The Wreath

Perhaps I should tell you that I was young, very young. Barely 23? At any rate, I was young and image mattered a great deal, far too much. The very notion that we had so little money for Christmas, and that there would not be days of celebration was not at all in keeping with what I wanted, wished or imagined. A limit of $30 each was not how I imagined our first Christmas together.

Christmas Eve came, and we decided to open our presents. I cannot recall what I bought for Mr. Spit, but he gave me this parcel, wrapped with care, and he was so happy. Love was shinning out of his eyes, he was pleased.

All good stories have a bit of drama. This one too.

It seems to me, that marital gift buying is 2 parts knowing your partner, 2 parts having a wish list, and 1.75 parts sheer dumb luck. We have found that you even the score with the wish list.

And while I'm confessing, I should tell you that Mr. Spit found my love of Christmas bewildering. Christmas is an entire season for me, with boxes of decorations, and 2 trees. A wreath for every door. Every surface that will stand still has garland. Ornaments from my childhood.

For the record, Christmas at Mr. Spit's meant going out to the garage, hauling the tree in, pulling off the sheet that covered it, standing it up, fluffing up the homemade popcorn chains, and shoving the presents under it. On Boxing Day, you covered the tree back up, and took it back out to the garage. Not what you might call a big deal.

We had, you might say, slightly different expectations and slightly divergent experiences on this whole Christmas thing. Which came crashing together that night.

My gift was before the wish list.

I opened my present. It was, well, I took a picture for you.

Yeah. Not what I was expecting either. I guess my face showed it. That look of love and excitement on his face? Oh yeah, it was gone.

And we could all argue, what woman wouldn't be overcome with a crocheted wreath? With crocheted roses! And hangy bits of ribbon!

It probably didn't help when my mum came asked who on earth gave us that ugly wreath. The tacky, tasteless wreath I hung over my couch! Mr. Spit came entered the living room in time to hear me commenting that it was the worst gift I'd ever received.

We had words over the wreath: hard words, mad words, difficult words, sad words, and finally, understanding words.

It turns out, Mr. Spit bought the wreath because he knew how much I loved Christmas. He wanted to give me a decoration, because he knew I liked decorating. A wreath didn't seem to be such a stretch for a woman who already had 5. He bought the gift with me in mind, and he bought it with love, negotiating a lower price from the lady who made it. He didn't buy the first thing he saw, he looked and he thought. He bought it with love and care and delight, thinking he was going to make his brand-new bride so happy.

My mum and I were sitting on the couch the other night, chatting after dinner. She looked at the wreath, hung in it's traditional place behind the Christmas tree, and she smiled and said "It's still ugly."

"Oh, I don't know", I replied. "Almost 10 years later it kind of grows on you."

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas.

And a Sword Will Pierce Your Own Soul

When you actually read the text, you carry along, 35 verses into the second chapter of Luke, and you've gotten through the "no room at the Inn" and you're past the Shepherds' arrival, and you get to the presentation at the Temple 8 days after the birth of Christ, and you get to the "Glory to God" that we still say every Sunday morning, in one version or another, and then, well, then time slows and stops.

Simeon, we discover, has been waiting for this child. He is told to come to the temple that day, it being promised to him that he would see the Messiah before he died. Every morning, waking up and wondering. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, running into one long litany of questions and attempts to hold faith.

I understand about waiting your whole life for one thing - a single, glorious moment that defines you. Not for nothing, I will mention we waited for 6 years for Gabriel. And then, when I became pregnant, we waited for 3 months, waiting to see if the pregnancy would stick. Waiting, watching. We waited for 6 days between diagnosis, and this terrible anniversary today.

After Simeon - when his part in the story starts, time stops, at least if you are a dead baby mum.
"Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother . . . And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

Takes your breath away, doesn't it? You hand over your baby to do the right and acceptable thing, to do the thing that is always done at 8 days, you pay your bits and bobs, and you expect a generic bit of praise, a banal bit of blessing, and you get the promise of pain and blood and anguish.

