Fall, coming and going

A time of such beauty, the leaves on trees fiery and deep, a time of things going to sleep.

So much love and so much heartache.

I look forward to getting the baby dresser back in our home, and as soon as it's here, I want to break down. Our baby is coming so soon, and I welcome her with these preparations. And yet, once the dresser is in our room again, the mama in me who misses her son is so sad. "We picked this out for you, darling," I think. We went to the antique store, and decided it was right, we bargained for it, and then your Dad picked out the color and painted it, we put it in our room, and touched it every time we walked by. This one piece of furniture that showed our baby was coming.

My mom comes over and brings the bins of clothes that I had laid out and washed and folded and organized getting ready for Otto. I am so excited to be getting ready for a baby again, for my little girl. I can't believe I get to pull them out again, these things that hurt so much to put away. My mom helped me put them away, that impossible task, and here she is again, as we take them out.

And in order to get them out, I must pass through the hurt again. I have to remember going to the stores where we chose things for our little boy (who we didn't KNOW was a boy yet, but had a good feeling). Our first child, all the hope, all the faith and belief of those months, the decisions of what kind of diaper to get and how many, thinking of what kind of parents we wanted to be through the THINGS that we accumulated, I took it all so seriously. Finding the Moses basket, Ryan's mom making the liner for it, just for him, the gifts given, the blessings people wrote that we tucked inside the liner.

It's still so hard to believe and accept that you won't wear these things. That all our love and care was compounded into one week, one week to see you and hold you. It is hard to touch these sweet little things again, and let you go from them again.

We learn to love you from our hearts, to carry your heart, to let you carry ours. But I miss my son. I miss the boy that won't grow up with me, who I won't have laughter with, or first words or tantrums or all the beautiful and difficult things that we would go through together. The amazing person that I know you were and would become.

And your sister, your beautiful sister, is about to come into the realm of our arms. She is here with us now, sleeping between us, hearing our conversations, sleeping and waking, taking up so much of our conversation.

"How is Lima today?" your daddy asks all the time. We talk about how you're moving, how often, how I'm feeling, any contractions, emotions, we circle around you. You are coming and you are here already. I am so happy to be pregnant, so pregnant with you. I look at my belly every day with wonder at the shape and the grace of the lines of roundness. I am so grateful that we've gotten to create another little being.

And we go through these months, from September to November, a year from when Otto died, in that silent tunnel of space when he didn't exist on this earth, not yet conceived, not yet in my belly, and then a year later, gone, back to the earth, back to the heavens. The year anniversary of the saddest months of our lives, the most quiet, the most insane, the most heartful. I couldn't remember the leaves of last year, I was blind to the Fall. I thought it was a little insulting actually, I couldn't get inspiration from the way things looked or felt, it just wasn't enough, I wasn't part of it, nothing could compare to my little boy.

And somehow, a year has passed. And we see the leaves every day, we point them out and take them in, because this time, they mean that our daughter is coming. The air cools, the earth is fragrant, the birds change, we welcome all of it.

How can we hold so much? How can the Fall be the time of such excitement and such disappointment, hope and devastation, so much love? It is why I'm up at 4:30am, my mind full of strange chatter and dreams, because it is really hard to hold both.

I feel slightly crazy. So any phone calls and emails and cards are so welcome, any coffee dates or short walks, any candles lit and poems read and prayers sent off really do help. We need help. I need people now. I also need a lot of sleep and naps and quiet. And reassurance.

Thank you for reading and for the love sent.