Today I met up briefly with a friend from my early days at ASU. Suzie was one of those friendly faces from day 1 who reached out a hand and offered to help me get a good feel for the lay of the land when I first started at ASU. Now, 10 years later, we still stay in touch, or happen to randomly meet at the most obscure places. No matter how long it has been, or how infrequent we’ve been in touch, it seems we can always pick right back up where we left.
Suzie, I understand follows this blog (thanks Suzie) and is always so great at surprising me with the best inter-campus mail one can receive. A valentine on February 14, a treat at Halloween, a Sun Devil gift bag full of goodies when we welcomed our boys into our lives, a congratulations card when Noah was born, and a sympathy card soon thereafter… when we lost him.
Now that Suzie and I work at the same campus, we made a point to meet up today for a quick catch up. It was just like old times. Her happy, bubbly self that tells you straight how things are, and her genuine caring spirit that makes me always feel so loved and cared for. In the short time we had today, we tried our best to catch up, it has been a long time. And while I loved hearing about all she’s been up to, how her life both at ASU and outside of work are, I’ll never forget how she made me feel today. She asked me about Noah. In a polite way, she said, “I don’t mean to make you cry, but can I ask you about Noah?” It was the best question I’ve been asked in many months. In the second it took me to truly process that someone wanted to really hear about my son, and not just about the tragedy in losing him, my heart doubled in size from love, that comes out of opening that chapter in my life book.
“Of course!” I said. So excited to share about him. She said, “Tell me about him.” I went onto say how he was just like a normal sized baby, only miniature in every way. I showed her about how big he was in real life, (I explained the pictures always made me think he looked bigger than he was), and how he was so strong. I shared how the doctors had told us the true hard facts, that he may never survive the birth, but how strong he was not only to make it through that but 12 days after. Suzie asked about his reflexes, his reactions and I got to share how he’d hold my finger, or grasp Dad’s pinky with his entire hand, just like a full term baby naturally does. She asked about his hair, and I got to share he had his daddy’s hair color and that he would do the same things full sized babies would do, breath, reach out, turn his head. I got to share how grateful we are for the 12 days we got to have him and how he was just like a normal baby, so strong, such a fighter, just too little.
In the short conversation we had about Noah, I felt happiness radiate throughout my body. Sadly, it isn’t very often I get to talk about him that way. I honestly can’t remember the last time someone asked me to tell them about him. In the last couple of weeks I’ve met many new people and being very pregnant many people ask me if this baby is my first and when I say no, they ask me how many kids I have. It’s always such a hard question to answer, because I always want to shout 4, well now 5, but I know the question immediately following the one of how many is, tell me how old your kids are. And that’s where it gets uncomfortable… not for me, but for others. So I often just say I have three other children at home. There have been a few times in meeting new people at work, that it has come out my other children at home are adopted and then they ask about experiencing pregnancy. I simply say, “I was pregnant last year, and gave birth to a son at 24 weeks. Unfortunately, he passed away and now I’m pregnant with our daughter. We want nothing more than to bring home a healthy baby.” I try to focus on our daughter and the fact we want nothing more than to hold our daughter, full of life, in our arms after she is born. I brush past our loss as quickly as I can because I can always tell it makes most people feel uncomfortable and they don’t know what to say. By focusing on the health baby part, there’s always an easy response, “That is the most important thing. Good luck to your family.”
Today in getting to talk about Noah, it was healing, felt amazing to my insides and made me realize just how much I dislike keeping that chapter of my life closed. I often get to talk about Gabriel, Michael, Isabelle and of course this baby, but less and less frequent do we now share outside the walls of our home about our other child... the one who watches from above, sends signs when he can, and reminds me just how precious life truly is.
She asked me about Noah and it made my heart so happy.
Until next time,
Angie
No comments:
Post a Comment