Happy Thanksgiving, Sweet Girl

Last Thanksgiving was the first and last we ever got to spend with Hudson. Thankfully, like so much of her life, we made the most of it. It remains one of many precious memories for which I am grateful today.

Thanksgiving Day was the day Hudson took her first tentative steps. She was five days from her first birthday. I was sitting in front of the fireplace at her grandma and grandpa’s house and her daddy was sitting a few feet away. She’d been “walking” with the help of hands for quite a while at this point (she had been practicing “standing” on her legs since she was very young—she preferred standing to sitting from as early as about three months old). We’d tried a few times before Thanksgiving, and a few times earlier that day, to get her to take a few steps on her own, but she just wasn’t quite ready—as soon as we’d let go, she’d plop down on her bottom. But on this day a year ago, all of sudden, with much of her extended Chaney family present, her dad pointed her toward me and let go of her hands, and she just toddled right over to me. We were stunned. I remember shouting, “She did it! She did it!” because no one had been watching except her dad and I. Everyone turned to look, and I pointed her back to her daddy and off she went.

Then she promptly decided she had no interest in walking at all for the next month, at which point, on Christmas Eve, again at her grandparents’ house, she started walking for good. I guess she just really wanted to get her legs under her, because once she started walking, she never wobbled and she never looked back. That’s my girl.

By this time, Hudson had become quite the climber.  She loved to climb in and out of chairs, on and off the sofa, up and down the stairs—she was constantly looking for opportunities to practice her skills.  I did not do her any favors on Thanksgiving Day by putting her in a dress (I realized early that dresses are not very practical for crawlers, but it was Thanksgiving and I couldn’t resist this cute, simple, brown corduroy number I found super-cheap at Kohl’s), but she didn’t let it hold her back.  I don’t think I ever got a full picture of her in the dress because, well, she was just always on the move, that girl.

I’ve written before about our girl’s voracious appetite and sheer love of food.  Never was it on better display than at Thanksgiving.  She tried everything—turkey, dressing, mushrooms and wild rice, smoked venison (compliments of her grandpa), cranberry sauce, and I’m pretty sure there was a lot more that I just can’t remember.  And, ahem, her grandpa would not stop feeding her sweet potato casserole. Not that I blame him.  Spoiler.  As you can see, eating was truly a favorite activity.   

Hudson’s grandma and grandpa live out in the country, on a long gravel lane, at the end of which is a farm with horses and a pond full of ducks, geese, and a few swans.  We spent much of the Thanksgiving weekend last year exploring all the adventures down that lane.  On this particular day, we traipsed through several feet of woods to get closer to the ducks and swans—we had some bread crumbs in hand.  The birds were happy for a while but at one point, one of the swans got a tad aggressive and rushed us—we had to hightail it out of there.  We spent the rest of that walk on the safety of the gravel road, taking pictures with our beautiful girl. 

We had two tricks to get Hudson to look at the camera.  The first was to tell her to say hi to Mommy or Daddy, whomever had the camera.  The other was to ask her, “Where’s Mommy?” or “Where’s Daddy?”  The result was a lot of pictures where she’s either waving at or pointing at the camera.  Case in point: 

On another day, we took a walk with Grandma and Grandpa all the way down to the end of the road to visit the horses.  We took some of our very favorite pictures of her with them that day. 

Hudson had never seen a horse before, but was smitten from the start.  Fortunately, this particular horse was happy for some love.  There was another one across the road who was not quite as nice—we had to keep Hudson’s little fingers clear for fear of a nip. 

This is one of our favorite pictures ever taken of Hudson.  These photos that capture the sheer joy she felt and shared with the world are priceless, in the truest sense of that word:

As these photos show, last Thanksgiving was the beginning of the magical time of year that the holidays have always been for me. She was just so full of life and exquisite happiness—I’m so grateful that we had the chance to catch so much of it on camera. Even though looking at her photos always tends to fuel my ever-present disbelief that she is gone, it’s only because they are such truthful representations of the incredible spirit that she was.

