Father and Son

I remember as a kid watching my Dad in his room reloading.  The rhythmic movements of his press, smell of the gunpowder, his classical music playing, him pausing to tell me about some minor detail in the process.  I remember him fixing supper and always cutting up an orange in half moon shapes with the rind on.  Like that is some classier way of eating an orange?  I remember him opening a beer and letting me take the first sip.  I remember so many of the little things I watched my father do as a kid.  I remember them because he was my hero, sure I was scared of him but that was part of his power as a father. He always dispelled wisdom in doses, often portraying it in a way which made you think and reason it over.  He was not so much a 'because I said so' kind of parent but as a 'this is why we do it my way' kind of father.  Sure it was frustrating to try to work around that kind of reasoning but I still tried.  Most of all he was someone who would take the time to explain anything when you asked him.  He knew most of the answers and the ones he didn't he made me look up. I remember these things about him because I did those things.  I was his son, he let me into his life and showed me how as a son I should live it.

I think most men want a son when they start a family.  Not only to pass on the name and title like some medieval tradition but to teach what their father taught them and to improve what they felt were injustices done as well.  My father was not perfect, far from.  He is an alcoholic with a short fuse, stemming most likely from being in the War.  He has his viewpoints and feels very strongly about them, sure that is an admirable trait to have but so is allowing the other side to express theirs.  But with all those shortcoming he passed down what it means to be a man and more importantly what it means to be a good person in this society.  I wanted so badly to do the same with my son or sons.  When Marcellus died he took that.  He took my right to be a father.  I became a different kid of daddy, a type of daddy no parent can prepare you for.  A daddy to a beautiful angel.

Marcellus will never watch me do any project, he will never listen to me telling him stories about my childhood, he will never ask me those questions about how the world works.  I will never be able to play that roll I cherished so much as a child.  I will never be able to tell him about the interesting side to history that the school system so blindly looks past.  I will never be able to show him what being a good person is about and why he needs to be one too. 

I know more about losing a child than my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my brother.  And thank God I do.  I also hope that 30 years from now I will know more about losing a child than my children would need to know. I could teach my Dad what it is like to be a father to an angel but I do not want to.  It is something that is better not knowing in life. I finally know something more than my Dad, and that SUCKS.

Marcellus, I wanted so badly to be your daddy on earth.  To take you into this life and show you how to be a good person.  I cannot do that with you ever.  You are learning so much without me teaching you.  I hope you teach me someday what Heaven is like.  Because when that day comes I want to hear all about it!  I miss you so much.  I love you baby boy!

3 Month Birthday

Have you ever thought why we section off the first months of a babies life in birthdays?  Yesterday was Marcellus's 3 month birthday.  Most people will celebrate their babies 3 month birthday with at a least a little celebration that is meaningless to a baby.  These birthday's are for the parents, a little self recognition of being able to keep their baby alive for 3 months and hopes for 3 months more. 

We celebrated Marcellus's 3 month birthday with a lady I only knew because she was a last ditch effort to keep our son here on this earth.  Patty a chaplain at the hospital we stayed at knew Healing Touch.  Marcellus's Grandma also knows healing touch and suggested it.  During that terrible day we would have tried anything.  Obviously Healing Touch was not the miracle I secretly hoped for as I watched my babies body start to bloat and bleed.  What we learned was that Marcellus was trying to stay with us, he wanted to be with his Mommy and Daddy as much as we so desperately wanted him to be with us.  His body was just failing, his body could not hold his soul anymore.  We were helpless, we had no way of fixing him.  No way of creating a safe haven for his soul to stay. 

I often how I let him get sick. We just expect babies to be born healthy and here to stay.  Those monthly birthdays are just reminders that we are capable human beings performing the simple act of procreation.  It is not that simple, there is so much that goes into keeping your baby here.  The reminders must be necessary because it is hard work keeping babies alive, and the monthly birthdays serve as recognition of parents hard work.  I will keep 'celebrating' Marcellus's monthly birthdays, especially for the first year.  His mommy and I have hard work ahead of us too, but we have one more monthly birthday than most parents to recognize.  That is of course Marcellus's angel birthday 11 days from now.  I get to go about this next week and a half until the 9th knowing this is how short Marcellus was with me, in my trusting care.  I let him get sick, I do not now how I did and know that I could not do anything to change the course of what happened but I still feel like I let him down.  I so desperately wanted to celebrate these monthly birthdays with him here in our arms. 

