Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral, finally I have this rose again. It's a little tender here, and won't survive a harsh winter like this last one, but with care I've had one survive and thrive for a few years. The fragrance is divine and is already gracing our front walk with a rose scented welcome. I've planted it (er, Rohan planted it - he's done all the hard work with me either to nauseated or tired to be useful..,)  in Finn's garden, near the front door to have a little love from my mother - both my parents, in fact, there with him.

When I first planted this rose years ago in my first garden, my mother let out a little squeal at the name and proceeded to tell me about the real Winchester Cathedral, and the romantic time she spent there with my father. All architectural and historical, of course, and her knowledge was vast. I wish I could remember better what she said.

26 July 2014

27 July 2014

I tweeted the photo of Sunday's bloom, which was favourited by the Cathedral - which made my morning. My mother would think that's pretty neat. 

on Bowman Island

Finn's name
on the shore of Lake Superior and the Nipigon River
19 July 2014

The weekend Rohan and I ran away to Lutsen ...

on our way to dinner

I had no idea how important it would be, there was no plan - we had decided the night before, after weeks of tension and sadness, and booked our room on a whim. I've never even been down the road to the Lutsen Resort, I've only ever gone up the road to the ski hills. When we arrived I was certain I was in paradise.

The beginning of May is always going to be difficult, it will always remind me of loss. Every May from now until forever I am going to run away to this place, because what I found there was more healing than I could have ever imagined.

where the Poplar River
meets Lake Superior
and the Lutsen Resort beach

Back in our room Rohan slept.., he slept when we arrived, was early to bed, late to rise..., slept most of the next day after our hike; it was probably the first time since we lost Finn that he really slept. At home he's too busy distracting himself, fighting the sadness, and nearly killing himself in the process. He's worn out, skinny, and consumed by a very private grief. I hate seeing what it's doing to him. I didn't realise until we were there in paradise that maybe he needed this even more than I did.

If there was ever a time we needed help, a little hope, anything ... this was it. We're beat. Grief for our child is so much more powerful than us.

Our one full day away was reserved for a river walk along the Cascade River. Of all the trails in the area we could have chose, we found the one with protected White Pines, and for the first time in years I felt my father. Some might think that sounds ridiculous, but I don't.. I truly believe the people we lose stay with us. I used to sense my father around Hannah's crib - nowhere else, just at the foot of her crib. I can't explain the feeling, it's peaceful, and just ..there.. I felt him that day in the forest. As if he read my post from the week before missing our walks along the Current River counting the White Pines along the way. For the first time since we lost Finn I felt peaceful...the churning stopped - briefly, but it stopped. I didn't feel as weighted and the tightness in my chest released..., just enough.

While Rohan carefully chose subjects for his photos, I ran around the forest like a kid in a candy store grabbing shots of every step along the way. I tried a few times to get a full circle perspective of my camera on the ground, waterfall before me, and trees towering over, but it didn't really work. The sun kept hiding behind clouds and no matter how long I held my breath and waited it still screwed up the exposure - and of course my panos were wonky because I haven't mastered that down/up thing yet.
I have mastered the foot selfie. I'm not a selfie headshot kind of person. I prefer my face behind the lens, but my feet - they show where I'm standing, and to me that's all that matters.

although I didn't know it at the time
this is the first foot and "belly shot"
of my pregnancy
with Hannah and Finn's
new baby brother or sister

I photographed my feet in the forest, in Lake Superior, on the wood floors of the resort, and in the best bathtub I've ever floated in. I watched the moon rise and listened to the waves slosh up against the shore below our cabin. I felt calm, and I think Rohan did too (all the sleeping helped..) ..and maybe that's what was needed for a miracle. I was already pregnant - just, ...this baby started growing in peace among the giant pines and on the shore. This baby was with me when I wrote Finn's name with rocks.

We have a long way to go together, but with all this powerful energy brought to me on this trip I have faith in a way I'm sure wouldn't be had we not run away. With new visualisations for meditation, and the memories of this beautiful place now charged with new meaning it will always be a very special paradise.

Thanks Dad.

delicate blue stars shining

As shrubs are one by one removed from Finn's garden, making way for planting for him, we have appearing below his window a small cluster of Chionodoxa 'Snow Glories' or 'Glories of the Snow'. These little blue stars were already among the bulbs I've ordered, and will always be the first blooms each spring.

eight months without you

On our way home from Lutsen, 

on the shore of Lake Superior 

I wrote his name in lake stones. 

My love and grief are so powerful

and so entwined around my heart

it takes my breath away.

I can wish for things to be different all I want, plead for this to not be our reality, for him to be returned to us..., but it will never happen. I took all his rocks home with me, not knowing exactly what I'll do with them yet..., but it's things like this that keep him close. It's all I have - create for him, grasp on to it, bring him with us wherever we go.

dear garden diary,

sunrise
10 May 2014

sunset
10 May 2014

From under our oak tree, the tree I see when I close my eyes, I've been creeping around watching things grow. Tulips are appearing, maybe some Lili of the Valley too..., not entirely sure who else. In the back - in the garden bed we're removing entirely to make way for dogs and two wind-breaking, privacy giving blue spruce - I'm finding hostas, daylilies, and maybe iris(?) but it's soon soon and cold for them to identify themselves. They'll all be relocated somewhere along the south border.

From under the oak I also find a great view of the harbour, the park, and our Wild Thing trees. As I began writing this post I was staring out the window, watching a man walk with a skip in his step across the park and as he passed the Wild Thing he tapped one tree then backtracked a bit to tap the other. Saying hello? 

Who else loves those trees as much as I do?

This is the May of April showers. The few nice days we've had have turned out backyard and shack into a garden in progress. Plants and pots everywhere, bags of planting mixes heaped on the back wall, tools leaning. It's beginning to look less like someone else's boring shrub garden and more like Amy's natural disaster. GRIN

Saturday was a good day in the midst of misery. An enormous number of plants followed us home from lunch, and I can't even be entirely blamed (Rohan is as bad as I am so long as he can eat it).