On this day, 2 years ago, an impossibly nice doctor told us that this was the end. She was kind and merciful, but so very final. We made phone calls and plans, and we waited. We made what tiny, piteous choices were available to us. And we waited.

People frequently ask me if the 10 of December, 2007 was the worst day of my life. What if I told you that was my moment of becoming? What if I told you it was my clarion time?

An instant, an entire universe. You can twist and spin all of space: constellations, galaxies, quasars, pulsars and twinkling starlight into the area of your open palm and hold it there. Everything since the dawn of time, can play out in the space between your eyes, in the time it takes to blink. All you would ever need to do and say. It takes no time to affirm all that has virtue and meaning. The shout of Gloria can end before it ever begins.

It is simple to accomplish these feats, far simpler than my once young mind would have expected. It does not take much to focus everything. For everything to stay focused a particular way, for the rest of your life.

A sword. . . piercing your own soul.

Grateful

I've been thinking back to this time last year, more than this time 2 years ago. I was, consumed, last year, with remembering the year before. In that terrible year between Gabe's birth and the first anniversary of his death, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I had done at that time, the year before.Remembering, framing and re framing memories. Trying to come to terms with what happened. I felt like I was being forced to watch a car crash, over and over. I knew how it would end, but I was powerless, all I could do was stand and watch.

Such is the virtue of time, it dims our memory. Things that seemed so unbearably painful last year, are a dull, unresolvable ache this year. Yes Mrs. Spit, there is life after the death of your child. Eventually, you move into something a lot like living your life again.

Christmas, the act of keeping it, has been different this year. Last year I forced myself to "do" Christmas. I forced myself to decorate, to cook Christmas dinner, to buy gifts, put up a tree, sing carols. It was a constant grind. Every moment of it was sandpaper on my skin. I only did it because I figured I had to. I figured that the Christmas right after Gabe's death was the "first" Christmas, and I should be all better. I was only starting to learn the need to advocate for yourself, your sanity, when you are grieving. Last year I was not sure I would ever want Christmas again. I was terrified that my once favourite holiday was gone to me forever, would always be overshadowed by sadness.

It is better this year. We have, paradoxically, stayed away from our church (but, that's the subject of another entry) and we have been kinder to ourselves. Perhaps it is merely that the pressure is off. I don't feel like we are being so closely watched: watched by those around us, but not given much in the way of understanding.

Christmas is different though. I have a better sense of what matters. I watch mindless consumerism, and I think about that verse in Matthew, about who receives what we prepare for ourselves after we die (the original injunction that you can't take it with you.) I find myself more in love with the Christ Child, and more in love with the promise of his Resurrection, that guarantees me mine, and less inclined to buy more crap.

But, at least this year, I am excited about Christmas, I am excited about who is coming for dinner, I'm excited about plans for a Christmas concert, I've already been to a Festival of Lessons and Carols. I'm excited about the tree, I'm excited about the house being decorated. I'm even excited about baking.

I am, grateful. Grateful that Christmas is restored to me, grateful that I understand it differently. Grateful that I remain, and there is still room in my heart to share.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I
will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I
may sponge away the writing on this stone!"
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Room With a View

Funeral Alleluia

Something special happens on December 21st: on the frozen prairies, where the sun will rise at 10 minutes to 9, and it will set at 20 minutes past 4, in the sky for a scant 7 hours. On this day, it seems as if the entire earth has fallen asleep.

And yet, in that slumber, the 21st, the solstice, it is the start of something. Starting in September, we northerners begin to lose the sun. It gets darker and darker, earlier and earlier. We lose sight of the summer, our memories clouded in cold and dark.

I bid my son farewell in the language, in the liturgy, of my ancestors. Using the words of those before me, using the same form as the words that tied his father and I together on our wedding day, the same verses that sped my father on his way home, we came to bid good-bye to Gabriel on the shortest day of the year.

On my wedding day, I remember the church doors opening as the congregation began singing the first verse.

For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love from which from our birth, over and around us lies. Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

I remember my broken spirit unable to give words to the hymn. Not resplendent in a white wedding dress; rather small and broken, in a navy blue suit, hiding arms covered with bruises and needle marks.

