Today is Garrett’s birthday.

I expected to be really sad today, but I’m not. I mean, I am sad every day because every day I miss him. But I can’t help but be happy when I think about Garrett being born. Thrilled. Overjoyed. I am so glad that he joined our family, even if only for a little while.

So today I want to tell Garrett’s birth story. I loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant, and I assumed I’d write Garrett’s up as soon as he was born. Ooops – the surprising thing about having a baby is that you’re really busy afterwards! Now I’m kind of glad that I never got around to writing it down because I have the chance to share it today.

Garrett on the day we brought him home from the hospital.

On Thursday, June 17, 2010, I was hot, swollen, and itchy. I was tired of being pregnant. I was tired of everything, all the time. I had gained weight with gusto and was now feeling every one of those extra 46 pounds in my back. Turning over in bed took an act of congress and getting out of bed required a backhoe. Extra water weight had given me the dreaded “cankles” and turned my toes into sausages. At about 36 weeks I’d broken out in a maddeningly itchy rash that I self-diagnosed as PUPPS, which was only relieved by hot hot hot showers or cold cold cold baths. Add to all the pregnancy annoyances the fact that our central air was broken and we were barely squeaking by with window units and fans, and you have one very large, very cranky Smoochagator.

At a recent visit with my midwives, Jenny and Terry, my normally perfect blood pressure had crossed into the “borderline” territory, which combined with my weight and swollen feet meant I might risk out of a homebirth. I desperately didn’t want to birth at a hospital, especially since I didn’t have an established relationship with an OB. Plus, we’d moved heaven and earth to pay for the homebirth and now money was a little tight. Terry said she didn’t think it would be good for me to go past my June 23 due date, which was getting uncomfortably close.

All of this is why when I took a bathroom break in the middle of my workday on June 17 I slumped against the side of the stall and moaned under my breath, “God, I HAVE TO have this baby soon. Please. I’m hot and itchy and tired. Pleeeeeease.“

As I was leaving the bathroom, I passed a coworker who owed me some money for an AVON order. She said she’d bring her checkbook the next day. “Just don’t go into labor tonight!” she joked.

Hahahaha! Of course THAT wasn’t going to happen, right?

Back at my cube, I took a moment to look at the calendar where we’d recorded our office’s “baby pool” bets. I wanted to see who had guessed June 18. It was Bill, a soft-spoken, polite older gentleman who I’d liked. “Yeah,” I thought. “It would be nice for him to win.”

On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store and bought a lot of food. And two bottles of wine. Still not sure what my thought process was on that one.

Jon came home from work and said that an old friend/coworker had called him up and wanted to go out for drinks. Sure, I said, have fun. I don’t remember what I did with my evening – I probably watched television and went to be early. Jon didn’t get home until late late late, and when he did come in he crashed on the couch for a few hours. He didn’t actually come to bed until 3:30 a.m., which I remember because I woke up to go to the bathroom and thought, “God, he is going to be hating life tomorrow at work.”

And now a word from our sponsor.

Around 4:30 a.m. I woke up again, hot and uncomfortable. As I shifted in bed, I had a hard contraction and felt a pop and a warm woosh between my legs.

“Oh my God!”

I didn’t think I said it very loud but I must have because Jon was instantly awake. “What?”

“My water just broke.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m not!” I sat up and water gushed across the bed and onto the floor. The dogs, who had been banished from the bed when I started taking up so much real estate, sat up curiously and sniffed at it. “Don’t drink that!”

Jon sat up, too. “Ew. Yeah, please don’t drink that.”

While Jon got some towels to mop up the floor, I tried to remember whether my midwives had said to call in the middle of the night or not. I decided to err on the side of caution and call. Jenny asked the routine water-breaking questions: was it clear? did anything come out with the water? was I having contractions? was the baby still moving? (Yes, no, not yet and yes.) Then she told me to try to get some rest and said that she or Terry would call me later in the morning to check on me.

Hahahahaha TRY TO GET SOME REST. Jon and I laid down, and he was able to get back to sleep, but I was too wired. I started to have some regular crampy contractions so I decided to get up and turn on the television and time them.

I texted my mom and best friend around 6 a.m. and they both arrived around 7, then left again to grab breakfast for me and chocolate milk (hangover cure and all-around problem solver) for Jon. By that time my contractions were fairly close together and uncomfortable. In fact, I thought they were terribly painful and I was really upset when Terry came by around 8 a.m. to check my dilation and she said I was 2 cm.

Garrett and a friend at his first birthday party.

I had a mental temper tantrum (are you KIDDING? only TWO centimeters????) then ate my breakfast and decided to get into the shower. I labored in there for about half an hour; when the contractions got too intense for me to stand up anymore, I got out and went to bed. Jon joined me and believe it or not, I was able to doze off in between contractions and get some decent rest. Eventually, though, my contractions got to be pretty painful and I found myself tensing up. I woke Jon up and told him I needed him to get focused because I thought I was getting close.

