Roadtrip

Jeff and I leave for a road trip to Florida in 31 days.
This is the first major thing that i have done since Truman died.
Although i do think that it will be good for me to be out instead of being at home for the holidays.

I'm feeling such a mix of emotions.
I love love love being on the road. I love the Florida Keys, my old neighborhood, which is where we are heading before we turn around and head back here to Northern California.
Key West is one of the reasons that Truman got his name. A main road down the middle of the island is named Truman among many other things. It will feel so good to be surrounded by his name.
I just wish that he was with us for it all.

I'm nervous that my friends in Florida will not know how to deal with the new me.  and i'm nervous about how i am going to deal with how they deal with the new me.

On the way through we will be spending time at my Dad's for his birthday and Xmas.
We are also stopping to in New Orleans which is a special spot for Jeff and I.

It hurts to even look forward to something. Nothing can be just good for goodness sake anymore. It comes accompanied with this aching and longing for my little boy each and every time.

This would have been Truman's first trip. First time to his Opa's house. First Christmas. First long car ride.
I keep picturing him in a car seat bundled up and ready to go.

The past two days have been really rough for me.
I have be "okay" whatever that means anymore. But i keep having flashbacks.
intense ones, heart breaking, punch you in the gut ones. Like rubbing Truman's soft little head against my cheek, his sweet little face all scrunched up when he would cry, and him opening up his eyes and staring right into mine when he heard my voice. They come unexpectedly, out of the blue.

This is not the way that things are suppose to be.

I miss my baby.

I want him back.

I'll never get him back.

I'm hurting pretty badly this evening.

Assignment #1

Dear Truman,

Here I am, still breathing. Its been a living hell without you. three months now. it feels so long to me and then I think about the rest of my life and I just feel sick about it.

I met a young kid, named Ian, on Halloween, he looked just like your Daddy when he was 15 years old. He was a sweet and caring boy and asked me questions about you. It felt so good to talk to him about life, about you. I thought about you and wondered if you would have been anything like this boy. I have met few people who have openly asked genuinely curious questions about you because they are truly caring. I may never see Ian again, but for that conversation, he made me feel close to you.
Would you have looked just like your Daddy as you aged? Or more like me? Would you have been daringly different and sensitive for a 15 year old like Ian? I can only imagine so.
I seek out moments to feel close to you and when i get them, i hold on and cherish them.

Halloween was tough for me with out you here and now the holidays are coming quickly.

Your aunt Naomi told me a story on the phone tonight about seeing a baby and the baby reminded her of you. She told the story hesitantly and carefully aware of our fragile feelings, but at the moment I didn't have to words to validate her. Even little things like that make me feel like someone is telling me a story about you. Like they saw you in the world and are relaying the message. and that comforts me. It feels amazing to hear other people say your name.
We are not alone in our grief for you. We are not the only two people effected by losing you.
You have so many people who love you, Truman. So many people who are proud of you and were looking forward to having you in their lives.

Your grandfather is here visiting. Your Daddy's Dad.

I sat at dinner with them and thought about how you, the third generation Clerc man, should be with us.

Now that October is over, the month that you would have been born if I wouldn't have had severe pre-e, I feel much farther away from you. Time is separating us even more and its absolute torture.

There are days when I just feel so out of control. I want to hike to the top of the closest mountain and just scream your name, scream how much I love you, scream for no one and every one to hear. and especially scream for you. Maybe from all the way up there, there is a possibility that you'll be able to hear me.

I have angry days, sad days, functioning days, numb days, and days where I fake my way through it all.

The crying had stopped for about 2 weeks but it's back now. I think that my body had run out of tears. I felt numb. Me not crying doesn't mean in anyway that I miss you less or that this hurts any less. My mind and my body are changing every day in response to losing you. I just have to trust that it's my way of surviving it and roll with.

I think about that first night I tried to sleep after you died. Your Daddy said that I was crying and whimpering in my sleep for you. I think that a lot of my tears have made their way into my subconscious and will lay dormant there only to bubble up unexpectantly whenever.

I do have to say that I have become quite the fake since you died.