On this Thanksgiving Day, the first of far too many ahead without our Hudson, I am grateful for many, many things. But more than anything else today, I am grateful for every single moment of the 17 months and 13 days of Hudson’s life, for every single moment I got to be her mommy, for every sly grin, every grubby face, every wave at the camera, every squeal of delight, every precious footfall, every snotty nose, every dirty diaper, every middle-of-the-night waking, every tantrum, every “No!” I am grateful for every single moment of every single day of my daughter’s short life—the memories I carry of each of those moments are what sustain me this Thanksgiving and will sustain me for the rest of this life without her. I am grateful that I have very, very few regrets about the time we spent with her. Although I would do just about anything to have her back, and although the pain of living without her is worse than anything I could ever imagine, I wouldn’t trade a single second of the time I had with her. The joy, and the memory of the joy, is still far bigger than the pain. And that is One Good Thing.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And Happy Thanksgiving, my sweet girl. We miss you so very much. 

Parallel Universe

That is what this feels like—like I am living in an alternate reality. I guess I’ve felt somewhat like this since the beginning, but as the holidays and Hudson’s birthday have crept nearer, I feel it even moreso. Everything around me seems familiar: the jingle bells in Christmas songs playing at the grocery store, the smell of greenery waiting to be sold, the cold, crisp air and overcast sky, the party invitations, the holiday sale coupons in the mail, the tear-jerking Christmas commercials on TV (thank goodness for DVR), stores’ holiday decorations strewn from ceilings and everything else that will stand still.

And yet nothing seems familiar at all. My child is dead. It is the day before Thanksgiving, and I spent it at home alone doing laundry and baking, instead of making lists and meticulously packing the dozens of little things one must remember when traveling with a toddler, while trying to keep an eye on said busy toddler in the meantime. I made some white chocolate Chex mix and all I could think about was how much I wished Hudson were here to nosh on some. Tomorrow morning, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be on, but Hudson’s not here to watch it with me like I used to do when I was little. We’ll spend the day with Hudson’s grandparents, just like last year, but she won’t be there for us to enjoy. She won’t be here in the coming weeks to celebrate her birthday or help us put up the Christmas tree or watch A Charlie Brown Christmas or learn to sing Jingle Bells. She’s just… gone.

Truly, this very often feels like I am just outside of myself, outside of this life, looking in on it and wondering what is going on there. Because surely this can’t really be my life. I find myself looking ahead to future events and picturing her in them before I can catch myself and remember that she is really gone. That she is never coming back. This just can’t be my life. This just doesn’t happen.

I’m clearly suffering through a fresh round of denial. I’ve never had a day where I didn’t feel a moment of utter disbelief that this really happened, but it has gotten worse again lately. I no longer wake up in the morning with that first thought of “Was this all just a terrible dream?” But there’s no doubt that part of me is still hoping to wake up one of these days and be back in my old life, where Hudson will be with us tomorrow scarfing down turkey and dressing and sweet potatoes. Where she will be celebrating her birthday next week with Elmo cupcakes her mommy made for her. Where she will learn for first time about the excitement of opening stocking on Christmas morning.

It is clear to me that part of me still harbors some insane desperate hope that if I hurt enough, if I long for her enough, if I write all this down enough times, somehow I can make my way back through that barrier that separates this life from my old one, and I can have my girl back.

Oh, how I want her back.

Holiday Cards

I’ve spent several hours the last few nights scouring the internet, looking for some kind of card that might be appropriate for us to send for the holidays this year. I suppose that we could just bag the idea of cards altogether this year (after all, we’re already skipping Christmas Day), but if anything, what we’ve been through this year makes us want to try even harder to stay connected with our friends and family. And while painful and sad, the process of putting together a holiday card that serves as both a memorial for Hudson and a symbol of our hope for the future is somehow healing, too.

