Feels like I didn’t even sleep last night, but I did, straight through and riddled with dreams. It went from night to day but I barely even touched the sheets. It wasn’t cause I was up with a kid or anything. I was busy last night in my dreams. There were so many things to do. I almost feel closer to Silas when asleep than awake. I guess I just believe my dreams are probably the best shot I’ve got at somehow encountering his presence.
I yearn for that, especially on a day like this.
Silas would have been 5 months old today. And I don’t even have any fucking clue what to do with that. Do parents have little month parties? I feel like we would. Or maybe we’d talk about it but then decide to save it for his 6 month bday. But all day we’d both be secretly celebrating with him in our own little ways.
The Path of What Should Have Been is still there, daily, but I make a conscious choice not to tread upon it. On days like this, though, I find myself wandering the woods around that path inadvertently, almost obsessively. But I cannot stroll too long because the scenery is catastrophic.
Lu off to class. Me taking Silas to deliver coffee and check out some shops. The MMW kid’s album I’d play for him as we drove. Seeing grandmom in our travels this afternoon. Tonight we’d meet up with Mom and maybe make a first attempt at a restaurant meal. Not because it’s his 5 monther, no, not that. Just because maybe we could and that would be awesome.
Ahem. Yeah. Cannot go there all the time. It is unspeakably painful. So then, on this World I must focus. The problem is, it also feels mentally unhealthy to keep not-thinking-about something. But what I am doing is the opposite of denial. I’m trying to accept the World as it is and yet, on a day like this, that feels totally and completely wrong.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to deliver that coffee, I’m going to play music of an utterly different variety (dark, edgy & loud), I’m going to check out some coffeehops, I’m going to stop by and see my Mom, I’m going to stop at a local pub and have a beer and read the paper. Later on, Lu and I will meet up with friends and we’ll have a delicious dinner in a nice restaurant with loud jazz and then when we get home tonight we’ll light a candle for Silas and then I’ll tear the house down with my bare hands. Ahem! No, not that. We will cry and then we will sleep and then I will dream and then maybe somewhere in those depths I will find my missing son.
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February 25, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Nuwie
‘But O as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.’
Your post reminded me of that sonnet (Milton) I hope Silas finds you in your dreams. Been thinking of you three often these past few days. (((HUGS)))
February 25, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Marybeth
I am thinking about you and Lani today and sending love to both of you. I wish you both strength, and I hope that you can take whatever comfort you can from your friends and family. I know that there is no way to make today anything else but what it is. You are both in my thoughts and in my heart and I am sending you much love from the west coast…
February 25, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Ezra's Mommy
“The Path of What Should Have Been is still there, daily, but I make a conscious choice not to tread upon it.”
Indeed Chris, I struggle to avoid that path every day, and yet some days its unavoidable. The anniversaries trigger it, but also little things…like seeing a little boy (who looked quite like our Ezra) playing with his dad in the park near our house.
Wishing you peaceful moments on this sad anniversary.
February 25, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Tracy
we too will light a candle tonight and think of all of you…all our love
February 25, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Michelle
thinking of the world that never was with you. lighting a candle for silas with you.
February 25, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Kristina
I hope you get to see Silas in your dreams tonight and every night. He is not physically here but he has a strong presence….I think about him every day.
February 25, 2009 at 5:57 pm
bir
As strange as it may sound, I find it comforting to read your posts. We are in the same place, you guys and us. We are five days apart in our grief. We experienced a live birth. Our tragedy began after that.
I wish you guys lived around the corner, to coffee with. Beer with. Cry with. Even laugh with. Just to share with.
Ciaran doesn’t get to turn 5 months old this month. Well, not officially. Because there is no 30th of the month. It’s a silent month birthday. I don’t know if parents celebrate ‘month birthdays’. I’m sure if Ciaran was here with me, I would acknowledge it, at least in my head, out loud to a few close to us, but by comparison it would be just another milestone. But now, with a personal tragedy of this dimension under my belt. I KNOW with any subsequent babies that we may be lucky enough to have make up our family, I will be celebrating a monthly birthday. I now appreciate that nothing can be taken for granted. Healthy pregnancies do not necessarily lead to healthy, take home babies. Things happen. It’s a miracle any of us got through being born and growing up. It’s all fraught with danger.
