moving through it

we added a new person to our department this week, and on her second day she had to leave at noon because her daughter had thrown up at daycare. the co-worker-that-angers-me said, "oh, we're lucky in this group - none of us has to worry about that!" twice. and laughed both times. she has never had or tried to have a child; my other co-workers' children are all grown. what a twat.

at the recommendation of a couple fellow mothers of dead children, i picked up the book "life touches life" last night, as well as another book that's more of a textbook on late loss. i woke up at 7:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, so i read the second book. tears flowed pretty much the whole time, but reading all of these other parents' stories helped me to process my own story. i'll start the other book next. this week i also read "cry the beloved country" which i always should have read but never got around to it until dyan read that passage from the book at hans's memorial service. i didn't care for the writing style, which may just be my own cultural bias, but the story moved me. the two central characters both lost their sons, one at the hand of the other, but found healing with each other. the book is really about south africa healing, but the characters' individual stories helped me get in touch with a different part of my pain, which is the most i can do.

i feel a little weird about mother's day coming. it would be strange to me to have other people send me cards out of pity. i always felt like it was about honoring one's own mother, which my child can't do, so i accept it and don't expect anything. but should i send i send my sister a card? i feel like i should, but it also doesn't feel right, because she's not my mother. all too strange. i gotta go get my mother's present and card mailed today.

in happy news, my ob called and said my standard-post-stillbirth tests came back fine (yea!) so now i just have to work on passing enough protein in my pee next time, which is bizarre since in the ob's office everyone is worried about too much protein in their urine.

we looked at hans's picture together for a long time last night. he was soooooo beautiful. you can take my word for it.

sooner, rather than later, but when?

Yeah, I've realized that I'm with Laura on this one: the time that seems most appropriate for us to have another child should be sooner, rather than later. Sure, we've plenty of issues to address before we 'pull the goalie', so to speak, but it's certainly a topic worthy of our continued discussion now.

What troubles me most, and I'm sure that this will be the biggest point of contention in actually doing, and cause the most stress during, is that there will be no part of the pregnancy that we didn't go through with Johannes. See, Johannes not only went to term, he went past his due date! Due dates are evil!

This is going to be a huge burden on our wellbeing, and our nerves, throughout any future pregnancy. We were both nervous wrecks throughout Johannes term, and apparently for good reason. I'm still trying to figure out, how in the world, we are going to make it through an entire nine months, knowing that for nine months our other boy developed, by all accounts per average, and then died in his last 48 hours.

I really do feel for our next child, in utero, s/he's going to be feeling a whole lot of stress coming from us.

Good luck kiddo, whenever you shall come, we're pullin' for you.

what's that word...

when you hear a word for the first time ever, then soon after you hear it again a second time, after having gone your whole life without hearing it? there must be a word for it, but i can't figure out what it is, and no one justin or i have surveyed seems to know, either. if you know, please relieve the torment and comment here on it.

i experienced a little of that (insert word for above phenomenon here) this week reading vixanne's blog. she wrote about being embarassed to not have a living baby, and foolish, as though she had just been pretending to be pregnant before her son was stillborn. i have felt the exact same thing, both when i went back to work and in the last few weeks of pregnancy, when it felt like hans was never going to come out, and i thought everyone must be staring at me as i stood at the copier and thinking, she pretended for nine months but now the jig is up! it's just too strange.

spillin' my beans about wanting to make a baby

Most of this is from a response that I posted to a friends blog. I know that Laura reads that blog, but I'm not sure if she reads the responses and such, and well, this is something that I think about everyday, so why not have it stand alone as a blog of my own? Not to mention, we're running about four to one, Laura to Justin blogging.

I look around and see children everywhere, and even in my own house, I see paint, crayons, toys, books, and games, things that I'd love to share with a child: not only any child, mind you, but my own child.

It troubles me to no end that Johannes is not in our house, and that I won't ever have a chance to share these things with him. This is quite clear, but generally, it really pains me most that there are no children in the house at all. That's what I want, and perhaps that is what I most need.

There's no replacing Johannes, as some seem to suggest in our intent to make another baby, but our family certainly has room and love enough to grow. So why wait?

Life seems as though it will always exist in terms of our time before baby death and our time after baby death, and this will always be the case, as Johannes will always be a part of our life: our children, living and dead, will always be part of our family. This is the only thing that we are certain of.

77f

today i got back on the bus, gus...another post baby death first. my bus is the veterans' hospital bus, so on any given day you never know which schizophrenic or recovering junkie you may find yourself next to. the first time i saw one of the schizophrenics talking to himself and didn't freak out, i felt oh-so-very-urban. if you saw "american splendor", the bus i take is the bus harvey pekar used to take.

when i first started my current job, i took the bus almost every day, and through it started to get to know my now very good friend cynthia. then justin changed to his current schedule, where he works from 1:30 to 9:30, and i started going in at 10 instead of 8, so we could at least see each other a little during the week, and it wasn't so fun to ride the bus without cynthia, and i started riding only once or twice a week.

last spring, before i got pregnant, i had the first personally bad experience i ever had on public transportation; actually, it happened as i got off the bus. as one of my fellow riders got off ahead of me, he paused on the sidewalk. when i got off, my bag ever-so-slightly brushed against his bag, and as i walked away, i turned my head back and said, oh! excuse me.

this man said, excuse me? excuse me? what the fuck? who do you think you're talking to bitch?

i was stunned (not so urban after all, huh), and i looked around and said, were you talking to me?

oh, yes, he was talking to me. another woman from the bus took my arm and shook me out of my shock and said, just walk away from him. so i turned and walked down a block and over two in public square to catch the 22 the last leg home. but this man followed me for those three blocks, screaming obscenities at me the whole way, threatening me and pretty much all of my loved ones. two dumb-looking suburban kids, probably thinking they were pretty cool to be hanging out downtown, had the misfortune to cross my path and invite my harrasser's wrath on them, for their failure to fight him over their white sister.

it was the first time i ever felt afraid in my adopted hometown, and i don't care to experience that feeling again. just as i reached the bus stop, the 22 magically pulled up (which it never, ever does), and i jumped on and didn't start breathing until i realized he hadn't followed me on to the bus.

i didn't ride the bus again for a week. i recognized the man as someone who rode the same route and schedule i did with some regularity, and i was terrified. but a week later something or other came up where justin had to have the care, and i got back on the bus. justin waited until i got on the 77f without him, but at the last stop before we left downtown, my pal jumped on the bus.

this guy was not the regular rider headed to rehab at the VA. he always wore impeccable suits, and his hair was always carefully styled, and i knew from what i overheard on the bus that he was some kind of financial advisor - not your regular looney. he sat down right in front of me, and i just kept my head down in my book as though i noticed nothing, although my heart was racing. eventually he engaged the older man next to him in polite conversation. the other man rides to the VA every day, rain or shine, and he was happy for the attention. as we got close to my buddy's stop, the older man said, now what is your name again. ha! he mumbled something, and the old man said, what was that? and he said, joe. the older man, god bless him, said, and your last name? he hestitated and then said, you know, like the laundry detergent. the older man, who was now my hero, said, what detergent? and he mumbled, downey. the older man repeated it like a mantra, joe downey, joe downey. the balance of power had shifted.