And yet, how to do that? As with Hudson’s birthday, I am so utterly unprepared for dealing with a task that is usually so filled with joy when I am filled with so much sorrow. I pored over card after card, looking into the happy faces of beautiful babies and children, peering into the lives of cheerful intact families, weeping again for all that we have lost, for all that we will never have again. Because as long as we live, in every photo that ever appears on one of our holiday greetings, our sweet girl will be missing. And I just don’t understand how that is possible. It’s excruciating.

There’s a radio station in town that started last week playing all Christmas music all the time. In any year before this one, I would have been all about it, cranking that station up and singing along with every tune. Last week, as I was flipping through the stations, I caught one refrain of Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” and began to weep. I turned it off right away. Now when I change the channels, I skip quickly through that one. I’ve been wondering if I’ll be able to listen to any of my beloved Christmas music this year—I have a ridiculous collection of Christmas CDs (again, a passion I inherited from my mom, who probably had more than a hundred). The one album I thought I might actually want to listen to was Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong. Ed gave it to me the year before Hudson was born, and I put it on a playlist with other Christmas music to listen to while in labor. Sarah’s non-traditional version of The First Noel/Mary Mary got me through one the most intense moments of my labor with Hudson—it was almost two years ago now, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  It is obviously a Christian song, but to me, in Sarah’s hands, it is a beautiful, thundering ballad that also pays tribute to the power of a mother and the amazing experience of giving birth to a new life.  (You’ll have to forgive this terrible video collage—if you want to listen to the song, close your eyes.)



Like much of her work, the Wintersong album seems to capture my mood, and this life, perfectly—mourning and hope all rolled into one.

On a break from the holiday card project tonight, I drove up to the store to grab some milk. I flipped through the stations, pausing on the all-Christmas station long enough to hear Sarah’s voice singing a song from Wintersong. It wasn’t The First Noel (somehow I doubt her version would ever make it on a mainstream radio station), but for tonight, it didn’t matter. Hudson was just helping me remember—sorrow, but also hope.

Sorrow, but also hope.

A Different Take

Last Monday, after my post about our final moments with Hudson in the hospital, Jessica sent me an email describing some of those same moments from her perspective. When I read it, I felt, as always, so incredibly grateful to have her in my life, because even though she did not realize it, she captured much of what I felt about those moments but did not manage to express exactly. For even though I mentioned it briefly, what I think I failed to capture when I wrote that post was that along with the terrible sadness of those moments, there came a great sense of peace. Of all the horrible moments in the hospital, those are the only ones associated with any sense of peace—every other memory still fills me with anxiety and ties my stomach into knots. Thankfully, my best friend saw and conveyed what I had forgotten. With her permission, I want to share her message with you. (She told me that sometimes when she reads what I’ve written about her in the blog, she comes off as a deeper person than she imagines herself being—hmm…see what you think).


Mandy,

This is one of my favorite blog entries you’ve done....

Yes, it is very sad and it does make me cry as everyone said... but I just read it over again after reading it the first time last night and thinking about it a lot over night... and I cried again... but there is something very uplifting and positive and wonderful about it too... the love between a mother and a child is an unbelievable bond and there is no more powerful image of that bond than the position/hold you describe.

The image that comes to my mind from that time in the hospital... after we had all drifted out of the room and left you and Ed in there to have your final time, several of us stood by the nurses’ station waiting. When you finally came out you weren't crying, if anything you had a look of joy on your face. You told me how absolutely wonderful it felt to hold her like that. You said that it just felt perfect. At that one moment you had a measure of peace. It doesn't take away all the unpeaceful moments that proceeded and followed and continue to follow and haunt you today. But for that instant Hudson was helping you rest in peace. And as surprised as I was initially to see that response I totally got it... I have held my children that way so many times and it never fails to calm me and bring me peace. Although it’s not a familiar pose with our parents, I had so wanted to hold my little mom like that. In those last days, I kept pulling her whole upper body up off the bed and into my embrace to try to feel that. Unfortunately she was never fully disconnected like Hudson was... she had the breathing tube pulled but everything else remained attached... if I had known then I would have asked for that... just to be able to hold her fully one more time (as she has held me so many times).

