Dear Garden Diary

I could go on without a computer, and I could even lose my camera, but I could never let go of a sharp pencil and a notebook. Long before digital photography and garden blogs I had my garden journals, and they are still where I do my best thinking. Drawing the landscape and doodling gardens is the best way to visualise plans...

...Photoshop works too. 

It's been hard for me to draw beds that I don't remember very well. I took some photos last year, but not enough - and not while I was thinking 'garden'. Not knowing how much space I have doesn't really matter right now..., they'e big enough beds and I think I can fill 'em (of course I can fill them)

Moving from Pearl (divided or taken whole): ligularia, all adopted daylilies (red, peach, yellow - unknown), geranium *Wargraves Pink, John Davis Explorer Rose, Therese Bugnet rose, Morden Blush rose, Morden Sunrise rose, rudbeckia, stronecrop *Autumn Fire, hostas (of course), tiarella, pulmonaria, irises, peonies x 2, ...um, ..more...

To be added: roses (already mentioned), joe-pye weed, liatris x a few, cone flowers, heliopsis, annual butterfly weed & evening primrose (if they survive a few seasons hooray), heath aster (small white, various other asters, various stone crop, lemon trillium :), ...and who knows what else...

A bird's eye view of this bed is really what is needed to display the haphazardness of shrubs and marigolds - oh and some individually planted cosmos completely frail in the wind.. It's pretty much all going to go. The Oak tree (my favourite) deserves better company. 

Photoshop doodling, imagining those Hansa roses building a (maintained) hedgeline, a mix of sun a shade plants tolerating the changing light from morning to night, ....there are still bare spots in this doodle which are easy enough to fill..., I just wish I had a better sense of space right now.

I'd like to find a Double River Wye daylily (my favourite), which I had years ago, but for some reason never took with me..., or lost along the way.

All of this reminds me of the front garden transformation at Pearl. :)

The south facing side of the house is..., um, ...crazy. The Virginia Creeper has swallowed the house, and though it needs a good haircut it is also a giant birds' nest condominium. This needs to be done carefully. I have no idea how.

I don't want to lose the creeper, I like it..., I even like it swallowing the house. Maintenance is all that's needed. 

As for the two shrubs with a red x mark, ...sorry... they don't even understand what they're doing there. Random round green balls. 

The star marks line the new path we're considering putting in. It became apparent right away that people will always being walking around back to find us - in the shack or otherwise, especially in summer. Having a path added to the existing lockstone will al so enable us (Rohan) to clear it in winter. (Aussie man loves his snowblower...). I've given myself a few extra inches of garden bed against the path to allow for low growing perennials - oooo, and maybe some creeping thyme and smelly things to walk on. 

The first step, as with any garden..., is the soil.., and good grief the soil in these beds is horrible.

This is a view of the little kidney shaped bed outside the shack. Rocks, dandelions, marigold bundles, and a clump of cosmos. For all the efforts in renovating the house, this took me by surprise. Sigh. This garden needed me. 

I know I can't physically do the work, so I'm counting on Bill and the team to turn this over and top it up with some compost and manure mixes. Once the soil is taken care of in these beds (front under the Oak, along the south fence, front east-south face of the house, the weird kidney bed by the shack, ...and the small areas on the north side of the house... That - is what I'm going to tackle this year. That and planting a tree or two in the back (one bare spot)..

...should keep me busy..

photographs and found treasures

The last few boxes surrounding my desk in the basement are in the process of being unpacked. Finally.
Most of what's left are boxes of photos that need to be dealt with properly, organized, and put in albums - I've slowly been compiling everything for that project..., which I'm actually really looking forward to doing.
Family suddenly has a whole new context, and our photographed story from my father as a child in Holland, my mother as a kindergarten teacher, my sister and I growing up, our weddings, our children... is something worth telling properly.

This morning was spent sulking, feeling sorry for myself, emotional, unable to even look at Finn's photos. I miss him so much. Some times(days, hours, minutes, moments) I'm able to hold it together, others ..not so much. I think I'm learning when to take a step back... let the grief do what it has to do.

There are times I can't read other grief stories, I can't bear how much I relate to them.., other times I can't tear myself away. Today I found my way to Mitchell's Journey, unable to look away from his father's story.
He speaks and writes beautifully of his son, but most important to me is the photographic story - and what he says about the importance of being a "paparazzi" in your children's lives.

I felt terribly guilty for dangling my iPhone over Finn from the moment we were reunited after his birth. The convenience of being able to take decent photos with a gadget that fits in the palm of my hand was too easy, and even more easy to share instantly with family and friends. I kept telling myself to live in the moment and put the camera down, but I didn't.
How grateful am I now that I have dozens of photos of him - photos in every outfit, at every time of day - and night, in the sunshine, with the dogs, by the fire, outdoors, indoors..., I captured every minute I could. Without those photos now - where would I be? From his growth inside me, to his precious ten+ days, I have it all on digital files, saved forever.

(Due to the mother-daughter code photos shared of Hannah must be approved by her - and for the most part they haven't been since "teen" was added to her age. ...but that doesn't mean I don't take them, save them, and have them all at hand.)

Chris Jones' story is important for another reason - as a father's journey through grief. His words are poignant, thoughtful and not held back by any tough exterior. I think it's often hard for father's to express themselves; Rohan has said a number of times how difficult it is to 'be the man' in this situation, hold it all together.. (...in those early days I don't know how he did it, while I lay motionless). So much of child loss and parental grief is focussed on mothers and how mothers cope. A father's perspective isn't something we've come across much, and certainly not one this beautiful.

Among the photographs and boxes of important things I don't know what to do with, I found some odds and ends of my mother's, some she intentionally left for me with messages scribbled on the envelopes, others just random things I ended up with - notes, drafts, notebooks she kept records in (she kept records of everything).
In a faded grey folder I came across a photocopy of pages from Dinah Shields & Edwina von Baeyer's book A Beginner's Guide to Gardening in Canada.

(von Baeyer's Rhetoric and Roses and Garden Voices being among my favourite garden reads..)

