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The TRUTH About Motherhood

Search results for: “miscarriage”

  • No Air

    No Air

    Sometimes I forget that I live in a world full of triggers. Sometimes I forget just how terrible reality can be. How sad and empty the world is without certain people and then something happens and it’s like life shakes me hard to remind me just how fragile life is. I think this is what keeps me human and humble.

    Nothing like a swift reminder that there are no guarantees. People die. People leave. Life hurts and that is the reality. Even when someone seems like they have it all, devastation can be waiting right around the corner. That’s the real reason you should never envy anyone because you never really know what they are going through. The worst part is that life is so random and we have absolutely no control of it, not really.

    I guess I’m feeling a little discombobulated lately thanks to to recent losses. Last week we lost someone close to our family and now, he’s just gone. Not here. Someplace else. No longer here for guidance. What once was a crucial thread in the tapestry of our life has become completely unraveled and been removed. He’s gone and we just have to learn to live in that new reality. It’s shocking because it was so unexpected but then we began to digest it, as we do, and navigate life in our new reality minus one.

    Then last night, I found out that someone who was a huge part of my childhood died. It’s silly, really. He’s a celebrity. We’ve never met but I felt a connection to my dad through him and his music. He’s from the same part of Mexico as my dad. He was a year younger than my dad. I grew up listening to him in the background of my life’s soundtrack. I passed his music along to my children as a part of my own father’s legacy. He’s always been there and now, he’s not.

    This sent me down a rabbit hole of sadness. My dad is in Mexico right now. I haven’t seen him in 8 months. Juan Gabriel has always reminded me of time with my dad. This reminded me of my dad’s younger brother, my favorite uncle, Narciso. He’s dead. He was murdered when I was 16. Which reminded me of my great uncle, Ramon, he died when I was 13. He was like a Grandpa to me. I was his favorite. This made me think of the baby I lost and how different my life would look if these people were alive. Now, I’m in a hole seeing nothing but darkness asking myself, how am I even breathing in this world with no air?

    You know, each time someone I love dies I try to convince myself that they are in a better place. I tell myself that they are together and one day I will see them again. That’s how I get through it. I tell myself. I convince myself that they are better off, even if my heart is breaking into pieces. But what if they aren’t? What if when we die, that’s it?

    I hope not. I hate to think that death is the end for the people I loved so dearly; good people who did good in the world, if nothing else than love me; care in a world that so often doesn’t.

    I thought I was okay. Then I dropped the girls off at school this morning and saw the reader board. There it was, our Monsignor’s name followed by the time for visitation, vigil and tomorrow’s funeral time. Then a wave of sadness hit me with the realization that I will never see his smile again. My children are going to say goodbye at a private visitation this morning with their classes. I hate that I can’t be there to hold their hand for this. I hate that they have to say goodbye to someone they love at such a young age.

    Tomorrow we say our final goodbye. This morning, I’m feeling fragile thinking of all the loss realizing that when you love fully, you live surrounded by triggers and reminders of what could have been and what was. In moments like these, it’s hard not to go down the rabbit hole and feel sorry for yourself but that’s not what they, these dearly departed of ours, would want. It’s not what I’d want. So, in a couple minutes, I’m going to wipe away these tears and live in this moment because even though sometimes it feels like there is no air…there is. We live surrounded by it.

    So now, I inhale and I exhale and I repeat until it feels natural again. I keep living and enjoying my life as fully as possible because those people I’ve lost would accept no less. And the cold hard truth is that we only have one life and it’s really short. We have to make it count. Life is a full contact sport and none of us survive in the end.

  • A Thousand Years

    A Thousand Years

    It seems like it’s been A Thousand Years since I first found out that I was going to be a mother for the third time. It’s been 3 months today since that test showed two lines. I was surprised and exhilarated and scared all in that moment. But mostly I was unexpectedly blessed beyond my wildest dreams. I’ve always wanted three children but it just didn’t seem to be in the cards and then it was and now it’s not. Mother’s Day was yesterday. This was my 7th Mother’s day. Every year, I thank God for blessing me with my beautiful children.Now, I know to thank God for my children every second of every day. I’ve always known that some women were not so lucky to be sitting, holding their children in their lap on Mother’s day but I never honestly knew their pain. The lingering emptiness and void that remains long after a baby is gone.

