hi

i just spent way too much time trying to find a good video of this song to post. it would seem to be ben harper's most neglected in terms of live performances. maybe because it is so very emotion-laden. i will caution you to concentrate less on the photos (from gossip girl? is that mischa barton?) because some will take away from the beautiful lyrics.

i arrived home last night from california. i went out to celebrate little A's baptism. i hadn't wanted to say something earlier because i didn't want to ruin the surprise for my brother, on the off chance that he stumbled across my words.
the decision to go was one that i came to not two weeks ago and wasn't arrived at easily.

packing and leaving here and flying there alone really cemented in my head that my babies are gone. i wasn't planning on going to the christening because i was supposed to be 9+ months pregnant.


i wept on my flight out, crying for the realities i'm just now acknowledging, those that have been there all along. i've been waiting for my babies to come back. that sounds, looks, reads so silly. it's true though. 
i realized that i was waiting to wake up and have it all be a nightmare, feel my babies shifting inside of me again, feel the heft of my belly weight, the security that my little loves were safe and alive. denial, anyone? 
maybe this explains the cutesy name for ROLLS AND ROLLS OF FAT

i also realized that my babies aren't real to others. nobody knew them like i did. their daddy loved them and their grandmas and aunts ached to hold them, but nobody was aware of their presence like i was. i held them while they slept, and reveled in their waking. i knew what foods they liked, and what position they wanted to sleep in and i knew, even before the doctor told me, that they held each other.


this experience has been so unlike any other death i've ever known. there was no funeral, family and friends couldn't see our grief unless they actively seeked us out. i will never be able to thank those who did enough. my mom who came over and brought us two dolls that had belonged to my grandfather in the girls' memory. N, who came over and washed dishes and cried with us. S, who came and asked about the girls, wanted to know everything and i told her, hungry to feed someone else the details that i needed practice to remember. F and N who brought flowers and pored over the obituary, holding our pain for just a litte while, and my little sister K, who was there for it all, the only besides T and i who truly understands how magical and wretched can juxtapose and fill the air. she saw my girls born. i am simultaneously glad she was there and sad for her all at once. her innocence has been challenged, defeat illustrated for her. it's not fair for her either.

then there's you, whom ive never met or seen. i don't know what you look like on a bad hair day, and i don't know if you prefer vanilla or chocolate, but you take time enough to reach out to me and leave a comforting thought, or words of support. they bouy me on the rough days, help me to stay afloat as the waves crash around my head.

but for the others, the ones who have never acknowledged my loss; to smile and carry on like nothing ever happened, that is a luxury they are affording themselves. the capability to ignore my pain (there i said it) is their choice, it is easier and less painful for them. it hurts me, when you look in my face and smile and pretend that i never had two babies who grew inside of me until i couldn't see my feet and then i labored and delivered these girls and one was dead and one died in T's arms. 
in ignoring you save yourself from the unpleasant unknown, a moment in which i may cry, a moment in which you could share my pain. 

i will not be forced to believe that this death is any less important that the ones ive seen black cars lined up for, smelled the god-awful scent of funeral flowers at, or sung about being raised up on eagle's wings during. most can ignore this, but i cannot. i wish i knew how to make them more important in the grand scheme of things. i wish i knew how to stop waiting for them and put them to rest.


i have a doctor's appointment tuesday morning at 10:15 am. i surrender.