Hopeless Holidays of my First Year

Thanksgiving a Holiday of Thanks?
     Thanksgiving...it came just one month and three weeks after my daughter died.  In years past, I would spend the weeks leading up to this holiday teaching my students sweet little songs about turkey dinners and gratitude.  I taught them lines to plays, how to make costumes out of brown bags and construction paper, how to create darling turkey keepsakes from their handprints, craft feathers and paint. I would teach them to not covet what they could not have but instead to be thankful for the things they do have.  This year, however, I spent the weeks leading up to this holiday in a deeper mourning than I could have imagined even in the worst of nightmares.  I made no crafts.  I taught no songs.  And I had trouble being thankful.  I wanted, still want, will always want, what I could not have; my daughter in my arms.
     In any other circumstance, I would have been excited to spend the holiday with my family.  My parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.  The children and I would have made a turkey out of fruit...dubbed 'Auntie Leesee's famous turkey.' My father and brother-in-law would watch the Detroit Lions lose as my sister and mother frantically but lovingly would make a delicious meal.  This year, I simply could not participate.  I knew that though this horrible tragedy happened to me, life for others would be going on, perhaps not as usual, but still progressing.  Everyone in the family would gather around the table to give thanks.  They would all tell stories and laugh and smile.  But I knew, that I could not laugh or smile or even be close to those who could.  I knew that all I would think about was that missing being from our family table.  So instead, I hibernated.  I tried so very hard to pretend that time was not passing and that this holiday had not arrived.  I tried to pretend that none of what happened was true.  That perhaps it had all been a tragic fictional story.

New Year, New Pain
     It was New Year's Eve.  As I wrote people were getting ready for an evening of whimsy, an evening of love and an evening of hope.  People would be smiling and dancing, toasting and kissing. They would count down to midnight and as they did they would dream.  They would think forward and wonder and hope.  They would be grateful that the transgressions of the year just past may be washed down by a flute of champagne.  They would speak of the beauty that was and hope that the coming year will bring more fortune their way.  "What will this new year bring for me?" They would think.
      For so many New Year's is the redo holiday.  It is a chance for people to start a new, regain perspective and think of all the new possibilities this new year will bring.  For me, this year, the holiday had become a painful reminder that all the possibilities of this new year were buried in a tiny shallow grave just three months prior.  This was supposed to be a year plentiful with baby benchmarks; the first smile, the first giggle, first time she rolled over, sat up. But instead it is a year that I will have to realize the truth that nothing is promised.


My Missing Valentine
     I have never been a person who has wholly bought into the ideals of Valentine's Day.  Of course I have always wanted to have someone I could call my Valentine, but really, the holiday seemed like a crazy charade to me.  That fact leaves me wondering why Valentine's Day has become so difficult now that Celia is gone.  I think about all the cutesy activities and crafts I have done with children in my classes.  I can imagine the joy on the faces of parents when their children come home and proudly present a handmade Valentine card still sticky with Elmer's glue and shedding glitter.  "Oh honey, I love it!" I imagine them praising just before embracing their child tight, professing their love and posting their cherished Valentine to their refrigerator.  My parents have drawers full of items like this from my sister and me.  I wonder if they rifle through them on occasion to remember a time when we were sweet, innocent and deeply in love with each other the way only a child could be with their family.  Perhaps my impression of myself is only colored by my loss, but if I had been given even one of these from my child, I would treasure it.  I would post it proudly, I would look at it, touch it, read it often.  On this holiday, perhaps I would have dressed her in red.  In her growing years, as she made me a Valentine, I too would be making one for her.  I would teach her songs about love.  I would let her decorate the house with pictures and cutouts of hearts.
     But...and there it is the negating word BUT...my child didn't get to survive.  My child will never know the beautiful, glitter and sugar filled chaos of this Hallmark holiday.  And I will never experience the bliss of receiving a homemade Valentine from her as she utters the words "I love you Mommy."

Polishing a Lost Smile

     I went to the dentist for my biannual cleaning.  The last time I had been, my overly friendly hygienist noticed my protruding belly and asked me a barrage of questions about my six month gestated baby.  "What are you having?" "Is this your first?" "Have you thought about names?"  The excitement of others about my pregnancy always had the ability to rub off on me and I smiled a proud and ecstatic smile.  A smile I have since lost.  She told me stories of her first pregnancy and shared musings of when.  When you have your baby...

     The days leading up to this dental appointment, were filled with an awful dread that someone, most likely my jolly and friendly hygienist, would ask me about the baby.  When I mentioned this dread to friends, most of them would reassure me.  "Well," they'd protest, "they probably won't remember.  I mean, they see a lot of people."  I tried to adopt their order of thinking.  Regardless, I still felt uncomfortable and tentative when I walked into the office.

