every word and emotion you express. It is also a gift to the rest of us reading.
I imagine today is so hard; so bittersweet.
Ben looks like the sweetest birthday boy.
Thank you for sharing your story - please take to heart all of the loving comments you receive - I know they bolster you and bring comfort. You are touching so many with your writing, and Liam is remembered all over the world by so many - all those you've heard from and so many you have not.
Jessica
Here I am, just reaching out to touch your arm gently,and to say I understand, and I am here.
Hugs, Kate.
I've been here since a couple days after they were born. I looked at every single picture that came up on Flicker then. I just looked at every single one again, and I know I'm not his mama, and I can't know what you know, but I didn't see one picture where I thought he looked like he was in pain.
For what it's worth.
I saw a cute picture of Ben on Flickr, so I clicked over to it. I saw the caption. First Birthday.
My heart split out of my chest and onto the coffeeshop floor.
So many hugs to you.
Dearest Kate....I started to send you an email last night because I knew today was a huge day for you. Then I thought, "what do I say to this Momma who has so many reasons to smile and cry on the same day?"
So, just know that there are many of us out here thinking about you, and your 3 special boys.
Thanks for sharing so much, and huge hugs to you today.
Kate, you are an amazing inspiration to so many. Your poetry and wisdom touch us with every post, no matter the topic. I'm constantly surprised at how attached I feel to you and your life, a whole world away from you. Your words and your heart do that. Happy birthday to your beautiful boys, they are thought of often.
peace to you kate on this day. so scorched with duality of pain and love, loss and life.
happy birthday sweet ben.
happy birthday to both your sweet sons. it is so hard to believe it has been a year, i remember reading their story when it was happening.
i know there isn't much any of us can say on this day - but i know we are all so thankful that you shared him with us, his light, even for a little while.
Just another lurker de-lurking to let you know I'm thinking of you and all three of your lovely boys. I never tire of hearing about the three of them and your stories have made them all alive for me. Thanks for sharing!
happy birthday to both your sweet sons. it is so hard to believe it has been a year, i remember reading their story when it was happening.
i know there isn't much any of us can say on this day - but i know we are all so thankful that you shared him with us, his light, even for a little while.
Happy Birthday Ben and Liam. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
I can't imagine how shocking it must be sometimes to think of Ben as he was -- so tiny and fragile and to see him now, all big-eyed (those eyes!) and grinning.
We are all fools for our sons, and as mothers we always believe. You didn't fail Liam. You did everything you could within your power and then some -- and now you bring him to us and show us his light, your love. And for that we're thankful.
So much love to you on Ben and Liam's birthday.
happy birthday to ben and liam. peace and love, all around today.