It's tiring always making people feel uncomfortable by my sadness so as a gift to them, one that they don't even know that I'm giving them, I plaster a fake smile across my face and talk about meaningless things. This is exhausting too, so basically no matter what, if i am interacting with people who i am not super close with then i end up wiped out.
and they actually applaud me when they see my fake smile. "It's so good to see you out and smiling," they say. I've always been a good actress, I've done it since my first major loss at 6 years old. I remember being so young and my fellow classmates pointing me out as "the girl who's mom died." I was a stigma then and now. I wish so much that they would applaud me when I was being the new, real me, but they don't. I did a whole crap load of faking my way through Halloween and people ate it right up. They think I'm strong. They have no idea how broken I really am with out you. They have no idea that being out and faking my smile and laughing at all this meaningless crap makes me over flow with guilt. Guilt that here I am, alive, and you are not.

i think that my real self makes them think that I am some weird, dark, and depressed girl who is obsessed with talking about her dead baby, but I'm not, i'm normal considering what we have been through. You are our everything, when you were alive and now too. We want to talk about you just like any parent talks about their children. That doesn't make us dark, it means that we are proud.
But people not understanding us, surrounds us. What's offensive is when they don't hide their eyebrow raising frowns when we try to explain ourselves, our grief for you. Some don't give us the same courtesy of faking it, in the least. while we choke back our pain for them. To be be so clueless is a gift. and I was clueless once too.

I am in luck though, I do have a bunch of women in my life who don't get sick of me talking about you, about me grieving you. But i am always afraid that they will someday be sick of it all. I am eternally grateful for their love and support but secretly fear that my grief will push them away at some point.
The truth is, besides this group of people who lovingly support me, I don't give a flip what other people think of me. They are luckily clueless and I have no patience for nonsense.

In between the clueless/insensitive and the caring... its whittled people in and out of our lives and we are in a new reality. It's as if we have lived two lives. One before you were born. One that ended once we saw your beautiful little face and a new life started after you died. The old us died with you.

I was never truly lost, but at times in my life I was wandering down different paths and testing the waters. I was found the day that I found out that you were coming. Me and your Daddy both were. The surprise, the nervous laughter, the excitement, the joy, the love. We celebrated. We danced with you, sang to you, talked to you, dreamt for you, hoped for you, loved you every single second.

The day that we lost you, we got lost. I have no idea how we will navigate this but I know that we have each other and that is stronger then ever.

I wish so much that you were alive, here with me. I wish so much that you had a long and adventerous life ahead of you. A life full of love, laughs, ups, downs and a feeling of "what's next?". But your energy, your life force, has changed into something and you are somewhere. Maybe in the wind, the trees, the soil, or maybe in an afterlife. I don't know.
I kiss and talk to your urn, hoping there is a chance that you can here me. But I know that you aren't really in there. But you are my flesh and blood, I made you from scratch and I feel strangely connected to what's left of your beautiful little body, even if it only is a handful of ashes.
I try to dream about you, but it never works. I look forward to a reality where we are together, even if its only a dream.

I have a promise for you, dear son, one that I will never break. I will live for you, everything I do will be a tribute to you. I will create art for you. I will laugh genuinely again and when I do, I will think of you. I will do everything with in my power to make you proud. To be the kind of person that I think that you would want me to be. Even when I'm mad and sad, down and out, I will always be grateful for you. When ever I think of you, my heart will fill up with so much love that it feels like its going to burst out of my chest, like right now. That is for sure.

I love you,
Love,
Momma

Daddy, Pilot, baby blanket, me laying awake at night wishing that you were here, staring at your Daddy, you looked just like him. My sweet baby Truman, we miss you beyond belief.

While doing this assignment I was brainstorming and my mind was searching for creative ways to articulate this moment and all of a sudden a memory flashed before my eyes.

I was about 17 years old and I made a collage, a collage that was my pride and joy at the time. It was made out of little pieces of tiny ripped up paper. It was of a woman, hiding, behind leaves and in her eye was a reflection or a memory of a crying child. the piece was based off of a magazine ad that I had seen and was intrigued by her sense of hiding but I wanted to create a story. So I added the crying child in her eye.

The memory came to me today and almost knocked me off my seat. It feels like strange foreshadowing to my story. This random piece that I felt so connected to, ten years ago, I had no idea then what I know now. 

So i decided to try and reenact the piece. 

I'm glad that we still have some green trees in the yard here!

I could not find a picture of Truman with enough contrast after editing to shrink down and fit into my eye like the original collage version.

So I used his image as sort of a war paint, or a screen that filters my vision of the world. In this picture is his crying although the tape and the tubing mask his emotion.

I am determined to at least find a picture of this piece, i believe i have the original or a picture of the original in my storage unit in Florida. I am going to find it when i make a trip back there this winter!

