The MRI came back clean, meaning that I do not have soft tissue cancer. I am immensely grateful for this reality, but it has also been hard to focus on gratitude since the reality of a divorce and pending custody trial has been coloring the past month of my life. The thing about grief is…
A few months after Cece was born, a depression developed in my upper thigh that looked like abnormal muscle or fat loss. My primary care physician referred me to an osteopath who ordered an MRI to rule out soft tissue cancer, which affects 3,000-4,000 people in this country every year. Last night, my big sister…
For no particular reason, the last few days have been very difficult. I find myself crying more often than usual and shaking my head in wordless, dumb frustration at the total irreversibility of what has happened. There is a piercing quality to memories of her, which still surface constantly, which are simultaneously unbearable and so…
For six months I have lived with the terror of fearing that I may have done something or not done something that contributed to or caused Lizzy’s death. For six months, people surrounding me have gone down countless theoretical rabbit holes trying to define the “what-ifs” and “what-could-have-beens” that may, given the butterfly effect, have…
Today is six months to the day since Lizzy died, five months to the day since Cecilia was born. This past Thursday, we received and reviewed the autopsy results with the primary doctor on Lizzy’s case and the pathologist who did the autopsy. The short version is that the autopsy didn’t reveal anything absurdly rare…
“I’m never going to let anything happen to you.” Swinging and dancing, a 4-month old Lizzy in my arms, a rush of love swells over me; I hug her tightly to my chest, kiss her sweet face, and whisper fiercely, “I’m never going to let anything happen to you.” Awake in the frozen night, my…
On the evening of my 33rd birthday, when Cecilia was 4 weeks old, I attended my first grief support meeting with the Compassionate Friends. I have since attended these monthly meetings with other broken and bereft parents looking for answers. At the meeting last night, I sat there thinking how most of us were never…
I keep waiting (despite my better judgment) for it to get easier, but nighttime is still by far the worst. I spin in circles with eyes wide open, laying there and waiting, waiting for my life to get worse, for the new unthinkable to happen: for Cecilia to die. They say the chances of SIDS…
What use is there in playing out alternate versions of reality? Anyone who has ever encountered the concept of the butterfly effect knows that this game ends in madness. There are too many minute details, to many infinite consequences of the tiniest shift in choice. There is ultimately no point. But this does not stop…