Things are starting to pop up about Halloween now, costumes and treats in stores, invitations to events. I have always loved Halloween. I love dressing up in a costume, never anything scary but something funny or retro and amusing. Friends of ours always really go to town for Halloween, their whole block does actually, with gravestones on the front lawn and cobwebs everywhere and animated zombie mannequin things. Tonnes of kids come to their neighbourhood because it is always the most in the spirit and we always go too. But I think Halloween may now be lost to me forever. I don't see fun and frivolity when I see something like this:
I see a dead baby, my dead baby and I remember holding her lifeless body. I remember her the rattling last breaths, I remember her blue lips and crepey skin. I remember wrapping her up and putting her in the coffin we made. I remember being given her ashes. I feel the ache of grief and emptiness of loss and I want to scoop up this little cake skeleton and hold her tightly to my chest.
Of course the roots of this holiday are more meaningful than an excuse to dress up and depending on your age binge on candy or become your trampy alter ego, with it's connections to Samhain and All Saints Day etc. Maybe I need to look to making the day more meaningful and put aside what I can no longer do, at least until my son is old enough to want to celebrate. Really this is just one more thing that signifies how I am not the same person I was and I never will be.
The stress of grief and loss and subsequent pregnancy and motherhood has laid pretty heavy on me. I have applied for a new job, but I almost feel like my anxiety levels are still so high at a baseline that I am not sure I can survive an interview! At the same time I don't think I should hold back from opportunities, especially since grief and motherhood are just my reality now.
Have you found that too, that it's harder to manage other kinds of anxiety now?
Does your baby age in your mind's eye? Will he or she remain the small newborn/born too soon/born still? For me, it is both.
There are two little girls I know who were born within weeks of Saersha and I have them has kind of place holders for her growth. What would she be doing now? Oh, I see, she would be talking and walking around, having her own fierce will and getting into everything. Chubby legs grown leaner with all the toddling around. She might have enough hair that I could put it in a pony tail. Her hair was brown but then when the sunlight hit it turned this beautiful coppery colour. Later it would have come in blonde like her brother. Big girl shadow Saersha who would almost be 2.
When Stellan is sleeping I see her in his face, but then she is a small baby the one who will never speak, who made only one sound, a beautiful sigh. This is the one that haunts me in dark moments as I remember her final hours and her death. Why couldn't I do more for you precious, tiny, still daughter?
