For me, the weekend was wonderful and terrible, all at the same time. It was wonderful to be with all the people who loved Henry the most (Henry’s dad and stepmother came down for the weekend too). But it was terrible for me to look at all the cousins ranging in age from newborn to young adults (yes, we consider the Abernathy fam to be cousins – and apparently we are actually distantly related via the Harris line) and wonder why MY child didn’t make it. I mean, we raised him the same way as all of these other healthy, thriving, beautiful children from this generation of our family, and yet he became addicted to drugs and then he died at only 18 years old.

I love every single one of my nieces, nephews and younger cousins with every fiber of my being. I love them like my own. I am so proud of how bright and accomplished and kind each of them are. It just seems so cruel and random and unfair that things went so terribly awry with Henry, who was surrounded with the same love and adoration that all of his cousins enjoy.

And walking around Bell Buckle, I was constantly reminded of Henry – riding his skateboard around town, eating an ice cream cone downtown, visiting with his great grandmother, playing lacrosse in the Abernathys’ backyard, climbing the giant magnolia tree in my mother’s front yard…

I miss him. We all miss him. The world seems off-kilter to me without Henry in it.

On the way home from Bell Buckle yesterday, C said, “Mama, we need to go to the hospital and get Henry now. He’s all better and ready to come home.”

How I wish that were true.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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The question I asked in that blog post is now more relevant to me than ever: “Life is indeed suffering. What do we do with that? How do we find joy in the midst of that suffering? How do we accept what we can’t change? How do we even KNOW which are the parts we can’t change? When do we cling for dear life and when do we let go out of love? These are some of the questions I’ve been wrestling with since W’s death, and as I’ve faced my own losses and hurts as a parent since that time. “

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Friday, November 15, 2002

Emergence

by Katie Allison Granju

Today is my middle child’s seventh birthday, the age at which Swiss child development guru Jean Piaget theorized that children truly leave infancy behind. Last night I sat watching her sleep in her bed, a new kitten snuggled against her cheek. In looking at her, I realized that very little was left physically of the round, soft baby she once was. Now she is long and becoming angular. She has real cheekbones and she sprawls across spaces with fast-growing, strong, tanned limbs all akimbo.

My daughter’s changing shape is yet one more reminder of how different my own life seems lately. This summer I am able to wear whatever I want because for the first time in a decade, I am not pregnant or nursing a baby or little child. At ages 10, 6, and 4, my three children can now stay for several days with a grandparent if I want to go away. They rarely wake at night and I no longer wash a load of diapers each night before I go to bed. I will be 35 years old this fall and it’s clear to me that a certain season of my life is ending and a new one is beginning. I have passed through the intense crucible of mothering infants and very young children and have suddenly emerged on the other side, blinking at the sun and sometimes wondering what to do with myself.

During all those years that I was busy creating and sustaining my babies, I never had time to think much about the fact that my body wasn’t my own. Tiny hands and mouths and voices constantly asked more of me, and most of the time, I enjoyed giving it. Something that no one ever tells you before you have a baby is what a sensuous, tactile experience it is. I once heard a new mother describe her own embarrassing desire to literally lick her newborn all over because the baby smelled and tasted so wonderful. I laughed and nodded in recognition because I had more than once found myself furtively sniffing my own baby’s deliciously naked little body all over like some kind of junkie.

My emergence from the intense gauntlet of early motherhood has been gradual. I didn’t wake up one morning and realize that things had changed. Instead it has been a slow dawning of consciousness; what actually happened is that I woke up one morning and realized that there was no child in the bed with me and that I had slept eight hours straight. Then there was a day recently when all three of my children had been invited to friends’ houses to spend the night. As evening fell, I found myself at a loss. Should I wash my hair and go out to see a band like I would have 10 years ago? Should I try to get some needed grocery shopping done while I had the chance? Should I take a hot bath and read uninterrupted for as long as I liked? Instead I simply draped myself across my bed and without any plan at all, fell into a deep, much needed sleep. When I awoke in the middle of the night, I was momentarily disoriented and alarmed. The room was dark but I could sense that my children were not in the room or even the house. As I gathered my thoughts and remembered that I was alone for the night, I felt a forgotten rush of freedom and pleasure. I took off the clothes in which I had fallen asleep and climbed under the sheets to finish my night’s rest. The cotton felt cool and smooth. When was the last time I had been aware of how good fresh sheets feel against my body? A long time, I realized as I smiled to myself and fell back asleep to dream of things having nothing to do with motherhood.

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And although she appears to have brown eyes instead of blue, she looks pretty much exactly like big sister C as a newborn.