The evening that followed found me laughing hysterically with Cathy and Lori as the sun set, then sitting fireside with my best friend and best love until midnight. Warm enough to stay in flip-flops, cool enough to want to add leg-warmers to my ensemble.

What all this time outdoors has taught me is that wind may be a bigger problem than I had anticipated. It can be wild. When it dies down the air here is fresh, it has never felt settled - there are just too many places for it to swirl around, over and through. I'll have to make sure everybody has a buddy, a plant to lean on, you know. 

I spent today planting in a cold wind and a bit of drizzle a few feet from the fire pit:

russian sage 'peek-a-boo blue'

virginia bluebells

scabiosa 'butterfly blue

carpet phlox 'sapphire blue'

aster 'wonder of staffa' (blue)

clematis 'sea breeze (blue)

liatris 'purple blazing star'

lilac 'beauty of moscow'

echinacea 'emotion bright orange' and 'marmalade'

agapanthus 'blue globe'

achillea millefollium - yarrow 'red beauty'

anchusa azurea 'dropmore'

anemone hupehensis 'praecox'

lilium 'strawberry vanilla'

The pot of enormous size that lives in the corner of the patio was there when we bought the house, and I'm undecided about leaving it there. For now, for lack of a better idea it will stay (and because it's too damn heavy for anyone to move..). I've seeded a bunch of gourds and miniature pumpkins that should be strong enough to climb from the pot over the obelisk, and maybe strong enough to withstand the wind. We shall see.... 

a river to drown in, a forest for faith

I'm an atheist. Science has always made more sense. Religion just has better stories.

My father showed me heaven when we would walk through the woods along the Current River to Wishart in the morning. He and I watched a lot of sunrises through our living room window, which reminds me a lot of the living room window I watch the sunrise through now. Then, it would rise over the hill on the other side of the river which ran though the valley below. We would admire the white pines' silhouettes on the crest of the hill..., until developers on the other side crossed the property line and one by one the white pines disappeared.

That was probably the beginning of my interest in urban forestry, 

forestry, 

and what it means to destroy 

something that can't be replaced.

I loved those trees, my Dad loved those trees. He grew up in Utrecht, Netherlands during World War II; he starved, he watched his family starve, he witnessed death daily and destruction like none of us could ever really imagine. When he moved to Canada and could afford a home of his own he only wanted space, with trees and nature at every horizon. I really understand this need now.

Wishart Conservation Forest, which was adjacent to my parents' property along the Current River, was my playground. I used to count the white pines on the other side of the river on my way home like beacons. I was young, fearless and free; I could never get lost; the road was always in one direction, the river ran parallel, with Wishart on one end (with a crossing road), and North Branch Road on the other. Acres of trees, a rushing river (in those days), and all the forest animals were all I knew.

It would be a scene out of Snow White, if I believed in fairy tales. 

I tried to talk to a porcupine once who ran up a tree (in fear I realise now) 

but at the time 

I was just curious and friendly, 

like our dog, Zelda, who regularly came home with a mouthful of quills.

If there is heaven on earth, I think it's in a forest. The 30x30Challenge has been good for me, for this healing process..., especially now - in May when triggers find me too easily, 

they're so many and I'm just me. 

I do believe it's possible to still find half an hour of nature
 - even if it's only in my head.
Today I'm on the floor of Wishart surrounded by the smell of pines and moss.

It's no secret yesterday was hard. It was bad. My birthday reminds me of my mother, and her death last year, and how she would make some mention every year on my birthday about the great sense of loss felt this time of year. It made her feel bad.
Last year on my birthday the only nurse I didn't like insisted on singing happy birthday to me over her bed. I cried the whole time, wishing her to stop, seeing a look in my mother's eyes I still recognised. She didn't want to die on my birthday; she knew I'm sure..., I wonder how hard she fought to not die on that day.
My mother died two days later, on May 8th at sunrise.

I've wondered since the day after my fourteenth birthday - the day my mother's mother died, how my mom felt, how she went on with my day without letting on a thing, ....just learning of her mother's death. Helpless, confused, so so sad.... ?
She told me on the 6th, in the morning in the dark sitting on the edge of my bed. She had been crying, but stayed composed talking to me, letting me know.

My father died unexpectedly (but prepared for) two weeks to the day after my twenty-fifth birthday. A proud new Opa and ready to leap into the world of retirement and world travel, death took him before he even had a chance to breathe it in. From that day on the smell of spring has made me think of losing something huge - the irony, the Dutch in me, the tulips that bloom, the ones I'm about to plant..., yet spring still smells like death.

I wonder..., what will Finn's death to to my love of autumn? Will the coloured leaves always remind me of losing him? Or, will they remind me that he lived through my few favourite days in the year of all, the best - I've said it for years - September 30th is the best day of the year. The weeks before and after are great, peaking always around the 30th. I hope Finn keeps that fire alive in those weeks, when I'll look for him in leaves and find him in the painted foliage.

I received a lot of beautiful and thoughtful messages yesterday (some I still have to respond to); people who remember my mother's death, what the day last year meant, and what it obviously means now. Surprisingly, others had no idea what to say or do.
Heavily on my mind was (is) my mother. We went through a lot last year, fighting for a dignified death in a system of errors and swayed judgement. Keeping me going was Finn moving around inside me. I didn't have to worry about him because from the moment he could he let me know he was with me - always.

That's the difference. It's the difference between me and Rohan, me and anyone else who knows and loves Finn. I'm the only one who shared blood with Finn; he was inside only me - in more ways than physical. Last year at this time, while I said good bye to my mom for the last time, Finn was moving regularly letting me know he was there, bringing me peace.

Triggers, they're everywhere. In every tree from here to Duluth, from Family Day weekend to the day we drove home with the Outback with a back "big enough for three dogs and a stroller," every bit of it reminds me of being pregnant last year, the growth spurt he went through in May, my daily protruding belly, holding him and my mother's hand s she died that morning, being along with him on the balcony in Duluth a few weeks later as H and R slept in our hotel on Lake Superior.
A couple moths later we drove back and forth again, ...every time stopping at our favourite pizza place in Grand Marais.

