A Year Gone By

So, the birthday has come and gone. We attended a First Saturday Mass, a High Sunday Mass and a NO Mass on the day of her birth; these masses were in remembrance of her.

After weeks of dreading her birthday, it wasn't so bad. We went to mass in the morning and then to the cemetery. It was a very hot day and, of the few immediate family members who came to the cemetery, most did not stay long. The only people who could bear the heat were my husband, my mother and me. We said a rosary and then talked a bit. It was hard to feel anything for some reason; at the time I thought that my heart was at peace about it...

After my mom left, I began feeling bad and I cried hard for a while. Again, I kept asking "why" and "what if"... I blamed myself again and then began thinking about the baby I would have in March. I told my husband that I hoped Barbara knows that no one could ever replace her and that was not what I was intending with this "new" baby. I wondered if Barbara knows how much I love her and miss her and if she  was watcing over us all.

We stayed for most of the day- just sitting there- talking, remembering, wondering and crying. Because I ended up getting a terrible sunburn (it's that Irish complexion) we had to leave. We thought about going back later but decided to just stay home; the cemetery is an hour away and the weekend had been tough.

It will soon be the anniversary of her death... Monday, in fact. Last Sunday, despite the cold, wet weather, we went to the cemetery. I confessed to my husband that I had been avoiding the cemetery and the whole subject for most of the month. I just haven't been dealing with it when, the whole time, I assumed everything was fine.

The thing is that I am- for the most part- alone when it comes to dealing with things. My husband is gone at least 12 hours a day and my family has not been there for me since the very beginning. I don't have anyone to cry to or lean on. I just have to hold it all together. I feel like I don't have a choice. I feel like I just have to keep going like it never happened because thinking about it is only too painful and I just don't have an outlett for that sort of pain.

The fact that I am pregnant is truly a blessing but it is not without its own implications... I am so afraid of losing this baby. what if he/ she dies? I try to trust in God but I have done this before and look what happened!

My relationship with God has suffered over this past month. I am angry with Him and I don't understand Him at all. I am told that it is not my place to understand and that there is a plan and that He knows what it best for me.

I say this to myself until I can accept it and then something else goes terribly wrong and I am left guessing again. This month my husband was told that he may lose his job in three months. He starts a new project which will determine whether or not they keep him or let him go on the anniversary of Barbara's death. So, I want to ask God when enough will be enough... I want to ask Him whether or not He thinks I deserve a break yet... It is just so hard to believe in a God that is ordered and just when everything seems so chaotic and unfair. Now I have to deal with being pregnant and my husband possibly having no job- thus no income and no insurance- by the time the baby comes. This is just another thing to worry about on top of worrying about whether ot not this baby will be born just to die like my last...

So, I am trying.

Monday there will be a mass for her. As the day approaches I am having a hard time keeping it all together. I don't even want to go to the mass.

When we went to the cemetery, we noticed that the groundspeople- who usually take whatever we leave and throw it in the trash- left the cards her sisters made for her. Because it had been so rainy, they were falling apart. We buried them so that the groundspeople could never take them. We then pulled out the grass that was growing and brushed the grass seed aside because, without the bare spot over her body, there is no way of knowing where she is. We can't afford a stone- or rather, we can't afford a stone plus the useless concrete slab the cemetery charges extra for.

As we were leaving, I looked around at the bigger stones with marble vases and wished we could afford one for her. That way, no one would take what we put in the vases and we could be sure that there was always something there to honor her. The larger stones with the vases are far too expensive for us ever to afford, though, and this makes me mad. Apparently, a person has to be wealthy in order to be properly honored after death... at least this is what the Catholic Cemeteries Association seems to believe. It's just that nothing about her life was fair and now, after death, it is much the same.

All of these things are so painful.

I have been thinking about how we spent this whole month last year in ther NICU and I have been wondering how I was able to deal with it for so long. The NICU was such a terrible place; I don't know how I was able to sit there everyday and deal with it all by myself. I don't know how I was able to be patient while God's will was being done and while everyone around me only wanted her dead. I don't know how I was able to be even a little hopeful while everyone else was so hopeless. I don't know how I kept my faith in such a place that seems so far removed from God.

I have been remembering the walks I would take outside and how I would not let them see me cry because this meant I was weak and they could sense weakness and would pounce on it like lions during a kill... I knew they wanted us to pull the plug and, in the end when things became so hard for me, I was afraid they would get to me at a time of extreme weakness and exhaustion. I knew that they had been whittling away at my hope and strength for weeks and that they were only getting stronger while I only got weaker. I would leave and go outside where no one could find me and I would just sob. I would not go back in until I was done and my face looked as if I hadn't been crying. I went back in pretending to be strong, energetic and full of hope.

The other day, I remembered that my husband was yelled at for having his computer plugged in to a hospital plug while we sat by her as she died. We knew she was dying and they knew she was dying (although they didn't tell us they knew) and my husband was on the computer trying to contact friends and relatives. The thing was that we had been given permission from several nurses and doctors to use the plug... At the time, I felt like throwing up. What kind of a monster would tell the father of a dying baby not to use a plug???? A plug- something that paled in comparison to what was going on- what the father was dealing with. This was a little comfort to him and he couldn't even have it.

That was how it was like.

The truth is that this last month has been very painful and very deifficult. I miss Barbara. Even after a year, I still hurt as if it happened yesterday...