Five Years Later... on Gratitude and Loss

[From 8/2/16 - I never published this for some reason...]

I swim in these emotions daily - gratitude and anxiety. Grateful for Isa and the happiness and utter joy she has brought into our lives. Every night, she still falls asleep on my chest, and I sometimes shut my eyes and feel her little heartbeat against my body. Her breath as she slowly drifts to sleep. Her little head on my chest, and I can smell her hair and sweaty head from running around in the dirt and sun all day. My sun-drenched miracle. My rainbow baby. I’m grateful that Chris’ cancer is gone. The chemo has kept the cancer at bay, showing no signs of return so far. Isa has a father who gets to play with her and read her stories and make her breakfast, lunch and dinner (yes, he does all the cooking). I have a husband that I get to sleep next to every night, that I can tell my dreams, wishes, fears and anxieties to. He’s alive. And I’m so thankful.
And then there’s the fear and the anxiety at how close we all are to loss. To losing everything that we love so desperately. Five years ago we lost little Nico and my life has never been the same. Now I worry about the little things... Car accidents. Cold-turning-into-life-threatening-pneumonia. Not answering the phone means that you fell off the roof so I have to run home from work to make sure you’re alive. Checking in on sleeping baby to be sure no one came through the window to steal her... or to see if she’s still breathing. Wondering if the headache is really an aneurysm. Car accidents.
After 5 years I’m no closer to having any clarity, or peace, over his death. I still don’t have any answers. I go to church, but I don’t find answers there. My mom says it was the devil. I really don’t care about the why anymore. Instead, I hold space with my friends and others who have also baby-lost. Miscarriages, stillbirths, infant deaths.
. . So you must not be frightened
if a sadness rises before you larger
than any you’ve ever seen, if an
anxiety like light and cloud shadows
moves over your hands and
everything that you do. You must
realize that something has happened
to you. Life has not forgotten
you, it holds you in its hands
and will not let you fall. Why do
you want to shut out of your life
any uneasiness, any miseries, or
any depressions? For after all, you
do not know what work these conditions
are doing inside of you.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
I wrote this about 4 months after Nico died:
Sometimes, when I look back on that day and the days that followed, I feel this incredible sadness. Not only for you and what you went through, not for the fact that you died and being without you, but also for my own life, my own heart, for Chris' life. The pain, hurt, loss and heartbreak during the month before you died, your death, and the time afterwards, is just so horrifying that this happened.
I tell myself that there are much worse things that happen to millions of people every day. When I compare our situation to all the suffering around us, we have so much to be grateful for - the love and support we received from family and friends, the knowledge that you knew nothing but love from those around you, and that you died peacefully. I try not to get weighed down feeling sorry for myself that such a terrible thing happened to my first child.
But I don't deny that pain. To deny it would minimize or take away from the joy and happiness that you brought us for 8 months. The fact that other people suffer does not take away what we went through. I allow myself to feel compassion and sadness of your loss. That my heart can break, over and over again, and still continue to beat, to have the capacity to love, is amazing.
If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders.” - Andrew Harvey
-------------
Ever year on this anniversary, Nico’s not-birthday, I ask my friends to go out and do an act of kindness in his name. Go out and do something small and kind for someone. Tell them it’s in honor of a spirit-baby, Nico. You’ll feel good about yourself for doing something nice, the world will be a tad bit better for it, and his name will be spoken aloud. He will exist for one day not in my head but in real-life. And do more acts of kindness just because. Our small space could use more kindness, don’t you think?
Five years later...I’m alive, I don’t cry every day, and I’m generally happy. I’ll light a candle, visit him at the cemetery, and begin to tell Isa about her big brother that lives in our heart.
Nico Ilardo-Martinez Died 8/2/11

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