Comedown Town

There's this sense of euphoria when you have a baby.  The moments that surround are intense, dripping relief and astonishment and brand new.  The air is humid; ripe with the hope of what's to come. You forget what you saw on the news last night.  Or maybe you don't, but for some reason it now feels farther away; overcome-able.  Everyone's voice is an octave above and their hands a sternum below, cradling this person you just made, just met, if you let them.

When you have a baby after you've lost a baby, this scenario isn't the same.  The room still holds that same joy, and maybe even those same curtains.  Their faces still greet you with a smile, and your heart still holds all that hope, all that relief.  It's just that now it holds her also, even though you cannot. And now, now you never forget the news. 

Last week I made the trek into the basement, passing the boxes and boxes of childrens' clothes and college clothes and maternity clothes.  I cringed at the dust atop the Christmas decorations and the discarded, forgotten toys someone once had to have.  And then I opened the box I never open if I can help it.  The one I first closed after my first daughter died. 

I still can't believe I used to be that person.  The one who buys the same outfit in three different colors for the baby who isn't yet here.  Light purple jellies for the summer and pink corduroy vests for January.  Leopard printed moccasins and pristine, hand knit rompers with red bows on the collar and a lone denim jacket that would have fit her for a week, and that cost me as long to afford.

I always thought she'd wear them.  And then, when she died I thought, someone will.  Someday.  And then I wrapped them all in plastic and I cursed the duct tape over the lid and I pushed it back.  Far out of view and out of mind so as not to have to see.

And aside from a few close friends and family members who've had baby girls in recent years, my plan of indecision has mostly worked.  Every so often I would make the same trek, barely opening  and  half looking and reluctantly holding up.  And I would mutter to myself about this one suiting that one or how she would want me to, and then I would close the lid and be back on the stairs in the same breath.

This time was different. 

This time I couldn't stop them.  My hands as they opened and my fingers as they traced. This time, even when my chest heaved and my head fell and even when they called me from upstairs, they kept  searching, pulling, holding.  And soon there it was all in front of me.  Every thread
and slipper.  Every consignment sale and every glittery package I'd opened and every line I'd endured with that belly, that baby.  My baby.  And I couldn't not see it anymore.

So much of this life now is deciding which hurts less.

When your oldest asks you if this baby will die too, do you nod in agreement when others say "absolutely not", or do you tell him the truth?  That we are doing everything we can.  That it is very unlikely.  That we hope not, but maybe. 

Do you attend the baby shower; grit your teeth through the diaper explosion games and talk of impending sleepless nights as though they are a certainty?  Or do you send a gift in the mail to the friend who stopped calling, stopped asking, years ago?

And when you have another baby, and another, do you open the box?  Do you lift the lid, ever so slightly?  Do you make the trip down the stairs and back, cry half the decade's worth of tears you swore you'd used up long ago and then wipe them in time for dinner?

And then, after the dishes, do you return in the dark?  Lay them all before you again, with a steady hand?

Pick them up one by one, carry them in these same arms that yearn to hold her, still?

To the stairs and then the closet.  

Do you pull them out in the morning light, and do you slip them then, ever so lovingly and ever so longingly, over chubby legs whose kicks bring you to life?  

In short, somehow.  Yes.

You do.