Catching the sunrise for our babies.

Dear George

We think about you every day and we miss you dearly.

Your little body lies decaying in the damp earth in a cardboard box that I soaked with tears but you are not there, little boy, you are not there.

You are in every breath that I take, in every laugh and sigh that leaves my lips, every thought that crosses my mind, every thump of blood through my heart, every kiss and hug I give and receive. I breathe you in and out of my lungs each day. Every moment of love is filled to the brim with you.

You are everywhere I go, everywhere I have been and everywhere I will go. You are in the wind and the sea, in the rain, the earth and the clouds, in the trees, the grass and the flowers. You are in everything I touch, smell and taste. You are in the feathers that I find and take home to put in your box and in the silver I wear around my neck and wrist.

In the last three years I have cried for you, longed for you and I have shouted and stamped my feet at the universe with impotent fury on your behalf. I no more accept your death today than I did the moment we knew you had died. I will always rail at the universe for it's wrongness. It is still wrong. It still shouldn't have happened. You should be here. 

My dear little boy, you should be two years and seven months old and this day should mean nothing more than, oh it's only five days until your Granddad's birthday let's go and find a present for him. Today should be an ordinary day.

Today isn't a celebration of your birth and in this house there are no happy birthdays, cards on the mantel or presents to be unwrapped. Today is the day we go on an adventure in your name and celebrate the love that made you, keeps us together and holds us to hope.

Today we are going to catch the sunrise for you.

We wish you could share in our adventures, they would be so much more with you two singing, laughing and dropping crumbs in the back seat of our battered old car. For as long as we live we will always be sad that you are missing from your lives. We fill our life up with love as best we can but there will always be George and Little Poppet shaped gaps that can never be filled.

My dear son,

Beloved son, be love, be light, be free. Scatter you atoms around the universe, zoom along on the tails of comets, swing from stars, whoosh along the rainbows with Little Poppet and maybe think of us from time to time.

Every day I say your name out loud and every night I whisper a bedtime story to myself,

"Once upon a wonder time, through the clouds, in a parallel universe far far away on the other side of the rainbow, there lived a little boy. There lived a little boy. A little boy who lived..."

I kiss you goodnight in my mind.

I love you George.

1000 days

George is so very far away now.

1000 days.

It doesn't seem entirely possible. Our son has been gone for 1000 days.

I wake every day aware of the wrongness of our life. How, how did this happen? How can we be without him? How is it that we are still childless? How can this happen? I know there are no answers; not then or now or in the future but knowing that doesn't stop the questions forming in my head. How? Why?

Today we will travel 75 miles to see a classic car show. George would have ridden on his daddy's shoulders excited to see the special cars, wriggling to get down and get close. He couldn't help but share Ray's love of cars and he would be able to name them with his daddy. We would have a lovely but tiring day with tears and giggles and George would fall asleep on the way home and his daddy would carry him to his bed.

Think of us today will you? Just for a moment. Send us some wishes and a little magic if you can.

And send some love to George too? In that parallel universe where he lives his real life.

George

Two years

I don't want to believe it.

My heart is so heavy today that I can hardly carry it's weight.

My poor George.

Day 443

George would have been bundled up in his cosy snowsuit and probably tottering between us, Mummy and Daddy with a hand each. We would have let him touch and taste the snow, lie down in it if he wanted. We would have made him a snowman to trample. He would have been rosy cheeked and happy. Definitely happy. It's my fantasy after all, we are always happy.

As it is we made a snowman for ourselves. You can see Ray to the right of this photo and the tracks are his rolling tracks.

He rolled his snowball around and around watched and emulated by several children. I rolled my snowball around a bit less and made the head. We laughed. We gave him a punk hairdo and a winking eye just to be "funky". And left him with the hope that we will see him again at the weekend when we take Ray's sister and niece to play.


