Jason's birthday

It's "happy minute" (11:11pm) as I write. I felt happier at most of the other minutes of the day than I do at once again being up at this hour, but it just hasn't felt like there has been an overabundance of minutes in the day... Overall it was a wonderful day today. I've determined over the last number of years that I tend to enjoy Jason's birthday even more than mine. I'm such a sucker for getting wrapped up in expectations of what a birthday should be like, or thinking about how I'm going to make Jason's birthday special, that I don't tend to soak in the actual day of my birth all that well. But I sure enjoy the day after. Maybe I just enjoy spending a good part of the day in the kitchen. Kali enjoyed helping to craft Daddy's birthday menus. Of course she was quite certain she knew just what Daddy would want to eat, but boy did some of her suggestions sound like her favorites. :)

Jason thoroughly enjoyed spending a good part of his day with his hands in dirt. Kali and I joined him long enough to help him plant garlic (which he has determined he hopes to make a yearly tradition on his birthday). We also planted the first redbud tree, which will be part of a grove of trees. This was the first planting in an area that Jason dreams of being a memory garden in honor of Nora. And last we put "Kali's tree" that we took from our first apartment to our first home on E Wolfe St to our Fruit Farm Lane home in its final resting spot. It felt good to end the planting with her tree.

The other night Kali and I were laying in bed talking about writing books and dedicating them to people. I mentioned that if I ever wrote a book I would dedicate it to "Nora and Kali." She thought about this for a moment and then suggested that I could dedicate it to her and write it about Nora since "there's more news to tell." It was one of those precious windows into her little mind. It was clear that somewhere in her on some level she had absorbed the idea that Nora's life (and death) was more interesting or more news worthy than hers. She didn't say it with any bitterness that I could tell but I was grateful to be present to hear it spoken outloud.

I think sometimes in an effort to keep my memories of Nora alive in our home, I forget about how it may come across to Kali. In my mind it is pretty clear: Kali is healthy and growing and here with us. I can hug her and tell her I love her anytime. We play games together, read books, cook and bake together. Nora isn't here. It sure doesn't feel to me that she is the favored one in life. But Kali listens to everything. She hears us processing with each other. She listens to our phone calls even when she seems otherwise occupied. She catches my tears from time to time. And she soaks it all up.

So I find myself trying to verbalize more to her the ways she is special to me. The amazing new things she is doing (like her budding interest in photography). The ways she is growing and changing and what an important part of our family she is. Hopefully she will soak all that up too.

PA trip

This time last night we were just heading out of PA and homeward bound. Reading my last post I had to smile since once again we had an abbreviated weekend trip to PA! Some days I feel like there are just not enough hours in the day for all the life lessons coming my way right now. And I wanted to spend some time writing on my 30th birthday and have less than an hour of it left!! So a quick blog entry will have to do.

To make a long story short, we had a wonderful time with wonderful friends Friday evening and all day Saturday before coming home, arriving at 2am this morning. I've been journeying with a woman in the graduate program I work with who was expecting a little boy at the beginning of October and who I had agreed to accompany during the birth. He decided to come early and was born Saturday afternoon while we were still in PA. He is precious and healthy and is being warmly received and welcomed by our students from all over the world. It is an amazing thing to be part of, even as I can't help but experience some disappointment at missing his grand entrance.

The process of deciding when or if we should leave PA was actually a weighty one for me, layered with some of the ongoing complexity I feel as I tease out my home and family life and my work and community life. Striking a healthy and sustainable balance is not an overnight task. So I've added that to my list for my 31st year!

Every birthday has some firsts I imagine. This year had some that welcome and some that are painful. But Kali was so full of life and fun today, a wonderfully special gift. And today the most memorable first for me was getting a foot massage from Kali with the purple lotion and foot scrubber she picked out for my birthday. Of course, as she does everything, she had to do it in a manner outside the box. It was foot scrub, then a leg scrub, then a pant scrub. But I felt loved none-the-less!

