Why Does Christmas Always Hurt So Bad?

Christmas has hurt worse than ever these last few years, ever since we lost Eli.  I've put extra thought into why this year and come up with a few possibilities.  One is the difference between the boys' pregnancy timelines.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we spent a blissful, ignorant and happy Christmas season.  We received his Potter's diagnosis less than a month after Christmas.  Eli was diagnosed just before Thanksgiving and so I spent one of my saddest Christmases ever.  Surrounded by my entire family, pregnant and suffering in silence.  Very very few times was my pregnancy even acknowledged.  It was so sad.  I wonder if I'm haunted by that pregnancy.  If it has somehow carried a shadow through each year.  Same house, same decorations, same family members, etc.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we lived in an apartment and I never spent another Christmas in that place.

The second possibility has religious roots.  I'm Catholic and so Advent is our time of preparation for the tiny Savior's arrival.  I find it hard to prepare myself in any way for the birth of a boy.  It has too many parallels for me.  I wonder if anyone who has lost girls struggles with those same thoughts at Christmas or if gender really does have a part in this.  I also remember my preparations for Eli's birth which was less than three months after Christmas.  It's just too painful.

I wrote a few years back that our family was able to escape and that was a wonderful Christmas filled with less sadness.  I don't know if it was because of the exciting things we were able to experience with our girls for the first time or the change of scenery or a combination of both, all I know is it was different.  This year is not.  I drug my feet in every way possible when it came to holiday preparations.  The only thing that really keeps me going is my children counting on me to hold fast to our own traditions.  Others that are not as important I am letting go.  Something has to give.

Holidaze & The Christmas Box

It's that time of year again.  Really, it's always "that time of year".  Either I'm anticipating one of the boys' birthdays, just celebrated one of their birthdays or I'm facing another holiday season without watching them search for their Easter baskets, carrying their Halloween bags stuffed with candy bars, setting them a place at our Thanksgiving table or ignoring the two empty stockings on Christmas morning.  That's life after loss, right?

This particular time of year is especially hard for me, even though it's been 11 years since Wyatt was born and 3 since Eli was born.  It's still hard and I know it will always be.  There's just something about Christmas for me.

A few years back I wrote this post about what our family does to celebrate and remember our boys each year.  Not much has changed.  We still try to find a local group where we can choose a child that would be each boys' age to buy a gift for and we still try to donate toys when possible as well.  Even in the deepest snows we trek out to their grave site to clear the snow and stand by their Christmas tree for a moment.

Each year on December 6th at 7pm, our family attends a Candle Lit Remembrance Service where we hang ornaments with our sons' names on them on a special Christmas tree alongside many other little ones' ornaments who are no longer with their families.  It is a special time for us to focus just on our boys in the busyness of the holiday season.  We also have an Angel of Hope statue which is derived from the Richard Paul Evan's story "The Christmas Box".  You can read more about the angel and the story here.

Whatever you do this season and wherever you are in your grief, I encourage you to listen to your heart.  If you need a break, take one.  If you need to say no, do it.  The holidays are stressful and busy enough without the added burden of grief and longing.  We find that at Christmastime more than ever we just need time by ourselves.  Create traditions that honor your family and your memories.  It's okay to break old ones and start new ones.  In my opinion, a tradition is only as good as it makes you feel.  If it doesn't make you feel good and able to share warmth and happiness with your family, then what is your family going to remember by honoring that tradition?

My husband and I have made some significant changes to how we celebrate Christmas with our children.  Over the years, how we view Christmas has changed.  What we see and feel has changed and how we celebrate has needed to change as well.  Our families may not understand, but it has been important for us to hold true to ourselves and it is an ongoing process each year.  The year I was pregnant with Eli we found out about his Potter's not too long before Christmas and I spent many an evening sitting in the dark of our living room with only the light of our twinkling Christmas tree rubbing my belly and sorting through the depths of my emotions.  Years later staring at that same tree in the dark as it twinkles the same way it did then is oddly comforting.

May you find something comforting this holiday season and hold fast to it.  Blessings.

