I Sat In the Crunchy Leaves Again

I went back to the woods yesterday. I brought a friend to see you this time. I took Baxter for a walk and we ended up trudging through the muddy, broken corn field. He smelled the ground and pulled me all the way to the place I searched for you in December. Your dog loved being there. I asked him if he could find you. The grass is poking through the crusted earth now. There is a green that goes with the birdsong and cloudy shadows of spring. That shade of green is in your woods. We walked to the creek, it was running and muddied with the thawed dirt. Before, it trickled clear with the white of winter. It gave me the saame feeling though, even though the season had changed it. As we stood watching the water for signs, I realized I was standing next to a tree. I put my hand on the tree's bark, closed my eyes and forgot about the tug of the leash. I felt life under my palm. The stillest, strongest life that exists. What would I do if you had lived but never moved? What would I do if you had lived but lost part of yourself for a while each year? What would I do if we had to start over every year? I thought these things and then I knew. I knew that the tree did move, it moved up and out and down, though it kept it's movement all to itself. I knew that the tree didn't really loose a part of itself. It changed things to make room for what was to come. I knew that starting over is what we have to do to grow. We have learned so much from you Frost. You have taught us things just like nature has. I believe that you have become a part of nature. You are a part of everything around me now. I tried to feel a heart beat in that tree.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Cookies

Today wouldn't let me be normal. I tried to match the happy people around me. I tried to be spirited and talkative. But today boxed me up and sent me back to December. The pain was fresh again. It's been three months since you died, but the pain is very alive. I usually cry at home, today I sobbed at work. The people that saw me, comforted me. They give the best hugs to your Mama, Frost. And the saddest thing about those hugs to me, is that I can never give one to you. I think about those kinds of things when good things happen. I don't get to share happy times with you. Writing to you isn't enough sometimes. There were so many little boys in the store today. Baby boys, toddler boys, grade school boys, cute boys with curls, bratty boys with cookies, and sleeping boys in their Mother's arms. I heard Mothers talking to their boys and so I decided to start talking to you. I was labeling packages of cookies. The package read "FROSTED COOKIES", so I took the price sticker and covered the "ED" on each package. I said your name over and over in my mind as I did this. I hope you heard me. I hope another little boy's Mother bought a package of "Frost" Cookies and made her son smile. These are the only things I can do for you. This is how I make memories with you. I stretch simple things to their limit, and I make that extreme all about you. This is how I reach out to you. I see your name everywhere, and so I see you everywhere.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Bookmarks

The first day of Spring happened three days ago, and so did another beautiful white snow. It was the same snow that came at Christmas time. The same snow that came after you left us. I wonder why Spring's arrival was cloaked in such a cold blanket? Maybe it was to remind me that you will be with me always; through Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I don't want to feel like I am moving away from you. Sometimes I do feel this way.
Today it was Spring again.
Your Daddy and I went into an old bookstore today while your Sister was in school. We had never gone into it before, though we had walked by it hundreds of times. Today we entered the open door, it was letting fresh air in to dust the jackets of volumes that may or may not have ever been read. Stacks and piles surrounded us, there were pathways to Ancient Greece and blockades of Dickens. Shakespeare's tragedies cascaded from rickety shelves of yesteryear. There were histories and Materia de Medica, botanicals and anthologies. Robert Burns battled with Anais Nin for shelf-space. Rudyard Kipling, Eugene Field and Edmund Spenser all wound up their tales into a spiral on an abandoned dresser. I searched the spines for Lady of the Lake. I had lost a beautiful copy owned by my Great-Grandmother years ago at an auction. The man who won the bid wouldn't sell it to me. He didn't care that it belonged to me through blood. I look for copies of it whenever I am around old books. The most common publishing dates on the books I explored today were such years as 1901, 1898, 1923, and 1888. I love reading these dates. I love wondering whose eyes carressed the pages and found themselves walking through the stories. People I will never know. But I feel like if I read their book, the same book that they first cracked open in 1918, why then I have entered their world. I have shared an experience with someone long dead. I wonder to myself "who was the last person to touch this book before me? Was it their favorite story? Were they like me?" And then I wonder if I set the book down will I be the last one to touch it for years in these dusty catacombs. Who will find the book where I left it? Will they pick it up and learn from it who they are? Questions that the books make me ponder. Imaginings that the books make me create. Pretending is what fiction is all about, right?
The book I cherish the most is the book I've written of you, Frost. This book rests on a beautiful shelf in my heart. There is no dust upon its cover because I take it out daily and read it to myself and to any who will listen. To find it where I left it, all one has to do look for a late snow on the first day of Spring and wait for the thaw to melt the cage around the Robin's voice. Their song is our song. I'm listening to Spring.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