My mother's handwriting (in red pen - she must have been grading papers at the time) dates it 1992 ...
I know in the early 2000's she took a course or two in personal landscaping, hoping to do something pretty with her new construction home & garden - the work for which was put in me as hard labourer. She still didn't have a clue, but her determination was expressed clearly through likes and dislikes over my work. I am still being punished for planting purple (her least favourite colour) delphiniums in her front garden. (I thought they were blue..)
Though her enthusiasm for outdoor gardening may have been underwhelming, her indoor garden was always something spectacular. Also in the faded grey folder, a little pencil written note pulled from one of her many notebooks - on sprouting and growing avocados. My childhood memories of windowsills are not without a small glass of water with an avocado seed balanced on toothpicks half way in water, half exposed. I can't possibly imagine how many avocado plants she grew. I don't think any of them ever grew an avocado, but her plants were gorgeous.

Isn't it something that my mother the reluctant gardener was the first inspiration in my plans for our new garden.

Her Hansa rose will be among the first additions, but I've also just ordered some David Austin roses, a little tender here, but worth it even if for only one season. In my first garden I planted Winchester Cathedral - simply because I loved the fragrance of the blooms, even in the pot at the nursery. It wasn't until it was planted and I introduced it to my mother that she told me of how her and my father watched the changing of the bells at the real Winchester Cathedral while on a belated honeymoon (I think my dad was at a conference and my mother tagged along, but they called it a honeymoon... *academics*).
Ordered today is a new Winchester Cathedral, Golden Celebration, Graham Thomas, Jude the Obscure, and Lady of Shalott.
They're all of the hardier Davis Austin roses (famous for old world style and fragrance), but still considered somewhat tender here. I'm willing to take my chances. I'm eyeing up the sunny beds nearest the house for these, but that would involve the removal of boring shrubs..., which is a lot of work.

I see a lot of shuffling in our garden's future. The Reluctant Gardener pages my mother focused on were shrubs: flowering almonds, ninebark, burning bush... all of which are interesting, and worth considering for spots in this garden as well.

Rhetoric and Roses: A History of Canadian Gardening, 1900-1930
Edwinna Von Baeyer 1984
ISBN-10: 0-88902-983-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-88902-983-5

Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian Garden Writing
Edwina Von Gal, Edwinna Von Baeyer, Pleasance Crawford 1995
ISBN-10: 0-394-22428-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-394-22428-2

Reluctant Gardener: A Beginner's Guide To Gardening In Canada 
Hoel Cooper, Edwinna Von Baeyer, Dinah Shields 1992
ISBN-10: 0-394-22233-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-394-22233-2

grow your own chocolate?

Aside from Lawrence Badani claiming to be buying the Lyceum Theatre, this is the best April Fools Day joke I've seen yet this year. Thanks Mother Earth News.

Post by Mother Earth News Magazine.

back at it...

It didn't take long for me, once I smelled the soil and spotted the plug trays, to want to get to planting..., and the day it was set up us die-hards were there at the planting table. It's the only part of the greenhouse season I can't miss out on - the first in years being last year at this time, when my mother was in hospice. I feel disjointed if I don't plant.
I don't mind the cold temperatures of January and February because they usually come with bright sunny days, and crystal clear starry nights. March and April are often dreary, dirty, damp, cold, and generally miserable. To spend those two months surrounded by warm soil under a blue sky roof - who could complain?

The last thing I expected to do this year was be back at work. I knew I would plant, and "hang around".... but, commitment wasn't something I was entertaining. It turns out I just don't know how to sit still, no matter what is holding me down.

Euphorbia graminea ~ Diamond Frost

Grief - of this kind especially, is defeating. There isn't a day, a moment, a conversation, a thought, that passes without Finn heavily on my mind. As much as it weighs on me I've come to conclude it also gives me strength. In a strange sense, I've never felt more empowered. I'm all too aware that worse could happen, the tension in my gut won't let that go - but, there aren't too many lower lows than what I've experienced in the past year.

I'm still standing.

The clarity that comes with the energy of being in the greenhouse again has helped in so many ways. My focus on our new garden is pretty clear; I even know how we're going to solve the new-garden-no-vegetable-bed problem so that once outdoor planting weather finally arrives I'll have some place to get my seeds dirty. (stay tuned)

I've already decided to focus on the trees, learning about our new trees, pruning and disease concerns of our new trees, adding birdhouse and feeders to the yard, dividing/moving/transplanting favourite perennials from Pearl, moving/transplanting favourites from around the new garden beds, and the addition of rose bushes.

The rose bushes I add this year will fill our yard with my mother's favourite childhood scent thanks to the wind sweeping across the Port Arthur Ridge to and from Lake Superior. By autumn I hope the yard will display some sort of transformation from bland to beautiful, useful, prosperous, and fruitful.

My father's scientific mind, my mother's artful eye, and my precious son's energy are a part of everything I do now. They'll grow in ways their bodies couldn't, and my only hope is that what comes of it makes a positive impact on the small parts of this earth I can help.

The day he wore the little duck onesie...

Between him cluster feeding and my c-section recovery we were both quite content to spend this day sitting right where I am now, in my favourite chair by the fire. He nursed, we snuggled, I took a million photos..Days don't get better. 

I can still remember what it felt like to hold him, which makes my empty arms feel even emptier. 

I miss my little boy so much. 

sinking feelings, unflashbacks, and the memories I want to see

There's a feeling a parent gets when they think there might be something wrong with their child. I don't know a single parent who hasn't felt it - and anyone I've described this to lately has it written all over their face before I've even finished my sentence. It's that gut feeling, a twisted up feeling, heart sinking feeling, the wind taken out of you. It usually just lasts a second or two, relieving upon finding everything okay then turning into a sort of euphoric blood rushing feeling. Sigh of relief feeling.
I can think of a number of times I felt it over Hannah, ...like that time she disappeared from my sight in Sears, barely a toddler.. it was just a second, but I swear I can still feel that sinking feeling at the thought of it. I never gave the side eye to a parent with a toddler on a "leash"after that.

I can't shake the feeling for Finn. I'll never find him safe, he'll never be okay.. ..it leaves me with that sinking feeling, constantly, and a knot in my gut I don't know how to untangle. Sometimes, not always, but often enough throughout the day to keep me moving slow, comes a rush of all these feelings at once - it feels like a rush of hot water flowing through inside me from my head to my toes, my heart sinks, I get dizzy, the gut twists tighten, then it's as if all the feelings rush back up out of me. It's happened when I've been out walking... causing me to fall off the sidewalk.