I Think He (figureatively) Wept Too

It is officially done.  The stump is ground and the mulch has been scattered.  Wyatt's Willow is no more.  I have carefully replaced his garden decorations and cautiously unburied the plants which were just starting to reawaken after a long cold spring.  I hope they all will come back to us but it's too early to tell.  Hope extends now to the new tree, Wyatt's Prairie Reflections Laurel Willow.  So named because the leaves are supposed to glimmer like mirrors in the sunshine.  Our newly planted willow is a bit bare right now so that much remains to be seen.  It feels good to have something different, yet special, in the ground.

My husband confided that he also felt relieved to have another tree in that garden.  He spent many hours out there cutting the tree down himself and chopping the trunk into manageable pieces.  He cut off two special pieces which are now drying out for us to keep as remembrances.  Silly maybe, but not to me.  That tree was supposed to outlive me as I have outlived Wyatt and while I have no ill feelings toward it there are a lot of complex emotions.  The tree is what tied me to this house.  It was planted less than two months after we moved in and only three months after Wyatt died.  It was a great period of transition.  I had my first baby.  I buried my first baby.  I bought my first house and moved in.  I began my career after finishing school.  I hadn't even been married two years.  That tree grounded me to a place, to a point in time.  It felt good to know that I wasn't the only one grounded by that willow.  That I'm not the only one who will miss it's rough bark and weeping canopy that just barely tickled the ground when left untrimmed.  It's almost painful to look at that area of the yard from my kitchen window.

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.

Those Old Gentlemen Made Me Cry

A couple of weeks ago I found myself watching an episode of the Dust Bowl by Ken Burns on PBS.  Having not been around during the Dust Bowl I found it sadly fascinating.  But no more so than when they interviewed individuals who had been around during the Dust Bowl.  These men and women were just children during the Dust Bowl so their perceptions and recollections are very pure and emotional.  Like the older gentleman who recalled his mother going into labor after a dust storm blew through.  She gave birth to twins and it sounded like they were premature.  The gentleman teared up as he recalled the doctor telling his mother that there was nothing he could do to save the little boys.  His tale of how they were buried together in makeshift surroundings made tears run down my own face.  Different story, same result, as another older gentleman told of his family of eight children and how the youngest two, twins, consisted of one boy and one girl.  The only girl of the eight children.  He recalled how she was so adored by the entire family, and clearly by him.  Then he told of how when she was only two years old she got dust pneumonia and became gravely ill.  She had called for him before all others but there was nothing that could be done and she died in their house.  This particular episode recalled the Dust Bowl in the late 1920s which is eighty or so years ago for these men.  Eighty years had not dimmed their sharp recollections of siblings they knew for so brief a time nor did they dim how affected these men were by the absence of those siblings for so many years.  I cried and I thought how amazing and amazingly sad it was that after all of those long years and the many intervening events which occurred in their lives up to that point, that talking about and recollecting their little brothers and sister was still so profound.  I thought of my own daughters and their brothers.  Words are only part of those stories, the tears said everything I needed to know.

Reminder vs. Remembrance

Holidays are a time of celebration.  For those who have lost loved ones they can also serve as times of remembrance and sorrow.    When that loved one has sat at the dinner table holidays past, even just one time, there may smiles and stories to tell.  In my case, neither one of my sons has experienced a holiday.  I have never purchased a little suit or even a vest, never used a dab of gel to smooth an errant cowlick and never gazed across the table into the eyes of my sons.  My grandmother died just a little over a month after Wyatt died and every holiday celebrated at my grandfather's since her chair sits painfully empty, a reminder of her absence - and of her presence for so many years.

I don't have that reminder.  There is no physical evidence aside from the photographs hanging on my living room wall that my sons entered into this family.  We don't keep their things out in the open, they are too precious, too cherished and sometimes just too sad to see all that often.  

So I sit in silence during these holidays, smiling and enjoying the celebrations while silently aching for two little boys who will never come home.  I remember my sons instead of trying to find a way to remind others that they are gone.  I don't think any forced reminders of their absence would make me feel better anyway.  I am too scared to know why others don't acknowledge it and any words uttered in response just wouldn't seem genuine. I liken it to the kind of apology a child gives when her parent insists.  There is nothing that compares to someone's own remembrance of my children.  

I choose remembrance rather than reminders.  In my own way and on my own terms and I've learned not to seek validation in the words and actions of others.  I own this.

