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

Papas

My Dad, your Dad, this is how they protect us. This is the warmth they give us. I wish you could have grown up with him. I wish that you could have become eachother.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

"songs I'd never learned"

Tonight has been for music. I will let this song speak for me.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

The Tower

I remember this day last year. This Monday. It was the day I missed the appointment that may have possibly saved you. It is the day where all of my guilt returns. It is the day that I will wish I could repeat forever.

I remember this day last year. This Tuesday when we pre-registered at the hospital we hoped to welcome you to the world in. The same hospital that housed our tiny memorial for you. This is the last day I remember excitement and future.

I remember this day last year. This Wednesday when your movements faltered. How we tried to make you move. How your sister called your name on my belly, and we thought we felt you kick. We were satisfied that you were just sleepy. This is the day I learned never to just wait again.

I remember this day last year. This Thursday when I saw you on the screen so different than the image we had watched kicking and wiggling before. Your body had fallen, and I knew before the words. This is the day I saw your Daddy break. He couldn't catch you before your fall. We couldn't soothe your sister's silence.

I remember this day last year. This Friday of your birth. You were brought to my arms still warm from my body. I hoped with everything that you were playing tricks on us from inside. I wanted them to be wrong so badly. You were silent and soft. And you fit into my arms perfectly, but you didn't look up into my face. You never saw my face. This is the day we could not bring you home.

I remember these days. These days ever since. These days spent in this tower. A tower I've built, high up from my hopes. I look down on them and see them scrambling among the fallen leaves, flitting from flower to flower. I see my hopes from these windows. I see them hiding in the snow and dripping from the eaves. I see them and I wonder, "if they are my hopes, why can I not catch them?" and then I answer, "Frost was my hope, that is why." These are the days when my heart has become a wind that I am forever trying to hold.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you