    I have been waiting for you for a thousand years

    I’ve always felt like I don’t deserve my children. I have days when I am grouchy and sometimes I am less patient than my girls deserve. I lose my temper and say “No” to a lot of requests to what seems to me to be frivolous requests. I rush them and hush them. But what if they weren’t there to ask? Then what? I’d give my life to be sure that they are here so why not give in to frivolous requests? Because maybe those requests are not so frivolous after all. I am now painfully aware how very important every moment of every day is with my children. I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

    Yesterday, I had lots of love sent my way. I thought I would be okay. It’s been two weeks since I saw that life changing ultrasound. I’ll NEVER be over it. I will never forget the baby that I was looking forward to introducing to my family this Thanksgiving. I feel like I loved that baby for a thousand years and I know I will love him for a thousand more. As far as I am concerned, I am the mommy of three babies. I just never got the privilege of holding my third baby in my arms. I feel robbed and cheated and sad. But a little part of me, feels grateful that I ever got the chance to feel that incredible love that a mommy can only feel for the baby growing inside her. It’s been a hard two weeks, the hardest of my entire life. I am learning to live in my new normal.

    I have loved You for a Thousand Years

    I feel like a ticking time bomb of emotions. The song that was playing that morning as we drove to the hospital, the very same song that I sang to my belly in the car the week before, A Thousand Years by Christina Perri, every time I hear it I bitter-sweetly smile at what might have been and cry at what I had to lose to truly appreciate what I had. I have new perspective. Mother’s Day to me is a day to give thanks for all the beautiful mother’s in my life.A day to appreciate the power of a mother’s love.

    My mother who loves me so much that she stepped back to allow me to feel my pain at my request, knowing that, as a mother, all she wanted to do was run to me and comfort me. My sister, who lost her own angel, 10 years ago. I never understood the solitude in  her pain and I now wish that I could just wrap her in love and make everything alright for her. She is so brave and beautiful. I admire her for her heart. My baby sister, who just celebrated her first Mother’s day but loves me so much that she held me as I cried and felt my pain so that the force of it did not kill me. To all my friends who have never felt this loss but love me so much that they surrounded me with love, prayer and understanding and to all of the beautiful friends and strangers who I am joined to forever in our loss., my heart goes out to all of you because I know how hard it is to lose something that means so very much. Please hold those babies you can in your arms every day and be thankful they are there and hold the ones that are not, in your heart where they will live and be a part of you forever.

    I’ll Love you for a thousand More

    Today is a new beginning. Today, I am rising from beneath the rubble of my heart. I am summoning all of my strength and I will get up out of bed, love my children with all that I am, live my life and be thankful for all the wonderful people and opportunities that I have been given. I am counting my blessings, wiping my tears away and coming back to life. I am no longer who I once was and things that seemed so important last month have no importance at all today. My priority is my family; my husband who has been my rock and my beautiful daughters who light up my life and show me how very precious life is and how very blessed I am to have them.

    Positive, how long I’ve waited for this

    An unnatural calm has over taken me

    I am happy but afraid to be excited

    Afraid my joy will be sort lived and snatched away

    My whole life this was the moment I was meant for

    But maybe it’s not to be, maybe it’s the cruelest joke

    To give such a precious git & take it away just as quickly

    I feel a sick feeling in my stomach which accompanies the thought of losing you

    I pray to God to spare me this misery

    To let us be together until the sunset of my life!

    The above quote was written July of 2004 when I was spotting with my first pregnancy.

  • The Unimaginable

    The Unimaginable

    I’ve been a little quiet on here lately. I’ve been wiped out physically and emotionally with life. I don’t really know how to tell this story because it’s not mine to tell without making it “all about me” which it is not but I need to write it out because that’s how I process emotions. This is just me feeling the ripples on the peripheral and it’s been enough to knock me on my ass. This is life, try as we may to resist, we personalize and internalize all tragedy that touches us; no matter in how small or large a way.

    We received a passing text that a young girl, a cousin’s 16-year-old daughter, had been in an accident involving a vehicle. It did not seem life threatening. It seemed like a courtesy call, just to let us know. We prayed for her. We prayed for her parents because that is what we do. When family is in need, you suit up, you play, you fight and you pray.

    A day later, the innocuous “accident” necessitated an induced coma. We prayed harder. A couple days later, we found out that everything was going well but she would need surgery. No big deal. We prayed harder still.