I guess that was the plan for Sunday - drive to the border, get what R needs to pick up from Ryden's, go on to Grand Marais, enjoy the ride, take some photos, have lunch, drive home...

I subtly tried to talk them out of the pizza place the night before by noting that Hannah has never actually eaten at Sven and Ole's (not my favourite pizza place in Grand Marais, but obviously worth a visit). 

I'm not sure what happened, but the closer we got to Grand Marais, the more anxiety I felt. Finn and my mother are there in so many ways. Lunches with my mother and an infant Hannah, Shakespeare festivals with my mother and a toddler Hannah. Finn's dragonflies, the shops downtown where I bought some of his first things the first weekend we were "openly pregnant."

It was awful, my chest caved in. I didn't want to get out of the car. Again I had to resort to concentrating on breathing, like Sarah and Robin teach me to, go somewhere else..., I can't breathe. It's so hard to breathe.

Without lunch or leaving the car we headed home quickly and silently. 

Nobody knows what to do with me; not even my own family. Hannah, always optimistic, always compassionate, always finds a way to peace. It hovers over her. It's why I believe in her, and know she's going to be okay. I've never known anyone stronger. She's a rational thinker with artistic dreams, and I know she's going to be a change maker.
I try to stay out of her way - and Rohan's - when I feel as low as I do now. It's pretty clear I'm on my own in this. I'd rather have Hannah enjoy memories of hockey games with Rohan than watching me cry alone in a bathroom.

When she tries to become a mother herself, will she be excited, or will she be scared? Her brightness tells me (hopes) she'll use that forever optimistic sweet girl and be excited. ...But, she'll feel the grief. It's probably going to hit her hard. That's why I have to be here for her.
But, what if I'm not? What if Rohan isn't? The what ifs are a part of every thought swirling through my head every day. What if only.., what if I just did this..., what if he only did that..., What if the universe decides to throw another hard-ball at me?
Could I keep standing?

Cinco de Mayo, Day of the Dead...., that was the day I was born. For me it's not a day of margaritas and tacos (um, Canadaian Cinco de Mayo), but a day that reminds me of who's not here. I don't want a party, I just want a hug. There's a feeling of doom, like something bad is going to happen. I want to hold everyone close, but instead I have to let them go because that's what they want to do, need to do... .

I want to disappear to heaven, to a forest, where I can find the people who've left me and stop being afraid for the people who are still here. I want to walk with my Dad again in the morning along the river. I want to not wish for the day to end when I see a sunrise.

Struggling, treading water alone, drowning in tears.

i hear my tears

My tears fall with loud plops and splats. I can hear them now whether they land on the scarf around my neck or on the ground by my feet, ...I hear them. They're the biggest tears I've ever seen. Once, on our way into Hugh's office, I heard one land on the floor and looked down to see the puddle it created, somewhat amazed at my new superpower: super tears.

Most of me is miserable. I still see beauty in nature, enjoy sunrises and sets, love a pretty flower..., but I'm sad. Sometimes I think I'm the saddest person on earth. I'm pretty sure though that every other grieving parent feels the same.

I'm forty-one today. On my fourteenth birthday my mother's mother died. Last year, three days after my birthday, my mother died. Sixteen years ago my father died exactly two weeks after my birthday.

It's not a good day. It hasn't been for a long time. To me, it's the funeral season. The smell of the air, the sight of things trying to green up..., it all reminds me of loss. People have no idea what sort of anxiety this creates, and what it means to the fear of losing more.

Add the overwhelming grief for my little boy, who should be nearly eight months old right now..., it makes me physically ache.

I can imagine his baby laugh, and him crawling in the grass as I plan our garden. I can see his face clear as if he were here - aged perfectly to this time. I'd like to think of it as him still being with me in some way, but what it really does is emphasize the fact that he's not.

sweet dreams my angel Finn

spring without Finn

what's missing
of course
is my baby

window bird

sunset
18 April 2014

Good Friday

Yesterday's slushy snow storm turned to ice over nice; it was like a layer of fondant over an earth cake this morning as I left for yoga. I love it when the sky is bright blue like this - there's always a window of time in the morning and again in the afternoon when the sky is like this, best when there are some clouds I can slowly capture swirling around in it. This morning it looked as if the blue was reflecting all around, off the shimmering layer of frozen snow, and Finn's bedroom window.

my shadow
and the Wild Thing tree shadow
on the April 18 snow

It's been seven months since he was born. He'd be crawling, getting licked by dogs, sharing toys with the dogs, ...I'd have him in little knit hats found on Etsy - bunny ones I had looked at but not bought yet. I probably would have him dressed like a carrot at some point. Photographed and over-shared.

Yoga was probably never better timed; in spite of the beautiful morning I needed some extra inner peace today, maybe a little extra inner strength. Robin's understanding of anatomy and recovery is making such a difference in the on-going healing from the infection of 2009 that played havoc on my nervous system, but she's also finding and fixing areas troubled by scar tissue - related even further back to the rough recovery from surgery after my c-section with Hannah's birth. She gives me hope that I could be looking at feeling, physically, a lot better - for the rest of my life. ...Which is so important - now more than ever.

There is a huge part of me that is forever broken, 
always in need of healing, therapy, help. 
I believe I will be fragile forever, 
so I have to work a little harder at being strong, 
and control what I can. 

Yoga makes me feel in control of a body that is wanting to fall apart. As I'm gently moving my breaths around, muscles stretching and contracting according to my mind's motions, I'm able to let go ...weep, but still breathe. Being able to feel both relaxed and strong at once in a posture is the perfect balance.

at the top of the Bay Street stairs
slush, snow, ice melting
in morning sun

The other day I said to Erinn, "Sometimes I think he gave me wings." I look at photos of Finn, utterly amazed at what I grew, who I made, how brave he was... Some people live a hundred years and do very little, he lived ten days and changed the world in so many ways - for so many people. I wish he was here, but he's not..., somehow I have to learn how to be grateful for the time I had, ...look for him in the sky, and feel him in the air around me. He's there.

one of my favourite books on yoga:

Yoga Anatomy

Leslie Kaminoff

ISBN-10: 0736062785

ISBN-13: 978-0736062787

Little Magical One ~ Finn's Garden

I hadn't thought about the garden bed in front of the house, I don't even remember looking at it much until now..., didn't even notice how pitiful it was.
It came to me in an instant as I walked up the path to the front door the other morning on my way home from yoga feeling good and clear for the first time in days. It's going to be Finn's garden ~ below his bedroom window overlooking the Lake.

