And then I grieve

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I’ve been a mother for almost thirteen years. From the struggles to conceive to the battles to stay pregnant, from losing multiple pregnancies to raising multiples, and the agony of having to say goodbye to a child I’d only begun to know, I’m no stranger to the heartache that sprouts from a heart that was only intended to know pure love.

Thirteen long years full of hopes and dreams for the twin boys I was over the moon about welcoming. Eleven long years on an emotional roller coaster with the one who couldn’t wait to get here. Nine long years with the one who seemed to exist just to be cuddled and doted over. And five long years with the one who would save me, the one who gave me a second chance.

The second chance I feel like I’m failing at every day.

Amidst the dust and construction dirt of our basement remodel sit all the years of memories I’ve been too busy to organize – thirteen years’ worth of pictures and ten years’ worth of school projects and so many mementos of first games and first theater experiences and first lost teeth it seems like there will never be enough time in my life to organize them all.

But every once in a while, I find the time. It’s there somehow squeezed in between basketball practice and substitute teaching, Pinterest dinner recipe searching and bottom wiping. And laundry, of course.

Always with the laundry.

So I get out the printed scrapbook paper and the stickers purchased so long ago – a whole different lifetime ago – and sit down to do something so simple.

One simple act that leaves me wrecked.

I’m wrecked as I look at the stickers that a younger, more optimistic me chose – Twins, Best Bros, sports, fishing, THE JOYS OF BOYS.

It’s obvious that I thought this life of ours was going to be different. Like the eternally optimistic character Poppy in the movie Trolls, I somehow thought I could scrapbook our way to a happy life.

But then life got busy with so many little boys and so many surgeries and therapy appointments and cancer.

And all of a sudden, it’s thirteen years later and I’m looking at these stickers wondering who it was who bought them and put them in my craft cart. She obviously had no idea how life really works out sometimes.

I feel sad, but I shrug it off because after all they are just stickers, right? They’re not life.

But then I open the drawers that contain the pictures. Pictures of a sweetly smiling Slim, eyes wide in a forced preschool photo day smile. Pictures of a pious eight-year-old in a little man suit, hands folded in front of him on the day he received First Communion. Cub Scout badges and a Pinewood Derby car that never quite made it to the end of the track. Class pictures of him always standing in front by the teacher, some of the same faces of his classmates present every year. The classmates who have watched out for him, helped him cope, been his friend, had his back. The classmates who know that he has a brother who is not with him anymore. The classmates who, along with him, have gotten taller, voices changing, interests expanding.

The children, like my own, who have grown up in the blink of an eye.

And then I grieve.

I sob like I haven’t sobbed in what feels like a million years. And for a change, I’m not exactly sure why.

Am I grieving over the life I thought my sons would have – best friends forever, brother buddies that never got to be? Am I grieving over all the ways that I planned to Mother my sons that I could never make materialize? Am I simply grieving the passage of time, of which ancient poet Virgil said is “never to be regained?” Am I grieving like all mothers grieve as their babies grow and change?

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Or am I grieving all of this through the eyes and heart and soul of a mother who has lost a child?

I have found in my thirteen years of being a mother that grief doesn’t discriminate. It can get to us all at any time. It can find us through the lock of baby hair we saved from that first haircut.

It can grab us as we place those unused ballet shoes in the “donate” box.

It can pull out a piece of our hearts as we close the trunk on the hand-knitted baby blankets we intend to pass on one day.

It can brush us off as quickly as he did, refusing to hug us in front of his friends.

It can rip through us at high school graduation, as she waves and departs for parties with her friends.

It can be subtle and surprising; but make no mistake: it is just as wicked as the obvious kind of grief. When it sprouts from a heart that was only intended to know pure love, it hurts with a pain that feels as if it can never be quelled.

The only relief comes from knowing that while time truly does fly, memories last forever. Where time is constant, memories are fluid, createable, renewable. While that heart, that pure mother’s love that can’t stop time, can make more memories. 

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Spots and Stains and Childhood Memories

The other day, Hubby and I were looking at the furniture in our "nice" living room. The couch has what looks like a pee stain on it, the white leather chair (yes, I said white leather and I have four boys and yes I am an idiot) has a blue ink stain on it, and the coffee table is all scratched up.

The furniture in our family room fares no better - saggy chairs and couches, lumpy pillows, and an ottoman with so many milk stains and food caught in its cracks that I have stopped trying to get it out anymore.

Dents in the walls and missing towel racks in the bathrooms and holes where they ought to be. The black mark on the kitchen wall that will not come off no matter how hard I scrub it (seriously, what IS that anyway??).

Hubby's mother, who raised five girls and three boys is famous for saying, "Yes, boys are hard on your furniture, but girls are hard on your nerves. You can always buy new furniture." The rest was left implied, and I often remind myself of it when I find myself longing for a daughter.

A couple weeks ago when I went to pick up two-year-old Edgie from preschool, he ran excitedly up to me with a paper sack on which he had stamped snowflakes and painted a beautiful blue color. He pressed it against the front of my white coat. (Yes, I know, white again! My sister-in-law, who is dainty and girly, talked me into it.) When I got home, I realized the paint had left a huge, sticky, blue mark on my coat. Try as I might, nothing has budged that stain.

It's smaller now, all but a speck of blue, but it glares out to me. Maybe no one else will notice it. But every time I put on that white coat, I will see that blue stain.

I will see that blue stain and remember how Edgie cried the first few weeks of preschool and how it broke my heart so much that I cried pulling out of the parking lot.

I will remember how one day he finally fought back tears, and when I went to pick him up he proudly said, "I not cry, Mommy!"

I will remember how I thought the best feeling in the world was my two-year-old running into my arms after three hours of being away from me. I will remember how those three hours made me a better mom in the long run.

That blue stain will remind me of a lot of things, just like the big hole in the bathroom wall reminds me that I have a house full of boys who are more aggressive than gentle. And how great that is when it comes to telling you their feelings.

I will see the scratches on the coffee table and I will remember how they played intensely, imaginatively, and how much I loved watching them create.

I will see the nicks on the legs of the table and I will remember exactly the day that Joey put those dents there - literally a week after we got the table. It is proof that he was here.

I look around at all the things that my sons have been hard on, and I see them as just that - things - but also so much more. They are vessels that hold memories, places, and times. They tell the stories of the boys who lived with us.

Why in the world would I ever want new furniture?

 

 

 

A New Name for Baby E

I think it's about time I give Baby E a new nickname on this blog. After all, he is two years old now. Wow, two years. It's really flown by. And the three years since Joey's death . . .well, I can hardly believe it.

I wrote on Mamalode last week about Baby E being my little healer, and he definitely is. I couldn't imagine my life without all the joy he brings to it.

But he's quickly growing up to be a little boy. So no more baby name for him. A while back, my Hubby dubbed him "Edge". I think this has less to do with Hubby being a huge U2 fan and more to do with the way Baby E's initials sound when smooshed all together. Knox calls him "Edgie" which I think is so cute, and I find myself using that more than his real name.

So without further ado, Baby E will here on out be referred to as "Edge."

That is all. Resume your scrolling. :)