    I started to get twinges of residual fear of loss. Everything was “fine” but for me, I’m always afraid of losing those I love. I’ve experienced loss before. I’ve experienced the overwhelming fear that engulfs you during near loss. Losing a 9-year-old student to meningitis, in the matter of a weekend, changed my perspective on life. I KNOW the fleetingness and fragility of life. These experiences, they are what have shaped me and made me the mother that I am today. Losing children is different than losing grown ups because it is so unexpected. I am terrified of losing my children. That’s why a cold is never just a cold. It’s the reason why I still wake up to check that they are breathing in the middle of the night. I am painfully aware that every single moment could be our last together. I hate that I know this. I envy those who do not.

    Then last week, my husband texted me to look up to the sky. It was once more filled with paper lanterns, ascending to heaven. I ran outside in my nightgown to stare, silently and reverently at those beautiful lanterns ascending higher and higher into the night sky, disappearing among the stars. My heart stops every time I see this sight but tonight, it was almost too much to bear because you see, just prior to this, I had gotten the text and nothing more.

    “They are taking her off of life support” all the air left my body and the scar tissue that covers my heart slowly started to tear away and then was suddenly and violently ripped open. In that moment, I knew that even our emotions have a never-ending echo in this world. Even those wounds that we thought have long healed have only scabbed over and the slightest pull at the wound can refresh those terrible pains.

    My heart broke for her parents and everyone whose life she had ever touched, who’d heard her laughter or seen her smile for the friends and family who were left behind to mourn the devastating loss; to feel that unfillable void that never leaves, especially a parent.

    The day of the wake, I was nervous. Terrified to face the pain, to see another parent experience that all consuming, never recovering, life changing, spirit crushing, faith testing pain of losing a child. I immediately recognized it on the faces of the parents, the blank stare of heartbreak so complete that if someone touches you, you might literally crumble to the ground. If you’ve ever felt it, you recognize it in others.It’s like being a head to toe exposed nerve, everything hurts; even the air you breathe. Just existing is almost too painful to tolerate.

    I KNEW there was nothing I could say to make it better and after my own emotional break down 2 weeks ago on stage, I knew my own wounds were still healing. I KNEW what that mother was feeling; I’ve felt it myself. I KNOW there is no comfort to be had. I KNOW that THAT pain is inconsolable and there is no recovery. I lost my child before I ever got to hold him in my arms, I can’t even imagine the pain it is to lose a child that you held and loved for 16 years. But I wanted her to know that I understood, that we loved them and that we are here for them in any way we can to help them survive this because that’s what happens when you lose a child, or a pregnancy, you survive it. I would not try to tell her that it gets better, or that it ever stops hurting. I would not tell her those lies.

    She asked me in her exhausted, numb, wanting to die state if she would ever feel better. I hugged her tighter and told her that I loved her. I did not answer because her wounds are still too raw for the truth.

    The truth is this, you just keep living until you feel alive again but you will never be the same ever again and the honest answer is that eventually you will feel better than you do at this moment but every moment will be tinged by the loss of something that you loved more than life itself; something you will never get to hold or look upon again and that is almost unbearable if you think about it too much. You slowly have to let it go. You have to forgive yourself for living and you go on, with the hope that one day, you will hold them again, even if it’s just in your mind and only for a little while.

    So, as this beautiful young girl’s mother told me through her sobs, I am telling you,

    “Hold on tight to those babies of yours because you never know which moment is the last.”

     

    If you are the praying type, please keep these parents in your prayers. They need them. They will for a long time.

     

  • Teaching Your Child about Loss

    Teaching Your Child about Loss

    The hardest thing we have to do as parents is teaching your child about loss. I have two daughters and my youngest is 8-years-old. In the last three years, she has felt the weight of the loss of a sibling, her beloved dog, a cousin and a goldfish. She has a great grandmother and a great-great aunt who are both in their late 80’s and we know more loss is on it’s way but I want to protect them for as long as possible.

     

    Yesterday morning before school, we had the girls say goodbye to Teddy just in case the vet could not save him. I was a nervous wreck. My daughter collapsed into my arms and whispered through tear stained cheeks, “Mommy, please don’t let him die.” I knew in that moment, I was going to fight as hard as I’d ever fought to keep this little guy alive.

     

    I found the best exotic pet vet in town, begged to be squeezed in as soon as possible and drove across the city with the weak little guy strapped into the front seat in a box, I gingerly seat belted him in as to not disturb him in his weakened state. I felt sick to my stomach. A million what ifs ran through my mind and they all ended with me breaking my daughter’s heart.

