Last weekend was Thanksgiving. We spent a lovely, but rainy, weekend with family. Our daughter played with relatives, my husband relaxed, and I focussed on the love and support that I gain from family even when they are not trying. I suppose I am grateful for that.
However, if I was to be honest with myself, I did not really want to practice being Thankful. I wanted to pout, wallow in self-pity and re-invest in my grief. At Thanksgiving last year my family visited me. I was on bed rest and nearing viability in the pregnancy. Hope was becoming an increasingly real possibility. We even had family photographs done by a dear friend. I announced the sexes of the babies. We laughed, hugged, and enjoyed good food.
This year I am without those children. They would have been nearly one (though several months younger once adjusted for gestational age at birth). But, I would have been one of those mothers that knew the official age and gestational age of her children. Either way, they might have been smiling, starting to eat solids, nursing.... I should be exhausted from sleepless nights, be able to described babywearing twins with accuracy and be a pro-tandem nurser.
Instead, I have a small urn of ashes and a few small children's nursery decor items on a shelf in my bedroom. I have photos of tiny babies in my home, but not evidence of them otherwise. I am wearing my snowflake bracelet daily to remember them - as if some how I forget sometimes!. And, I still sleep with each of their blankets and small stuffed animals that their Dad picked for them; each night I still make sure they are there, quietly reach out to touch the blankets where sleeping babies should be, and feel the heartache that I try to ignore more of the day.
The truth is, I know I have much privilege in my life and have much that others do not. And I do give thanks for all of those. But on some days, when it seems as though I am expected to identify all this gratefulness... I just do not. Instead I feel sad and angry that Patrick and Maggie are not busy babies in my life.
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment