Counting Blessings in the Dark

There was a storm.
A big storm.
It hit our area the Saturday before Halloween.

A tree fell on our house.
Then another.

Large branches damaged our deck.
Landed on our car.

One of the trees that fell ripped the power lines out of our house,
and we were left in the dark.

NINE days later... We are still there.

The hotels in our area were booked immediately. Then most of them lost power, too, and people were left paying to sit in the dark and the cold.

The first few days we "toughed it out."
Poured water in the toilet to flush.
Ate food packed in snow.
Slept huddled in one bed in 20 degree weather,
trying to keep our Snowflakes from freezing.

Then a friend offered up a room at their house.
They had a generator that could power one space heater.
They used it in the guest bedroom to keep my little family warm,
while they slept in the cold.
Can you think of a more selfless act?


By Wednesday, with no end to the outage in sight, we headed out to stay with family who had gotten their power back, and have been there since.

Twice we were told our power was restored, and we packed up and headed home,
only to find it had not been.

The house was cold and dark.
Every tree in our yard had been destroyed.
It was pretty disheartening.

Yet moments like these make you realize just how good we've got it.

Yes, we complain about things like the price of oil (nearly $4 a gallon where I live, and the only way to heat our house)or about paying $5 a gallon for milk, but we generally don't have to worry about staying warm. Or having the lights on. Or our next meal.

My family struggles, as we all do these days, with our finances. I clip coupons. Worry about paying certain bills. Sacrifice to make ends meet. But our basic needs are always met. Even in this storm I knew the power would EVENTUALLY return. Life would EVENTUALLY go back to normal. That knowing, is itself, a blessing.

Over the course of the last week, I have learned that the friend of a friend died in pregnancy - leaving her husband without his wife and child. I learned that a very special baby that I have been praying for and have come to care so much about, is in all likelihood going to lose his battle.

These are REAL problems.

Yes, my property has suffered significant damage.
Yes, we have lost all of our food, and had to make it through some uncomfortably cold and damp nights.
Yes, we waited in line over an hour for gas - have been kept in the dark for nine days - and even lost our pet fish to the cold.

But my family is together.
And healthy.
And safe.

We have the love of family and good friends who were willing to take us in.

So I am counting these blessings.
Even in the dark I can see that they are what truly matter.

Reality Check

So staying home alone to take care of the twins. Yeah...

Don't get me wrong, I mean, I LOVE being home with them. Playing with them. Hearing them giggle. Watching them grow. I love all of that, I do, but sometimes the lack of sleep, the constant wrestling to get them into their diapers when all they want to do is flip and flip and flip right out of them, their new affinity for pinching me, the nipple biting while teething, and the on-the-boob-off-the-boob-on-the-boob during feedings, it gets to be a bit much.

And then of course we have the separation anxiety because we are now in THAT stage where any time I leave the room, or their corner of the room, or the immediate area, they cry like they will never see me again. It's endearing actually, to be THAT needed, THAT wanted, but it can also be draining.

And let's not forget the screaming at ten-thousand-decibels to each other, because when you are 7 months old, that is just HILARIOUS, or the whining for something that they want, and me trying, trying, TRYING to understand what that something is, because they don't yet have the words to tell me.

Sometimes at the end of a long day it's hard not to sink into how absolutely tiring the whole stay-at-home-mommy-of-twins thing can be. But then I take a step back and bitch-slap myself, because you know what? This exhaustion. This hard work. This is everything I ever hoped for and more. I have been truly, and DUAL-Y, blessed, and even I need a reality check from time to time.

After two plus long, silent, heart-breaking years I have been graced with two HEALTHY, beautiful children.

Are they a lot of work on my own? Heck yeah they are! A lot of work. No, really... A-lot-of-work, and my life would be infinitely easier if I had an extra set of hands here from time to time, but then I remind myself, when the days feel long, and my back hurts, and I haven't peed in 12 hours or eaten more than a bite of whatever just happened to be there, that every moment, every-single-stage with them is fleeting. My babies are growing, and they are growing fast. Last night Bubba laid across my chest and I found it hard to breath. Really. He is THAT big already. And they are laughing, and sitting up, and playing with each other. They have started conversing in their own special twin way, and to watch them take in the world around them with such bright eyed wonder is a dream come true. Every day that they do something new, is another step away from the last stage they were in, and I don't want to miss any of it.

