Maybe you're all wondering how I've been feeling lately. I know I haven't said. I didn't write anything about Isaac's first birthday or describe how CJay and I felt. Truthfully, I didn't want to. Truthfully, I've felt good. The funny thing about writing that (or even saying it) is it makes me feel a little guilty. I'm not sure why someone's death makes you feel as if you shouldn't keep living. Perhaps a wiser person could explain that to me.
I dreaded March 5, but it wasn't March 5 that got me. It was March 4. For months after Isaac died, CJay thought the 4th was his birthday. We had gone to see the specialist on March 4 at 4 p.m. for another ultrasound, and by 6 p.m. we were admitted to the hospital. We didn't sleep that night; Isaac was born at 1:31 a.m., and we waited until almost 8 a.m. to see him in the NICU. All of this to say ... all day on March 4 of this year, I was sad. Reliving the moments leading up to that appointment, to that moment when the doctor told us we had a choice: go home and he won't live or have a c-section soon. That moment started the avalanche.
And so, for CJay and me we watched the clock on March 4. We did play-by-play, remembering so many of the details and the emotions. We sat on the couch that evening picking through those hours leading up to Isaac's birth. We recalled waiting for my mom and feeling sick with worry. We talked about the surgery and hearing Isaac's two little cries. He was surprisingly loud and strong to have been so ill. We watched Isaac's video and looked at the pictures. And we cried.
On March 5, we celebrated. We talked about what Isaac gave us. We listed the ways in which we'd changed. We bought a cake and champagne and we toasted a strong-spirited child who gave every ounce of what he had. And we smiled.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A long time comin'
I certainly didn't intend to go so long between posts. We've been busy! I decided before Christmas last year that I wanted to go back to school - nursing school to be specific. That means that in January, I started taking a prerequisite class and preparing for the GRE. In the mean time CJay was taking classes to prep for yet another CPA exam and trying to survive tax season. If you've never lived with an accountant during tax season, try it. It's tough. Just as we came to the end of my semester, the end of tax season, and one day past my taking the GRE, CJay sprained both his ankles. Yes, both of them. Of course you want to know how he sprained both of them. Everyone asks that. Well, I didn't see it happen, but apparently, he fell on some of our landscaping rocks in the back yard. The rest is history. I spent almost a month taking care of him as he slowly started being able to walk and drive. Whew! That was a tough job! He's still not back to normal and will be in an ankle brace for another month, but at least he's mobile. Things have just been hectic since January and even more so since March.
I hope you'll forgive my absence. I started another class a couple weeks ago, and now I'm volunteering at a health clinic in town. All for my application to nursing school at UVA. I'll apply sometime in October but won't know the outcome until January. I think the story of why I want to attend nursing school is another post entirely. And I promise I'll write it. I want to share how I got to this decision, and why I'm so determined to do it. Until then, pray I survive the busy weeks ahead!
I hope you'll forgive my absence. I started another class a couple weeks ago, and now I'm volunteering at a health clinic in town. All for my application to nursing school at UVA. I'll apply sometime in October but won't know the outcome until January. I think the story of why I want to attend nursing school is another post entirely. And I promise I'll write it. I want to share how I got to this decision, and why I'm so determined to do it. Until then, pray I survive the busy weeks ahead!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Getting closer
CJay and I are doing okay as March 5 draws near. I feel a sense of regression — back to some of the grieving I was doing months ago. There's no getting around it though. We have to get to March 5 and 6, and we have to trample through the memories and the pain. I've been studying Isaac's pictures a lot lately. I haven't done that in a while, but I'm glad I can take the time now to retrace his small features and marvel at his hair, his fingers, and his funny feet. I'm thankful that grief changes as time goes on. It was incredibly difficult for me to imagine a life without the extreme pain, no agony, of losing Isaac. Unfortunately but expectantly, that sensation has surfaced again with his upcoming birthday. It's amazing what humans can endure, isn't it? Only 6 months ago, I would have told you I wouldn't survive this. I didn't care if I did. This road has been rough, and I would have never picked it (who would), but it's our road to travel. And I'll forever be thankful that we met Isaac traveling down this road.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Pit and the Pendulum: Part I
Edgar Allan Poe isn't one of my favorite authors, but I've always marveled at his ability to tap into the dark recess of human emotions. His writing is somber yet intimate. When I was younger, say high school, I didn't understand many of the feelings Poe described — for example, in The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator is paranoid, insane, murderous. I never fully appreciated how someone could be insane or murderous, but I understood those feelings were real.
