Our Babies' Goodbye

I want to write this before I forget. I am listening to the playlist that was playing at the small gathering that we had to celebrate and say goodbye to our children, Maggie and Patrick. Dixie Chicks singing "Sweet dreams, little man. My love will fly to you each night on angel's wings." I am not religious, but I hope that my love finds its way to both Maggie and Patrick each day and night. I could not miss them, or long to hold them, more than I do. 

On Monday November 4th, just one week after Patrick died, we gathered with family. It was not a funeral or a service, but it was a goodbye. Our intention in planning it was to have one last opportunity to parent Maggie and Patrick. To be present during their cremation, to offer them comfort and love in the last piece of their passing. 

Many people talk about babies who have died as 'angels' or as 'sleeping'. We don't necessarily use this language, but we had treated each of their deaths as a quiet time. As each of our children died in my arms I/we sang our family's lullaby. With that in  mind, we first decided that we would read to them before singing them to sleep. We would have done the same for Maggie and Patrick and this was our last chance to do so. We read "I Love you Through and Through" and "Love you Forever" to them that day. We also played music, the vast majority of which were lullabies: Brahm's Lullaby, Twinkle, Twinkle, You are my Sunshine. We also included some songs which spoke to our love and loss - messages we wanted them to hear. 

We also wanted them to know us, our family, the lives we had planned for them. I printed photographs of us during the pregnancy, our extended families and of EllaGrace. We wrote on each of the photograph, telling the babies about how much we loved them and were excited to meet them, who they would have played with and what life might have been like for them. Then we wrote each child a long letter, reassuring them that we could never forget the precious few moments or days that we had with them and that we will love them and mourn for them forever. Writing this, although it was the best solution I could find, my heartbreaks because a letter to an infant is just so insufficient. I wanted to give them so much more, daily representations of my love as their mother in the currency of snuggles, playtimes, giggles and kisses. 

Outside of these plans, we brought photographs of the babies, prints of their hands and feet, stuffed animals which belonged to them so that others could get to know them as much as possible. 

Planning and imagining the goodbye for one's own children, in my experience, cannot truly prepare you for the experience. We entered the chapel, which is above the crematorium. There, in the centre of the room, was a small white rectangular box. It could not have been more than two feet in length and was quite thin. It stood alone on the metal frame accustomed to carrying much larger caskets. It was covered in a soft, felt-like fabric - much more suitable for babies. The moment I saw that box my legs buckled and I believe in that moment I felt my heart be ripped from my chest and my lungs collapse - perhaps my whole self and soul. I can never be the same again, my identify and my everything has changed since losing children and the moment I saw their casket - alone in a big room and world. I could not move, I just starred at that small box, which they share. I remember weeping and repeating "no, no, no... please.... no, no".  After all of it, I could not believe I was in that room, facing that small casket and another awful day. I will never be able to describe the all encompassing grief, fear and devastation that I experienced like a wall of bricks in that moment. Recalling the moment is nearly as painful, and finally my tears are flowing again, after days of avoiding it. Will my tears ever stop? 

Some how I found my physical strength and began to arrange the props we had brought with us. I laid out the photographs and letters for Maggie and Patrick on top of their casket. I stroked the casket, as though they could have felt my touch once more... I spoke to them. I can only wish that they heard me that day. 

The goodbye seems to have been an appreciated time by my family. They also said their goodbyes to Maggie and Patrick. If there was a part of them that ended that day, then they must know that the entire chapel was filled with love for them - not just my own, though I know it could have filled the space without any help. We listened to music and family members looked at the photographs - either a reminder of the short moments that they met the babies, or a first introduction. EllaGrace enjoyed handing out Kleenexes and playing with toys. She said a short goodbye to Maggie and Patrick's casket with me and blew them one single, sweet kiss. She was their big sister - is? - and she would have been so wonderful in that role. It is not just a loss for me or Lee, but it is a loss for our family, the one we were planning with EllaGrace. I read the stories as planned. 

And then the casket was removed.... my last moment of being with their bodies, a physical, real representation of my children. It was not wheeled away, or carried by pallbearers, but picked up in the arms of a single funeral home employee because it was small and light; it held the bodies of two, small, entirely loved infants. My babies. Somehow each time that someone takes them away from me - when I gave up the body of each of them after holding them, and this experience - it feels like a new, final, awful goodbye. And as I think of those moments I can feel my body tremble, I feel my heartbreak and my chest hurt and know that I am inconsolable - again. Grief is as much physical as it is emotional.. I feel them, I feel my loss...

After that I sat and stared. I stared at the metal carrier that had held the casket moments or minutes before. I waited for everyone to leave so that I could crumple to the floor beneath me, curl up, weep and never leave. I wish that I was still there now. I wish I could rewind time. Luckily, cousins and my husband distracted me enough that it didn't happen exactly like that. Now I just have to live in the present... feel the loss and find a way to move forward from something that I have no desire to leave behind.