Fall skies and invisibility

Its hard for me to comprehend that I’ve been writing here in this space for 7 years now.

Seven years seems like such a long time. Closer to a decade than just a year. So much life happens in seven years.

And yet here we are. It’s September. I feel it in my bones, as I always do. When I’m driving, I notice the skies changing more than anywhere else. And seeing the change in sunlight always brings that sense of longing back around. It’s easier to not think about during the spring and earlier summer. But it’s so pronounced for me during the last weeks of August and first weeks of September.

Most days now, I’m a normal mom. But seven years later, my rainbows are growing up. They’re not babies anymore. Seeing them growing and moving forward in life is one of my greatest joys.

And yet the hardest truth now is that you’re always missing, Luke. I think that’s the part that hurts the most. Your invisibility.

I have so much to show for Lena and Lainey. Probably too much? Lena is constantly writing me notes on scraps of paper and shoving them in my purse or pockets. Lainey makes the hugest messes. They both have friends—school friends even. And I think the part that’s the hardest about walking these new steps as a parent is knowing that most people who know us as a family don’t know our story. Some might hear Lena talk about her brother and get confused. I mean...she’s confused too. The other day, out of nowhere, she asked me how old Luke was when he died. I’m not one to dance around the truth, because I know my kids are capable of understanding hard things. But it’s still hard to explain the hard details to her.

I told her he died right before he was born. “So he didn’t get to live?” she asked.
“No.” I said.
“But why did he die? Was something wrong with him?”
“No,” I said. “It was just a freak accident. Like how sometimes bad things happen to people when they don’t expect it. Like that.”

Lena’s accepting of my answers for now, but I know she doesn’t understand everything yet. She’s never had to see a mama be very very pregnant and not get to bring a baby home with her own eyes. I’m thankful for that. Because I want her to be naive for a little while longer. But she’ll understand someday.

But that intangibility is what gets me the most these days. I relate more and more to the title of Elizabeth McCracken’s book An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination more and more every day. Because that’s what Lena and Lainey are to me. They’re replicas. Of Luke, who never had a chance to live and breathe—who was so so close...and yet. Not. He never cried or crawled or took a step. I carried him for 39 weeks, and all he knew in life was me.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe he wasn’t a figment of my imagination when I have so little to show of his life.

He’s my first baby. Nothing can ever change that. But it’s still heartbreaking knowing that every new person I’ve met since he died never knew him. and never can. There isn’t anything new to add to his story. And there will never be.

The heaviness of all that still weighs on me. That’s the part of all this that I’m quite sure never disappears. Parenting is hard enough. But carrying the weight of his invisibility...his intangibility...along with everything else? That’s the load that’s hardest, seven years later. And I think the expectations some people have...of "getting over" this. Or moving on...are absurd. Because that's the thing. Once you've survived something traumatic--giving birth to death, losing someone in an unexpected way...You're forever changed. It's not something you can "get over." You change. You keep living your life. You build on what you have left. Because that's all you can do. There's no other option. And make no mistake--My girls are the world to me. They mean just as much as Luke does. All three are ours, and always will be. Just like any parent loves ALL of their children. Just because one doesn't exist on this earth any longer, you don't just give up on loving them. Love never dies.

I want it to be known that he’s our first baby. We’re a family of five. You just can’t see one of us. We have mementos for him, and boxes of team t-shirts for Walk to Remember and leftover funeral programs with his tiny stats in them.

I just wish all of that was easier for the world to see and not forget...or even ever know. I can see how this gets more and more inevitable through the years...and of course time makes it easier. But it’s never easy. It’ll never be ok, and I guess that’s just ok at this point.

Life is brutiful. Brutal and beautiful. And seven years on, that's the way it is.