from that point on, i was no longer afraid to run into him, but i haven't seen him since. once i got pregnant, i could count on my hands the times i rode the bus, because i was so tired the entire time, and taking the bus adds a couple of hours to my commute. but today i got welcome back with a bang, so to speak. after i got off the 77f and was waiting in public square for the 22, a guy who was passing the time reciting rap lyrics sauntered over to just over my right shoulder and recited the part about all of the whiteys getting taken out, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. i looked the other way and yawned. i survived joe downey. this kid was nothing. you know, my instinct was to turn to him and say, you're barking up the wrong tree. my people were too poor to have slaves. i live in this city and contribute to the tax base which helps keep the city afloat; i am not a white suburbanite draining city resources on my way home to my two acres. but i managed to restrain myself. maybe i have gotten a little urban-smart.

i was said to miss fu manchu man, though. he often would get on the 22 on my way home, and he loved to talk about the browns and what the chinese restaurants in town leave in their dumpsters. once, he got on, sat down in the middle seat on the back row, then got back up and announced at the top of his lungs, TRUTH! JUSTICE! AND THE AMERICAN WAY! and then he sat down. really, riding the bus doesn't get any better than that.

the downside of anger; also, the memorial service

i have pinpointed the root of my anger to an overwhelming sense of powerlessness: i am powerless to bring my son back, powerless to make justin want to try again as soon as i do, powerless to make the pain relent a little, powerless to stop the never-ending parade of medical wackiness that has become my life and makes the suitability of trying again ever more distant. (i am so sick of being sick!). the reason i was in a good mood for the first time in two weeks after my therapy monday night is that i had done something about all of this mess, and it made me feel just a tiny bit in control. a little power is a dangerous thing.

i saw "the upside of anger" a couple of weeks ago, and while i found it flawed, i did identify with the loss joan allen's character felt when her husband left her, or rather the pain of it. but i don't see an upside to anger at the moment; it just messes me up even more.

***

last night's hope group at the hospital was okay-ish. there was another "client" there, a woman who miscarried in the first trimester about 4 weeks ago. she was tormented that she was not allowed to touch or even see her fetus, nor was she allowed to have the remains. my god - doesn't she have a legal right to the remains??? worse yet, she is catholic and was therefore denied the ability to have last rites or a blessing or any kind of catholic service. the hospital chaplain suggested she do something to memorialize her lost child anyway, even if none of her family or friends would support her (and she didn't think they would) and offered to help her devise a ritual. i gave her my number and told her i would come support her at the memorial if she had one, because i understand what it means to her.

i can't imagine having even the few shreds of sanity i have today had we not had the memorial service that we had for hans. the service was 2 1/2 weeks after the delivery. kath called every possible site in the area and got all the info for us, and we visited a couple and knew when we walked in that the cahoon house was the right place. it used to belong to one of the founding families of bay village and is now sort of a community center. it has the original (or fairly original) wood floors but decidedly mid-century lodge decor: pine panelling, wagon-wheel chandeliers, and a walk-in fireplace. but it also has huge windows that look across the street to lake erie, and there's a beautiful rose garden outside, and it was the right kind of open space for an open reflection kind of service.

we expected about 40 people with our families, but over 80 showed up. out-of-town family, a surprising number of co-workers, and a few new friends who are also parents of dead children; it was strictly SRO across the back, and we were overwhelmed at the show of support. i spoke first and justin spoke last, and in between a few of our family and friends spoke. my mom read a letter she'd written to hans, and my brother-in-law read the letter my 11-year-old cousin had written to him. justin's aunt who had fertility problems and eventually adopted a son cried the whole time she read her poem. dyan read from "cry the beloved country" - the passage about fear being ongoing but sorrow being a specific location from which you can work forward. i'm really messing that one up, but you'll have to accept that it really spoke to me. greg played his guitar (fitting memorial for a musical boy!). my father quoted the bible verse that says a little child shall lead them, and justin's dad talked about the secret hideaways he had with justin and the special place he would have with hans, on the trail in the mountains behind his house in vermont. justin's brother talked about hans in heaven, which surprised us, and my sister said how sorry she was that jay and hans wouldn't grow up together, and our friend taih read a prayer for hans. our friend jen, also the parent of dead children, talked about the lack of a proper term for, well, parents of dead children. and one of justin's co-workers read a poem that our friend russ wrote for hans. it was all beautiful.

we set up a table with a few things that were his: the alpaca sweater and cap mike brought him back from his last round of field work in peru; the red child-sized concertina greg and dyan went back and got for him after we had all been playing around in once upon a time toys together in december; the green and purple bunny quilt my grandma made for him; the books justin bought him for christmas; the rubber duckies my mom got for him after we first told her i was pregnant; the french calendar with the jungle animals we got him last september in brussels; the certificate kelly the nurse made for us at the hospital with his hand and footprint on it; the collages my cousins alex and jessica made for him and their mom framed and sent us; and a little album of pictures - we wanted to put pictures out but didn't want to freak people out, so we figured if we put them in an album people could see him if they wanted to but didn't have to look at the pictures if they didn't want to, which seemed to work well.

after, people hung around for hours, eating the food my mom and justin's mom and his aunts and our friends matt and mike had made, and justin played charlie haden, and it was a pretty freakin' awesome party. if we had to have a day like that, it was the best day it could have been.

it also was the first time i took a xanax in my life. i wanted to have some composure that day, as a way to honor hans. i felt strongly about it at the time although it doesn't make much sense to me today. i wore a black pantsuit but with a brightly-striped pink and yellow shirt, as i thought was befitting someone as young as hans. i took the first half of the xanax to be able to pull myself together for the day and be able to put makeup on (the one time i wore makeup from the time hans was born until the day i went back to work!) and go to the market to buy flowers for the memorial and put them together, and i took the other half just before the service. i became the number one fan of xanax that day. i was able to speak clearly during the service and keep it together enough to hear what everyone else was saying, but i wasn't so fuzzed out that i didn't feel the grief that day - lord knows i still cried plenty.

after everyone finally went home and the house was cleaned up, a dozen of us met at our house and drank wine greg and dyan brought, and justin put on polka records, to which dyan did some kind of russian dance while holding glasses of wine in both hands. then we went to the market avenue wine bar and got them to open up the upstairs for us, which is kind of like someone's parents' rec room, but dimly lit. we ate little plates of things and drank bottle upon bottle of wine until we wound it down at midnight. after we dropped my mom at home, we went to an old after-hours jazz place called mardi gras that was new to us and had breakfast with greg and dyan and jim.

i felt like we did right by hans. and i hope to never have to do anything like it again.

