This Might Make You Cry

Holding Tight to Let Go

I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as I gently rock back and forth. Back and forth.

The head on my chest is snuggled close. His hands are tucked in underneath him, and he’s babbling in a soft sing-song voice doing his best to accompany me.

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…”
“Bwah bwaa ahhhdd…”

I love this little child. But I’m ready for him to leave. As I rock, I wonder if it is even possible to put what I’m feeling into words, and I realize the only way to try is to start at the beginning.

When he was delivered to my door, he didn’t know how to show or accept affection. The first time I tried to rock him, he pushed away from me, screaming. He didn’t cry a “I protest!” kind of cry. It was closer to a “I’M BEING MURDERED AGAINST MY WILL” scream. It’s the only scream he had. The only cry he had. Murder Cry. He was a year old. No words. No sign language. Only Murder Cry.

“How I wonder what you are..”
“Taah baaah baah…”

All of my foster babies and toddlers learn the same routine. After dinner, it’s a bath, rock, sing, and then bed. The first week he Murder Cried in the bath. He Murder Cried for most of the night. He Murder Cried when he was hungry. Then, about three weeks after he arrived, I realized that he was doing a new cry. Kind of a, “Hey! Lady! This sucks!” cry.

I started working with him to learn the sign for “More”. After a month, he started clapping his hands together when I would say more. It was close enough! He’d learned a word! Soon after followed the sign for “Please”. Then, an actual spoken word, “Up!” Today, when I picked him up from daycare, he said “Bye-bye” clear as day. And he also has a variation of “shoes”.

Sometime, during the last few months, he has started to call me “Mama”. He has learned to sit on my lap, to ask to be comforted. He has learned to give hugs and kisses and snuggle up close when he’s being rocked. He’s taken his first steps. Said his first words. He has learned that bath time means it’s time to go to sleep. I wrap him in his towel and he becomes still and quiet and he smiles up at me.

“Up above the world so high..”
“Baaaa Daaa Daaa..”

I kiss the top of his head between verses. I rub his tiny back. My time with him is coming to an end. My heart hurts, but also rejoices. I think of the time I’ll get back. The mornings I’ll have to myself again. The evenings that will be relaxed and unscheduled. I wonder how I can be feeling this way. Shouldn’t I be more sad than excited? I don’t know. But, this is what is means to foster. I love them fiercely while I have them, but I know they are not mine, and I’m content. I am his temporary mom. I got to see his first steps. Hear his first words. I was the one who taught him that his world can be stable and reliable. I gave him over 90 baths. I sang to him every day. He won’t remember my face, but he’ll remember my heart. Because he will have a piece of it for the rest of his life.

“Like a diamond in the sky…”

I push myself out of the chair while cradling his head, and I walk to his crib and carefully lay him down. I pat his back and whisper, “Night, night.”

He starts crying. An “I protest. But not too much” cry.

To All Professional Photographers {A Story, A Plea}

This Might Make You Cry

I sat in the hospital bed looking down at the lifeless body resting in the palm of my hand. Seven inches long. Not even a pound. The events leading to this moment were swirling above my head like a giant tornado, but not able to penetrate. I was strangely present and absent simultaneously. “Isn’t it peculiar”, I remember thinking, “that humans are capable of feeling the most contradictory of emotions at the same time?” My heart was filled with joy, anger, hate, and sorrow in amounts not before experienced. Less than 24 hours before, an ultrasound had revealed that my baby’s heart had stopped beating. “Are you sure?” I pleaded with the doctor; certain she’d made a mistake. Eight hours before, I had checked into Labor and Delivery to be induced, loaded a roll of black and white film into my camera and handed it to my brother in law. “I don’t want to forget,” I told him. Thirty minutes before, I had been in the throes of transition labor delivering my fourth son. “He’s so tiny,” The words of almost every new mom. Stillborn. What a stupid word, when what we really mean is dead. My baby was dead.

My world stopped. Stopped. There is no other way to describe it. I didn’t understand how the hands on the clock continued to move. How my lungs expanded with air. The nurses unhooked IV’s, checked monitors. Amazed, I watched the sun rise. I looked out the hospital window to see cars moving on the highway. I noticed people scurrying on the sidewalks below, arriving to work. “What are you doing?!!” I wanted to scream. “Don’t you know what has happened? MY BABY IS DEAD! MY BABY WAS HERE, and now he’s gone!!!! How can you move on?? Don’t you know?” But, they didn’t know. The sun didn’t care. In the depths of my fog, I knew I had to find a way to move on, too, but I didn’t see how.