It happens when the reality of what happened comes to me - flashbacks.., a subject of much discussion in our counselling sessions with Hugh. I understand they are important clues to understanding what my subconscious mind is trying to sort out, I try to pay attention. They're not necessarily actual memories, though they are repeating scenes and events of that night and following day, sometimes I see them in weird ways - selective ways.
I'm always very small in the flashbacks, everyone else being very big, tall and warped as if standing in a funhouse with mirrors that distort the body. People's faces are huge. It's like this for my memories of Finn's funeral too. I felt so small ..in a room full of huge faces.
This is the stuff I can't help, I wish my head wouldn't go to these places.

I put an extraordinary effort into only thinking of Finn in the few glorious days that we had him. The photo prints I ordered from Shutterfly have been spread over the dining room table for weeks.. I don't have the heart to hide them in an album, I want to be able to see them all the time.
It helps me to focus on what we had... because we did have something that so many didn't get. Finn and Lily lived almost the same amount of time, but Marie and Fred never had those glorious days that we did with Finn. They don't have a table full of the happiest memories like we do. They lived our final day with Finn for every day of Lily's life. I can't imagine surviving that as a parent.

Another challenging mind game my subconscious plays with me, as I understand a lot of grieving parents do, is a "flashback"of events that never happened. The unflashback.
I see Finn age, and I see him die over and over again in horrific ways. A few weeks ago a 24 year old (young) man was killed on 11/17 after crashing head on with two trucks; the story of the accident repeated over and over again throughout the morning each time the news aired. I eventually just had to turn the radio off. I kept seeing Finn in that accident - aged perfectly as himself. I spent the rest of the day wondering how the young man's parent's felt - how would it feel to have 24 glorious years with our son, only to lose him so tragically? I wouldn't have wanted Finn to die like that.

The idea of a worse case scenario seems awful, but I know other parent's who are doing the same thing. If Finn was going to lose his life too soon, and within my lifetime, there are worse ways it could have happened... does it soften the blow? No.., but I can say that I don't think Finn suffered, ..I don't think.. I try not to think about that.
It's sort of unavoidable to scroll through Facebook and not see the face of some child who is either dealing with cancer, or having just been given a clean bill of health, standing there hairless with a sign asking for likes. Through Bronwyn's page I've seen so many stories of families living through years of treatments, displaced, living in hospitals and hotels to be by their dying child's bedside. People might look at me and wonder how I get up every day and put one foot in front of the other, but I look at these families and instantly get that sinking dizzy feeling. I can't not imagine what it would have been like to watch Finn suffer for years before he died.

Finn's life was short, but what a life he had.. Finn never knew hate, he only knew love. His arrival was the most anticipated, exciting time in so many lives. Everyone gushed over him - that was all he ever knew. He was adorable and he was loved and he was told that a million times a day. His big sister thought he was the cutest thing she'd ever seen. (He was soooo cute. Everyone thought so.)
He was always held, he only spent a few hours in total either in his car seat, his swing briefly, his bassinet once while I went to the bathroom, a co-sleeper for a few minutes (that didn't work too well)...and once he slept on the bed beside me while I made some phone calls one morning. Every other moment of his life he was held in the arms by someone who loved him deeply. He was always wrapped up in his soft blue blanket, always.
Finn received his first Tonka truck from Lori and J.R., and he danced to the songs of Glee; he watched a couple beautiful sunrises with his mom, and he was licked by a dog (best medicine ever to some people). Finn made grown men coo (ask any of those guys at Armstrong movers), he had a little girlfriend..Anna, born not long after him whose family we kept running into those first few days of medical check ups and healthy baby visits.
Finn lived, in my mind, during the two most beautiful weeks of the year. All those painted trees of September, the bright blue skies and wild sunrises.. If I was going to live for only ten+ days I would want it to be in late September.

a September sunrise
the reflection in the window
shows a bundle of Finn in my arms

Sometimes these unflashbacks bring me to places with Finn where again he's aged, but he's not dying..we're just together - one scene, for instance, we are sitting at the piano together, he's maybe a little more than two, his little boy legs just dangle off the bench, bruised with dirty little sneakers hanging off of them. I can see his face perfectly. It's Finn, just older, with more hair, but still light and a little curly. First I see his toddler profile, then he looks up at me and I can see his little toddler face - perfectly.. it's him.
I can remember the flashback, talk about it, write about it...but it's the not the same as when it's actually happening, and I'm there. It makes me feel very at peace.

I often focus on that piano scene when I'm meditating - whether it's during yoga or doing the breathing exercises Sarah has taught me; I focus on his curious toddler face and pretend I'm that giant oak tree out front breathing in through my roots and out through my leaves. That's only one of the million tools used every day to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If I just remember to breathe, and focus on Finn's spirit being with me forever, always seeing that face, and not see any other the other stuff...maybe, maybe I could lose that twisted feeling inside me, stop sinking on sidewalks. Sadly I think the two are too much a part of one another. All of it was Finn's life, and I'll never forget a second of it.

He looked directly at my camera,
then at me
as if to say,
"I've got the hang of this posing for the camera thing, mom." 

Finn's favourite position

It was some time in July that Finn ran out of room in the womb to do any of those fancy flipping around tricks. He found his favourite position and didn't change it up too much. His head was pressed firmly on my cervix (the pressure was intense), and he was curled up around my back, with his legs kicking on the front right side of my belly most often. I still hold my hand over that spot where he kicked most, and I can remember.

I imagine that inside me he was curled up like this, left hand up, right arm crossed. He was in this position almost every time I looked at him. 

Gardening?

Gardening. I do think about it, and what I might do with this new yard of ours. I think that in about twenty-five years we'll have established, somewhat, a garden carefully planted and sort of sustainable. These things always change, as we know.

I'd like to know more about the history of the yard. I know that Dr. Ballantyne kept a rose garden in the NE corner... that is something worth researching.

The current arrangement is ...weird. No, not weird... it's as if someone used some kind of landscape software that mechanically plunked perfectly shaped perfectly boring shrubs in a perfectly boring pattern. Yeah, it looks nice, neat... too neat. Definitely not the jungle style of amygardenerd's blazed trail of past gardens around town.

The only thing that is good about it, in my mind...is very good - the trees. I'm in love with every tree on this property. Again, somebody carefully planned the planting of these trees, but this time I approve. A few maples, a very busy Mountain Ash, and that oak tree out front that has been the focus of my meditation when I'm trying to remind myself to breathe. In spring I'll start documenting them, start doodling some more maps of our outdoor space. I've never had so many trees - so many beautiful trees - to be responsible for, which makes me feel a little bit excited.

The trees are all nicely placed - with the exception of a little scraggly (ash?) out front. See, I really don't know my trees well enough. I have to get better at that. In autumn their colours put on a flawless performance, everyone in tune and complimenting the seat next to them. Spring should be just as good. Understandable how Vivaldi was inspired.

I'm going to call on Urban Greenscapes and the local plantcycle to help find new homes for any shrubs that are removed. Because I'm not entirely sure what the plan is yet - or even a semi plan, or a clue.. I'm not going to do any massive transformation of any bed. There are enough open spaces in the existing beds - large spaces that were filled (dotted perfectly) with yellow marigolds and random wispy cosmos unable to stand up in the wind up here on the hill.
I have photos somewhere of the perfect grids of marigolds, but I really don't want to face my photos folder right now - I'll did those up someday for a laugh.

I've been meaning to call Laura (hi..) .. I'm hoping she can help me with some division and relocation. There are some plants (okay, a lot of plants) at Pearl that I want to have, but I also want to preserve what's there. There are a lot of friends who could use a good division or quartering (that sounds horrible) - and if I could face the house maybe we could organize a plant sale.. *shrug*...
I really don't think I'll be able to go back there until I can see the house full with another family. That awful swirling dizzy feeling swooshes over me and through my body when I think of the air that morning, the last time I was there....the trees, Heather wishing congratulations through Rohan's driver side window as we raced off to the hospital in labour with Finn. The last time I was there, Finn was still safe inside me.
I don't want to see the house empty. Everything about it confuses my memory-reality-mixup in my head - was I really pregnant? Did all that really happen?
I can't go back to the house. Not now...I don't know when..

I'm going to bring my John Davis rose, of course, ...though I don't know where to put him yet. This new space isn't going to be as kind to him as his current space. The problem is, his current space is almost a little too kind, and he can get a little carried away. A garden person/family may not mind, but I suspect most people don't want long reach thorny branches poking into their back door.
It's a lot cooler up here, and the damn wind is effing ...windy.. I'm going to swear a lot about the wind I suspect.
I'm hoping to use roses around the yard as an extra barrier to keep critters both in and out. I'll take Marie Bugnet from Pearl too - I know nobody wants all those teeny thorns. I don't mind the thorns - they can be useful. There's that Morden Sunrise rose (still in his pot, I believe) and Morden Blush, neither very useful but definitely pretty. Front garden beds? They'll have to be tucked in somewhere warm against the house to survive up here.

New rose bushes with replace some of the boring shrubs, big ones, fragrant ones - the ones that remind me of my mother because they reminded her of the beaches of Massachusetts where she played as a young girl. Hansa for one, but I know there are others..., I'll find them.

Bigger space, bigger beds... means bigger plants. Dwarf varieties have filled my other gardens, this one is going to get some big guns. Solomon's Seal, Goat's Beard, hostas of ridiculous size, they'll all be joining us.

The backyard will be dog run territory - literally - enough space for them to truly run. That was another of the many reasons we wanted this house. How do you reconcile a love for dogs, gardens, family space, and still live downtown in walking distance to all the good stuff and the lake? Space was a big issue for us.
Before we moved in we worried we would alienate all our new neighbours. We'd be those crazy dog people with a poopy yard. Little did we know our new neighbours were worrying the same in reverse. Dog rescues to one side, dogs to the other, dogs behind, dogs down the lane - and as it turn out we have the yard to host them all. It's doggyville up here.
Our dogs are happier than they've ever been. It's like a little Tree Farm out there, complete with wide open spaces, and bushes to hide in to leap out on to your basset brother. They're having fun.
Most of the back yard will always be reserved for dog space (and skating rinks).

I'll keep my gardens closer to home.
You would think with all this space I'd have thought of a good place for some vegetables. I thought I had, but the wind blew that one away. The peanut shaped bed near the sunroom boasts nothing more than a cotone aster and a large rock (we like the rock)..., and not that I have anything against the reliable contone aster..., boring. This guy might keep his spot for the mere reason he's about the only one who can stand up to the wind tunnel that frequently, sometimes violently, blows through there. The marigolds and cosmos certainly didn't like it.
Low growing succulents might like the space - maybe some more rocks.., the pretty amethyst rocks Rohan put in at Pearl.

There's a bed at the back... there's a caragana in the corner, and I recall a bunch of hostas. Not much else.. I didn't look to closely before, so we'll have to see what comes up in spring. That bed would be (possibly) the warmest and most protected for a vegetable bed - but it's so close to dog territory it would be at risk for both the sneaky pea and tomato eating basset hound, but also the icky thought of pee seepage in the soil around it.
Let's keep the food away from that, okay.

I'm probably just going to pillage that bed and turn it over to the dogs.

If anything actually gets done I'll be surprised. I can't seem to get anything done these days. Small steps they all say. Don't get defeated. My body aches, it's sick from the grief, I still can't digest anything, and I'm in knots from being so tense and hunched over crying, I'm all twisted up. Sarah did some pretty wild acupressure yesterday to try to untangle some of the knots, but I think some new, bigger ones developed overnight.

Planting would probably do me some good, and I'm sure I'll find myself back in the back of the greenhouse digging in the dirt at some point. Maybe I'll just go for the ladies, ..at wine-o'clock. Maybe a bit of both. Maybe not at all. I dunno....

I'm just not really sure where to direct my garden thoughts. I've thought often about what Heather said when she was here last week - about her birthday tree planting fundraising. It would be nice to do something similar but in memory of Finn. Heather just wanted to plant a tree, but her friends helped her plant ten - boulevard and public trees, carefully placed near people who will care for them all over Thunder Bay. How nice is that?
I'd like to plant some trees for Finn.

I think this year will be mostly about the trees. Trees and roses. Sounds like a good place to start.

sunrise

sunrise

Ma Petit Prince

Heather married us. She helped us organize the ceremony (in two weeks), helped us find the words for our vows, and made it all so... simple (in one word, all I ever wanted). She was our friend, my mother's friend, and also our neighbour. She's one of the reasons I miss our old home. There was nothing more lovely than hearing her play her piano while I dug around in my garden.

Heather was also one of the first to know of my pregnancy with Finn. We were at my mother's condo with Jean and Alison, some sherry, and some old gouda. I couldn't disguise my refusal of the sherry and old gouda. Heather was there all along as my belly grew and my mother faded away. She was there in the hospice at St. Joe's (with Jean and sherry and old gouda) on one of the last days my mother was alert.

She was there for me the morning my mother died, to hug me and counsel me in her front porch. She always has all the right things to say. There is a reason she floats a little, not just as she plays the piano but also when she walks.

Heather was one of the few people to meet Finn. She came by on the Friday before he died, when life was on the upswing, when nothing could go wrong. She gave him a knitted sock puppet in memory of his Nana, her friend. All the circles came together in love.

In the morning on the day we lost Finn I was asked a million times by people at the hospital who they could call - we needed our people, who could they call. I didn't know who to call. I don't have any people... my mother is gone, my father is gone, I don't have any parents, Rohan's parents are a hemisphere away, his whole family is in a different time zone, even as close as my sister seemed she was still too far away. I had nobody. 

They asked and asked again, who could they call, who could they call... finally it came to me - Heather. There was no one else.

She was there .. it seemed in an instant, and was there the whole time. She performed a naming ceremony to bless Finn's life, she held us holding him. I couldn't imagine that day without her. 

She performed Finn's memorial service. There was no one else.

There is no way to thank Heather for the way she has held our hearts through everything we've had to face in recent years. It's too much. How do you thank someone who has done so much?

When she was here to meet Finn she called him a little prince... a little nickname that has stayed with him. For her I made a needlefelted Le Petit Prince. He's from the scene where The Little Prince rakes his volcanoes, wearing his green outfit, blue belt, and yellow scarf.  

I made his asteroid - Asteroid B 612...

Then I made him a flock of wild birds...

I've been trying to string them as the mobile I see in my mind. 

It's working, I just have to tame the flock of wild birds a little.

When it's complete I'll take some better photos. I've really enjoyed making this one - it means a lot. It's been a challenge in design and engineering, wool, thread, fishing line, beads, and wooden rings. Every step has been made and constructed with Finn on my mind, and with Heather for all she did for my precious baby boy.

needlefelted dragonflies

I started needlefelting a few weeks ago. I had no idea how it was done, but was continually fascinated by the artistic creations I was seeing for sale on Etsy. I've been desperately needing something new to do, something to keep me preoccupied at home, keep my hands busy. I've always needed a creative outlet - photography, gardening, sewing, cooking.., and I've always like small crafts, fidgety things, details. 

I've also been wanting to do something special for some people who have done so much for me - more than I could ever put into words. Sarah, of course.. how will I ever be able to thank her for all she's done as a healer and as a friend. Making something to represent Finn - his conception, his pregnancy, his life, and his death has been healing in itself... it feels good to create things with him in mind. 

It's been difficult for both Rohan and I to count how many days we had Finn with us - was ten? Was it eleven? It borders the two and it's all a little confusing. The number eleven seems to be speaking a little louder these days, so for Sarah I made eleven little felted dragonflies flying around a felted branch. 

Needlefelting isn't complicated, and doesn't require a whole lot of equipment, and as I started I could only see more and more possibilities. It's been a great distraction for my mind and fingers. Each little dragonfly has unique blue markings of the wings, a blue bead eyes sewn on with metallic thread. Each one carefully brought to life to remember a life lost.

I've ordered a lot of wool from various places - some from Living Felt, a great resource for all things felted, including You Tube tutorials; and from places I've found on Etsy, straight from farms in New Zealand and closer to home in southern Ontario. Again, a new to me learning adventure, and already I've discovered preferences ..I can see the future wool snob developing in me. I'm constantly distracted with new project ideas. It's about the only thing that has distracted me in a positive way since we lost Finn.

I know Sarah will love her dragonflies and with them remember Finn. Her peaceful and calming way is so much like all the nice things we hear about dragonflies, the two go very well together.  

hormone soup

The first time a friend (a friend, not a doctor) asked how I was handling the hormonal fluctuations of infant loss I was a little taken aback by the question. "I've been thinking about your hormones..."

My hormones? I thought - somebody was thinking about my hormones? That's just ..weird.

It's not though - it's part of being an older woman and having older women friends who know enough women who have been exposed in some way or another by raging hormones. Whether it's cancer that put their hormones in the spotlight, or the whole process of motherhood from trying to conceive to breast feeding (... having a teenage daughter..), and of course there's just ordinary age and ordinary women.

My hormones get discussed often, as they should. They are the center of attention these days, my driving force. They're fucking exhausting. My system is so angry that there is no baby to calm all those raging hormones, and everything's falling apart. 

I was doing well-ish for a while - thanks to acupuncture, I'm certain. As far as my physical health went I seemed to be recovering. Everything returned to "normal" in good time, and I've already had a number of cycles - enough cycles to be able to call a few predictions. It's very clear that the week before I get my period is a very fragile time. 

Triggers are everywhere, and on a "good" day I can find ways to keep standing, but in the phase when those angry hormones rage I can't, and every trigger is amplified. It's an absolutely terrifying place to be. 

The subject of post traumatic stress has been discussed around me and to me since Finn died. I think everyone was (is?) afraid I was going to kill myself. I had good reason to, but I had even more reason to live..., I still have Hannah. I'm still a mother. 

I can completely understand how the symptoms of post traumatic stress could drive someone to suicide though. Am I really going to feel like this for the rest of my life? The thought of it sends a dizzy feeling swirling through my head - that in itself being a symptom. The nervous fluttery feeling in my gut has been around long enough to manifest in physical ways that tie me to the house as much as my irrational anxieties. I've had diarrhea for more than a month, made worse by a very confused appetite. Every morning I fight the urge to throw up nothing. It's not a medical thing - there is no Pepto for the kind of flutters causing this problem. 