And then there is the knowing. That even though we hope to have more children in the future, there is no guarantee of that. I know my tubes are shot. I know that making them required seven-long-months of bed rest. This was no easy feat, and there is a very good chance that this is the only time I will have babies doing what these babies are doing and I don't want to waste any of it having a pity party over the fact that I got exactly what I wished for.

So yes. Staying home by myself with twins is hard. And yes, I look like a zombie most days, but I am a happy zombie. A blessed zombie. A singing-silly-songs-to-keep-them-smiling zombie. And that is just fine by me.

In the future I will rest. I will sleep. I will go out to eat. At some point in the future I will have a date with my husband, maybe even feel sexy and like a woman again (rather than a spit-up covered mom). In the future I will wear pants that are not of the yoga-pajama-sweat suit variety, I will do my hair in something other than a messy pony-tail knot on the top of my head because time allows for it, and get my eyebrows waxed. I will wear make-up. Have more time for my writing. Maybe even grab a bite to eat with a girlfriend.

In the future I will do all of those things. But not now. Now is their time, and tiring as it may be at times, I embrace it.

And she says "baby, it's 3AM I must be lonely."

I am 10 weeks pregnant with twins and by all accounts should be sleeping as much as possible. As it is I spend my days exhausted between naps, and yet, like a dummy, here I am at quarter to four, staring at this screen because sleep has escaped me.

Insomnia.

Antonio Tabbucchi once said, "I prefer insomnia to anesthesia," and though they are not my words, I completely understand the sentiment.

The inability to sleep my way through any of what I am feeling has been a constant companion since Peyton's death. Sometimes I wish I could go numb, even if just for one night, but then I realize that numb is no closer to healed, so like Tabbucchi, I would rather live what I am feeling than mask it.

In the beginning it was flashbacks that tore me from my sleep. I would remember things in vivid detail, relive events, and analyze every decision I had made in terms of Peyton's care. Sometimes the kindest things that we can do for our children, can be the cruelest on our hearts.

Back then, even when my body would allow me to fall asleep, the guilt and grief over her passing would startle me back to my new babylost reality in the unforgiving grey hours of pre-dawn.

For months I sat awake at three AM, panicked that while I was in a warm bed, my daughter was alone in the elements at the cemetery. My mind would race wondering if she was cold, or lonely, or scared up on that hill, and I wished many a night that we had cremated her and taken her to the safety of our home.

It is cruel what the racing mind can do to a grieving mother.

Nearly two years later, I have let go of some of the anger and guilt that wracked me so heavily in those early days. Regardless though, the insomnia has not let up.

I spent a better part of the last year wondering in those hours if we would ever find ourselves pregnant again, and now that we have, the worrying has moved onto other things.

Lately my mind has been swirling around Peyton's fast approaching birthday, and just a general uncertainty about what it is that I am doing with this life. It's a strange thing to lose one's footing out of the blue, and I find that things that used to define me now feel foreign and uncomfortable.

In my past life I was always a planner, having the next five and ten and fifteen steps of this life laid out in my mind. Lying awake now, I can't quite envision what it is I am supposed to be doing to make any sort of difference or leave any sort of imprint on this world.

Countless hours are spent staring at the ceiling fan, noting its rotations as I attempt to work my weary mind through the winds and turns of confusion. By five or six AM, I give into the exhaustion and fall back to sleep knowing that the insomnia will be there waiting for me the next night.

So here I sit, now quarter after four, and no closer to solving any of these worries.

Yet still, I hold out hope.

One of these early mornings, when the sun and the moon are at equilibrium and my mind is racing through all of life's questions, a clarity will hit. One of these mornings I will have my very own "Ah-Ha moment," the worries will dissipate, and I will find my footing on this path once again.

Here's to hoping that day comes sooner than later.

After A While

When I was a Junior in high school, I visited my sister for a "little sibs weekend" at her college, and was introduced over a drinking game to a boy, a fellow "little sib", who for the sake of this post we will refer to as "A".

