Just the beginning

The storm of emotions I've experienced since Max's birthday came and went has been truly exhausting. With my thoughts constantly oscillating between the present day and those early days one year ago I've felt in a bit of a dizzy tailspin, unable to stop whirring about in order to focus on anything or anyone much. I've been irritable and impatient with Leslie, which is out of character for me, and generally feeling all churned up. I can't seem to stick with one single emotion, either. There's been a resurgence of shock and disbelief, the beginnings of confusion as I wonder how on earth a whole year has passed in the blink of an eye, and the ongoing sense of loneliness and longing I have felt since Max died - that pervasive sense that perhaps nothing has any point, or at least any that I will ever be able to find again.

It was very special to have my mum here for the weekend of Max's birthday, and it touches my heart to know all the ways in which she, too, is incorporating her first grandchild into her life. Not normally one to express her emotions at all, she wrote the most beautiful, heartfelt poem to Max in a birthday card that I will treasure forever. She also gave us the most beautiful gift to help us remember Max each year on his birthday. It's a ceramic angel candle holder, with a space at the front to put a numbered candle. This year the number one sits proudly in the space, it's colourful dots lending an air of quiet celebration to an event that will always be so bittersweet for us.

My lovely, thoughtful friend Leah also gave me a very special gift, which meant more to me than she had anticipated. It is a little doll made from felt, wrapped in a little green cocoon. The thing is that as soon as I saw it, it reminded me so much of Max. This is exactly how he looked when he was born and wrapped in a little fleece pouch by the nurses. The likeness is uncanny. I was really taken aback that she had managed to find such a thing, and that so much meaning could be packed into one little package.

Max's very special aunty Kate, who was there when he as born, and her husband Mark, gave me a beautiful yellow rose plant - yellow being the colour of remembrance (we had everyone wear yellow ribbons in memory of Max at his funeral). I couldn't wait to get home and plant it and watch it grow, as I have the other rose plant we've been tending to in Max's honour.

My good friends Pauline and Katie also spoiled us all with various sweets and cakes they'd baked especially for the occasion. I know their goodies were very much appreciated and admired!

That Max was remembered and celebrated for the amazing little boy he was means the world to me. I received thoughtful text messages of support from a couple of people I have not been in touch with all year who still remembered that the date was a special one. That both surprised and heartened me. The most unlikely and unexpected people have made wondrous efforts to abide with us in our pain over the past year and as a result our friendships and relationships have grown and changed, as we have. Most have changed for the better - I've become closer with many people I might have previously considered acquaintances. On the flip side, sadly some friendships have faltered and been lost - something that seems to be an all-too-common phenomenon amongst bereaved parents.

The passing of a year feels like it should be the end of something, but of course it is just the beginning - the beginning of a lifetime without my baby boy, with each year that will pass a regretful refrain of what might have, what should have been.

To darling Max, from Nanna

Here is a beautiful poem my mum wrote for Max on his birthday - words we will treasure forever.

Today is your first birthday.
Today you should have been blowing out your candle on the cake we would have made for you (well we would have helped you blow out the candle).
Today we should have been singing happy birthday to you.
Today you should have been tearing at the paper on your presents.
Today you should have been squealing with excitement.
Today you should have been playing with your new toys.
Today you are not here to do these things, that I so looked forward to...
Today you will celebrate your birthday with your other family members who are taking care of you in your world.
Those that can't be here either, to celebrate your birthday with us.
Today you will be watching over us, as we give thanks for having you at all, even for a short time, a time better than no time at all.
Today you will look at your family from afar, smiling, knowing that you will always be in our hearts and in our thoughts and so very dearly loved.

On your first birthday

To my little birthday boy,

Your darling little mouth. Your kissable, soft cheeks. Your tender baby hands. Your perfect innocent heart. I long for every part of you today on your birthday.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since I held you - so briefly - because to me, your mummy, you are still so real, so present. Sometimes I can still feel the feather-weight of you in my arms if I close my eyes and imagine you there where you belong.

You are the thought behind my every word and gesture. There's nothing I do where you are not with me, inside my aching heart and all around me.

This time last year we still had hope that you would live. You held on inside me for as long as you could, right up until the very end of the day until night came and everything in the world was calm and peaceful. I know you did everything you could to stay with us - taking a big, strong breath and beating that wonderful big heart of yours - but the challenges you faced were insurmountable. We could none of us survive what you faced. I am so thankful that you tried.

The moments we shared, though there could never have been enough of them, were the most intense, unbelievable and precious of my whole life. I could not believe that you were mine, and as I held you I could not believe how anyone expected me to let you go. I still can't comprehend how this became our fate, my little one. I don't know how I got out of the hospital without you, or how I've ever stepped back inside since.