     

    At the veterinarian’s office, Teddy was thoroughly checked. I was told that it was pneumonia. The remedy? Antibiotics and IV fluids. I was given more liquid antibiotics to give him twice a day until he was well. I left there feeling like I had dodged a major bullet. I had saved him and spared my daughter, yet another loss.

     

    We spent the day holding him and talking to him. He quietly chirped and nuzzled into my chin. At first his breathing was labored but soon it quieted and he lay, softly against me where he stayed for hours before doing the same with my daughter.

     

    This morning, she held him while she ate breakfast. The Big Guy and I took him briefly to administer his meds. He chirped loudly, which at first I thought was an improvement from his listlessness yesterday but then I began to consider that maybe it was pain that elicited his reaction.

     

    My daughter kissed him goodbye and told him that she loved him before she went to school this morning. Then she said, “See you after school, Teddy Bear.” Only she won’t.

     

    I came home and cleaned up the house a little bit and then I checked on our little Teddy. I picked him up and he was completely limp but warm. A first, I thought maybe he was fine just still because of the pneumonia and then; I realized he wasn’t breathing and he was not responsive.

     

    I can’t even explain the reaction I had. I sobbed and lost my breath because I don’t want to be the one to break my daughter’s heart. I can still hear her whispering for me to save him. It lingers in the air like the faint smell of perfume after someone leaves the room.

     

    Today, when she comes home, I am tasked with the unfortunate duty of telling her that her beloved longhaired Guinea Pig, Ted Koppel, has died in my arms from pneumonia while my daughter was at school. I hate teaching my children about loss because it is one that they will learn over and over in this life.

     

    Now, it’s pick up time. Time to be there for my girl, after I have to break their tiny hearts and tear their world apart. I hate this part of parenting.

  • 051ffc9b-fd18-42ed-8618-efd80e75f756

    My Daughter Turned 18 and Graduated – Now What?

    Deborah Cruz
    May 29, 2025
    0
    Happy Throat Punch Thursday to all who celebrate (shhh! I know there’s a lot of you.I saw your DMs)! I’m here to announce that Throat Punch Thursday is coming back, baby! This Maycember shit is for the birds and personally, I’m glad it’s just about over. But, bitches I was harshly and disrespectfully scathed. The […]
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    StayPineapple

    I Found Chicago’s Best-Kept Secret: Why StayPineapple Is the Dog-Friendly Hotel That Will Ruin Your Own Bed Forever

    Deborah Cruz
    May 2, 2025
    0
    There’s something magical about finding a hotel that doesn’t just accommodate your stay but enhances your entire travel experience. As a mom who’s stayed in countless hotels across the globe, I can confidently say that StayPineapple Chicago isn’t just another place to rest your head—it’s a destination in itself that’s capturing the hearts of Gen-Z […]
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    Shot of a young woman looking sad while holding a teddy bear in a bedroom at home

    I Never Held You, But I’ll Always Love You

    Deborah Cruz
    May 1, 2025
    0
    Every year, I dread this day because I never know how I’m going to feel. Am I going to be functional? Am I going to be in the fetal position? Will I feel a certain type of way? Or Will I cry? Will I break shit? Will the day pass nonchalantly? I think that’s the […]
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    Shot of a young doctor applying a band-aid after injecting her patient during a consultation in the clinic

    Born Between 1957-1989? Your Measles Immunity Might Need a Boost

    Deborah Cruz
    April 30, 2025
    0
    As a mom who’s constantly juggling appointments, school pickups, creating content, and keeping everyone healthy, I never expected to find myself rolling up my sleeve for a childhood vaccine again. But that’s exactly what I did last week – getting my second MMR vaccination as an adult. Yes, I got an adult measles booster shot! […]
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    Little boy looking out of the window

    The Cruel Reality: ICE Targeting Immigrant Children for Deportation Under the Guise of “Welfare”

    Deborah Cruz
    April 29, 2025
    0
    As the daughter of an immigrant and a mom, watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conduct so-called “welfare checks” on unaccompanied immigrant children makes my blood boil. What’s presented as concern for child safety is revealed through internal documents to be something far more sinister: a coordinated effort to deport vulnerable children and criminalize […]
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  • September 11th ~ A Mother’s Vulnerabilty Exposed

    September 11th ~ Vulnerable. Like an open wound, that is how I would describe how I felt when I woke up this morning. There are instances in life that are so shocking, so painful and profound that you are stunned that they are actually even taking place. These are the events that your brain may willfully try to forget but you cannot because those same events are imprinted on your heart forever. We all have these moments. September 11, 2001 is one of those days. It is a day I will never forget.