I Wore "That Shirt"

Fate took care of me the day Eli was born.  For a reason I cannot explain, I packed a really pretty and drapey non-maternity shirt in my hospital bag and unknowing to the nurses, they suggested later in the day (when my husband and I were enjoying our alone time with Eli and the NILMDTS photographer came in) that I put on that shirt for pictures with Eli.  I did and that shirt gave my pictures a look of normalcy that my pictures with Wyatt do not have.  They are beautiful and cherished.

The shirt however became "that shirt" and I couldn't wear it for a very long time after Eli was born.  I have worn it but recently me and the shirt made a big statement together.  My husband and I were married just before Christmas almost eleven years ago and since I am a stay at home and he is not, each year I pack up the girls and head to the photographer's to have a photograph made for a special frame in his office so he can show off his girls.  It's a semi-cheesy but completely sentimental annual anniversary gift.  This year I will be wearing "that shirt".

It almost feels like I've forcibly shed a layer of skin to be able to don that shirt again.  It didn't feel heavy or scratchy or any way uncomfortable.  Another words, it wasn't laden with the heavy memories of that day and what an important role it played.  The other day it was just a beautifully draped shirt that matched my daughters' outfits and subconsciously reminded me of one of the happiest days of my life.

Nine Years Come and Gone

Wyatt's birthday was nearly perfect.  The only hiccup was the wind which forced our picnic to happen in the car rather than alongside Wyatt's grave.  He got his birthday present, cupcake and even some bubbles blown courtesy of Mother Nature's gusts.   My husband is made the day even more special in the small things he said and did which meant so much.  Every year he takes the day off work for Wyatt's birthday just as he does for each of our girls.  Birthdays in our family are almost sacred.  A day to remember the miracle of life and celebrate it no matter how short.  My parents also added to the day by sending a very touching e-card which was the only family remembrance but also more than we received last year.

A picture colored for Wyatt by his second oldest sister which is surrounded
by birthday gifts from years passed.

I realized that this is it now.  We've always celebrated Wyatt's birthday with our girls in the same fashion each year but it all changed after Eli was born.  The girls began to know Wyatt through experiencing Eli's birth and death.  He became real to them in a way he wasn't before.  Sadly, baby will never know her brothers like they do.  She will only know them through pictures and video.  She will have been spared the pain of their deaths but will never really understand the joy in their brief lives.  As I was putting them to bed the other night our second oldest (six years old) told me that she still remembered when Eli died and how she and her older sister cried when they were told that he was dying.  She was only five years old at the time (just turned five) yet it made such a huge impression on her.  Her words were precious.  I responded that I hope she always remembers that day and how she felt.  I never knew such sadness as a child and have no idea the long term effects such an experience will have in her life.  I can only hope she will carry her brothers in her heart as
I do.

Right Where I Am 2012: 8 years and 260 days (Wyatt) - 1 year 2 months and 19 days (Eli)

I find myself sitting in probably the same place most likely doing the same thing as last year when I wrote this post for Still Life With Circles.  On a quiet spring afternoon in front of my laptop taking a "break" from work.  It is Wednesdays when I find myself most alone with my thoughts.  Our daughters spend Wednesdays at Grandma's house while I spend Wednesdays with my laptop and a time clock.  This year there is one important difference -- there is six week old little girl sleeping peacefully in the bassinet which just one year ago her two and a half month old big brother would have been.  Today my eyes are slightly puffed from sleep deprivation rather than from shedding tears while all alone with my memories and my wants.

I have lost two sons to Potter's Syndrome, Wyatt in June 2003 and Eli in March 2011.  Even though Eli's loss is much more recent I find my thoughts centered on Wyatt more and more as the days pass.  I know why.  His birthday is next week, his ninth birthday in heaven.  Despite his absence there are still preparations for that sacred day.  I planned our weekly menu and a special meal which we will take graveside to enjoy along with homemade chocolate cupcakes lovingly decorated by myself and his sisters.  We still need to buy a small birthday toy which vexes me every year.  I have no idea what a nine year old boy would like.  Each year he grows older I miss knowing him even more.  Babies are easy.  They don't have much gender specific toy preference.  But as the years go by I realize that his likes and dislikes would be more refined and pronounced.  He would have his own style, catchphrases and mannerisms.  I will never know what those would have been.  I will never know what gift he would have really coveted for his ninth birthday, or for that matter, his third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth.  So today, this week, my heart is especially heavy and if it's possible, I miss him even more.