"A" and I had an immediate chemistry (or so I thought at the time) and what followed that weekend was an intense relationship that lasted the remainder of high school and into my first semester of college (which coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, was at the school that "A" attended).

If you had asked me at the time, I would have described "A" as a Prince Charming. Eleven years, and a lot of maturing and perspective later, I realize that this particular boy turned out to be anything but, and though I couldn't see it when he left, his departure from my life was one of the greatest gifts I ever received.

Shortly after our breakup (and for totally unrelated reasons) I fell seriously ill and was hospitalized with a case of epiglotitis, a throat infection that essentially shut down my airway. I was intubated, operated on, airlifted to a hospital closer to home, operated on some more, and then spent the majority of the following two months recovering.

My parents, upon receiving word of my sudden hospitalization, were forced to make what I am sure was a white knuckled 5 hour drive to be at my side at the backwoods hospital near my college. Once I had been released to recover, they asked me to transfer to a school closer to home so that my doctors could keep an eye on me, and since I had just put them through the emotional wringer, I really didn't feel I was in any position to argue. I conceded, transferring to a school only an hour away that next semester, and the rest, as they say, is history.

This past weekend, while clearing through some things in the garage, hubs and I stumbled upon two boxes that had gone unopened since our move three years ago. Inside these boxes I found a plethora of keepsakes - old yearbooks, cheerleading pictures, quotes from my favorite poems scrawled across a t-shirt. At the bottom of the box, beneath the snapshots, newspaper articles, and old report cards, neatly tucked into an envelope labeled "mail stuff", I came across two pieces of white paper, typed in 12 point font, cleanly folded, and just begging for me to rediscover them.

The first was a letter from my mother, sent upon the completion of my first week at my new school. She asked some housekeeping questions - had I seen my advisor, was I registered for all the right classes. She told me to stay focused on my work, and assured me that if I did, everything else would fall into place.

I should tell you that I now consider my mother a confidant. A friend. A rock. When I was nineteen, obnoxious, and thought I knew everything about everything, our relationship was a little different. I imagine that at the time, reading this letter felt like being nagged. Now, ten years older and marginally wiser, I hear the love and concern in her words.

I can now empathize with my mother from that time, in a way I never could before. She had just watched her daughter fight for her life (a feeling I know the horrors of all too well) and while I can't speak for her, I imagine that having seen her child go to school, have her heart broken by someone she trusted, and then battle an illness all in the span of a few months, probably made watching me leave to start at a new school a little scary. It's no wonder she wanted to keep tabs on me.

On the second sheet of white paper, my mother attached a poem that she had found in the prior day's Anne Landers column.

I can tell you with complete honesty that I don't remember receiving this note, or this poem, after that first week at my new college. I am sure I opened them, glanced quickly thinking that she knew nothing of heartbreak if she would send me such rubbish, and stuffed them away into the "mail stuff" envelope. After all, when you are a teenager with a broken heart, who wants to hear from their mother that hard work at school will make "everything else fall into place," or the words of some poet who obviously never knew your kind of heartbreak.

Maybe I was young, or just too stubborn to grasp the message that my mother was sending me. Maybe my inability to find truth in the words of the poem at the time, just speaks to how little I knew of true heart break, or the lessons that can be learned of it.

Maybe it took a loss, a true life changing loss like that of Peyton, and the depth of love that I feel for and from my husband, to make these words resonate with me, but resonate they did, and with an understanding that my mother could never have imagined when she neatly typed them up for me all those years ago.

I know that this is a space for my words.
My poetry.

That being said, today I am going to share someone else's words, because they meant something to me when I read and re-read them this past weekend, and I have a feeling they will mean something for you too. xx

After a While

After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child

And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid flight

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers

And you learn
That you really can endure
That you are really strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
With every good bye you learn.

Veronica A. Shoffstall

Free Pass?

A few months ago, I heard about a woman who had lost two of her three children to infant leukemia. She is the only known case of this happening with non identical twins. Her story sent a ripple of shock and horror through the infant leukemia community because we had all been promised by our own doctors and experts that such a thing could never happen.

