Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss by Jessica Watson Page A
Authors: Jessica Watson
Ads: Link
boxed away years ago. They’d sat quietly in their dark coffin all this time, strangled for breath, anxious for the light of day. The sweet and antiseptic aroma attached to them was instantly in my nostrils, thick with memories, laced with heartache. Halle peered expectantly overthe edge. The items themselves were just as I’d left them, just as they’d been when I’d last peeled away the lid.
A knit hat. The kind they put on babies right after they’re born. The one with the pink and blue stripes, made from waffled fabric designed to contract and expand, to fit snugly onto fat, pink-cheeked babies. A miniature medical bracelet, cinched unimaginably small—small enough to slide onto my thumb. The perfect size for the ankle of a baby at twenty-five weeks gestation.
An infant blanket, images of baby carriages dancing softly across brushed flannel, a small stain still on the corner. A book given to me in the hospital that fall day in 2003 titled
Empty Arms: Coping After Stillbirth
. I’d taped a piece of paper over the cover art—a mother’s empty arms reaching in vain for her child—almost as soon as they’d given it to me. That image made me crazy. Running down the hallway, screaming at the top of my lungs crazy.
A white envelope, the edges worn soft from the opening and the closing, filled with the only pictures I’d ever have of him, hat still on, blanket wrapped round, hospital bracelet in place. A tiny blue onesie, an exact replica of the one I’d ironed and delivered to the funeral home so I could remember what we’d buried him in. And finally, the announcement card onto which they’d pressed his perfectly still hands and feet, laden with black ink.
Halle happily removed all the treasures. Together we lifted them, touching and smelling, breathing in a moment past and always present. After everything had been explored and she was satisfied, she planted a kiss on my cheek, wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, squeezed with all her might, and then skipped away in search of yet another adventure.
I sat quietly for a while, memories spread about me like a fan, my hands buried in a grief too old for my thirty-three years. I picked up the knit cap, pressed it to my nose, and breathed in the scent of the hospital room, somehow perfectly preserved in the tiny hat. I closed my eyes and smiled; saw myself holding him quietly again, my lips pressed to his forehead; could feel again the nervousness of thenurses who stood alongside my husband and me, waiting patiently for us to say our good-byes so they could take him away.
Six years. Had it really been six years since the world fell apart? It was true, I didn’t think about him constantly anymore. I’d moved past spending every waking moment wondering what I’d done wrong or how such a terrible thing had happened to me. The true bottom for me had come and gone years ago and now, for the most part, I could navigate my way through life normally again. And yet, the box could still bring back that familiar and sharp stabbing sensation in my middle—the feeling of having been run through by an unseen enemy who walked away, leaving me doubled over and groping at my stomach, the question on my face.
Sometimes it still seems like the fog of one of those relentless dreams that repeats itself, over and over, night after night. When I wake, just for a second I feel the relief of having been asleep; the fleeting joy at having thought it was a nightmare. They are priceless: the quiet, sacred first breaths upon waking when all is at it should be and I am whole again.
I laid the knit cap down, placed the lid back on the empty hatbox, and pushed it aside. Slowly, methodically, I packed each of his things into an empty cardboard box and sealed it with packing tape. Then, in permanent black ink, I marked it simply, “Elijah.”
“Where is the Other Baby?”
Jessica Killeen
“W ake up, Maggie, I think I’ve got something to say to you!” I was belting out Rod Stewart
A knit hat. The kind they put on babies right after they’re born. The one with the pink and blue stripes, made from waffled fabric designed to contract and expand, to fit snugly onto fat, pink-cheeked babies. A miniature medical bracelet, cinched unimaginably small—small enough to slide onto my thumb. The perfect size for the ankle of a baby at twenty-five weeks gestation.
An infant blanket, images of baby carriages dancing softly across brushed flannel, a small stain still on the corner. A book given to me in the hospital that fall day in 2003 titled
Empty Arms: Coping After Stillbirth
. I’d taped a piece of paper over the cover art—a mother’s empty arms reaching in vain for her child—almost as soon as they’d given it to me. That image made me crazy. Running down the hallway, screaming at the top of my lungs crazy.
A white envelope, the edges worn soft from the opening and the closing, filled with the only pictures I’d ever have of him, hat still on, blanket wrapped round, hospital bracelet in place. A tiny blue onesie, an exact replica of the one I’d ironed and delivered to the funeral home so I could remember what we’d buried him in. And finally, the announcement card onto which they’d pressed his perfectly still hands and feet, laden with black ink.
Halle happily removed all the treasures. Together we lifted them, touching and smelling, breathing in a moment past and always present. After everything had been explored and she was satisfied, she planted a kiss on my cheek, wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, squeezed with all her might, and then skipped away in search of yet another adventure.
I sat quietly for a while, memories spread about me like a fan, my hands buried in a grief too old for my thirty-three years. I picked up the knit cap, pressed it to my nose, and breathed in the scent of the hospital room, somehow perfectly preserved in the tiny hat. I closed my eyes and smiled; saw myself holding him quietly again, my lips pressed to his forehead; could feel again the nervousness of thenurses who stood alongside my husband and me, waiting patiently for us to say our good-byes so they could take him away.
Six years. Had it really been six years since the world fell apart? It was true, I didn’t think about him constantly anymore. I’d moved past spending every waking moment wondering what I’d done wrong or how such a terrible thing had happened to me. The true bottom for me had come and gone years ago and now, for the most part, I could navigate my way through life normally again. And yet, the box could still bring back that familiar and sharp stabbing sensation in my middle—the feeling of having been run through by an unseen enemy who walked away, leaving me doubled over and groping at my stomach, the question on my face.
Sometimes it still seems like the fog of one of those relentless dreams that repeats itself, over and over, night after night. When I wake, just for a second I feel the relief of having been asleep; the fleeting joy at having thought it was a nightmare. They are priceless: the quiet, sacred first breaths upon waking when all is at it should be and I am whole again.
I laid the knit cap down, placed the lid back on the empty hatbox, and pushed it aside. Slowly, methodically, I packed each of his things into an empty cardboard box and sealed it with packing tape. Then, in permanent black ink, I marked it simply, “Elijah.”
“Where is the Other Baby?”
Jessica Killeen
“W ake up, Maggie, I think I’ve got something to say to you!” I was belting out Rod Stewart
Similar Books