There is no medication that will bring my baby back, so there is no medicine that can help me. I've never seen any reason to take antidepressants. I rely on acupuncture to settle a lot of the symptoms that any antidepressant would take care of, as well as any hormonal drug - acupuncture is so much more effective. Straightforward vitamins and some Chinese herbs, probiotics, juice with glutamine and flax seed, lots of protein, a simple healthy diet - chicken and vegetable soups, broth, pho, miso, eggs and spinach (which horrifies Hannah)... 

I'd like to add more exercise into the mix, and I had been walking for a while - but the groups of stroller moms out there the make amount of negative effort it takes to get out there outweigh the positive benefit of the walk. I still haven't found a better routine. 

I left the house by myself for the first time a week and a half ago, walked down Bay Street to Algoma to Cedar Grove for an acunap. It was great until I was on my way home and at the top of the Bay Street stairs I thought to myself ..ow.. and by the time I got home I thought ...OW.. and by the time the next morning rolled around I felt scared and defeated by the fact that I had obviously torn something significant around my c-section scar; something very internal that sent my whole pelvis into frightened inflammation. It still hurts. 

I can't afford to lose any strength in any of those muscles. Two c-sections aren't easy on the body. 

I won't deny the use of over the counter sleeping pills - even if it's just for the placebo affect. Sort of proven last Sunday when I took eight of them [sorry liver] hoping to escape the nightmare I was in, but all that happened was I sat with my eyes fixed open in a dopey daze for five hours. I should have known better than to test my limits as the hormonal hostilities were already giving me the shakes. 

The hardest part about being a mother of a dead child is being the mother of a living child. Hannah's hockey team had made the finals in the Fort Frances tournament. Rohan and I got the news she would be playing for first by text as we sat here across from each other by the fire. He suggested immediately that we go watch - I knew we wanted to go all along. He really enjoys watching Hannah play. I also enjoy watching Hannah play - especially now as the girls are older, faster, better players, clever, funny on the ice teenage girls. It's been hard to face this season without Finn wearing the little knit hockey outfit I had for him. Every game has been a trigger of torn emotions - wanting to go, not wanting to go, wanting to go, not being able to go, tears.

Hannah doesn't understand right now, her teenage female hormones aren't allowing her to. I understand that. I can only hope someday she understand me. Her father I sure doesn't understand - his excuse being complete ignorance and arrogance. Rohan understands, all too well, and he knew suggesting we go to Fort Frances was suggesting a lot. 

I felt I couldn't not go - my immediate reaction to the news of the final was that I wanted to see that game. Back to that want to go, not wanting to go, want to go, have to go, must try to go... tears...

It's been clear for years that I don't like driving. I don't think I'm a good driver - not because I don't know or am ignorant to the rules of the road, but because I'm scared, and I've become really hesitant (perhaps from having to drive in the la-la freaking land of Thunder Bay drivers for too long and not wanting to conform). Slow, hesitant drivers are just as dangerous as fast, arrogant drivers. I prefer to stick to my bike, or my scooter, or just let Rohan drive. 

I really don't like driving the highways around Thunder Bay, even less in winter, even less this winter - for more than one reason (they've been in the news lately for having had the worst snow clearing in history, with fines and more being placed on those responsible). 

Combine it all: raging hormones, triggers causing explosions in my head of visions and noises of things I've come to fear more than anything imaginable, a body and mind in turmoil, an aching pelvis - a reminder of the baby taken from me then taken again, irrational anxiety that partners with a flock of wild birds in my gut causing physical angst in every part of my digestive system, an inability to eat or be far from a bathroom, the fear of not being near a bathroom, the torn emotions over wanting to go and not wanting to go, an a justifiable fear of winter highways in Northwestern Ontario. 

It took a lot for me to get in the car that morning - the car with no red baby seat in it anymore, the car we bought because our family was expanding. It took a lot to face my fear of the highway at a time when my mind doesn't know how to rationalize anything because the chemicals my hormones are releasing are too overpowering; but I wanted to go, tears and all.

By the time the third semi trailer blew by us knocking even the heavy Subaru around in the gust I closed my eyes, only opening them for seconds here and there, for four hours to Fort Frances. We didn't speak because I could only speak to the voices in my head telling me to be the tree, breathe, let your body relax, let go of the tension as I sat white knuckled clinging to my purse strap. 

When we arrived I thought, okay - halfway... I can do this, I can do this. I just needed to stop shaking. Hannah knew something was up when she saw me, I told her I was car sick (also ordinarily plausible..). She could have never known that it was fighting the urge to crumble to the floor that was making me so sick.

The arena was pounding with loudest music. I guess they were trying to rival the NHL in between whistle energy - except it was just too much, and at the time there wasn't even anyone on the ice, not even a zamboni. I totally get loud music in an arena at a sporting event, but I also totally get acoustics and making that loud music sound like loud music as opposed to rattling vibrations through the steal beams and concrete. 

We found some rattling seats and sat in them, rattled. I thought it couldn't get worse. The noises in my head were only enjoying the competition with the noise outside.Human combustion isn't always in flames. Before I could even repeat the words this couldn't get worse a woman sat down in front of me and pulled out a set of bells, reaching up jingling them madly in the air in front of my face. It got worse.

We found some new seats a little bit away from everybody. I really wanted to be okay. I tried to be the tree, I tried to breathe. Rohan went off to get some stadium food for himself (anything goes in his gut of steal), leaving me alone in the noise with the noises. I closed my eyes and wished for any kind of peace, anything to help get me though this.. as I did, my phone rang, and as if a prayer was answered the voice of an angel was on the other end. It was Heather. ...and I couldn't answer - because it was so loud in the stadium you couldn't hear yourself speak, and even without all the pain in my pelvis I wouldn't not have been able to run out in time to answer. Yes, I could always call her back - that wasn't the point, it didn't matter - that was the final trigger in a series of triggers and the explosion was inevitable. 