I miss you so much little buddy.  Last night I sat in my car screaming because I could not possibly comprehend that I am here doing this, why are we doing this?  Why do we have to do this without you?  This all feels so unnatural, so beyond wrong.  The fabric of my life has been torn to shreds.  I wish you were here so very badly.  If there was ever anything I could do to reverse this, to change our fortune I would.  I just want the chance to raise you.  I love you so much Marcellus, I will always love you with everything I have until the end of my days!

Marcellus's Sunset

Why haven't I linked his sunset!
This is his sunset done in Australia by a very nice photographer who also lost a child. Part of our internet dead baby club which sucks.  This sunset, along with his Molly bear, windchime back in Fairmont, angel statue are beautiful milestones.  Milestones in his life, milestones which he will not be a part of.  I love creating memories for him, I just want to be creating memories with him. 

Life without him is such a two way street. Grief consumes everything.  My life has been infiltrated by my grief for him.  I looked at pictures from when we were pregnant with him but the only thing I could think of was how did I not know we were going to lose him.  Those wonderful, innocent memories are gone.  I want to be able to look at pictures of me finding out, pictures of us at the beach and be like 'these are moments with Marcellus.'  But all I can think is wishing I could be back there, to go back in time and relive those moments.  Fleeting, happy moments that I did not know what soul crushing grief is like.

But I cannot go back in time.  At least not yet.  I am stuck here. I am stuck living with this every day.  And I do, I live with it.  Grief has become me, changed me into a different man.  A better man?  Doubtful, but definitely different.  I worry my friends and family will abandon this new me.  I can recall how I acted before Marcellus, and what my friends took to define me and I think now that I will never act like that again.  I have become more sincere, more real.  What if my friends who knew me throughout the years say that this is not the person they are friends with and abandon me?  I am so worried about that.  Marcellus abandoned me, will my friends too?  What about my family?  Blood is forever but emotions are strong.  Maybe I am making too much of this.  I am letting my grief infiltrate my relationship with family and friends.  I am changed, but that does not mean I need to try to change back to who I was in the past. 

I need these memories of him, I need to create new ones with his name.  I will never be able to cry out his name to him as he plays in the yard, to see his name written in school papers or even in finger paint when he is learning how to spell it.  I am haunted that I will never hear his laugh, or hear him say "I love you daddy,"  I need these memories to feel like I am still being a good daddy.  The best daddy in the world to my perfect little angel.  Wow, that cliche never had such a literal meaning until now.  I have an angel, who picked the sunset, influenced what kind of windchime to buy for his grave, and lets us know that he loves us in signs we can interpret. 

I miss him, looking at his sunset does not make me miss him any less.  It is not about trying to lessen my grief, it is about trying to bring him closer to me.  I love my son so much and always will.  I will never pass up a chance to show people how much I love him.
 

We got the Birth Certificate today.  I was excited to see the letter.  I have his birth certificate, he was real!  I walked to the house slowly as I looked at it.  Walking in the door my wife notices a changed expression on my face.  She asks what is wrong and I say "deceased in the corner."  Even his goddamned birth certificate is stained with his death.  It permeates everything about him.  Our child has been defined as the dead son.  I was so looking forward to his birth certificate in being the one thing untouched by his passing.  My ticket into the world that he was alive.  I have the official copy of the death certificate in the state of NC I wanted him to exist living in the state as well.  However it is not that.  Another disappointment in my life when it comes to me and him. 

Marcellus never disappointed me, not even by dying....I DISAPPOINTED HIM!  I cannot do anything right!  I failed to keep him alive, I failed to get his birth certificate while he was still living, I failed to put the damned batteries in the camera before my wifes first K-care with him.  I failed noticing something was wrong the day he was born.  I failed him so miserably.  I am so lonely without him.  I feel so lonely, so sad, so broken. 

