And really I don't even know where to start. There is no clear or coherent beginning, or at least I don't know where it is. Should I start at the end, this place where I am now...no man's land? It all seems like a dream to me now from this place. Or a nightmare. But the middle of the story is what gets me, what catches in my throat like a swallowed wail. Stevie. Stevie. Stevie. From the very beginning to the very end of our time together. There I have a clear beginning and a relatively concrete end (though it is complicated). Eight months of not really wanting to be anywhere else in the world.
I loved her too much, too well, too fiercely. My days were spent lapping up her face, drinking in her smell, memorizing her body. There wasn't a place on her little pudgy face that I hadn't kissed. I wanted her to be mine. I forgot that she wasn't.
I remember in the beginning, correcting people when they assumed that she was mine. And I don't think it was just because I was white that they assumed that. (Small interlude here to say that I read this book a few years ago called Distant Companions: Servants and Employers in Zambia 1900 to 1985 and I can safely say that when you go out into a children's park in Manhattan...2007...not so different). It was because I behaved like a mother. Other nannies hold the babies away from themselves, give the baby its bottle in the stroller before pushing it around the park. They also usually have a posse of other nanny friends and/or are constantly chatting on their cell phones. I used to get really pissed off about it, but it was just a job for them. They put in their hours for crazy, rich "lifestyle mothers" and then go home to their own lives. It wasn't just a job for me. I had made it into more. And maybe that's why I never had any nanny friends. Because I just couldn't take my eyes or mind away from Stevie...ever. I held her constantly. I bought a sling, not just because I found it more convenient than the 1000 dollar Bugaboo, but because I loved having her so close and she loved exploring her world in 360 with the comfort of my face 10 inches away. I held her close to me and studied her perfect little face when I gave her her bottle, my body curled around hers. It was such an intimate experience and I allowed myself to be present in that experience more than I ever had before with anyone. And it really bothered me that Stevie's own mother held her like the nannies do...except even more cold and distant, not really unlovingly, but uncomfortably.
And I stopped correcting people. "Your baby is just beautiful...I just loved that age." "Thanks, me too." And I knew I was in trouble when, sometime in October, a woman asked me "Is that your baby?" And I said yes, of course. Then I realized. "Oh, no, I thought you meant...no, I'm her nanny." Afterwards I felt bad. For claiming her so thoughtlessly, yes, but I also felt bad (and sad) about NOT claiming her. She was my baby. She was. But she isn't anymore. And I can hardly bear it.
I remember those last days in Aspen, when I just didn't give a shit anymore. I'd always tried to be as respectful as possible about J's wishes that I not "spoil" Stevie by "indulging her in outside comfort," (the preferable option being self-comfort) especially when it came to her napping/night schedule. I did however, rarely put her in her crib when she wasn't already asleep. But I wouldn't be able to go get her when J or D did. I would stand outside the door sniffling right along with her for however long it took for her to cry herself into exhaustion. If J and D left the house, I would go back in and get her and rock her to sleep. She always slept longer and woke up less cranky when we did that. She was so responsive to singing. We had a steady repertoire of night-night songs (mostly hymns or bluegrassy stuff because I can usually remember all the words).
Anyway, I didn't care anymore. Some little heart's warning was going off. I knew something was coming, that I needed to hold tight to my little baby if we were to be able to weather the storm. And I just couldn't put her down. We'd sleep together, curled up in the armchair in my room. Or I'd lay her down in my bed and we'd just stare at each other while my Itunes played sad sleepy songs until she'd fall asleep. And I'd find myself watching her, distracted from whatever book I was reading. She'd wake up slowly, catch my eye, and grin with her little red sleepy cheeks. And I couldn't help but pull her to me again. I'd need her in my arms.
For the first time since February, I've had time to just hurt. The last two months have been so scary for me...jobless, then starting a new job, moving to a scary new apartment, being sick, being scared. The grief caught me in waves. There are only a few times where I actually let go, mostly with Leah, almost never when I was alone. And even then, it just felt like a stiffled sneeze. I was afraid that if I let myself start to cry, I might never stop. Because I couldn't just cry over Stevie and then stop. It would all have to come out. All those abstract and secret hurts. So I just survived, and let it all literally eat at my insides, enough to put me in the hospital.
As soon as I came home, I let myself begin to feel it. And still I fought it. That big "It." I've been walking around tight-chested, like my heart weighs a ton, a constant lump in my throat. There's this picture of me and Stevie on the piano and I walk by it every day and have to bite down and swallow hard. Pictures are so hard, but I just can't put them away. I don't want to. I need them so I can know that it was real.
And I spend three-fourths of my day trying not to cry and the other fourth wiping the tears away. The slightest thing sets me off. And occasionally I just lose it altogether. I was in the house all alone the other day and I heard my sister's new song on her MySpace page, and I just howled. I missed Shosha. And the song was kinda about growing up and changing (which always makes me weepy). It's like she was singing from the other side of a struggle when you can look back and say "It was all okay." Except that I am still here, still waiting for it to get easier. And I started crying those god-awful choking sobs that you're to embarrassed to let anyone else hear because they are so ugly and raw and weak.
I keep having these dreams where I lose babies. Sometimes they are mine. Sometimes they are other people's that I've been left in charge of. Sometimes they are Stevie. Sometimes they are stillborn. Almost every night. I cry so hard in my dreams that I wake feeling like my body has been hollowed out. And then I cry some more because I don't know how to understand them. If I was 6 years old, I might run downstairs and crawl into bed with my parents...but I'm not. And what would I say? How could I ever put the words together. Then sometimes in the dreams I scream and throw fits. I destroy things and smash my little child's body into walls and I yell at everyone around me without fear of the consequences. And it feels really good. None of these things are new, just more frequent. My old therapist, Jeff, said that I do some really important "work" in my sleep. But the dreams are both a curse and a blessing. I don't exactly feel very rested and sometimes I wake up feeling so vulnerable, like everybody knows. But I look forward to them in an odd sort of way. I long for the release. Somehow, in my dreams, feeling the hurt feels good and productive. But in real life...it just hurts.
And here's something I have a hard time reconciling. I'm relatively experienced with losing someone to death. But it is a concrete thing. There is a wake and a funeral, and then there is a grave stone and an undeniable truth: This person was alive and now isn't. But what about when it isn't that simple? What if the boundaries between life and death are blurred or called something else? What if the person is lost to you, but not dead. I'm not sure any of us know how to grieve, but I don't know how to grieve for Stevie who is very much not dead but so far away. And how to you grieve for someone when you made a choice to run away?