Last night my cousin asked me to pray for a 3 year old little girl who was in the battle of her life. Today I learned that her parents, a couple who recently lost their five month old to a congenital issue, have now been dealt the incredibly unfair blow of having to say good bye to her too. Her tiny body couldn't fight off a freak case of bacterial meningitis, something her pediatrician originally wrote off as nothing more than bronchitis.

A woman in my grieving mom's group, a very kind and special and encouraging woman, I learned yesterday, is losing her battle with cancer. Her husband who unfairly had to bury his son, now must prepare to bury her too.

Seems so unfair, doesn't it?

There are a lot of really shitty people in this world. People who hurt and take and think of no one but themselves, and yet, you don't hear about these things happening to them. Why?

You would think that after all a bereaved parent goes through in loving and losing and grieving their beloved children, there would be some sort of free pass. A Get Out Of Heartache Free card. Something along the lines of:

"Your survival through the hell of losing a child entitles you to a life void of any further tragedy."

- God.

I guess this just goes to show that what my doctor told me when she diagnosed my infertility is true: "There is no justice in this world."

These stories are tragic. And heartbreaking. They bring tears to our eyes, and prayers for these families' healing to our hearts. We cry out in anger at God and the Universe for allowing such pain to exist. Hearing them sends us down a road of "Oh, what's the point in even trying," but there is another message here too. An eye opening one. One that must not be ignored.

You are still here. 
You are still alive.
Don't waste it.

It is so important that we not allow our grief to make us complacent in our living. We must not turn our backs on the day to day joys, no matter how minuscule they seem in comparison to the dark cloud that sorrow has cast over our lives. As tough a task as our circumstances make it, and as small as they feel in contrast to our pain, we must remind ourselves of what blessings we do have, and be grateful, because as these stories so cruelly illustrate, there are no guarantees in this life.

I have gotten into the habit of reminding myself before bed of what I do have. Among other things, this practice helps to calm the anxieties that cause my insomnia, and allows me a more peaceful transition to sleep.

I remind myself that I have my health.
My husband.
My family.
My friends.
A house to keep me warm.
Food to fill my belly.
A dog who has brought great joy into my life.
A love for writing.
A bed to sleep in.

You get the picture.

I know this may seem a bit odd, especially coming from someone who wrote in her last post that her life is ruined, and believe me when I say that that feeling is genuine, but even I, the girl with the dead kid and blocked tubes, have to remind myself that while my life may feel ruined, while it may feel at my core as if it has been broken beyond repair, I don't know that yet.

My story has not yet been told in its entirety, and I have to believe, even if believing means pushing through indescribable pain and heartache, that there is a possibility things will get better. The opportunity to live each day with the above blessings is proof of that.

Most of you who read here have lost a child, or loved one, or your fertility. You fight your own daily battles, and struggle through your own dark places.

Life, as we have learned, is not fair. Or easy. Or just.
It is just life.

We have each lost so much, far more than any person should have to endure losing, but I guess my point is that we haven't lost everything.

Each time we wake to see another day, draw another breath into our lungs, or allow a sense of love into our hearts; each time we find enough strength within ourselves to laugh through our tears, or feel that we are in the presence of a message or sign from our children; each time we recognize something beautiful in our surroundings, or feel some measure of peace in our souls, no matter how short lived those peaceful moments may be, we have to remind ourselves that in this broken world of no guarantees, each of these moments is a gift not be overlooked or taken for granted, but instead to be celebrated.

Comfort in numbers?

I have to preface this post by saying that I have a wonderfully supportive family and small but amazing group of friends. Those who have stuck with me, really, truly stuck with me through this past year, give meaning to the idea of true friendship. I commend them really, those who have chosen to ride this storm out at my side. 

Sometimes I sit and think on it, wondering how I would feel in their shoes. Honestly, I don't know how I would handle me, were I looking in from their side. I imagine it can't be easy being around someone who you met one way (happy, upbeat, outgoing, career driven, motivated, successful) and then find yourself looking for reasons to stick around when those qualities disappear. I have, in the span of 17 months, become nearly an exact opposite of the old me. 