As it is now a nearly dead, over sheared cedar stands nearest to the front door, anchoring that corner of the house. It just has to go, ...sorry, to the compost. Two leggy, confused mugo pines are also headed for the compost, with whatever mystery spindles are left. There's some sort of lime-leafed spirea in the middle that I'm not sure what to do with - let it stay? Find a new garden for it? I'm not sure yet.
The rest is just empty, full of rocks... .

Finn's garden will be filled with soothing scents, healing plants, blues, whites, yellows, and crimsons, with meaningful names, and messages in flowers. The plants I'm sure will change over time, but as our grief grows so will this garden.

I've kept the one mugo pine that seems to be in good health in the plan, but I've replaced the cedar with a Picea glauca 'Pendula'..which Cathy is kindly sourcing for me. Heather has a beautiful one growing in her front yard, which I've swooned over for years. Though they originate in France, I think they look like neat versions of trees in Group of Seven paintings. 'Droopy Spruce' is what I've called them for fun..., but seeing as a giant black spruce or white pine are a bit too big for the space (a lot too big), the 'Pendula' is a good substitute. 

Baby Millar's Lady's Mantle is going to be taken from Pearl soon, divided and planted all over our new gardens. It will grow and spread, be divided again, given to friends, growing on and on. It was given to us from Chops and Patti, who wanted to buy us a plant to remember our first loss, after that devastating miscarriage ~ which was such a sweet gesture. Chops couldn't believe what I chose, as I carried the unassuming three leafed perennial around the nursery (Bill Martin's ~ before I worked there)... Perennials often don't look like much in their nursery containers, and at the time I think Chops worried it was an insignificant gift. 

I'll never forget the look on his face two years later when they were over for a barbecue, when he saw how the little plant had grown.

Alchemilla mollis has been a favourite garden plant for as long as I can remember. I love how the dew pools on the leaves, and the lemon-lime flower sprays are perfect for cut flower bouquets - like baby's breath... gorgeous.  

Little Magical One (from 2 March 2008) Alchemilla has long been associated with healing and alchemists. From an Arabic word, alchemelych, meaning alchemy; the plant is named so for its "magical healing powers," with folklore suggesting that even dew collected from alchemilla leaves has healing properties.

Also for tea, chamomile (I like the little pointy daisy-like heads of the German chamomile Matricaria recutita), and two of the David Austin roses Winchester Cathedral (to have a little of my mother and father in Finn's garden) and Heathcliff, lemon balm, echinacea, feverfew, and lemon thyme.

For blue, I'll plant a cranesbill geranium ('Johnson's Blue' is the usual go-to around here, but newer varieties have come along that just as blue, longer flowering, and less floppy...like, 'Rozanne' and another I can't remember by name right now..) and the purple leafed Geranium pratense 'Midnight Blue'..., also bluebells and forget-me-nots seeded beneath everything. 

The back border of the bed, with the chamomile and echinacea I'd like to plant so asters - so long as they don't get too crazy back there. Blue wood asters (A. cordifolius) and Heath Asters (A. ericoides) which will all bloom late in the summer, through Finn's birthday, my special September baby. 

For earlier in the season I've ordered some irises: 'White Wings' and 'Little Sighs', and I'm sure I'll find a few more. I haven't even started planning the tulip and daffodils that will begin each new year, but what I have in mind will be something special - from under the oak tree, across the yard and into Finn's garden I imagine a wave of early, mid, and late tulips surrounded by smiling daffodils.  

I'd like to include a lemony-buttery daylily - this may be the perfect spot for Double River Wye.., and some primrose (Miller's Crimson maybe). We'll see what sort of nursery finds follow me home this year.

surrounded by healers

I am surrounded by incredible healers.

It's no secret acupuncture - specifically acupuncture with Sarah - changed my life and my perspective of medicine years ago. The role she has played in these months since losing Finn have saved my life more than once. It's so much more than the magic she does with the needles, her understanding of Chinese medicine and ability to translate it as she works, the clear connections she can explain about anatomy, function, and emotions.
In my first weeks home after Finn died she would come over - I don't even know how many times a week..it's all a blur, but I remember her there many times at the side of my bed gently doing what she does, letting me cry, helping me breathe. The point on my foot that she worked her acupressure on is forever tattooed in her handwriting 'foot over-looking tears'...because after a few minutes of that I would drift into a dreamless sleep and find some peace for a few hours.

I still see her twice a week and probably always will. When her and Carrie move into their new, beautiful clinic I'll probably see her even more. I'm believing in a little bit of divine intervention in this Year of the Horse that has brought us back to one of my favourite places - Andy's old apartment, the same house where we had Hannah's baby shower, our favourite stoop.
There's more going on here that I can't say out loud yet, but is so exciting - good things happening to good people, good friends ....all connecting back to this park, PACI, that favourite old apartment, down-town PA...our stomping ground.. The new-old connections are goose bump worthy. My text messages are full of people saying, "Giddy Up!"

Waverley Park at 8:46am
on my way to acupuncture

ruby rubber boots
at the top of the
Bay Street Stairs

Sarah suggested I see Robin Faye for restorative yoga. This connection is probably more life changing than I think now..., I've only seen her a handful of times, but very much like when I first started seeing Sarah, I leave each time with an undeniable feeling that something has changed, ..something has been fixed. After my first visit with Robin I struggled to get back up the Bay Street stairs - my lower abdomen and pelvis were still so fragile. This week I practically ran up the stairs without even noticing my accomplishment until I halfway through the park. My hips aren't even sore.