Then I went into the bathroom and had what I call my “come to Jesus” moment, which I later realized was transition. I have no idea how long it lasted, I only know that it felt like the contractions were non-stop, and I just wanted to crawl out of my skin. In my memory it doesn’t seem like it hurt physically so much as psychologically – I felt like I was going bonkers. I didn’t want anyone to look at me or talk to me. I just wanted to be alone with the bonkers. At some point I noticed that I’d started to have a bit of bloody show and was feeling some pushy-pressure so I told Jon to call my midwives.

When the midwives got there, Terry checked my dilation again, and reported that I was about 8 cm. Cue my second mental temper tantrum. I thought for sure it was time to start pushing, but since it wasn’t, I resigned myself to laying on the bed, writhing in pain and whining. My midwives said I was doing wonderfully, but I just felt like a big old crybaby. Jon was great, basically just sitting with me and encouraging me. At one point I turned to him and said, “Tell me I can do this,” and he replied, “Yes you can! You totally can! You ARE doing it.” Thank God for him.

At some point, not sure how much later, Terry checked me again and I was complete! I had a vision in my head of squatting and pushing (mostly because I’d seen it in The Business of Being Born and it looked so cool) so I asked my midwives if I could try that. By this time, my contractions had slowed and lightened up considerably, so I had a hard time figuring out when to push. On my first or second attempt, Jenny tried to check Garrett’s heartbeat with the doppler, and couldn’t find it. Since I wasn’t feeling effective in my pushes, I agreed to get on the bed so she could listen to the heartbeat during my next contraction.

What we heard was troubling. I knew it, and apparently my younger brother knew it when he heard it echo in the living room. (My entire side of the family plus several friends were gathered in my house, just waiting to pounce as soon as the baby arrived. We had tried to get in touch with Jon’s mother but her cell phone was MIA and his father was out of town.) Anyway, Garrett’s heartbeat was slowing down during contractions, which I knew could be a sign of distress.

Terry said, “Emily, you need to have your baby soon. If he’s not out in the next few minutes, I think we should call an ambulance.”

I tried pushing some more but didn’t make any progress – Garrett’s head was still way up in my pelvis. So we decided to call 9-1-1 and go to the hospital. Jenny made the call and we waited. I think I asked Terry to please tell my family that an ambulance was on its way so they didn’t freak out when they heard sirens and the paramedics came busting in.

At this poist I was feeling tired and defeated and I just wanted to give up. Literally. I even turned to Jon and whispered, “I just want to go to the hospital and have this baby cut out of me.” Oh the nutsy things we say when we’re in labor! One of the main reasons I’d chosen an unmedicated homebirth in the first place was because I did NOT want a C-section. Jon, thank God, recognized that I was cray-cray with exhaustion. He looked me in the eye and said, “Babe, I need you to FOCUS.” Again, thank God for him – but at the time I was annoyed. Focus? Focus? This was HARD! and I was OVER IT!

Garrett’s favorite present was a motion-activated bear that laughed and did somersaults. He went NUTS when he saw it.

And now for the funniest and most embarrassing part of this story.

It’s my friend Jeannette’s favorite part. Every time I think about it, I think I SHOULD feel absolutely mortified by I just don’t. I am normally a very modest person but it seems my modesty takes a short vacation whenever I’m in labor. Which is probably a good thing because…

At my midwives’ suggestion, I turned over onto my hands and knees. The reasoning is that changing positions may relieve some pressure on the umbilical cord that could be causing the baby’s distress. And remember how I said we didn’t have central air? Well, our bedroom was the hottest place in the house due to the fact that our windows are too small to put in a window A/C unit. So I was naked. And fat. On my bed. On my hands and knees. With my baby-birthing business end (aka my BUTT) facing the bedroom door. Through which a half-dozen firemen entered to rescue me.

Okay, maybe I do feel a little bit mortified.

Anyway. The firefighters were totally professional and gentlemanly, though my friend whose husband is a firefighter assures me that they probably talked about the horror they felt when confronted by my nude childbearing hips when they got back to the station. Whatever, I don’t care. They strapped an oxgyen mask on me and when the ambulance arrived I waddled out to the hallway and hopped on the stretcher. As I was wheeled through the living room I was STUNNED to see what seemed like three hundred people gawking at me like I was going to die. In reality it was just half a dozen people and they did think I was going to die. So I flashed two thumbs up because I knew we were just going to the hospital as a precaution. I was confident that everything was fine. So confident, in fact, that I had the presence of mind to warn the firemen of the huge hole in the front yard. I was more worried about someone twisting their ankle and dropping the stretcher (and me rolling across the yard naked) than I was about the baby’s or my health.

The drive from my house to the nearest hospital is barely ten minutes, but of course it felt longer. One of the paramedics put an IV in as we were riding along, which I think pretty much makes her a rockstar. My contractions returned while we were in the ambulance and I felt like I was levitating from the stretcher with each one. “Try not to push, honey,” said the rockstar paramedic, which I think pretty much makes her insane.