"His empty baby blanket"

Heartbeat

I can't stop thinking about Truman's heart beat tonight.
He was the soundtrack to my life for 9 days in the hospital while i was hooked up to the monitoring equipment.
Even before that, at the doctor's office for check ups.
Hearing his heart made me smile. Made my heart feel like it was going to burst.
Jeff went to every single doctor's visit with me, he is an amazing Dad.
One of the visit's while listening to Truman's heart beat he said, "It's so amazing that it's just going to keep going and going."
I wish Jeff would have been right.
We didn't know. We thought we were going to have a normal life.
I feel like people sort of take the heart beat for granted. Every single second of every day its working for you, pumping your blood, keeping your life force. The heart is incredible. It's muscle and nerve  and chambers and valves and the way the cells interact with each other and the brain, to me its amazing.
Here i am, my heart beating. I'm not even really living. Which i feel guilty about but I can't do any more then I am doing.
Ever since Truman died I don't know how to.
His heart stopped. Mine kept going.

For some reason, tonight, that thought is surprising to me on some level.
A realization that I already knew but the thought feels like i'm having it for the first time.

Illuminate Photo Healing.

I joined the November Illuminate- November healing through photography class.
many of my posts for the next month will be part of the class.
I welcome all new friends and thank you for walking along side me in this journey.

I keep my blog pretty as a free and pretty raw version of myself. My goal is not to offend anyone but to keep it real.
This is my reality, it may not be pleasant and it may not always be positive. But this place is always healing for me.

Thought I'd share a song that I just found.... i think the lyrics speak well for someone grieving.

and the anger is back....

Today, the anger came back.
need to let it out somewhere before i explode all over some non-deserving victim.

Its been three months since Truman passed away and I think that is complete torture to live like this.
and i get even more fumed when I think that this is how its going to be for the rest of my life.

I feel isolated today in the fact that I lost a child, to pre-eclampsia and only had three days with him.

I have no other children to cherish and I'm unsure if we will be able to.
I am a mother with nothing to show for it but my c-section scar and my stretch marks.

i do not want people who have not lost a child to compare me to anything else. Everyones situation is unique to themselves and comparing them at times, cheapens how horrendous the experience is.

Today, a sweet friend said to me "Oh Honey. You will be blessed I know."
I felt like screaming and jumping out the closest window. (which obviously was followed by guilt)
I know that she means well. But really??? Really???? how does she know??

Because I am pretty sure that I have overcome so much loss in my life already that I really thought that Truman was my blessing, my gift, my happy ending. I had three days where I had Truman and I thought the worst was over and the rest of my life would be okay. Even if it wasn't, if we had obstacles to cross, we would and everything would be fine because he completed us. and then my sweet baby died.

and even if i can have other children, he will always be missing. I will always want him. I will always think, I should have done this with Truman too. Our happy ending is forever tainted because he is not here. and in my opinion that is not "blessed", because this happened I will never be blessed again.

Blessed is never knowing what it feels like to lose a child.

and i am exhausted. I am so sick of trying to explain how this is to people who don't know.
I am angry that they think that they get it. They should stop pretending to be so wise and thank their lucky stars that they don't have a fucking clue.

and I don't want promises from people. I have heard the promises my entire life.
"Everything will be fine"/"Everything will get better"/ "Time will heal"... I heard that all of the time and then I got really sick with pre-eclampsia and my son died and now I'm still hearing it. and its becoming very upsetting.

If I lose another child, everything will not be fine. Everything will not be better. If I lose my own life to pre-eclampsia everything will not be fine. I will be dead and will have left Jeff and my Dad and that is not fine. Not having anymore children is not fine either.

Jeff and I, we are happy people. We laugh at every chance we get. We are brave. We explore our world. We are grateful people.
I know that we will continue to live out our lives, we will survive. But that doesn't mean that that makes this loss any different or easier. I don't want people who have no idea what this feels like to tell me that I will be fine and that I will find happiness again. I will not be blessed. Unless Truman comes back from the dead and lives out a full and happy life then no, i'm sorry we are totally fucked.

and that is the reality that no positive thinking or cheery attitude can change.

Dreams of Dolphins

The other day I woke up quickly and as my eyes shot open the images of Truman dying flashed through my mind like the replay button.
It was like the thoughts had been trying to make their way into my dreams and were unable.
They were such strong images in feelings that I was over come with emotion.

It made me think about dreams that I used to have.
I have always had a deep connections to dolphins. I had vivid dreams about swimming with them and interacting with them, showing my friends them, etc. Usually always so happy and calm or full of fun and laughter.

My favorite baby dolphin in the Keys.

I have been studying these beautiful creatures since I was about 8 or 9.
When a baby dolphin dies or is still born the mother pushes her baby up to the surface to try to get her calf to breathe and will do this for hours and sometimes even days until she is completely and utterly exhausted.
They try with everything in them to get their babies to breathe.
If you have ever seen a dolphin display this behavior, it is absolutely heart breaking.

