By My Side

Throughout those dark, horrible hospital days while I was watching my daughter’s life slip away, I had one song stuck in my head, playing on repeat. That song was “By My Side” from the musical, Godspell. But I only had one part of the refrain playing over and over again. The lyrics to the part that was stuck in my head read as follows:

Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold
And needs warmth
Where are you going?
Far beyond where the horizon lies
Where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh please, take me with you
Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I’ll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk Watch me walk…

Retrospectively, it’s fairly easy to understand that my exhausted, subconscious brain was just asking Lizzy over and over if I could die with her. Lizzy has never been anything other than by my side, and I have never been anything other than by her side the entire time she has been alive. For her to go someplace that I could not follow was simply unthinkable. And yet it was happening, and then it happened, and now this is my life.

I suppose I could focus and concentrate on asking the angel or saint version of Lizzy to be by my side constantly and comfort myself by believing that she is still with me, close by, just differently. But it’s not enough. It will never be enough.

Now, I walk through the days with the undercurrent of grief and need for Lizzy coloring everything that I see, feel, do, or say. Grief wells up and threatens to overwhelm me as unbearable or unacceptable thoughts pop up, or worse–when I forget for a small spell of time and then have to remember all over again that this is my life, that my baby is gone, and nothing I can do will change that.

The song “By My Side” will always remind me of those terrible days in the hospital, but it will also remind me of the aftermath of Lizzy’s death, of that month of utter blackness and despair before Cecilia was born. And the reason why is because of the people that were by my side throughout that blackness.

I have two sisters, one three years older, one three years younger than me. Both of them were with me from the first day Lizzy was taken to the hospital. My mom, my dad, my stepfather, brother-in-law, and my brother and sister-in law were also there but not with the constancy that my sisters were.

For every single second of the nightmare that continue to unfold before us, my sisters were there. They held me as I screamed in agony, sobbing myself numb, while we were waiting to hear if Lizzy had survived the operation to put her onto ECMO, the life support machine that was the hospital’s last alternative to try and keep her alive. They stayed up with me that first night until 3 and 4 am, waiting to hear if Lizzy’s body was accepting the life support. They were with me for every surgery that Lizzy had thereafter, every procedure, every consultation with the doctors, up to and including when Lizzy’s primary doctor and the neurologists told us that the worst and most likely case scenario had occurred and Lizzy’s brain had swelled into her brain stem, causing her to be completely brain dead.

For every night up to Cecilia’s birth, one or other of my sisters slept with me, helping medicate me to sleep with Benadryl, waking in the night to my night terrors, helping me take herbs and tonics to calm me down, and sometimes talking or crying with me for hours either before bed, in the middle of the night, or in the morning when I could not sleep. With my mother and father, my sisters planned Lizzy’s funeral, reception, and burial, checking with me along the way to make sure that my wishes were honored at every step. They scheduled endless meetings with our parish priests, my midwives, chiropractors, doulas, friends, and therapists. They made sure the house was deep-cleaned and had everyone in the house tested for MRSA.

In the weeks after Lizzy’s death, I referred to my sisters as my ECMO machine, the machine that caused Lizzy’s heart to pump and lungs to inflate even after her brain activity had stopped. My sisters made me eat when I didn’t want to eat, made me drink water when I didn’t want water, made me go to the bathroom, shower, and sleep. They took walks with me and did the late pregnancy stretches with me. They kept me and Cecilia alive in that month when all I wanted to do was follow Lizzy into death.

When I laid down next to Lizzy’s grave after her coffin was lowered and just decided to stay there with her, it was my sister who stayed with me and talked to me, who made me get up, get in the car, and be driven home. And when we went home, it was my sisters who refused my request that we have a c-section done so that they can take Cecilia and euthanize me.

They were there for every panic attack, every spiraling, devastating conversation in which I would try to corner them or beat them down to either admit that dying to be with Lizzy was my only option or that I was, in some way, to blame for Lizzy’s death. They fought this darkness in me, even when it took hours, even when it reduced them to tears, even when they ended in anger and frustration compounding their own loss.

And when it came time, they were there for every contraction. As I labored through the day and part of the night to bring Cecilia into the world, they were there with me, providing counter pressure on my lower back, giving me massages, helping me in and out of the shower and the birth pool, timing the intervals between contractions, and holding my hands. As I pushed Cecilia into the world, my sisters were with my midwives, beside me, holding my hands, and pushing as hard as they could against my back.

And they are still by my side. They are still taking me to appointments, spending time with me, helping to feed me so that I can feed Cecilia, and there to talk or cry with me whenever I break down about Lizzy, which is usually at least once a day.

The short version of this is that my sisters are superheroes, and that Cecilia and I would not be here without them. I trust them with my life and with hers, because they have literally held our lives in their hands since Lizzy died and kept us both alive, sometimes even up to and against my will. And they did this throughout the mist and weight of their own grief, since they both loved Lizzy deeply. My older sister, especially, was like a second mother to Lizzy, and she has somehow found it in herself to take care of me and Cecilia, when I know she too feels like dying inside because Lizzy is no longer here.

There will never be a way to adequately thank them or acknowledge them for what they’ve done for me and Cecilia, and I’m not sure that I can even put into words everything that they’ve done or that they’ve been for us. I know that I would not be here without them. And as much as I hate the fact that I am here and that this is my life, I am also able to see the profound, powerful, and lasting love that my sisters have shown for Lizzy, Cecilia, and me.

I do not feel that I deserve that love, but my daughters deserve it, and even though Lizzy is no longer here, she knows from experience that Cecilia has the best aunts any girl could ask for.