Two Years

Anniversaries. Yesterday marked two years since Sylvie had been admitted to the Emergency Room at HUMC with a ‘tummy ache’ and our lives have and will never be the same. I feel like every month is some anniversary related to Sylvie’s illness, treatment, surgery, highs and lows and then very lows. It’s like I’m reliving the moment again and again with the same intensity as last year and the year before.

Michael and I constantly talk about how vivid it still is in our minds. It’s haunting. We’re permanently devastated. Sad. Mad. Heartbroken. Depressed. WE HAVE A RIGHT TO FEEL THIS WAY. In December, I drove past a local restaurant and saw through the plate-glass window a particular member of the medical community, whom I had not seen since the night Sylvie died, laughing and cajoling. I circled back several times in my car and on foot. I even walked up to the window and stuck my face close enough to see my breath on the glass and considered going inside to see if I looked familiar or to yell at this person HOW DARE YOU ENJOY YOURSELF. Okay, I also wanted to drive straight through the fucking window and kill this person. I texted Michael. I can’t even say what he would have done although he had a First Amendment right to do so. WE ARE ALLOWED TO FEEL THIS WAY. AND THIS PERSON IS NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE FUN. NOT ONE DROP OF JOY. Don't get me wrong, there are at least two dozen folks who comprised Sylvie's medical team that I would run up to and hug if I ran into. This was not one of them.

My Blackberry died in December sometime between the first and second big snow. I had been a shithead and had not backed it up for nearly two years. I knew it was that long simply because when I got a new one and synched it to my old data, Sylvie’s oncology team were in my address book. Otherwise I lost everything else. I was most distraught because I lost all my photos and had a ritual of photographing Sylvie’s headstone every time I visited the cemetery. Speaking of which, you cannot possibly imagine what it’s like for us to go to there.

The seasons. The flowers. The sparkly rocks. The mini boxwoods which we deliberated over and Michael planted himself in the fall while I sat next to him pregnant and crying. The cloisonné Nutcracker ornament, not quite kosher at a Jewish cemetery but what the heck. I was so touched when my friend Ann told me that she and her husband visited Sylvie during the holidays and left a candy cane. I thought about them bringing us dinner to PICU when Sylvie had her port inserted and liver biopsy. And the dozens of other times they visited. Including our last time in PICU on November 29, 2009.

If I’m taking Spencer & Ryan for a check up, the shortest distance from my house to the Whole Child Center passes the cemetery. Unless I’m going to be late, I intentionally drive out of my way for obvious reasons. Oh... there's Lord & Taylor, coming up on the right is Eisele's Nursery where we buy our vegetable starters in the spring and over there is the cemetery where our daughter is buried... Michael and I don’t coordinate our visits there because we are usually taking turns with the twins and in some odd way, like to have our moments there in private. But I can tell if he’s been there and vice versa by the footprints left in the snow.

When I’m nursing Spencer, he looks just like Sylvie. And when “Ten Thousand Kisses” by Suzi Shelton comes on my iPod while I’m playing with him and his brother, I have to advance to the next song because it brings me back to the exact moment when we sat at the red light at Glen and Maple en route to the emergency room the morning of November 28, 2009. Ryan has the same frenetic energy as Sylvie. Michael loves rocking them in Sylvie’s glider chair because it reminds him of Sylvie. He looks over at the bookshelf wondering if they will like the same books, minus the princess ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t walk around crying all day long although I break down at the most random times in the most random places, like in Physical Therapy yesterday when Blind Melon “No Rain” came on….
“You know I’ve got to keep my cheeks dry today…so stay with me and we’ll have it made…” which used to send Sylvie and me dancing around the kitchen doing our crazy mommy/daughter hippie dance.

I am in love with Spencer and Ryan and it sure took a hell of a lot to bring them into this world. They don’t realize yet what an important role they have in our family as our sons, little brothers to Sylvie and conduit so to speak. But it doesn’t replace Sylvie or our sadness. Hopefully they’ll be better sleepers and we’ll be better parents when it comes to them being better sleepers. There are no guarantees in life, as we have learned.

It was kind or ironic that Ryan was up all last night constipated. I couldn’t help but think of Sylvie’s tummy ache and that at least she was able to tell us that her tummy hurt. I was absolutely confident he was just blocked up but don’t think that I didn’t consider Sylvie’s tummy ache from two years ago.

Spencer and Ryan will grow up knowing they have a big sister, and heaven forbid the person who says they’re “lucky” their big sister is an angel. I will deck them whether they’re 30 or 90 years old. That much I can guarantee.