    I don’t want to write too much about September 11th this morning because I’ve written about it before. I just want to share with you this morning. This morning, I woke up and immediately remembered what day it was. Then I remembered what I was doing that beautiful day in September 12 years ago.

    My husband was in Pennsylvania traveling for work and I was walking into my office at the small publishing house where I edited in North Carolina. I was 28 years old at 8:46 when I walked into work just in time to see the first plane hit the tower. I was stunned. All the air was sucked out of me. We sat in silence and then my first reaction was to call my husband. I desperately needed to hear his voice. I couldn’t reach him. The phones were down. I never felt so alone in my entire life. A nation full of people sharing a single event and I felt completely alone in my grief, my pain and my fear. I know that I wasn’t but pain is personal.

     

    Today, 12 years later, I have everything. I have the Big Guy and we have been blessed with our two daughters. We have our health and are surrounded by love. Life has moved on in many ways for many people. We all fly again and we are learning to trust again. Our hearts are still heavy and cracked but no longer busted wide open. Only, maybe they are.  12 years later, I woke up on another gorgeous day in September and all it took was to hear sirens blaring past my neighborhood to send me into a full panic. My heart demanded that I not send the kids to school and I listened.

    You see, though my brain has learned to deal with the pain of September 11th, my heart is still fundamentally broken and it is still haunted by the grief that was there not so long ago. My heart would not allow my girls to leave my arms today. It felt like the right thing to do if not the logical one. I feel like we need to spend the day remembering those who were taken from us on that day, mourning their deaths, celebrating their lives and marking that moment in time. I think we need to stop and feel the full weight of our loss. This is how I process.

    I explained to my girls why I was keeping them home and what today was. They are 6 and 8. They’ve learned about September 11th in school but it’s not real to them; not the way it is real to all of us who witnessed that awful, horrible, heartbreaking day. They weren’t there that day when the entire world stood still and held its breath as terrorists put a gun to our united head. It was time. I showed them the video footage of the planes hitting the towers. We had a discussion. They now understand. There is reverence in our home today. We are happy to be alive. Blessed to be together and just a little nicer to one another.

    You will not see me on social media today because I can not read the stories. My heart is too heavy with sadness from the stories of the past 12 years, instead  I will be holding my children in my arms and thanking God that I am able to do so. Hug your children. Tell the people you love that they matter. Commit a random act of kindness.

    Today, I kept my children home with me because I can. Some mothers were left childless on September 11th  2001 and for them, today I am silent. For them, I pray. For all the souls taken too soon, I will live completely, love fully and never take a single day for granted to honor their memory. I will never forget.

     

    Please share your stories in the comments.

    What were you doing on that morning of September 11th?

  • Father Singing Blackbird to Dying Newborn Son is Most Beautiful thing on the Internet

    Father Singing Blackbird to Dying Newborn Son is Most Beautiful thing on the Internet

    Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

    take these broken wings and learn to fly,

    All your life…

    You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

    Chris Picco, Lennon, Ashley Picco, Blackbird

    Imagine losing everything and then imagine losing it again, all within a few days. According to Chris Picco Youtube video description…

    Chris Picco singing Blackbird to his son, Lennon James Picco, who was delivered by emergency C-section at 24 weeks when Chris’ wife Ashley unexpectedly and tragically passed away in her sleep. Lennon’s lack of movement and brain activity was a constant concern for the doctors and nurses at Loma Linda University Hospital, where he received the absolute best care available. During the pregnancy, Ashley would often feel Lennon moving to music so Chris asked if he could bring his guitar into the NICU and play for Lennon, which he did for several hours during the last days of Lennon’s precious life. One day after filming this, Lennon went to sleep in his daddy’s arms.

    Chris Picco, Lennon, Ashley Picco, Blackbird

    For more information please visit: https://www.piccomemorial.com
    To donate to a Memorial Fund to help with medical bills and associated expenses, please visit: https://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fun…

    The clip shows musician Chris Picco singing to his son, Lennon, in the hospital shortly after the death of his wife. I know the heaviness that is in his chest. This is tragic and beautiful all at the same time. The entire situation is a tragedy but  the time he got to spend with his son, even if it was only for a few hours, I am sure will always be regarded as one of the biggest miracles of his life; the most profound moments of all consuming, unconditional love.

