dead children

it's been so long that i almost forgot my sign-in. seriously, i sat here and mentally tried different words until i remembered. it describes the best state i could've hoped to achieve with a dead baby.

FaithlessSerene.


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my 50 year old cousin died suddenly the week before christmas. i hadn't seen her for about a decade, except for the girls' night i went to in october. i've been trying to be diligent in seeing family that i love but never see, and a bunch of us cousins decided to have a girls' night every couple of months. i've reunited with a lot of family since paige died, and i credit her for teaching me that getting together is a priority. does anything else really matter as much?

when i learned of her death, the first thing i though was, THANK GOD I JUST SAW HER. we had a really, really good time together, all of us.

i feel so alone sometimes, yet i have so much family that loves me...that i love. i was wandering along through life, busy in my bullshit, and then, before i had the chance to appreciate her, my baby died. what a fucked way to learn that lesson.

my grandmother's family is really huge; she's the oldest of about 13 children. i have A LOT of cousins. in the past, i wouldn't have really even considered going to the funeral. although i've always loved that side of the family, i rarely saw most of them. i didn't really grow up seeing them, as my mother is (among other things) pretty anti-social. it's a huge deal (for me) that i've been connecting with them; i never in a million years thought i would be this grateful for my efforts this soon. i'm also grateful when i have something to thank paige for.

the cemetery was freezing cold and windy. we were all huddled under the tent at the graveside. the priest said a few words, and the time came for my aunt to lay her rose on the casket. she started saying, "no, no, NO...NO!!!" and ran off screaming across the cemetery. her other daughter ran off after her. we all stood there, everyone looking, watching my aunt run and scream and cry...everyone looking around at each other. it was at that point that it hit me. i cried for the first time in six months, maybe more. and why? because all i could think at that moment was, "THEY ALL THINK THIS IS THE WORST OF IT; THIS IS THE BEST PART."

another cousin came over to me and held me. she was watching me, watching out for me. she told me she had been thinking of me and thinking about how hard it was going to be for me, having lost a child. i kinda thought, "HUH?" but it passed.

i told her why i was crying, i told her that everyone thinks that putting her daughter in the ground is the worst part. i told her that everyone thinks that once you put your child in the dirt that it's over. i told her that it was the best part; i told her that being able to feel death in your flesh was the best part. i told her that living is the worst part, living with that emptiness, living with the questioning every goddamn thing and not being able to feel shit. living without that person is the worst part.

it was after the cemetery when everyone gathered that i got to see my aunt and give my condolences. my heart was breaking for her (and still is). after we hugged, she said, "YOU know," and pointed to my belly.

my aunt compared losing her fifty year old daughter to my losing a baby who never took a breath.

isn't this what we all want? isn't it what we all say? that losing a child is losing a child, but most people think less of babies that never lived? that we dead baby moms are lost, stuck in a world in-between??

two different women that day acknowledged that i lost MY CHILD. they remembered almost two years later that i was a mother whose child died. they thought that my stillborn baby was comparable to losing an adult child.

i thought throughout the day that my aunt and cousin will never realize what they did for me. they will never realize the years of grief that they validated.

for days after that, i was more confused and upset than ever. i didn't know why. the reason, as it turned out, was shocking to me...IS shocking to me.

i don't believe they're right.

i don't believe i wouldn't be MORE upset about one of my other children dying.

(i don't WANT to believe i actually lost a REAL child.)


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i learned that the day my cousin died, my aunt was over her house. my cousin was quietly saying, "mami, i don't feel well...i don't feel good..." and my aunt assumed that she'd been abusing her pain medication. she argued with her about it. my aunt made her eat soup without help, despite spilled soup all over her. she let her stumble and fall on her way to the bathroom. you know, tough love.

soon my cousin became very pale and almost unresponsive and they called an ambulance. she died of a pulmonary embolism shortly after getting to the hospital.

my aunt blames herself for letting her daughter die. she could have called the ambulance sooner! she could have done...she would have done...! surely SOMETHING could have made a DIFFERENCE!

my aunt suffers with her last memories with her daughter. instead of holding her, taking care of her, comforting her, she argued with her and left her alone.

these things, i acknowledge, ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.

the self-blame and the guilt are the same.


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i don't want to do this anymore. i'm tired. i'm fucking TIRED, goddamn it.