Now, as I do every year, I'll pass the birthday celebrating to Jason! We all agreed to go ahead and cut into the funny cake pie today while it is was fresh but there is enough to enjoy tomorrow as well. Jason and I are hoping to get up early enough to enjoy a cup of coffee together on our porch before Kali is up and ready to go, go, go... It's likely to be possible as it looks like she might want to be the first one to wish her daddy a Happy Birthday at midnight!

(I should give Kali credit here for the photo of J and I. She is becoming quite the photographer!!)

Expensive advice!

After living with an odd, sporadic, annoying and highly mobile toothache for over a week my anxiety about the possibility of my teeth all of a sudden going into rapid decay and me ending up with dentures got the best of me and I made a dentist appointment (with a new dentist in hopes of having better experiences at the dentist and getting a second opinion on care for my two remaining baby teeth). Inevitably for the two days since making the appointment until this morning the ache had subsided somewhat, leaving me feeling somewhat silly sitting there answering the "and what has brought you to our office today?" question.

So I paid about $80 today to have a very kind dentist, who has my business for the foreseeable future, let me know that I'm under a fair amount of stress and that the toothache and aching sensation moving around through my teeth and gums is very likely one of the side affects of the emotional turmoil of the past year. I've been feeling a good deal of tension in my head and neck in the past several weeks so I guess I should have figured out my mouth could be affected as well. So I'm supposedly clenching, if not grinding, my teeth at night and I need to start practicing making sure my teeth are not touching each other during the day unless I'm talking or eating.

In other words, practice relaxing!!

We are leaving tomorrow morning after one final work meeting of the week for some practice in relaxing. The weather has changed the plans from camping to meeting good friends in PA and bunking at Mom and Dad's. As mom would say, "no great loss [not going camping] without some small gain [unexpectedly getting to tank up on Mommy and Daddy hugs!]."

Since I continue to find myself reflecting on these moments a year ago, I can't help but remember us anticipating a trip to PA to see my folks, for Jason to go fishing, for us to both celebrate our birthdays and attend the wedding of very good friends of ours. After a midwife appointment in which more concern was expressed regarding how our baby was doing in utero and after being encouraged not to travel, we made a much abbreviated trip home. We saw all of our parents in that short trip and yet found the celebration so colored by the uncertainties we were living our way through.

And I remember feeling like I couldn't do "anything" that I liked to do on my birthday because of being on bed rest. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that piece. It's true that I like being active. I enjoy the freedom to walk and run. But over the past year that has become less of a "god" for me. I'm grateful for that.

So as I cross the threshold from my 20's to my 30's this weekend, I continue to take the lessons from the past year of my life, yearning to incorporate them more into daily living. It seems that sometimes they are hardest to apply in the most "normal" of times.

This First Time

It feels so strange, this
first time.
So many days
have passed, that dust
could gather on the shelf around
her image?
Taking up a fraction
of a sock, I dab and wipe away
accumulated haze.
I lose track
of the moments as I hold her
in my blurred and aching
gaze.

And a knowledge that
this unaccustomed sight -- left hand with
this framed photograph aloft,
the passing over,
under of a freshly dampened cloth -- will
come to join the steady
number of my lifetime's repetitious motions
enters my sore mind like it were swallowing
a stone.

Who can tell me? Who can
tell me now what it will mean
then - when the hand that lifts
the frame is frail,
the wrinkled rag that clears the dust
moves slowly, rocks with tremor - to
remember her?

Jason Myers-Benner
2008

Curious Hiddley, safe and sound!

Kali's cold hasn't really slowed her up at all these last few days. And I don't think her daddy has lost much sleep over it, nor has she. I, on the other hand, seem to be woken easily by her coughing and find it impossible to rest until the coughing fit subsides. So I'm giving up going back to bed until this one ceases. In her sleep she pushes her water cup away, doesn't rest well if I try to hold her so that she is more up right, and she seems more or less unbothered by the hacking. I guess on a very, very small scale, it's another situation in which I feel desperately like I should be able to do something to make it better but have yet to figure out what that might be. She's propped up, we have the humidifier running, and she is on her side. You aren't supposed to give cough syrup anymore, the honey we've tried didn't seem really effective and I'm not so into having honey sitting in her teeth all night anyway, and I'm not convinced the Vics rub did much good either. SO I'm just riding it out and figured it was a good moment to put a short story here that I've been meaning to write. This is one that hasn't been shared with Kali (and won't be for the foreseeable future), but which I want to have here for her to read years from now when I may not pull it to mind so easily.