And I can’t tell you how many times in Elliot’s first year of life I sat in my glider rocker and let that little body snuggled in (fortunately my second was more snuggly than my first who was more like your first) provide me all the peace I could take from it. And you will have that again and the penguin will benefit from it as much as you - a gift from Hudson to you both.

And there is also no doubt the comfort and peace it brought Hudson to be in that position for her last days of awareness of this world. There is a reason why any child who is ever hurt, sick or feels bad or sad immediately wants to be in that position - tucked into mom’s safe arms - where somehow, no matter how wrong the world actually is, it feels ok... and warm and safe. I too am so glad you had that time with her - for her sake and yours.

Another thought I have to say... you should feel no regret about bustling around the room, packing things up, while Hudson’s body lay on the bed. That too I remember being surprised about at the time... I was fully prepared to pack up that room without you so you wouldn’t “have to”... but you wanted to. That child, that sweet little body, was your girl... why should you feel awkward being around her body even after the spirit had left it?... that body had been part of your body... that spirit is still part of you... that was the impression it gave me then - not a callous disregard for a body in the room, but rather a very healthy approach to death... a respect for the beautiful life that had been, and the body that in that moment still was.

I can’t tell you how many times in the past 6 months I've thought of your expression and words when you walked out of that room after holding her for the last time - amid all the horrible images of those days, that is one of peace... one I like to go back to... one I think of every single time I hold my children that way... and wish you could still be holding Hudson that way.

Thank you for this post. I hope at times it will bring you peace... not just sadness.

I love you,

Jess


Thank you, Jess. You can be certain that I will come back to this message again and again to be reminded.   

It Takes a Village (Part Two)

I started a post titled “Nothing New To Say” and was simply going to refer you to Friday’s post, because at first, it seemed to me like it has been one long sad weekend of the same: I just want her back.

But then I realized that it wasn’t true—well, not totally true, at least. Yesterday, I got together for the first time with my Brookland moms’ crew since a few weeks after Hudson died. This is the group of women who I met for the first time when Hudson was about 2 months old and I organized a weekly meeting at our neighborhood coffee shop for any mom who was on maternity leave and needed to get out of the house. All of our babies were born within about 4 months of each other, with Hudson being one of the oldest. That weekly meeting turned into an occasional playgroup, babysitting co-op and go-to get together group for Halloween and birthday parties. About half of us ended up putting our kids into day care at St. Ann’s together, where we then picked up a few other moms who joined our group, too.

The last time we all got together when life was normal was the Friday before Hudson got sick—we all met at our local Tex-Mex restaurant for happy hour. It was there that we took the last photo we have of our sweet Hudson, nom-nomming on her yummy black beans and practicing using a grown-up spoon.

The next time we got together was about three weeks after Hudson died, to celebrate the 40th birthday of one of our mamas. We went back to the same Tex-Mex place, and all the husbands and babies came. I was overly optimistic about my ability to handle such a situation. It did not go well. The longer I sat there thinking about how completely fucked up it was that all the babies were there except Hudson, the more and more stunned I became. I somehow kept it together until we left, but barely.  I knew it would be a long time before I could be with all those babies again. 

Since then, I’ve seen several of the moms (and sometimes the dads) off and on, usually without their babies, unless I ran into them at the market or elsewhere in the neighborhood. I’ve seen a few of the babies here and there—all of them are now older than Hudson was when she died. The oldest have just recently hit their second birthdays. Every time I run into one of the babies, I am struck by how much they’ve grown—their legs are long and lean, much less baby-like. It is so hard to have reached a point where I can’t imagine anymore what Hudson would be like now. So much happens between 18 and 24 months—the ways she would have grown physically and developed cognitively are now beyond my ability to picture in my mind.

