Dicken, Jasper, Kevin, and I sit in the front pew with Becca, Caroline, Olivia, and Fergus. The service is beautiful. Dicken reads the passage from the Bible about the many rooms in God’s house. Before he died, Giles let Becca know he wanted certain people to have roles in the service, and Dicken is one of them, a reader and a pallbearer. I am nervous—aware of being watched, anxious about how our boys will behave in the spotlight. The only moment I break down is seeing Dicken’s pained face when he walks up to the coffin with the other pallbearers.
We follow the coffin out of the church, then drive to the village of Aldringham for the burial. Giles was born there, his father was vicar, and his mother’s ashes are scattered in a field of daffodils right by Giles’s gravesite.
September 3
It is very strange to walk into Caroline’s house again and reflect on the last time we were here: last summer, halfway through my pregnancy with Theo. It seems ages ago. A different family, a different life, a different me. But the strong smells take me straight back to that time. Dicken says, “This was your prison for three months.” Here I am, no baby, feeling about a decade older than I was last year. Strange.
I sit at the kitchen table in the afternoon, sipping hot Earl Grey tea. Caroline’s sister, Dicken’s aunt Fania, is slicing some ginger cake.
“Would you like some, darling?” she asks.
“No thanks.”
She brings a plate of cake and a cup of tea to the table and sits down.
“I’ve been thinking of you so much this year,” she says.
“I know. I really appreciated your e-mail and your note.”
“We don’t really know why these things happen, but I do think they happen for a higher purpose,” she says, taking a dainty sip of her tea. Fania’s son Justin died of pneumonia at the age of three, something she’s talked to me about several times in the years I’ve known her.
“Years after Justin died, I heard from him via a medium, and he thanked me for agreeing to be his mum for the short life his soul needed.”
I smile, feeling my emotions stirring.
“You did the same for Theo.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, near tears.
She takes another sip of her tea.
September 7
Coming out of the bathroom at Heathrow, I see a couple with a Down’s baby. He has a shock of blond hair and the unmistakable slanted eyes of people with trisomy 21. I watch him as his mother feeds him ice cream. He is jolly, flapping his arms with delight after each bite. He is absolutely adorable. I’d love one of those, I think to myself. As I watch him, I have a strong urge to go up to his mother and comment on his beauty, tell her I had a trisomy baby of my own once. Then I go back to the weeks before Theo’s birth and remember how terrified I was to think we might have a baby with Down’s, how I didn’t think I could love such a child. And here I am, utterly in love with this stranger’s child before me, envying his mother for having him. I stare at him so long, I have to run to catch our flight.
*
Sitting on the tarmac before takeoff, Jasper points out the window to a 747 and asks me what airline it is.
“It’s called Virgin.”
“Have you flown on it before?”
“No, but I hear it’s amazing. Giles flew on Virgin once, and he told me they have these multichannel personal screens with tons of movie choices. And they serve ice cream!”
“You mean Giles went first class?”
“No, he said they served ice cream to everyone.”
“Oh my gosh!”
*
When we get to Cecily’s house for a night, I hear Jasper telling her all about “Yurgin” airlines. I can tell she is trying to take him seriously and not laugh at the mispronunciation, but as soon as we catch eyes, she cracks a big smile. Jasper says, “You want to fly Yurgin too, don’t you?”
“Definitely.”
CHAPTER 24
September 13
I have pneumonia, plus a big fat cold sore and lice. As I pull a live bug from my head, I dissolve into rage and get in the shower, scrubbing my scalp until it burns. Back in bed, my lungs hurt; I’m full of mucus. I feel defeated, like the plagues have descended.
*
Just when I’m at my worst, something wonderful comes along: Christine, our grief counselor, calls to ask me to cofacilitate a bereaved-parents group with her, starting in October. Working with death and dying is what I’ve been thinking I should do for a while now, especially after England, when being with Becca and the kids was the most empowered I’ve felt in a long time. It’s a way to pass along the gifts Theo gave me, a way to make something meaningful come from the experience.
I’m honored. I sign up for a four-day training coming up.
September 16
I discover in the journals of an Irish-American Zen monk that Buddha’s parinirvana, the day he left his body, is celebrated on January 15! So Theo shares a birthday with MLK and shares the day he died with Buddha. Not bad company.
October 7
In the WinterSpring grief training today, we do an exercise on our earliest loss. Mine was Moose, our family dog who ran away when I was fourteen, the same day my dad moved out. Our front door was open all day as suitcases were carried out, and Moose got loose and never came back. I explore how I never knew what happened to him and never got to say goodbye to his body. I cry for that loss, for how much I went through. I talk about how I was in denial for months, holding out hope that he’d come home, searching for him, checking the papers every morning and going to animal shelters when I read about an unidentified dog that sounded anything like Moose. Waiting. It wasn’t until the next fall or even winter that I cried for the first time.
I’m grateful I got to be with Theo when he died, and for all the time we had with his body. What a tremendous gift.
Grief is the price we pay for our attachments.