It is hard to grieve two children.  Especially when what I know of my children consists of hours and minutes rather than days, weeks, months or years.  Our living room wall is literally covered with framed pictures of our children - our sons and daughters.  We have framed pictures of Eli sitting out on tabletops which have not been moved for more than a year.  My grief for him today is somehow lesser.  Less not in the sense that I miss or love him any less than Wyatt, but that there is just more distraction.  We now have four living daughters, the most recent born just six weeks ago today.  Life is busy, it's messy, frustrating, overwhelming, exhausting, hilarious, exhilarating, joyful and crazy.  There is so much need that my need to grieve is often compartmentalized into a small dusty corner that doesn't get visited often enough.  I almost have to remind myself to go there. Those framed photos are like a string tied around my finger.  Having his sister here is a bittersweet reminder that he is not.  We would not have her if Eli had lived.  I don't like to dwell on this too much.  Eli would have been our last child and I would not trade him for her or her for him but the reality is that we were never meant to have both.

Today I find myself at peace with our losses, with the huge absences that our sons' brief lives left in our hearts.  That has not changed in the last year.  Somehow between the loss of our first and last sons I found how live without and yet still live.  That small but important lesson got me through to today and will take me past tomorrow.

The Bigger I Get, Lest I Forget

Readers, forgive my musings.  Most everything takes me back exactly one year in time.  To a most significant and significantly painful time - Eli's pregnancy, birth and aftermath.  One year ago Eli's already been born and  I'm left to sift through the emotions and weight that his short life left me with.  Now I am watching my stomach grow larger and  larger by the day it seems and this only serves to remind me of my struggles last spring.  The same struggles, with slightly different emotions, that I have dealt with after giving birth ever since our first son, Wyatt, graced our lives so briefly.  Wyatt was our first child, my first pregnancy and my first experience with childbirth.  Because we knew that he would not survive halfway into our pregnancy we never had the opportunity to prepare to bring a baby home.  So my preparations for Wyatt's c-section included attempts to erase the memories of that pregnancy from my physical world.  This meant packing away my maternity clothes before giving birth.  It is a tradition I have continued with each and every child since, those living and those not. This baby will be no exception.  I not only packed away the clothes but I took on the burden of losing my pregnancy weight, specifically my pregnancy belly, as quickly as possible.  It was too painful to still look pregnant, to even chance inviting questions from well meaning acquaintances and strangers.  Last year was no different except that I think, like during Wyatt's pregnancy, I indulged my emotions (grief, sadness, self-pity, fear) with food and I found that weight so hard to lose  for many months.  I lost the last pound of pregnancy weight when I got pregnant with this little one and since that was about six months after Eli's birth it  has been a little hard to watch that same stomach which I had worked so hard to deflate puff right back up again.  My internal mantra is to remind myself this one is different.  That  we fully expect to bring this baby home.

Those struggles have made me so much stronger than I ever imagined.  To some they may seem petty but to me my struggles with maternity clothes and pregnancy weight are so closely intertwined with the complicated emotions of grief and child loss that they are major battles within the war.

I Cut the Tie

From now on every March will be "that time".  The time when I find myself reliving the days leading up to, the day of and the days after Eli's birth.  I've celebrated his birthday, ignored his funeral anniversary and am now caught up with one of the finalities of his brief life - his/my hospital band.  I wore that hospital band long after he was born and took great care to protect it from water to preserve those precious words and date.  "Baby boy, March 11, 2011".  Concrete proof that I had another little boy, that he was real and that he was mine.  It got to the point where water had gotten into it and the ink was starting to blur.  This simple thing brought me to tears and forced me to a heartwrenching decision to cut off the band.  Cutting that band ravaged my insides almost as badly as putting my lifeless little boy's body in the nurses arms that snowy March evening.  For me cutting the band was as final as when they cut Eli's umbilical cord and severed my lifeline to him, literally beginning his death.  I don't know what day I actually took that band off and it doesn't matter, the thought still brings tears to my eyes and burns a hole right through my heart.