But that’s not what I’m meaning to write about (it’s so easy sometimes to get so caught up in the grief that I forget about the gratitude). About a week ago, one of our mom friends emailed the rest of us to see if we wanted to get together for a ladies-only lunch—no kids, no husbands. A few weeks ago, I had emailed the director of the day care at St. Ann’s and asked her to put the Penguin on the list for a spot next fall. Just the act of writing the email exposed a mountain of raw feelings about how much I miss that place and all the people in it—just another layer of the loss (there are so many still to be revealed). So the idea of getting together with all my mom friends, whose company I had missed so much, was really appealing. I immediately responded that I would be there.

As the lunch drew nearer, I got more anxious. Had I overestimated my readiness for this again? How would it feel to be in my moms’ group again when everyone else still has their children and my child has died? Would I burst into tears just seeing them all together in the same place? Would I need to just “act as if” and try to seem somehow normal through it all?

Well, I needn’t have worried. Seven of us met at a pizza joint downtown and sat around a large round table. Three of us are pregnant with our second babies (along with two others who weren’t there—one just had her second a few weeks ago, and the other is due with her second several days from now). At one point (or maybe two), I did cry, but just a little, and shared with them my fear that I would break down and cry in the middle of it all, to which they all replied, “But that’s just fine, Mandy! You can do that!” And even though I knew that was true, it was still good to hear that my crying didn’t make them uncomfortable (that is really the main fear I have when this happens around other people—I worry that it makes them feel bad or awkward or embarrassed or unnerved). Or maybe it did, but they were still OK with it.

The thing is, I could talk about Hudson without fear or self-editing. Everyone there knew her, and knew her well, and everyone there misses her terribly. No one there would ever expect me not to talk about her or about my feelings about her. Everyone there was happy to talk about her, too.

We talked about anything and everything, and most importantly, we laughed, for almost three hours before we all realized that our partners were probably wondering where the heck we were (and that the waiter really wanted us to get out). It was wonderful.

In hindsight, I think I probably did a fair share of “acting as if,” but that was a lot more for my own benefit than it was for theirs. I remember having a few of those moments where I was looking at myself from the outside and thinking, “Who is that girl? Because I certainly don’t feel as animated as she seems.” One of my friends, whom Ed and I see more frequently, as we get together with her and her husband fairly regularly, told me afterwards that she was really glad that she reads my blog, because after the last time we got together for dinner several weeks ago, she would have thought we were doing really well. And we talked about how it really is possible (thankfully) to feel terrible pain at some level almost all the time, but to be able to take breathers from the worst of it every now and then. I told her that I had learned that important lesson as early as the first hours when we were in the hospital—the body can really only take so much at one time, and without those breathers, I would never have survived the past six months. The pain is always there—it never goes away. Many times, certainly at least once a day and often more frequently, it is overwhelming, and I have to let myself feel it. I have to cry and wail and shake my head and bang my fists and kiss her pictures and hold her things. But when the pain is just simmering rather than boiling over, I can breathe. I can remember Hudson and smile. I can laugh. I can be silly. I can hope. And even when those moments are only fleeting, I am grateful for them.

But what I am most grateful for is a community of women who understand that I can (and must) feel (and be) all those things at the same time. Thank you, mamas.  I am glad you are in my life.

