Mama

"Mama, you taught me to do the right things
So now you have to let your baby fly...

Mama, there's no way you'll ever lose me
And giving me away is not goodbye”

—“Mama,” Carrie Underwood

Dear Thi,

Today is May 13, 2018. Today is the day you were supposed to have joined us earthside, your official due date, but I have laid you in the ground for four-and-a-half months. Today I live through a very different sort of Mother’s Day. I have dreaded this day since finding out that you were gone. Every mother remembers the ones she lost, and you, my special girl, punctuate this ironic twist of a holiday with your due date.

Daycare crafty gifts from Luc, and flowers from a friend to commemorate Thi

You can’t imagine the sights and memories that bombard me in the weeks that passed. How I see your name belonging to different, living women and think of you. How my throat lumps up when I see little girls teetering around at the park in summer dresses, making me think of what you could have grown up to be like. How my stomach would knot when I realize your big brother is starting to understand, telling me, “Baby gone” when he touches my stomach, or, “Little sister sleeping” when we walk past a serene garden of boulders that remind him of your gravesite.

These days, I distract myself from the pain. I feel too much, followed by the numbness of nothing. I keep busy, but I also catch myself staring into space. I remember to savor the taste of my favorite foods, and then I have no appetite. I sleep entirely too much, or I’d be wide awake in the dead of the night, anxiety causing my heart to pound as my thoughts flutter back to the night of your birth, contractions tightening my body, the awful knowledge that you would soon be expelled from me, already dead. I ride the ups and downs of life, the very gift that was so suddenly ripped from you.

Today, I once again think about what this holiday means to different people. The children of mothers. The mothers with children. Those who yearn to be mothers, like once upon a time when I struggled against a childless fate. And then your brother Luc came into my life and made me a mommy. For that, I’ll always be grateful. I plunged headlong into this role, and I would not give it up for anything.

I live in a duality of worlds; I strive to be present for the living, but often, my thoughts stray to the dead.

Mother's Day Dinner at Strait's

For the past 2.5 years, I learned how to be a mother to a child. But now I also know what it is like to be a mother without one.

We left fresh roses at your gravesite today to honor you