I knew there was no way to heal while there was a possibility I would forget my son. The heartache and sorrow allowed me to remember his face, his feet, his presence. I couldn’t let go. I could not. I didn’t see how my life could continue after Isaac. I left the hospital, not carrying a car seat, but clutching a teddy bear, and I spent the dark days after creating a scrapbook. I wrote the entire story over ten pages, interspersed with the images my brother- in-law had captured: photos of my sisters gathered around me, my parents huddled in a corner, my baby’s limp feet resting on the tip of my finger; all in black and white, all full of emotion. My family wrote poems and letters to Isaac and those were included as well. I created a memory capsule in that black leather scrapbook. When I had finished it, I knew I wouldn’t forget. I could move on to the daily routines of life because I had bottled the overwhelming pain into a book, and with the pain, the memory. I didn’t have to live in sorrow because my sorrow was waiting for me. I did not have to be consumed with trying to remember what his tiny face, hands, feet, and ears had looked like – it was all there waiting for me. I didn’t have to constantly relive the heartache, joy, and anger – some of the only emotions I would have with my fleeting baby – I had secured them all in that book. Anytime I wanted to remember I could.

My Isaac was born on July 29, 2003. In the ten years since that day, I have looked at the scrapbook three times. It’s too much – overpowering, intense, heavy. But it’s all still there for me. The images remind me that he was here, that he was real. He was mine. I have been able to rebuild my life and continue on because of that book and those images. It is one of my greatest treasures.

Two years after my Isaac, a mom in Colorado was losing her baby. She called a local photographer and asked her to come to the hospital and photograph her baby boy – to capture the only professional portraits her baby would ever have made. Both the photographer and the mom realized what I had realized – these images allow a path to healing not believed possible – and they founded the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep organization. NILMDTS bands together professional photographers who volunteer their services to provide remembrance photography to families facing the loss of a baby. Belonging to this organization has made me aware that, even though I felt so alone holding my stillborn baby, I am not. Babies are born without heartbeats every day. In Little Rock alone, sometimes there are over ten calls in a single week. One week! It is impossible for the small group of volunteers to cover them all, and sometimes, too frequently, no photographer is available. Lizzy Yates and Jill Meyer cover most of the calls in Little Rock, volunteering hundreds of hours away from their businesses and families. In 2012, Jill and Lizzy gave over fifty families a gift with infinite value. The remaining six volunteer photographers in the Little Rock area, including me, covered less than a quarter the number of Jill and Lizzy. Lizzy and Jill have growing businesses, growing kids, and busy families. It is unrealistic to expect that they will be able to volunteer at the pace they have been, and as the two of them are unable to cover, more families will be told that there is not a photographer available. More help is needed. If you are a professional photographer, I implore you to consider volunteering for NILMDTS, wherever you live. Yes, it’s difficult. No, you don’t think you can do it. But you will. There is not a more selfless act than volunteering with NILMDTS. There is no glory, no accolades, your work will not win awards or be published. However, your work will provide an alcove in a mother’s heart. In this alcove she will put her heartache, her joy, her anger, her loss. Your work will keep her memories safe, and will provide a path to healing. She may not look at the images often – or ever, and when she does, she will cry. But, then, she’ll put them away and fix dinner for the older kids. She’ll go to the grocery store. She’ll enjoy a sunrise. Because of your work, she will have the gift of life after loss.

Now Matters

This Might Make You Cry

I find myself constantly waiting for the perfect time, perfect light, perfect mood. Why am I waiting? What if I don’t get another chance?

Tomorrow, when my babies wake, I will take five minutes with my six year old and my four year old. I will capture my Abby drawing. I will capture Thomas playing with Iron Man and Hulk. I will use my good camera, not my phone. I will treasure those memories forever.

There are twenty families who will not have the chance to do this tomorrow, but I invite my readers to join me. Do it now. Don’t wait. Now matters.

UPDATE 12/17/2012:

Emptiness

Mommy-ing, This Might Make You Cry

On Saturday morning I dropped Grayson off at his Dad’s house. Overwhelmed by emotion, I buried my face in my hands as Ryan pulled out of the driveway. The past two years raced through my mind, and I sobbed.

Isn’t it funny how we cope with the situations life throws us into? For the past two weeks, I’ve hardly picked up my camera, except for work. I’ve used a litany of excuses: It’s too heavy to lug around, it might get wet in the rain, it might melt in the hot car. I thought nothing of it until we arrived back home on Monday, and I ejected the CF card from my camera and inserted it into the reader on my computer. Not many images. I knew it was Grayson’s last days with me; and there were activities, parties, and just plain routines that I could have photographed to commemorate his last weeks. But, I didn’t. It hurt too much. I didn’t want the reminder. I still don’t. However, someday, someday soon, I will. I will pull up the 2012 folder, open August, and I will not see many events. There will be an empty space. Today, I walked into his room for the first time since he left. Still strewn with rifled clothes and toys, there, too, is an empty space. In time, my heart will move on. Someday, I will say I’m okay and it will be true. I will be able to spout my glass-is-half-full talking points and not feel bitter hatred. But, until he comes home, there will always be an empty space.

The Mighty Herk Falls

This Might Make You Cry

On July 1, 2012, a C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed while fighting wildfires, killing four of the six crewmembers. I have not been able to get it out of my mind – the pain and anguish of the families – the “too close to home” of it all.