     I signed in and sat down in the waiting room as usual.  I could feel my nervousness begin to take root.  Trying to calm myself, I took out a book and pretended to read.  I had tried to read this particular book on infant loss several times.  I had even gotten a few chapters in, however, if someone asked me to tell them what the pages of the book explained, all I could tell them was that it was a book on infant loss.  I could recall no further details.  I stared at the words on the page and even flipped pages to avoid another waiting room patient from decoding my facade.  Finally my name was called.   I could feel my dread grow as I was led into the patient room.
     "How are you?" the hygienist blurted out from behind me as I gingerly hung my purse and coat on the provided hook.  I didn't quite know how to respond.  In the months after my daughter died I have been very careful when responding to the How are you? question.  I am careful to not say things like "I'm fine." or "well" or even "okay,"  because none of those things are true.  I don't want to recite some seemingly prerecorded response in the interest of saving everyone from  an uncomfortable moment.  But, I was suddenly dumbfounded.  My usual "I'm breathing" response may raise some suspicion from the hygienist and her overly perky assistant who otherwise, according to my friends, didn't remember that I was ever pregnant.
     "Okay," I responded tentatively.  I felt slightly sickened by my generic and dishonest reply.  My hygienist glared at me as if she knew I were not telling her the truth.  She knew I was a fraud.  I was sure that she remembered the x-rays I was supposed to have received at my last visit were postponed due to my pregnancy.  I could feel my stomach contract and the heat of the blood rushing to my ears.  I knew she was going to ask it. The dreaded question about the baby.
     "So...what did you have? A boy or a girl?" She asked.  She stood there glaring at me with an open mouth grin on her face much like a child would appear when she were about to receive a lollipop.  There is was, the question.  It seemed to linger in the air like a dissonant out of tune chord and in that moment it felt as if time were standing still.
     "A girl, she died." I spit out the words as quickly as I could.  It was almost as if the words had come from someone else's mouth.  Perhaps it was my sub conscience attempt to state a fact unattached from emotion.  When in reality this fact was one that stabbed me like a twisting knife that reached into the core of my being.
     I could tell she felt ambushed by this news.  She and her assistant exchanged uncomfortable and horrified glances before she cautiously responded with "I'm sorry."
     "It's okay,"  I countered.  The response from me was automatic as if the hygienist had pulled the I'm sorry lever on a conversation machine and the words its okay printed out of my mouth.  Its okay?  What?  Really, its not okay.  I tried to rationalize that perhaps I was letting her know that it was okay that she had asked the question.  After all, how could she have known.  This must have been it, because, of course, it was not okay that my daughter had died.
     "Oh...why don't you just go ahead and take a seat.  We'll, uh, we'll get you going on those x-rays."  She frantically blurted out.  She seemed to feel an urgency to move away from the awkward moment that had just formed. "Just sit tight..." and with that she left the room.
     I pushed back the tears I could feel forming in the ducts of my eyes and the bridge of my nose as I slowly sat on the dental procedure char.   The once perky assistant hurried to prepare all the films for the x-rays.  "I really like your earrings," she chattered.  "I have never seen earrings like that before."  I was wearing the same earrings I had been wearing the day my daughter died, other than for the surgeries I received, I had not removed those earrings since that day and even a few days prior.  They are copper brushed spirals that incorporate the post as the end of the spiral.  I had almost forgotten that they were even there.  Normally I would respond with a polite "thank you" and even offer explanation as to where she could get herself a pair.  But, on that day, I knew she was merely looking for things to talk about that didn't involve my dead child.  I silently nodded and then obeyed as she recited commands as to how I should open or bite the x-ray films.
     When the hygienist returned to the room, she laid out all her instruments, lowered the back of the chair and examined my teeth and gums.  "Looks good in there, seems like you've been doing a good job with the brushing and flossing."  This must be something she recites to most of her patients.  I certainly was not doing a good job with anything.  In fact, on several occasions, I had forgotten to brush or floss my teeth at all.  The latter may surprise many of my close friends and especially past roommates as they would be aware of my odd affinity for flossing.  However, now, none of that seems necessary.   As she cleaned my teeth she would inform me that there was some bleeding or plaque build up or even pocketing (though I am not sure what pocketing means).  Every time she would inform me of such things I would furrow my brow in confusion.  Didn't she know I didn't care?  In fact, being at the dentist's office at all seemed superfluous to begin with.  Why did the appearance of my teeth matter at all now? Now that I had lost my smile.
     After the appointment ended I went through the motions of scheduling my next cleaning.  In six months my child will still be dead and I may still not have found my smile.  But in six months, I will return to the dentist's office and get my teeth cleaned and polished, smile or not.