We've been doing a lot of Christmas prep around here lately. There is so much to do, it's hard to juggle everything. It's also hard to balance the joy of the season with the grief that we're feeling. It was this time last year that we knew we were going to be having another little someone in our family, and we spent a lot of time thinking about what this Christmas would be like with another baby: another stocking to hang, another little someone to be in awe of the lights on the Christmas tree.
It was just two days after Christmas that we learned that little someone was going to be TWO little someones. How exciting that was! So this year, amid the hustle-bustle and the anticipation of the season, there is a sadness about what could have been. And there is so much to do that there are days when I wish I could just sit and cry. Or be bitchy and sad. Just one day when I didn't have to worry about taking care of the rest of the family and could just take care of myself...by just doing nothing. But that's not to be. I was reflecting on this as I was in the shower this morning. The shower is usually where I do my crying. It's the only time I have a few minutes to be alone with my thoughts, to be reminded, as I wash the scars on my belly, of what we went through. Of all that we did to try to make sure that at least Brigid came home safely. But it still wasn't enough. It was so hard, and if she was here, it would have been more than worth it, but she's not. I realized the other day that I have cried every single day since March 9th. That's a lot of crying. My eyes burn constantly.
Anyway, this morning was a little different. This morning in the shower, I was laughing, remembering something funny that happened two years ago around this time. It was a little respite from the usual sadness I feel while showering, and it was like a gift for the day. Bear with me while I recount this gem of a story:
I was eight months pregnant with Thomas. Patrick had taken the two boys out for something - to Walmart, I think - and I was home alone and able to take a leisurely shower. Something I don't often do. We'd been having trouble with the toilet in our master bathroom - one of those jiggle-the-handle-or-else-it-just-keeps-running problems. Well, I used the toilet and then got in the shower. I was taking my good old time when I started thinking that the sound of the water echoing in the shower was something I hadn't noticed before. Probably because I'm usually thinking of other things and rushing to finish up. Gosh, I thought, it sounds like a babbling brook or something. Very relaxing. I finished my shower and turned off the water. Except the sound didn't stop. I opened the curtain and saw that there was two inches of water all over the bathroom floor. The toilet must have clogged and then continued running until it overflowed - a lot - and was still running.
Quickly, I jumped out of the shower (as much as an eight-month-pregnant woman can jump and be quick) and turned off the water supply to the toilet. Think, think, think! I couldn't even think of where to start making this better. I grabbed every towel out of the linen closet and started sopping it up, but there was still so much more. And now the towels were so heavy and I could hardly bend down to grab them all off the floor. I threw them all, soaked, into the shower and saw that it had hardly made a dent in the mess. Then I remembered the shop vac. I threw on a bathrobe that didn't even close around my pregnant belly and ran down to the garage to search for the shop vac, calling Patrick on the way down to ask if he knew where it was (our garage is crowded) to make the search easier. As I got to the bottom of the steps, I could hear the water dripping down behind the walls of the foyer. I had to be fast or else it would start soaking through the drywall. We have a huge, industrial-sized shop vac, and I finally found it and dragged it upstairs, still dripping wet and half naked. By now, the water is seeping out into the carpet of the bedroom as I frantically plug the shop vac in a couple feet outside the bathroom door and turn it on. Thankfully, it served to eliminate the water in the bathroom quickly and effectively, and I started to calm down a little bit as I saw that I was making progress getting rid of it before it started draining down into the floor and through the ceiling of the main floor. I took my time and made sure I was getting up as much of it as I could, knowing that there were no more towels to use to dry it up. I sort of vacuumed myself out of the bathroom and as I got to the door, I started to feel some drops of water on my head. It was only then that I looked behind myself and realized that the shop vac had merely been sucking the water out of the bathroom and then shooting it up in the air all over the bedroom! Our entire bed was soaked, along with the floor, the dressers, and the walls and ceiling. I just stood there and screamed. I'm laughing hysterically as I type this, recalling the feeling of shock and horror I felt when I turned around. I didn't have a single dry towel to use on it and I just started grabbing for sheets and blankets in an effort to dry everything. And then I just started laughing. I mean, honestly, it was one of those where's-the-hidden-camera moments, you know? And I sort of just had to laugh or go crazy.
I think that's really the key to survival. Recognizing when you just need to laugh. When everything is so far out of your control and you just can't believe that it could happen like that. It's been my survival mechanism for most of my life - being able to find the humor in things. This story sort of parallels our situation with the twins. The blissful time in the shower is like that feeling of joy about adding twins to our family. Opening the shower curtain and seeing the mess was like learning they had TTTS. Working so hard to clean it up was like the surgery and months of bed rest and medications round-the-clock, and hospitalizations to make sure Brigid would be okay. And then that shock of seeing the water all over the bedroom after I'd done all that work to clean it up was like the shock of Brigid's death. But the situation with the girls is just never going to get to the laughing stage. And that's hard to accept. Grief is exhausting, and I'm all kinds of tired.
Meanwhile, we're looking forward to Christmas with anticipation. We'll be taking our boys to Walt Disney World in January. It's a much-needed family fun time to help us reconnect and forget a little bit about what happened this year. We're telling them Christmas morning, and I'm feeling like a kid just getting excited for both that morning and the trip itself.
Jack had his preschool Christmas program this morning and it was so fun to see him up there singing all his Christmas songs that he's worked so hard to memorize. He only shared one of them with us beforehand and said he wanted to keep the others a surprise. He's such a smart kid and it's amazing to see him learning new things and enjoying school.
I'll leave you with a few photos from this month. I can't seem to get the video of the program uploaded to the blog right now, but when I'm able to do that, I'll post it. It's so darn cute.
Thomas LOVES Santa, so it was funny to see him get shy as soon as he sat on his lap. He is rarely shy. After a few moments of questioning from the Big Man and silence from Thomas, we said, "Okay Tommy, say bye-bye, Santa!" Tommy said "NO! See Santa more!" He just liked being with him in silence, I guess, and the magic of knowing that the man in red knew his every unspoken Christmas wish.
Or something like that.
