Early May Blessings

May 3, 2010 - Journal Entry

Yesterday, walking along the Runnins River, I see a dam made by a downed tree. Above it water collects with a layer of scum on top. I am a little revolted by the scum, but I also know it is probably full of life and eggs and good things. Below it, the water flows clear and bright.

How do I cling, holding back like a dam? How do I let flow? How do I embrace this pregnancy? How do I resist it? Is my growing belly more like the water above the dam or below it? Why do I feel like pregnancy is a form of holding? How will I handle what is to come? How will James and I handle it? How will my son handle it? Who is this who is joining our family?

Dear tiny one, growing inside: May you always know the embrace and security of this watery environment where you started. May this place that nurtures growth and meets all your needs be a place that you can always access within.

Dear self: May I too know that gentle source of being, the place where we all come from, and may I draw on it as I am present during this time. May I trust that the others in my family also have these resources.

I greet the changes in our world. I greet the changes in our little growing family. I acknowledge my fears. I feel the continuity of the generations. I draw on the wisdom of the ocean.

I delight in dynamic beauty. I soak in the brief glory of the cherry blossoms.

Many blessings in May! 

 Day 11 of 31, 7 Cheshvan 5774

Soothing Piano

Not even a third of the way through these 31 days, and I am wondering about the wisdom of choosing to write about Halia every day for a whole month. It can be painful and raw. I am exposing some very tender places that are usually hidden away. It is as if I am taking off a bandage bit by bit to allow air and light to heal the parts of the wound that were not served by the bandage. My grief was safe and cared for under the bandage, and it is safe and cared for without the bandage but only if I pay it careful attention. And today, I can tell that I need to let things be for a day, to wait before peeling off a little more of that bandage. I need to pause and take comfort. 

Untitled, 4/12/07

I haven't played the piano much since my younger son came along, but I found myself at the piano after dinner this evening for the second time this week. The piano saw me through another time of sorrow in my life, and today it proved again why it is such a wonderful source of solace. I can bang on it when I'm feeling angry, I can play a sweet melody to match a more reflective mood, and even more powerfully, I can let the splendor of the music carry me away.  Tonight I returned to an exquisite piece by Chopin that holds both beauty and strife. I totally butchered it since I'm so out of practice, but even so, the music carried me to a new place. It did not remove my sadness but it reminded me that there is plenty of space for my grief within the great umbrella of human emotion and creativity.

Music: Chopin Prelude No. 15 in D-flat "Raindrop". Pianist: Evgeny Kissin. Painting: Childe Hassam, Rain Storm, Union Square, 1890. Video: Uploaded by Rudi Kurniawan.

 Day 10 of 31, 6 Cheshavan 5774

Eagle

We have a tradition in my family of giving fetal names. My sister and I both had baseball-inspired names: mine was Henrietta in honor of Hank Aaron, my mother's hero, and my sister's was Ty Cobb, mainly because of how it went with our last name (Cobb + Webb = cobweb, ha!). With my first pregnancy, I decided to stick with the theme and called him Fenway after the Red Sox ballpark.

Once we felt confident that my second pregnancy was viable, we decided to ask my son if he would like to choose the fetal name. He knew about the baseball theme, but he promptly responded with "Zeus!" which I just as promptly rejected, especially when he gave a lengthy description of  Zeus' awesome ability to throw thunderbolts. Ah, the mind of a 10 year old boy.

I asked for another suggestion, and this time he offered Eagle. He had a longtime interest in raptors, and we looked up the eagle in one of his books. We found out that the Latin name of the bald eagle is haliaeetus leucocephalus. We experimented with Halia or Leuco as the fetal name but thought that Halia sounded feminine and Leuco sounded masculine, and since we were not planning on finding out the gender, we wanted something gender neutral. Eagle (or The Eagle) it was.

I never quite felt that Eagle fit the being growing inside me because she seemed so much more gentle than an eagle. I was happy with the bird theme -- I would probably have chosen a sanderling, a chickadee, a wren, or a mallard.