I remember his God Parents, reaching back to the words of Job. Some of the most triumphant words in the Old Testament, spoken with such quiet sadness.

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my flesh is stripped from me, yet in my body I will see God.

I can hear Regula's voice as she read the Gospel, My adopted grandmother's voice stumbling as she read Revelations, perhaps unable to believe that any hand could wipe the tears from our eyes, wishing we were already in that land of no more death.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

I remember the words at the end:

Into your hands, O merciful Saviour, we commend your servant Gabriel. Acknowledge, we pray, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.

On the shortest day of the year, a day in which death seems so imminent, so powerful, so crushing and cruel, on that day, we said good-bye.

On the day the old year could be said to end, and a new sunrise, a new season to take its place: we proclaimed Gabriel's birth in heaven. We spoke about light, not darkness. On that day, our broken hearts and faint voices stood up and proclaimed the power of the Resurrection. On that day, we proclaimed that Gabriel was gone from our arms, but was entirely safe and alive in God's hands.

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of all; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Alleluia Gabe. Spring is just around the corner.


(toby awards on monday)

Advent - Day 10

The Morning After The Night Before

I suppose we could say, that as I walked into a new room on the maternity floor, as they offered me a room on the gynecology floor, the geriatric floor, any floor but "that" floor - the post-partum ward - I suppose as I smiled at them and told them there were still babies in the world, and I would just have to get used to it, bear it, I suppose that we could say today was the first day of the rest of my life.

I tell people, others in this situation that it doesn't get better, but it does get easier. I believe that still. There came a point, a few weeks ago, when I realized that if a one year anniversary meant anything, it meant that this was forever. It meant that the days I was surviving to face would pass, however I chose to mark them. I was looking at the rest of my life, knowing that I would always miss Gabriel. If there is a choice to be had, it is how I will live, how I will remember and honour and find meaning.

I will spend the rest of my life living in dead baby land. Perhaps I will inhabit other lands too, I am always a wife, a friend, an employee, a volunteer and a child of God. And I am always Gabriel's mother. By virtue of our connection, by virtue of his short life, I shall always spend time in this place. Part of me is here.

Heaven became real to me for the first time when my niece's mum died. I remembered Carrie at her daughter's wedding. She was so vibrant, so full of life, so in love with the world. I remember her dancing, throwing her hands in the air, shouting "Opa!", looking around at all of us, inviting us into her joy.

I woke up one year ago this morning, and realized that my son was there. And I wondered if Carrie, if my grandmother, my aunts, dear friends, my father, had rushed to greet him. I wondered if his great-grandparents were there, waiting for him, if Christ himself had woken them up that night, and told them to come, to watch, to be ready. I wonder if heaven held their breath.

I wonder if those who have gone before were waiting. That as soon as he left our sight, our world, in another world, another place they were taking up the cheer. They were whispering and shouting, "he's coming, he's here." I believe they waited that night, waiting for their grandson, their nephew, their great-grandson, their cousin, their grandnephew, their beloved friend's babe. I believe they scooped him up and held him, told him it would only seem a moment until we were there again. I believe a community awaited him, whispering in his ear, singing him lullabies, providing love and comfort. I believe they hold him still, telling him of our families, our stories, telling him of who we are.

This is the last of the advent reflections. It does not mean that this time is necessarily over, only that we have traversed this particular portion of the land of grief, with your help. One year has passed, and as I chose on the 11th last year, I must again choose life. I must again choose to live in this world, take part, give back. Use my days wisely, until I am called home. There is still work to do, even for a broken woman. I must again chose to believe that God knows more than I do, hearing and believing:

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. (Job 19:25-26)

Advent too, is a time of waiting together for something monumental to happen. It is a time of knowing, but still of waiting, wondering, abiding. In much the same way have I heard your voices and your prayers. In much the same way have you walked this path with us, slowly, carefully, mindfully. Abiding. In much the same way have all of you held out hope that there is another side to this land, that as terrible as my memories are, you are with us, and Mr. Spit and I are not alone.