After the snowman challenge we warmed ourselves in the car with hot tea and watched a young couple pull up in their car and unload their two young daughters, one just walking. They were all woefully under-dressed for snow. Mum had on her leggings and a "fashion" coat, and Dad's jeans barely covered his bum. I had on four top layers under my coat and two pairs of jeans and I was still chilly (yea I know, wimp). They spent less than 10 minutes in the snow before bundling their girls back into the car and driving off. I hadn't even begun my tea. We chuckled at their un-preparedness and tears quietly pricked my eyes. We could do better. Why not us? It's not bloody fair.

Reading blogs this morning I was struck by a few sentences in Leila's mommy's blog.

"sure, from their standpoint i am free now. i can do all the things that i would have had to give up had Leila not died."

There's no freedom in being parent to a dead baby. Whatever we do he is there, just out of sight, just out of reach. When we are adventuring I sometimes forget to stop myself before I mentally list the things we would need and the things we would do with our boy. Even now after 443 days without him. Maybe it's just the ex-nanny in me but it is exhausting at times and I would dearly like to. let. it. go. I'm trying.

I have spent this last year doing many things with the ghost of my son in my head and the back seat of our car.

I am frightened by the thought that we might not be able to have another child, that I am too old, and that I will only ever get to parent George's ghost. That can't be right.

I try to keep all of those thoughts at bay and live in the moment but I don't always succeed.

I am trying.

Always trying.

George

11:05am

One full revolution around the sun.
4 seasons.

It's cold and damp again and my bones have begun to ache in the cold mornings again.

From time to time the sky opens wide and soaks us with cold rain again,
The sea becomes slate grey and except for the hardy the beach is deserted again.

From time to time the sky is bright Wedgwood blue and it is cold and crisp again.

The earth smells rich and damp and sweetly decayed again and the leaves are turning brown and falling from the trees again.

And the earth turns and turns again and again without you.

And another shred is torn from my heart again.

Oh I miss you fiercely little boy. I miss all that you might have been.

I miss the friends you might have made.
I miss the things you would have investigated.
I miss the grand adventures we might have had.
I miss the future that now seems hazy and indistinct.

But mostly, mostly, I just miss my little George.

Beloved.

Father's day

I sobbed and wailed and hung on to Ray as we stood near the spot where our son's body lies.

I sobbed because we weren't on a father's day outing, because Ray has no son to hold, because Ray will be 38 next sunday and his father died at 38 and he has no father to wish a happy day to, because I haven't sobbed for quite a while, because it's all so bloody, monstrously unfair, because I want us to be parents, because I miss George.



The trees absorbed my noisy sobs. The ferns didn't care that I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Ray held me tight and told me he thought about George every day, I held Ray tight and told him I loved him, that I think his father would be proud of him, that we should get out of that place and go somewhere, anywhere...






I wish I'd taken tissues today.

Come for a walk with me

Up to a bit of wild wood on a hill.

Spring is coming here,

Se that man in front of you? That man lost his son and misses him. You would never know if you passed him walking in that wood, but that man in different circumstances might have been carrying a baby close to his chest.

There's a stream that runs through this wood,
The water is flowing fast today after all the rain. You can listen to the sound.


Turn a sharp corner to the left and climb the path to the holly tree, look back down to the path you walked along. What a view.

Look up at the tall trees stretching skyward.

This is where we left our son. George's body rests here in the shade of the trees, with spring bulbs planted around. They are growing well but not yet blooming. We'll be back to see them when they are. Ray's Mum scattered her dear old dog Sally's ashes around George's spot. "Someone to play with."

This morning Ray said he wanted to go and see his sister, "we'll go and check on the bulbs too shall we?" Ray's sister lives on the road that leads to the wood. This is the first time we've been back since Ray dug his son's grave in October. He didn't take photos today and he takes photos everywhere. This is a sombre place for him but he's glad the bulbs are growing and the ground hasn't been disturbed.

After visiting the wood, we called on his sister and brother in law. "We've been to see George and Sally" Ray doesn't say George's name often, neither do I to be honest, except on the inside. It made me feel warm to hear him say it today. "We're going to be trying again soon". Yes we are.

Names.

