Let's All Be Kids Today

I like Halloween. Always have. I like dressing up and pretending to be someone else. It's like an all-day acting class for me and being voted "Most Dramatic, Class of 1992" for North Penn Senior High School, it should come as no surprise that I like to put on a show.

Today is the first year that Miranda will be in school on Halloween. That means she gets to participate in the Harvest Parade around the school's parking lot and attend the party in her Pre-K classroom afterward.

I packed her Moana costume with such care and I told her that she will be able to spot me right away in the parking lot because I will have the most massive grin and (probably) the loudest cheering voice.

I am giddy with excitement and motivated to get all my writing done early today so that I can make it to everything on time. I feel a lightness that I did not expect to feel.

Then I realized why. Today is about Miranda. And Miranda only. It's not about what Allie should have been or would have been. It's not about the lost opportunities of my first child. It's not about my empty arms or my sometimes lonely heart. It's about the child that needs and deserves the full attention of both her parents today.

I am not sure what has changed. I am not sure if the universe shifted overnight while I was sleeping. I am not sure if it will shift back. All I know is that I woke up knowing that today was just about the little girl fast asleep down the hall and that was it.

I do not feel guilty for not making today about Allie. I feel a calmness knowing that I will not have to split my heart today. I cannot explain how or why I feel this way, so I am just going to go with it. It feels good. I feel good.

Today, we are all going to act like kids. We will play dress up and laugh and probably overeat candy. We will take pictures and soak in all the fun that we can on this one day.

Tomorrow, we can act like adults again. Or not. That is entirely up to you. I think I might try this kid thing a bit longer.

Happy Halloween!!

Surviving the Sadness

I do not know how many people die per day. I do not know how many funerals there are per day. I do not know if more people die from natural causes than at the hands of themselves or someone else or random acts. 

I do know that there was at least one funeral held today for a man I did not know. I may not have known him, but I know his wife, and I have met his children, and through them, I know he must have been someone worth knowing. 

His wife was not someone I know well. I see her once a year at our annual Pollyanna party and maybe one or two other times at a block party or some other such event. One time I accidentally sat in the same row as her at a Pink concert. Random, I know.

Since I learned of her husband's passing last week, I have not been able to stop thinking of them. Of the kids who will grow up without their dad and the wife who no longer has her partner by her side. How utterly unfair.

You would think that I would be familiar with grief by now. I know the agony of empty arms and unfulfilled dreams. I know the longing in my soul that sometimes makes something has simple as breathing seem like a chore. And yet, while I know how to grieve and miss and yearn for my daughter who died before she had a chance to be born, I can't wrap my head around this family's grief. The empty spot at the table. The quietness of his absence. 

Shortly after Allie died, Gary told me he wished he heard her cry just once. Not me, I said rather harshly. If I heard her voice, I would have wanted more. I am the type who always wants more. 

My uncle died when he was in his early forties. He also left behind two young children and a devastated wife. Maybe I am comparing my memory of what it was like to lose him and transposing it onto this family. Could be.

Death is so final. So abrupt. There is so much left unsaid and undone. 

Maybe people say that death makes you stronger. I would rather be weak and have my daughter here than be strong and live a life without her. I imagine my friend feels the same way about her husband.

I am at a loss to help this woman that I barely know. So I turned to my writing to see if it could ground me. In a way it has. Writing down how loss does not define us feels good. It feels like I am doing something instead of just being sad.

Somehow, in grief, we make it through. The hours turn to days and the days turn to weeks and then it's a month or two or three, and you have survived without that person. You feel guilty when you laugh or do not think about your loss every second of every day. Time does not heal, but time allows your heart to feel other emotions again.

Make it count. All of it. You never know when the chance you have could be the last chance you had. Do your best to survive the sadness. It's all you can do.

A Letter to My First Daughter

My Dearest Allie,

It’s been a while since I have written to you. I find it easier to write about you than it is to write to you.

I have been thinking about you a lot lately. Even more than usual. This month is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, but it’s more than that.

A family member had a baby girl yesterday. I was holding my breath until she arrived. To me, pregnancy does not always equal babies, and labor does not mean babies, either. I need to know there was a cry, a scream, a noise, anything…to let me know that the baby is alive. And even then, my breath catches in my throat.

I went to physical therapy this morning for my plantar fasciitis which is not getting better and thus has me pretty irritated. No one knows there me there, and so I am a blank slate. I talk about my injury, and I talk about treatment, and every so often, I get a chance to talk about your sister. Never have I been able to talk about you. Sometimes, I just can’t.