As we creep toward March 5, I've had Poe's works floating around in my mind. I'm not sure why. Maybe because he was a sad man who experienced a great deal of loss and pain. Maybe because now I understand some of the dark moods Poe evoked in his stories and poems. His writing reflects his fascination with death, and honestly, these past couple weeks and the weeks to come, I too will be focusing on death — how it changed us, how it leaves a hole, it's ability to redefine whomever it touches.
The Pit and the Pendulum is one of my favorite stories. For some reason, this story, with its prisoner who continues to hope in the face of certain death, reminds me of what CJay and I went through during Isaac's poor prognosis both before and after his birth. I hope I'll be able to convey what has been circulating in my brain these past few days. If not, at least I can stop thinking about it.
The narrator is a prisoner sentenced to death and being held in a dimly lit dungeon. After investigating his surroundings and discovering the room contains a deep pit, the prisoner falls asleep. He awakens to find he's been strapped to a wooden board. Above him hangs a pendulum, shaped like a crescent and razor sharp. The pendulum swings back and forth progressing slowly toward the prisoner's heart.
While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.
What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel! Inch by inch — line by line — with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages — down and still down it came! Days passed — it might have been that many days passed — ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed — I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.
There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very — oh, inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy — of hope. Yet what business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought — man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy — of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect — to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile — an idiot.
Our pregnancy with Isaac was like this. We waited for the pendulum to fall. We hoped. We chided ourselves for hoping. Some days I prayed for it to end quickly, for the pendulum to descend.
The prisoner doesn't die. The rats in the dungeon chew through the strap holding him to the wooden board and he is free — in one sense of the word. Much like Isaac's birth set us free. We were free from watching the swing of the pendulum (the ups and downs of our many doctor appointments). We were free from our hope that felt in vain. We weren't freed from what lay ahead — the agony of grief.
-----------------
This post was going to be too long, so I'll post the second half later. I hope I didn't bore you readers with my English lesson. :)
As we creep toward March 5, I've had Poe's works floating around in my mind. I'm not sure why. Maybe because he was a sad man who experienced a great deal of loss and pain. Maybe because now I understand some of the dark moods Poe evoked in his stories and poems. His writing reflects his fascination with death, and honestly, these past couple weeks and the weeks to come, I too will be focusing on death — how it changed us, how it leaves a hole, it's ability to redefine whomever it touches.
The Pit and the Pendulum is one of my favorite stories. For some reason, this story, with its prisoner who continues to hope in the face of certain death, reminds me of what CJay and I went through during Isaac's poor prognosis both before and after his birth. I hope I'll be able to convey what has been circulating in my brain these past few days. If not, at least I can stop thinking about it.
The narrator is a prisoner sentenced to death and being held in a dimly lit dungeon. After investigating his surroundings and discovering the room contains a deep pit, the prisoner falls asleep. He awakens to find he's been strapped to a wooden board. Above him hangs a pendulum, shaped like a crescent and razor sharp. The pendulum swings back and forth progressing slowly toward the prisoner's heart.
While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.
What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel! Inch by inch — line by line — with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages — down and still down it came! Days passed — it might have been that many days passed — ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed — I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.
There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very — oh, inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy — of hope. Yet what business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought — man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy — of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect — to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile — an idiot.
Our pregnancy with Isaac was like this. We waited for the pendulum to fall. We hoped. We chided ourselves for hoping. Some days I prayed for it to end quickly, for the pendulum to descend.
The prisoner doesn't die. The rats in the dungeon chew through the strap holding him to the wooden board and he is free — in one sense of the word. Much like Isaac's birth set us free. We were free from watching the swing of the pendulum (the ups and downs of our many doctor appointments). We were free from our hope that felt in vain. We weren't freed from what lay ahead — the agony of grief.