‘Happy’ 5 month birthday to Silas. I wish he were here to celebrate it with you, but I’m glad you have acknowledged it.
xxx
February 25, 2009 at 7:16 pm
mamaliza
thinking of you guys today…and everyday. and holding silas orion close to my heart. wishing so bad that he and lev could hang out as 5 and 6 month old babes. i too go quite often to the life that should have been. how can we not? it was almost guaranteed.
i hope that the music speaks to your soul, that the food warms your bellies and your friends comfort you on this 5th month anniversary of what should have been. and that you get to hang out with your son in dreamland.
February 25, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Cara
Wow – five months. The should have beens, the longing for a dream connection – it is all still so real to me. Treading in both worlds is hard. You seem to do a great job of it!
February 26, 2009 at 12:46 am
Gal
Holding you guys close today. This is a gorgeous post, Chris. Keep dreaming.
February 26, 2009 at 1:00 am
Paige
Lani, thank you so much for your note. I’m thinking of you and Chris and hoping you feel the warmth of Silas’ love in the candle you light for him tonight. Much love-paige
February 26, 2009 at 2:32 am
Tina
just lit my candle for silas and thinking of you and lani…always!
love you.
February 26, 2009 at 9:00 am
Shalini White
I wish there was something I could say, something deep and meaningful that might put this pain into some kind of perspective. There isn’t anything, no words of comfort, I’ve been trying to find meaning but there really isn’t any. There is only survival. And self preservation.
I did that too…after our daughter. I drank pots of coffee and alcohol (things I had been abstaining from like some sort of “play it safe” nightmare where I did everything right for everything to go wrong), and listened to my ‘angry’ music and feeling some kind of shitty peace in my wallowing. And I trode on that path every conscious moment like some kind of fucking masochist. But that’s what worked for me, to get the poison that is my grief out the only rational way I knew how.
Missing Silas with you today. I hope you have sweet dreams of him. Am thinking of you and your wife.
February 26, 2009 at 11:43 am
tash
The opposite of denial: that’s it exactly. It’s acknowledging the big empty space by self-consciously ignoring it — because touching the hot pot? Hurts.
It’s only recently I’ve come to realize I wouldn’t be walking the parallel path at all — I’ve accepted that path could never be. Strangely, it doesn’t make me feel any better.
February 26, 2009 at 10:20 pm
mom
we miss silas with all our hearts and souls……there is a big empty space where eternal optimism once ruled……but somewhere out there is joy and happiness…….carrying silas with us always we will tread carefully on the road ahead and open our arms to every opportunity for light…..it is who we are…..it is what we do.
i think that all of the posts reflecting on your beautiful words say it all.
so i will just end with telling you how much you are loved….how much you are not alone and how much we are wrapping our faith around you .
February 27, 2009 at 10:52 am
Queenie
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking post. I’m so sorry that this pain is a part of your life. Your mom’s post was lovely, too, by the way–you must feel so lucky to have such wonderful support.
February 27, 2009 at 11:21 am
Dalene
It’s crazy how time ticks on by. One day recently I realized that Baker has been gone longer than he was alive, and that hurt to recognize. I don’t know what “normal” parents do, but I know that I will mark each month of his little brother’s babyhood (assuming that we get to bring him home) because I learned the hard way that life (and breathing babies with heartbeats) are not to be taken for granted.
March 2, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Chris
The “should have beens,” while often intensely painful, have been a conduit for me to spend time with my boy. He’ll be 11 months gone tomorrow. We’re planning what we’ll do to celebrate (?) his 1st birthday, and awaiting his little brother’s arrival in July. Life is a big stew pot of real and imagined, past and future, tangible and eternally unreachable. We mix up these things as we try to make sense of the senseless. I like the imagery of your path through the forest – for me, I imagine our path if Baker had lived. I also recognize the path we’re on in his absence – a path that includes a baby that would not have existed if Baker had come home with us. For me, these paths must come together to be the one tread beneath my feet – the combination of what is, what will be, what should have been, and what we’ve lost forever, becomes my path.
March 4, 2009 at 1:18 am
sally
Ahh yes, The Path Of What Should Have Been. Know it well. All too well. Like as I sat as comfy as one can be on the plane yesterday, while others struggled with restless, crying babies. It didn’t look like much fun, but how I wish it was me pacing the aisles trying to rock my grumpy little unhappy flyer to sleep. Nice to be back (and tanned) reading your words, Chris.