Sure, there are those who would say, "That's not true Krissy. You still tell stories, you're the same you." and maybe sometimes I am, outwardly. Maybe I have figured out that to keep any friends at all, I had to find a way to silence my grief into a sort of background static. Maybe I have realized that what goes through the mind of a woman who has held her child as she died, what that does to a person, to their heart, to their core, that it is too ugly a business to share, or more to the point, too ugly a business to share with those you love, because they deserve their right at naive innocence.

And so maybe that is why I have felt so down this week, because I feel so tired, and exhausted by this roller coaster of loss and infertility, and so terribly misunderstood. My friends and family, they can try, but they will never truly "GET IT." It's not their fault, and I hope they never have to "get it." Unless someone has gone through this (and I pray they never do), there is just a level of understanding that is impossible to attain regardless of how much one might want to understand, or how much they love you. And that is how you end up in my dilemma. I am loved, so very loved, but also so alone.

I am lonely for someone to talk to who really understands the depth of this loss. That it doesn't go away in a year. That a permanent shift in me has taken place at a level so deep, so organic, that it cannot be erased. Someone who will never make me feel that I am taking too long, grieving too hard, or missing her too much. Sometimes I feel judged, and I know that this doesn't mean I am being judged, but sometimes I feel judged. Little comments made here and there break my heart because they hint at the hope of those around me that I could "get back to normal." There is no "back to normal" after this. There is only finding a way to move forward, forever changed.

My therapist asked me last week what my next step was. I told her, "I am having so much trouble finding that next step, that I just pray to God that the next step finds me."

That is not bull. It is not laziness. I don't have any idea what my next step in anything is. Life, career, family. For someone who used to be a Type A control freak, this last year and a half has made painfully obvious all that is out of my control.

Earlier this week I posted a status on FB that read:. 

Kristin sometimes wishes she had a few BLM's to talk to IRL. 

In response to this status, two people suggested that I find a support group for bereaved parents. The subject of support groups is one that hasn't been broached in a long time. We attended a group meeting very early on and it was an epic failure. I was a total mess who just cried the entire time. Feeling that it wasn't helping, we never went back. 

Getting those suggestions on FB had me wondering if maybe now, with so much time having passed, if I could feel a little braver this time around and attend these meetings.

I looked into the group that had been suggested to me, and visited the website, reading the profiles of each of the members.

Story after story told of children whose lives were cut too short by car accidents, cancer, brain diseases. With each story my heart grew heavier. This group of grieving parents was just another glaring reminder that there is no shortage of grief in this world, and that things can be so damn unfair. So many wanted, loved, children. Gone.

The next meeting for this group is still a few weeks away, and I don't know for sure if I am going to attend. As the date approaches, I guess I will PAGL it, and see what I come up with. There are so many questions. Would I feel comfortable walking into a room of strangers this way again? Would the meeting bring healing, or only more tears? Right now, I am just not sure.

I wish there was a way to bring some of the members of this community together, in person. That I think is what I was really referring to in my FB status. Maybe it should have read:

Kristin wishes she knew some of her amazing babyloss blog friends who have meant so much to her this past year, in real life.

Some of my most healing connections have been made with other mommas right here through this blog, and while I know it is impossible (some of my closest bloggy friends live half a world away, and others all over this country) wouldn't it be nice? 

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit in a room, to be yourself, and for once, to feel totally understood in your grief? 

I'm So Sorry

I'm so sorry that you were so young
and knew not what to do.
I'm so sorry that the guilt of this
now daily batters you.

I'm so sorry that your thoughts on life
had to gain so much depth.
I'm so sorry that your innocence
left as she drew that last breath.

I'm so sorry that this tragedy
is the only motherhood you've known.
I'm so sorry you never heard her say Momma
or saw her healthy, strong and grown.

I'm so sorry the hurt is always there
walking with you every day.
I'm so sorry that as a new mother
you've never known any other way.

I'm so sorry that your mind replays
all that she went through.
I'm so sorry that you can't accept
it's what you had to do.

I'm so sorry that it happened
and all the pain you're in.
I'm so sorry that God dealt you a hand
impossible to win.

I'm so sorry for the loss of her
and never knowing how or why.
I'm so sorry that you had to watch
your precious daughter die.

I'm so sorry that you've lost yourself
and what you drempt would be.
But most of all I'm so sorry
this poem is about me.

~Kristin Binder