Nevertheless, Eagle was the name we used and still associate closely with Halia. Eagle also led us to the name Halia, which ended up fitting her in profound ways (more about that soon). Eagles are everywhere, as symbols, mascots, architectural motifs, not to mention the actual birds. Sometimes that makes me happy and sometimes it makes me jumpy, but mostly it makes me remember.

 Day 9 of 31 ~ 5 Cheshvan 5774

Emergence and Return

April 12, 2010 - An Ultrasound

Shortly before our trip to Carmel, we had a long ultrasound appointment for the nuchal translucency scan. Halia, who we were starting to call "the Eagle" (more about that here), was about 12.5 weeks gestation. This ultrasound was a total delight, one of the big highlights of the pregnancy. We watched her on screen for at least a half an hour, and when she wasn't resting, she would kick her legs and slosh back and forth on her back in the water. She moved with a grace and ease that was distinctive, (as we learned later when her brother moved quite differently at the same stage), and she seemed to be making the most of her watery environment. It looked like such fun!

What's more, we were told that by all available measures, she was healthy and strong. We began to share the news of our pregnancy and to believe we were really having a baby! 

April 25, 2010 - A Journal Entry

Just returned from Carmel, from five days of close connection with the Pacific Ocean. So aware of the waves, of the movement of the water, of the vastness of the ocean. Feeling Grandmother closely connected to this new life within. How they both come from the same place, how Grandmother's return to that place connects to the Eagle's emergence from that place, how the ocean grants me a tiny glimpse of that place, how I stand receiving the flow.

Grandmother is near, at all the phases of her life. 

I am a little piece of this great flow. 

Feeling the femininity. Hoping for a girl. Feeling so plugged in to that continuity, associating it with the feminine to the point where I almost cannot imagine a male in the picture. I know they are there but they are out of my sight. 

Softness, OKness, receiving. 

August 10, 2010 - A Painting

October 8, 2013 - Connecting the Dots

This painting captures my attention today. Something about it prompts me to look more deeply at my collection, opening the box with the ultrasound photos, and digging out an old journal, where I found the above entry, reading it for the first time in three years. I am moved to read what I was experiencing at the time, and I am both sad and grateful that I went on to carry that sense of connection with me into the grief ahead.

At first I am not sure what these three pieces have to do with each other, and then I they connect with startling clarity. I see in the painting the form of a fetus as well as a sense of watery flow, of vastness, and the barriers between. I see emergence and return.

Day 8 of 31 ~ 4 Cheshvan 5774 

Resting Places

We live near to a medium-sized Catholic cemetery, St. Mary's, where I like to walk sometimes. In the months immediately after Halia's stillbirth, I especially liked walking there because I felt like it was a safe place to sink into my grief, and I would walk its little roads with tears streaming down my face. They have a section of the cemetery that they call, "Babyland," that is overseen by a little statue of an angel. I always walk by Babyland and straighten up the flowers and other things left at those stones. I feel such tenderness towards the babies who rest there and their families who love them.  

The style of this cemetery is so different from a Jewish cemetery, and before Halia's death, I was not too comfortable with the style at St. Mary's. But now I have become so fond of all the lavish silk flowers and other grave decorations, of the angels and other figurines watching over the graves. They are such obvious expressions of love and heartfelt connection, and they raise my spirits. It brings me hope to be in a place where love is freely expressed, where grief does not remain so heavy.

Today, my thoughts were mainly of my grandmother, Diana Stimson Webb, who died on October 7, 2009. She comes from the non-Jewish side of the family, and both she and my grandfather were cremated. We spread their ashes in various places with particular meaning to them. A few days after Grandmother died, my mother and I walked the paths of the state park behind her home and spread some of her ashes. It is so fitting to me to think of her forever along those trails that she walked regularly and loved dearly. 

Day 7 of 31 ~ 3 Cheshvan 5774