I have come through the memories of this time, marked by words and prayers, your emails and phone calls and memento's, flowers and your tears. Marked by the many of you that have borne silent witness. We owe debts that we cannot repay. Please, do not think for a moment that Mr. Spit and I are not aware of this.

A light has shone in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And if there must be a lesson to Gabriel's short life, I suspect this should suit.

Happy Birthday

We stood around your cake, singing happy birthday, with voices that were weak and cracking.

We sang the song, wishing you were here to hear us, even when we could barely carry the tune.

But behind us, we heard a whole host of voices. We are not the only ones signing.

When our voices fail, there are always those behind us.

Thank you.

Advent - Day 8

Today I entered the shadow lands. Through my head ran a song. Seasons in the Sun.

Mostly just the chorus.

Good-bye my friends, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there.

And I remember this day, in snatches. I remember my mother having me up and walking - to bring the labour pains faster. I remember sitting in the cafeteria and seeing a classmate from high school, now a nurse. Turning my body so that she would not see me.

I didn't know how to tell her, what to say. That I was pregnant but dying, and waiting for a baby to come, a baby that wouldn't live?

Normally, you see, labour is about anticipation. It's about bringing a baby into this world. The child who became Gabriel, a child whose gender we didn't even know. I was convinced that this was a girl. And I remember the discussion about names. Gabriel as a girl was to be Eleanor-May Genvieve. The Genevieve for my best friend. And suddenly I realized that this was a different baby, a different expectation, a different life, and this baby needed a name of their own. I picked out a girls name, and Mr. Spit chose a boy's name.

I remember weeping in the shower, and my mother trying to comfort me. But there was no comfort. The tears, however empty, however powerless to change anything, they were the only escape of the agony.

I remember the pain increased throughout the day, the feeling of cramping. Telling the nurse, and her quiet hand, telling me this was good. Good, I thought? What could be good about this? Nothing about this was as it should be. Around me I heard the cries of babies. I had been warned that Gabriel would be born still and silent.

I remember the blood tests, every 4 hours, the increasing doses of blood pressure drugs. My resting BP increasing. Loading doses. A note on the door to check with the nurses station before seeing me. A friend that came by to pray, and my mum telling her we didn't want company. This was too much for us, we needed to hold together and wait.

I remember my mother's panic and exhaustion. I remember never being afraid for my life. I remember residents and doctors parading in and out, nurses changing shift. I remember the nurse who sat for a while, stroking my hand, telling me that she was sorry.

I remember care and concern and mercy.

Even in the shadow lands, there is memory.

Advent - Day 7

LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

People frequently assume that the 10th of December must have been the worst day of my life. I can see why - the day of my son's birth and death is a day filled with so many emotions. But it was not the worst day. That day was today.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

The home care nurse arrived for my first appointment. And I failed the test to stay home. My blood pressure was too high and there was too much protein in my urine. And so I found myself back in the case room at the hospital. Laying on a narrow bed, shivering.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

It seems strange when I think of it, that I would shiver. I am always warm. Always. But the coldness, it sunk it my very being. It did not matter the number of blankets they brought me, I shivered. It was not a physical coldness, but the weight of fear and sorrow and terror that had pervaded my very soul. It was cold in my heart.

You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

I remember sitting on the bathroom floor at home that morning as Mr. Spit packed my bags and made phone calls, cancelling the meals that were to be arriving, letting others know that things had changed, again. I remember petting the dogs, and weeping, I just couldn't keep living with this sense of fear and dread and hopelessness. I remember sobbing that I couldn't keep doing this, that I couldn't be this powerless, this weak, this fragile.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

It seems strange to me, but I don't recall a definitive moment when they told me this was the end of the road for Gabriel and I. It just seemed as if things got worse and worse, darker and darker, and I shivered more and more. Every test, the news was worse.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

I remember trying to read The Shipping News, and when I look up from my computer, it sits on the shelf unread. I remember knitting Mr. Spit a cabled hat, but unable to concentrate on the stitches, unable to make my numb and swollen hands co-operate, form stitches.

