Truth be told, I never drink the white stuff, but, still, I think the message is clear...Cheers:)
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Choices
Truth be told, I never drink the white stuff, but, still, I think the message is clear...Cheers:)
Monday, December 21, 2009
Should Old Acquaintance....
There's just nothing like getting together with an old friend. Except, that is, getting together with an old, new, db friend. That is sooo much better.
It was like a rerun of an old, favorite tv episode. The characters were the same, (only slightly older and maybe a little rounder due to ummm, well, let's just say any pg after db changes a girl, some) the place the same, all of it so familiar and so perfect.
Yesterday afternoon I got to hang out with the lovely and much missed around these parts, C.,
She is the only dbl mom I have met in IRL. We got together almost two years ago, end of February 08 when she came to visit the happiest place on earth with her family. We had intended to drown our sorrows with cocktails but as it turned out I was in the middle of the tww and so she had to do my drinking for me. I was sure I wasn't pg but just couldn't risk it, just in case. As it turned out, I was, in fact, pg with Master Cason, and it was C., who was waiting on line to hear what happened after I POAS. And she kept quiet about the 'positive' results for weeks, until I outed myself.
So this time I was able to do the drinking, which you all know, I love me my drinks, and C., was kind enough to invite me over just as the hotel was offering a happy hour an Irish girl has gotta love, free drinks! I tell ya, that C., she rocks.
We got to sit and talk and giggle and laugh and share secrets like schoolgirls. And it was so great. I hadn't realized until sitting with her, that I really never actually TALK about db, being a db mom, about Caleb, about the whole thing. I only write about it.
It was a strange epiphany, really. As I told C., my personality has split as a result. It always feels as though there is something I am holding back, a barrier between me and whomever I am speaking with. The deep dark secret of the 'real' me.
But not yesterday. Yesterday, we both just got be, real.
She's on her way back to her own digs now. And even though we have always stayed in touch via email and the old fashioned thing called a phone, and I know we will still, I already miss her.
Like I said, there's just nothing like hanging out with an old friend.
It was like a rerun of an old, favorite tv episode. The characters were the same, (only slightly older and maybe a little rounder due to ummm, well, let's just say any pg after db changes a girl, some) the place the same, all of it so familiar and so perfect.
Yesterday afternoon I got to hang out with the lovely and much missed around these parts, C.,
She is the only dbl mom I have met in IRL. We got together almost two years ago, end of February 08 when she came to visit the happiest place on earth with her family. We had intended to drown our sorrows with cocktails but as it turned out I was in the middle of the tww and so she had to do my drinking for me. I was sure I wasn't pg but just couldn't risk it, just in case. As it turned out, I was, in fact, pg with Master Cason, and it was C., who was waiting on line to hear what happened after I POAS. And she kept quiet about the 'positive' results for weeks, until I outed myself.
So this time I was able to do the drinking, which you all know, I love me my drinks, and C., was kind enough to invite me over just as the hotel was offering a happy hour an Irish girl has gotta love, free drinks! I tell ya, that C., she rocks.
We got to sit and talk and giggle and laugh and share secrets like schoolgirls. And it was so great. I hadn't realized until sitting with her, that I really never actually TALK about db, being a db mom, about Caleb, about the whole thing. I only write about it.
It was a strange epiphany, really. As I told C., my personality has split as a result. It always feels as though there is something I am holding back, a barrier between me and whomever I am speaking with. The deep dark secret of the 'real' me.
But not yesterday. Yesterday, we both just got be, real.
She's on her way back to her own digs now. And even though we have always stayed in touch via email and the old fashioned thing called a phone, and I know we will still, I already miss her.
Like I said, there's just nothing like hanging out with an old friend.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Shadows
Many people talk about how when they were young they had an invisible playmate. The friend they could count on when no one else was available to help corral wild ponies or create delectable mud pies or to save the earth from certain, imminent catastrophe. Perhaps it was for the more mundane, a buddy to share a bowl of Cheerios with, someone to sit next to while taking in an episode of Tom and Jerry, a friendly ear to bend on a long cross country car ride. Invisible friends always laugh at the right parts in movies, they never interrupt or argue and they are always, there.
I never had an invisible friend. I had 2 brothers and 1 sister, a myriad of dogs, cats, gerbils and guinea pigs and an entire neighborhood, well stocked with kids of all ages and both genders, to keep a growing girl busy. Truthfully, I never really understood the whole concept of an imaginary playmate. I never felt the need to invent or create another character to fill in a blank in my life.
But I have one now.
It only recently occurred to me that that is what Caleb has become to me. He is my invisible reality. I take him everywhere. Sometimes I don't even realize he has come along. He pops into my head seemingly from out of nowhere and hangs out for a while before disappearing into the depths of my soul.
He is truly invisible in that he has no image in my mind. I don't see him as a baby or a child. I can't picture him in my minds eye. His presence is enormous and yet I can not describe him in any way. I do not see him. I feel him.
I don't often talk about Caleb in real life. If he comes up at all it is more about the 'event' than about him. It's not as though people when finding out you have a stillborn child, ask you what your hopes or dreams were for that child. They don't ask what he looked like or how his kicks felt and they can't ask about his laugh or his cry because he never had the chance to have either. And later, years later, they can't ask what's new with your dead child because, obviously, nothing has changed. I suppose to the outside world he really is just something that happened to me. He is not real to most people.