When my husband is deployed my radar is a little more sensitive. I listen more closely to the casualty reports. My heart stops at the words “aircraft crash”. Due to the nature of the Herk’s mission, I generally do not worry about my husband not flying home, but it is a war, and they are in combat territory, so it is a in-the-back-of-my-mind concern. However, I know they have trained well, the aircraft are well-maintained, and the crewmembers are focused on the mission.

At home? It never crosses my mind that he won’t come home after every flight. TDYs come and go, and “I’ll be home in a few days” always happens. Always. Always. Always. I have never had my world stop when I hear “A C-130 has crashed”. I have never had to watch the reports on facebook, waiting for my phone to ring – to hear him say “I’m okay”. I’ve never had to see spouse after spouse announce that they’ve heard from their husband. I’ve never had to watch the speculation. I’ve never had to decide whether or not to open the door when the commander and chaplain knock. I’ve never had to try not to scream. I’ve never had to tell my kids the impossible has happened. I’ve never had to try to see my way through the fog just long enough to make it to the next day. I have never, never hated the American Flag.

I am not sure why this incident is affecting me so, but I keep imagining the last seconds in the cockpit, when the crew probably knew they were not going to make it. I think about the families at home carrying on their daily activities, when suddenly, their world stopped. How would I react? I think of all the things I’d want to say to my husband in his last seconds. All of the things I would regret not saying if, one day, he didn’t come home.

My Dear Major Williams,

Well, it seems that your ego won’t be getting you out of this one, (which sucks, because you’d think it had been inflated enough over the years) and it looks like I’ll be getting “the flag” that you promised I would never get. Deployments, missed birthdays, missed holidays, missed anniversaries. Missed soccer games, missed recitals, missed dinners. All of those missed days and hours you gave up for the mission. Sometimes it’s difficult not to wonder if it’s worth it, but they were just days and hours. You were there for the moments, and the moments are what make us a family.

Nine years ago you reminded me how to laugh. You held my hand as I rediscovered myself, and I am me because of you. Two years later, our wedding was spectacular! My favorite part was the 20 minutes we held hands while we walked in the drizzling rain from the church to our home – just you and me (and my sister and the photographer). I don’t think either of us could have guessed at the short periods of poignant heartache and tears that the next seven years would bring, but I also don’t think we realized the overwhelming happiness and joy we would experience over those same years. I cherish the time we spent in Little Rock while you were upgrading – the two of us in that little apartment. Every time I see an IHOP I remember our 4am-after-a-late-SIM visits. I was waddling with Abigail when we rolled back into Ohio for a final two months before our first PCS. I remember so vividly the minute she was born. That was the first time I had ever seen you so vulnerable. You were in awe of her. You held her so gently, looked at each of her toes and each of her fingers. You stayed by her side the entire time. Watching you become a dad was incredible! You were so amazed at everything she did. I would think, “all babies do that”; but it was new to you and your enthusiasm rubbed off. Then, a year and a half later, Mr. Man came into the world – your hands were the first he ever felt! How amazing is that?!? Born into his father’s hands. For two minutes we were the only people in the entire world who knew that “it was a boy”! (I still think that delivery should have been free.) I love that as the babies grow you have always been patient and you’ve followed through. While I would clean their rooms for them, you will sit firmly on the floor until they’ve accomplished the goal. That is one of your best qualities.

I love that you know what kind of mood I’m in when you walk in. I love that you can tell when it’s going to be a long talk, and you put on tea. I love that you can calm me down with a look. I love that you know Hershey’s Kisses solve all problems. I love that when you wrap me in your arms I know everything will be okay. I love that you can tell from across a crowded room that my social anxiety is kicking in. I love that you put the kids in bed. I love that you mow the lawn. I love that you take out the trash. I love that you take care of the cars. I love that you take care of the insurance. I love that you take care of me.

Now you won’t be able to do any of those things. All of those things will be replaced by a flag. They will hand me a flag. What will I do with it? Will I hide it? Will I frame it? Will I cling to it for life? I don’t know. How long will I leave your voice mails on my phone? How long will I leave your shows on the DVR? How long will it be before I can force myself to throw away your razor? I don’t know.

I am so sorry that I didn’t kiss you one more time as you walked out the door. Sorry I was too busy to respond to that last text (that text I will never delete). It would have taken just moments. Moments. We’ve had nine years of moments. Some bad, most good. All of them ours. The moments are what make us, and we are strong. I love you so much, and sharing this life with you has been worth all of the sacrifice.

Love,

Becky

P.S. I’m selling your car.

I fully expect my husband to retire from the Air Force in many, many years. This incident has not made me paranoid or afraid. It has made me stop, and think, and appreciate. I don’t tell him often enough that he is my hero; that I can’t imagine my life without him.

I had to add some humor to my letter because nobody wants to read a concentrated gut-punch of pain. However, there are four families who are living this in its most raw form. Keep them in your prayers. If you know them hug them. Hold them. Listen to them. Thank them, for they have paid a price the rest of us can’t even imagine. Their heroes died for us.