Seeing You at the Ocean

Otto, today we went to the ocean. After weeks inside the house with colds, stuck in a small space with clutter building and building. Today we got out to see the sun over the blue, shining ocean. We drove to Jenner, where the river meets the sea. A magical place, a place of converging, the moving river, running through hills, the vast sea, meeting continents, the broad sky overhead.  I thought of you there, meeting us too.

The wind blew through me, refreshing cells, lungs, heart.  Zoe and Luna seemed so happy too, to see the bigness, the love of the sea.  Luna was so happy to put a blanket down and eat some snacks, picnics are one of her favorite things.  It was a time of happiness for our family. To go for no reason but to go, to get out and see the beauty of the world.

I have been thinking about grass lately. Really, I've been thinking about life in general, and after-life, trying to see if anything makes sense. I've had more moments lately of wondering if anything makes sense, do I really believe what I say I believe? Does it matter?

I always come back to grass in the sun. Here where we live in California the grass is so green in January, so glowing with tenderness, the water so apparent and alive in it. I feel like I want to be a blade of grass, glowing in the sun, soaking it up, making energy in my cells, reaching and being, just being grass.  Being a person can feel so complicated.  I like to imagine having my thin roots in the dark, damp earth, holding on to this beautiful, round, mama planet, loving the sun, glowing in the moonlight, belonging to obviously here.

And I think of you too, your ashes in the earth, held by the mother, your energy in the midst of us.  I know I don't talk of God the way some would like, with a lot of doctrine and explanation. I like to feel God, with my eyes on the grass, or on the sky, the way things all hold together, the way I feel love for it, I feel love and belonging, and there it stands now. Just there. And it feels good.

I miss you all the time and I love you.  Your sister Luna talks about you all the time.  She wishes she could meet you. She wants a picture in a frame of the two of you.  This breaks my heart open.  With love and with tears.  She thinks you are great, and she says so in those very words. She knows you are her big brother and that you keep her safe.  I am so glad that she loves you with real love.  You ARE great, my son, my baby, my warm, soft boy.  My soul that lives among the stars.  You are so many things.  I am amazed to be your mama.

Heaven in my Belly

Luna, now almost 3, has been talking about Otto a lot lately.  She sees his picture. She knows that her baby sister was just in my belly, and that she grew, and we were so excited to see her, and then she came out. 

And she sees Otto's picture, and says, "I can't WAIT to meet Otto!"  I don't know her mind, but I guess she is thinking that he is the next baby that will join our family.  I don't want to tell her that he was already here, and that he is not coming back.  Because I want him to come back too. And I like the thought she is thinking. Part of me, deep in my consciousness still goes, "well, maybe..."

She will include him sometimes in a list of the family with fun things she wants to do, like going to the park or the zoo to see the Heffalumps. She'll say, "and mommy will go, and daddy will go, and Zoe will go and Otto will go!" She knows how we love him, she sees it in how we talk, in pictures of him. And I love her inclusion of him, because that is always how it feels to me. I have three children.  And one of them is a boy.

I've told her  that Otto died, and that he is in heaven, and that he loves her, and is always with her. And I wish I knew what all of that means.  But the words are a way to start. The words "died" and "heaven"  are still strange for me too. I say them and let my consciousness bleed out like watercolor on paper, reaching out toward a meaning slowly, slowly, waiting for one.  She doesn't know what those words mean either.  But maybe she knows more than I do.

Today was the real heart stopper.

She said, "Soon, Otto will come out and see us.  But right now he is in heaven, in your belly."

I'm not pregnant and don't mean to be pregnant.  But the thought that heaven includes my womb, includes my deepest, sweetest connection with him, includes even he cord that brought his nourishment and probably his death, is so heart-filling.  Because sometimes it feels like, when he left, he became again this beautiful spirit, and that in that transition my mothering him doesn't matter as much. People all say he was a big soul, he IS a big soul, and without his little body anymore, is he still my Otto?

This vision of the womb, of my baby in heaven, in that deep, dark mothering space of the universe, deeper even, softer than the universe, and that maybe my womb is carrying part of that space right here, and that Otto will always be fed from that, always be loved by me, by this mother, in that space, is so wonderful.

After hearing Luna say that, and when both girls were napping today, I looked at his beautiful picture, while resting on the couch, and his face looked so peaceful, even almost smiling.  It doesn't always affect me that way.  But today it did. And I will take that as a YES. He is mine, he is here, and he is in the center of all love.

Fall and Love

It's been a while since I wrote. Crawling girl makes it hard to type now, she can get anywhere fast and I can't look away! And I'm sleeping during her naps too, so bye bye free time.

But there has been a wonderful glow from within lately. Happiness. Contentment.

I sink into the outside in the Fall. The rain. The leaves. The sounds. Everything is getting more saturated with color and feeling and smell. It's been over two years since Otto passed over, and 2 years seems to be a marking of a change in grief work, the walk, the experience. I'm less heavy. I'm more in my heart.

I cry often, I feel his love and loss, and in many ways I feel more a part of the universe. I'd say more alive, but it's even more than that - like even when I die, I'll still be a part of it. I feel at home. Part of a big, cozy, beautiful family that extends out all around.

I look up at the stars and am glad that I will be a part of them still after I die. I want to know more about the cycles of the moon. I want to know about making bread and I enjoy taking the seeds out of the pumpkin before I bake it. I feel love for dirt and trees and sky. For my husband and my child. Otto brought that deep love to the surface, a shattering surfacing. A rearranging. Love that makes you know that it is what we are here for.

I am still flabbergasted that Otto came and left. There is a part of his story that I go through every day. A different part every day, a little piece. A room in the hospital, the lactation nurse, the fridge where I stored the milk with his name on it. I found a little bottle from UCSF yesterday, his name still on the label. I will keep it. It is a precious thing.

I have been here for his conception and growing in belly, and his birth, and his death. I know death a little more. I know the permanence of it, and yet the fluidity of it. The feeling like it is not an ending even though it is so complete and sudden. I am a little less afraid of it. And more grateful that I have this day. A day I get to be with a man I love and a child I get to care for. Who gives me smiles of total joy when dad brings her in from her nap. I have not know such complete love in a face. She melts me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing things right as a mom, feeding her the right things, getting sleep right, yada yada, but I know that I do love her enough. And that is basically the key. Everything else works itself out.

When I can really accept that this love is the most important thing in life, it's easier to let things go like the dishes being undone, an email I forgot to send, a form I forgot to fill out. Instead of going into the vortex of everything I do wrong right away, it's easier to slip that off and just say, Oh well, and look, I'm alive. I'm alive. I don't know how long I get, but right now is a pretty good moment. Pretty great when you think about it.

Rain is falling. The Giants won and will go to the world series! My baby is sleeping. The moon is almost full. The earth is soaking in long awaited water. Who am I to judge my life and if I've done it well, if I've done it right? I am here. I am here and breathing, my heart is beating, I live in a house of love and undone dishes and piles of laundry.