From there, I went to get a pedicure. When you have people working on your foot 2-3 times a week, it’s key to make that foot look as good as you can. At least, that’s how I feel. Anyway, the woman in the chair next to me was very pregnant. I overheard her say she was 37 weeks pregnant. With a girl. I could not even look at her. She was me. I was her. The difference is, tomorrow, that baby in her belly would be dead if she were me. But this woman will hopefully be spared that agony and have a healthy baby in a few weeks.

I do not take anything for granted anymore. Not since the day I learned I lost you. I do not expect happy endings, although I still crave them. I am still human, after all.

Allie, your sister and I were cuddling last night for no reason at all. Just because it felt good and warm and safe (and I think she as delaying bed time, actually). I miss all of those cuddles we never got to have. I miss all the things that were taken away from us unfairly – first words and first haircuts and first days of school. I cannot even think about what it would be like if you were here and in first grade and all that comes along with it. Would the tooth fairy be coming soon? What would you want to be for Halloween?

I yearn to hold you again and wish I took more pictures of you after you were born. I wish I asked the nurse to cut off a lock of your hair so I could rub it between my aching fingers and have a piece of you that I could touch. I wish we had more time. I always wish for more time.

On Saturday, we will drive out to Lancaster and light a candle for you and celebrate the love and light you brought to us, even though you are not here to see it. We will stand with other families like ours, and we remember you.

We see you. We love you. We will never forget you.

Thank you for making me a mom, sweet girl. I love you more.

Forever and a day,

Mommy

Love Makes a Family

Before we adopted our daughter, I knew a fair amount about adoption. I have a step-brother who was adopted, a cousin who was adopted, and my best friend from childhood was also adopted. Adoption was not a bad word or an uncommon word, and I learned from an early age that families are made in a variety of ways.

The foster care system, though, is something I know very little about. I did not know anyone who had come up through the foster care system. All of that changed earlier this year.

I have family that is going through the motions of (hopefully) adopting two brothers through foster care. These are adorable, passionate, fun-spirited, and energetic children.

Circumstances led them to where they are now, and it is hard to see the hoops that they have to jump through just to be placed in a loving home. It’s equally as hard to see the adults have to suffer in silence because their needs come after the needs of the children and the biological family.

Since my daughter is adopted, I know first-hand how difficult it can be to raise a child who came from someone else’s body. We have an open adoption and at each bi-annual visit, I have such anxiety in making sure everything goes well that I drive my husband crazy. Our daughter is four and a half years old. I know I am on borrowed time before I have to explain who her birth mother is and then have to brace myself for what my daughter wants to call her. Ultimately, it is her choice, and I hope that we are raising her to be accepting and to have room in her heart for all the people that love her.

We signed up for all of this when we decided to have an open adoption. We have a great support system and a pretty good relationship with our daughter’s birth mother. We all have the best interest of our little girl at heart, and I have confidence that everything will continue to go as well as it has these past four and a half years.

In the foster care system, the rules are different. From what I understand, the birth family is not as present, and it is not always their decision to place the child or children. There can be resentment and ill will. The best needs of the child can easily get buried under paperwork and bureaucracy. Any joy that the foster parents feel in becoming parents falls to the bottom of the pile of emotions. I have witnessed the children being confused as to what to call the foster parents. Mom and Dad seems disrespectful to the parents they know, and yet Miss and Mister seems formal for the people that have taken you in, clothed you, fed you and loved you.

In foster care, there are so many elements that need to be met before the child is placed permanently. Often the biological parents are still involved and maybe even resentful that foster parents are raising the child or children that the state decided they could not raise themselves.

While you are fostering a child, you can’t brag about that child on social media because the child is often split between the home they knew and the home in which they have been placed. It can be months or years before the courts decide what is best for the child. In that time, their lives are in flux. It’s stressful and complicated at a time in their lives where normal, everyday childhood events can also be a burden.

I am naïve just to want kids that need homes to be placed with the adults that can provide them. I know I am, and yet I want it still. I want every child to know the feeling of a safe and loving home, and it makes me so frustrated that is not the case.

I grew up in a far from perfect home, but I always knew I was safe and loved and wanted and that I would always have what I needed. I want all kids to feel the same way.

I am not trying to take on the foster care system. There are many out there who know way more about it than me. I just see two people that want to be parents and two boys that need to be parented, and I wish the road was easier for them all that it appears to be.

Love makes a family – pure and simple. Adoption and foster care exist so that there are homes for all children that need them. Love is the common bond that families share. If only we could use love alone to build all families. Instead, we have to rely on the systems that are in place and hope that they are enough. My fingers are crossed.