I marvel because it would seem like I don't really do much in these yoga sessions. I've spent most of the time laying on the floor breathing - doing nothing.., she positions me, sometimes comes along and changes the positions, moves my legs and ankles around - does stuff to my right arm (a weird problem area). ..I just lay there, sometimes fall asleep, sometimes cry..

Like Sarah, Robin has a very peaceful presence, it's easy to feel comfortable with her. Added with her knowledge of anatomy and muscles (a massage therapist as well), the kind of treatment she offers encompasses body, mind, and spirit - much like acupuncture, that has changed me so simply but so strongly.

Waverley Park at 5:49 pm
on my way home from seeing Rodney

Robin and Rodney speak the same language. Lots of anatomy, connective tissue talk, and all the muscle partners and groups that interplay all over the body. Sarah told me I should see Rodney Puumula the very first time I saw her. I didn't listen... I mean, I've known Rodney for years.., he a great guy.., but I've been sort of afraid of chiropractors for a long time. I believe in chiropractic care without a doubt, and it has helped me in the past, but since the infection of 2009 the idea of anything moving suddenly in my back sounded like torture.

Not that his myofascial treatments aren't torturous in their own way (I've cried) - and laughed at my crying..(which is about the extent of the emotional element of this treatment) I finally started seeing Rodney a few months ago, and though I worry a little about how excited he gets about poking the sorest areas of my muscles, he makes it worth it. He talks about bikes to distract me. 

Jessica Carfagnini has her own shelf in our kitchen. A routine of vitamins, tea, and foods that are gentle on our fragile systems might sound like a good idea for anyone any day, but there's more to it - and I'm not sure how to explain it. The Chinese herbal supplements are no different than the teas - all made up of stuff \I grow in our garden, or ..more naturally along roadways, in fields, and along streams all around us. 

tbay street art 

at 8:48am and again at 4:31pm 

(I call him 'hooray it's spring guy' this year)

Rodney aside, I wouldn't know any of these people if it weren't for Dr. Atwood, who sent me to Sarah in the first place, convinced acupuncture was going to be the key in ridding me of that infection., among other things. She was with us through all our losses, with thoughtful calls to home and hugs before science. She was with all through my pregnancy with Finn, and there for him when he was born. There again for us when he died. 

She's with us again as we hope to ...try again.. and understanding in ways I could never publish. 

sunset and the Giant
8:32pm
10 April 2014

Someone told Rohan to find Hugh Walker..., Rohan was talking about him before I was even released from the hospital after losing sweet baby Finn. We've seen him for grief counselling regularly since.. 

Hugh is a difficult subject - not just because our sessions with him are absolutely soul splitting, but because I don't even understand what happens in those sessions. We go in not knowing what to talk about, sort of wanting to talk about everything at once but unable to say the words out loud. He knows the words we need to say - doesn't say them for us, but some how knows how to help us get them out. Revealing, heartbreaking, ...I still can't believe we have to be there, talking about our broken hearts being the parents of loss. Hugh understands the disconnect, and is slowly and gently putting those connections a little closer together.

As much as we are going through this together, Rohan and I are dealing with very different feelings of grief. That can make even being together feel lonely and scary sometimes - I don't know how to help Rohan, he doesn't know how to help me... or so we think, sometimes... It's like treading water together, trying to keep each other afloat; somebody's always sinking, or.. we're both sinking. Hugh brings us back to a place were we can both touch ground, still hanging on to each other.  

Each of these people play roles in our lives that can't be expressed properly in words. It isn't just their specific field of medicine they offer us, a little something extraordinary comes with them. We'll never be "fixed" or "normal" again, there will always be a need for healers in our lives. I hope to keep all of these people close to me for as long as possible. 

...and this doesn't include all the healing friends - Heather, Marie and Fred, Edie, Erinn, Jenn, Sheri, Andy and Karen, Cathy, Lori and all of BMN, Caroline, Shelly, Tanya for her courage in healing of another kind, Michelle from TheBump, angel mum Starlette, ...and so, so many more who have made it so we never feel alone. 

rainbow hat, favourite blanket, and a bird's eye view

I occasionally doodle photographs before I take them - plans or diagrams, I guess, of what I see in my head. I don't do this for every photo, obviously - most of them are spontaneous anyway, but when I have reason, or if I'm just feeling inspired without my camera, I doodle... 

I did this a lot leading up to Finn's birth, planning on taking many of my own infant photos using the adorable props and outfits I was collecting. Etsy got so much action last summer that my bank even called me one day to alert me to the increased traffic in my account. I told her: I'm very pregnant, very excited, home alone most of the time, and completely caught up in buying adorable baby stuff online. She laughed, completely understood, and dismissed the alert.

Beautifully handmade hats became my Etsy obsession. I collected carefully, there's a reason for every selection - except the ladybug, that set was a gift :) fulfilling an important 'garden bug' element in the collection. 

I was going to have fun taking photos of my baby, and found myself apologizing to my belly knowing that I was going to over-photograph and over-share the poor kid growing inside me. There were other babies too, friends' babies, that I wanted to photograph - all baby boys born shortly after Finn. It was going to be fun, and a chance for me to experiment with and learn something new about photography. Who doesn't want to take photos of adorable babies wearing adorable hats?

I found the doodle of the rainbow hat with the "favourite blanket" sometime just before Christmas, and took the page out and tucking it in the inside pocket of the notebook I drew it in. I didn't want to lose it, or separate it from the other notes and doodles in the book, but I didn't want to flip through and see it too easily. It's a hard to look at that one now. The rainbow hat was the only one he ever wore (that morning, when we were just goofing around, thinking we had all the time in the world together...). 