I Just Want Her Back

These are the words that I kept repeating to myself over and over again as I went about my errands today. I want to shop for a Christmas dress for her, like the technician at the vet told me she was doing—she saw my necklace with Hudson’s name stamped on it (without asking anything about it) and started telling me about how she saw something like it on Etsy, and how she shops on Etsy all the time for things for her daughter. At Target, I want to buy supplies for her birthday party. At REI, I want to get her some colorful fleece booties to keep her feet warm this winter. At Costco, I want to sit and have lunch with her and then stroll around the store with her while she entertains everyone who walks past. And to get her some fleece footed jammies in a 2T size with Christmas trees and reindeer on them. And maybe the Elmo Christmas song book. I want to take her to the Christmas on Ice display at the National Harbor, for which I must have heard ten radio ads in the car today. I want to take her hiking on these cool fall days. I want to play with her in the piles of colorful leaves in the backyard. I want to take her to ZooLights at the National Zoo, which was advertised on the back cover of the zoo magazine that came in the mail today. I want her to try her first hot apple cider. I want to take a family photo of the three of us and Bess for this year’s holiday cards.  I want to bake and decorate Thanksgiving turkey cookies with her this weekend so that she can take them to her grandma’s house next week. I want to listen to Christmas music with her and teach her my favorite songs. I want to knit a stocking for her. I want to tell her about her little brother or sister who is coming in May and teach her all about penguins.

I want. I want. I want.

I know this is the time of year where I am supposed to be thinking about how grateful I am for everything that I have. And I am. Grateful. For everything that I have.

But I just want my little girl back. I just want my Hudson back. I Just. Want. Her. Back.

Preparing

In what has now become a ritual period of sleeplessness in the middle of the night, it occurred to me last night that today is exactly two weeks before Hudson’s second birthday on December 1. Which means it is almost, not quite, but almost, exactly 2 years since Ed and I went had some professional pregnancy photos taken. I was 36.5 weeks pregnant, and Hudson was born 9 days early, so these photos were taken just two weeks before she was born. Three days later, we went to our 37-week OB appointment and learned that I was already 2cm dilated and 70% effaced. We freaked out, given that we had not yet even bought a car seat to bring this baby home in. We spent the next several days on wild shopping sprees, buying all the essentials we did not yet have, crossing things off our list left and right. We got the car seat installed that weekend. We were as prepared as prepared could be.

I’m not sure if we have ever shared these photos beyond a very few close family members and friends—as you can see, they are very intimate and personal. And yet, I felt the need to share them today, because as you can also see, we were already so in love with our child and so obviously in love with one another. Before we ever even bought the rest of the baby gear, we were prepared. Prepared to be parents, prepared for our lives to change forever, prepared to love that baby like we’d never loved anything before, not even each other.

At this same time last year, I was in high gear preparing for Hudson’s 1st birthday party. I’ve always believed that it is so important to really celebrate birthdays. My mom made me feel so very special on every birthday, and I wanted my children to feel that same way, to have one day that is all about them. I’ll write more about Hudson’s birthday party later, but the other day, I was cleaning up some clutter and I found a notepad with my shopping list and to-do list for the party. I had so many different things in the works—a monkey smash cake for Hudson, monkey cupcakes for everyone else, a homemade personalized party hat for Hudson, CDs with Hudson’s favorite songs for everyone to take home as party favors. Two weeks before Hudson’s birthday last year, I was busy. Busy preparing to celebrate the birth of my incredible child, who had changed my life in ways I could never have imagined before she was born, who had made me want to be not just a better mom, but a better person, who had finally made me understand the value of loving myself so that I could better love others.

And now. Now it is two weeks before Hudson’s birthday again and I have no idea what to do. I am not busy preparing anything, but I feel like I should be. How do I prepare to celebrate the birthday of my dear child who has died? I most certainly want to celebrate it, or maybe commemorate is the right word, because frankly, I am in no mood to celebrate—I know many parents do continue to have parties with cake and balloons and all those kinds of things, but that is just not for me. At least not this year. I have had many ideas and thoughts about what to do, but not one of those ideas does any justice to the extraordinary spirit that Hudson was or to the profound impact that she had and continues to have on my life every single day. How could anything? When I have a party to plan, preparing is easy—party planning I know. Party planning gives me lists that I can delight in crossing through. But preparing to honor my precious child’s birthday after she has died is just something I never dreamed I’d have to do. No list will help me here.

I’ve never been so unprepared for anything in my entire life.