Just a Glimpse

Pain is all around us, all the time.  Often it goes unseen in the form of physical ailments unmentioned by the suffering individual.  Sometimes it goes even deeper, into the farthest reaches of a heart which aches for someone who is no longer there.  My pain has not given me an insight into others' but it has opened my eyes to the possibilities, the likelihoods and the realities.

We celebrated Eli's first birthday this weekend, one full year without him in our lives and it is upon that one brief day he was here, for less than 2 hours, that I now reflect.  I am thankful for every minute I was given with my sons while their hearts were beating, every second that life resided in their small bodies.  I saw Eli's eyes slightly open once and that one time has to be enough.  That tiny glimpse into my son.  The son that I had just given birth to and the son who I had hoped to hold in my arms, not just my heart, for a lifetime.  In that tiny glimpse I was able to see the baby I  would have taken home, the toddler I would have encouraged to crawl and then walk, the preschooler I would have taught, the gradeschooler I would have nurtured, the young man I would cherish knowing how quickly he would become my adult son whom I would release into the world.  In the blink of an eye my glimpse was gone and I would release my son into a world where I could not yet follow.

My heart is full of sadness and gratitude.  In those moments I was given more than many families will ever get and much was taken from me that many many families will never realize or appreciate.  Everything began with one, the first minute, hour, day, month and now year without him.  It is easy to get overwhelmed by what I don't have and to forget what I did have.  Eli may have died one year ago but my loving memories live on.

Happy Birthday, Eli

It has been one year since I held your perfect little body, heard your unassuming but persistent little cries and stroked your fuzzy brown hair.  I swear I can still remember every single detail like it happened yesterday.  So many wonderful memories were made that day.  Many smiles, hugs, kisses, snuggles and tears.  All of the fear, worry, anger and sorrow that I had saved up for four months of our pregnancy poured into that operating and recovery room and was transformed.  I cherish every single minute spent with you that day and every moment that led up to it.  Without the heartache and pain that led me to you I might not have experienced each moment as it was and I might not remember it like I do.  I miss you with my whole heart and soul endlessly.

Digging Out

32 weeks down and I've finally done it, I've cracked open the plastic bins containing this baby's clothes, blankets, sheets, towels and preciously tiny socks.  There is even a drawer full of little diapers.  I've been reluctant to get these things out because, well, because I still have a hard time believing we will need them.  The shadow of last year is still there.  The memory of growing rounder and rounder and then going to the hospital, delivering a beautiful little boy and coming home to a house that, with the exception of many beautiful and fragrant flowers, was the exact same house I left.  There was no carseat, no co-sleeper, no changing table, diapers, clothes, bouncer, swing or blankets in sight.  Preparing for my fourth daughter is surreal.  We have had most of these things for about eight years now and there are so many precious memories attached to them.

My husband gave me the final nudge I needed to dig in and he even provided a helping hand folding those tiny little onesies and sleepers, all the while pointing out which were his favorites.  He added another memory right there in the laundry room.  I feel a sense of renewal bringing these items out but they have not completely lifted the doubts hanging overhead.  I hope these next six or so weeks will pass quickly and that as we are able to get everything for this little one arranged around the house that seeing the constant reminder of our hopes to have a baby home again soon will carry me through to the end.

Living Through Death

I don't know exactly when my sons died.  I know the day but not the times.  Sure, there is a time recorded on their death certificates but that is not it.  Their deaths were not measured in terms of one final breath, but ever slowing heartbeats.  I do know my very first glimpse of death was just hours after my first child's birth.  I also know that I would have it no other way.  If any of my children die, I want to be there, holding them if possible, until that moment passes.  Although I can't pinpoint that moment in June 2003 or March 2011 on the days of my sons' births, I can feel it.  If I close my eyes I can return to the hospital room...my vision adjusts to the dim lighting, I can smell their newness, listen to the near silence surrounding us and remember the awe that I felt every minute of their lives.  There was a distinct before and after.  Before left me in awe of every moment that passed and every minute detail which I could absorb.  There was nothing but Wyatt, nothing but Eli.  Between before and after was just a moment.  Just one moment separates life from death.  Somehow we knew when that moment passed and in that moment everything changed.  I was like a video recorder that switched from record to playback.  I knew the show was over but just had to watch it again.  So many more memories were recorded in the after but they were different than the before.  No less precious, just different.

