A Day With The “Ai-Panes”

Gravelly Point is a grassy park a few hundred yards from the runway at National Airport where planes scream as they come in for a landing just overhead. Another place we can go to feel close to our girl. “Ai-pane” was one of her favorite words, and picking them out of the sky was one of her favorite activities.  Her brother appears set to follow in her footsteps.

At Gravelly Point with Hudson (9 months) in Fall 2009:

At Gravelly Point with Jackson at 4.5 months in Fall 2011:

All That We Let In

Sometimes you are just going about your business, watching a goofy movie with your husband, getting ready for bed, and wham! It just whacks you in the face like a sock full of pebbles.

Right after I brushed my teeth last night, Jackson woke up and I took him into the bed in the guest room to nurse him. We laid down and as he nursed his way back to sleep, I suddenly found myself thinking about how we would never get to see Hudson’s first day of kindergarten. I was trying to picture it in my head, but all I kept picturing was her 17-month-old self in first-day-of-school gear, her little head of baby hair with a backpack, a toddler going to kindergarten. It was probably more like what her first day of preschool might look like, something else we will never get to see. I tried to picture her with long hair or pigtails with ribbons, but I just couldn’t see it. I thought for the hundredth time about the slightly insane idea of going to an age-progression artist to see if someone else might give us some idea of what she would look like as an older child.

Once Jackson was back to sleep, I scooped him up off the bed. He stretched his arms up over his head, like he always does, and then I brought him to my shoulder where he tucked his face into his chest, like he always does. I pulled him tight, feeling the warm, limp weight of him on my body and was suddenly overwhelmed with deep longing, wishing, in that moment, that it were Hudson in my arms, her warmth, her weight. The last time I felt it was just after she died, when they finally took all the tubes and lines out of her, and I was able to hold her close to me for the first time in three days. All at once, memory and consciousness and wishing and reality swirled together and washed over me, leaving me in hot tears as I put Jackson softly back down into his crib.

Then, for the first time since I can remember, I dreamed about Hudson this morning. After Jackson woke up at 6:30, we went back into the guest room to nurse and we both fell asleep there. I can’t remember much about this dream except that in it, we knew that Hudson was very sick and was going to die in about a month. I saw her sitting in my arms looking as though she were having a seizure, but then it passed and she looked peaceful again. I remember thinking that even though the doctors thought it would happen on May 13, maybe she would get more time. I felt hope. And I remember thinking that I was so grateful for the month we were going to have and that we would live it up for all it was worth. We’d have so much fun. And more than anything, I remember one image of her, looking whole, like the sweet Hudson we knew, standing next to a chair in a white long-sleeved shirt tucked into some leggings, with her little brown fleece-lined boots on her feet, a very typical outfit for her. She had that thoughtful expression on her face, that wise-old-soul look she wore so often. She didn’t smile at any time during the dream, but just the chance to see her whole, as the Hudson I remember, was such a gift.

I was then roused by my real live baby, who was stirring and stretching next to me. I woke, remembered the dream, and was instantly grateful for it, as I had been hoping to dream of her for such a long time. Many nights before I go to sleep, I “ask” her to visit me in a dream, because I want so badly to see her alive again. I regretted waking up and wished, as we often do after sweet dreams, that I could go back to sleep and see her again.

Ed came and got the baby and I did go back to sleep, but I didn’t go back into the dream. I woke up again about an hour later, hearing Jackson babbling downstairs, ready to eat again. I was feeling so very sad after the experiences of last night and this morning. I started down the stairs and just as I got to the last step, “All That We Let In” by the Indigo Girls came on the iPod. And I knew that it was true. We are better off for all that we let in—the sorrow, the joy, the memory, the consciousness, the dreams, the reality, the loss, the love. Especially the love. We just have to let it all in. All of it.



Dust in our eyes our own boots kicked up
Heartsick we nursed along the way we picked up
You may not see it when it’s sticking to your skin
But we’re better off for all that we let in


Lost friends and loved ones much too young
So much promises and work left undone
When all that guards us is a single centerline
And the brutal crossing over when it’s time


I don’t know where it all begins
And I don’t know where it all will end
We're better off for all that we let in


One day those toughies will be withered up and bent
The father son the holy warriors and the president
With glory days of put up dukes for all the world to see
Beaten into submission in the name of the free


We’re in a nevolution I have heard it said
Everyone’s so busy now but do we move ahead
The planets hurting and atoms splitting
And a sweater for your love you sit there knitting


I don’t know where it all begins
And I don’t know where it all will end
We’re better off for all that we let in


See those crosses on the side of the road
Tied with ribbons in the medium
They make me grateful I can go this far
Lay me down and never wake me up again


Kat writes a poem and she sticks it on my truck
We don’t believe in war and we don’t believe in luck
The birds were calling to her, what were they saying
As the gate blew open the tops of the trees were swaying


I’ve passed the cemetery, walk my dog down there
I read the names in stone and say a silent prayer
When I get home you’re cooking supper on the stove
And the greatest gift of life is to know love


I don’t know where it all begins
And I don’t know where it all will end
We’re better off for all that we let in

At The Zoo

Last summer, as Ed and I contemplated having another child after our earth-shattering loss, I felt the overwhelming urge to move, to leave DC altogether. Many, many times, I thought about how awful it would feel to take a new baby around to all the same places that we took Hudson. I imagined that it would seem almost like she never existed at all, as if we’d just fast-forwarded through her life to this new life with a new child. And that seemed horrifying to me.

