Leaves, Ships, Notes, Tears

This last week has been sort of blah physically and emotionally. I have been feeling down about many things, missing Peyton, the SIF, and generally just not feeling great. Today AF decided to stop by after a three month hiatus, and that, I guess, explains some of why I am feeling how I am feeling. Her arrival used to signal another opportunity to try. Now, knowing I am not ovulating on my own, the blush has sort of fallen off that rose.

I find myself really missing Peyton right now. I don't know if it is the season (which, because of its raw beauty here in the northeast has always been my favorite) the impending arrival of my new nephew next month, or just this overwhelming feeling that my own dreams for a family are getting further and further out of reach, but whatever the cause, I am hurting.

I find I am at a place now where I sort of keep my "break downs" to myself, allowing the fears and sadness to envelop my thoughts, all while keeping a straight face for the benefit of those around me. It’s exhausting to have to pretend, but worse always feeling vulnerable and exposed.

The sense that I no longer have a place, among either those who have children, or those who have never had children, is overwhelming. Even this community, which has been such a safe haven of understanding for me, seems recently to be brimming with news of impending rainbow babies, and while my prayers, love and heart do go out to my dear friends at this happy news, (believe me I have not lost sight of the suffering and loss they have endured to get there), my heartache at being left out is growing. I am stuck in the sand, watching their ships sail off into the sunset, and begging from the shoreline for someone to stay with me, to cry with me, to hold my hand. I want my ticket off this island.

On my way to visit Peyton's grave yesterday I started talking to her in the car. I do this sometimes, when I am really missing her, or see something that I would have showed her as mothers do. Yesterday it was the Technicolor landscape of Fall, the way the leaves, en route to her grave, reflected in our local river. I so wish she was here to share these moments with. It’s like I see these things, and my heart starts to swell, and then the wave of grief comes over me, and where there was color and beauty, I am left deflated among twigs and brown bare branches.

Reaching her site I found a marker in hub’s car and penned a note/poem on a yellow napkin. I meant to leave it, but realized this morning that I had not. Today it's raining and once I publish this post, I am going to make my way, note in hand, back up to her. I am hoping the wetness of the day will melt the napkin, delivering it into the earth to be with her. The note read:

Can you hear me?

The way I talk to you on drives

sharing the beauty all around me,

or try to teach you about this world,

the things a mother should teach her child?

Look, I say, Look Peyton,

at those leaves, how they glow with orange, red and yellow hues in the sun's light.
How different life would be if you were here, in the backseat, smiling.

Would I even know what I had?

How precious a gift you were, or how lucky your safe arrival in my arms made me?

I am speaking to you Peyton,

I feel like you are listening.
But, maybe you aren't there.

Maybe your crazy mother is trying too hard to find a sign where there is none,

or to believe what her heart wants.

It doesn’t matter.

I go on teaching you just the same.

Talking just the same.

Loving just the same.

Sharing just the same as if you were here with me.

Your life ended with the fall of last year’s Autumn leaves.

My love for you did not.