progress!

despite a bad case of new-therapist-anxiety, i have successfully completed my first post-stillbirth therapy session.

mostly, i was nervous that the therapist wouldn't get it, and i'd have to waste a lot of time trying out different therapists. but he was lovely and the right balance of sympathetic and professional. the hour went like that, which is a good sign. he also liked johannes's name, so how could i not like him? i cried for the first half hour and actually laughed a little in the second half hour - progress already. i will go back next week. i am still moving forward, dammit.

tomorrow night will be the group at the hospital. i hope we're not the only ones there, but you never know. i suppose either way is fine - either more shared experiences or more one-on-one (or i guess two facilitators on the two of us) therapy. and justin has found a bunch of related blogs to send to me, which is sort of another kind of group therapy. plus i am being FANTASTIC about my nutrition; just listen to this: spinach spread on a whole wheat pita with a glass of soy milk for breakfast, wild salmon with whole wheat orzo and carrots and squash plus applesauce for lunch, and kashi crackers and a slice of muenster and an orange juice for a hold-me-over snack. when it's time to try again, i am going to be soooooo ready!

the state of the blog; also, the state of me

i have been sucked in by the "next blog" button this afternoon, and here are some observations about blogging:
1. spanish- and portuguese-language blogs seem to be overtaking singapore-based blogs.
2. right-wing blogs outnumber left-wing blogs 4 to 1. (i don't know if that's true; i haven't actually been keeping track; that's just what it seems like to me. and someone should do something about it. but probably not me. it's all i can do to blog about my own little crisis.)
3. the person or persons who create those blogthings polls are really scraping the bottom of the barrel of creativity.
4. i speak mostly general american english with some yankee thrown into the mix; i am 40% normal; and my inner european is french. (i can't resist those blogthings, either. damn those people.)
5. there are many bored, screwed-up and drunk people out there blogging.

***

this last week has been awful, probably the worst segment of time since hans died. as horrible as previous weeks have been, to varying degrees, this was the week that the protective bubble of shock burst on me and reality took over. accordingly, tomorrow is my first appointment with my new therapist, and i'm hoping for a "click" with him, because i don't feel like i have time to waste trying out different therapists. the next night will be the first meeting of a support group at the hospital that we will attend. the group seems to be in transition, and we have been warned by both sometimes-attender david and one of the facilitators that it may just be us and the facilitators. it may be weird, but at least it will be an outlet.

and i need an outlet for my anger. with the bursting of the bubble has come a wave of anger, and anger seems to breed more anger, and i don't have the capacity to deal with all of it.

yesterday and today have been the first two good days in as many weeks, if i can call keeping my anger to just the simmering level good. we ate our breakfast in the balcony overlooking the west side market yesterday and then shopped for the ingredients for dinner last night and tonight. zelda and her parents came for dinner last night; she enjoyed the mandarin orange cake so much she ate the oranges off my slice of cake, too. (if zelda is any indication, two is not at all terrible.) justin and i had a relaxed morning today before he had to go to work; tonight, randy is coming into town on business and will have dinner with us, albeit a slightly different dinner - last night was all about dairy, but tonight will be strictly vegan.

zelda's parents, david and toni, are also the parents of calvin, who was stillborn, too, which is how we met them. once again, it was just such a relief to talk about pregnancy and stillbirth at the same time and it be normal. probably not much about hans will come up tonight with randy, but i will be more relaxed than i was in san francisco because i understand better now how much he cares; randy has called justin every couple of days for two months to check on him and talk about music, which means the world to justin.

here's hoping for more good days than bad days.

bring it on

these things i now know to be true:

1. no matter what we do, we will never get johannes back.

2. there will never be a time when we won't have lost him.

these things are unbearable to me, and nothing is right.

***

we met lulu tonight. she is pudgy and a little off-kilter and charming, and we both love her, although justin was hoping for a somewhat less lethargic dog, so we are waiting and seeing. she will have eye surgery this next week while we consider other dogs and whether we want to bring her home for a trial weekend.

my mom wrote me a heart-felt apology, which i appreciated, and wished us well with lulu, which i appreciated just as much.

***

the last couple of days, my ridiculous ear infection has gotten worse instead of better; by this morning my ear was swollen from the inside out, with red itchy welts on my ear lobe and in front of my ear, which seemed like many of my other allergic reactions. i dug up the box, which said "neomycin", in huge letters, but which i had failed to notice until now. of course, neomycin is one of the many things to which i am allergic. and i was pouring it down my ear five times a day for a whole week.

so now i am pouring the very-expensive cipro down my ear, and it seems to make my brain hurt, or it could be the lingering effects of the other stuff. who knows. if it works, it seems likely that something else will fall apart and hinder my return to health and therefore also a return to optimal conditions for conceiving. of course.

good news/bad news

the good news is, despite my recent return to the regular consumption of adult beverages, my liver is fine.

the bad news is, my protein levels are too low. whatever that means.

what i'd like to know, besides how in the world i am exhibiting symptoms of either crash dieting or third-world kind of malnutrition (neither could be further from the truth), is who is examining my pee to come up with these conclusions? i have never heard a child say, when i grow up, i want to be a pee examiner! i cannot recall a single aptitude test ever administered to me that listed "analyst of urine specimens" or anything like it in the index of prospective occupations. how does a person end up in that line of work? maybe it's arrogant of me to think it's a job in which one "ends up" - maybe there are people who aspire to be such analysts, or maybe it pays more or requires more education or is more fulfilling than i assume. but still - to look at people's urine cups all day seems like one crappy job.

the end of this story is that i'm either depleted from pregnancy and/or being sick last month, and i have a month to get my protein together or i will be sent to a nutritionist. unbelievable.

lulu

we're getting serious about a dog, serious enough to call the pet rescue and ask to come visit a dog named lulu, whom kath found online and e-mailed to me today. she is a beagle mix and is classified as "senior", which means 8+ years. she is house trained and fixed and a little on the slow side, apparently, but i'm thinking that means she's not likely to get away from us, or to bound up the stairs (and into carpetland) before we can catch her, which is a plus.

we haven't heard back from the rescue place yet, but we've downloaded the application for adoption and filled it out. we admitted to dead fish but not to the iguana that justin left with his ex-girlfriend when they broke up.

i went to the pet store tonight and looked at the eighty million varieties of dog food and almost as many different collars and leashes. i really want this dog.

it seems a little bit of a cliche - the couple that loses their baby gets a dog instead. and to be honest, there is a hole that i hope the right dog will at least make a little less deep. but a dog will not replace my son. and i hate that. thinking about these things makes me think about the fact that johannes is gone for good. any future attempts at conception will not bring him back. we get no do-overs with him. there will never be a time when we won't have lost him.

my mom called me this evening before i left work, and i told her at the end of our conversation that i was looking at dog beds online, and i e-mailed her the picture of lulu while we were still on the phone.