I hate this.  I have nothing else to say other than I hate this and this sucks. I lied, I have one more thing to say.  Marcellus, I love you so much I miss you more than anything possible.  I love you baby!

Part of the club

My professor put up a pdf of pictures of his first child.  A beautiful girl at 7 lbs.  He looks so tired yet so happy to have her.  They are an older couple in their mid thirties just starting their family.  Her due date was a day before Marcellus's.  Marcellus of course came long before Emily did but I thought on some levels they were going to be the same.  I do not know my professor personally but I bonded to him because we both had pregnancies going on at the same time.  And our names are mike, we have to stick together.  When Marcellus came early I thought to myself 'wow, I am going to be a father so much longer than him, I will be the teacher and he can learn from me!'  Sadly that was not the case.  He is part of this international club called fathers with children on this earth.  I subscribe to the Grieving Fathers group on facebook.  I know how hard it is to see your baby take its last breath.  The unholy pain that follows after, the sickening feeling in your stomach as you close the lid on the casket knowing you will never see the thing you desire most in your life again.  I am glad that my professor hopefully will never know those feelings.  Hell he does not even know I lost my son.  I just have not found it relevant to email him and say "hey dr. mike I looked at your pictures, they are awesome, congrats on your healthy baby, being able to be outside with her, taking her home, losing sleep with her.  btw, I cried when I saw them because my baby died, have a good day." 
Its just another reminder of what could have been, what should be, what people take for granted is such a precious gift.  I want to be a part of that club so bad, I want to be the father here on earth daddy.  I want to take pics of my baby with the dog, I want to send out birth announcements, I want to field calls asking hows the wife and baby.  I want to go to the grocery store late at night to get ointments.  I want to go to babywearing groups and learn new exciting ways to strap your baby to your chest.  I want to spend long nights at home just staring at my baby.  I want the dishes to pile up, laundry to back up, I want to not care about that as long as our baby is smiling and pooping.  I want those things so badly but I want them with Marcellus.  Until I want them for the next baby I have to bid my time, wait my turn to join the other club.  Its too bad I cannot get my membership revoked to the club I belong to now. 

Babies! Babies everywhere!

I feel like I am watching Oprah somedays.  Everyone is in her audience and everyone gets.... BABIES!!
"You get a baby! And you get a baby! Everyone gets a baby!!!"

However I am just watching, not participating.  Oprah does not have a baby for me, or at least I missed the form to sign to keep mine.  But everyone else signed all the forms, initialed in the right spots, listened to the show lawyers telling them how they get to keep the babies Oprah so graciously got them.  Everyone has babies, or that is what I feel like.  My professor is having a baby.  Probably already had it.  It was due a day before Marcellus.  Every other lady at Parent Care had a child except us.  I see babies at work all the times.  Mothers pushing their little bundles of joy around the store as they find the perfect dish to complete their wedding gifts they got two years ago.  Even grief parents on the web I am following are having their babies again.  I watched a video put up of a 4 year old boy who died and the second half of the video was focused on their little baby boy.  I am happy for these people, even more happy than for normal people who get to have babies.  Through some bizarre way of thinking I feel that people who have lost children are more deserving of subsequent children.  But those are not the happy people with babies I see all around me.  So many happy people participating in the ill conceived 'right' of having a child.  Everyone get a baby, everyone expects a baby.  It is not a right however, it is a grateful privilege.

A grateful privilege that I wish to partake in again someday when we are ready.  How will we know when that is?  My wife says a sign may be when we stop wishing that the new baby would be Marcellus and we could pick up where we left off.  I agree with that.  I do not think that Marcellus is going to come back as a do-over but I worry about me being disappointed in any subsequent children that they will not be able to fit the perfect image that I have made for my son.  If our children survive past infancy and we are grateful enough watch them grow up I know they will make mistakes, and I will make mistakes with them.  They will disappoint me some point in my life.  Marcellus never disappointed me, I cannot be disappointed at him for dying, that would be unfair to him.  He is perfect in every way to me.  A grief book stated that grieving parents often transform their dead infants into saints.  And that is true, you have to die to be a saint.  Even Marcellus's uncle is calling him the patron saint of time.  

