The Long Goodbye

Yesterday was a typical beautiful Naples day: a good breeze, strong sun, temperatures struggling to get above 75. My house is beautifully clean, which only happened because my mom and niece visited on Tuesday, and my garden is starting to take shape. There's food in my fridge, gas in the car, more than plenty Christmas presents under the tree. 

Here's our pretty church...where I cried my eyes out last night.

But the whole day felt like I was in a horrible haze, and from where I stand now, yesterday looks like just a bad dream. I have had to work very hard to convince myself that I was really pregnant: he was alive. Today I woke up and just wanted to believe, no, it never happened - I'm not grieving because no one died, we're still the carefree newlyweds, no great sorrow has touched our hearts. It's unfortunately only too easy to do - this is the busy season for my husband's work, since he works for our parish. He's immersed in work, bless him, and I'm just trying to figure out where to go from here. 

Tom's darling nephew, last Christmas. I thought this would be the gift we were receiving this year, just a bit smaller of course...

My doctor was so kind, so compassionate and apologetic. I could tell he kept expecting me to cry, to break down - but I just nodded and asked a few questions. I am not willing to share my grief; when I told my mom, I was still steeling myself. My dear Denise started to cry, especially because today is the one year anniversary of her father's death, but I couldn't. I possess a wickedly strong desire to protect my grief from any other eyes: it feels so private and small, just like his life was. It has been hard for me to share my grief with Tom: this part of myself is so new to me I don't even know how to offer it to him. 

I'm disappointed in myself. We spent three days not celebrating my pregnancy, but questioning whether I really was pregnant - too nervous to believe the three pregnancy tests that all said I was. We could have spent those sacred hours rejoicing, dreaming - but we didn't. We held our breath, we held back our joy, we were cautious. Why? Why was I so cautious to love my child, and rejoice at the blessing that I had begged for? Even now my fingers are itching to hit the backspace button - I don't want to type "my child," I feel that's lying, I don't want to believe I was pregnant. 

After reading the chapter on miscarriage in the Kimberly Hahn book, "Life Giving Love," Tom thinks we should name the baby. I reluctantly agreed. Isn't it horrible? Isn't it so horrible that I thought, 'I don't want to give the baby one of my favorite names - I want to use those for my children that will be here, so I'll get to say it over and over again.' In his desire to give me enough latitude to grieve, my darling husband has given me the responsibility to name the baby. I chose Frances, because that could work for a boy or a girl. I wish we could have name him together, though; he wasn't just my baby, was he? It wasn't just in my head?

Really great book, by the by. I got it at Good Will for 99 cents! Thank you, Jesus.

I pray that I will come to the point of believing we had a child. Right now I feel like a crazy person in a hologram sanatorium: I am wandering around looking for help, but everything I touch is an illusion. I thought this would ground me in reality, but instead, reality has changed so much I cannot even recognize it.