    My thoughts and prayers are with this father who has just lost his entire world.

  • Black on the Inside

    Black on the Inside

    It just happened. I just drove past the parking lot of my OB/GYN on the way to take my oldest to get a “purple” tooth looked at. It seems innocuous enough but I’m reminded of the last time I let my mind believe that nothing was wrong. It almost shattered me.

    The place where I went to my car, all alone, after seeing the ultrasound that showed my perfect baby’s heart no longer beating. It’s the parking lot where I lost all of my humanity and I roared and sobbed in such a primal way that I was unrecognizable as human. I died a little that day. Something like that changes you forever.

    The same parking lot that faces the hospital where I had to go that terrible morning when it happened. The place where time and space were suspended so slowly that I could audibly hear my heart breaking. I remember the entire thing felt like a heavy fog. I remember being angry that this was happening to me. I remember mourning what was being taken. I remember sitting there, silently praying that I wouldn’t wake up. The pain was all consuming. It hurt to breathe and facing my 4-year-old who so badly wanted a younger sibling, the same one whose tiny heart ached congruent with mine,was too much to bear. I was a broken failure and I felt every bit of it.

    I just passed that place and I found myself driving, once again on a beautiful spring day feeling removed from my body. I’m trying to hold it together because my 10-year-old is next to me, excited to be in the front seat on this rare occasion. She’s excited about everything. She has no idea that I’m dying, right here beside her. Pushing down feelings, swallowing lumps and afraid to blink…ever again .

    Oh no, the lump is growing. I hope I can keep it hidden from her, from everyone.This week. I dread it every year. But I didn’t expect this. I had no intention of driving by this building today, or ever if possible. The only thing that could make this moment worse is if that damn Christina Perri song, A Thousand Years, started playing like it did in those wee hours of the morning 3 years ago as we drove in deafening silence to the hospital to have our baby removed from my body, extracted from our existence. I hate that fucking song now.

    But I’m here now. Headed for the dentist office to inquire about a little girl’s purple tooth when all I want to do is go home and cry until all the tears are gone. But they’ll never be gone because they replenish anew, whenever they are needed.

    All I want to do is cry. I feel small and overwhelmed and utterly alone. I do talk to the Big Guy when I feel these small hurts getting too big for me to keep inside. He tries to empathize but the truth is even though we both lost something that day, I am the one who lost a physical part of myself. I am the one whose body failed. I am the one who had the extraction. I am the one who can never forgive myself.

    The truth is 3 years later, he knows that this day is hard especially for me but it doesn’t effect him in the same way it does me and that makes me reluctant to talk to him or anyone about it. I feel like I have to whisper it so that the words are out but no one hears because if they do, I’ll get the look you give a child whose dog died and they want to talk about it…again. You feel pity and sadness for their pain but inside you only wish they’d stop bringing it up because it makes  you uncomfortable.

    The hardest part aside from feeling so alone in all of this is that while today is the day I grieve, tomorrow is my daughter’s first communion and the next is my husband’s 40th birthday. All I want to do is crawl into bed and stay still, shut the world out but instead I have to push my feelings down, put on a smile and entertain all weekend. I have to be happy for the people I love the most, the day after I feel sad for the one I lost.

  • I Never Wanted to be this Person

    I Never Wanted to be this Person

    I swore that I wouldn’t be this person. The woman who lost a child and then feels like she gets kicked in the gut every time someone she knows announces their pregnancy. Fuck. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to suck all of the joy out of the room. I want to be happy and excited. I really do. I tell myself that I am and then it hits me like a sledgehammer, right in the heart. A painful reminder of what I can’t have, of what I’m too afraid to ever let myself want again, of what I will never get to experience again because I won’t. I can’t. I am too afraid to go through that pain again. Once almost killed me. It changed me. I don’t know if I can handle another shift like that. I might become unrecognizable, even to myself.

    I remember that morning at the hospital, seeing a small child, not even a year old, sitting with her parents in the waiting room; waiting to be called back for her surgery. I remember sitting there, with my silent womb, not a stirring, thinking to myself, I am glad I am not them because there is nothing worse than having a sick baby and feeling helpless. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe it does to someone who has been through it or maybe the pain was just too much and I had to detach myself from what was happening to me.