I ran to find Rohan, ran to the car, shut myself in and immediately let a billion tears splash over the windshield. I haven't cried like that since around Christmas. It was ugly, painful, wrenching. Rohan followed, worried, wanting to turn around and drive home immediately to get me home as fast as he could..., but we couldn't, we had come all that way, Hannah's game was going to start in less than an hour. He went back to talk to Hannah, while I called Heather back and tried to speak through a mouthful of tears.

It was then that Rohan drove us to the Safeway, bought some otc sleep aids, which I promptly swallowed eight of. The wide eyed daze hit about halfway through Hannah's game, and successfully blurred the noise around me with the noise inside me. I was hoping to sleep all the way home so I wouldn't have to experience the road.., but I'm not that lucky.

I don't think Hannah's father has any comprehension of how his ignorance is seen on my end - I'm quite certain he could care less. Maybe he thinks he's demonstrating some sort of power trip, a big fuck you to me, not realizing its Hannah he hurts every step of the way. I've never understood how he can't put our differences aside and just do what's right for her. He denies her any financial support because she "has Rohan now" - not recognizing my contributions, or the fact that regardless of Rohan - he is her father and should take care of what needs to be taken care of. He never paid a daycare bill, or agreed to help watch Hannah after school so that I could work, he never bought diapers, or necessary things along the way - refused to help out when I bought her first real bed as a single part time working mother. He's never bought a winter coat, boots, school supplies, nothing - and only for a short while did he sort of regularly send checks (but only on his terms and I think he enjoyed making me feel dependent). The only thing he has ever paid for is hockey (refusing to help with swimming or piano lessons saying they weren't important) - and even with hockey he's failed. He often can't bring her to practices and games (just assuming my schedule is open), and he has chosen to go to his step son's games and practices over Hannah's. He supplies her with second rate gear that I constantly have to replace (her skates, for instance, were two sizes too big - when we took her to get properly sized last year. I was shocked her father wouldn't have considered her feet, since he himself has had such foot problems he's had to have surgery. Why - why doesn't he think of her?)

It's not about the money - there was a time it would have really helped, but it's not about that any more. I would just like to see him put her first instead of trying so hard to prove he hates me. She doesn't call him for rides, money for the movies or the mall, trips to Chapters, ...he even refused a single concert ticket as they watch his step son play hockey in the arena they were being sold at. If he thinks denying her hurts me, well...., then he succeeds. 

He proved his arrogance on the highway Sunday night as he passed us in a blaze, disappearing out of sight with my baby in his truck. I'm sure it didn't occur to him that the mother of his daughter is suffering, and trying so hard not to become a helicopter mom, trying so hard to continue to let Hannah go little by little as she becomes more and more independent. Being on the wrong side of statistics like this has done irreparable damage to my sense of security. I used to think losing a child was something that only happens to other people - but now that I'm one of those people I know too well that anything can happen, any time, to any one, no one is immune. I've lost one child, who's to say I won't lose another... 

I can't live like that though, and I can't do that to Hannah. It's such an internal battle now. I have to somehow rationalize these absurd feelings I have toward her safety while not letting on, so she doesn't roll her eyes at me, or tune me out. I have to choose my words wisely to get though the web of teenage nonsense she's dealing with. She finds my night time sobbing annoying, showing little compassion - and I have to just deal with that, knowing that it's just how sixteen year olds are, and someday she'll understand. 

I have to try to act stable for her while every cell of my body is begging to come apart. I have to, at the same, time continue to give her the freedom she's accustomed to. She's already been white water rafting in Alaska and on the Great Wall of China - the girl has big dreams, a need for adventure, and a serious case of the travel bug. It's what I love most about her, and I want to be able to give her opportunities to encourage her spirit. It take a lot for any mother to allow their child to dangle off the CN Tower or jump out of a plane, but a loss mother has so much more to contemplate. The need to keep the two sides from meeting on the battlefield of mixed emotions is going to make me learn to live with a sick gut forever.

Hannah says I shouldn't worry - she's with her father, he's not going to hurt her. Of course not, I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt her (physically). 

Finn was with his father. It doesn't matter - you can think you're doing everything right, you can love that child more than anything in the world and it can still go very, very wrong. Accidents happen, and there's little we can do to prevent them. Speeding in the dark along one of the most dangerous stretches of highway in Canada is only begging for something bad to happen. I know Hannah's father must have been laying on it heavily because I know how Rohan drives so I know we were already going over the limit. He and Hannah left quite a while after us, caught up to us, passed us, and disappeared out of sight. 

I received a text from Hannah a while later asking for us to meet them pulled over somewhere so she could get in with us because she didn't have her house key, adding that they were way ahead of us now. I said no - he could slow down so we could catch up and we could all drive in together. He could have just stayed with us, perhaps think it might be safer as we all drive home at night, in case something happens to one or the other. Instead his arrogant driving, out to prove god knows what, just had to make it all difficult, had to make it angsty, had to put Hannah in the middle between squabbling parents. Did it occur to him to set an example for Hannah - especially as she learns to drive with her new license? 

Sigh.

He didn't think of her, he didn't think of her safety first, he didn't think of me (of course not), he couldn't just put it all aside. 

I was so numb from the worry, anxiety, and tears of the day that by the point we reached Thunder Bay I was so weak I could hardly stand to walk. It didn't take long for me to fall into bed, with no energy left to even cry - the tears were just dribbling out by then. 

Monday morning was just a new start to another hormone-driven day. Tears were uncontrollable and came in every flavour. Sunday was now just a part of the bigger blur, the big nightmare, tossed in with visions of losing Finn, and all the other faces, sounds, scenes, and memories that haunt me. I know Rohan was very worried about me. He knows there's nothing anyone can do - my body and my mind are playing tricks that are capable of some really nasty things, and the only solution is time... I have to get passed that hormonal phase for things to start making sense again, and until it happens it only gets worse. 

Heather came by Monday evening and immediately upon seeing my blubbering state said, "are you sure this isn't a hormonal thing..." I laughed for the first time in days, agreeing. Yes, yes, it's the hormones...It's lots of other things, but it's definitely the hormones. It was such a relief just to have someone else say it - someone not a doctor, but a woman who knows.

I'm on cycle day two, and the world is starting to make a little more sense. The events of Sunday are going to continue to haunt me for a while - and I never, ever want to drive that road again at night. I'm still achy from being so tense for so many hours, and the emotional hangover is worse than anything Jenn's cheap red wine could do. 