she asked a couple of questions about who would be responsible for taking care of a dog, and then laughed heartily as she asked which one of us was going to get up at 5 a.m. to take a dog outside, as though that were the most hysterical possibility ever in the history of the world.

i acknowledge that i am extra-sensitive right now, but i was insulted. after being prepared to get up at all hours for a child, i think we can handle the responsibility of a dog, and an older, docile one, at that. after she got her laughter under control, i said quietly, well, if we had a live child at home, we'd be up a lot more often than that. she chuckled and said, well, i suppose you're right about that.

if she thinks we can't handle the responsibility of having a dog, how in the world did she think we would be able to take of hans? i called her when i got home and told her that what she said hurt me; she was speechless. she could not draw a correlation between taking care of a dog and taking care of a child, even after i tried to explain it. she tried to explain that she was just shocked that we were considering a dog - even after the multiple times i've told her we were thinking about it. then she said, well, she just found the prospect of us having a dog amusing, which did nothing to lessen the hurt.

the call ended awkwardly, so now i'm afraid there's going to be this icky awkwardness between me and my mom, who is probably my best friend in the world after justin. her inability to understand why i'm hurt highlights the fact that no one else's loss of hans is like our loss. i don't like the loneliness of that knowledge.

and i'm pretty sure even lulu's companionship could not make up for the loss of my mom's.

things at our house that are not dead

i'm finding it very helpful to prune away my sorrow. it at least keeps me from getting too far gone. at my mother's request, i have taken pictures of what's blooming so far, but picasa drives me nuts, so i'm directing you, dear reader, to my photo site instead of trying fruitlessly to post more than one photo at a time here. enjoy the view.

monday, monday

i am sooooooo sick of dealing with the medical community.

the doctor i saw friday called; he wants me to come back in for lab tests in the morning. for my liver. wtf.

then i went through the rigmarole of getting my insurance company's approval to start seeing a therapist. i had to do it. i cried for about two hours at work today, which was made doubly awful by the fact that we moved over the weekend and in my new location i am essentially in a fishbowl. every time i look up, 80 people are looking back at me....which would be lovely if i wanted to get their attention but not so much under current circumstances. so i made the appointment for next monday.

what set me off today? the realization that my son is actually dead. despite the seeming obviousness of this fact, it seems to have only caught up with me today. really horrific timing for two months of shock to wear off.

greetings from the swamp thing!

depression feels like a swamp.

and why am i depressed?
1. i spent $200 today on groceries, gas, and basic household goods.
2. i inexplicably gained 7 pounds in one day.
3. my mother's friend's stepson was killed by a swat team after a drug-fueled crime spree.
4. i miss having non-stop access to justin.
5. i want my son back.

more wisdom from the medical-industrial complex; also, there's no going back

yesterday morning i went to the doctor because i thought i was losing it with all of the things falling apart on me. it turns out i have an ear infection - who gets an ear infection after the age of, say, five? but at least it explains the loss of hearing and the ringing in my ears and the dizziness and the nausea, and it can be treated, and quickly.

the rest seems to be the result of anxiety and depression, so i let him give me a referral for a counselor. it's time to talk to a professional.

the doctor did say something funny to me: "you shouldn't put up with not being pregnant." he thought that at my age i should try to get pregnant again as soon as possible and if it didn't happen right away, i shouldn't take a wait-and-see attitude but come in right away. he was not as concerned with the ticking of my biological clock as with the increased risk of problems with my eggs, especially in light of all the little tics hans had.

when i repeated what the doctor said to justin, he was a little disturbed, but i found it encouraging, strangely. i'm not sure why, exactly, except that maybe i appreciated having yet another medical professional pulling for me to have another child. that doesn't even make sense to me, but there it is.

the most helpful thing was that we talked about the autopsy for nearly half an hour; it was cathartic to explain it to someone new and both knowledgeable and compassionate rather than just going over it in my head, perhaps because he asked lots of intelligent questions whereas i just repeat the same info to myself over and over, a la rainman.

*****

last night over drinks at great lakes, the topic "when i finally felt like an adult (if i even feel like one yet)" came up. matt said he still felt essentially 17, and without thinking about it i immediately and passionately told him good for him and to hold on to that as long as he could, which is probably a good advertisement for avoiding the complicated girl-drinks on the menu.

everyone laughed and justin teased me about being so old (i was the oldest person at the table by seven-plus years). i said i was serious. the truth is, i have felt like i was still 14 on the inside for a good 20 years. it was only in the first few hours after i delivered hans that i felt like an adult for the first time in my life.

on the one hand, it's a bit of a relief to feel like i've finally grown up. i can stop holding my breath waiting for adulthood to kick in, which i've been doing for a while. but it also sucks. for the most part, it seems like nothing will ever seem shiny again.

i do look forward to the future and have hope for and expectation of lots of good things in it. but it seems as though i won't be meeting those things with the still-childish delight that has characterized the discoveries of my life so far but rather with a little jadedness tinted with a little sadness.

frankly, i'm a little resentful of being thrust to the other side of the divide.

i'm going outside

finally, another work week is done. it seemed like it took so long, though it really did fly by, as happens when you fall into such a routine. tomorrow, try as i might, i plan to stay unplugged. maybe i'll ride my bike, perhaps i'll kick off my shoes and get my toes dirty in the garden.

nonetheless, i could use some sunshine.

have a good weekend folks.

a horrible first; also, i am human correctol

today i told someone other than a faceless insurance adjustor that my son died.

when we first found out, justin bravely called his mom and our friends, and his mom called my mom and his dad and my boss, and they took care of all the rest. i have not broken the news to anyone.

today i ran into a woman who works in my building who gave birth the week before me. the last few weeks of pregnancy, we commiserated daily about our disbelief that our babies would ever come. she was not here when my son died so she never got the news, and by the time she came back to work, no one thought to tell her.

so when she saw me, she smiled brightly and said, "hey!!!! how's your boy???"

i half-way smiled and said, "well, he died."

the face she made is beyond my descriptive capabilities.

i asked her about her new daughter, and she mumbled something about her having a lot of gas. i'm sure she was kicking herself for a while afterward.

i do not want to break the news to anyone else i know. maybe next time i will smile politely and say that he is quiet and low-maintenance.

*****

yesterday, another woman in my building, who has a one year old son, came by to tell me how terrible it was to hear about what happened after all of the talks we had about having boys. she said something similar had happened to her aunt, and two years later she had a daughter, and because she is an only child she is terribly spoiled.

of course, she is not an only child.

i seem to have found a mission: to correct the well-meaning but ignorant misperceptions of people about the loss of a child. it seems to be a role i was made for: to gently help them expel their ignorance and understand the truth. i cannot have one-on-ones with every person on the planet, but i can reshape people's understandings if they're open to it when i see an opportunity.

maybe i should develop a theme song and design a super-hero costume. i should probably look into getting an agent, too. and a good lawyer to keep from getting sued for using the "correctol" brand name.