My midwife Jenny joked that if I did need to push, she was ready to catch. Jon just looked like he was about to vomit.

We pulled up at the emergency room entrance, lights going but sirens off. I was wheeled in through the waiting room (hellooooo random people who probably thought they were on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy), still levitating with each contraction. I guess we got into an elevator, but honestly I don’t remember. I remember that we go to a delivery room, that I hauled my huge pregnantness from stretcher to bed, that the nurses got the monitor belt glued to my stomach, the paramedics briefed the nurse-midwife who was on call at the hospital on the situation and then she told me it was time to push.

So I pushed. With my second or third one, I broke the plastic monitor, which my husband thinks pretty much makes ME a rockstar, and the nurses gave up on having a nifty printout to put in my chart. Garrett’s head started to crown and OH MY GOD IT HURRRRRRT. That ring of fire? I hate it. HATE IT. But the hospital midwife and my midwives and my husband were all like, “You are doing awesome! Go go go!” so I kept going, and his head was out and then all of him was out and I had a slimey baby on my chest and I was crying and Jon was crying and everything was fine (just like I knew it would be) and our son was born.

Garrett at his second birthday party.

I had a lot of reasons for wanting to have an unmedicated birth, but now that I’ve done it twice I’ve decided that the most important and awesome reason (for me) are the first few minutes after the baby is born. The rush of hormone-induced euphoria is incredible and can’t be duplicated or even described. I joked with someone that I was like a drunken frat boy screaming, “I love you man!” and I guess that’s about right. Except that I wasn’t just “high” or “happy” or whatever. I felt transcendent. I had done it. WE had done it! And Garrett was finally, finally here.

Remembering how happy we were that day – the way my mom nearly beat down the door to see Garrett, all the friends who showed up at the hospital, the flowers my older brother sent, my father-in-law passing out cigars to his work buddies a thousand of miles away – makes it hard to be sad today. On the one hand, I feel almost wistful. We had no idea that Garrett’s life would be so short and that we’d lose him in such a terrible way. But on the other hand, we DID know that he was special. We knew that he would bring our whole family incredible joy.

Eating leftover birthday cake.

I’m grateful for that joy, for the time we had with our adorable boy, even if it was all too short.

And that’s why today is a good day.

Today my brothers and sisters-in-law and Garrett’s cousins celebrated his birthday with
a Despicable Me (Garrett’s FAVORITE movie) cake. They also made cards and sent them to heaven with balloons.
I can’t tell you how much it means to me that so many of our friends and family remember Garrett and miss him.
I’m glad to know that he is ever present, not just in my heart and Jon’s, but in many others.

In an effort to return to regular blogging about regular things, I’m hooking up with Jen’s Quick Takers once again.

1. Hey, real quick, do you remember the time that I polled my Facebook friends to prove to my husband that I’m not the only person who knows what an alpaca is? No? Well, it happened, and although I most definitely was NOT the only person that had heard of an alpaca before, Jon still maintained that alpacas are weirdo animals that only weirdo people know about.

Cut to: we visited Jon’s hometown at the beginning of May and I found out that there’s an alpaca farm just a few miles away. He now has no excuse to remain blind to the cuteness and ubiquity of the alpaca. NO EXCUSE.

2. Speaking of Jon’s hometown, which is in Southwest Pennsylvania, a.k.a. “Steelers Country,” I know that I have mentioned before that marrying someone from the Pittsburgh area is something akin to marrying a Scientologist. It is a cult, and everyone knows it, but they don’t care BECAUSE THEY ARE RIGHT AND THEY ARE THE BEST. (In their minds.) And I have noticed in the past few months how much I have been assimilated.

For instance, we’re in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and I’m just as nervous about the outcome of each game as my husband is. I used to be nervous because whenever the Pens lost my hubby would be SERIOUSLY pee-ode. But now I actually care. And I found myself thinking excitedly about the far-off football season, and not just because Garrett was a football addict, although that’s definitely part of the reason. I already care way too much about NASCAR than is healthy and that has nothing directly to do with The Pittsborg.

It appears my husband is rubbing off on me BIG TIME, which I would find annoying if I didn’t enjoy it. I kind of like the broadening of my horizons and not feeling SO completely clueless when other people start talking about certain sports.

Baseball and basketball, though? Still pretty much clueless, tho.

3. I need a Tshirt that says “Eating Healthy: UR DOIN IT WRONG.” Because I am. I am trying to avoid complex carby-type-things, especially bread and pasta and crackers and the like, so my main go-to-snacky-thing (big crunchy sourdough pretzels) is now off-limits. So lately when I have snacky urges I eat corn tortilla chips. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I was ALSO inhaling some guacamole because the yummy fats in that would fill me up and satisfy my hunger for a good long time. Instead I eat JUST the chips and end up inhaling half a bag and then being hungry again about 20 minutes later.

These are my favorite chips, because they are cheap and taste good. Much like me. Bah-da-bum!

Somehow, I’m thinking this new snack habit classifies as COUNTER productive.