—WinterSpring training manual
October 12–13
I’m having a bad dream in which a man who looks like the British actor Colin Firth asks Maud out instead of me. I am feeling ugly and rejected, wandering around lost. Suddenly, I turn around and there is Giles, wearing a white suit and literally glowing with benevolent light. His presence completely relaxes and reassures me; it is amazing. I look at him and all my worries about the gritty world no longer matter. He is smiling and I feel complete love and acceptance. Giles is so beautiful, it is dazzling, his aura like an invitation into another world.
I tell him, “I had no idea how much I missed you until just now, seeing you again!” He smiles. His essence shines. It is like one of those black-and-white movies when a person in color is moving through the scene, there but not noticed by anyone else.
I wake with the song from his funeral slide show in my head, The Who’s “Real Good Looking Boy,” and a deep ache in my heart.
We’ve decided to go to England for Christmas. I am about to book us a convoluted flight on American Airlines when Dicken checks the Virgin website and finds a very good fare on a direct flight. I have a feeling Giles is helping us: Virgin was his favorite airline. Jasper, obsessed with Virgin since he heard about it, is thrilled.
*
In the grief group training manual, I come across something that sharply reminds me of Giles:
In the American Indian culture, human life is not seen linearly but rather as a circle that becomes complete at about puberty. From that time on, a person’s life is seen as a wholeness that continues to expand outward. Once “the hoop” has formed, any time one dies, one dies in wholeness. As the American Indian sage Crazy Horse commented, “Today is a good day to die, for all the things of my life are present.”
I think often of how Giles told Becca he had no regrets, that everything in his life was better than ever.
*
In the evening, I start the bereaved-parents group, a big group: three couples plus six other moms, representing nine children who have died, many in accidents, a few from diseases. So much of
it hits way too close to home—not about Theo, but my day-to-day life, which feels very fragile from this point of view. A nine-month-old baby boy with pneumonia died as a result of the hospital’s negligent treatment—the mother crying, “I never should have taken him to the hospital in the first place!” All I can think at that moment is that Jasper has had pneumonia, Sam a high fever the other day.
Such agonizing stories. I am awake all night, feeling the energy running through me, occasional flashes of the tragic stories playing in my head. But I am gentle, telling myself, Of course you’re awake, you’ve been through such an intense experience. Don’t worry, you can take it easy tomorrow, which I do. I go slow and easy all day.
October 14
I run into one of the moms from my grief group today. She is on a ladder, stacking boxes in the office supply store where we’ve always shopped. I greet her, saying, “Oh, you work here?”
“Yeah, I’ve been here about a year and a half.”
“Cool, I’ve probably seen you before.”
“Yeah, it’s good to see you.” We smile at each other, and then she starts to stack the boxes again, saying, “Catch you in group next week.”
As I walk away, I reflect on how this woman’s son died less than three months ago. And here she is, working a low-paying job, forced to continue with her routine. I tell myself I will never assume anything about strangers I see every day. We don’t know the losses people have been through, how there are incredibly wounded, hurting souls constantly among us, going about their lives.
October 22
Today there is a baby shower for Tracy, our assistant midwife with Theo, who is expecting her first baby soon. In the car on the way, Maud asks me how I’m feeling about going.
“Oh, fine,” I say. “I’m just excited for her.”
I think to myself, I’m finally over Theo; I’ve completed the WinterSpring training and am now helping other bereaved parents. I think I’m done grieving.
We arrive, and I see Rhione coming downstairs from the prenatal checkin they’ve just finished, with her stethoscope and her midwifery bag—so familiar, like I was her client yesterday, but it also feels like a very long time ago.
Then a woman arrives with her baby boy, a bald, Weatherby-like baby. I sit on the couch, trying to suppress my tears. Don’t make this about you, this is Tracy’s time. I pull it together until Maud begins to sing her baby blessing song: “I’ve loved you before you were born, I loved you as a baby being born, I loved you as an angel from above, I love you as a child running free … you know, I love you …”
I can’t stop crying. And I feel so stupid for thinking I can just be done grieving; it’s almost humorous. But I am too broken-hearted right now to find anything funny. I wipe the tears from my face as they fall.
October 24
I wake up on my birthday and find a card from Jasper at the foot of the bed. He has drawn the whole family in crayon, everyone named, including Theo in a baby carriage.
“I’m thirty-seven,” I tell Dicken, and start to cry as I show him Jasper’s drawing.
In the evening I run the grief group, very sweet—the rapport builds: support, articulation, moving moments. Like one of the husbands reaching out to stroke his wife’s hand when she tears up.
November 2
Jasper is up coughing half the night. I can’t sleep, worrying that he has some dreadful condition—chronic asthma, or an allergy to something he’s eating. Every cough raises my level of panic. I think about how neither Jasper nor Kevin is settled in school right now, and of something Courtney said about the effect of competitive games on kids, and my being overwhelmed about the choices we’re making for the boys: school, what to feed them, how to manage their social lives, how to meet their physical-activity needs in a healthy way. Ice hockey is Jasper’s new favorite sport, about as violent as it gets. We’re not done learning how to help them deal with adoption issues, and with their grief.
