out of the mystic
You go.
No, you.
She shoves a box into my arms and promotes me by way of stepping back.
I don’t like the look of it. It’s going to smell funny.
Too bad. Plug your nose. They said we have to do all the houses on this street.
I tug nervously at my Girl Guide uniform. I straighten the sash around my shoulders and lurch forward. The house breathes in and out, menacing. It is dark and unkempt, the grass at its feet more like hay than lawn, foot-long dandelions brushing my calves as I pass.
Each step creaks under my feet and as I get closer to the front door, the house sighs, sour and stale. With my heart pounding I reach up for the knocker, a brass fox discoloured and slippery with dew and disuse.
knock
The fox makes a lame bump against the wood but it startles me like a burst of firework and I jump back, the cookies in my arms clattering in that pastry way. One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Enough. I tumble back down the front steps and down the walkway, unleashing a cloud of dandelion seed in my wake, reaching for the municipal asylum of the sidewalk’s concrete. Both her and I shudder, and grasping one another’s forearms we giggle, fleeing.
I pant as we run, stating the obvious. Nobody home. Phewph.
+++
Two years ago Liam’s hydrocephalus had just been diagnosed, deemed manageable, brain surgery a distant possibility. Both boys were strong in terms of breath, if not quality of life.
Well, that’s it then. It would be wider doorways and power wheelchairs and vans with lifts and adult diapers. Repeated operations for the rest of his life, continued pain.
Two years ago our son grew tired and began his letting-go. Or from another angle, his injuries found their second wind. And so naturally, two years later, my mind is a single track of Benjamin Moore paint chips and the virtue of 100-grit sandpaper versus 80-grit.
I pause.
It’s almost the anniversary of the day he died and I have packed my mind full of the conference and the cabin and the book and the goddamned mortgage payment... dammit. I’m not ready for it to be that day.
I summon him as I used to in those pauses.
Liam...
There is nothing, of course, as the fox’s lame bump fails.
Oh well. He’s not here. No more magic. I don’t deserve it. Where’s that verathane? Time for another coat.
He’s not turning away from me. I’m turning away from him. I’m ashamed of being busy. Of willing my mind to go elsewhere. Ashamed of wanting to be ordinary so badly that I’ve stopped watching for him. To think of him, even fleetingly, triggers the only words I have for him. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry we’ve gone on without you.
I tumble back down the front steps and down the walkway, unleashing a cloud of dandelion seed in my wake, reaching for the municipal asylum of the sidewalk’s concrete.
Monday, June 8, 2009 in from three to two, spirit-baby motherhood
Reader Comments (35)
Sometimes I don't know in cases like ours whether it's to be considered a gift to have our lives back to some semblance of normal. And then I flog myself repeatedly.
Thinking of you, kate. And Liam. This time is just hard, no matter how much brain power goes into it.
But I know it's so hard, and I know just what you mean about moving on. (Wish none of us mamas knew about that.)
((((kate))))
I no longer say I'm sorry; but I can't stop saying I miss you, even 5 years on.
I'm a newcomer to your blog and this may sound presumptuous. I think of the community you've gathered around yourself--this playgroup of babylost mamas that meets across cultures, time zones, and multiple planes of existence--and I can't help but see the magic.
It will be two years for us in August and I certainly don't see or hear Rosemary like I used to either but I know she'll be back now and then. Best wishes. Beautiful post.
but this, this leaving... i wish i could soothe your mind and find the words to show you he's gone but not gone. he came to you to shift your life and his own. a place in the trail where paths merged. then divided. not worse. not better. just simply what was. what is. i really believe he took from you what he needed in this life, to carry it with him to the next. your smell, your tears, the way your hair fell around your face. it wasn't this life, it'll be the next one when you'll come together again.
i really believe this. (this doesn't mean that you have to, or should by any means) but these are the thoughts that carry me through the guilt and the i'm sorry's. life is fucked up. that's all i really know. but life is beautiful too. and i know you know that too.
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Christina Georgina Rossetti. 1830–1894
Thank you so much, everyone.. other babylost mamas whose territory this is, as well as friends and people who are kind enough to just nod and pat a knee. I know you've all got busy lives and multiple demands on your time and I'm so touched that you spend some of it here. All warmed up now. Off to bed.
he has given you permission to go on with - and without - him. because you have mamalove. only you.
xoxo
and that Rosetti poem was lovely.
You are wonderful!, and as normal as you need to be. Life wouldn't be real without some kind of turmoil. Keep going, one day at a time.
Hugs...
I am sorry that you feel bad for putting Liam behind and going on. I cannot.imagine.your loss. And that's the real truth of it - until it's so personal that it ruins your life, I fear no degree of empathy will make me really know. So I guess I'm a nodder, a knee-patter. But I just felt I owed it to you to tell you. Sorry for being impatient. And more than anything, I'm sorry that you catch yourself in sublime or cheery, euphoric or busy moments, and guilt taps you on the shoulder. I totally get how that happens, especially when the other boys are wrestling life to ground and giving it a knuckle sandwich.
If grief is a wearisome process, how much more to share it with The Internet. What Tracy said is right. There's a community that all the richer because of it. But - it still sucks, about Liam. And I'm so sorry.
Talk about confirmation.
It is like that guilty tapping on the shoulder, and it eases if I note it. The blog is loaded with all those moments, and a couple of those kinds of posts puts forward a version of me that's pretty sad most of the time. I'm not, or at least no more often than anyone else, and less than some, I expect. I just have a different reason. And it's more a melancholy than the crippling weight it once was.
Grief is wearisome, sure, but sharing disperses it. That's always been the case, even when it was all happening. Writing here literally made it possible for me to sleep. And that people like you received it with such kindness.... thank you.
And hey - you hiked the appalachian trail? I totally wanted to do that. My feet bow before your feet. My feet just asked your feet if they would like a drink with an umbrella and a maraschino cherry in it. Or I suppose that would be two drinks. My feet want your feets' autograph. etc.
But yeah - walked the trail. And the feet-saluting is spot on. I was so proud of my feet and they repaid me by not only taking me there, but also ending the excruciating protest that I keep walking. No more foot pain.
And despite my treehuggeriness, I'm shamelessly girly when it comes to drinks. I'd like about four cherries.
I'm moving to Wisconsin soon and can't get that little red stove outta my head...
This reaction, your initial reaction to his diagnosis, brought Liam's story so much closer to me than before. I get that, having lived through lesser compromises. In this way, I only feel like I understand Liam's story only up until his death; beyond that, I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel so much for you this week, reliving those moments. Liam's woven into all the above, grinning: the jeans, the mortgage, the book; like a vine that doesn't begin nor end. I don't know whether it is your life now that supports his tendrils or if it's he that adds tensile strength to you and your new story, your life.
How could I? I think of her all the time. We went to her grave several weeks ago. How could I forget it now? I feel terrible. What an aweful mother I am! I'm soo sorry my dear sweet girl.
But perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Isn't it easier emotionally to forget the day than it is to relive it? To loose a child is the hardest thing in the world. We try to spend our time celebrating her life, planting flower gardens, pointing out every little butterfly that floats our way, every little "sign" that she's with us. We celebrate her birth every chance we get. Maybe that's what is important. Not just one day out of the year.