A little friend

The symptoms of my emotional breakdowns look like a bad flu that suddenly becomes a screaming match that is entirely one-sided. For days I sulk, I wallow, I even start aching and coughing, actually. And then one thing sets me off and I start yelling, a lot, or crying, or both, and screaming into pillows like a banshee muted behind several closed doors. These episodes have likely caused my husband and other loved ones to wish for several closed (and locked, and heavily guarded) doors between us.

The days following the death of D were in keeping with my model. I actually felt ill. The novice I was several years ago would have thought I was actually fighting a virus, but the seasoned me knew that it was grief. I had just done research on it not that long ago, in that lull between my mom's death and D dying. I learned that the body sometimes does not know how to handle shocks to the emotional system, and sometimes the physical is affected. For days I woke up each morning unrested, feeling like something was sitting on my chest, feeling like my neck and shoulder muscles were on fire, feeling like putty moved through my sinus system. But I pushed through: there was the important meeting at work that I really ought to attend, the memorial service to plan, the memorial service to attend, the dog to be walked, the breakfast my growling stomach needed. Something usually pushed me out of bed.

But the disease held firmly finally, unshakeable, too heavy, one day. Shackling me to the bed as I tried earnestly to get up. As I weighed the pros and cons in my head, as I tried to care what the HR department or my clients would say, I reached for my cell phone to check the time. I was hoping to learn that I had ten more minutes to decide. But what I learned was so much sweeter.

One of my oldest friends was a new mama.

His name, the name of this new human, was followed by the date and time of his arrival. I was told he was doing well. I was told my friend was doing well.

And I got up.

It may have been just the morning before his birth that I had dropped the shampoo bottle on my toe and retaliated by picking up the bottle and bashing it against the wall of the shower, in actual anger. But the morning I knew that some little person was having his first morning, ever, I showered with a smile. I bounced around the house through my morning routine and called my friend's mom on my way to work to giggle and congratulate. Just ten days out from Ds death, my co-workers were still a bit somber around me, still asking with those eyes you only get for divorce or death, "How are you today?" So when I skipped into the office that day shouting "GUESS WHAT!" I think a few assumed the worst. But soon they were showing me the best baby toys on Amazon, and we were talking about our favorite children's books.

When M told me she was pregnant, I was sure her little one would be my buddy. I hoped that though we lived in different states, the kid would think I was cool, and maybe we'd have some "thing"--we'd go to the same ice cream place whenever I came to town, or I'd give them a cool nickname.

He seems to like me alright. Granted, he's 7 months old so his preferences are not very discerning at this juncture. I don't know what he will end up thinking of me, or if he'll relish the thought of having a "thing" we share, but I know that each time I see him, whether in person or in a photo text message, I think about that morning after his birth. I think about being too despondent to cry anymore, I think about wondering how I was going to get through losing two parental figures in less than a year. And then, with one piece of information, a smile. Some news to share that was good. A reason to travel that did not call for a black dress and sensible shoes. No speech to give, no thank you cards to write, no faking of grace when a distant relative says the wrong thing. No pitying eyes. So for now, that is our thing. Our thing is something he won't be able to remember, but I hope one day I can tell him that his first morning was my first morning of coming back around to myself.

I hesitated writing this for a while, because I kept thinking, "This baby and this birth are not about me. Why do you always have to make everything about you?" But I think I realized that the beauty of it all was that, for the first time in a long time, it wasn't about me. It wasn't about who I'd lost or how I was coping or how long it had been since my last panic attack or the last crying jag. It was about someone else, and about life rather than death. It was about everyone other than myself. And suddenly, my world again became bigger than my grief.