4. Now that I’m at home during the day, I’ve discovered some new TV obsessions. I liken the TV watching disease to the retail infection. Before I started working at Barnes and Noble many years ago, I had NO IDEA that there were literally THOUSANDS of books that I HAD TO OWN. I know, I know, the gratuitous use of CAPS LOCK has probably tipped you off to the fact that I am EXAGGERATING, but seriously: spending 6 to 8 hours a day around books five days a week opened my eyes to a great many books that were so fascinating that I just HAD to own them. This, coupled with the half-off-lattes, is why my “supplemental income” from B&N ended up returning to B&N’s bank vaults in full.

5. What does that have to do with TV? I’m glad you asked. Since I now watch more TV, I watch more TV commercials, and I am now curious about all these shows I would have otherwise never known existed. If I’d never known they existed, I wouldn’t care that I never watched them. And now my id is expressing a tyrannical need to watch Design Star and Renovation Raiders.

6. I do want to make it clear (in case my husband is reading this!) that I am NOT sitting around watching TV and eating bonbons all day. I do get stuff done! BUT. I do have to stop every few hours to feed a baby that takes FOR.EV.ER. to finish a bottle, so OF COURSE I have to flip through some shows on the tube. (Alternately, I could read, and sometimes I do, but I am uncoordinated and find it hard to juggle a book or Kindle while feeding Caitlin.)

7. And, in fact, this week I am doing VERY LITTLE TV-watching, because I’ve been in the office every day since Tuesday to cover for my fellow designer, who is on vacation. Come Friday, though, I will officially be “on vacation.” My brother and his girlfriend and son arrived on Wednesday to stay for ten days and Friday evening we’re heading down to North Carolina for a week of swimming, sunbathing, eating, drinking, movie watching, board-gaming, sleeping, reading, and whatever other sort of trouble we can get ourselves into. In case you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited. I’m almost always in charge of the menu when we’re hanging in the 252, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get a Munchies Monday post thrown together while I’m down there, and at the very least I’ll be posting plenty of pictures to The Gram.

And that’s all I’ve got, folks! Go see Jen for more quick takes.

As a child, I said I would be an artist when I grew up. As a teenager, I said I’d be a writer. Now I am, in a way, both; but I struggle every day with the feeling that I’m a fraud because I don’t fit my own idea of what an artist or a writer should look like, how they should behave, how (and how much) they should work.

I struggle every day with the feeling that I am not good enough, that my ideas are pedantic and their execution childish.

I feel lazy and outdated.

I think that I am a super-special unicorn for feeling this way, but of course I am just one of many artists who can’t see her own potential, or appreciate any modicum of success.

Over the weekend I met up with a good friend in Richmond and we spent some time at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Every time I visit an art museum I come home feeling invigorated. Bunnika and I joked about how I just wanted to see all the art and touch all the art and inhale all the art and make ALL THE ART.

Seriously, though. How can I not get a little breathless-with-squee when I had the pleasure of seeing pieces like these up-close-and-personal?

Fred Tomaselli’s Woodpecker, Acrylic, gouache, collage, and epoxy resin on wood; 72 x 72 inches
This piece is nothing less than EPIC. Be sure to take a few extra minutes to check out this website and this one for some detail photos and information about Tomaselli’s work.

And then I get home and Life Happens. Dishes. Laundry. Baby bottles and diapers and pets that need fed and sleep that needs caught up on and dinner that needs made, groceries that need shopped for, relationships that need quality time.

And-of-course, The Tyranny of The Totally Unimportant: mindless television, Facebook feeds refreshing, a “quick game of solitaire.”

Necessary endeavors and time sucks and everything in between, and suddenly I am no longer creating or even feeling creative. And I am so discouraged with myself.

I try to nurture my artist’s soul. I read poetry in the bath. I watch crafting-type-TV-shows when I’m feeding the baby. I listen to groovy music while I wash the dishes. But I all-too-often let something more pressing keep me from actually sharpening my pencil or dipping my brush in paint.

I am realizing that what I need more than anything is to constantly, consistently consume art. I need to see it. I need to drink it in with my eyes because that’s what gets my molecules humming. That’s what fills me with the urge to create that’s more compelling than the urge to do just about anything else.

It’s what makes me think, “If I can just hurry up and get X done I’ll have twenty minutes to paint before I have to do Y.”

It’s the difference knowing/hoping/feeling that I am an artist and actually creating art.

It’s raining today. Hard. Yesterday was warm and breezy and beautiful, a perfect day for going to the beach or the park (though, true to my hermity-climate-control-addicted self, I did neither); today is one of those days that’s only good for “ducks and newlyweds,” as a friend of mine used to say.

Summer is here, FINALLY, after a winter that did not want to let go. How do I know it’s summer? Because just a few days ago I was driving around town with the windows down (Caitlin LOVES having the windows down when we’re in the car) and I could smell honeysuckle. The scent of honeysuckle always means summer to me.

