to the friend who asked
When Liam was last on your mind, what were you thinking?
Sulking over money. Sulking over the fact that none of my effing clothes fit (twinskin, wobbly ass, wobbly thighs) and even if they did, they're all years old and I can't stand any of them. Sulking over the fact that my hair hangs like the ears of a basset hound. Sulking over my unruly eyebrows, and how aligning the planets to get them mowed is about as likely as Viggo Mortensen showing up at my house to administer Amish massage.
So I'm sulking.
And then the voice hisses Shame on you. How dare you dwell upon yourself when you couldn’t keep his brother safe.
I brush it away from my face like a spider’s web, inadvertently walked-through. I refuse to indulge it today. But it’s too late.
I feel so worn out with two kids. Imagine if it had have been three.
And then an angry mob straps me to a board and flays me to the bone, as they should.
A year ago, scared shitless, consumed with why couldn’t I have gotten pregnant with one baby like everyone else, instead of two? because I wasn’t ready to be that much of a mama, yet.
Is there such a thing as karmic twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome?
(Hence the flaying.)
TTTS just in time for me to change my mind, my heart. I was finally ready to be that mama for the two of them, my mirror-sons. But now he is gone and I am gutted, having wanted him.
+++++++
Do you ever wish you could be ordinary again, just for a day? To be given reprieve to stress about credit cards and culinary disasters and the pain and gain of personal waxing?
A reprieve from the burden of enlightenment, of solemnity. A vacation from this unbidden intimacy with death. The ability to sit in front of So You Think You Can Dance with my brain on neutral, as it never is anymore: in slovenly peace.
Some days, I mourn the loss of obliviousness as I mourn the loss of my son.
kate
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this is so powerful. wow.
i only wish as a mama friend, a soul sister that I could give you an all expenses paid vacation from your burden kate.
thinking of you and loving you as always. xo
I don't know that complete oblivion ever returns, but the voices do recede and some peace eventually returns. I too have tortured myself with the question of, "how would you have handled twins?!? You, wringing your hands and staring at the ceiling over the two (now three) you do have?!? How would you have managed?!?" But eventually I was able to forgive myself and realize that I would have managed. It wouldn't have been perfect, sometimes it wouldn't have been pretty, but I would have managed... and I would have done it with love. That much, I know.
You would have too. And I wish he were here with you. I really, really do.
You know I hate to see the guilt. We manage what we have dealt. Managing twins would not have been harder than managing your heart now is. How could it possibly be?
And I know this is entirely tangential, but going back to my waxer? That was hard. I thought it would just be hard to tell her, so I sent my sister first. But it turned out that it was hard to deal with the internal "wow-- this used to be something I looked forward to, the outcome of this, and now? who exactly could care less?" I love that woman. Have been going to her for probably a dozen years. I still go, but much less frequently...
Even as I enjoyed the special-ness of having twins, I was scared to death. and so sick, because (as many said) because of the twins. To say I was conflicted is an understatement. Realizing that one was already gone, I didn't initially grieve him, but the idea of having twins. No, I thought, twins. I'm having twins. I want my twins. And then we had to let go of his brother.
God yes. I look around me and know that everyone has their own pain, their own shadows, but god they seem oblivious to this. I can't even go get my hair cut. I know it looks terrible, I don't even know where my hairdresser works anymore. But I can't bear the inevitable question. "So, do you have any kids?"
I miss the ease of my bubble. The comfort. The oblivion. I wish I had it back.
I would go back for a few hours in a heartbeat. Just to do something mundane like watch a sporting event AND CARE or taste my food or have Bella do something that genuinely made me laugh from my gut or relish in my nice abs for a few moments or go. for. a run. Just a few hours. I miss all I took for granted so much.
((Hugs)). This is a powerful post, Kate.
You know what, though? It is harder to handle the death of a baby, than it is to handle being mommy to living twins + a toddler. At least in my experience. When Nicolas died, i didn't move from the couch for days. I can not imagine having to take care of a baby while grieving his lost brother. So it seems to me that you are doing quite amazingly, overall.
And the guilt, the karmic feelings of 'if i had not had that thought, he would not have died'? They have largely subsided over the years as i grow to accept that this path is one which is bestowed randomly...the guilt does come back occasionally but it is not so consuming as it was.
Guilt is such a terrible, corrosive force. Even if it lets us feel, at least a tiny bit, that the universe isn't entirely out of our control and that, somehow, if we'd just done things differently or thought about things differently, everything would have been okay.
will it sound weird if I say I do not wish to go back? I know I can't. I have to find a new normal, without this loss forever looming at the front of my mind. It is so hard.