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.

Freddie's 1st Birthday poem

This year we have gazed so many times upon your face
Studied your slumbering philtrum
In which you carry your Daddy's genes
Your peachy skin and clenched up fists
We've studied you so very well that
You are imprinted behind our sad eyes.
I've carried you within me for a double gestation
And kept you alive within my soul
On my ascent each night I walk past you
And every time ache for the yesterday and tomorrow missing within us.
I swam furiously until I realised
I wasn't going to drown
And you took me to another place where you gently made me submit to your absence
I finally found some peace in our deepest grief and gave up struggling to mend..
For whatever I do my heart always wakes up full for you, despite the journey of before.
And when I light a candle for your big day
I will hold you close
And tell you that you have taught me my true self
Imperfect, sad,  happy, self centred but full of endless love, newfound patience and acceptance.
My heart is fractured for the loss of all the times I haven't got to teach you things too.
The pots and pans and wooden spoon you never got to bang,
The mushy rusk you didn't throw on the floor
And the first tooth I didn't go sleep starved over.
Your firsts have been my firsts
We have to create our own unique future.
#FJB

Tis The Season To Be Jolly Grieving

So here we are.... December.  The question that keeps entering my mind is "how is it possible to survive a year without my child?".  It obviously is possible because we've nearly done it - another three weeks and Freddie hasn't been with us for a whole year.  A first birthday without presents or a party, without kisses and cuddles and wows at his latest achievements.  A visit to his grave and a look at his beautiful face in our few photos.  The little face which never grew big enough to smile and laugh.

I can't even sum up this year, in part because it isn't over - because I have his first Christmas without him coming up.  And because I know that hearing a joyeous rendition of Auld Lang Syne will be like my life ended all over again.  How on earth I will live the rest of my life having to endure the memory of life leaving his body as people began to sing that.. well I don't know.. we survive.   The one thing I have come to accept this year is that I AM brave.  I have picked myself up and endevoured to give Sam and Tilda the best I've got.  For Freddie.  For them.  For Simon.   Sometimes I wonder how I do it,  I wonder if I'm fake, or dysfunctional because I don't wail into a pillow every day.  I wonder how I manage to keep going when people ask me how the baby is or when people who I expected more from miss Freddie out of the equation.  I wonder how I stay sane when people look at my bump and ask me lots of questions that no longer seem safe, relevent or polite.  They are presumptious, naive but at worst well meaning.   When are you due?  How many children do you have? (me: "four" them: "wow you're brave, bet that's a handful") or when people know what happened to Freddie and tell me that things will be fine this time - amazing how psychic people become when they don't know what else to say...

But back to Christmas and New Year;  I am driven by the need for my children to know their brother and remember him, but to also never feel that his death has disadvantaged them.  I don't want them to be burdeoned by an eternally grieving mother; to be sat in therapy in ten years time saying how their mother was essentially emotionally void and vacant post their baby brother's death.   I want them to be able to speak without fear or shame but with conviction that life goes on and they have been happy and nutured and loved despite this tragedy.  So this Christmas and New Year, as much as I want to run and hide is going to be met face on.  The tree is up and Freddie's bauble and angel sit on it.  I grieve terribly for the boy who didn't get my promise of a lifetime together and didn't get to be so completely loved and doted on.   I will cry often and sometimes Tilda and Sam may ask what's wrong.... but really they know... and that's ok.  It's ok to miss him, all together.  It's ok to acknowledge the insanity of him not being with us for a whole year, it's ok for us to collectively mourn the empty space as we open our presents on Christmas morning.  But it is doubly ok for us to carry on loving and laughing during this time, in fact more so.  Freddie existed because of our bond, he was wanted by us all, and our strength together during this difficult season will keep his memory safe and warm.