12.11.10

The numbers geek in me LOVES the date today, the way the numbers work their way down like a countdown.

Unfortunately, it feels like they are counting down to tomorrow. 13 weeks. Coinciding with Otis's three month birth-i-versary.

Three months. A quarter of a year. 91 days. Tomorrow, coincidentally, marks the one year anniversary of the day Otis was conceived.

Barely a scratch on the surface, and yet, also, a lifetime. How is it that it works like that?

I miss my boy so fucking much. Yesterday it felt like the world was crashing in on me again. I was bitchy. Agitated. Sad. Angry. I watched a recording of the Glee Christmas episode on Thursday night and I had a fucking rage-bitch-yell session at the TV and at the general entity of Christmas. How dare they try to sell this bullshit message of miracles and hope and 'just believe' and all that fucking feel-good nonsense!?!? IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT. While at times it makes me feel better, right now I am just so fucking sick of the whole "Miracles sometimes come in the package you weren't expecting," form of rationalizing/trying to make me feel better line of thought. Bullshit. Otis is dead. There is no miracle in that. NONE. He is dead, my life is forever changed, my hope, my faith, my naivete and my innocence forever shattered, rattled, traumatized. Poor E, watching me as I threatened to lodge a shoe in our brand new television.

(Incidentally, I read on another BLM blog about them buying a new tv after their son's death. I wonder statistically if this a trend. Perhaps a new marketing strategy should be hatched out, products for the babylost community...Televisions, exercise equipment, alcoholic beverages and barware, black armbands, non-maternity clothes that work like invisibility cloaks to shroud the body that betrayed you, Merry Fucking Christmas cards and lawn ornaments...)

I carried him for 9 months, loved on him, felt him kick, talked to him, sang to him, wished for him, dreamt for him, labored for 72 hours with him, and what do I have to show for it? A box of ashes on his dresser. Try as I do, there is nothing, nothing, nothing consoling about holding a box of ashes, crying, cradling it, calling and screaming out to it, trying to find my boy.

I've been working on thank you notes to the multitudes of people who have helped us in these last 91 days. In the notes, I am including a wildflower seed packet like the ones we gave out at Otis's memorial and a photograph of him. I've been having to use the paper cutter to cut the photographs to the wallet size because the printer we used printed them 4 to a sheet. So I've been staring at his lush head of hair and his chubby little hands and his perfect, perfect nose and his soft skin as I cut the pictures and then put them into the envelopes with the cards.

Sometimes I can tune it out, and just work on cutting the photos. Other times I am completely drawn in, and I sit and stare at his little face for hours. I am back there, in the NICU, dressing him, preparing him for his journey to the other side. Preparing myself. Saying my goodbyes. Crying my tears of pain, of joy, of disbelief. Screaming. Breathing. Bleeding. Loving my little man, so ferociously.

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In other, better news, I received ornaments in the mail from both Brianna and Jenn this week. They are so lovely. Since we don't have a tree, we have them hung from our aloe vera plant that sits atop a bureau in our living room. They look perfect hanging there, not too Christmassy but just enough spirit to make me feel like we are honoring our boy through the month.

I also received word this week from the animal shelter where I volunteer that they have plans to redo a room at the shelter in Otis's memory. An adoption/visitation room, where families fall in love with puppies and dogs and decide to bring them home....It will be brightly painted with cheerful lights and a little white picket fence, with handpainted dandelions adorning the walls and a plaque of some sort remembering Otis. E and I were floored when we heard. The shelter is such a special place for me and animal rescue is a passion of mine, so this is such a wonderful way to honor my boy. I am touched by the thoughtfulness of the community of volunteers I work with there, and honored to be a part of that group.

And finally, my mom brought me the most beautiful bouquet of roses this morning. A pale lavender, almost silver, with long delicate stems and fragile little buds.