I wish that I could live on Johannesbrew and music

I've always wanted to brew my own beer. I brewed with Barry about 2 months before Johannes was born. We had coined the inagural batch "Johannesbrew - Baby Bach", we thought that we were so freakin' clever. As it turns out, we brew a spectacular brew. Should anyone be paying attention, it's a dunkle bock, and I'm a bit messed up on the stuff as I type.

Anyhow, the plan was that we'd place Hans picture on the bottles, sort of a birth announcement for a man who doesn't smoke cigars, but loves beer. I was so fucking proud of myself; beer meister, father.

When Hans died, Barry (my brew mate), made the decision to simply label the beer "BEER", no Johannesbrew, just Beer. And that made perfect sense. So here I am, beer buzzed and staring at a bottle of "BEER" wondering what could of, should of been.

I miss music. I miss creating it. I miss playing it in front of people. I miss the guys that I made music with. I am laying here on the floor, Bloc Party blasting, remembering how freakin' amazing it was to play in a band. The day that 'god' played my guitar.

Funny that. 4 goofy kids from Lorain, Ohio. Everything had gone wrong: we got lost, we got a speeding ticket, we fought, we cried, Dave threatened to leave the band. We played anyway.


Round one: feedback.

Round two: melody.

And so it goes. We faced each other: Disaccord, in four parts harmony.

nature's failure

i heard from several people today who have had miscarriages. they all said something along the lines of, as horrible as it was for us to miscarry at two months, we can't imagine how horrible it must be for you.

to which i'm wanting to respond now, why couldn't i have miscarried back in the first trimester, when it seemed to be on the verge of happening? why did hans have to be a fighter (as my mom has pointed out a couple of times recently)? if he couldn't make it, why didn't nature follow through and do her job and take care of everything back then? miscarriages happen all of the time, for a good reason. it makes absolutely no sense for him to have made it all the way to the end and then died.

today kath sent me links to rescue dogs that she thought would be good first dogs for us. her best candidate for us was an older, kind of lame dog with failing eyesight. what does that say about us???? all i know is that i don't want a defective dog. and i don't want a defective baby.

i feel like i keep making progress, keep moving forward. but i think the great cosmic joke is that i'm moving forward on some cruel mobius strip so that the more i move forward the more i spiral back to where i've been. the last few days, all i've felt is the ugly, nasty, darkest side of my grief - the kind i haven't felt since the first minutes i knew hans was dead.

fuck.

johannes's cousin

my nephew jay was born 3 february 2005, two weeks before his cousin hans.

my sister and i both got pregnant for the first time at the same time. she called one evening last june, while justin and i were porch-sitting. justin handed the phone to me, and my sister said, are you ready to be an aunt?

she told me all the details, then i asked her, will your baby be ready to be a cousin?

our due dates flipped back and forth for eight months - at first i was due two weeks before her; by mid-january, she was due two weeks before me. neither of our radiologists could get the dates right - jay because he was so big and hans because he was so little.

we were together at thanksgiving and took our one pregnant picture together, both of us at six months. she looks like she could pop at any time; i just look like i had too much turkey. we joked that her baby would be able to sit on my baby, so my baby was going to have to be scrappy to hold his own.

we learned they would both be boys within a few days of each other, and we planned for them to be like brothers, and got choked up when we talked about how they would always have each other.

when my sister called at 1:30 in the morning on her way to the hospital to tell me her water had broken, i was so happy for her, but also more than a little jealous that she got to go first. when my nephew was born later that day, i cried because i couldn't be with her, but it was too late for me to travel.

i cried even more when i found out my brother-in-law thought that "jay" was not tough enough for his son, and my sister gave in to calling him "j.d.", which is a stupid name for a baby, if you ask me, but they didn't, so i call him "my nephew" in person and i go back to calling him "jay" behind their backs, because i cannot bring myself to call him that idiotic nickname.

i held jay for the first time when my family from florida arrived the day before the memorial service. i instantly regretted thinking of him as a big brute all those months; he's huge, but he's also sweet-tempered and cuddly and desperate to snuggle. when i went to visit my family a couple of weeks ago, he was already so animated and responsive (on top of big) that he seemed much older than he is.

at the end of the month they are dedicating him at their church (and my old church) in florida. under any other circumstances, i absolutely would be there, standing in the front of the church with my family, getting a little teary (as i always do at these ceremonies at church), and bragging to everyone about how wonderful my nephew is.

but i have decided not to go because i feel my presence will be too much of a distraction. if jay and hans had not been the same age, or if it had been a longer time since hans died, it might be different, but now is too soon to be there and not be a downer. if i went, everyone would be kind, and talk to me, and express their sympathy, but on that day, they should be devoting all of their energy to cooing at jay and congratulating my sister and brother-in-law and mother.

plus, everyone thinks it's cute when the baby being dedicated fusses, but it would just be sad for me to be bawling the whole time, which is probably what would happen.

i haven't said anything to my sister yet, but my mother pressed the issue with me today. she was upset, not so much at me as for me. i know she's incredibly excited about the day and is helping my sister cook and get her house ready for company and she's looking forward to spending the weekend with her family coming in for the event and wants me to be a part of it.

but i just don't feel like it.

Strummer

Our friends' daughter, Strummer, was born and died one year ago tomorrow. My heart and thoughts are with mama, daddy and Strummer.

When Strummer died, her parents asked those who wanted to honor their daughters' life to do so by dedicating a tree in Rebels Wood, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Today, Laura and I have dedicated a tree, in Strummers memory. Happy birthday Strummer.

If there is a place where dead babies go when they die, I can only hope that Strummer and Hans have found each other, and that today they are having one hell of a party: cake and plenty of loud (good) music!

http://www.futureforests.com/halloffame/joestrummer1.asp

empty

I miss Hans. This should've been painfully obvious for some time now, but it hasn't been: Infact, it just hit me - today - like a ton of bricks. I miss him, I can't see him and we don't really have a place to visit him. Sure, we have the ashes, atop our book case, but there is not really a place for him. This makes me sad. I wish that I could just visit with him. Sucks to be me, eh?

Today is that Cleveland ballteams home opener. That pretty much means that 50,000 dads and lads are cutting out of work and school to catch the game. For some reason, they've all decided to park their cars and take transit to work. Generally, this would thrill me. Parked, or incapacitated cars make me happy; but today, as I rode the train into work, I noticed how happy these tykes were to be with their dads (and vice versa) and it just broke my heart that I couldn't be spending a similar day with my own son.

signs of spring

last night after we sat on our front porch and ate toaster blueberry waffles for dinner, we walked up to hollywood video and rented "i love huckabees", which we watched sitting up in bed drinking beer.