And, of course, I know it’s summer because we had an awesome thunderstorm the other day. And after the storm, a rainbow.

If you know the story of Noah, you know that supposedly the rainbow is a promise from God that he will never wipe out humanity again because of our sinfulness. Which is a nice promise, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a little bummed that it’s not a promise for something different. A promise like, “You will never ever have to put up with terrible things happening to your family and friends” would totally have me stoked.

But Jesus actually promised the opposite: “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.” Thanks for nothing, Jesus. He tries to soften the blow: “But take heart, because I have overcome the world.“

Still sucks.

Yesterday, Jon and I attended a memorial service at CHKD, where Garrett was treated before he died. I cannot say enough how wonderful this hospital is, how comprehensive their caring is for each and every member of the family during the entire hospital stay, and afterwards, too, when the outcome is not what you prayed for. The memorial service was part of that care: an opportunity to remember and honor the children who passed away in the year prior, as well as a reunion of sorts between the families and their caregivers.

The social workers who were assigned to our case were incredibly gentle and kind, and seeing one of them as I walked in the door before the service immediately put me at ease. One of the Child Life workers (who, among other things, are tasked with helping the ill child’s younger family members deal with the many questions and confusing feelings that may crop up) recognized us immediately and commented on how much Caitlin looks like her brother.

That people see Garrett in Caitlin makes me very happy. She is her own little person and I learn more of her unique personality every day, but she is most definitely Garrett’s sister. That’s why I dressed her in her “little sister” onesie for the occasion: although she won’t have a chance to hug him and talk to him, I want her to know that Garrett loved his “baby seester.”

It was an evening filled with emotion and activity, but I didn’t feel rushed or overwhelmed. First, we gathered with two other families in the Tribute Garden, where a butterfly sculpture and brick pavers all around it honor the children who gave the gift of life through organ donation. Jon and I were invited to set the paver that acknowledged Garrett’s gift.

At this point I have to make a shameless plug: please, PLEASE, consider becoming an organ, eye, and tissue donor and making your wishes known to your family in case of an emergency. I know several people whose lives were saved and improved through the gift of organ donation, and Garrett’s life continues on in three different people (that I know of, there could possibly be more), one of whom is a three-year-old little girl. If your family is ever faced with the terrible reality of your untimely death, let them at least be able to take comfort in the fact that another family somewhere is being blessed with the gift of life.

After our time in the garden, we went upstairs for the memorial service. Prior to the service, the hospital had organized an arts-and-crafts event that I thought was sheer brilliance: all sorts of scrapbooking materials were laid out so we could make a page that represented our child’s life and personality. The pages were gathered together in a book for the hospital staff to look through so they could get to know the kids better, and share in the families’ good memories – not just the bad.

The scrapbook page I made for Garrett. I only wish I’d had some Brobee and Cookie Monster stickers,
but Mater and Elmo did just fine.

Jon and I left immediately after the service, even though it meant missing a reception featuring “light refreshments,” and I almost NEVER pass up cheese-and-fruit tray. But we were both ready to go home and relax with our little treasure. As I had told several people at the memorial, Caitlin has been an incredible gift during this difficult time. Even at my lowest-of-lows, I can look at her and appreciate the incredible person she is, unique and darling and full of joy.

The red blanket that Caitlin is sleeping with in this photo is one of Garrett’s security blankets.
He developed and unexplained and almost unhealthy attachement to this blanket,
so I cut it up into several smaller squares so we’d always have one clean and ready for him.

Someone – not sure who – once said that “a baby is God’s way of saying that life should go on.” And I do believe that this is true. Jesus himself told us that life would be hard, but he also promised that through him, we would overcome hardship. The rainbow is God’s promise that although rain will fall – on the righteous and unrighteous alike – it doesn’t have to wash our joy away.

One of my favorite moments during yesterday’s celebration was when the transplant coordinator shared the story of a ten-year-old girl who had received a new heart at CHKD. There was a rainbow in the sky the day of the girl’s surgery, and ever since she has believed that whenever she saw a rainbow it meant someone else was receiving the gift of life. This girl never had a chance to thank her donor family, so she asked the coordinator to thank us, to tell us that each recipient recognizes that their joy comes because of someone else’s sorrow, and that we should never think our child is lost or forgotten.

That is a promise I hold fast to.

Garrett, you will never be forgotten. You were a joy to us in life, and you continue to give joy to others even in death.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not going to talk about Garrett or grief any more. Just that I don’t want that to be ALL I talk about. It’s certainly not all I talk about in real life. Even though losing Garrett is awful, and even though I’ve had days where I just wanted to lay down and give up, I can’t. I have a lot to live for. And I can’t stop doing things I enjoy. It’s not healthy and it’s not fair to myself or my family.

And one thing I enjoy is blogging.

Another thing I enjoy is cooking.

So welcome to the return of Munchies Monday.