I have found, to my great relief, that that was just my grief goggles talking.

Today was a perfectly beautiful, cool, sunny fall day. I had plans to go to the grocery store, but after lunch downtown with Ed, Jackson fell asleep in the car (a rare event), and in my effort to keep driving until he woke up, I meandered my way over to the zoo. Even though I had thought earlier this morning that it would be a nice day for the zoo (gorgeous weather but it’s Thursday, so it would not be crowded), I didn’t really think I’d bring myself to go. We haven’t been back to the zoo since Hudson died, for obvious reasons: too many beautiful little toddlers and too many precious memories of her there. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever bring myself to go back.

But in the middle of Jackson’s nap, I just decided it was time. I felt like I needed to go. I remembered a comment that I left on another grieving mom’s blog about how returning for the first time to one of our children’s “places” is always hard, but that for me, I am always pleasantly surprised at how it makes me feel closer to Hudson. I hoped the same would be true for the zoo.

And it was. As we pulled into the parking lot (Jackson already awake again, cat-napper that he is), I was awash immediately in memory, thinking of the first time Ed and I brought her there together, when we joined the Friends of the National Zoo on our way out, anticipating many more visits in the future where we’d enjoy the free parking. Then I remembered the last time I took her there, in March or April of 2010, on a day that she’d had to stay home from day care because she had pink eye but felt totally fine otherwise—I drove to the zoo at naptime and sat in the parking lot waiting for her to wake up. With these memories came tears, but thankfully they were brief.

I put Jackson in the stroller and we made our way inside. The zoo is one long hill. From our side, the walk to the other side is uphill (which is much nicer, because once you’ve done the zoo and are tired and ready to go home, you get to walk downhill). We started at the bottom of the hill at the kids’ zoo, complete with cows, alpacas, donkeys, goats, pigs, and rabbits. I was reminded not only of our many trips to the zoo with Hudson, but also to Homestead Farms in October of 2009, where she met her first goats, and to her aunt and uncle’s farm outside of Chicago, where she got to hang out with some Icelandic sheep, a llama, and some chickens.

As we made our way up the hill, I told Jackson all about Hudson’s favorite animals, including the big cats (which she didn’t see here, but saw at the Lincoln Park zoo on our trip to Chicago), the gorillas and orangutans, the elephants, and the birds. Oh, how she loved the birds. She and I sat and listened to the flamingos cackle for the longest time.

As Jackson and I wandered around, I remembered nursing Hudson on one of these benches on our first trip to the zoo, when she was just a week or so older than Jackson is now.  My friend Emily was nursing her son, Ollie, right next to us:  

And the spot in the ape house where she and Ollie (6 weeks older) sat and stared at each other, trying to figure out what they were looking at:

And this picture I took of her looking goofy in her sunhat in the elephant house:

(If she were not dressed in girl clothes and carrying that particular monkey, I am not sure I would know which of my children was in this picture.)

And this one by the giant tortoise (turtles of all kinds being her spirit animal and all):

And the spot on the elephant path where I took a few pictures of her and her daddy that fall:

Finally, on our way out, we passed by the giant rock where the ring-tailed lemurs live. On my last trip to the zoo with Hudson, she and I sat and watched these awesome creatures prance around on their rock for what seemed like forever.

As I approached the rock, which is surrounded by a moat, I realized I had totally forgotten what else lives there.

She is always with us.


The first time to a “Hudson place” is always hard. But it never fails to make me feel closer to her. And I love sharing these places with Jackson. I can’t wait until he can enjoy them the same way she did.

She is always with us.

Abiding

Oh, how very grateful I am when others can say all the things I never can figure out how to say. Thank you to Kate Inglis for this heartbreakingly precise description of a parent’s grief. If you want to better understand me, or anyone else who has lost a child, please read it.


And thanks to my friend Liz for drawing particular attention to this part:

It’s one of the only things you can do, after a loss like this. To treat others the way you would have liked to treat your child. With care, with hospitality, with humility.

It’s a daily practice, and it does bring some peace, to look at every person and think, There goes somebody’s baby. Could have been mine.

Something to aspire to.


And finally, thank you, again and again, a thousand times over, to each and every one of you who continues to read here. Who continues to bear witness. Who continues to abide with me.

This Quiet Grief

We made it through the first year and beyond. We have a new baby who has brought us so much joy. Soon, we will pass the point at which Hudson will have been gone longer than she was here. The grief remains enormous. On some days, in some moments, it is still unbearable. And yet it has changed. I am reminded of one phrase from the Aeschylus quote Ed wrote about here not long after Hudson died:

And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart

Drop by drop.