I wish that you had seen the sun. I'm amazed that it continues to shine without you.

I wish that you could have opened your eyes, just once, to see your adoring mummy and daddy's faces. I only hope you felt our love and adoration in other ways.

I hope you did not experience a single moment of our sorrow. I hope we could at least protect you from that.

I wish - how I wish - that you were still here with me today. I wish you knew what it was like to open birthday presents and blow out candles like all the other little boys and girls I know. I can't look at other children without imagining it is you I see instead.

You have my heart, Max, inside your baby hands, today and always.

With all the love I have to give,

Your Mummy

xoxox

If I could turn back time

If I could turn back time.

If I could find a way.

How many times those phrases have gone through my head today.

On this night last year I was on the cusp of a tomorrow I could not have imagined. It was the 23rd of November, as it is today, and I was at work complaining of cramps in my stomach and joking about what a low pain threshold I had. I sent Leslie a text message, joking, saying 'if these are practice contractions then I'm in trouble when the real ones hit!' I joked about contractions but I never once - not once - considered that I might be actually having them.

If only I'd known.

If I'd gone to the hospital that night, instead of the next morning, would it have made a difference? Would they have been able to stop them? Would Max still be here? The what-ifs and the if-onlys are back in full force today. I haven't seen those for a few months. I forgot how excruciating they are, how all consuming.

On this night last year Max was still safe inside me. He was still alive. I still thought that a few months from then I would be bringing my baby boy home with me. We'd just bought a brand new cot. We'd just bought a brand new pram. I thought it was just a night like any other. I thought the stomach cramps were just another unpleasant side effect of pregnancy. God knows I'd had enough side effects up until that point.

Today hurts much more than I expected. It's not 'the' day of Max's birthday that I have been long approaching. Instead it feels even sadder. Today marks the last day I was a particular kind of person - innocent, hopeful, naive. I didn't know what I had to lose. I didn't know that I was about to lose it. How can that be? How can I get back to that night, that place, that girl?

These thoughts are all pervasive today, all confused between scenes of back then and now, and all the while I'm disbelieving that a year has passed. A year has passed and I still achingly long for my baby. My poor, beautiful baby. My darling little boy.

Birthdays

Today I spent the morning helping my sister-in-law prepare goodies for her little boy's second birthday party this Saturday. We had such a lovely time baking and packing treat bags, but amongst the fun I couldn't help but feel a lingering sadness that our little boy's birthday BBQ, which we are holding on the 24th, will be missing it's most important guest - our special little boy himself.

I'm finding it difficult to feel comfortable calling the day his 'birthday'. The word sounds too frivolous and happy. In my head I've been calling it the anniversary of his birth, but that doesn't sit right with me either. Why shouldn't he be able to have a 'birthday' like everyone else? In the end, though, it doesn't matter what we call it. 24th November is Max's special day, and a special day for us because it was the day he came into our lives and changed us forever. It's the only day he was ever alive in the outside world. It's the day he took his only breath before returning to the stars from where I'm sure he came.

That we've lived one year without Max is something I can't quite believe. I guess the last few months have crept up on me as I've been so preoccupied with being sick. This week I've been doing a lot of reflecting, and not all of it in a good way. Much of it has been of this kind: 'on this day last year I had no idea of the tragedy that was just about to befall me'. I've learned that my body would have already been priming itself for labour it's just that I didn't know, I didn't recognise the signs. I want to go back, knowing what I now know. It feels as if any window I had to go back and change things will close once Max has been gone for a year. I won't be able to say 'this time last year he was alive' for very much longer.

I wanted to hold a gigantic memorial service for Max's birthday. In truth I want the whole world to stop, and if it wasn't going to of its own accord then I was going to create an occasion that would make people stop and remember that Max was here, and that he mattered, and that he matters still. Apart from the fact that I've been too sick to organise such an event, and that nothing I organised would have come close to matching what I had in my imagination, I also realised I'd be fighting a losing battle. Not everyone will remember Max. At least not everyone will remember Max in the way I want them to. I have to learn to accept that, for my own sake. Others, like my friends on this blog, will remember him though they have less reason to than many of the people I know in my 'real' life.

So instead of a statewide celebration, Leslie and I are holding a small BBQ at a pretty park not far from our house. I don't just want it to be a BBQ, but I don't know how to make sure that Max is included. It doesn't feel right to have party items or first birthday balloons, though I'd like him to have those. Perhaps I should just take a few of his special things, get a few balloons that I could release skyward. How do you have a 'celebration' that is not a celebration, but something quite different? Something bittersweet?