I made up this recipe at 9:30 this morning because I wanted to use up some eggs and green healthy junk that was sitting in my fridge. I’ve made many a breakfast casserole/quiche/frittata (and honestly, I don’t know what the difference is so I just use those terms interchangably) and I’ve found that it’s a great go-to dish when you want to pack away lots of protein and veggies.

Green Breakfast Quiche

• Prep time: 25 minutes
• Cook time: 40 to 70 minutes
• Feeds: 8 to 10 people
  (or, if you’re me, just one person over four or five days)

Before and After

Ingredients

• 1 dozen eggs
• 3/4 cup half-and-half
• 1 lb. of bacon, cut into 1-inch strips
  (Great tip from an old friend: use scissors)
• About 4 handfuls of kale, torn into bite-size chunks
  (Super-accurate measurement skills, I has them.)
• 3/4 lb. of asparagus, woody ends trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces
  (This is all I had on hand because I made some asparagus for dinner last night. I’m sure you could use a whole pound.)
• 5 ounces of freshly-shredded Parmesan cheese
  (Or you can buy it already shredded. Just don’t use that powdered crap in the green can. Because EW.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a non-stick skillet over medium heat, brown bacon pieces until no more pink remains. Remove from skillet with a slotted spoon; drain on paper towels.
3. Pour MOST of the bacon grease out of your skillet and dispose of it however you prefer. (I actually prefer to SAVE it in a glass jar in the fridge to use for cooking veggies, but I understand some people aren’t as classy as I am.) Leave about two to three tablespoons of grease in the skillet, enough to coat the bottom.
4. Saute the kale in the bacon grease until bright green and wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
5. Saute asparagus in what’s left of the bacon grease (there may not be much at all and that’s okay) until bright green but still firm, 3 to 5 minutes.
6. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs and half-and-half until well combined, about 60 seconds.
7. Pile the kale, bacon, asparagus, and half the cheese in a 2-quart casserole. Pour the egg mixture over the other ingredients and mix gently with a spoon, then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 70 minutes, until browned on the edges and top and firm in the center. (Baking time will depend on the size and shape of your casserole dish. I used a deep round dish so it took a full hour and ten minutes. A 9×13-inch dish would probably only take about 45 minutes. Just set your timer for 40 minutes initially and keep checking every five to ten minutes after.)

And voila! Healthy scrumpchy numminess!

Disclaimer:
In the event that you’re reading this recipe and saying, “Dear God, Emily, are you TRYING to give me a heart attack with all the eggs and bacon and cheese?”, I’d like to ask you to simmer down, tiger. There are various things you could do to make this dish “lighter” (like using less bacon, or subbing with turkey bacon or a non-meat-bacon-like-product, or sauteing the veggies with some sort of non-fat cooking spray or butter-imposter, et cetera) but I personally don’t recommend it. Some recent research shows that real food and real fats can actually be good for you, and let’s face it, they taste better. But of course do what feels right to you after consulting your doctor and your conscience.

Oh, and there’s also research that suggests fats don’t make you fat. Just sayin.

Caitlin was WAY more dressed up than I was.
I figured a fancy hat was the only logical choice for her first visit to the house of God.

I should be totally honest here and say that I haven’t been to church since long before Garrett died. Maybe it’s been a year? I’m not sure. I had a flashback during today’s service to the last time I WAS in church – taking Garrett with me into the sanctuary during the worship because I think it’s important for kids to experience “big people church,” then taking him to the nursery to play during the sermon because I also think it’s important for adults to have a chance to focus on God without distraction. Looking at Caitlin as I stood and sang during worship, I remembered holding Garrett, too, and missed the way he felt in my arms as a petite and well-behaved but very energetic, wriggly toddler. I wondered if, perhaps, some of what he heard and saw in church “stuck,” if it made an impression on him even at such a young age, even before I really talked to him about God.

As I try to sort through my knowledge/faith that God is good, even though what happened to our family is really bad, I wonder (and it breaks my heart to wonder) if Garrett was confused or conflicted by the good and bad things that happened to him, the different ways he was treated by people. It’s hard enough to make sense of abuse, violence, betrayal, and death as an adult. How much more so must it be for a toddler to come to terms with the world being such a scary place?

That is what I keep coming back to, not just that my son died, but that he died violently, that he learned as a very small child there is real evil in this world. Doesn’t every parent wish they could shield their child from that truth? Don’t we all try to delay the inevitable opening of their eyes? I thought that I had chosen to surround Garrett with people that would be loving and gentle toward him. I was so wrong.

Church used to be hard for me because I had been hurt by people who said they were followers of Jesus; now church is hard for me because my son was hurt by someone who claimed to be a Christian. I think nearly every week “maybe I should try going to church this Sunday” but I have a million different excuses and I never know what church I want to go to and I’m not exactly sure what I believe anymore and I’m scared of getting too emotional and not being able to hide but I’m also I’m scared of disappearing and I hate leaving Caitlin with Jon and I’m always nervous about taking her with me because what if she starts fussing in the middle of the service and blah blah et cetera ad infinitum blah. I know God is okay with me staying home on Sundays. I believe that God is much more tolerant of our quirks and fears and faults than we are. I know that faith is about God’s work inside of me but I also know that God works through communities of faith, and I want to be part of the church again. I want to give and I want to receive. But I just can’t get over the hump. I’ve been trying for years and now – now it’s even worse.