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

I suppose the end was when the Perinatologist on call came in, with a better ultrasound machine. She ran the wand around my belly, and then reached over and turned off the machine. Handed me Kleenex to wipe the goop off.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

I remember her sitting down. I imagine she took a deep breath. And I started hearing words. No amniotic fluid, the baby was sending all the blood to its brain, to keep itself alive. Baby had dropped 100 grams or so. My blood pressure. Low platelets, high urine. Kidneys failing. Baby dying. Me dying.

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

It seems strange, I should think those words, the words she used to tell me that it was time, this road had come to an end, it seemed as if I should remember those words, they should be etched into my very being.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"

And it is like a vacuum has sucked them out of my memory. I remember the last kick, but no memory of the words that signaled the end of Gabriel's life.

even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

I remember discussing next steps. Phoning my mother, my midwife. I remember making decisions. Not to intubate, not to save my child. I remember the pain, gasping out the words that I didn't want him to suffer.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I remember the C-section vs. natural birth discussion, and the choice to try to do this on my own. I remember the offer, my mother's wish that I could just have this done, and I remembered the words in a Yarn Harlot story about it being a certain truth that a thing begun must be ended. I remembered the words from my school, that the end of the matter is better than its beginning.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

I remember the God awful realization that God had given me my son on the 28th of June, and now he asked for him back. As the world around me celebrated Advent, this was Good Friday, and I was Mary by the cross. I would be Mary preparing her son for burial, one last act of service to a child my body brought forth. I remember the words to a worship song running through my head, lines about Blessed be the Name of the Lord, though there's pain in the offering.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

I remember the phone calls I made, and the phone calls Mr. Spit made. I remember my best friend's cry of "No, surely there must be some hope". I remember telling her there was none, it had to be this way.

your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me

were written in your book before one of them came to be.

I remember my niece offering to get on a plane that night, friends offering to come to the hospital. I remember hushed discussions and my insistence that Mr. Spit bring the scrabble game from home.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

I remember waiting for an IV pump, and a student nurse that I smiled at, and told her that she could practice her IV skills on me. I remember apologizing that I would be her first labour patient, wishing that she could have a happy memory for her first birth.

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.

I remember my midwife and my mum. I remember my mum asking Cathy how long an induction would take, and I remember Cathy biting her lip and shaking her head. I remember her saying a long time, that my body would not so easily give up this child it sheltered.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

I remember Cathy sitting with me, putting me in the shower. I remember the start of the Mag drip, and finally I remember Cathy reading this psalm to me, flipping the pages in my bible.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24

Advent - Day 5

First it was the resident. Who walked in, filled with glee. Fully convinced my midwife had screwed up.

"I noticed that you haven't receieved any prenatal blood work, or your Diabetes screening and that you are under the care of the midwife."

Now, maybe it was because I had just received what the hospital called "breakfast" - which mostly just made me think that I wanted to continue fasting. Maybe it was that the nurses arrived every 2 hours to take my vitals, and then chastized me for not sleeping. I was a bit tetchy.

So, in she waltzed, with this delight in her eyes, that my midwife had screwed up. She was surprised when I went through the testing requirements and detailed why they hadn't been done (I was a plasma donor - I know what my blood type is, what Mr. Spit's is, I was immunized against Measels at the ripe old age of 23). She left, looking a bit defeated. I felt for her, because I was looking at my breakfast, and I was feeling defeated.

Then the perinatologist resident walked in. Indicating that my doctor was out of town, and that she had decided that I was not to be discharged today. Not at all. Nope, not going anywhere. Never mind that my OB was content with me being discharged, and the nurses felt that I should be discharged, and there was a home monitoring plan set up, nope - she didn't like this.

I could see the sign on the nursing station, asking doctor's to discharge their patients, and all I wanted to do was to go home.

Today, I remember as being a day of fighting. I didn't realize the fighting had only just begun.