(welcome to the exciting saturday night of not-so-hip young urbanites!)

when the actress isabelle huppert's name rolled across the screen, justin asked, "what do you think of isabella for a girl's name?"

i like the name, but i thought it was a pretty popular name, which justin wants to avoid for our children like the plague.

i pulled it up online and showed him that it was currently the 11th most popular name for newborn girls in this country, which immediately decreased its popularity with justin.

while we were there, we looked up johannes, which seems to have peaked in the decade from 1900 to 1909, and hasn't had enough occurrences since then to even make the charts, which seemed to please justin greatly.

i was just pleased to even be having that conversation.

the valley

when i was a nine-year-old evangelical, a new gospel song became a huge hit at every revival meeting and church convention and campmeeting i attended. as i recall, the chorus went: "hold on, my child,/joy comes in the morning./weeping only lasts for the night./hold on, my child,/joy comes in the morning./the darkest hour means dawn is just in sight."

it was always a pretty dramatic event - the gospel equivalent of whitney houston's version of "i will always love you" - and was guaranteed to make the old-timers whoop and yell. i haven't thought about that song in a while, but i can't get it off my mind today.

last night was the lowest of low points so far since hans's death. i had been walking on eggshells around justin for a week, trying to make nice and go along with what he wanted and be gentle with him, all the while my heart was breaking because i wanted to talk about having another child - in detail - and justin did not want to even think about the subject at this point. all of the frustration that had built up for a week came blowing out in steaming bursts of snide, sarcastic cuts that i didn't even mean; i just wanted to punish justin for what i felt like was him punishing me by not wanting to discuss it. we fought for an eternity and couldn't make each other understand our positions and ended up hurting each other to a degree we never thought possible.

and then justin told me that he didn't want to think about another child yet because right now he just wanted to hold hans close to him, and if he had another child he would need to hold that child close and couldn't hold hans as close.

and in that moment i realized that i did not want to spread hans's ashes in south africa next year (the scheduling of which being one of the recurring points of our fight) for pretty much the same reason - that i wanted to keep hans close to me, not turn him loose - and i told justin.

i think that was the first time we understood each other in a week. maybe longer.

(in case you're lost, the above "aha!" moment represents the dawn after the darkest hour.)

today has been mixed. we sat up in the balcony at the west side market and watched all of the families with toddlers and preschoolers and discussed for which kids we would make an exception to our agreement that we would never use one of those kid leashes. we went to the mall and i got three pairs of shoes for $50, including tax! justin got a new pair of sneakers and a new toothbrush and a new blade for his electric razor, which we hadn't been able to find for like a year. we saw justin's brother at the mall and hung out in the food court with him and found out his wedding reception will probably be in the primate house at the zoo. and we've been able to be kind to each other.

but today we also got the bereavement package from the march of dimes in the mail, and it sucked. the package itself was good - everything it should be - but it sucked to have to get it, and to read it, and to relive everything. i couldn't stop crying for a long time, and even after i got it together enough to leave the house, i teared up periodically all afternoon. i still just want my son back.

but i have my husband back, which is what i want most.

it didn't totally suck!

after much dread, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth, i returned to work yesterday - and it wasn't nearly as bad as i expected.

i have not been studiously ignored or gawked at by anyone. only one person has said anything stupid to me (in the "it happened for a reason" vein), and it was in the midst of such a sincere conversation that i was able to rebut it. my boss, who is sooo uncomfortable with anything remotely personal or emotional in the workplace, sat down with me, looked me in the eye, asked me how i was and how justin was, and looked me in the eye while i told him. the co-worker who always gets on my nerves told me something happened to her at hans's memorial service and she realized that our mutual irritation just didn't matter, and she asked me to bring pictures of hans. the co-worker who most told me i was paranoid, not to worry, and whom i most did not want to see because i was so angry with her - she came straight to me and hugged me and cried and we've talked through everything; plus, she has been preparing people for my return and making it so much easier for me than i thought it could be. everyone else has said, hi, how are you, you've been in my prayers, it's so good to have you back, and hugged me and patted me on the back.

i've said for a long time that i lead a charmed life, and while i don't consider the loss of my child a charmed event, i have to say that the support i've received and continue to receive is just out of this world.

apparently another of my co-workers, who came to the memorial service, was ranting in the office the day before the service about how wrong and weird it was for us to be having the memorial. the next monday, he came into the office and apologized to everyone in the vicinity for being an ass and explained how meaningful the service was and how glad he was he had gone.

someday soon, before the details get too blurry, i really need to commit that day to writing.

last night, i met mike and kath and charlie and jim at bela dubby's, and exhaled, and laughed, and interviewed jim for details on his lovelife to determine whether he is ready to be set up (there's someone we have in mind....). i took kath home and we sat in her driveway and i poured my heart out to her about all of the conversations we've been having about if and when to try to have another child and all my frustrations, and she listened to it all and supported me and hugged me and i felt a thousand pounds less pressure.

then i met justin and some of the airport guys at dante's for pizza and travel stories and future travel plans, and everything felt all right. and now it's the weekend and we have from now until 1:30 sunday to ourselves. justin and i have so much to work out, and it mostly breaks my heart, but we're going to be aiiiight. we just have to be.

i'm going to talk about travel for a moment

mainly, because it's something that I am passionate about and secondly because I am having a crapish day, and this will help me not abuse food, as I'd otherwise like to be doing. Yes, I'm sort of a fatty, and I'm ever conscience about my weight, but when I'm down, I can't help but pig out and feel bad later.

It's strange. I used to take 5 or 6 trips a year, one of which would be a month, the rest individual weeks. Now, with life as it is, I am really only looking at a three week to a month trip every February, a week in the summer, and a few short weekends. This is still much more than most people are afforded, and I am grateful for the opportunities that I have but: I guess that eventually reality changes everything (even my charmed life) and we can only plan a little bit away at a time.

My desire to travel is much stronger now or it is atleast much more indepth: I'd rather spend alot of time in one particular place, really getting to know it. I also find myself wanting to return to places that I've spent a great bit of time, but feel as though I've only scratched the surface.

Next year, we will be dropping some of the boys ashes off in 'his town': Johannesburg and then some at the Cape for good measure. The year after that, we've obligation and desire to spend some time with friends in Taiwan.

I still have a real desire to visit Vietnam, Ethiopia, Northern Brazil, Trans Siberian / Trans-Mongolian but honestly, I have no idea when time and circumstance will afford me this pleasure.

It could take a lifetime, and what an interesting lifetime it will be:

I sat next to an 84 year old woman on the flight home from Uruguay last year. She and her husband, some 65 years ago had made a list of all the places that they'd like to see before they died. Each had their own list, and there was a list of mutual attractions. They saw many of their mutual interests while he was still alive, but soon died before he could see his individual destinations or his wifes. As a dedication to him, she has - over the 30 years since his death - made it a point to see each and every one of his places. This was very theraputic for her, and I'm sure that he would really have appreciated this.

