An exerpt, one chapter in From a Lullaby to Goodbye:
Remembering
Patti McKenna
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ometime later, I was told that I’d spent a long time hugging myself. Looking back, I can remember crossing my arms in front of me, holding myself tight. To this day, I’m not sure if I did it because of the emptiness from not having a baby in my arms, or if it was because I was so cold. I remember being cold, very cold.
While the days and weeks surrounding the loss of our son are in many ways a blur (and I think that’s good…I don’t ever want to vividly remember them again), there are things I do remember. I remember being angry that people were laughing in our back yard after we returned from the cemetery. There to help and comfort us, it was natural for them to talk to and enjoy each other—after all, they were all friends and family. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the fact that anyone could laugh—I wondered if I ever would again.
I remember packing his things, waiting for my husband to leave with his brother because I wanted to do it alone. To me, it was my job. I owed him this, even if it hurt like hell. And it did, more than I thought, and I closed the box before I folded the last little blue sleeper. I couldn’t pack him away entirely, so I kept that sleeper and one little white stuffed bunny out of it. Then, I sat on the bed and cried until my husband came home. He looked at the box, started to ask what I was doing, and then picked up the box. I don’t remember much after that.
I also remember my mom coming over a week after Matthew died. She walked into the kitchen as I was opening the prescription bottle to take the pill that would eventually dry up my milk. Started, almost yelling, she asked me what I was doing. When I told her, she couldn’t hide her relief…or the sadness that overcame her. She was afraid that I’d turned to drugs…or worse…and sad because the reason I needed to take those pills was not there. It was like she suddenly grasped the unfairness of it.
Mom, as well as others, thought it would do me good to get out of the house. Knowing that seeing people I knew would be difficult, my mom and stepfather invited us to a White Sox game in Chicago, saying we’d have dinner up north, too. They begged me to go, saying it would be easier because I wouldn’t see anyone who would ask questions or bring up our baby. So I went. We sat down at the table, and bingo, for the first time since my son’s death, I heard a baby cry. My heart knew my child was gone, but my breasts refused to accept it. Milk leaked everywhere. The tears came almost as quickly. Sometimes, it truly is too soon to venture out—no matter how much good someone thinks it will do.
From there, I went straight into the ‘getting by’ days—those days where you do whatever you have to do to get through it. That process involved frequently playing a game that I also remember—what if. What if was a daily fantasy, where I could go back and, briefly, change the outcome. What if I had heard him cry? What if I’d been awake and heard him cough or gasp? What if I’d found him sooner? What if he was here, right now, in my arms? It gave me moments of reprieve, but always ended up with me back where I was, still trying to make sense of it all.
Day by day, month by month, and year by year, it got better. The pain never truly left. It just found a place in my heart where it could take up permanent residence and stay with me internally, but not externally. It’s dulled over time, not because the love is less, but because the mind has an amazing way of protecting the body from pain.
Since then, I’ve had three other children, but I never forgot my second one…not for an instant. If anything, he’s become more important throughout the years because I want to make sure I remember him. I want to convince myself that he won’t be forgotten. He mattered.
That’s why I wanted to write this book. I wish I’d had it. I had no one I could relate to when I lost my baby. The lack of a network has been reaffirmed as our family lost other children. My next pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. My brother had a daughter who was stillborn. Then, we tragically lost our teenage nephew in a drowning accident. As our Uncle Marty said, though, the age and circumstance are not important. A parent’s intense love for his or her child is immediate—you cannot measure the amount of grief by the number of days or years you spent together.
Is it fair? No, of course not. There is no fairness in the loss of a child. Many times, there’s not even a why. But there is always a who—and more than one. First, there is the child, loved and mourned at the same time. Then, there are the parents, who struggle between loving and mourning, being pulled in both directions. The hierarchy of grief includes grandparents, siblings, and friends. None of them have an instruction manual that tells us how to survive the loss of a child.
This book isn’t an instruction manual, either. It’s not meant to be. It’s nothing more than a book of friends reaching out in a time of need, sharing how we coped, what helped, what hurt, our smiles and our memories, and above all the common bond that we all have—we don’t understand how you must feel—we understand how you do feel.
We know the journey can be lonely—you might find that you, too, hug yourself along the way. While you may think you’re alone, you’re not. There are many others who have completed this journey. You’ll meet some of them in this book. Reach out to us, share your child with us. We understand. We also went from a lullaby to goodbye.
Patti McKenna is a freelance ghostwriter, author, and editor, and the mother of four beautiful daughters and one son in heaven. She is the author of a humorous book on the realities of parenting entitled, Caution: Children Should Come With Warning Labels (www.UrbanEdgePublishing.com) and a co-author in Voices of Breast Cancer (LaChance Publishing). She and her husband, Patrick, live in Kankakee, IL. You can reach Patti at PcMcKenna6@aol.com or you can contact her through www.LullabytoGoodbye.com. Patti also has a parenting blog, Parenting 1 Word at a Time, which can be found at www.writeandedit.wordpress.com.