    I saw that same little girl where they were prepping us for surgery and I was again overwhelmed with gratitude that I was not sitting there as the parent of a child who was sick. I looked at my husband and I said (out loud), “It could be worse, we could be here with one of our girls who was sick.” He looked at me sort of bewildered. I guess he thought I was crazy because our baby was as sick as a baby could get, our baby no longer had a heartbeat. But I was grateful that I could not hold my baby, see its eyes looking to me to save it, it’s cry begging me for relief; it was not tangible.  My baby was a promise that had been broken before I ever had the chance to fully appreciate it. In the first days, I wanted nothing more than to have had the chance to hold my baby but now, I know that if I had, the pain of the loss might have killed me on the spot.

    But now, that broken promise haunts me. I can’t stop it from infiltrating my thoughts. I can’t stop being this fucking person who feels empty and a little bitter. I’m pissed. I fucking want to punch somebody. I’m jealous of other people’s happiness and I don’t want to be that person. I want to be able to genuinely feel happy without the happiness carrying with it a tinge of pain. I’m afraid to be around my friends who are pregnant because I’m afraid I will spontaneously burst into tears and ruin their happiness. Every first of the month, I mark the day that my baby died. It coincides with my period just to remind me that my womb is in fact empty.

    I know this sounds morbid and maybe a little crazy but I am so sick of pretending that it never happened. I’m so sick of pretending that I am all right. I’m not. All. Right. I am all-wrong and I am afraid that I will not find my way back to my normal that I so badly crave. I am slowly beginning to live but there is this damn underlying anger that I can’t shake. How does one shake the anger caused by a promise that can never be fulfilled? How do you fix a problem with no solution?

  • The Call

    Tonight, I received a phone call. It was one of those awkward phone calls that you know in your heart will someday come but you hope that it won’t. It actually came twice. The first time it came, I let it go straight to voice mail.The person calling? My aunt, well one of my aunts. Without telling you my entire life story, because seriously it’s about a book worth full of drama, I’ve spoken to this woman twice in the past 30 years and I have not seen her once since I was 7.

    I knew that she had flown to Mexico and brought my ailing, albeit estranged, Grandmother “Abuela” back to the states with her. I know this sounds terribly cold and removed to a person from the outside but let’s just say adults made choices and we were children. She removed herself from my father’s childrens lives.I have seen her once since I was 12..that was wen she showed up like a ghost, unannounced at my baby shower when I was pregnant with my first.Saying that we are not close is an understatement. We are blood. That is where the bond ends.

    My Grandmother wasn’t at my graduation. She never called. She never wrote to explain her absence. She made no apologies. Apologies are not her style. She is a very stoic, closed off person…or she was when I knew her.  She never attended my wedding. There was no congratulations extended when my children were born.The fact that she was at my baby shower was a complete fluke. She was in the country, my aunt was coming and she brought my Grandmother along with her as a hostage. There was no gift.There was no matronly advice from my abuela who had birthed 9 children of her own. Just awkward silence and a very strange out of place grin.

    There has always been a tension between my Grandmother and anyone who dared to challenge her way.By challenging, I mean not relinquishing all rhyme and reason to cater to her every whim and want.

    Tonight, the call was to tell me that this woman who I hardly know; who birthed my father and hardly knew me..barely wanted to know me, unless it was for a purpose beneficial to her; the woman who is responsible for the existence of my father in the world, the woman who should mean everything to me but means less than most of my casual acquaintances,is in the hospital and most likely dying of cancer.

    My heart broke but not for the reason that you might imagine. My father is in Mexico, he was there with her before she got sick and had her surgery a couple months ago. He was finally re-establishing a mother -son relationship with his mother. The woman I have become accustomed to him referring to as that woman or my mother, in the past couple months he has started to refer to her as my Mama. The difference is subtle but the implication is great.

    They have been estranged for almost 25 years.As a mother, I know this must have weighed heavily on her heart over the years and I’ve seen first hand how difficult it has been on my father to not have his mother in his life. I can’t imagine there being anything that my child could ever say or do that would make me stay away for so many years. But then again, she left.

    Here I sit tonight with the weight of my father’s world resting squarely on my shoulders. You see I have been presented with the task of locating my father in Mexico, and giving him the news of her illness and probable impending death. I am sad that she is hospitalized and in pain. I would feel this way for any human being but mostly I am sad for my father who after just getting his Mama back in his life, may be losing her..forever. This is the call that I NEVER wanted to make. I never wanted to be the one to break my father’s heart and give him the news that he may be again losing his Mama.

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