She is now, at her age, getting a chance to see her destinations. For her 80th birthday, she hiked the Inka Trail, and for her 84th birthday, she celebrated at a samba school at Carneval. What an incredible woman, we talked through most of the flight; movie time, nap time and leisure time.

the autopsy and the pity party

what were we thinking, scheduling my checkup at 8:00 in the morning??? i guess at the time we thought we would both be back up at work already, or at least justin would, and we couldn't have foreseen our current sleep schedule (3 am to 11 am...or so). last night was very, very bad before it started to get a little better. how we think about mourning our son's death and about planning for the future are very, very different things. we went to bed exhausted from yelling and crying, and then were wired and couldn't go to sleep; i finally dropped off sometime after 1:30 and i don't know if justin got more than an hour of sleep before the alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.

so we dragged our weary bodies and contentious attitudes and frail emotional states up to the doctor's office...only to realize that i had forgotten my return-to-work paperwork. we dashed back home to get it, couldn't find it, called my boss to get human resources' number, called my doctor's secretary to get her fax number, called human resources to get the paperwork faxed over, dashed back into the doctor's office, and then were whisked right into the exam room, having used up the usual wait time in running around, apparently.

my exam went fine, despite the weirdness of my husband sitting 12 inches away and watching me get felt up. i had blood drawn for some auto-immune tests, which will help eliminate some unlikely sources of problems should we try again. then we got into the autopsy, and it just sucked.

in addition to the things we knew about (the two-vessel chord, the cord looped loosely around his neck, the dilated kidneys), we learned that (1) his lungs were immature for his age [although previous ultrasounds had suggested his lungs were right on track], (2) he was making poop and had gotten some into his immature lungs as he made some gasping attempt to survive, and (3) his right testis was underdeveloped and mostly dead tissue. there doesn't seem to be any single, driving cause of death; he just fell apart.

in all likelihood, had he been born live, he would have had a tough row to hoe. had he been able to survive, he probably would have been pretty high maintenance and been frustrated with his limitations. this information is not really comforting to me; i was prepared for him to have some issues and would have been glad just to have him alive. but for his sake, maybe it was better this way. i don't know. who can say what his life would have been like? the only thing about his life of which i can be sure is that no one would have ever been more loved.

after we got out of the hospital, we drove to the east side and decided to try cafe limbo, a vegetarian restaurant about which we had heard great things but had never tried. justin's acorn squash casserole in phyllo cups was waaaaaaayyyyy too spicy; if i can't even taste the food because it's so hot, it's too spicy. i had spinach and ricotta ravioli in marinara sauce, which was quite good. if i were to go there again, i would try the sandwiches on their menu instead of their specials on the board. still, it was a nice, quirky little place, and i really enjoyed their salad, which came with a horseradish-y dressing. then we went to the art museum, but i couldn't concentrate on looking at anything. our wedding pictures were taken at the museum, and in the atrium and in the egyptian section, where our favorite pictures were taken, all i could think about was how happy we were then and how clueless we were as to what was to come.

what makes everything worse is that we can't seem to stop snipping at each other. understanding that we're snippy because we're sad and upset doesn't make it any less unpleasant. so we're moping around the house, drinking beer and eating corn dogs and french fries, generally feeling sorry for ourselves and specifically disagreeing on when we'd like to try to conceive a second child. for the record, we only split a beer, and we're eating veggie corn dogs and baked, organic, trans-fat-free fries, and "snack-size" portions of each; but still, it's a good menu for a pity party.

so now we have a few last hours to spend together before we head back into the mines. hopefully, we can make the best of it. we're going to start with a bike ride and see how it goes from there. wish us luck.

the after-beach feeling; also, tofu and anxiety

despite the sunscreen i put on this morning (and every day) my face is pink and tight. we rode our bikes to dempsey's in tremont to meet david for lunch; after, we rode around tremont and back home and then worked in the yard until about 30 minutes ago, and i got way too much sun on my face, and a little on my neck and arms and legs. i've had a shower now, and exfoliated, and lotioned up, and i have that good, clean, healthy feeling i always get after cleaning up after a day at the beach. (never mind that there's nothing healthy about getting sun-burned, or that i haven't spent a day at the beach in years; still...)

lunch was good; as the fellow parent of a dead son. i feel like i can be pretty frank with david and not shock him. we actually kind of joked about mummies and other death culture; as much as they love us and grieve our son, too, and are comfortable talking about johannes, none of our other friends or family can handle us joking about him or death-related topics. we did actually talk about a few things other than our dead children this time, confirming my suspicion that he is the sort of person with whom i would want to be friends, even if we didn't share the dead baby thing.

we only got the four beds in the front of the house cleaned up before we got worn out, but i must say, we look quite respectable from the street. justin hosed down the porch and the railings and the steps, and he got our blue adirondack chairs up from the basement and on to the porch, and i got them cleaned up, so we can officially become porch-sitters again.

justin has cooked tonight - he did quite a lovely job marinating some tofu, and the brown jasmine rice smells so freaking good: like popcorn, only better tasting. we're pretty much at peace tonight, although i feel some nagging anxiety, and i get the impression justin is feeling some anxiety, too. what's getting under my skin is: (1) knowing that we'll get the autopsy results tomorrow, and they may be horrible, or they may be inconclusive - i'm not sure which would be worse; and (2) i have to go back to work thursday, and i just don't feel like dealing with my co-workers. i've realized that i don't care enough about them to put the energy into talking with them. i've really got to start looking for a transfer.

I can't see my ass going into work today

Last week back at work was difficult. Exactly two people acknowledged Hans, expressed their condolences, welcomed me back, or hell - even acknowledged my existance. To be honest, I pretty much kept to myself, stayed in my office, only leaving to use the restroom or to clock out so their reservations can only be expected. I wasn't exactly throwing myself out there, but for crying out loud, I'm back! And we'll have to see each other at some point, so let's start off by saying "hello Justin, crazy ass weather we're having out there, eh?". something, anything.

Anyhow, Laura is now back in town and we had a spectacular weekend. Well, except for the Friday Night Fight, but beyond that, it was splendid. So splendid, infact, that I've decided to take a few personal days, the official reason: anal glacoma (ie, I can't see my ass going to work), which will afford me an opportunity to enjoy with Laura the last few days before she returns to work, and a chance for us to be together after we receive the autopsy results (tomorrow morning, should any of you be prayer people, please do so for us).

It's been a wonderful day. Sunshine, warmth, and flowers blooming. We spent the morning riding bikes, something that we haven't done since last autumn, which fealt great. This morning, we met with our friend David, who had a pierogie tip, so the morning easily turned into afternoon with a plateful of pyrohy and a few pints of Sam Adams Spring Ale. A most perfect lunch, if you ask me.

We then leisurely rode around Tremont, taking in much of the recent development, and caught a cafe y latte at a former haunt of mine, Lucky's.

