I remember snippets of a conversation from some point in my shy, self-conscious teenage years, when some well-intentioned adult was trying to get me to break free from caring about what people thought. The gist of the punchline, so to speak, was "How much have you thought about so-and-so today?" Followed up with, "What did so-and-so wear last week?", "What did so-and-so say two days ago?", etc. And though I couldn't answer any of those questions very well, I continued to wear my self-consciousness into adulthood, worrying that each step was a misstep and that I would soon give myself away as a fraud —not quite the person I was pretending to be... not quite a great mom... not quite a good writer... not even close to Martha Stewart... not quite a real grown-up.
Though a small victory, one good thing that has come of the past almost-four weeks is that suddenly, none of that matters.
Seriously. I haven't worn anything beyond mascara and a ponytail since I left the hospital. I don't think I've vacuumed and am certain I haven't dusted since my mom left two weeks ago. And the never-ending project to-do-list that usually fills our weekends long before Friday evening, at least for now, seems to be a thing of the past. Because the only thing I want to be doing is impossible, so why bother with anything else? So I navigate the day-to-day with a bit more ease, not worried about much beyond are my kids safe and happy? Too bad perspective has come at such a high price.
It would seem I am free of inhibition in all but one area of my life. But in this one area, I am driving myself crazy: I don't know how to be the person I have now become.
And even though everyone keeps telling me there is not one right way to trudge through this bog that is missing my babies, I worry with every breath that I am mucking it up. Worried that the only thing I can do for them is being done wrong. Am I too pushy or too clingy in my sadness and will everyone forever think of these two little guys negatively (which is different than with sadness)? Too formulaic in my retelling, too happy in the in between, minimizing my heartache and their impact?
And just as my 15-year-old self, knowing something (that none of it matters — that my grief is not up for judgment) and moving forward with that knowledge are two very different things.
And I am driving myself crazy.
The upside: Every once in a while, the worry about how so-and-so will hear such-and-such feels almost normal. At least until I fill in the blanks with the topic at hand.
11.08.2011
11.04.2011
Because They Mattered
I worry my sadder ramblings may turn away some of you. And I completely understand why it would. Three weeks and two days ago, I would not have known what to say to someone like me. So please don't feel obligated to read. I just keep writing about this because, honestly, it feels good to get it out — to be heard. A Halloween recap will soon follow this post. Check back soon or read on as you like.
It's been three weeks since Andrew and Benjamin were born. Three weeks full of heartache and regret and useless what ifs on top of three weeks of overwhelming love and compassion and patience on the part of those around us that, combined, have left my emotional filter threadbare. A loss like this feels like it overshadows everything else, and moving forward is so much easier said than done.
But I don't know how. Because any step away from this is a step away from my boys. And however unavoidable it is, that first step feels impossible.
And amid all of this, I am left with one overwhelming regret about the only thing I really could have done differently in all of this: we didn't have a funeral. And I worry this makes them less legitimate to everyone but me. I worry that because noone else saw them, held them, noticed the side-bent pinkies that their older brother and sister also inherited from their daddy and the scrunchy toes on skinny feet they got from me, that in everyone else's mind, Andrew and Benjamin were never really here — never really a part of our family. And this breaks my heart all over again because, to us, they were everything.
Shortly after we told the kids we were having twins, Nora started pushing two of her dollies around in her little stroller. She called them her "twin babies," and her playtime with them almost always led to conversations about what her "twin brothers" (she got really mad if you just called them the babies or brothers without the "twin") would be like. To this day, her twin babies are swaddled, rock-a-byed and tucked in beside her before she goes to sleep, and she often talks about "when our twin babies come back".
And though he understands that our twin babies will not come back (and gently reminds his little sister every time she brings them up), Porter carries his little brothers with him in other ways and often asks about how old they will be "when we are all together in Heaven." Every once in a while, he sneaks into my room and gently holds the hand molds of his brothers that a kind nurse made for us the night they were born, rubbing his thumb across their fingers and marveling at how tiny his brothers were.
I wonder if he picked this up from me. Though I want to do something lasting with the hand molds (just have't figured out what that should be), I can't bring myself to stow them away for the time being, so they sit on top of my jewelry box where I can get to them anytime I need a reminder that all of this did happen. That they were really my babies. Much like the ultrasound photo that still hangs on our fridge; though we see it every day, neither Andy nor I have the heart to take it down.
I don't know what to do with all these reminders. When you think about grief, noone ever tells you about all its baggage.
Noone tells you that when you do muster the courage to return to work, you will open your desk drawer to find the leftover anti-nausea medicine you kept on hand just in case the morning sickness returned. Or that your husband would run into an uninformed acquaintance who would innocently inquire about how the twin pregnancy was going.
