A strange peace has begun to pervade these past weeks. Grief for Lizzy is still omnipresent; all that needs to happen is a glance towards my shelf where I keep Lizzy’s things or a specific expression crosses Cecilia’s face, and the loss of Lizzy is renewed, fresh and abundant. I feel certain now that there…
The thudding, heavy pound of rainfall just woke me from napping with Cece. The first memory that came to me was laying in this same bed, under this same skylight, with Lizzy breathing deeply in her sleep, her little body curled in total trust against mine. Then it was Lizzy; now it is Cece, and…
My parents liked to say that I was born carrying the weight of the world. They pointed and clucked their tongues at my shaded eyes and furrowed brow, worrying that it was not normal for a toddler to examine the eyes of each person she came across as though she was searching for possible betrayal….
As parents, we all like to believe that we don’t play favorites or occasionally misread our children or once in a while get too occupied with our own priorities and accidentally ignore something momentous to our children. We’d feel better about ourselves at night if we could manage to convince ourselves during the day that…
I’m reading a book about trauma and PTSD right now, and it explains why trauma causes the brain to have flashbacks with intense sensory moments rather than any linear or chronological accounting of the traumatic incident. The book is fascinating and it is helpful to look at my brain through the lens of science to…
Today, I took Cecilia to resolve her tip and tongue ties with laser surgery. I sat there, restraining her little hands as her frenulum was literally burned away, freeing her lip from her gums. Cecilia screamed in pain and fear, not understanding what was happening to her as the pediatric dentist wiped away the blood…
May is almost here and the days are passing too quickly. There is too much to do, to learn and to accomplish, for both Lizzy and Cecilia. I will never know enough to be the kind of mother they deserve. And I will never know enough to protect Cecilia from death. Every day that passes…
It is hard for me to admit that I don’t know where to draw the line between grief over losing Lizzy and grief over losing the life I thought I was going to have. It seems beyond contemptible to be thinking about yourself, your feelings and expectations, your understanding of who you are and who…
I think it’s fair to say that I have had very limited experience with the nature of evil, and I’d like to keep it that way. I have never consciously allowed myself to delve too deeply into the study of evil (despite its insinuating fascination) because my limited experience has been so disruptive and cancerous…
Two years ago, I nursed a one-year old Lizzy to sleep on the couch next to me while my then-husband and I watched a new sci-fi movie called Arrival. The movie flips conventional alien films on their head by portraying that aliens arrive peacefully in order to give a tool–not a weapon–to humanity because, in…