It took having one of my blogger-star-author-heroes coming to a small church one town over to get me to church. Rachel began her sermon on the wilderness by noting that we 21st century Americans are obsessed with fame, and the irony of my fangirly reasons for being there was NOT lost on me. Neither was the central message of her talk. In the desert, we may be tempted and tormented, we may wrestle with God and despair of ever finding a way out. (Yes, I think I am there.) But we may also receive manna from heaven and be ministered to by angels. We may drink water from a rock and see God face to face. (And I am there, too – only in my wilderness manna takes the form of well-timed text messages from friends and other words of encouragement. I know, I know, I know – God is with me.)

I try not to regard what happened to Garrett as a personal failure, though it’s hard. I try not to spend too much time on coulda-woulda-shoulda, because wandering around in that desert is both dangerous and pointless. Instead I remind myself of all the things we did right. I remind myself that although he had to know darkness and fear in his short life, he now knows only beauty and light and joy.

I remind myself that the wilderness exists to prepare us for the promised land.

When something bad would happen, some sorta-major-sorta-minor annoyance like an expensive car repair or a bad falling out with a friend, I used to say to my husband that, “It’s okay. No one is dead. No one has cancer. It’s just money.” (Or “it’s just a misunderstanding.” Or whatever was appropriate for the occasion.) I think it’s important to put things in perspective because otherwise I spend a lot of time crying over spilled milk, and first-world-problems will kill your joy. They can even give you a heart attack if you fret about them too much.

But now someone IS dead. Now it’s not just an annoying coworker or broken toilet that we’re dealing with, it’s the fact that six months ago our baby died. And it hurts every single day, it hurts so far down inside of me that sometimes I just have no cope for anything else. In the beginning, right after we lost Garrett, I literally did not have the ability to shop for groceries or prepare a meal. Now I can. But other things, things that I used to put into perspective by reminding myself that I and my loved ones are healthy and happy? Those things grind me into the floor now because I and my loved ones are NOT all healthy and happy.

I miss my little boy so very badly. And that makes every little annoyance all the worse.

And yet it makes things easier to bear, too. When I feel despondent over an unexpected bill or a particularly nasty disagreement with someone I love, I am fairly quick to realize that you know, this is not as big a deal as I’m making it out to be. I have mastered the art of non-transferrance. I no longer make mountains out of molehills in my daily life because I’m upset about something completely unrelated that I feel powerless to change. Instead, I am pulling mountains down because I realize how much control I DO have over my daily life, and how fruitless it is to spend time grumbling about washing the sheets again after the cat puked on the bed again. The sheets need washed, and so I wash them.

But I have no control over the fact that Garrett is gone. I have nothing but regret about the fact that I did not see the danger signs that I feel certain must have been there. (Even though no one else saw them either.) I know now more than ever that first-world-problems don’t deserve a passing glance, but I still find myself weighed to the ground by spoiled fruit in my crisper drawer even as I’m calmly viewing my daily life with a Zen-like detachment.

He’s gone. He’s never coming back. And that makes every other problem or worry laughable.

It also makes them unbearable.

And even now, although my physical well-being is no longer literally tied to Caitlin’s, she is still dependent on me. She needs me to feed her and change her – but more than that, she needs me to love her. Long after she is able to make her own breakfast and put on her own clothes and pay her own mortgage, my choices during her childhood will be important. How I love her will now affect how she loves herself then. And that’s why, no matter how much life hurts, I can’t check out – not literally, not metaphorically.

But what if she wasn’t here? Would I still be as strong as everyone keeps telling me I am? Would Jon and I still be so determined to hold our marriage together, to comfort rather than blame each other? Well, we would still have Jon’s older son to think of, our nieces and nephew, our parents and siblings and cousins. I’m not sure that I am strong as much as I am conscious of the ripple effect of my choices, and unwilling to needlessly transfer my pain to another.

Honestly, I hadn’t yet considered the “what if?” scenario where I wasn’t already expecting when Garrett passed. But I’ve been through countless others. What if Jon and I hadn’t gotten married? There were plenty of times in our relationship when we could have called it quits. What if we had? Then Garrett wouldn’t have had the chance to die because he wouldn’t have lived. Would that be any better?

What if we weren’t living in this neighborhood? Jon and I looked at dozens of houses all over Hampton Roads before finally settling on this one. And then we spent months negotiating the terms of the sale. What if we’d just given up and decided to find a different home? Then it’s very unlikely Garrett would have been in that particular house on that particular day in the care of that particular woman. Would she have been watching another little child instead? Would it have been better for that child’s mother to get the phone call that I did? Would I want to wish that on someone else?