Hugh Walker told me at the last session to be gentle with myself, and I think I have to pay a little more attention to that. As much as I want to participate in some things I have to hope the people involved understand if some days I just can't face anything other than what's going on inside of me. 

Sleeping Giant sunrise

wild wooden horses

Sarah and I spent most of yesterday's acupuncture session talking - about creativity, dogs, and Chinese New Year. It was great conversation, and in the frame of acupuncture it was just as healing as the needles. We often have those sorts of conversations.
There was no acu-nap, in fact we laughed so much that I had to keep stopping myself from jiggling the needles out of me. I didn't rest as much as I usually do during acupuncture sessions - it was more like laughing yoga and I came out feeling not only relaxed but rejuvenated in a way I haven't felt for a very, very long time.

Sarah has a very healing way of (doing everything) translating her knowledge whether it is trying to find a way to explain Chinese medicine using English words, or her perceptions throughout our conversations - physically/medically, emotionally and everything in between. These conversations are as powerful as the needles and create a really good energy just in themselves.

I didn't cry as much as I have been during acupuncture lately.

When we got to the subject of the Chinese New Year Sarah told me about an article she had read about the significance of this year of the Wood Horse.

We have just been traveling through [a] void - in two Water years - which immersed us in a descending place of degeneration, dissolution and chaos, a time when our internal world of formless spirit and emotions held total sway over every attempt at external control or order. For most of us, it was an unsettling time of letting go of many things, either voluntarily or forcefully, a time of deep soul searching, with gradual or sudden destabilization in many areas of family and livelihood.

I don't think there is anybody I know who doesn't look back on 2013 as a year of profound change, good and bad - but mostly bad. Massive life shifts, career moves, family's losing and gaining - and losing again. I think about Andy's dad, the awesome Ken Schmidt, who passed away right on the cusp of this massive shift in energies. There are a lot of really incredible people who left us in the last twelve months, and I can't help but wonder if they're all connected in some very special way.

It was just as the second water year began that my mother was given weeks to live, just as the baby growing inside me was making it clear he was a survivor (of pregnancy). Turmoil, chaos, confusion, ...absurdity followed.
Those water years were hard, especially the last, filled with profound loss, but with scattered moments of extreme happiness. Many, many people made major adjustments to life.
It's not just me Sarah and I were talking about - herself, and so many people we know have been though a lot in the last year. I know more people who lost in 2013 than any other year I can remember. Friends (and friends of friends) have been through hell and back with health and life on the line. Lots of people moved too; all over the world, big moves, life changing moves, families blending, families splitting up, new houses, new stuff, new places - coincidence?
Meh, this stuff happens all the time, right?

There might not be a bigger shift of energies

in the entire 60 year wheel of Chinese astrology

 than this one coming up

–the shift from two Water years of deep introspection

to the fast-paced spurt of extroverted forward propulsion

that the Wood Horse brings.

It's impossible for me to not look back on 2013 and not try to find some sort of meaning. I'll be doing this for the rest of my life, I'm sure - sifting through the chaos, trying to understand the absurd (running on a hamster wheel). At the same time I'm desperate to find a meaningful path to follow forward. I've been feeling this strong sense of disorientation for months and need more than anything some clarity.

This feeling I have of being in a new life dominates the days. I'm in a new house, surrounded by things and friends from the past - familiar but new simultaneously, missing some significant people, not quite knowing what to do with myself, not really knowing how to define myself anymore ...I even think I look different (beyond just the expected postpartum changes). My old life ended when Finn died, and I've sat stagnant ever since.
Is this lunisolar event a new beginning, or the start of something? I want to hope so.

The article goes on:

This will be a Promethean year, the Beginning of all beginnings, arriving around January 31st to February 4th, 2014. Full of uplift, optimism and compelling inspiration, we will be guided into purposeful action of the most elegantly simple and powerfully fruitful kind. After two years of feeling every revelation of corruption in the dark as if it was scouring our subconscious insides and wringing us dry of watery emotion, we are ready for this change! Light, hope and clarity of vision gallop in.

We laughed throughout my acupuncture session every time Sarah said, "Giddy up!" like a new mantra or affirmation. It sounds so silly. Silly, but effective (and I suspect a lot of people will be saying it in the coming months). Later in the day Rohan and I laughed at a CD that arrived as a freebie in an order of wool I received - it claims to be music for creativity along with affirmations, which I assume are things like "I am beautiful" or "I am worthy" and other nauseating phrases. I'm going to guess there's no "giddy up" on that CD.

This is a year to follow your inner voice like never before, for it will have a universal cosmic ch’i within it. Higher guidance is with us every step of the way. Reach for the sky, call up your vision, fuel your plans with vision boards and creativity, find a fresh path and pace yourself well.

My inner voice and vision have spent the last few months as a tree, specifically the oak tree that anchors the south east corner of our front yard. In the early days after Finn died Sarah had me use the image of a tree as a device in relaxation breathing - to take me someplace else and be something else, breathing in from my roots and reaching toward the sky, feeling the light and the air, imagining the seasons...all of it. I've used it daily ever since, and always as a way to calm myself before a grief counselling session.
The tree works for me, I've always had a good relationship with trees - from my childhood spend in Wishart's forest to the rows of the tree farm, and of course my affair with the trees of Waverley Park and other urban giants.

Trees are about the only thing that have interested me about our new yard. The garden stuff will come in time, for now it's just not a big concern for me (I imagined myself too busy with a baby too think much about it).
The trees in the yard - and in the park across the street - have actually been quite entertaining. Their colour in the autumn is how I see the blur of those weeks, and their lights are what brought me (and others) a smile at a very dark time (of year and otherwise). The Wild Thing in the park will never be seen as two ordinary trees urban trees, but always with ears and horns looking out on the lake. In the backyard a small mountain ash has the wings of a million birds every day, its berry supply almost entirely devoured already.
It's easy to correlate all this tree business to wood and the symbol of the wooden horse, and if anything I can consider it a starting point - to something..

I'm already on a fresh path, not by choice but here I am; and I have no choice but to pace myself because my body and my mind need to heal slowly. If a little bit of optimism is ahead I'll take it.

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.