As many know, Kali's bunny, Curious Hiddley, has been a wonderful addition to our family. He is easy going, easy to care for, gentle, interested in his surroundings, likes being petted and is a very enthusiastic recipient of treats of all kinds. We've enjoyed having him so much and feel like it has been great for Kali as well. It's not that she spends hours with him at any given time anymore, but she enjoys greeting him on her way to school, giving us "cleaning and filling up the water bottle" lessons, finding green treats for him, petting and talking with him and about him.

The other morning I was coming up to the house and for some reason was thinking about what I would tell Kali and how if something happened to Curious Hiddley. I really have no idea why this was on my mind but I had this sinking feeling as I thought about her experiencing another loss. As I came up to the back door I noticed that his pen door was swung wide open. I had a moment of panic and a thought process that I'm sure was much longer than the time allotted for it. I figured Jason had left him out in the outdoor pen the night before and I sure hoped he was fine there. The next minute I saw him laying IN his pen and I moved very quickly to the pen and shut the door before letting the full impact of what I had just discovered sink in.

The short of it is that Curious Hiddley's pen door was WIDE OPEN the whole night and 1. nothing got into the pen and bothered him and 2. he did not jump out to freedom. I'm still baffled by number 2 in particular. Often when we bring him snacks, I have to almost push him a bit farther in his pen because he is so eager to come right to the edge and see what we've found for him this time. When we take him to his outdoor pen, it's hard to keep a hold of him until he is safely inside the outdoor playpen. It baffles me that he turned up this opportunity for freedom. And I'm SO grateful.

I'd like to take from this experience that he is quite happy in his home and I hope that is the case. I also can't help but wonder if there was a little host of angel bunnies guarding the door, warning him that leaving would cause more heartache than it was worth. Whatever the reason, we are glad he is safely tucked in his cage tonight!!

Safari Park

Kali saw her first real live Zebra today!!! For her birthday Kristin gave her a coupon book, including a trip to the Safari Park located in Natural Bridge, VA (www.virginiasafaripark.com). Despite her cold, she was still eager to get on the road this morning with Carl, Kristin and Phoebe.

I've only heard snippets of their 8 hour adventure and seen 70 or so pictures. What I've gathered is that Kali had a lot of fun and that she really enjoyed feeding the goats (of which there were many pictures!). I'm sure more stories will come out in the next few days.

We had just enough time to enjoy a piece of fresh pumpkin pie together, her "one last game of the night" and a few stories before she crashed. A big day for our 5 year old!!

I realized today what a huge distraction Kali is for me from getting to the core of my swirling emotions on any given day. This can be both good and bad. Let's just say I go through a lot more tissues on a day when she is not present with me most of the day and I have time to sit and read, look at pictures, journal, and just be with myself and many memories.

Poem from Aunt Christie

I am a conjurer of infants
August, 2008
M. Christine Benner

The times we find
to talk about her
are precious and hard,
like gems.

I darkly suspect they come easier
to my brother and his wife.
Everyone who knows them
knows what happened
to their other daughter,
knows that they bleed
dry through the gash
of her absence
every day.

And they have Kali,
who lives without boundaries,
who talks as if she’s seen her:
her missing baby sister.

But my grief goes unseen.
I resort to trickery,
coaxing hapless strangers
into bearing the story of my baby niece
who suffered and died,
a pure and sinless sacrifice
to natural anomalies.
I am the worst kind of evangelist,
twisting all conversation,
to my one sad theme.

But I must find a way
to bring her to me,
to touch her soft forehead,
to create her again.

So on the cot at the
Red Cross blood bank,
too pale to stand,
I take up a conversation
about aluminum can tabs . . .

And in the lounge
at Sitterly House,
lingering by the copier,
I gingerly lift the questions
about my summer . . .

And at the jewelry store,
having the ring
lined with her birthstones
adjusted to my hand,
I grasp a jeweler’s compliments . . .

and I lay them down
only when they have become
Nora.