-----------------
This post was going to be too long, so I'll post the second half later. I hope I didn't bore you readers with my English lesson. :)
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
What I'm thankful for in '09*
My family has a tradition at Thanksgiving. After dinner we sit around the table and say one thing that we're thankful for. I didn't want to do that this year. I wasn't ready, but now I am.
I'm thankful for ...
Isaac - His 2 days of life taught me more than my 27 years. I've been living better since he left us. What a sweet child.
CJay - I desperately love CJay. In my weakest moment, he gave me strength. He kept me focused when we had to make the toughest decisions about our child's life. He makes me laugh and laughs at me. He's always kind and sensitive, even when he's exhausted. Not only is he extremely intelligent, but he's also practical, rational, and patient. There's no way I could have made it through 2009 without him.
My parents - Loyal. Thoughtful. Loving. Godly. Are they the perfect? No. But they gave me the skills to wade through this difficult year. They taught me what is most important in life, and when I held Isaac in my arms, I was thankful they had warned me just how much I would love him. I know they miss him too.
Seth (my older brother) - He confided in me about how excited he was to meet Isaac. He was there with us when Isaac died, making us laugh, playing music for Isaac on the iPhone, and keeping us all sane (or insane?). He stepped up and made decisions about the memorial service, the casket, the flowers, and much more. He took pictures of my postpartum butt, and he pointed and laughed when my hospital gown wasn't closed. He lives up to his big brother role quite well.
Devin (my younger bro) - I wrote an essay in college about Devin called "The Gentle Giant." I still think of him that way. He's so tenderhearted. He would have made an exceptional uncle to Isaac. I remember last Christmas when Devin put his mouth close to my pregnant belly and made animal noises for Isaac just so he would kick. I know Isaac would have loved Devin like I do.
CJay's parents - Bill and Connie are two of the most generous and sensitive people I know. CJay and I both wanted to protect them from the pain of losing Isaac. We worried about what it might do to them. They gave so much of their time to Isaac before he was born. Painting and hanging curtains and ironing and washing and assembling. They did and would still do anything we asked. I feel fortunate to have such caring and kind in-laws.
Those who cried with us - It meant so much to know that we had friends who were grieving with us. Thanks for keeping us close in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for loving Isaac even if you didn't know him.
* In no particular order.
I'm thankful for ...
Isaac - His 2 days of life taught me more than my 27 years. I've been living better since he left us. What a sweet child.
CJay - I desperately love CJay. In my weakest moment, he gave me strength. He kept me focused when we had to make the toughest decisions about our child's life. He makes me laugh and laughs at me. He's always kind and sensitive, even when he's exhausted. Not only is he extremely intelligent, but he's also practical, rational, and patient. There's no way I could have made it through 2009 without him.
My parents - Loyal. Thoughtful. Loving. Godly. Are they the perfect? No. But they gave me the skills to wade through this difficult year. They taught me what is most important in life, and when I held Isaac in my arms, I was thankful they had warned me just how much I would love him. I know they miss him too.
Seth (my older brother) - He confided in me about how excited he was to meet Isaac. He was there with us when Isaac died, making us laugh, playing music for Isaac on the iPhone, and keeping us all sane (or insane?). He stepped up and made decisions about the memorial service, the casket, the flowers, and much more. He took pictures of my postpartum butt, and he pointed and laughed when my hospital gown wasn't closed. He lives up to his big brother role quite well.
Devin (my younger bro) - I wrote an essay in college about Devin called "The Gentle Giant." I still think of him that way. He's so tenderhearted. He would have made an exceptional uncle to Isaac. I remember last Christmas when Devin put his mouth close to my pregnant belly and made animal noises for Isaac just so he would kick. I know Isaac would have loved Devin like I do.
CJay's parents - Bill and Connie are two of the most generous and sensitive people I know. CJay and I both wanted to protect them from the pain of losing Isaac. We worried about what it might do to them. They gave so much of their time to Isaac before he was born. Painting and hanging curtains and ironing and washing and assembling. They did and would still do anything we asked. I feel fortunate to have such caring and kind in-laws.
Those who cried with us - It meant so much to know that we had friends who were grieving with us. Thanks for keeping us close in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for loving Isaac even if you didn't know him.
* In no particular order.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)