“I noticed this ugly wooden chair amongst some of the furniture for sale. I guess it just looked the way I felt, on the verge of snapping in some places. Much like grief, I was just going to have to live with this chair for a while. It’s become such a fitting analogy. At the end of the day, it was still just a broken place to sit.”
“He had blood-soaked gauze around his head. ‘Is that a bone sticking out of his arm?’ Sean had been in a motorcycle accident. I sat beside his bed listening to the ventilator push air through his body. I need you. Your boys need you. I know you’re in there, but you have to show these doctors that. I’m going to go home. When I get back in the morning, you need to wake up.'”
“The nurse wouldn’t let me hear their heartbeats. ‘It’s a waste of time. They will die.’ I couldn’t get up to pee or else Baby A would come out a little more. I felt so defeated. A new doctor walked in. ‘We’re going to another hospital and I’m coming with you!’ We were gone in seconds.”
“Grief looks like walking around Hobby Lobby with a beautiful, happy baby boy and tears running down my cheeks. How do you even pick flowers for your daughter’s grave? Can anything I buy show how much I love and miss her? My rainbow baby is making the cashier laugh. I wonder what she thinks I’m buying the flowers for, and if she can feel the grief roll off of me.”
“We waited for his buggy. We had to walk through passport control with him biting, hitting, and screaming as he does when he’s upset. On the plane, he was upset and screaming. We had comments like, ‘Should have brought my headphones.’ He is, in fact, disabled and not just being naughty.”
“‘I cannot understand you. Let’s speak English, no?’ she said, impatiently. ‘Uh, okay.’ I replied. ‘Umm…I would like some red lipstick, please.’ She took a moment to look me over and I couldn’t help but get the feeling I was somehow inadequate. ‘I think you’d be more com-for-ta-ble in this co-lor…’ she said as she grabbed a lipstick tube off the shelf.”
“My mother-in-law made sure to start voicing her opinions. ‘You don’t need nice furniture in your apartment. I never had nice things. And why are you living together before you’re married?’ This was coming from the same woman who had a child at 15, unmarried. I grew accustomed to expecting to hear these kinds of things every time I saw her. All I wanted was some help taking care of the baby.”
“We woke to my son crying and covered in vomit. The next day, his brother was the same and couldn’t keep anything down. We thought it was a stomach bug, but it kept happening. ‘Both your boys have leukemia.’ It felt like being stuck in some kind of messed up Groundhog Day where all your nightmares are real. I felt helpless.”
“I have all these mental images of women, dressed for success and sitting desks with their laptops open and their not-even-necessary glasses to the side. The lighting is bright and there is a perfectly groomed plant in the corner by a floor to ceiling window. I felt like an imposter for being successful.”
“I dreamed about you before you were even a possibility. I dreamed of you when the doctors and tests said no. I dreamed of you while I carried you in my heart and soul. And then, suddenly, you were there. Your tiny hand wrapped around my finger in an empty hospital room, looking up at me with big eyes, asking me to love you. Be patient with me as I learn to let you go.”
