Weeping for Wyatt's Willow

Nature has seen in its infinite wisdom to remind me that nothing is permanent, not even when it is carefully nurtured and unconditionally loved.  It is a lesson I am not unfamiliar with.

Wyatt's Willow, which is just shy of ten years old, as is my boy, has been reduced to a small stump in our backyard.  The last few years have been difficult for the willow.  It suffered sun damage, bug infestation as a result of the damage which could not heal and a final insult - woodpeckers.  My husband wanted to just cut it down but I insisted that an arborist examine the tree and make an education determination as to the poor willow's fate.  My husband was right, our willow was too damaged to stand any longer.  We risked having it fall towards our house in a wind storm and that was just unacceptable.  So now it is gone.  We are only waiting to have the stump grinded out and then it will only exist in my memory and photographs.  Just like Wyatt.  Ugh.  

Of course this would happen just weeks before Wyatt's 10th birthday.  Of course my hormones are all wonky from being in the weaning process for our littlest girl.  Of course Eli's little pee gee hydrangea tree had died last spring (as an aside, his new hydrangea tree, quick fire I believe, is showing many signs of life thankfully).  I'm left throwing my hands in the air and my fate to the wind.  These trees and their gravestones are what I have left to care for.  The gravestones are inanimate objects but the trees, the trees, they change and grow and show awesome beauty and strength throughout the year.  They are what I really treasure.  

To watch Wyatt's tree come down after ten years has been very sad and frankly, something I have pushed to a far away place in my mind.  The decision of what to do next has also been very difficult and sad.  Wyatt's weeping willow was just too perfect.  A big beautiful weeping tree to represent our tears shed for Wyatt.  Due to the tree's health issues we don't want to plant another weeping willow and then take a chance that another ten or so years down the road we will have to say goodbye to that one too.  So we've had to choose another type of tree and this decision has been far less emotional and much more rational.  There are hardiness, pest and disease considerations which take away a lot of the "specialness" to me.  But, just like saying goodbye to Wyatt on a rainy morning almost ten years ago, we have no other choice.

Ushering in a New Period of Mourning

My littlest little girl is going to turn one next week and I find myself not only now sleeping mostly through the night but also feeling that old pull.  The one that catches my eye as I pick out our infant daughter's clothing in the morning.  Those little boy outfits that have been hanging in that same closet on the same hangers, untouched, for about nine and half years now.  The ones for my son.  The baby blue Winnie the Pooh outfit lovingly washed and hung, ready to wear.  Frankly, those outfits have done nothing but make me angry lately.  Angry because even though those outfits weren't for Wyatt, they were for Eli.  He was the son that came after Wyatt.  He was my boy.  I knew it soon after he started growing in my belly.  I knew he was a boy.  I knew it just as surely as I knew that something was wrong with him before I even walked into that ultrasound room.  What I knew then doesn't matter now.  I now know that I will never again hold another little boy from my own body and that I will forever mourn those two little boys I did get to briefly hold but that I will also forever mourn the absence of another son.  At the same time there is great peace in my heart knowing that I will not carry another child.  There is a very real possibility that we could have had another child with Potter's syndrome.  I am so thankful to have welcomed our healthy little girl one year ago.  It has been healing for all of us.  After Eli died I wrote about how heartbreaking it was to watch our three daughters love him and then have to say goodbye.  They had empty arms too.  I have now filled their arms and their hearts.  They still miss Eli and talk of him often.  We know that Baby cannot take away all that hurt but we did not expect that she would.  She just fills a different place in our hearts.

Christmas Future

Here we are into the new year, another Christmas gone.  My ninth Christmas spent missing my firstborn and only my second missing my fifthborn (if that's a word).  My emotions got the best of me this Christmas, and not in a good way.  Six stockings and four children really hit me hard.  My daughters perfectly innocent but searing questions as to why Santa didn't leave their brothers anything and how I knew their stockings were empty just killed my inside.  I left the room with a trail of tears.  We did everything like normal.  The usual hustle and bustle, the usual family busyness and the usual stress that goes along with a lot of family visiting for a short time.  We still got the boys gifts for their graves which we lovingly placed at the sites on Christmas Eve.  But it wasn't enough.  It wasn't right.  For me.

