Two years old

I went to bed early last night, and you woke me this morning with a beautiful pink sunrise. I ran out to take a picture to commemorate your second birthday. My camera's battery had died.
You're growing older in my dreams too, Frost. Faster than you would have here. I dreamt of a boy the other night, a young teenager, he had lighter hair than the rest of us and a grin so mischievous. He came around the corner from where I was in the dream and we started playing hide and seek as if he were a toddler. We played for a little while and the he ran off, strong and happy. It was nice and I woke happy. These are the dreams I have to remember, these are the ways I mark my days.
Inside now there are rainbows on your sister's bedroom walls. The winter sun shines through her prisms. She has quite a collection in her windows. I like to watch as they change, I know that they will only last a short while but I know that I will not forget their beauty.
I have wishes for you today on your birthday. But all my wishes are that you had known earthly things, that you had delighted in living. I want to know what your wishes are Frost. What do soul's wish for? You deserve them, so I will light two candles now for you and let them burn until you blow them out. And then your wish will come true. I love you always.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Like a cat

The quiet has gone away. There's not enough quiet anymore. In the quiet I talk to you. Too many sounds push in and try to crowd our time together. Sometimes they don't recognize how much I need the quiet. I tried to reach into the quiet today. I shut my door and found your blanket. The soft tiny one that I wove for you. I didn't finish it before you died. I tied the fringe after and left it longer than I would have if you had ever touched it. That way I have more to hold when I try to find the quiet that I need. I traced the wavy weave and spread it out over my mattress. I cried out the weak tears, the noise. I pushed everything that was too heavy into the blanket. I gave the blanket weight and held it, rocked it. I made it settle my heart. I found happiness in my own stillness. I made room for the quiet, the beauty. Some days I envy what others have. Some days I know that I have something others do not. I know what the quiet is for.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

It should have been a picture

I carried a bag in from the garden today. It was filled with herbs and tomatoes and okra. I grew these. As I walked toward the house with my harvest, I felt the bag's weight and noticed it's distance from the ground. It turned into you, reaching up and taking my hand. We walked under the dried up apple trees, whose fruit has already fallen. When I reached the basement door I stopped to wipe away a few tears. The bag had changed back into itself. Your little surprise visits take my breath away.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

My Windows aren't high enough

When I look at the tops of trees I have to look up. You look down. That is the only difference. Such a huge difference. Just thinking of you, and how I need a mountain.

Night, night Frost
mama loves you.

Much Needed Storm

It came at the end of an oblong day. I sat by the window and waited for lightening. I went out into it and felt the fat drops. I loved the fat drops, on my shoulders and dress. I watched the storm play, like a child flipping a light switch off and on. I listened to it speak in the leaves and die in the parched soil. The clouds circled round and flashed through many faces. Too many to recognize, but I know I knew some of them. It made the cats huddle. It made my plants smile. It made your cousin dance. It made me realize comfort in summer. It's electricity changed up the day, it moved me forward and made me think of who I was missing and how you are a part of that energy, and how you stay with me in so many ways. You fly far above my head and every so often come down and share a little peace with me. I needed you today Frost. Thank you for knowing that.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

Bundle in the Road

Do you know that you are the first person I tell anything to? Lately you are the only one. I can't get past the thought that if God thought that I didn't deserve to have my baby why would I deserve to have friends or any other pleasures. I try to hide this and imagine that I can relate to others, but really, really right now I feel nothing but alone. I hurt right now, I'm deep down in the pain again. People take the look on my face as hatred, but really it's pain and shame and a shield so that I don't have to try and explain my emotions to those who can't fathom a dead baby. They forget this from day to day, or they just want me to be normal. Every little thing for me goes back to you. The random cry in the store. The nod of flowers in the wind of Memorial Day. The baby woodpecker being fed on the side of the tree by his mother until he braved the feeder himself. The dirty bundle I saw in the road.
The dirty bundle I saw in the road that everyone else let pass as garbage. My mind twisted it into a swaddled tiny newborn left to our mercies. Of course I was too frightened to make sure. I was too cowardly to see a face I had seen before. I still don't know what truly lay within that cloth. Abandoned without a care for who it could have been. We never left you Frost. But my mind tells me all the time that I didn't do enough and that's why I feel and look the way I do. Tortured with regret. I can't fix myself for other people. Sometimes all I want to do is go to you. I wish I could have let myself go crazy after you died and live in a world where a word or a toy could fullfill all of the joys that a baby brings. I wish my imagination could bring you back, but I don't let it because for some reason this isn't acceptable even though it would be nice to have. If I ever do go crazy you'll be the first one I tell.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.