His favourite blanket ...not that he really knew it was his favourite blanket - but it would have been; it was the softest blanket I've ever sunk my fingers into. I had ordered it from ...*drum roll*... Etsy, and it arrived the day I was induced - we missed the delivery and were left with one of those post office notices to pick it up, which Rohan did sometime in the day after Finn was born.
I had ordered two blankets: one white, the other blue. As much as we all like to dislike the pink and blue thing with babies, it exists. If I carried Finn around in a pink blanket and posted all those photos of him swaddled in pink everyone would think he was a girl. It's just the way it is. The way I saw it (when I ordered the blankets): eventually blue goes both ways, but pink always seems to stigmatize girls..., so blue was the safer bet. Rohan brought the blankets to me in the hospital and I immediately brought the blue one to Finn in the NICU, where the nurses all fussed over its incredible softness. Finn spent the rest of his life wrapped in that blue cloud.

The brown bucket in the doodle is beside me right now. It's a gorgeous bucket: old, heavy, darkened aged wood..., it's Rohan's and I know he's told me the story of where it came from but I can't it remember right now. I've always seen it as a great photography prop. I've never photographed it.

The other doodle on the page was me imaging a bird's eye view of a chair with a small baby carefully rested asleep on the seat. (I've seen this in others' infant photography.) The only problem then was the missing prop chair - I wanted something interesting, old, with natural character, not something I would find instantly (or while purposely seeking).

Yesterday, while shopping for felting needles, we found ourselves in an antique shop buying a chair (I told you nothing in my life makes sense these days...). It's pretty much what I had in mind; not that I have much purpose for it anymore.
I bought it anyway, even though I'm missing my star, my focus - as soon as I saw it I saw my drawing.
Photographing an empty chair isn't what I had in mind.
Neither was pinning the only knit hat he wore inside a shadow box.

Although he's not nestled in his blue blanket tucked in Rohan's old bucket, the photo we're left with (him in the hat on the purple backdrop in the morning sun) is so very important - even more, I think, because it was one of those spontaneous moments. Those are always the best photographs.

the light always shines on him

So often I look up and see sunlight shining into this house and lighting up my baby boy. His photo on the mantle in the other room even catches the moonlight. I'm not getting all corny over this, imagining this as "signs"or any other nonsense. I really don't know if I believe in that.

...but I do love that he's always shining so bright around here.

We talked about this the other day when the girls were over - Sheri told us how she's felt her father around her, and sees him in her youngest son (which, um, yeah - have you seen that kid?! he's a spitting image of his grandfather...). 

I used to feel my dad around me; for the first couple of years after he died I could - but only ever in H's room when I stood near her crib. I would brush it off as a silly feeling of hope, but it happened often enough to get me thinking. 

I haven't had that feeling with my mother..., well, except for being somewhat convinced she aligned the stars to put this house in our laps. When Finn and I would discuss future games of I Spy I told him how his Nana must have made it so he would have the view he did, from a window that met her architectural approval (which was extremely important...). 

I joke with my sister that I felt her with me every time I rode my scooter when I was pregnant. Her pointy finger of disapproval jabbed me during every ride. (In my defense, mom, I think is is just as dangerous to walk in this city - recalling how often I've had my toes run over on crosswalks.)

I hoped my mother was with us when Finn died. I begged for her; Heather assured me she was there. I can't say I actually felt it. I suppose, if there's anywhere I "feel" her most it would be in this house. Here I'm able to have her things all around me - not in storage or stuffed in a corner like they were on Pearl. Every day I marvel at that damn clock - keeping time for ...maybe the first time ever, or at least since it lived in our family home ..before my father died. 

This house is filled with light, even on grey days. I noticed immediately that the light shines through here the same way it did the house I grew up in - I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's all about the position of the house: on a hill, the direction the windows face, and having windows front and back giving it that see-through quality. In the afternoon, when the sun is shining through the side and back windows and I can hear CBC radio playing from the kitchen anywhere in the house, I could swear I'm five years old again. (If I start hearing the sounds of my dad talking to some geologist (Rohan?) in the kitchen and my mother's typewriter down the far hall we'll know I'm actually losing my mind...)

There was a day not long after Finn died - it was the first morning I was home alone. I don't remember if it was because everyone was out, or if everyone had left... either way, I was alone; it was morning; and I was very disoriented. 

I had left my home early one morning, in labour, and suddenly (it seemed) I was here, alone, in this completely new space which wasn't my home but some other house. It wasn't that I had forgotten that I had moved, but somewhere in having and losing Finn I lost track of time and space - and place...(if that makes any sense). My things were all around, my mother's things were all around - a lot of it had been unpacked so there was familiarity all around me, but it wasn't unpacked by me (many thanks to my sister and sister-in-law for being organized get-it-done-ers) so I didn't know where anything had been put. I was lost. 

I just stood there in the middle of the kitchen feeling lost, not moving, just contemplating, trying to figure out was my next move would be. 

As I stood there the sun rose. It was the first sunrise I experienced (that could remember experiencing) since Finn died. I wasn't close enough to a window to actually watch it, but I could see how its light came through the house. It came in shining right on the place I found Finn losing his life, across the floor and on to me starting at my toes and slowly rising up my body to blind me and move on. Had I been locked in place in any other spot in that kitchen I would have missed the whole thing.

The photos of Finn that are hung on walls or leaning on mantles haven't moved much from where they were first put in place for his service. I haven't wanted to move them. They've been put in new frames and permanently attached, ....and every day they catch the light of the sun, the moon at night, streetlamps, and house lights in ways that beam across his precious face. He always seems to be in the light.

Finn

So much love surrounds him...

I made these videos while we waited to be discharged from hospital, he was three and a half days old. I wanted to capture every second of him before he changed, before he could grow up too quickly. He was incredible, I couldn't believe he was ours, and I wanted to share him and all his cute little sounds with everyone.

I still want everyone to see him. He's still incredible, and I still can't believe he was ours. Our sweet baby boy, perfect in every way. Stolen silently on his 11th day, our hearts are left shattered.

disorientation

morning sunlight

shining on

my angel baby

There's an absurd amount of effort put into suppressing thoughts and feelings just to get through every day, so much it is exhausting. I think it explains how Rohan and I are able to sleep at night, we're so drained, physically and mentally.