At the beginning, the pain roared, a ferocious flood carving its way ruthlessly through my insides, strewing debris every which way and leaving nothing unbroken in its wake. That I even managed to survive it remains a mystery to me. Now, it is more like water torture, the soft drip-drip-dripping of which I can’t escape, no matter how hard I try to plug my ears or shield myself. Left untended, of course, it creates its own hollows. Only it is more subtle.

Thankfully, there are many good days now, often in a row. There are far fewer bad days than before, but they still come, unexpected and unannounced. And yet underneath it all, underneath every day, every moment, is the drip, drip, drip. It never goes away. Even in my sleep. It quietly taps its steady rhythm until I have no choice but to pay attention to it. And when I finally turn my head its way, I remember. I remember the flood that preceded it. In Technicolor.

This quiet grief, the steady drip—in some ways, it is harder than the flood. I don’t quite know how to manage it or whether there’s any point in trying. The flood was fast and furious, but then it subsided. It took no prisoners, and all I could do was allow myself to be carried along with it. But the drip is so much stealthier. I can’t pay it proper attention all the time. No one could live that way. I have to keep living my life, for me, for Hudson, for Jackson, for Ed. But still it tap-tap-taps away, and before I realize it, there’s another hole to deal with.

And yet it is almost a companion. It’s like white noise. It’s reliable, familiar. I wouldn’t know how to live without it. And because it is my most tangible link to my precious girl, I wouldn’t want to.

God, I miss her. I understand why the constant dripping is a form of torture. Because it has no discernible end.

Jackson at Four Months

Better late than never. Jackson turned four months old last Saturday, when we were in North Carolina for a visit. I remember after Hudson turned four months, I told all of my friends that if they could manage to stay home for that fourth month, they should do it, because all kinds of cool things start happening that month. She laughed for the first time, started reaching for toys on her activity center, did push ups on her tummy, started rolling over from tummy to back, began putting toys in her mouth, and even started sitting up a little bit. I have one very vivid image in my head of watching Hudson staring, transfixed, at the warning label right next to her head on her car seat—I could just see her little mind trying so hard to make something of it.

Jackson’s fourth month has been no less exciting. He, too, is grasping at everything now (and putting everything in his mouth) and is very comfortable doing push-ups on his tummy. He can also pretty reliably roll over from his back to his tummy—a few times when he’s woken up in the night fussing, I’ve found him on his tummy, because he hasn’t yet figured out that he can roll back the other way. He can spin around in his jumperoo and his exersaucer, rather than being stuck in just one position. He found his feet and grabs them every chance he gets, which means whenever he is on his back, his feet are generally up in the air. Thankfully, he has gotten MUCH calmer in the car seat—he still fights getting buckled in (makes me wonder if his sister somehow channeled that plant-and-arch move to him—he’s very good at it), but once he’s in, he only fusses if I keep him in there too long or if he’s too tired. This is such a fantastic improvement-- it makes me much less reluctant to head out with him in the car.

We had a few adventures this month, too.  We were at home in North Carolina on two different occasions, and during one trip, Jackson went swimming in Poppy’s pool for the first time.  We also took a family trip down to Hains Point, a place I wrote about a few months ago where I wish we had taken Hudson.  And he “watched” his first Carolina football game with Daddy.    

Sleep is still a bear.  Nights are tiring, and don’t even get me started about naps. I look back at my Facebook posts from the first month or two and laugh. I actually thought I had a kid who could fall asleep on his own and who might start sleeping through the night on his own, especially since he was putting on weight so quickly. For a while, we had a very good run where he would go down around 8PM and not wake up until somewhere between 2 and 4AM. Right before we went on vacation, we had two nights where he slept through. Who knows if it might have continued if our routine hadn’t gotten jabberwocky? But once we got back from the beach, he started a routine of waking up three times a night, once right around the time Ed and I go to bed, then again between 1 and 2 and then again between 4 and 5. And sometimes, he wakes up even more frequently than that. I have to admit, it is pretty exhausting for me, especially since he’s not in a co-sleeper in our room. But the One Good Thing about it all is that now he also sleeps in, so even though I missed it in the very beginning, when he was so noisy, I’m now getting to enjoy some really good snuggle time with him in the bed after he eats around 7AM. 
And when he wakes in the night, as hard as it sometimes is for me, I get out of bed and stretch my arms, and then I go into his room, pick him up, hug him close to my chest, tuck my nose into the crook of his neck and breathe deeply, remembering how fortunate I am to have him at all.

Here are some more photos of this very exciting fourth month.

(Yes, those are Hudson’s teeth marks on the crib rail. 

Who knows how many little pieces of wood she chewed off? Next time, crib guard.)

This last series was taken at Hains Point, where Hudson was most surely with us.

Jackson at Three Months

Jackson at Two Months

Jackson at One Month