In many ways I am to blame for that. I have held him so close and refused to share him with anyone in any meaningful way for so long that he has slipped farther and farther away into the past. I don't do anything to mark either his due date or the day he died. I don't bake cakes, or release balloons, light candles or release butterflies. My mom and dad bring flowers over every year to mark the date he was born but even then, we never talk about him. And really, I prefer it that way. I don't want to go 'there' anymore. I don't want to feel as sad as I do when I think about him, outloud.
So instead, I have wrapped him up and packed him away from everyone. His ashes sit on a shelf in our bedroom below a piece of card stock imprinted with his tiny hand and foot prints. No one sees him but us.
And yet.
I carry him with me always. I don't have silent conversations with him but I do have quiet moments with him. Quiet moments without him. With.out.him.
Life goes on, without him. I can't picture him in this life of mine in anyway other than how he is now, gone from it. I can't see him as a two year old, not even when I look at his cousin with whom he was supposed to share his birth week. When I see her and try to picture him with her, all I see is, nothing. A black hole of vacant space that should have been filled by a child. But isn't. When I hold Cason in my arms and look into his eyes, it chills me to my core to even think of him not being here, to try and picture another child here in his place. I remember when Cason was born, the moment I held him I thought to myself I can't ever think about wanting Caleb here again because then I will be wishing Cason wasn't here. I knew then that I had to let him go but it was one of the most painful moments of my life and time has not made it any easier.
I hate thinking like that. God, I hate it.
My life is what it is now. I don't have him here. I can't change that. I know that. But still, he is here. In the only way he can be. In my mind. On the corners of conversations. In words unspoken and in the newly planted flowers that bloom in my garden.
And on any given day, when I am driving in my car, my children in various seats beside and behind me, laughing or fighting, crying or sleeping, I can look into my rear view mirror and there in the periphery, I see him.
A shadow in the back seat. My imaginary playmate.
Caleb.
I never had an invisible friend. I had 2 brothers and 1 sister, a myriad of dogs, cats, gerbils and guinea pigs and an entire neighborhood, well stocked with kids of all ages and both genders, to keep a growing girl busy. Truthfully, I never really understood the whole concept of an imaginary playmate. I never felt the need to invent or create another character to fill in a blank in my life.
But I have one now.
It only recently occurred to me that that is what Caleb has become to me. He is my invisible reality. I take him everywhere. Sometimes I don't even realize he has come along. He pops into my head seemingly from out of nowhere and hangs out for a while before disappearing into the depths of my soul.
He is truly invisible in that he has no image in my mind. I don't see him as a baby or a child. I can't picture him in my minds eye. His presence is enormous and yet I can not describe him in any way. I do not see him. I feel him.
I don't often talk about Caleb in real life. If he comes up at all it is more about the 'event' than about him. It's not as though people when finding out you have a stillborn child, ask you what your hopes or dreams were for that child. They don't ask what he looked like or how his kicks felt and they can't ask about his laugh or his cry because he never had the chance to have either. And later, years later, they can't ask what's new with your dead child because, obviously, nothing has changed. I suppose to the outside world he really is just something that happened to me. He is not real to most people.
In many ways I am to blame for that. I have held him so close and refused to share him with anyone in any meaningful way for so long that he has slipped farther and farther away into the past. I don't do anything to mark either his due date or the day he died. I don't bake cakes, or release balloons, light candles or release butterflies. My mom and dad bring flowers over every year to mark the date he was born but even then, we never talk about him. And really, I prefer it that way. I don't want to go 'there' anymore. I don't want to feel as sad as I do when I think about him, outloud.
So instead, I have wrapped him up and packed him away from everyone. His ashes sit on a shelf in our bedroom below a piece of card stock imprinted with his tiny hand and foot prints. No one sees him but us.
And yet.
I carry him with me always. I don't have silent conversations with him but I do have quiet moments with him. Quiet moments without him. With.out.him.
Life goes on, without him. I can't picture him in this life of mine in anyway other than how he is now, gone from it. I can't see him as a two year old, not even when I look at his cousin with whom he was supposed to share his birth week. When I see her and try to picture him with her, all I see is, nothing. A black hole of vacant space that should have been filled by a child. But isn't. When I hold Cason in my arms and look into his eyes, it chills me to my core to even think of him not being here, to try and picture another child here in his place. I remember when Cason was born, the moment I held him I thought to myself I can't ever think about wanting Caleb here again because then I will be wishing Cason wasn't here. I knew then that I had to let him go but it was one of the most painful moments of my life and time has not made it any easier.
I hate thinking like that. God, I hate it.
My life is what it is now. I don't have him here. I can't change that. I know that. But still, he is here. In the only way he can be. In my mind. On the corners of conversations. In words unspoken and in the newly planted flowers that bloom in my garden.
And on any given day, when I am driving in my car, my children in various seats beside and behind me, laughing or fighting, crying or sleeping, I can look into my rear view mirror and there in the periphery, I see him.
A shadow in the back seat. My imaginary playmate.
Caleb.
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