Seven months

Blogging used to be a form of therapy for me. Instead of seeking actual therapy with an actual therapist as the months turned to years on our infertility journey, I'd write. In journals, too, not just online. And when Evelyn died, I wrote (quite eloquently, if I'm being honest, especially considering my fractured state of mind) to several friends and also through various Facebook posts about what I was experiencing as a bereaved parent. But now, as the days, weeks and months continue to march past, I don't quite know how to put my thoughts and emotions in to words. I'll think of something I want to say and I'll write it down and email it to myself so I can attend to it later because I've decided I want and need to write a book about our journey-turned-odyssey to parenthood and I want and need to talk about Evelyn's birth and death because I refuse to allow her story to be a taboo subject. But my mind is brimming with snippets of thoughts and I'm not quite sure how to formulate those snippets into cohesive paragraphs and eventually into chapters. My mind is all over the place, and my writing reflects that. To be expected, I know but it's still frustrating because in addition to reading, writing has long been a refuge. I've always loved the written word but now I feel lost where once I felt a sense of comfort. I don't know how to express myself now and perhaps that's because I still haven't figured out who I am yet, post-Evelyn's life and death. Her beautiful life changed me, there is no doubt about that -- but it is her untimely tragic death that has changed me the most. There will always be an Evelyn-shaped hole in my heart that will never -- and should never -- be filled.

Now, we go to actual therapy. Once a week has turned in to once every two weeks, and it's helping us manage our grief and discover healthy new and continued ways of coping. We are grateful for it and plan to continue as long as we are financially able. But I keep trying to find a path back to my old friend, writing. Even the words that I'm writing here, right now, seem wrong, forced, unnatural, halting, inadequate. And I suppose it feels that way because I've discovered that there are simply no words to properly describe what we have endured. Devastated, broken, empty, shattered, lost -- they all seem akin to the platitudes we repeatedly hear: "She's in a better place," "God must have needed another angel," "Everything happens for a reason, someday you'll understand why this has occurred," "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," "You're still young, there's still time to have other children..." I wish people would stop. Just stop. Because these phrases are all bullshit. Just like the words we try to use to describe the absolute dissolution of our lives as we have come to know them.

Who I am now, in the wake of my only child's death, is so far removed from who I was seven months ago that I cannot even begin to describe it. Every once in a while, I get a faint glimmer of that person, and instead of filling me with hope, it startles me. Looking in the mirror, I know who I'm looking at is me but the eyes are all wrong. There is a desperation, a hollowness. They are the eyes of a haunted individual and they give that person -- me -- away. I can smile (which feels revolting, most of the time) but the smile doesn't carry to my eyes. I have posed for a total of three photos in the seven months since Evelyn's death in August and I cannot look at them. I didn't want to take them but I gave in to appease someone else for two of them and the third was taken on my birthday so I gave it my best effort, despite how I truly felt, and smiled for the camera. It was a ruse but regardless, the photo exists. I turned 33 and there is a picture to prove it. We were with dear friends and I admit that I enjoyed the dinner and time we spent together because they are special, wonderful people who have so completely enveloped us in love following Evelyn's death, but I still felt completely uncomfortable smiling for that photo because what in the world do I have to smile about? My daughter is dead. The daughter we spent nearly nine years trying to conceive, the daughter we were supposed to welcome in to our family in December but instead, watched her be born too soon and then struggle to survive for just shy of nine hours, only to die in her daddy's arms. The daughter we will never again see in this life, the daughter we love as fiercely in death as we would have in life. People don't smile for photos when their child is dead. And yet, I guess people do. Because I did it. Because we are human beings and it's what human beings do. They celebrate milestones even if they don't want to, they say they are grateful for another year of life when it feels absolutely wrong that they have lived another year when their child got mere months. They feel desperately lost, the otherness of their situation and lives so utterly pervasive that they feel nearly inhuman at times, all the while going to work, shopping for groceries, going to doctor's appointments and conferences and tanking up their cars. They go out to dinner and to the library to check out another book or movie, the throngs of people around them completely oblivious to the person's pain because they wear their "functioning human" masks so convincingly. And they pose for photos, and they smile in spite of themselves. Because that's what people do.

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I feel jumpy and on edge today, like all of the nerves in my body are humming. Evie was born seven months ago today and tomorrow will mark seven months since her passing. SEVEN MONTHS. It feels unbelievable to me that so much time has gone by since our world came crashing down. And yet, it's just the beginning, seven months is barely any time at all. One thing I know: I need to do good in Evelyn's name. It feels imperative and important, and it comforts me to reach out to others in similar circumstances. In honor of her due date, I organized a baby blanket drive in December for the two NICUs who cared for Evelyn in August as well as the bereavement program at the local hospital. I'm working on a donation to the local library children's book section in honor of Evie's first birthday this summer, as well as compiling an Amazon Wish list for bereavement care packages for parents who must leave the hospital following the death of their child.  So I've come to understand what it is I must do with the immense love in my heart for our Evie Bee: give, do, love, help. As often and as far reaching as possible. It is my way of parenting her. I just  wish I knew what to do with all of my bitterness and anger and rage. The fury at the unfairness of her death, and that she suffered as she struggled to survive. I am her mother and it was my job to save her and I couldn't do it. I am incensed that I could not save her, and it boils my blood that despite the many years it took to get her, the outcome is what it is. I understand that it's cathartic to get it out but in the end, it's still there, simmering just below the surface. I don't lash out at people, I don't answer how I'd like to when asked how I am. Because I know everyone is just trying their best and it's no one's responsibility but ours to learn to live with our daughter's death in a way that still allows us to lead meaningful lives. No one else is walking around with the pain of Evelyn's passing like an anvil clinging to their leg, threatening to pull them under if they stop dog paddling. That's us, and us alone. Yes, people feel for us. Especially those closest to the "epicenter" as it were. My parents and our closest family and friends. But everyone else? They are saddened that Evelyn died and wish so so much that she had lived, that our lives hadn't taken this dreadful turn. They wish that for us because they love us. But no one can fix it. This is an unfixable situation. And it is so incredibly lonely.