When we first started seeing Hugh Walker for grief counselling he made it pretty clear that there was no going forward until we were able to face, confront, deal with the images, flashbacks, and memories that haunt us most. I've tried, I really have - in so many ways I can't avoid it...

It's not easy; I fight it, play mind games to throw my thoughts somewhere else, but it all comes back to me one way or another. Not a day goes by with agonizing tears. I'm either unable to get off the floor or I'm locking it all up so tight I shake - I can feel it in my hands, and in my jaw when I try to talk. Leaving the house requires too much of me most days; I know I can't hold it together and the anxiety brought on just by thinking of having to say anything out loud or look anyone in the eye is an absolutely frightening feeling.

Every day I try to put Sarah's tools to work, the exercises she's taught me to take controlled breaths, to relax my mind and my body. I breathe deep and I try (so hard) to think of something else, think of myself as something else, somewhere else. I try to just think of my breathing - through my whole body like she's taught me..., but lately all I hear is Alejandra Ribera's lyrics, there's so much labour just in breathing lately...

It's all so exhausting. 

Too many competing emotions, all wanting to take center stage: grief (unthinkable grief), confusion (about everything from aforementioned grief to tying my own shoes - or skates), sadness (with me for life), loneliness (but not a kind anyone here can cue), anger (with no direction), disbelief, I could go on..., name an emotion and I've it. Each of them need tending to. 

There are times I feel happiness when I think of Finn or of being pregnant with him. It's a strange kind of happiness though, and I'm not sure I know how to describe it yet (brings us back around to that confusion).

The work it takes to concentrate on anything other than Finn, or Finn and my mother together is merciless, and I feel enormous guilt for trying so hard to get away from any thoughts of him. I just don't know how to get by otherwise...

With my mother, I'm not as conflicted; I understand why she died and as I've said before: we expect to lose our parents. I'm sad that she lost her life so early (she was only just 71) and I'm sad that she suffered in any way, but I understand why she's gone. What gets me all wound up is thinking about her and Finn - and the bizarre connection of profound life events they shared in 2013. 

Still, I can't help feeling like an orphan, an orphan and a childless mother all at once, overnight it seems. Learning to live with this uncomfortable empty feeling which I know is never going to leave me makes me I feel like I'm caving in on myself ...and starting to understand that this is simply the new me. I get these very brief moments of feeling ridiculously powerful for this, but those moments aren't often and I usually get rid of them pretty quick. The only powerful one here is grief. 

Time ever since Finn's death has gone by very fast (you'd think it would be slow...) I don't notice days going by, all the details just become part of the blur. Add that to the confusion. There is routine, sort of - I get up every day, I see H off, I stay up, I watch sunrises... 

It's hard to return to things I used to do. It's the messed up mind again: I can't remember basic things - like plant names.. ugh.. You'd think turning to gardening would be therapeutic - perhaps when I can physically do it, because mentally I'm lost. At H's birthday party I was talking to someone and blurted out a couple plant names, surprising myself, reminding myself it's there, somewhere. It's just all boggled up. I'm not going to stress it right now, just shelf it. We'll see what happens in spring. 

I still can't seem to cook or bake with the ease I used to. Part of it is a complete loss of appetite and a confused (there's that word again) palate. Everything tastes salty to me (no I'm not dehydrated) (deficient kidneys, yes), but bread and grains also taste off to me - and have since I started eating again after losing Finn. Everything changed. My postpartum grieving body is not accepting food with ease, more and more I'm starting the day throwing up; and the pain of digestion is causing me to ponder pros and cons of eating - usually resulting in a meal of water. I hate this. I used to love food.

In an effort to try to do something else (something different) I pulled out H's sewing machine yesterday - the one we gave her for Christmas a few years ago which I don't think she's ever used. Ahem.

I used to sew all the time, making quilts and clothes and toys for H. I thought maybe I'd try to make things - tangible things; I don't really know what's going to come of this. Staring down the machine's needle - a new to me machine, much fancier than the reliable (and heavy) (almost 50 year old) machine I inherited from my mother years ago (currently MIA) - I realized quickly that I have no idea what I'm doing. Google brought me to the 72 page pdf manual, which I'm convinced was written by someone who understands English as a third or fourth language. I think I'll get it though; it's a change of scenery but still familiar territory. My mother taught me how to sew.

I'm not entirely sure where to end this post...

not my life

Sometimes I think about what happened - to Finn, to us, to me, and I think there's no way that's real. It couldn't have happened. Photos of him and us look like somebody else's. That couldn't haven't happened to me. I couldn't have had that and lost that.

Too many people don't know how precious it is to get pregnant, to stay pregnant, to birth a healthy baby, and keep that baby for the rest of their life. It's so, so precious. So fragile.

....

an open book, a new chapter

I find dark, slow to start mornings like today's difficult. Even in a good year I would find it hard to get motivated. Sunny days make me want to hit a trail, go for a walk, run the dogs at the tree farm or something - just to see the lights through the trees. A walk around the neighbourhood - through the towering cottonwoods of Waverley works too when in need of an urban tree fix.

These cloudy days make me want to sleep the winter away.
It's too easy to sit here and imagine the way it should have been.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I wake up every morning thinking of Finn, feeling confused, wondering where he is, ..sometimes I can hear him. Then, I open my eyes and I see him, framed on the wall beside my bed - all my trinkets on the table below. You'd think I would just burst into tears every morning..., but I don't. Sometimes I do. Most days I just lose my breath for a while, tremble... the tears come but so silently.

I break down, we both do. It gets ugly. This grief is unlike anything I ever imagined. I had thought about it - what parent doesn't; it crosses your mind for a second and you push it away because nothing could be worse, you can't think about it. You'd die yourself if anything happened to your child.
I feel like that every day - like I'm dying ... not in a suicidal sense, just dying. Slowly and painfully. I have to learn to live feeling like this for the rest of my life.