Next year will be different.  If I get my one wish we will find ourselves at the happiest place on earth and I will leave with some of the best memories ever.

But there will always be the year after and it is for those that I am seeking change.  The traditions that have been in place and that I find myself and my families clinging to desperately have to give some or give way to new traditions.  Traditions are traditions for a reason, I know.  They stand the test of time.  But I need to be able to stand through them and this year they frankly brought me to my knees.

For those of you newer to the grief that accompanies the loss of a child and specifically the shooting range full of triggers that accompanies holidays such as Christmas, I am officially nine years from my first loss and I can honestly say that ever single year since his loss I have experienced an unnamed sadness this time of year.  I have found it hard to smile, found it hard to find the joy in the season at times (not always) and found it so much different than the Christmas I remembered.  I thought hard about it this year since somehow as I find the years passing I find myself less internally flexible.  I am less willing to give myself license and space to grieve.  Another words, I am my own worst enemy.  I am telling myself its not okay to grieve, or at least grieve so much, at Christmas anymore.  That's not okay.  I have given myself permission and now taken it one step farther.

I am changing Christmas.  I am willing to create new traditions that will work for me.  Ones that respect my sadness and will hopefully help me through it much better.  I've come to the conclusion that it's just not worth it for me to continue putting on a smile just to make others happy when I am anything but happy inside.  It's not all about me and I am going to find a way to gently incorporate as much tradition into my new traditions along with a healthy infusion of honesty and let the chips fall where they may.  A few words to the big guy and the two little boys he's keeping for me can't hurt either.

I'm Still Broken

At the back of our cupboard sits a coffee mug. To the untrained eye it will appear as is, a nice large Italian looking coffee mug. My husband and I are the only ones who know about the cracked handle which is the reason for its placement. Not cracked enough to repair or throw away but cracked enough to be benched and used in emergencies only.

I too am broken like that. To the untrained eye I have a beautiful family, a very handsome husband along with three beautiful little long haired girls who trail me pretty much everywhere. I appear just as I am. Most will never know there should be two little boys. Boys which I carried nine months and was not even granted nine hours on earth. That is my crack. Hidden from most if not all. Yesterday I realized that I am that mug and that just like that mug, no one has tried to fix me.

That's not entirely true I guess. I have made amazing strides at repairing the damage I can see. Since Eli's birth I can now run faster and farther than ever before. I have toned muscles and am stronger than I have ever been. My fair skin is now golden. Fixing these things has given me purpose. During Eli's pregnancy I had a clear purpose, to protect him and bring him to term and prepare for that inevitable day. When he was born and died so did that purpose. I then purposely chose to heal my body.

It's what I can't see that's broken. I don't even know how badly right now. Which as any fixer can tell you is a pretty big problem. We're fixers you see. I am great at fixing broken toys with glue, sewing patches to clothing and mending holes. My husband has amazing technical and creative abilities and can fix almost anything that I can't. Almost. I am not fixed yet.

I am that coffee mug, hiding in plain sight, able to hold two good cups of coffee but capable of shattering at any moment.

Stumped by 57 Down

Since our youngest daughter's birth my husband and I have done crosswords together. My husband has always been good but I started off pathetic. Pathetic even after completing four years of college and three years of graduate school and being a communications major! Thankfully that was then and this is now. We are now up to doing the New York Times Sunday puzzles (with no to minimal cheating). We began a new puzzle this week. 57 Down has me stumped. It reads: 57. Sad. All I need is a five letter word for sad and I am STUMPED. Seriously? I can't even come up with another word for sad. I just sit and look at the word - sad. It should be so simple. I probably feel a million emotions which are synonyms for sad right now and yet words fail me. Actually, it pisses me off. Seeing that word. All I think is, "Sad, yes so very sad." Perhaps sad is the perfect word.