Old Post New Tricks

I wrote this obviously nearly six weeks ago and never posted. I have a lot of backlog stuff that I want to post so I thought I’d start here. We’re entering the precarious danger zone that would be Sylvie’s fifth birthday, on May 12th.

March 2011

Michael lit two birthday candles on March 13 which were submerged in the thick icing of German Chocolate and Red Velvet cupcakes. I consciously wished for something I knew would never come true—that sounds and is so helpless and pathetic, I know. I can tell you the wish because it’s not going to make it any less likely to come true—For Sylvie to physically be with us on my birthday.

Holidays are totally meaningless to me. I don’t want presents. I feel totally ungrateful because no material object stacks up to what I really want and can’t have. So I’d rather disappear around any holiday. It’s going to be very difficult to celebrate holidays with the twins, something I’ll have to really try hard to work around my own emotions since obviously, we are going to have festive celebratory events in our life again even though mentally, I am just not there.

I love Michael and Michael loves me. Intensely and infinitely. Together we love Spencer and Ryan. But each of our love for Sylvie is far greater which is a weird thing to comprehend. I can’t wrap my head around it. Seriously, think about it for a moment. We love Sylvie independently of each other and that love is stronger than any other love either of us have for any human being. We don’t talk about it because we love one another so much and naturally our new little guys, too. And it’s just weird and sad. I realize, or I should point out that our therapist reminded us, that when anyone has another child, they may question how to share their love and often feel a little guilty about it.

Of course Spencer and Ryan will grow up knowing all about their sister. I tell everyone about her. It’s only a matter of time before people think I’m insane and talk about it behind my back. I’ll be the old beggar lady mistaken for being drunk in synagogue who is praying to God when I’m actually having a conversation with my deceased little girl.

Randomly, several of my friends who were home sick this winter, watched an episode of Oprah featuring the Coble family who lost all three of their children in an awful accident. The family then made a pact to not commit suicide or do anything to put their own lives at risk (and thus join their kids in ‘heaven’) and then conceived triplets via IVF. Anyway, my friends independent of one another asked me if Michael and I ever had those kinds of feelings. And I have to say that I’m very committed to my time here on earth with my amazing family although don’t think for a second that when I’m on an airplane (those who really know me know that I have an absurd fear of flying that makes me very unpleasant to sit next to on a plane), I frequently consider that if the plane crashed and I died, well, I know a very special little girl who will hopefully be waiting there for me. When Ryan + Spencer were born, I had to fill out several post partum depression questionnaires at the hospital and I wanted to write in: MY DAUGHTER DIED SO IT IS NORMAL AND I AM ALLOWED TO BE SAD, TOO. I AM NOT DEPRESSED.

Michael woke me one night to ask me how I felt about faith. And could I ever have faith again. I told him that in my sleep-deprived state, I needed to think about it because I have faith in knowing Sylvie’s spirit is with me but do I have faith in a higher power? Um, I can’t answer that.

When we were at our friends’ son’s third birthday party a few weeks ago and one of Sylvie’s former classmates whizzed past me only to stop short, look up at me and say, “I MISS SYLVIE. SHE WAS HERE FOR TOO SHORT A TIME.”
Or that Sunday, my niece Megan said to me, “SYLVIE’S NOT HERE BUT SHE CAN STILL TALK.”
To both little girls, I told them that I agreed. I’m not sure if or what the right answer is but I believe in the survival of the human spirit.