In the first weeks after Finn died it seemed everyone around me was worried I would kill myself. The subject came up with doctors, with counselors, directed at both Rohan and I, I'm sure, but mostly at me. Those postpartum hormones gave me a bad rep. I understand why the subject came up because believe if I didn't have Hannah to consider the idea sounds like a pretty good option. I used to think I would - if I lost Hannah. I always wondered how people survive this.
I remember being quite angry, twice, when the subject came up in those early days - just because I didn't get out of bed didn't mean I had forgotten that I still have a daughter. I can't control the grief that makes me unable to move, and I trust that Hannah, though young still, is mature enough to understand. She's the most compassionate person I know - she always has been, naturally.

Early on Dr. Atwood said to me, "..how you carry yourself though this is going to affect Hannah for the rest of her life.." I'm sort of paraphrasing, but not really - those words have repeated themselves in my head every day since.
She's sixteen, and "knows everything" so talking isn't always easy - I often get the eye roll and the yeah yeah mom, but I hope - I hope - somehow my messages sink in somewhere. She, like so many others, didn't know how to talk to me at first..., I know it scared her - seeing me in such shambles. Not that she would admit that.
I think the loss of Finn is going to affect her deeply as a woman, and someday as a mother. I try to think about that when Dr. Atwood's words replay in my head.
She grieves quietly and privately. Losing my mother, her beloved Nana, was really hard on her. She doesn't talk about it much, but I know she's hurting. Losing her brother, and all the commotion around it - so much attention on me - I think it must be really confusing for her. She says no, but how could it not.

It's hard to turn her over to our (amazing) counselor, Hugh Walker - and not know what is said behind that closed door. I still see her as that little girl in a pink jumpsuit and pig tails. Somehow she's old enough to do this on her own..., and I have to let her. Some day I'm sure we'll be able to talk about this in a different way.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Finn turned all the sadness of losing my mother around during his brief stay with us. I hadn't seen Hannah so happy and excited in a long time. One of the best memories is of being in labour with Finn that morning, September 18th, being in the labour room with moderate contractions (I wasn't screaming yet) while Hannah (taking the day off school) worked on her chemistry homework with Rohan. I felt somewhat ignored - for equations. It was like my dad was in the room. (Maybe he was?)

It was Hannah's job to take the first photos, send them to my sister, and post an announcement on Facebook.
I'm so saddened by the thought that she lost that chance at being a big sister. She was great. She wanted to hold him all the time - until she realized that babies cry a lot, and I think she was a little put off that he would stop crying when I held him. I kept telling her to have patience. He was just being a newborn: hungry and needing his mum...., soon he would have longer breaks between eating and sleeping, and he would stay with her longer as he got older. She didn't get to experience that - she'll never really know.

The 2:00am - 5:00am parties rockin' from the nursery did not impress her. For a very brief moment I, as a mother, got to experience sibling resentment. It was great. Poor Hannah wasn't prepared for sleepless nights.

For a little while we were a family of four. Only once did it ever really hit me - when I overheard Rohan on the phone talking about something to do with the move, and listing our family members, "...our daughter and our son.." I had that my family is complete feeling that I lost when we lost my mother. I was going to be okay - we all were. It was a new start.

Well, it is a new start indeed.

How is one supposed to start this way? I can't even find my footing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You go through life with the understanding that someday you'll lose your parents, your grandparents - friends even. I've been very well aware for a number of years now that I was going to lose my mother. There was time to prepare. It's strange how I think of it now, what it was like when it happened... it was beautiful, her final moment, that is. Dr. Siren had gone on about it at an appointment a few weeks before, telling me that death was a beautiful thing - as I sat there nearly 25 weeks pregnant with my little boy. At the time I was pissed, like, what the fuck - my mother's dying, this wasn't beautiful, this was sad, and St. Joe's was the saddest place on earth. I was not seeing the beauty.
Now - now I see the pink sunbeams in her room, I remember the light,  remember how soft she felt. It was beautiful.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the time I've been rambling the light outside has changed; it's brighter, the trees have turned themselves off, and it's beginning to snow. It's kind of pretty.

This is the kind of day I had imagined - sitting here by the fire, dogs sleeping in dog beds on the couch, baby Finn in my arms or swinging in his swing by the window. It was just going to be him and I, as Hannah and Rohan are off for the days. It would be new mom time for me and I was going to enjoy every second of it - knowing so well how fleeting it is.
In our time together I would stare at him and have to stop myself from thinking about him growing up because I didn't want to jump too far ahead, I wanted to stay in every moment.

This winter was going to be all about baby snuggles and watching days like these go by beside the fire.
We'd sneak out now and then to swim somewhere, maybe a kindermusik class some days...
we'd go for strolls around the neighbourhood for a breath of fresh air..

I lose my breath when I see strollers now, car seats too. Especially walking around here. Avoiding those stroller mom groups is nearly impossible, and absolutely terrifying. I have to walk in the middle of the night to avoid strollers and even then it's been known to happen.

Every week day when I see the school bus pull up to pick up the little boy a few doors up I sink a little further into the sand. I can still see so clearly, an imagined moment with Finn as a little boy sitting at the end of our walkway waiting for his bus.
I can see perfectly his face and the way his little boy self would be at about four. He'd have the Millar look with blonde hair that curls in all sorts of wring directions, his knees covered in scrapes from climbing fences and skidding down Hillcrest hill. Sometimes I see us sitting at the piano together, his little legs dangling from the bench, same blond hair. His profile is the same as it is in his ultrasound photos, a little underbite...

How can I see him that age so clearly? Why no older? Why so little in between?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sometimes I imagine losing him other ways - having him with us longer, but losing him more tragically, or suffering in someway, something worse. I don't know if it's my mind playing some sort of sick, twisted game to rationalize how he did die. I hear and read about all these young kids with cancer, suffering, slowly dying before their parent's eyes and I think, oh god I could never live through that, that would be so horrible. Just as I used to think about a parent living through life in my new shoes.

I'm trying so hard to hold my head up it physically hurts. All the stuff going on in there - horrible thoughts, images I never want to see again, terrible earworms, it's a nasty mess in there. It's hard to hold it all at bay to maintain composure as a mother, to set an example. I often don't do a good job. There's no invisibility cloak for this, I can't hide.