We're now out in the garden, well Laura is out in the garden, and I'm inside taking a breather. I best get back out there, we've some serious cleaning up to do.

fat & sassy

we've just come from dinner at matt & sara's - grapefruit-topped salad, salty roasted asparagus, wild mushroom risotto, fresh homemade bread, and homemade blueberry ice cream in little sugar cookie cups matt made. boy, will we miss them when they move to rhode island, as much for the incredible food as for the fact that we can talk about johannes with them and it's not weird.

i sooo hope spring is here for good. it really improves my mood. more tulips and irises are pushing up through the soil and i hope they bloom soon. our lilac tree is budding, too. we finally got to take our bikes out for a spin this afternoon; i'm sure my speed (or lack of it) grated on justin's nerves, but i apparently have lost whatever leg muscles i developed last year. as long as the weather keeps, though, i can keep riding every day until i build back up to the kind of rides we took last year. my ultimate goal would be to be able to bike up the path that goes down to edgewater park. last summer i had to walk my bike back up the hill, but i had the down part, well, down. at any rate, as long as i keep riding, i feel better, and when i feel better, i have more hope. and i can use all of the hope i can get.

a better-than-average day

it was so hard to wake up this morning. i'm starting to wonder if my body's defense mechanism against morning sadness is to let me sleep longer, until it's so late that when i do wake up i have to jump up and go right away, so there's no time to lay in bed missing johannes.

this morning i had set the alarm for 10:30 but actually woke up at noon. i jumped up and got myself together pronto for us to go meet greg and dyan at west end tavern in lakewood for brunch to celebrate greg's 49th birthday. we actually got there at 12:33; i was pretty proud, under the circumstances.

g&d brought their friend tom, whom we hadn't met before; he turned out to be the older, single version of us. he was about two rows in front of us last night at the red/ethel concert last night, and he actually saw "melinda and melinda"at the cedar lee friday night (which we had planned to do, and invited g&d to do with us, but greg was sick, and then we fought, so we didn't make it). as we were getting ready to go, something came up about the grog shop, and i told justin he should tell tom about the futureheads show, and it turns out tom also got his ticket yesterday. too funny, really. dyan likes to think of herself as having a diverse group of friends and was kind of disappointed that we and tom had so much in common, but she was glad we hit it off.

we did make it to see "melinda and melinda" today - a better movie than most recent woody allen offerings, although i would have liked to see the comedic half of the story better developed. between brunch and the movie, we stopped for chai and espresso at the university circle arabica (actually, it may be the only arabica left in the area, other than the ones inside metro hospital). we talked about johannes, and especially about the happy parts. there were no what-ifs, just the remembrance of the joy he brought us. strange as it seems, even though we knew he was dead, his delivery was an amazing and wonderful thing for us. when he came out, what i felt overwhelmingly was peace. that makes no sense to me, but it's absolutely true. to see him at last, and hold him against me, and touch him was so incredibly precious to me. god, i never knew i could feel so freaking maternal. who knew.

tonight we made nachos and finally opened the unibroue "quelque chose" that justin bought back in bellingham for our anniversary but i hadn't been up to drinking until now; it's a wild cherry beer with lots of cloves and it goes especially well with oatmeal cookies. we're listening to bloc party as loud as we think we can without getting a visit from the police, and it's a pretty good place to be.

a correction, a concert review, and other things: the hyperlink edition

correction: on thursday i reported the blooming of certain purple, white and yellow tulips around our house; in fact, the blooms are crocuses, and this misperception only confirms i have much to learn about all of the plants i've inherited.

yesterday just flat out sucked. we slept 13 hours, ate greasy, over-onioned crap at sokolowski's (it was my first visit to the legendary cafeteria - what a disappointment), visited calvin's brick at cleveland public theatre (which i had not yet seen), made a little nookie (okay, that part didn't suck), slept a couple of more hours, screamed and yelled at each other, ate sushi at kimo's, spilled coffee (twice) at the new cafe metro joe's (in the location of the former cafe noir), watched some lame tv, fooled around a little then stopped abruptly when i started thinking about johannes, laid awake for hours in the dark thinking about my doctor's appointment this week among other johannes-related things, read entertainment weekly from 4 to 6 am, and then finally went to sleep. i also cried all day yesterday, but it wasn't any single event to document individually; i was just a faucet all day. i would prefer not to have any more days like yesterday.

today, despite the ridiculous blizzard that blew all day, was much better. we ate scrambled egg sandwiches and gave each other manicures and pedicures and pumpkin facials and were generally much kinder to each other. justin discovered that the futureheads (aka johannes's favorite band) are coming to the grop shop in june and we bought our tickets! we went to the red {an orchestra} concert after dinner at siam, and i am so glad we went.

the first half of the show was bartok's "music for strings, piano and celesta", which was okay but dated. bartok hasn't really stood the test of time for me, so it wasn't a very effective piece to get all innovative on. i was intrigued, though, by the celesta player, a curly-haired, red-cheeked young man that made me think about our dreams for hans. we both, separately, thought of hans as a musician and thought he might be a violinist or pianist; watching the first half of the concert, all i could think about was what it might have been like as hans's parents to be in the audience when he performed with an orchestra. that was my only significant tear-shedding of the day.

ethel, an electric string quarter from new york, played with the orchestra in the second half. the first piece, julia wolfe's "early that summer" was classical gone to metal heaven. the performance of that piece alone made going out in the crappy weather worthwhile. the second piece, phil kline's "meditations in an emergency" (a premiere) was nourishing and soothing and joyous at the same time; the program notes mention frank o'hara's poem which says, "each time my heart is broken i feel more adventurous." the music was a perfect backdrop against which to think about that line, which really struck a chord with me. i lead a pretty charmed life, but there have been a few tragedies, and in the aftermath i have always been freed to go a new direction. i feel, for one thing, that my relationship with justin is going to new places to which we wouldn't necessarily have gone without johannes's death. i certainly don't think johannes died for some life-enriching purpose for us - his death was just a horrible accident - but i am comforted by the new facets of our relationship, and i also feel like some other changes are coming in my life. don't know what they may be yet, but tonight was an opportunity to chew on the prospects a little.

the last piece, john king's "ethos" (also a premiere), was so new york, and it made me want to play music again (i am a long-lapsed pianist and cellist and sometime-chorister), although the ending was (i thought) a let-down. but overall i found ethel to be a band i would gladly jump on a plane to go see somewhere else. we finished the night at metro joe's again, but this time we managed to spill neither coffee nor tears.

will there ever be a time when i will have control over if and when i cry about johannes?

what you can do to make me feel better

we were really disappointed to not be able to have a birth certificate for johannes; it felt like a slap in the face, or an attempt to invalidate his existence. but johannes was conceived by us, and grew for nine months inside of me, and we delivered him, and a death certificate was issued for him, but there was no birth certificate. something that legally recognized that our son was stillborn would have been a comfort to us.

there is a national drive to pass laws in the 44 states that don't currently have them for a certificate of stillbirth to be issued in cases like ours. it is not a political attempt to make a statement about when life begins; i would not support it or be publishing the address here if it was.

please take a moment to read the missing angels petition and, if you feel comfortable, add your name to it. thanks