Life on mute

January 9, 2009

I had a dream last night. I was at my high school reunion (my 15 year reunion was this past summer - though I didn't go) sitting around in a circle with all the women I went to high school with. Someone started talking about her baby, and I tried to respond, but got choked up and started crying. Everyone in the circle turned and looked at me. I desperately wanted to show everyone that I was okay, so I attempted to compose myself and with a smile on my face asked how many women there had children. All but two or three raised their hands. And then I asked in an angry, tearful voice, "And how many of you have given still birth?" I woke up then.

The dream has muted my day today. This afternoon I was rummaging through the drawer by my bed trying to find something and I came across a picture of me taken the day I was born. I had put the picture there when I was pregnant and I liked looking at it and baby pictures of Jeremy and wondering what our baby was going to look like. I could hardly stand to see that picture of myself. I have had dreams where a baby who looked just like the me in that picture was naked and crying and needed a mother.

This evening I took a warm bath and was playing the new Marc Cohn CD that he released after he fell victim to a carjacking and survived being shot in the head. It's about recovery and healing. I submerged my head in the bath water and listened to the mumbling music as my ears filled with water. I thought about losing Harper. I'm angry. I'm angry because I always thought that after someone I loved died I would still feel this connection to them - like their spirit would never leave me. That's not true. I have never felt Harper's presence. I want to feel her presence. I want to be her mother. I want to clothe her tiny little baby body and take care of her. Instead I feel dead.

And then questions swirl around in my head. Is it because she knows that I was willing to sacrifice her life for my own well being? Is that why there is this distance? Does she know that I resented her at one point? Oh God, the guilt is too much sometimes. Because I really did love that child. How can I say I loved her when I was willing to sacrifice her? How can I call myself a mother? And still my heart aches for her.

I don't want theological answers to these questions. I'm putting this all out there because I can only find peace in being authentic about this journey I'm navigating. The anger and the guilt and the sadness are all a part of it I suppose.