It doesn't end and so it is hard to move on.
It's November now. I am supposed to be nearing the end. We weren't going to go anywhere for Thanksgiving, "just in case they came early." The thing about all of this, is that it caught us completely off guard. I had an ultrasound just five days before, and everything was fine — we were basking in high hopes. And then we weren't. And each week feels like another sucker punch.
Just three days before we lost Andrew and Benjamin, my mom and I finished piecing the tops of two quilts for their nursery.
Three weeks later, the second crib, nine bulk boxes of diapers and all the coordinating sleepers and onesies have been returned, but my boys are no less present to me.
They are with me every moment. And I don't know if I'm ready to give that up.
So the hand-written list of baby names with some crossed off and some starred is tucked in a clip on the side of the fridge. Though I will probably never use it, the brand new double stroller hides in the back of our storage closet, "just in case we have twins again." And though I have blocked the weekly "Your Growing Baby" emails that told me which fruit or vegetable my boys were as long as each week, I can't stop googling "identical twin pregnancy complications" in the hope that I will make sense of all that has happened.
But it just doesn't make sense. I can't wrap my head around everything that has changed in just three short weeks. So however unavoidable it is, this first step feels impossible.
Just three weeks and three days ago, I had three hearts beating inside of me. Now I've just got a shattered one and a whole lot of unanswered questions. But what I do know is this: These boys mattered. They matter. They were my children and they will be again. And I cling to that — one last hope from the countless dreams I imagined just three weeks and three days ago.
It's been three weeks since Andrew and Benjamin were born. Three weeks full of heartache and regret and useless what ifs on top of three weeks of overwhelming love and compassion and patience on the part of those around us that, combined, have left my emotional filter threadbare. A loss like this feels like it overshadows everything else, and moving forward is so much easier said than done.
But I don't know how. Because any step away from this is a step away from my boys. And however unavoidable it is, that first step feels impossible.
And amid all of this, I am left with one overwhelming regret about the only thing I really could have done differently in all of this: we didn't have a funeral. And I worry this makes them less legitimate to everyone but me. I worry that because noone else saw them, held them, noticed the side-bent pinkies that their older brother and sister also inherited from their daddy and the scrunchy toes on skinny feet they got from me, that in everyone else's mind, Andrew and Benjamin were never really here — never really a part of our family. And this breaks my heart all over again because, to us, they were everything.
Shortly after we told the kids we were having twins, Nora started pushing two of her dollies around in her little stroller. She called them her "twin babies," and her playtime with them almost always led to conversations about what her "twin brothers" (she got really mad if you just called them the babies or brothers without the "twin") would be like. To this day, her twin babies are swaddled, rock-a-byed and tucked in beside her before she goes to sleep, and she often talks about "when our twin babies come back".
And though he understands that our twin babies will not come back (and gently reminds his little sister every time she brings them up), Porter carries his little brothers with him in other ways and often asks about how old they will be "when we are all together in Heaven." Every once in a while, he sneaks into my room and gently holds the hand molds of his brothers that a kind nurse made for us the night they were born, rubbing his thumb across their fingers and marveling at how tiny his brothers were.
I wonder if he picked this up from me. Though I want to do something lasting with the hand molds (just have't figured out what that should be), I can't bring myself to stow them away for the time being, so they sit on top of my jewelry box where I can get to them anytime I need a reminder that all of this did happen. That they were really my babies. Much like the ultrasound photo that still hangs on our fridge; though we see it every day, neither Andy nor I have the heart to take it down.
I don't know what to do with all these reminders. When you think about grief, noone ever tells you about all its baggage.
Noone tells you that when you do muster the courage to return to work, you will open your desk drawer to find the leftover anti-nausea medicine you kept on hand just in case the morning sickness returned. Or that your husband would run into an uninformed acquaintance who would innocently inquire about how the twin pregnancy was going.
It doesn't end and so it is hard to move on.
It's November now. I am supposed to be nearing the end. We weren't going to go anywhere for Thanksgiving, "just in case they came early." The thing about all of this, is that it caught us completely off guard. I had an ultrasound just five days before, and everything was fine — we were basking in high hopes. And then we weren't. And each week feels like another sucker punch.
Just three days before we lost Andrew and Benjamin, my mom and I finished piecing the tops of two quilts for their nursery.
Three weeks later, the second crib, nine bulk boxes of diapers and all the coordinating sleepers and onesies have been returned, but my boys are no less present to me.
They are with me every moment. And I don't know if I'm ready to give that up.