I had a bit of a revelation today. I was consciously thinking of the future again, maybe even meditating, imagining holding our second child and all the fears that would go along with the pregnancy and then I realised that I was thinking of this baby as a she (I even tried imagining twins and they were both girls).

During my pregnancy with George he was always a boy to both of us and even as I struggled to get a look at him after his birth and asked his sex, we already knew the answer. One woman at work had even accused me of knowing his sex and keeping it from them when I'd said, "him" a few times and told them that I didn't actually know. (One of those who has yet to acknowledge my loss incidentally. Meh, I never liked her much anyway!)

The strangest thing about this was that we just could not find a boys name. We even started watching tv programmes to the credits to get some ideas. We'd settled on Clint as his in-utero name (or Clintina for a girl!) and everyone begged us not to let it stick! Oh... I've just remembered that I wrote a card to my Mum and Dad on their 50th wedding anniversary in September and signed it from "Clint or Clintina".

Ray chose George when I was crying for our dead baby to have a name. It was my grandfathers name and had been high on my list but we'd dismissed it because a friend had a dog called George. I think if it's possible I actually love Ray a tiny bit more for taking that decision for me.

We still have two girls names ready and waiting.

I wonder, did any of you have similar feelings before you even conceived or while you were pregnant? Where you right? Do you have any feelings now for children to come? What, if any, were your in-utero names? Nosey aren't I?

I never had a preference on sex and still don't. Just healthy ... and living. Especially living.


Today we've been driving and I've been cramping. Grrr.

Lights in the darkness. Part 2.

I lit my candles at 7pm GMT and thought about our dear sweet George. And missed him. And missed all the other lost babies too.

They were still burning at 10.50pm when I took the photos.


The vase is full of marbles and now there are also fairy lights crammed in there with the marbles. I could only find four candles today. I used to have so many but we still have stuff in boxes from when we moved here in May so they may turn up yet. I thought the candles I found were pretty though, and I left the curtains open to shine the light outside. George was conceived the week that we moved here. The week we were concentrating on packing rather than making a baby.

Mother Grandmother

I had a shopping morning with my Mum today and then we went for a coffee (1 americano and 1 decaf amaretto latte. Yes, the second one was mine. Yum.)

We talked about her first grandchild and we had a little cry together. She kept saying his name. She has one of his scan pictures and wondered if I wanted it back. I told her she could keep it and she was so pleased. She asked if Ray and I would take her and my Dad to George's place in the woods and of course we will.

My Mum wanted to make sure that I wasn't upset with her because she just couldn't bring herself to see George after he was born. Of course I wasn't. I told her I understood and I do. She knows I have photos and his hand and footprints and I told her that if she would like me to bring them to her, where she can see him and have a cry safely, I will.

I told her never to worry about speaking about George, he's part of our family and needs to be included and she most definitely agreed. I told her she should never worry about upsetting me as I'm already so very upset and the tears need to get out. She told me that when she saw me sobbing at the hospital she wanted to pick me up in her arms and take me home. I'll always be her baby. It was lovely.

Today, I've been sharing my son with his lovely Grandma.

Days without.

We bought a car yesterday (here you see my darling Ray pretending he knows what he is doing). It is 10 years old and was very very cheap which was useful since we have no money. One of our friend described it as a wardrobe on wheels, and it's great! Ray loves driving and since I don't drive I get to be chauffeured about, albeit in a slightly creaky manner.

Last night we pointed it in a direction and went. It was a beautiful night. The sky was deeply black and starry and light from the half moon sparkled off the sea along the coast roads.


Today we drove a little further along the coast in the opposite direction from last night, stopping here and there to photograph the views and just enjoying the freedom. At the end of a driving day we saw the sun set on a beach that I remember from childhood holidays and then warmed ourselves by the fireplace in a beach cafe drinking tea and eating a very late lunch.


It was a good day.






I looked over my shoulder into the back seat and imagined a car seat with little sleepy George in it. Cue tears.




Today I'm thinking of days with George that will never be.