Thursday, September 10, 2009

September

The seasons are very definitely changing here. Sometimes the transition from summer to fall is a subtle one. This year it seems to have happened overnight. Suddenly the air is much cooler, the humidity and mosquitos are gone, and the leaves are already starting to turn. And the calendar says September. Already? How did that happen?

This is a month of contrasts for me...It started with the shockwave through the whole babylost blogging community of the loss of sweet little Jet. That one I didn't even see coming. Next we have September 11. My world was turned completely upside down on 9/11/01...and I'll say more about that tomorrow. Then September 14, Austin's third birthday and our seventh wedding anniversary. Austin is old enough to anticipate his birthday with excitement this year. September 15, one of my closest friends is moving halfway across the country. She has been one of my lifelines this summer, going to lunch with me once a week, letting me talk about Sierra as much as I want, crying with me, saying all the right things, just the best. We'll still talk on the phone, of course, but it just isn't the same. On September 26 I have a reunion for a program I did in college; the people I met there are still some of my closest college friends. I'm really looking forward to seeing them, but if Sierra were still alive I wouldn't be going. And that brings us right up to September 27.

September 27 was Sierra's due date. Strangely enough, it was also Austin's, and I just can't stop thinking about the difference between this time in 2006 and now. How full and happy I was then, how empty and sad now. I should be just about to have a baby, getting ready for her to be here, for everything to change. Instead, I plod along, struggling to understand that nothing is changing, that she is gone and always will be. I feel burned out at work; I should be just about to start maternity leave, but instead I'm working through endless piles of the same kinds of data. All around me people are going back to school, starting new jobs, making changes and I'm just...stuck. Stuck longing for a baby I will never hold again. I miss you so much, baby girl. I just can't move past this right now - how much I miss her, how she should be in my belly, about to be born. I have no pregnant belly, no baby, and it's just so wrong.

Sierra was born on July 3rd - high summer here. We spent all of June worrying about her, all of July and August mourning her. I thought summer was her season, and it is, but the start of fall is hitting me hard. This should have been the season of her birth, the season of bonding with her outside of the womb. I guess if summer is her season; fall is her "should have been" season.

This sounds so scattered...and I really can't come up with any way to make this anything larger or deeper than simply a lament that she isn't here with me. But I'm going to let it stand, because this is where I find myself right now.

4 comments:

  1. "Should have been" is a hard season, but it makes sense that this is a special hard time with Sierra's due date approaching.

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  2. Okay. Seriously? My anniversary is September 13th.

    I know exactly how you feel with the change of seasons. Last summer my parents bought a beach house, and with it came a summer full of fun and a whole lifetime of plans for family weekends and holidays at the beach. This summer was not at all like last. I enjoyed the beach once, the weekend before Isla died. I've been back since, but I barely went outside. The entire season was spent in mourning. A summer of mourning(makes a good book title doesn't it?).

    I'm already dreading next summer too. Next summer Isla was to be 9 months old. Old enough for sun block and sun hats and cute little bathing suits with ruffles on the bum. Next summer she was to enjoy the beach. Right now it feels like I may never enjoy summer and the beach again without her.

    Fall is usually my favourite time of year. I was so looking forward to this fall. This fall Isla was to make her arrival into the world. I envisioned us out for walks together in the cool fall air. Her snug as a bug in her stroller. Me wearing my yoga pants and warm sweaters, trying working off that pregnancy weight. Instead, here I am. The weight is already gone. She's gone.

    I don't like summer anymore and I don't like fall either. Maybe I will develop a new love of winter. Cold and dark and damp. Oh, but then of course, the holidays. Sigh.

    xo

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  3. Thinking of you during September, so many sad and happy times for you converging on this one little month.

    That horrible feeling of being stuck, you aren't on your own there. It is wrong. I wish that Sierra was with you, still waiting to be born. xo

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