NYE

This is the day I have dreaded all year, the new year countdown.  This time last year we were arranging for our two older children and close family to come to the hospital and meet Freddie before his breathing equipment was removed.  At noon everyone said their goodbyes and left Simon and I to hold our youngest close while he slipped away... only he didn't... not straight away like we thought. My CT scan was postponed (I remember point blank refusing to move - as if you'd forfeit any second with your child!), we sang songs and took videos and I think we probably convinced ourselves that he might even stay - despite his lack of vitals.  So at 11:50pm when Simon left the room to call his brother, it was a huge shock when he decided it was time to go.  Simon arrived back just as Freddie took his last breath, just before midnight and I remember the registrar coming in to confirm his death as fireworks went off and people in the corridors sang Auld Lang Syne.  A part of me remains convinced he meant it this way, a lesson or gift, making the old year firmly his own... I don't know.

His birthday passed by peacefully, brilliantly and positively a few days ago - it felt wonderful to have a day all about him and I've since wondered why it was so much easier than I expected. Some of it is possibly because I have no memory connected with his birth, I wasn't conscious. I didn't get to see or hold him for well over a day so perhaps this disconnection has made his actual day almost blissfully ignorant for me; if that makes sense.  I remember the events leading up to arriving in hospital but there is no sharp focus memory of his arrival.  Unlike today.  This day last year I remember it all, so I've been thinking all year that I wouldn't survive the celebrations going on around me this evening, that I would have to go to bed with ear plugs (for ever more). 

However, I'm lying here thinking about death and renewal, and whether that's the crux of the new year, not leaving anything behind as such, but a bow and a curtsey to the old year and a look towards the new with a view to new opportunities and growth.  This thought has made me smile because I feel it's another lesson from Freddie.  I don't need to have a wine in hand and a big old knees up, or see the new year in with a drunken kiss, because this New Year is about contemplation and new beginnings.  2016 will bring me a little sister for Freddie - whatever happens she exists, her heart beats and I feel her tiny feet in my tummy. It is so difficult to outwardly acknowledge her for fear of tempting in the title of "that poor woman who lost two children".  I guess it won't be OK until it's " OK".   But still, she exists within me, she is not Freddie, she is she, my gift from Freddie. I am enrolling in pottery classes and I hope that I can find a way to start learning reflexology and ultimately work for myself. Freddie has brought me so much already - a deeper understanding of myself and a need to rediscover my creativity. 

I suppose what I'm trying and failing to say, is that when the clock strikes midnight tonight, I want to acknowledge that and not hide away.  I want to say thank you to my boy for bringing so much love and wisdom to my life, and I want to thank him for the opportunity of another year to live life for the two of us.  This may be blind optimism of course, it's so difficult but I'm trying.  In some ways the New Year is an hourglass reset, it is the green light to put away the things you don't want to carry with you any more. Guilt, anger, isolation.   It is permission to discover new paths.  All of these are more than possible whilst still carrying those you love.