I need more hours. I need to do things. I haven't. I get some things done each day. I have had another birthday, it's past now. Your sister's is next. She will be nine. I need more hours with her while she is little. I've been longing for those days again. When I took her to story-time. When I could carry her for hours. When she would make up her own language. I wish I could dream of you. Every night if I could dream that you were living, I would watch you grow each night. You would be walking now if I would have started those dreams last year. I should have made my brain do that. bring you to life at night in my head. If only I had that control. I cried today and went outside, away from others, to call your daddy. I talked through my tears with him and played with pine needles. I looked to my right and looking at me was a baby rabbit. He wasn't so young that he was helpless. He was young enough to be darling and old enough to explore. I would say that he was a toddler bunny. He watched for a bit and I told your dad that he was there. He made my sadness lighten. He inched off toward where he had come from, the barren underside of a dumpster. His softness looked alien to the hard pavement that surrounded him then. But his gentle curiosity took away the harshness. He made things better today just by looking in on me. Just by taking the moment to notice something in someone he should fear. I hope to see him again. Or maybe we should keep it how it was. I'll let him decide. Night, night Frost mama loves you

Beechwood Eyes

I haven't been here. I've been afraid to be here. Afraid to tell you the things I've been thinking about. I've been crying so much lately because the thoughts are so hard to take. Time is pushing me into something that I don't know if I'm ready for. I hope that I can be. I wonder about your thoughts of me everyday. I wonder, when I die, will you be waiting for me to tell me what I did wrong? What I did to keep you from living? Or will you be happy that you didn't have to live here, where troubles and worries seem to outweigh joy and ease. Here with me is not always happy, I feel like I've let the suffering in and it likes it here. It wants to stick around, to share rooms and days with me. I know what I have that is good, your sister is my treasure, I try to keep these feelings from her so that I don't bring her down. But I know that she is privy to my sadness. When she was three months old and my father died I sobbed as I nursed her, she let go of my breast and looked up to me and reached her infant fingers to my face. Her eyes showed such understanding and care, she seemed much older at that moment. Ever after that moment I have found myself looking into her deep eyes for the reflection of those things I have lost. For years I tried to find the shadow of my Dad's face there. Now, of course, I search for the delicate curve of a baby. You, that I have lost, and the questions I have about myself lie there in her eyes. It's ironic that one of my greatest pleasures has become so wide open to my pain. She has a tender heart, a beating heart, Frost. Right before we discovered that we had lost you the monitor found a heart beat, and I felt a moment of relief. It was my own heartbeat, not yours. I would trade it for you. That is a question I have to answer. Would I trade it for a new baby? Would I risk leaving my living child, whose eyes have grown around me, so that a new one could be where you were to grow. Or what if someone else had to go so that another could come. People said that when your grandpa died and your sister was born. They said "they say that when someone in the family is born, another must die". Those words broke my heart, they also stayed with me and made me fearful of the future. I guess, from what I know, I always feel like there has to be some sort of trade in life for something good. A bad has to happen. That is what I feel. I haven't had so many goods in a row that I don't worry about the bad. I'm scared, sweet baby, everyday I am scared. I've been gardening to take myself away from the troubles. We are going to plant a tree for you soon. We are waiting for it. I want to watch it grow and become a peace for us. If it thrives, perhaps I will become brave. Night, night Frost Mama loves you

Two Roads

Today I closed up the house. I shut out the light and remembered the morning before. The morning before when I saw two roads. I saw the snow running away from me. All snaky across the pavement, it let itself go. It looked like severed souls fleeing their bodies. It looked like what I thought I should have seen when you left my body. Solid whispers, side winding through a moment. The road they purchased was the first road. It was the road highlighting a church. The place where we are supposed to seek comfort and answers. I left that place in tears and at a loss. The snow made the running souls visible. I saw them disappear into a small mound that looked to be their ultimate purpose. To find their place. I did not see them form. I saw their end but not their beginning. Somebody let the souls in when they knocked, it's good to have that.
The road changed as I drove away, it became a wild one. He ran fast and with strength. Powerful motion, powerful motive. No cement. His road was one of instinct, a road that didn't go around or knock down obstacles. This road let the natural traps exist, this road forced its travellers to use their talents. This road seemed wiser to me. It was bound up in the snow just as the paved road, but this snow was given a chance to be its ancient self. It wasn't covered or shovelled. The chemicals had not altered it's shape. It was left to insulate the earth and to prepare it for the spring. It was left to be tracked up by its travellers. It was left to remind the dormant seeds that it was not time to wake up yet. I watched the deer run from far off. I watched him close in from his road to the paved road. I watched him veer as his histories had dictated he should. I watched him control his environment, I watched him have a relationship with the ground, explaining to the earth with his hooves that he knew his path and would take it kindly. I remembered the young fawn I had seen when I still carried you, perhaps he had grown up and found the road he was meant for. He was so fast, it seemed he was daring his world to catch up. I wondered what incident had prompted such speed and direction. Of course in my mind, he had just seen another deer killed, and so he ran from the pain that many humans believe animals cannot feel because they do not speak our language. He leaped, and with each bash of his legs into the frozen dirt he spoke volumes. His language has a grace and understanding more profound than any sob or wail I could ever send to you. I want to learn this language. When I do, that is when I believe that my questions will be heard. It is on this road that I believe I will be given answers. This road is where I feel you the most Frost, unaltered and pure.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you