I lived through my sons' deaths.  I went from the moment before, to the one between and then the one after that.  I live, I remember and I love.

The Path Not Opened

Yesterday in church I found myself staring at yet another young couple with a beautiful newborn prepared for baptism.  These couples are in abundance lately.  In them I see a path that was never opened for me.

My very first pregnancy was Wyatt.  One I enjoyed every minute of, nausea and all, until our first ultrasound.  Those few simple words "incompatible with life" changed our lives forever.  Up until that point I had not purchased one thing for our impending delivery.  In just a matter of hours I went from an expecting mother to a mourning mother.  Instead of preparing to bring our baby home I had to begin preparing for our baby's death, funeral and burial.  Wyatt and I never received a baby shower, my pregnancy was not celebrated and I mostly suffered in silence for the remaining months of my pregnancy.

Even though I became pregnant with a healthy little girl less than four months after Wyatt's birth that pregnancy too, was marred by the previous one.  I was employed full time during that pregnancy and found myself pregnant and due within weeks of a couple co-workers.  The closest I have ever gotten to a real baby shower is one thrown by either my or my husband's co-workers.  No family, no friends.

That path was never opened for me.  It was closed the minute we saw that first ultrasound screen.  It is a small thing to mourn but one that occasionally crosses my mind nonetheless.  I have always lived with the very real and likely fear that my baby could and would die.  I have never even had the opportunity to be a blissfully ignorant pregnant woman.  It just wasn't an option.

I practice cautious optimism - and I often wonder where that path would have taken me.

Living in Shadow

It is hard not to reflect on where I was one year ago yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Then I was pregnant with a baby that we couldn't name because we didn't know if baby was a he or a she.  All we knew was that our baby had no kidneys and despite my small but growing belly come spring there would be no baby in our house.  It was a dark shadowy time and many days I barely made my way through.  

Now I am expecting Eli's sister and we know she has kidneys and this spring will bring the promise of new life into our house.  What I know and what I feel can be two terribly different things.  Some days still have that heavy shadowy feeling, clouded over with memories of what was and what could and should have been.  The shadows are there even on cloudy days.  Self-pity lingers.  Self-pity which I know has no place.  I lost, yes.  Twice, yes.  Am I alone?  No.  Have others lost more?  Yes.  Am I extremely blessed with what I've been given and the promise of what is to come?  Absolutely.  Again, knowing and feeling can be oceans apart sometimes.

I know that in just a few short months this will all be gone in the blink of an eye.  Every long dark day that I passed while pregnant with Eli last winter is just a foggy remnant of that real twenty-four hour period.  Time has passed and will pass and it will hopefully bring things I have imagined and things I couldn't begin to imagine, each posing challenges and opportunities for me to learn and grow and change.  The shadows will always be there and so will the sun.

The Things I Remember

I remember living in an apartment on the top story of a three level apartment building in a complex surrounded by other buildings. Our apartment faced a building where almost exactly opposite there was a heavily pregnant woman. I remember seeing her in the evenings basked in warm light as she rocked in her chair in a long old fashioned nightgown. It was like looking into a Normal Rockwell painting every day.

I don't remember if I was pregnant or I had just given birth to Wyatt but I know that's why I have this memory. I was glimpsing an apparently perfect Americana scene, one to which I did not belong and never would.

12 Days of Christmas With You in Heaven

Over the last eight years, our family has begun many Christmas traditions to honor our son Wyatt, which we will continue this year with the addition of our son, Eli. The first Christmas after Wyatt's passing we ordered special Winnie the Pooh ornaments through Lenox which bear Wyatt's name and his birth year.

We purchased one for ourselves and one for each family within our immediate family to hang on their Christmas trees in his remembrance each holiday season. (Eli's ornaments have been ordered for this Christmas.) Some families even display theirs year round. The ornaments serve a dual purpose, to remind our families of our missing sons and to remind them of our ongoing grief which is especially poignant during the holiday season. For the years of 2003 and 2011 they also served and will serve as holiday gifts to the families because of the cost involved.

Our second or third Christmas after Wyatt's birth brought healing and crafts. This time we poured our hearts into a very special memorial, a homemade stocking. We purchased a Bucilla felt stocking kit. My husband and I cut, embroidered, stuffed and sequined each tiny detail into this beautiful stocking (every single piece of felt is hand cut and embroidered onto the stocking from the tallest tree to the tiniest paw). No sewing skills are necessary prior to beginning this project but it is quite time intensive and there is a slight learning curve if you are not familiar with embroidery. I figure if my husband can do it, anyone can.

