Recurrent dreams

On a wharf somewhere there are ships that come and go laden with cargo. They are freshly painted in stark white with silver or red details. The sky is high and blue and the sun shines indulgently on the green water, causing sparks of light to pop in the waves. The machines loading cargo whir and creak piling royal blue metal crates atop each other. I watch all this for moments. Then a ship steams off into the electric water and I long to go wherever it is going.  I imagine far away ports with exotic people and beautiful skylines. 

In the deep pit of my stomach an aching starts. This is when my heart begins to race. I am suddenly with others, 3 girls, whom I know somehow in dream world but not in life. I have a secret that eats at me that I want to tell but they chatter so I wait and the darkness in my stomach spreads out to my fingertips. They stop for a second and I interject.  

"I've killed a baby."  It is said matter-of-factly though my soul screams the lie of apathy out of my eyes. 

They look at me without awe or shock or derision.  

"I've killed it," I say. 

"Well good," they say, "it was evil and hurting you. Why would you keep it?"  They were just as matter-of-fact. They didn't care I killed a baby. No one cared. They resumed their chatter, discussing changing their names and moving away. I suggested, with a strangled longing voice, changing my own to Clarissa. They told me I couldn't change mine. They weren't catty about it, but certain, as though it was common knowledge.  I couldn't run away, I couldn't change my name and no one cared if I killed a baby. The world was turning round, the cargo still shipped out, and I was still me, here, with blood on my hands, and no one cared. I woke up crying. 

Days later I slept again. This time there was a visitor, a doctor, or nurse perhaps, someone bringing news of my health. I saw them coming and hurried inside. Up steps with endless black drop-offs on either side, I raced. They were heading for apartment three. I could see them through the darkness like they were in a ghastly spotlight. People came and went somehow concerning me, but unconcerned for me. I raced for apartment five, knowing somehow, or maybe hoping, that they wouldn't find me there; they expected me at apartment 3.  My heart raced with each frantic, hurried step up the stairs. Just as I closed the door to apartment five my eyes made contact with the doctor's as he (or maybe she) stepped up to the green trimmed door of number 3. Did they recognize me?!  And I stepped back with heart racing into the darkness of number 5. 

My eyes open on my bedroom, but the room around me is foreign, and unfamiliar. The only thing that holds me at peace is Derek, as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him. If not for him I'd not be able to breathe.

In the last 2 weeks I've had the dreams twice each. They must mean something. Though they aren't exactly nightmares they disturb me. 

Searching for the strength

The rain is falling softly, soaking.  The air is so saturated with water that you could nearly drown from breathing in. Summer is coming again. I have yet to see a butterfly that isn't the white clouded butterfly, which is okay, I guess, because, though if she could she'd come to me as the blue morpho, they only survive in the rainforest. I wish I could go there, to the rainforest, and sit among them as they swirl and play, or fly above the trees and see the clouds of blue butterflies settle in the treetops like they say they do, to warm their bodies in the sun. But around here, she is the white clouded butterfly. However, though summer may be coming, May and June have not been warm enough, so there aren't so many, not enough for me.  

D and I talk about trying for our rainbow baby. This topic is.... Hard.  The idea... Painful. Sad. Anxiety ridden to exhaustion. How does one go on and try again after holding, hugging, and loving a dead baby? That is what is in my head when I think about being pregnant again. I think of those words, "no I'm sorry" in response to my question of her welfare. I think about feeling so lost, looking at and kissing the forehead of a beautiful dead baby. Many people can say in their whole life that they never even touched someone who who has begun to grow cold. I birthed one. I'd give up almost anything to hold her again. How can I think about holding a living baby, in a hospital, after holding Gabbie?  And yet.... How can I not?  Oh the risk. Oh the reward. Are you a gambler?  Because that what this is. 50/50. Or maybe my odds are 1 in 3?  Does it matter? 

Now I am not naive. And any pregnancy will never be as joyful or full of promise as it once was. So, I went off birth control. I went off my antidepressants. (Cold turkey by the way. I know, I know don't scold. It's too late I'm already off them.)  And we wait. Not trying per sae. But not preventing either. I cannot cower in fear, though God knows I'm terrified of birthing another angel. If it happens, well, then all I can say is I have no control over anything. Somehow I I have to be okay with the idea that may I wake up one day and another will be gone. Inner strength is hard to come by. I wonder if I have it.  

No silent tears...

What causes a person to reach out to help another, when they themselves are sad?   I see the pain in the people who post on my page and I hurt for them.  I seriously wish that I could take hurt from so many so that they don't have to feel that kind of pain.  No one, not a single soul should have to feel the pain of losing a child.  If you have not experienced it, there really are no words to explain.  How have women (and men) who've had such losses, not spoken up about it all before?  Why do they remain silent? 

I cannot remain silent.  There is no word for a parent who has lost a child in the English language, because no one wants to talk about it.  But Gabbie was born.  She lived within me.  There were already dreams for her, and love for her.  I love her still, I always will.  How can I not talk about her, and think about her and cry about her?  The pain of holding a loved one who has passed is very real and deep.  Crying over their coffin at a funeral, holding their cool hand and weeping, these are things that never leave our memory of touch.  Imagine doing the same with a child: a small, tiny little face whose eyes will never open.  Holding a still baby, is like holding a lifetime of love that will never be given.  That love becomes so heavy to carry until we become accustomed to its weight. Perhaps when we cry it is to make room for the love that we still have inside, that will never be allowed to show.  So for babies, and children, it only makes sense that we might cry harder, and longer, forever.  I read somewhere that mothers keep a part of the DNA of their child within them forever.  If that is so, then physically she will always be with me.  I have come to accept that she is always with me regardless.  I know that she is there, though I always look for her.  I hope I'll never stop seeing signs. 

I know I ramble.  It is late and I am tired.  But I miss her.  So terribly.  It has been a year and a month plus.  Someday maybe I will learn to dance in the rain, but for now, I still walk in it because it covers up the tears....