No Candles on his Cake

Today a woman came into my life. I don't think that she knew that she did. She was a mother Frost, and her baby went where you did. Our lives took the same broken path, only I'm a little farther down the road.
Her visit started out as an ordinary one, until she began speaking. She told us that she had an unusual request, and she asked in a somewhat businesslike sadness if we could make a birthday cake for her. She told us that she had to bury her son "alone" today. She told us that they hadn't gotten to celebrate his birthday together and she wanted to get a cake for him. My friend Kerry told her that she would make it and the woman went away for a bit and waited for the cake to be finished. While she was gone, I teared up and wondered at what had happened in her life and why she was alone. I thought that her son must be older and had been sick or had an accident. My mind wouldn't allow me to think that it happened again.
I thought of the way she spoke, and I knew that she probably had to program herself to say what she said just to get through the moment. I would not have been able to do what she did so soon after you died. She showed such great strength. I could not have said goodbye to you alone. I do not know her circumstances, but I know she is hurting.
When the cake was finished, Kerry went and found her and gave her the cake. Kerry came back to the bakery and we spoke about the woman and wondered what had happened again. I went to find a newspaper. I found her son's name in the obituaries from the previous day's paper. His name was LaMar and he was a baby. He was born March 11, 2010 and died the same day. Her name was the only other name listed. It seems as though they only had eachother and now he is gone. Getting a cake for him was probably one of the only things she had to hold on to, when time is taken away from you, you cling to the little things. We had so much support when you died from family, friends, and strangers. Her grief seemed to be a solitary one. As soon as I read that he had not had the chance to live, just like you, the tears washed down my face. She held her tears in.
I wished for a moment that I had gone to her and asked what had happened, and told her that our stories were the same. I wished for a moment that I had held her and let her tears roll down my shoulder. I wished for a moment that I had told her my name and invited her into my life. But then I thought, what if she didn't want this? What if she needed the time alone with her son? What if she needed to walk the path alone? Maybe her way of understanding what happened was a private way. His death is so fresh right now and her wound so deep, it's hard to now how to help a person heal. I am trying to decide if I will try to find her. If she comes back, I will go to her. But I have learned sometimes you only get one chance. I hope I didn't loose this one.
I feel like I'm supposed to do something. I had never seen her before today. What brought her to me? I did light a candle for the two of them tonight. I hope the fact that I am sending peaceful thoughts out into the world for them brings comfort to her somehow. She isn't alone. She just doesn't know this right now. Frost, maybe you could find her little boy and teach him about being an Angel.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Brushstrokes

I'm scared to have another baby. I see pregnant women constantly that look so happy and excited. If I am ever pregnant again I will be petrified. I feel the nerves shake me up just thinking about it. But then I see the babies. Babies and children are everywhere around me and I need one. I need you, Frost. I have your sister Frost and she is a miracle. I think that I can find a bit of you in her because I know that she would have shown you the world the way she sees it. So when I look at her every morning I will think of both of my babies. I've been trying to remember the way she was when she was a baby and a toddler lately. Memories I forgot are coming back to me. I like thinking about it now. I wish I could have made memories with you and her toogether. She hugs me when I cry, she always has. She would have kissed away your tears too. I have to have another baby for her to share her beautiful world with. Hadley has started painting pictures. She has been looking at paintings from the Renaissance and is drawn to those of the Madonna and Child. She asks countless questions about them and pays special attention to the baby. She might be finding her passion. I wonder what she will create next?
I wonder what I will create next?
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Flocks or Not

Tonight the rain makes me think of you. The snow has gone. I worried that my mind would trap itself in Winter forever just to stay with you. But here I am finding myself in Spring. The rain is nice and gentle. It's relaxing and all you. Everything about it is you. You're wound up in everything now Frost. I feel like nature has taken you in and it's my job to find you in everything I see. I notice birds and how they move, and when there is only one I think that it must be you. I saw a rainbow yesterday morning after a single drop of rain fell on my head and told me to look up. There was a white glint floating under its arch, I couldn't tell if it was a balloon or a gull, so I decided that it must be you. We went for a walk this evening and made honking sounds at the geese in the field. When they answered back and made your sister laugh I knew that you must have told them to. I look at the moon, I have always looked to the moon. But now of course it is only your face I see and it will never be anyone else's face again. I remember walking to my truck in the morning those last days I had with you in my belly. In the morning, in the dark I remember how clear the sky was then. I remember the stars being very close on those mornings. It was like they were coming down so that I might trace the lines between Orion's belt and feel the silk of Cassiopeia's gown. I walked under those stars not knowing that the life I cherished was leaving me and going up with the night. Since then, there have been a few mornings when the sky is the same. On the mornings when the stars come down, I know that you must be visiting me for a bit. My memories of feelings are all that I share with you and so this must be one of our happy times. I pretend that the stars give you back to me for just a little while. When you're with me I whisper to the sky and ask why. She will never answer me. I remember this feeling.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Baby Winks

Babies I see look at me. They look through me. I feel them noticing me. I feel like they see something. I feel like they know. When I look at little children I feel like they see what adults don't, the babies don't look away. They stare at me right in my eyes and around my head like they are watching for something. Like they are waiting for someone to play with. Are you there? smiling at them? I think they know what to look for, while we adults have long ago forgotten how to see. Maybe they can still see something from the place they came from before earth. Maybe their eyes hold a secret. They are closer to God than we are because they just came from Him. Maybe they still remember what God's face looks like and maybe they know where you are Frost. Maybe they remember a bit of what it's like to be created and Heaven is what I see looking at me from their eyes. I remember looking deep into your sister's brown eyes when she was a baby after my Dad died trying to find his reflection there. I never saw his face there but I did find solace in their beauty. Her eyes have always told a story.
If Heaven's gaze is what I see coming from these little children's eye's then I know that you are in a place of beauty. Thank you little babies for bringing me a little peace.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.