Reminders

I hate September. It is the one month of the whole year that I am viciously reminded that I am not good enough; for my kids, for my parents, and my husband.

For the world.

It is also the one month that finds me on my knees every night, a sloppy sobbing woman who hurts to the very bottom of her soul and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it. It's not that I am a helpless woman, it is truly because there is nothing I can do about it.

Matthew turns 28 on September 6th. He lived with me the first five years of his life.

My dad will be 77 years old on September 12th and I still have not seen him this summer and they will be going back to Florida soon.

Alexander's birthday is September 13th. I was afraid he would be born on my dad's birthday, yet he wasn't. He was born and died just a few minutes past midnight.

September 13th is also the day I lost my best friend, Tim. I still feel guilty that, had I been there as planned that night (and listened to my gut), he would still be alive. Tim was the first person I called after my grandson was born the month prior and he was genuinely happy.

Tim had called me, while I was driving to Toledo for Monica's ultrasound, to see if he could stop by later. At the time he called, Matthew, Monica's mom and Monica weren't even sure if Monica would deliver that day - yet she did.  When I called Tim later that night, he really was incredibly happy for me and thought it funny that I was now a grandma. "You don't look old enough to be a grandma," he laughed.

My stepmom's birthday is around the 21st or 22nd of September, as is my grandmother's.

I am still so deeply hurt by my stepmom's words and, while I may eventually forgive her, I won't ever forget.

I miss my grandmother so much. She died the same month and year Henry and I were married.

Her house always had an open door and I always felt comforted when I walked through the door. I can still smell her perfume and feel the softness of her skin. While I feel blessed I was able to hold her as she passed away, it still hurts to have had to let her go.

Her house was always the one place I could go and feel loved beyond measure and she never judged me. Grandmother was the very first person I called when I found out I was pregnant with Matthew. The southern drawl of her happiness at the news of my pregnancy still resonates inside my head. I eventually called my parents and gave them the news and while they were "happy" about it, yet it was Grandmother's excitement and approval that I needed first.

My husband's birthday is September 25th. I wasn't enough for him. Or maybe I was too much for him? Sadly, I may never know the answer either way. I am still glad that he was born. If only he had listened to my warning BEFORE things spun out of control, I wonder if we would still have wound up like this; apart. Still, he didn't heed the warning, reassuring me everything would be fine. By the time he realized he should have listened to me it was too late.

September, I fucking hate you.

Why?

My heart aches for the daughter of my friend Tim. The 5th anniversary of his tragic death just passed and I have noticed that his daughter has been posting a lot about drinking and getting drunk, something Tim didn't do at all.

Almost everyone who knew him respected his choice to abstain, except ONE. On his very last vacation he was sitting at a table with his female friend, whom he worked with, and another couple. While Tim enjoyed drinking soda everyone else was getting drunk.

Then his female friend turned to him and said, "You would have more fun if you were drinking with us!" Tim said he left the table so they could continue drinking without him and lost the last little bit of respect he had for that woman.

It was the evening of September 12, 2012 and I was sitting on the floor of Tim's bedroom, having just called my dad to wish him Happy Birthday, when he shared that information with me. I could see the hurt on his face - and disappointment - because he had been on-and-off dating this woman who, at the same time, was sleeping with another coworker; a relationship she started with the coworker a few years prior and the reason why their respective spouses divorced them.

I had no way of knowing that my staying with Tim that night, would be the last time we would stay up talking (with me crying about the loss of my son Alexander on September 13, 1995) or that the next morning, as I was leaving his house for work, I would stop in the middle of his garage and turn around to see Tim smiling at me with that huge crooked grin of his. As I stepped into my car he reminded me we would meet up after work at his house for pizza and finish the movie we started the night before and that we would stay in touch throughout the day.

The words, "I have a huge crush on you, Tim" were on the tip of my tongue and I will forever regret that I didn't tell him.

Now, Tim is gone. His college graduate daughter is drinking and getting drunk.

There is nothing I can do except miss one of my best friends, and pray for his daughter.

Butterflies

I talked about you in depth yesterday, which is something I almost never do. You are on my mind everyday and in my heart always, yet sharing any details about what happened during the 12-hours before your birth is something I have only shared with Henry. Until yesterday.

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A young woman, 5-months pregnant, stopped in our office Wednesday morning to reschedule a missed appointment. Then, leaning through the open window, she said to me, "I'm having symptoms, they just started this morning, and I don't know if they're normal or not." I leaned closer to her and in a low voice asked, "What are your symptoms?"

I immediately put her in an open appointment slot so she would be seen immediately day and asked her to have a seat.

Walking to the back office to talk with the physician I schedule this young woman with, I knew.

I knew her water broke.

I knew there was a muconium stain.

I knew that were she to deliver her baby that early, chances of the baby surviving were slim.

One of the nurses gathered her and her husband from the waiting room and it wasn't long after when I saw her standing 10-feet away from me at the check-out window with the doctor. Her face, wet with tears and swollen, indicated what I already knew. We looked at each other and I mouthed the words, "I am so sorry..."  Then she was gone; whisked away to OB Triage.

I couldn't stop thinking about her that day and into the next. Thursday morning, an OB Triage nurse called to speak with the doctor who sent her there. I couldn't stop myself from asking about the young woman and her baby. The nurse told me the plan had been to induce her Thursday morning, yet the flow of amniotic fluid had stopped and an ultrasound soon after indicated there was still fluid around the baby.

