Morning is Broken

When I was in grade school, there was a hymn that we would sing at mass called “Morning has Broken.” The lyrics go something like this:

“Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass”

Nothing but the first line of this song rings through my head some mornings, except that now I want to correct it to “morning is broken.”

The morning after they told me that Lizzy was brain dead, I opened my eyes and said to my little sister, who had been sleeping with me at a hotel next to Children’s Hospital, “My baby’s brain swelled into her brain stem.”

She, who had been with me nonstop at the hospital for the previous three days, said quietly, “I know.” Then I had to get up so that I could lay down next to my baby as they unplugged her from the machine that was keeping her body alive.

Since that morning, all my mornings have been broken. Every morning without Lizzy is wrong. Every morning, I wake up to a parent’s worst nightmare. Every morning I wake up to the reality of my new, horrific life, and have no choice but to accept it. I don’t accept. But I wake up to a morning devoid of choices and choked with an acceptance that I don’t accept.

My mornings used to be waking up to a gorgeous two-year old girl who would roll to a sitting position, rub her eyes, then ask “Milk?” I would slowly phase into consciousness, wishing for just a few more minutes of sleep, then nurse my little girl for the five or ten minutes that I could stand it. I had developed breastfeeding aversion somewhere during my sixth month of pregnancy, but I fully intended to return to nursing Lizzy after her sister was born, so we nursed for as long as I could handle it in the mornings so that Lizzy wouldn’t lose her latch.

I would pull her off the nipple, and she’d give me a wide grin and ask “Egg-ies?” And I would smile and list for her the things we could have for breakfast. Then she’d slide off the bed and go to her desk or her stroller, beginning to organize her toys and play with her things while I went about the morning routine. She’d giggle and play fight me sometimes while changing her diaper or getting her dressed, or sometimes she’d tried to help me dress her, or sometimes she’d just be beautifully obedient while we got her dressed. Sometimes she’d follow me into the bathroom so that she could sit on my lap while I peed. Then she’d ask, “Brush-ing teeth?” because she loved to brush her teeth. And then she’d bring me my sneakers, wanting to help me put them on. She’d get so excited as I opened the bedroom door so that we could walk down the long hall to the stairs to go and have breakfast together.

I can still feel her grabbing my hand to walk, holding hands, down the big staircase.

Now, my mornings are silent. Silent with an emptiness that is strangling and palpable. Silent with a grief that is too enormous to speak. Silent with an echoing stillness that rings so loudly, it feels like my ears are going to burst from the silence. Silent with a loneliness too hard to explain, a reality too grotesque to accept, an acceptance forced down and against every shred of free will that I thought I had.

I wake up to the nightmare of Lizzy gone. Of Lizzy dead. Of Lizzy buried next to my grandfather. I wake up next to the memories of holding her, nursing her, sleeping with her, cuddling with her. I wake up to the memories of her little arms holding me. Of her voice saying “Milk?” and “Mama.” Of her rolling off the bed to rush to a pair of little yellow rain boots that she got for her birthday to pull them on over her footie pajamas.

I wake up to the quaking, shattering, ravening void of Lizzy missing from my life. Missing with no chance of return. Missing with no ability to come back. Missing in a way that requires me to miss her from this second through the last breath of my life.

Things are a little better now that Cecilia is here. I wake up to a newborn squirming or crying or needing milk. Sometimes her needs distract me from the grief, and sometimes I just get up, letting my sluggish and bruised brain think, childlike and wounded, “Lizzy, I miss you. Lizzy, I need you. Lizzy, I want you. Lizzy, I love you.” Then I pee, or change Cecilia’s diaper, or refill my water, or rearrange the nursing pillow so that we can nurse back to sleep.

Of course, the challenge with a newborn is that instead of waking up once or twice to the nightmare, you get to wake up to it as many as eight times throughout the night. Each time I surface to consciousness is another moment of getting to remember and realize that not only am I not waking up to Lizzy in this moment, but that I will never wake up to her again. That her bright little soul, her shining presence is radically and irrevocably gone from this world, for the rest of my life.

And no one and nothing can make that better for me.

I was supposed to wake up to my two little girls every morning. To my hungry, busy toddler on one side of me and to my sleepy, cuddly newborn on the other side. I was supposed to wake up to busy day after busy day doing the mom business of juggling the needs of my toddler with those of my newborn. And now I have more time on my hands than I know what to do with. And all of this time and all of this rest feels criminal, filthy, and pointless–because it came about with the death of my toddler.

Having the time to write this post feels filthy and wrong because that time was given to my by Lizzy’s death. The silence of the mornings feels empty rather than peaceful. The sound of birds chirping outdoors makes me angry because I am not hearing Lizzy say “Bird!” and looking forward to playing outside with her later. The sight of the flowers and the green out my window makes me feel sick to my stomach, knowing that I cannot share any of it with her.

Yes, my mornings are broken. And just as I’m sure you’ll tell me that in time, I’ll do all of the same things with Cecilia until the mornings are so filled with her that I don’t have much time to miss my mornings with Lizzy, I will tell you that the gaping chasm of Lizzy’s absence will never grow less deep no matter how old Cecilia grows.

There is simply no replacing Lizzy. And pretending like Cecilia will replace her is not fair to either of my girls. My only thought is just to live through the horror of each morning as it comes and hope that with time, the mornings will grow less horrible, or I will grow more busy, or both.