Including Nathaniel

Our church has been working on making a new directory with pictures. They have been working on it for over a year and it seems like it really might be out soon. I got a note the other day about it asking if we wanted to include Nathaniel in it. I really appreciated the question. Right away I thought that of course I did, but then I thought about it more and talked to Dave about it. We have decided that he doesn't need to be in there. I still kind of want him to be listed because he is part of our family so I feel like I should include him, but almost everyone at church knows about Nathaniel. They don't need to look in the directory to remember him.

Since the directory has a family picture in it this makes the decision a little easier. The only family pictures we have with Nathaniel in them are from the hospital and I really don't want that to be the way new people identify me. Maybe I'll use the picture we used for our Christmas cards last year. Technically Nathaniel is in it. You just can't see him.

Listing the names of your family members and finding (or taking) a family picture should be easy. That is not the case for us any more. So many things that should be easy and require little to no thought are now gut wrenching decisions for me.

Meeting Friends

It's been an emotional couple of days for me and I didn't know why right away. I think I figured it out.

We have good friends that live out of the country and have for almost 10 years. I visited them once, not long after they moved, but it's expensive and a very long trip so whenever they are in the country we try to go see them. A 6 hour drive is much more doable than a 30 hour plane trip for us right now. The last time we saw them I was pregnant with Abby. They are here now for a couple of weeks. We were able to make a quick trip to see them this weekend. I don't know if we would have made this trip with a infant. Maybe we wouldn't have been able to see them this time. Who knows.

So today our friends met Abby in person for the first time. They should have met both of our kids. They should have also met Nathaniel and not by reading his story and looking at all his pictures. Times like this remind me all over of what should have been and it makes me sad.

Finally Up

It took us about 7 months, but we finally have Nathaniel's pictures that were displayed at his memorial service up in the house. They have been sitting on the floor in the back room for months. Today we found places for them in the house. Abby wanted one in her room. She picked the one with both of our hands holding him. The ones of Nathaniel with just me and just Dave went up on the family picture wall in the living room. Now we just need a more recent one of Abby up there. All of the ones that are there are from when she was a baby.

Lots of Mondays

In the last 7 months I have made myself do so many things that I didn't want to do because I knew that I needed to. I have forced myself to ask for help and reach out to people. Tonight I will be doing it again.

A friend who graduated college with me unexpectedly lost her husband about a week before we lost Nathaniel. She lives near us. I contacted her after a month or so. We have been talking about going to a grief group together for a few months. We are finally going to go. Tonight is our first meeting. I'm sure it will be good to go, but strange to be in a group where the losses are all different. The group Dave and I have been going to at the hospital is just for parents who have lost babies.

The group tonight is for anyone who has lost a family member so Grandma is coming too. So for the next 12 Mondays we will be going. If we can find someone else to babysit Dave will come too.

Nathaniel Day 7 - Kenosha Fun

You can read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months here, here, here, here, and here.

We decided on the activities for this Nathaniel Day the day before (Friday). We had a few ideas, but hadn't decided on one for sure. On a whim I decided to check out events in Kenosha because it's fairly close and we never go there. It turned out that Saturday was going to be Streetcar Day. Perfect. Abby will love it! And there was a big farmer's market going on and three free museums to go to, one of which was a dinosaur museum. It seemed there would be plenty to do so we decided to go for it. We called up Grandma and Grandpa to tell them our plans and invite them along.

We got to Kenosha around lunchtime, found a place to park across the street from the streetcars, and went inside the building to check out what they had set up there. Abby had fun looking at the LEGO model with running streetcars while we bought day passes to ride the streetcars as much as we wanted.


We waited for a streetcar and took it over to meet Grandma and Grandpa at the farmer's market. We found some food to eat for lunch and ate it beside a fountain outside of one of the museums.

After lunch we went in the museum for a while with Grandma and Grandpa. We played with dinosaurs and ate pretend food and looked at rocks and cartoons and clocks. It was a pretty fun little museum.



















After the museum Grandma and Grandpa left to go home and we waited to take the streetcar to the dinosaur museum.

The dinosaur museum was tiny, but Abby had fun. We looked at all the fossils and then went downstairs where they had a dinosaur dig set up. We stayed there until they closed for the day. Then it was back on the streetcar back to our car.

Abby's favorite dinosaur (the little one right behind her)

Posing with the dinosaur outside the museum.
Puppy needed to be in the picture too.

 We ended the day with a stop at the transportation center where all the streetcars were housed and then another loop around the town on the streetcar before setting off to find some dinner. For some reason Abby really wanted to go into a particular pizza place, but then wanted macaroni and cheese, which they didn't have. She settled for ravioli. We had pizza. It was delicious.

All the streetcars in the shed for the night.

One of the three streetcars we rode.

Ready for her last ride of the day.

It was a fun day and something that we probably would have never found without looking for different things to do for Nathaniel Day. Abby would have just ridden the streetcars around in circles for the whole day, but I'm glad that we did some other things too. We are definitely finding new places to go and things to do because of him.

7 Months

Dear Nathaniel,

Today you would have been 7 months old. (It's hard to believe that it's been that long though I think I accidentally told some people 8 months so maybe it feels even longer than it has been.) You would probably be having fun at all the places we go, getting into stuff, and putting everything in your mouth. I would probably have to be watching you carefully all the time.

You are no longer the youngest in our extended family. You have a new cousin. She was born a few weeks ago. You are still the littlest though. She was much bigger than you when she was born. You will always be an 8 pound 2 ounce newborn to me.

We had a lot of fun remembering you today. We did lots of things that you would have probably enjoyed. We rode on streetcars and ate yummy food and played at museums. Grandma and Grandpa even came with us for part of it.

Tomorrow is Abby's birthday. I think that you would have had fun helping her open her presents and playing with all the paper and boxes. Maybe she would have shared and let you play with her new toys a little though some are little and not for babies.

We still miss you so much, but somehow the missing you is getting easier to live with. We wish you were here with us, but know that you are much better off in heaven.

Mommy

Every Day

I came across this quote in a novel I was reading the other day. I think it describes what most people who have lost someone experience on a daily basis. I know it does for me.

"I think of him every day. At least once. Not that I say to myself - time to think about [him]. It's not like that. He just comes to mind. Somebody says something. Or I hear something to remind me of him." 

"Do you think it will be like that forever? For the rest of your life?" 

"I suppose it happens. People can think of somebody every day of their lives. Lots do, I suspect."

-Alexander McCall Smith, "Trains and Lovers"

We Miss Him All Day

Tonight at dinner Abby was talking about Baby Brother. She told us that he died and that she saw him at the doctor's office and that they had to take him out of Mommy and that Mommy has a red line. Then she said "I miss him all day."

Yes Abby, we do too. All day. Every day.

Waiting

It seems that in dealing with the cemetery they are either really fast (picking a plot, finding a date for the service) or really slow (getting a marker made). We ordered Nathaniel's stone in the beginning of May. We were told that we would have a proof by the end of the month. We got one in August. Since it  took so long I kind of just wanted to say it was fine and get it made, but it wasn't fine. The font bothered me. I figured we were paying for it and if it bothered me now it would probably bother me years from now so we told them and they are going to redo it.

It's been a few weeks now. I figured we would have it back already, but we don't. It should take about 5 minutes to change a font, but realistically it will probably be months before we see anything again. When we do, I probably won't like it. Even if it's exactly what we picked it won't be what I want. Nothing would be.

I don't want to be picking out a headstone for my son's grave. What I want is for him to be here with us, but he's not and he never will be.