Time is a Circle
In January of 2019, I lay prostrate in a dimmed radiology room with Lizzy perched like a parrot in the crook of my arm. Her fingers curiously followed the mysterious path of the doppler as the rhythm of Cecilia’s uterine heartbeat filled the room. “Yep, it’s a girl,” said the radiologist, showing us the dual lines that indicated the beginning development of labia. I looked across the room at my big sister, saying, “I knew it,” before squeezing Lizzy close and smiling, “Sis-ter! You have a little sis-ter, my love.” “Sister!” repeated Lizzy happily, clapping her little hands.
In April of 2019, I lay once more in the radiology room, staring blindly at the drop ceiling tiles as Cecilia’s uterine heartbeat once more filled the room, reminding me of the life that still dwelt within me even though I had died the day Lizzy died. My arms were achingly empty, my eyes dry and fighting the tears that threatened to first choke and then drown me. I stared and stared at the ceiling as the radiologist told me that she didn’t see anything to worry about on the ultrasound. Numbly, I wiped the sticky jelly from my swollen belly, then stood to walk out, wondering how long I would be condemned to this half-life, this shadow-land, before I finally was permitted to die.
Today, I lay next to a prone Cecilia in another dimmed radiology room, this time with walls decorated with paper butterflies that Cecilia couldn’t see. I angled the stroller fan to cool Cecilia’s stressed and reddened face while I sang lullabies and nursery rhymes to her in relentless succession, trying to distract her from the doppler pressing remorselessly into her kidneys. I gave her a bottle of my chilled milk and bopped her nose each time I sang “10 Little Ladybugs.” I crawled my fingers again and again up her armpit during “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” seeking and seeking the smile that was hiding behind her fear and discomfort. At the end, I even got her to laugh as I oinked my way through “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and watched in relieved delight as I clapped with her when it was over, saying “Yay for Cece!”
The radiologist was impressed and wanted to know if I had any other kids. I shook my head quietly, trying to avoid the question and focusing on Cece. She pressed the issue, and I answered without expression that she was my second and my first daughter died. She offered her condolences and told me what a good job Cecilia did and what beautiful eyes she had. “She’s actually blind,” I blurted out. “She has a disease that affects her eyes and her kidneys. That’s why we’re here.”
I don’t know how to describe the fear and anxiety that dominated the days leading up to this appointment. I don’t know how to tell you about the stark terror I felt just now when I answered a call from Children’s Hospital and expected to hear that they found cysts already developing on Cece’s kidneys but heard only questions about our insurance company. I don’t know how to make the clock tick faster or time spin quicker until I get the call from the doctor giving me the go-ahead to breathe safely for another six months until we need to check her kidneys again.
The truth is that I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know who I am. I think that I am waiting to die and waiting for Cecilia to die. I am so afraid of my life, of her life, and the promise of pain written in the years to come. I can’t hide from the look I saw on Cecilia’s face this morning when her blue, blue eyes filled with tears and her little face crumpled, totally overwhelmed by the unfamiliar sounds and smells of the hospital. I don’t know how long I can pretend to her that I have it all under control, that I can protect her, or that the world is anything approximating a safe place.
I am afraid of trying to answer the questions she will have one day about her disease, about Lizzy, or about suffering and dying. I am afraid of becoming the thing that can no longer protect her, that can’t even participate willfully in the delusion that I can make it better or make the pain and fear go away. I’m terrified of my own helplessness.
I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m doing. Everything in front of me is an educated guess bolstered by hope’s vain bravado in the face of a gaping unknown. I’m back to needing to boil it down to the simplest things: take Cece into the shower; make dinner; eat dinner; get ready for bed; find a way to sleep; pass the time until the doctor calls. Hold Cece; read to her; play games with her; sing to her; find a way to convince her that she is safe and can sleep until morning.
When you can’t face the months ahead, you have to break it down into days. When you can’t face the days, break it down into hours. And the hours into minutes, and the minutes into seconds. Second by second is how I lived when Lizzy died. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years are the things that were robbed from Lizzy. I have nothing in which to anchor the aimless passage of my fear except Cecilia herself. There is only one fact of which I can be sure: that she is. She is, and, therefore, I must.
The answers to the rest of it lay buried with Lizzy.