The world
Not knowing that I needed to protect my baby boy until he was already out of my reach
The flowers on my kitchen table, which aren’t good enough, and how no toy is the “one” that reminds me of him
Holding him for 2 hours and not for 2 days or 2 years or 2 decades or 2 lifetimes
A priest (I dislike) meeting him while his aunts and uncles did not
Picking out a wooden bed for him and learning the ins and outs of funeral homes and cemeteries
Sitting here in a folding chair at his grave and not his high school graduation
My friends and loved ones who squeeze their babies tight at night and think how lucky they are that their baby is alive, and they do it because he died
The stretch marks and the deflated bulge in my stomach, which say I have had a baby, but I don’t have one I can hold
the milk my full breasts offer, with no one to drink it
the painted walls in the bedroom and the crib I must return
My mind sometimes telling me he is still there, and my hand sometimes laying where he laid for so many months
Waiting for his due date, another reminder that he died
The reality that I can talk to him but he will never respond
and that someone else gets to be his mommy while I am on the earth
and that I won’t get to spend time with him until I am dead too
Sadness all that time out of the blue, and no easy explanation for the stranger on the street or in the store or on the job
Knowing I could cry so much and so hard and he never will come back to me
Having no one to blame but myself,
having no thing to blame for his death
rationalizing that even if I did have something to blame, it wouldn’t be fair
fearing that if I blame god, I will hate him for the rest of my life and never speak to him again…and what if I need him
Reality. This could happen again and I wouldn’t see it coming
Sharing more with my therapist about my dreams for him than I ever got to share with him
My family who can’t understand what I’m feeling every second of the day
My mother…the picture of Calvin on her shelf next to her other grandchildren will never change, even though their pictures will change
and she may take his picture down one day
and she doesn’t ask me how I’m feeling anymore
and my brother has twin babies just a few months older than Calvin
and I have to see my parents kiss all over them at every family event
and I must work to find the energy to see them, my family, because they are all still happy and I am not
The email two months later that reads, “How’s that baby project of yours coming along?” and
the person three months later that says, “I didn’t think you’d be here. Did you bring the baby with you?”
and the depression that sets in after I read that email or hear that question
The family that invades my space in the airport with their baby and toddler daughter and can’t read my mind (or my face) that there are 10 open and available spaces for them to park themselves while they wait for their flights and god damn it, why did they have to pick the seats across from me?
The colleague who tells me she is pregnant minutes after I tell her how sad I still feel
pretending to be happy for her
pretending to be happy for 2 women who are newly pregnant that I know
Being sad and crying and sometimes it feels so heavy and thick it will never end
The huge clot of horrible feeling sitting in my chest day after day
My husband who is increasingly overprotective and who (unconsciously, unintentionally) makes me feel guilt and blame and shame for all that happened
knowing this will eat at us if we get pregnant again
Having to spend the rest of my life mourning a child
Feeling guilty for thinking how horrible mourning someone forever will be
Feeling so worthless at work
People who ask if I have kids
and feeling sympathy for them when they ask because I know my answer is will make them uncomfortable
and getting the blank stare when I answer that my son died
Having to tell anyone what happened
Feeling so ashamed I just want to hide in my home for the rest of my life and not see anyone else ever
Simultaneously wanting and not wanting people to know I had a baby and he died
Having only an album of pictures and a handful of memories to remember my son
The impossibility of finding myself pregnant again
of getting through that pregnancy without substantial fear and stress
of having something so easy to dream about come true
The anger I want to let go and the anger I can’t let go
My limited hope of finding happiness again
This poem was written six months after my son, Calvin, was born still.