I recall Dicken saying he thinks Jasper has asthma, influenced by food allergies, which is what Caroline has. I think of how it seriously affects her life, has almost killed her at times. My heart feels like it’s cracking in half as I imagine Jasper crying, Dicken explaining that he can’t have any wheat or dairy.
Managing the boys feels completely overwhelming right now, and I don’t know how to find any answers. I tell myself it’s time to throw in the towel on the issue of another baby. The game is up. I don’t like either choice in front of me—trying one more time, or not trying. Neither feels entirely right. But I know one of those choices is the reality facing me, and I have to line up with that. All these thoughts crowd my head in the dark night, and I feel like I will explode from the pressure.
Then I feel red rage. Rage so gripping it makes me cry hot tears. I hit my fists against the bed, raging about how impotent I feel as a parent, how angry I am that I can’t control anything, how I feel I’m stuck in this game of parenting, of life, and it’s not fair because I don’t know the rules or who’s in charge or what my role is or why we’re here and what the point is.
I pound my fists until I am exhausted. A white blankness comes over me, mercifully, like a huge snowstorm that covers everything in sight. I lie in numbness for a long time, savoring the peace of fewer thoughts, and at last fall asleep.
*
In the kitchen this morning, Maud sees my face and asks, “What’s wrong?”
“Terrible night.”
She sits down by me and takes my hand, starts to massage it. I tell her about my parenting fears, the raging thoughts.
Maud gently reminds me I’m not responsible for everything that happens, that I just have to deal with what’s in front of me, not everything at once, and that these parenting issues are not life or death. “Oh, Cinda, what an intense couple of years you’ve had. You’re really doing well, considering all that.”
It’s amazing how just a few words of “I get it” can feel so supportive.
*
I talk to my friend Jenny on the phone. She’s had late miscarriages and lost a niece to trisomy 13 last year.
“You know what I see?” she says as we discuss our losses. “Losing a baby is a grief that is compounded by the ever-present question of whether there will be another baby or not.”
I am so stunned by how true that statement feels, I’m not sure if I want to cheer or cry. I thank her for articulating what I am living.
This question of baby or not seems harder than anything right now.
November 6–7
We see a new John Lennon documentary—moving, funny, powerful, and disturbing. Dicken cries a bit, especially at the scenes of John with baby Sean. As we drive home, he tells me, “It makes me think of having another baby,” and that makes me cry.
The next day, after the reality of several hours with our boys, who are picking fights with each other and being especially demanding, I ask Dicken, “So, you still thinking about another baby?”
“Well, actually, that feeling has shifted a little.”
“It has for me too,” I say.
“It’s actually shifted a lot for me.”
I smile.
“But it was a sweet moment,” he adds.
CHAPTER 25
November 11
Today I am quiet, have been in tears a lot. I feel the familiar turning-in energy of winter, like I’m crawling deep into myself and hunkering down for a while. I think the return of winter is bringing up a lot of last year, and I’m bracing for what feels like a plummet into deep, dark grief.
*
My mom calls, chattering away about Thanksgiving plans. My brother is coming with Paula and their three-month-old baby girl. “I’m trying to find a crib for Maggie to sleep in while she’s here,” Mom says, “and a car seat for her to use. Do you have anything?”
I feel like I’ve been kicked hard in the chest. “Um, I don’t know,” I stammer. “I’ll look in the barn.”
Later, I tell Dicken about it. “I don’t know why it was so ha
rd to hear her ask that.”
“It doesn’t seem very sensitive to me,” he says.
“No, you’re right, it wasn’t. And you know what? I’m not going to Thanksgiving this year. Forget it. It’s such a setup.”
“That’s fine with me,” Dicken says. “I don’t really want to go either.”
“Mom won’t stand for that,” I say. “She’s counting on you to cook.”
“You’re right, I should probably go. And Jasper will want to be there, he loves Thanksgiving. Kevin too.”
“Yeah, you three should go. But I don’t need to be there.”
I’ve given myself a year of permission to do exactly what I need to take care of myself. I tell myself I’ve been through such a hard loss, I deserve to support myself even if there’s fallout, which there will be if I don’t show up at Thanksgiving.
*
I wish I could sleep through the winter, through Thanksgiving and Christmas and Theo’s birthday and all the feelings that will arise. But that doesn’t feel right, because I’d wake up in spring. And spring seems ridiculous to me. It felt like a mockery last year when it came, and this dark weather resonates more, makes me feel understood on some primal level. So really, I have a yes for going into this season, even though it’s not comfortable.
November 13
In the night, I wake up thinking of Theo and feeling alone, starkly so. Everyone I love is out of reach. So much anger comes up. I want to stop time, but I am impotent. The sky is about to fall on top of me and there’s nothing I can do about it. And every year winter will come, with the holidays and Theo’s birthday, and I am only now recognizing that I’m alone with this. No one gets it completely, and I’m never going to finish this, whatever “finish” means. It will just keep cycling through.
In the morning, I get a sweet e-mail from Gabriella, saying she woke thinking of me and Theo. Then, just as I’m trying to come up with a soothing person to call, the phone rings, and it’s Cecily. I tell her about my immersion in dark grief, and she says I should stop fighting myself. “Don’t you realize that this process is really sacred, maybe the biggest work of your life?”
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