(And she has notably looooong fingers and toes, just like Henry)

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Lately, I feel like there is so much loss around me – so many instances of people I care about losing people they care about. In my own life, I’ve lost my toddler cousin, my grandfather, my father and my firstborn son -named after my father – just in the past five years. This all came after a lifetime spent without being touched by death in any personal way; I had never even been to a funeral until I was in my 30s.

Huge condolences to J and her family. Losing a parent is terrifically hard.

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I worried about my ability to mother her, to even love her enough or focus on her needs even as I was lying on the delivery table, feeling her being tugged out of my belly during my c-section.

But as corny as this sounds – like a bad Lifetime movie or something – the moment G was placed in my arms, I adored her. I immediately loved her madly. And after nine months of feeling uncomfortably disconnected from the very idea that I was pregnant, I knew her immediately when I actually looked in her eyes for the first time. It was like, “Oh…so THAT’S who you are. Now I get this whole deal with you coming into our lives right now, at this very strange and painful moment.” And when she looks back at me, she doesn’t seem to mind that I am heartbroken. She looks perfectly content with the mama she got.

This baby is the closest thing to an honest to goodness miracle that I’ve ever experienced. She is an amazing gift to Jon, J, E, C and me. She is grace for our broken hearts. I am so attached to her that I can’t sleep because I don’t ever want to put her down and stop looking at her.

Two weeks old now.

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I love this boy.

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After that, only a few weeks later, her baby sister was born at only 35 weeks . G’s early birth by c-section meant that I spent 5 days in the hospital with the new baby, once again separated from C, who is still a baby herself. It’s just been far too much for anyone to handle, much less a toddler. Now, finally, C is not holding it together so well. She’s understandably showing the strain of everything our family has been through since last October.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s exceptionally sweet directly toward her baby sister. It’s toward the REST of us that she’s is showing her frustration. For the first time ever, she’s kicking and hitting at her cousins, her older siblings and at Jon and me. She’s throwing real, honest to goodness temper tantrums for the first time. She’s whining like crazy (although that’s starting to let up some). She’s just REALLY, REALLY mad and she’s obviously finally letting off some pent-up steam – some very, very pent-up steam.

My sister pointed out the other day that I was being too snappish with her when she melts down, so I am now trying much harder to be as gentle and understanding as I can be. Jon and I are also working hard to normalize her daily routine after so much uncertainty and being shuffled around in recent months. But she just doesn’t have the words or the emotional resources to explain to us how stressed she’s been, so falling apart is all she can do. Dealing with her tantrums and anger have been trying for the rest of us in the family in the past two weeks, but I hope that finally letting it all out is giving her some relief. I am very proud of how sweet and patient E and J are being with her, even when she’s being really cranky with them.

Henry (age 3) was really furious when J came home from the hospital. He developed a weird nervous tic for several months and for a short time, he literally refused to look at me or speak to me any time I was holding his little sister. After about a month or so, he fell in love with her and after that, they were always as close as two siblings could be. Then, both Henry (age 6 at the time) and J (age 2) were just thrilled when E was born. They never showed any stress to speak of. The three of them became a tight unit for the next decade. My three babies – for many years, I never imagined there would be a fourth or a fifth!

I have to admit that I was REALLY worried when C was born in 2007 because she was a newcomer to that threesome of siblings who were now 15, 12 and 9 years old. During my pregnancy with C, Henry and J were not happy AT ALL that I was having a new baby. In fact, all three musketeers were incredibly embarrassed at the idea that their mom was having a baby NINE YEARS after the last baby joined the family. Henry was flat out angry about it – something about which I felt terribly guilty at the time. Once C arrived, however, J and E were immediately smitten with their little sister. It took Henry a while to come around. But once C could babble and reach for him, he began to melt; he totally fell for his baby sister. And she was just nuts about Henry. C loved him very much.

Now we’ve brought G home only 34 months after C joined our family (yes, she is definitely our last)… And Henry is gone – he just missed his newest baby sister in this time zone. But I know they will see one another again, and I like to think that they were together before she was born. On the day Henry died, I sat on his bed with his feet and legs in my lap and felt G kick against them, through my very pregnant belly. On that day, the two of them were connecting physically for the first and only time. As their mother, this was both beautiful and terrible for me to experience, but they touched each other. That will always be meaningful to me.

But back to poor C….she’s just completely overwhelmed at the moment.

Did your toddler melt down when a new baby came home? Tell me about it and tell me how you helped him or her through the transition. I’d love to hear from others who have dealt with their own Very Angry Toddler.

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Elliot was thrilled to meet his new baby sister for the first time. He wanted to hold her and look at her all evening. He also gave her a plaque with her name on it that he made in woodshop at camp – in PINK, no less Now that’s a good big brother.

It was just wonderful for me to have all four of the children home together for the first time since G’s birth. But it also made me very sad because we were missing Henry. But I know he was there with us in love.

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