I know Marcellus is not crawling around the streets of heaven garbed in the robes of sainthood.  There are no Cathedrals being built in Italy or Ireland to house his bones.  Marcellus is just another baby, one given to us not by Oprah but God.  We did sign the forms, we did initial in all the right spots.  We just never wanted to sign those forms giving him back to God.

Others

There is us, my wife and I, and others.  I feel so isolated, I do not know my life before he was born, that seems so far away.  Being back in school reminds me of it a little.  How much work I put into school while working, CNA class, taking care of a dog and pregnant wife boggles me.  I still have a lot of work to do now, but it is not the same.  You would have taken up all of my time, and you still do.  There are times where I cannot do anything else but sit and be worthless.  I am not as productive at work, school I care less about.  I do not wish to take CNA class again, to add another level of stress on my life.  I will just take the test. 

Tomorrow is your due date, I was so busy yesterday with work and school I did not get a chance to really grieve over you.  I did not cry yesterday, I feel like such a bad person.  The night before I cried a lot as my emotions just boiled over.  It was rather sudden and all consuming the night before, like a teapot working itself up to a whistle.  Once the water got hot enough inside it all hell broke loose.  That is how I felt.  I was cruising along the whole day ok until bedtime when I just started to get really disconnected and I needed to go upstairs and talk to my son.  I grabbed his picture and started to cry and then had a fit of anger which included a lot of yelling, sobbing, and throwing of plastic buckets in empty bathtubs.  I am not better, I am not ok.  I am in grief.  I felt better after having a breakdown, sometimes mommies and daddies need to breakdown like that. 

These are all tangents to what is really bothering me.  What is bothering me is today.  I have to get off this couch in 15 minutes and put my work clothes on and go take care of shoppers.  I have to walk around and parlay to their needs.  I have to put Marcellus on my 'shelf' until I can come back to him.  It is Saturday morning and all the happy families are going to be out.  I am going to see all the unhappy fathers who have to spend their precious weekend day in a store surrounded by the babies they never get to see since they work so much during the week.  I am going to sit there and envy every single one of them.  I am going to think of how big you would be. I am going to think of in a parallel universe mommy would be sending me pictures of you to keep me going.  She still sends me messages but she cannot send a picture of you doing something cute because you are dead.  I wonder if I will make it today.  Some days nothing seems important, just my family. 

Tomorrow is Marcellus's due date.  We highly doubt he would have gone to term but it still is another date in his life.  What it really means to me is that he has been dead for 2 months and he was not even suppose to be born yet based on a little flip wheel.  DEAD FOR TWO FUCKING MONTHS!  You have to be shitting me, this is so not real.  This is so messed up.  This is so not fair.  This sucks so goddamned bad!  I hate this so much. 

Marcellus,

I do not mean to swear.  I have been trying not to swear to be a better person for you.  To try to live his life like I would have if you were here with him safe in my arms.  But I just needs to sometimes.  I have a lot of anger over your death which releases itself slowly.  I just miss you so damned much.  I am so afraid of today, that I cannot do it some days.  Your due date is tomorrow, why are you dead?  Why are you dead for so damned long that there are new people at group, people who have had their children die AFTER you did.  You are suppose to be so brand new, so young, so innocent.  You are suppose to be the wonderful announcement of facebook and the subject of so many heartfelt congratulations!  You are not suppose to exist in this blog, this blog is not suppose to be here!  I am not suppose to know Colin, Cooper, Hazel, Miracle, Ashlynn, Zachary, Samuel, Wyatt, and anyone else I missed.  I am not suppose to know any of them!  I am suppose to know you all chubby, smiling, and crying.  It hurts so much to think about what I could know, what another life would have in store for me.  The life that we planned out with you.  My heart pours out for you, just bleeding all over, this wound cannot be patched, it has to heal on its own.  Oh baby I hurt so bad for you, I miss you so very much.  I need you so bad.  This sucks this sucks this absolutely FUCKING sucks!  I love you so much, no swearing in heaven!  I love you baby boy, I love you son.  You are my everything!  I love you so very very much!