June in Black

It's June again.  I hate June.  My baby's angelversary comes up at the end of the month.  On that day seven years ago, my world and my life shattered.

I had a one-time job that morning.  I made sure my sweet baby was secure on the bed, away from the edge.  There was a stack of pillows to make sure even if she somehow rolled to that edge, she would not hit the ground.  I left her daddy watching over her.  When I left, I felt reassured life would be as normal.  Three hours later, I called home, and my husband told me to go to the hospital.  Alli had either rolled or crawled off the bed in her sleep such that my husband didn't hear more than a quick squawk.  She'd pushed away a heavy pillow on top and suffocated in the pillow below without turning her head to breathe.  We did not know until I showed up at the hospital that they couldn't revive her.  She'd shown signs of SIDS, times she'd slept so deeply it was hard to wake her.  I'd had no idea, however, that this was even a possibility.  I had never lost a child other than an early miscarriage, so I didn't imagine it could happen to me.

        At that time, I was launched into the deepest, darkest time of my life.  Between mourning and dealing with a corrupt branch of DCSF that falsified an investigation to try to ruin our family and our lives, we were launched into hell.  I would call it a nightmare, but you awake from a nightmare.  It felt like nothing we could do or say for ten long months could prove we were innocent.  We were liberated only through a series of miracles and the protection of our angel.

        Before all of this happened, June was just another month.  Now, June is a time to dredge up memories of tragedy and death.   Memories like that replay in our heads as if from a horror movie, badly disjointed and scarring.  Knocks at my door still terrorize me.  My birthday was two weeks after that most terrible day.  I went from looking forward to my birthday to dreading it every year.  Too many badly-timed miscarriages plus Alli's loss have ruined it forever.  It doesn't matter how good the month is.  It doesn't matter how many wonderful things happen at that time of the summer.  The colors go from vibrant to gray.  The day is always painful.  I brace myself to prepare, but it does no good.

            As I said in my last blog, I've been reviewing my poetry for a contest.  I think the pain I went through is best described through the one I wrote the day after I lost her:

****
“Day after Death”

Pain, 
searing, numbing,
erupting like molten lava,
clouding my vision
with burning ash. 

Food tastes like dirt
from the grave. 
I choke it down to fill the void, 
but the hole in my heart still bleeds. 

Everything I see 
connects to chubby toes, 
chunky legs,
petal-soft cheeks, 
pool-blue eyes
staring at me from around the breast.   
I reach out and long to touch 
peach fuzz across tender head, 
smooth skin on her body,
cold plastic bottle, eagerly slurped,
by a pink mouth that itches to smile.  

Where are you, my angel? I ache for you. 
My every thought reaches out to you, 
wondering how yesterday could have gone
if I had been more careful
with your fragility.

My only comforts, 
the remains 
of my family and, above all, knowing one day
you will fill my arms again.  
****

       Seven years have passed.  The loss doesn't hurt as much.  However, it still hurts, especially on the anniversaries.  I know I'll survive this one as I have all the others.  The Lord will help me through.  I know one day, I will hold my babies again.  I live for that day.  In the meantime, I will still have that hole in my heart, and it will continue to seep blood.