So the hand-written list of baby names with some crossed off and some starred is tucked in a clip on the side of the fridge. Though I will probably never use it, the brand new double stroller hides in the back of our storage closet, "just in case we have twins again." And though I have blocked the weekly "Your Growing Baby" emails that told me which fruit or vegetable my boys were as long as each week, I can't stop googling "identical twin pregnancy complications" in the hope that I will make sense of all that has happened.
But it just doesn't make sense. I can't wrap my head around everything that has changed in just three short weeks. So however unavoidable it is, this first step feels impossible.
Just three weeks and three days ago, I had three hearts beating inside of me. Now I've just got a shattered one and a whole lot of unanswered questions. But what I do know is this: These boys mattered. They matter. They were my children and they will be again. And I cling to that — one last hope from the countless dreams I imagined just three weeks and three days ago.
10.30.2011
Pause
This blog started out as a photo dump for far-away grandparents and a way to keep in touch with friends, to highlight all the good and pretty stuff that makes up the Burt life. And at times, it's been a way to be more honest than I can be in person (much more articulate on paper, I am) — a way to put it all out there without really putting it all out there. In this, I am every once in a while surprised to hear from someone unexpected with a quick note to let me know that someone, somewhere, gets it. And that's been nice. Especially now. Because right now, try as I might, this Burt's life is not feeling so good and so pretty.
Except when it is.
But the thing is, I don't know how to go from a post about the babies I wanted so badly to a post about how my two-year-old wants nothing to do with pants now that she has new, "big girl" Rapunzel underwear, which she accessorizes with nothing but ruby slippers.
Both hold a whole lot of space in my heart, but the transition from tragedy to humdrum, from heartache to joy, feels strange and impossible and surreal no matter which camp I find myself in at any moment.
And so I sit and I wait and I don't really do much of anything because everything feels either too normal and happy for someone who is sad, or too sad and unfaithful for someone who has a whole lot of goodness surrounding her.
I want everything to stop, to give me a minute to figure things out at some undetermined time in the future when things like this are to be figured out.
But instead, everything goes on. And though that is probably good and necessary, it just feels so darn unfair to the baby boy-filled life I had a thousand times imagined my own. Like I'm betraying my boys by looking ahead to a life that does not have them in it.
I was going to be pregnant with twins for Halloween, and I was going to eat every Tootsie Roll and Mr. Goodbar in sight without an ounce of guilt, and we were going to find two tiny pumpkins at the pumpkin patch for the twin brothers who would soon join the chaos. Instead, I made my mom make my kids' costumes while I cried in my room; I have honestly considered the dentist's offer to trade candy for cash; and I bought enough pumpkins to line our entire walkway just because I couldn't bear to only see four pumpkins alone on our stoop.
Can I please hit the pause button?
Because the costumes are cute, and I really want to enjoy my kids running around in them without feeling guilty. And the candy is as sugary as ever, but I'd like to eat it without thinking about the pregnancy weight I have no reason to hang onto. And the pumpkin-lined pathway brings a smile to my face every time I look out the window, but then I remember the two tiny pumpkins I'd rather have in its place.
And so I sit. And I wait. And I try to have faith that normal will again feel normal one day.
Except when it is.
But the thing is, I don't know how to go from a post about the babies I wanted so badly to a post about how my two-year-old wants nothing to do with pants now that she has new, "big girl" Rapunzel underwear, which she accessorizes with nothing but ruby slippers.
Both hold a whole lot of space in my heart, but the transition from tragedy to humdrum, from heartache to joy, feels strange and impossible and surreal no matter which camp I find myself in at any moment.
 |
| our first baby splurge after finding out our twins were two little boys |
I want everything to stop, to give me a minute to figure things out at some undetermined time in the future when things like this are to be figured out.
But instead, everything goes on. And though that is probably good and necessary, it just feels so darn unfair to the baby boy-filled life I had a thousand times imagined my own. Like I'm betraying my boys by looking ahead to a life that does not have them in it.
I was going to be pregnant with twins for Halloween, and I was going to eat every Tootsie Roll and Mr. Goodbar in sight without an ounce of guilt, and we were going to find two tiny pumpkins at the pumpkin patch for the twin brothers who would soon join the chaos. Instead, I made my mom make my kids' costumes while I cried in my room; I have honestly considered the dentist's offer to trade candy for cash; and I bought enough pumpkins to line our entire walkway just because I couldn't bear to only see four pumpkins alone on our stoop.
Can I please hit the pause button?
Because the costumes are cute, and I really want to enjoy my kids running around in them without feeling guilty. And the candy is as sugary as ever, but I'd like to eat it without thinking about the pregnancy weight I have no reason to hang onto. And the pumpkin-lined pathway brings a smile to my face every time I look out the window, but then I remember the two tiny pumpkins I'd rather have in its place.
And so I sit. And I wait. And I try to have faith that normal will again feel normal one day.
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