Advent - Day 4

There is a new wool coat hanging on the tree. Mr. Spit asked me in his kind and loving way why I was doing this to myself. There are enough bad memories, a winter jacket does not need to be one of them. I think in his way, he is a bit exasperated that I didn't say something earlier. It's just that I felt so small and foolish. There are so many with no coat, and here I was getting rid of a perfectly serviceable one, for the sake of memory.

Thank you to the many of you who told me to burn the damn thing. I shall drop my old coat off at the local shelter. However cathartic burning it might be, I cannot countenance that there are still far too many people in this city of mine, that are cold tonight. That do not have a jacket to keep the snow off their body.

I will send the jacket on its way, and pray that it is warmth and comfort to another. Perhaps the jacket shall be like it was when I bought it - warm and comfortable, filled with optimism and a sense that I looked young and hip and smart in it.

****
I have been thinking about dyeing wool today. It's what I did this time, one year ago. Only a few hours before I was diagnosed by my midwife, I had been in the local yarn store, purchasing Alpaca wool to knit her a shawl.


I was very particular about that shawl pattern. It had to be lady like. My midwife, is above all else, a lady. She is quietness and gentleness and strength itself. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to knit her something. It took me a long time (25 weeks to be exact) to decide. And finally, I decided. A shawl. Cathy just struck me as a shawl kind of lady. I had never knit a shawl before, but that's never stopped me. I'd never had a baby before either. I had joked that we had a trade system going. She was going to bring me a baby (preferably in her black bag), and I was going to give her something hand knit. Seemed a fair enough trade to me.

So, I walked into the store, looking for a shawl pattern. I was particular. It had to be pretty. It also had to be reasonably simple. Now, my yarn store is used to me, and they were surprised that I asked for a simple thing. I patted my belly and told them my brain had gone to pot. I laughed. Someone had asked for my mother's phone number the week before, and I had gone blank. Totally blank. Nope, I patted my belly and asked for something simple.

And then we started talking wool. Which actually, in the knitting world, means feeling wool. I touched and touched and touched. But I had a particular colour in my mind. There was nothing that suited, nothing that lived up to the colour of agate in my mind.

No problem. I purchased 3 skeins of pure white alpaca, and then 50 packages of grape kool-aide. Today I spent dyeing wool. Waiting for it to dry. Wondering, if this baby was coming early, wondering if I had enough time to knit. I told Gabriel that he had to wait long enough for me to get his midwife's shawl done, and something for him to wear home from the hospital, since he was no longer going to be born at home.

I had consulted Dr. Google, but only a little bit. I knew about low dose aspirin, but not eclamptic seizures or kidney failure or IUGR. I knew enough to be concerned, enough to keep myself busy and not think too much that day, as I waited to see the Doctor.

I was quite firm. "You wait. I'll tell you when you can come." I invoked the "this is your mum speaking" and I poked him, just to be sure that he was awake and listening.

The wool was waiting for me, when I came home, long since dried, on the back of my kitchen chair. Ready to be knit. It's strange how grape smells of broken promises and sorrow to me now.

Advent - Day 3

I'm actually 2 days ahead in my memories, so I'll stop and let time catch up to me.

Today, I'm stuck on a coat and pair of shoes.

It is not normal that Edmonton should be so warm in December. I have been able to cope without a jacket. And I have been pleased. Indeed, I have refused to wear my winter jacket and kindly, mother nature has co-operated. I have not had to go to this place, until today.

Every time I think about the jacket, think about fetching it from the basement, I have this image. Me, walking out of the hospital, without my son, wearing this suede jacket and a pair of blue crocs, that my feet barely fit in.

I am remembering swirling snow and cold, and seeing that couple at the nursing station strapping their brand new baby into the car seat.

I am remembering that horrible feeling, knowing that my heart was so empty and would never be full. I remember stopping to look back at the hospital, to the basement, where I knew the morgue would be, and realizing that I had left my son, for the last time. I would never see him again. This was the final good bye.