Thank You, God.

I learned, serendipitously so, that things might turn out all right for mom and baby.

"Cautiously optimistic."

I was cautiously optimistic that this young woman might never know the feeling of a broken heart, and the enormous and forever grief, of losing a child born before his/her time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So I told a coworker about you and me. I told her about having to call my doctor from a payphone in the busy entryway of a major one-stop shopping store. I told her I had to shout into the phone so the doctor could hear me above all the cacophony I was standing in. "I THINK MY WATER BROKE AND THERE'S BLOOD!" I yelled into the phone receiver, hoping he could hear me. Several people stopped to stared.

I picked DH up from work, less than 15-minutes after I dropped him off there. As he slid behind the steering wheel I told him to stop at our apartment so I could change my soaking wet pants. It was there that, while wiping myself after urinating, I felt a large bulge. Horrified, I grabbed a clean bath towel to place between my legs while yelling to DH to call an ambulance NOW! then I slid off the toilet onto the bath mat on the floor in front of me.

With the ambulance on its way to me, my mind was a frenzy of thoughts. DH was asking questions I had no answers to. I was laying half-naked, on my side on the floor; the bath towel pressed firmly between - and held in place by - my legs. Then the paramedics arrived.

After assessing my situation in place which, by the way, neither of them had seen before, I had explained to them that me standing and walking to the ambulance was a very bad idea so they decided to put me onto a backboard.

Let the circus begin!

I told my coworker about laughing with the paramedics, after they moved me onto a backboard, that they couldn't figure out how they were going to get me off the bathroom floor, into the short hallway that lead out of the bathroom to the main hallway - and a wall - then right 45° to the living room. Without me sliding off the backboard I was strapped to. In the end they had to almost stand me up in order to get around that corner. I think we were laughing so hard at how the paramedics were so puzzled that we were crying. Maybe I was laughing to keep myself from crying?

As per protocol, the paramedics took me to the hospital nearest to my home instead of to the hospital where my Obstetrician was on staff. After a few hours of DH and I batting a glove balloon back and forth, we were told that the hospital didn't have an Obstetrician on staff to see me and, by the way, none of the doctors there had seen this problem before. Wait. What!?!? Then they transferred me to the hospital they should have taken me to in the first place. 

WTH?

I was finally in the correct hospital, also a Level 1 Trauma Center, with physicians and nurses who knew exactly what was going on with me. It hadn't occurred to me yet that I would leave the hospital no longer pregnant, and without my son.

I told my coworker about being stoned on Morphine. I told her about the on-call doctor forcing my cervix open, tearing it, I found out later, in order to deliver my son. I may have been stoned on Morphine ASSHAT, yet I felt THAT PAIN completely. 

FYI: Were I able to gather up enough STRENGTH at that moment, I would have kicked your ASSHAT off that stool and let DH finish you off.

My own OB had stopped by the day before to layout my options. There were only two: wait and go into labor on my own, or be induced now with a Pitocin drip. I remember asking my doctor, whom I trusted completely, what the outcome would be for both options. Dr. R. always shot straight from his hip, which is one of the many reasons why I trusted him so much, and told me that both options would end the same way; I would lose my son. The amount of time it took for one versus the other was the only difference between the two.

I told my coworker about the ONE (and only) redeeming quality about DH was he did what I could not have done which was give our son a name. 

Another reason why I trusted my OB so much is that he was an extraordinary doctor. He specialized in treating depression in women during pregnancy, who were being treated for depression prior to becoming pregnant. Sadly, the number of depression medications that are safe to ingest during pregnancy, are few.

I did not however tell my coworker about you, my Beautiful Butterfly. How you first came to me in late October, shortly after the memorial service we held for you, and how you have continued your fly-bys by showing up in the strangest places, and in weather conditions a butterfly wouldn't normally be.

I also did not tell her that the first time you came to me, I had just pulled into the driveway where your paternal grandparents lived. I was sitting in the driver's seat of the truck, sobbing uncontrollably while the song "You Are Not Alone" by Michael Jackson played. The volume of the song through the enormous speakers BOOMED. It was like a earthquake beneath me. It was the sound of my heart beating, even though I felt dead inside.

Your Grandma heard the music and came outside. The state I was in scared her because when she yanked open the truck door her first questions came in quick succession, "What happened? What's wrong?! Are you hurt!?!" When I shook my head no, she gathered me up in her arms and held me until I was able to step out of the truck and walk into the house without crumping to the ground. 

There you were. A small pale yellow-green Butterfly flitting around my head and in the space I walked between the truck and the house.

I miss the mornings of drinking coffee on my Robinhood porch because you were a frequent visitor while I lived there.

Then Tim was killed. On the same day, 17 years ago, I lost you.

Not long after Tim's funeral, I drove to work and parked my car. I remember feeling the crispness of the air as I stepped out of it. It was going to be a beautiful fall day. Then I saw you, flapping your small wings, as you flew closer to me. This time, not far behind you, was the most beautiful and large black and gold butterfly.

"Keep watch over my little boy for me, Tim", I whispered.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I told you, my beautiful Butterfly, "You're in good hands."

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Since that day almost five years ago, my Butterflies continue to visit me, separately and together, and always - ALWAYS - in the weirdest places, when I need them the most.