We purchased and began Eli's stocking last year while I was pregnant with him but before his Potter's Syndrome diagnosis. After the diagnosis, it was packed away. Here is a picture of the progress we made.

I hope to finish Eli's stocking before this Christmas Eve and have it look like this with Eli's name embroidered on the banner instead of "Santa's Sweets". All our children's stockings are hung proudly in our living room each holiday season though sadly two will always remain empty.

Every year since Wyatt's birth we have participated in a giving program such as the Salvation Army's Angel Tree and chosen an anonymous boy about Wyatt's age to purchase and donate a gift for. This year we will do the same for Eli too. We would have spent much more money and time on Christmas for Wyatt and Eli if they were here so it feels good to honor that and them by donating something for another child their age. It also serves as an annual reminder of how much they would have grown and what we have missed. It is a gift of heart and a time of reflection.

We also purchase the boys small gifts to leave at the grave for Christmas and place a small decorated Christmas tree at the gravesite. When we began doing this we would carefully wrap a string of battery powered Christmas lights in plastic and take them out to the cemetery Christmas Eve. Last year however, dawned a new age of Christmas lights for us with an LED battery powered set. We found the set still fully lit days after Christmas so this year our boys will have a lighted tree for much longer!

These holiday ideas are inspired by our sons, Wyatt and Eli, imperfectly formed and lost due to Potter's Syndrome but perfectly loved and remembered by our family which includes three beautiful rainbow girls born in between. My blog is the story I began writing while carrying Eli to term which details my Potter's Syndrome journey beginning with Wyatt and our life beyond.

Twinkling

Christmas has long been a special time for me. My husband and I married just days before Christmas almost ten years ago. We spent our first Christmas together and my first Christmas apart from my own family as newlyweds collecting seashells on a southern Florida beach which was followed by a trip to one of the most magical places on earth, Disneyworld.

We celebrated our first pregnancy the next Christmas and transported our first, and only Christmas tree, a seven foot tall artificial across town in my Geo Prism with its doors bungee corded shut. That year I was humorously deluded into believing I could not only have a Martha Stewartish tree, but that I even wanted one.

Our second Christmas was celebrated in our new house but was overwhelmingly tinged with sadness. I was about three months pregnant with our first rainbow but only six months out from Wyatt's birth and death. As if that wasn't enough, in the midst of our grief, we sought comfort in the form of a puppy. The most adorable black and brown miniature daschund who apparently was very familiar with the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. We intended to purchase Dr. Jeckyll but unknowingly took home Mr. Hyde. It was not a good fit and after about five months we came to the difficult conclusion that our puppy would be much happier with a different family. That decision was reached just before Christmas and by Christmas she was gone. As if that wasn't enough, my sister was coming for Christmas with her one month old baby boy. That was almost too much for me. Her pregnancy was unplanned and she was extremely immature and unprepared to have a baby. I was jealous and heartbroken at the same time. Many weeks of sad anticipation of that visit passed. I didn't know at that time what I was capable of. When at last Christmas came, I not only went to see him, but I held him and snuggled him and like the Grinch, my heart grew two sizes that day.

Fast forward to last Christmas. I spent many hours sitting alone in our living room gazing upon the most beautiful Christmas tree I know, my own. Over the years, just like me, that tree has changed. It began with ribbons and glass bulbs which when children finally entered our home changed into plastic and cloth. It is a red, green and white confection of gingerbread men and women, Santas, snowmen and angels topped with a golden star. The frosting are my twinkling white lights (which thanks to an hour long shopping mission across town are now LED). The twinkling white lights are my constant and truly one of my favorite things. So last year I sat, unable to sleep, consumed with grief for the child I carried within who would not be here to see those twinkling lights for the first time this year. Even those beautiful twinkling lights did not brighten my dark days and nights.

Which brings me to this Christmas. Those twinkling lights are here again, steadier than the stars, which often disappear behind wispy clouds. They are more beautiful to me this year but I still long to see them reflected in the eyes of one who hasn't seen them before.