And I have this picture in my mind's eye, this picture of a broken and defeated woman, shuffling out the car in an old jacket, worn because it accommodated my protruding belly, and a pair of blue crocs because they fit her feet, and I can see her in the snow storm, head down, knowing her heart was broken beyond all repair.

I should like to dispose of the coat. Not to give it away, but to haul out my chimena in the back yard and burn it. To throw on the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness and loneliness and sorrow and terror. To brush my hands of heart break. To attempt to redeem memories.

And it is my practical, frugal side. The side that remembers this coat, purchased in my first year of University, still in good shape, worn and loved. It is my practical side that tells me to be a grown up, wear the coat.

Advent Day 2

Today I am remembering waking up in the hospital. I'm remembering an RN that sat quietly at the end of my bed, doing her charting. I'm remembering a quiet woman who talked to me about faith, picked up my bible, and spent some of her time reading to me from the Psalms, in the wee small hours of the night. I am remembering being able to rest easy in her voice.

I am remembering the discovery that my doctor did his rounds at 6 am, and I am remembering the same doctor coming back to talk to me at 8 that night.

I am remembering another ultrasound where I asked, no begged, the tech to not be so quiet. It had been the quiet and grim determination from the tech the day before that had frightened me so.

I am remembering visits and fear, and making a list of things to bring from home. I am remembering the division, would I stay in the hospital, or would Gabriel and I go home and be monitored from there?

I am remembering the sinking feeling that I had stepped on a hamster wheel, and I had no control left, and I just wanted to get off.

Today, today the taste of fear is sharp and heavy in my mouth as I remember.

Advent

Advent in the life of the church is a period of very deliberate reflection. We stop each Sunday, and indeed each day, and we reflect. The reflections are ordered and orderly. We move through a series of prayers, prayers that are fundamental to church life. These prayers, the ideals they represent, they have a beginning and an end, starting with hope, moving through peace and joy and love, and ending with the lighting of the Christ Candle on Christmas Eve.

Behind the backdrop of expectation and hope, Mr. Spit and I walk through these days, from today, to the day of Baptism after Christmas, that our son will not be present at. As we walk through the memories of this dark and lonely time, plodding, dragging our feet and struggling to look like we are at all joyful about Christmas, we are not reflecting on joy.

If we were not present for advent last year, at least in spirit, we are left behind this year. While others are anticipating, expecting, waiting, we are living in the past. We are walking through the steps of last year. Our memory preoccupied. Our hearts empty and our eyes full.

For about 6 weeks now, I have remembered last year, juxtaposed to this year. I have imagined that if I only screamed loud enough, I could warn the me from last year. I know that I am powerless to change the outcome, but maybe I could have prepared myself. I have pictured myself with a Lent metaphor, as a lamb led to slaughter. I stop, during my day, and I remember back to a year ago. I remember where I was, and what was happening. I mark out my own emotions, my own moments.

I woke up today, remembering a sensation from hiking, where you start descending a mountain trail, and somehow, suddenly, you found yourself losing your footing, losing your balance, and you are, quite without your intention, you are running down a hill. And while it may still look like you are in control, you alone know that you don't have any control over your legs, and it will only take one badly placed rock, a sudden turn in the path, and you will be gone.

And so I am going to take a miss on Advent this year. At least for a bit. I am going to stop wanting hope, and instead chose to remember, deliberately. To reflect on what was, and then so suddenly, what was not.

::

Today I will mark the day I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. The first day that nothing was as it should be, the first day of the slide to disaster and terror and sorrow.

Today my little one, we saw you for the second time. And you were so still. And then we saw the doctor. We were so frightened, but so hopeful. We believed that this would be ok. We told you to hang in there. We asked for a strip of the fetal monitoring paper for your baby book and joked that we were going to take away more of your allowance for scaring us like this.

Tonight I got to the case room at the hospital, and my blood pressure was 215/120 and we realized that this was not going to be simple or easy. We learned new names, new terms. Today the word high risk pregnancy entered our lives. Tonight, for the first time, I heard the words "in case you need to not be pregnant any more."

And today was the beginning of the end, for all of us.

Still missing you.