I know a dolphin in the Florida Keys that this happened to.
When one of the dolphin's "people" finally approached her after she had been swimming frantically for 24 hours, she swam over and threw her baby at the woman, almost saying, "I've tried so hard, my baby is dead, please take her."
I get choked up just thinking about this.
Its something that has always broken my heart about these wildly sensitive and loving animals.
When I was in the beginning of my pregnancy, I had repetitive dreams of this happening. At least 1-2 times a week.
I told myself maybe it my fears of losing what I love because I am familiar with loss.
Now, I look back and I wonder, was that my mind warning me?
Did my body and subconscious on some level know that the worst was going to happen and wanted to prepare me on some level? (which being prepared isn't possible really but i don't know).

I follow, how the dolphins are doing usually. This year, they had an outrageous amount of miscarriages, stillborns and infant deaths. Adult and baby dolphins have been washing up in abnormally high numbers.
The gestational period is about 11 months. Scientists started noticing the high numbers in death about 9 - 11 months after the Gulf oil spill. They have run many tests much of which they won't release to the public. But I don't need to test  results.
To me its common sense.

So i guess this is another something that connects me to my love for dolphins. They know loss. They know suffering. They know captivity and human greed and still meet us with a smile and a sense of curiosity.

Since Truman died, I have not had any dolphin dreams at all. I miss them.
More then the dolphins, i wonder when and if ever, i will dream of Truman.

Plans for this winter are for Jeff and I to head back down to the Keys and I hope to meet up with some of my old dolphin friends down there.
xo

 His Mom.

A momma teaching her baby manners.

Baby by his mother's side.

She looks proud in this picture.

Looks like he's swimming through a sea of stars.

Peek- a- boo friend.

Happy Birthday to Jeff

I know a man.
He loves beets. Carharts. Warm sweaters that his mama knits him. The banjo and old tyme music. Snorkeling. Swimming. Hockey. The Buffalo Sabres. Gin and Gingerale's. Making home made Tru Jam (raspberry or fig jam). Gardening. Quilts. Antiques. Wild life. Trees and plants. His woman ;)
He builds unique and beautiful custom bookshelves.

When we lived in the FL Keys.

On our porch in the Keys.

Snorkeling at Bahia Honda State Park, FL Keys

Our favorite bar in New Orleans, Fritzel's

In the Bayou, we love the south

In the Arizona, one of our stops

The Sand Dunes at Mad River Beach, California

Water love. One of my favorite pictures of us.

We love the ocean.

Our family before Pilot and Truman.

Freddy's wedding.

His FIRST bookshelf... 

an Eco friendly peg and hole type shelf, not one nail was used and no glue!

He makes me proud

All filled up!

Jeff and his amazingly awesome mother, Gail

Watching the sunset, thinking of Truman.

He is a sweet, caring, creative, loving, thoughtful, super funny, brave and strong father to our Truman.
Tomorrow is his first birthday as a father, his first birthday without his child, all in one.


His mother sent him a photo album full of picture of his life from birth until now. As i admired the love captured between him and his mother and flipped through his old memories, tears rolled down my face.
It wasn't just the sweet and cute baby pictures, it was the awkward and goofy teenager pictures too. How fun it was to be young, innocent, full of hope. All of that life offers you before you know what it feels like to lose a child.
The tears just wouldn't stop.
i was crying for Truman and I was crying for us.
Truman looks so much like Jeff. Which is a gift. I get to see parts of my son every day in my handsome partner. Looking through that album I saw both of them in each picture.
"I'll never get to send Truman a photo album like this," I thought to myself.


I am so grateful for my Jeff. I want to celebrate his existence in every way that I can. He gave me true love and he gave me Truman. and everyday he gives me comfort knowing that, yes, we have suffered a huge loss together, but I can always count on him for support, tons of the best love that I've ever known and a really really good hug.

Happy Birthday to mine Jeff. Even though you will probably never read this because you hate the computer, I want to tell the world that you are the best partner and father that any girl could ask for. We love you. xo

Spoken word Round up

Eeeeekkkk! It is so weird to talk to a computer and then watch yourself talk! lol
I really wanted to participate because I LOVED seeing all of your faces and hearing your voices. It helped me connect so much more to you ladies. You really are real ;)

Since Truman died in August, I didn't have a ton of blog options, no one blog that really stood out.
So its morning, I'm sleepy and waiting for the coffee to brew and decided to give this Spoken Word a shot. Definitely emotional to read it out loud.




If you want to join in this Round Up, check out Angie's Blog here.

Halloween Designs

I went on a photo/design rampage tonight, it always makes me feel better to create something. Makes me feel close to Truman.
Here are some of the designs/photographs that are Halloween /Fall inspired. I hope you enjoy them.
Love.