I’ve played this “what if?” game at other painful times in my life – most memorably, after leaving the church-cult and then divorcing the man I married while working there. I wondered how different life would have been for me if, when we moved to Virginia, my parents had chosen a home in a different school district. Then I probably wouldn’t have met the people who introduced me to my ex-husband or invited me to Christ Church. I honestly cannot imagine what my life would be like without the butterfly effect of those two encounters, but I am fairly certain it wouldn’t be any better – meaning, I wouldn’t jump at the chance to live in that alternate universe. I say that because even though the cult experience and divorce were painful and humbling, they were also enlightening and empowering. Besides, I met my current husband in the same social circle that my ex traveled in all those years ago, so avoiding my first ill-fated marriage means that I’d have also missed out on (mostly) happily-ever-after.

Does this mean, then, that “everything happens for a reason,” or some other equally trite phrase that people love to throw around when they can’t think of anything else to say? Well, as my mom likes to say, yes, things happen for a reason, and sometimes it’s a really shitty reason. Sometimes the reason is because we share this planet with some truly evil people and some not-really-evil-but-definitely-screwed-up people, and unfortunately we often have to bear the consequences of their bad decisions. Sometimes – I’m looking at you, cancer and earthquakes and lightning strikes – the reason is beyond our understanding, and that’s when we wonder what the hell God is thinking, or if God even exists.

This is why I try not to spend too much time thinking about the whys and what ifs. I can’t know what could’ve/should’ve/would’ve been. I only know what actually happened, and that’s what I have to live with – good or bad.

So instead of wasting time on “what if?” I try to think about the “what now?”

What do I do now? I wake up in the morning and I feed my baby and I smile at her and I cuddle her and I tell her she is so special to me. I tell my husband I love him, I thank him for taking the trash out and feeding the dogs, I do his laundry and I hug him and kiss him and watch stupid movies with him. I spend time with my friends, I listen to them, I laugh with them. I take long baths and I read good books. I go shopping with my mom and I drink a glass (or two) of wine. I cook. I clean. I blog (sometimes).

I just keep living. It’s all I can do. I love my boy, I want him back, I still bargain with God and wish for a time machine and hate hate hate the world that took Garrett away from me. But ultimately, I know that all of those things are dead ends that I’ll eventually have to come back from. And for the good of my family – for my own good – I have to turn around. I have to walk forward.

And so I do.

Don’t judge me. I created this banner as part of an assignment in college.
I was new to Photoshop and drunk with the power of filters
and layers and drop shadows. So I repeat: DON’T JUDGE ME.

One of the simultaneously difficult/confusing/helpful/hopeful parts of losing Garrett is that I was already pregnant with our daughter when we said good-bye to our son. In some ways I was glad that I was already pregnant, because we wouldn’t spend the next few years wondering when it would be “okay” to have another child, or whether we would be dishonoring or trying to replace Garrett by having another baby. Also (being brutally honest here) it helps that I am physically responsible for another human being because that keeps me from being self-destructive in the wake of this tragedy. And it’s not an option to go all drunk-and-disorderly after she gets here, either, because no matter how much I hurt, she’s not the one who hurt me and she doesn’t deserve to suffer for my pain. Full stop.

Still, Jon and I wonder if we’ll be bad parents to Caitlin because of the depth of our grief, if we’ll be overprotective or emotionally absent or some terribly dysfunctional combination of the two. I personally have wondered if I’ll be resentful of the baby because she’s here and Garrett’s not. I loved being mom to a boy and I wonder (as many women do, I think) if I’ll be any good at parenting the opposite sex. And it is truly bittersweet to welcome Garrett’s “baby seester” (as he called her) without him.

Yet I also desperately look forward to being able to mother again, to have a little person to hold and care for. I truly believe that it will restore a bit of my sanity and heal my heart to be able to feed and diaper and bathe and rock another little person to sleep.

And yes, we already have a named picked out: Caitlin Ruth. We debated names for a looooong time before Garrett was born and settled on something just a few weeks before he arrived, so I was surprised when I asked Jon about halfway through my pregnancy, “What do you think of Caitlin?” and he said, “Oh, I like that.” OH MY GOODNESS YAY THEN OF COURSE WE HAVE TO STICK WITH THAT NAME. Seriously, every name one of us suggested for Garrett was greeted with a lukewarm, “It’s okaaaaaaay, I gueeesssss…” from the other. I wasn’t even a fan of Garrett at first – I just okayed it because I could tell Jon really liked it and I was tired and I figured I could pick out a kickass middle name. (Which I did, it was Asher.)

I had a couple of ideas for Caitlin’s middle name, but when I suggested Ruth it just seemed to stick. I consider the meanings and history of names very important, and I liked that Ruth means “friendship.” I’m also a big fan of the story of Ruth in the Bible. And Ruth also happens to be my mother-in-law’s middle name, so it has family history as well.

(I promise that the importance of the last two paragraphs will become clear as we go on.)

Last night and this morning were difficult for me and my husband. We are both still missing Garrett acutely, missing his voice and his physical presence, mourning for all that we’ve lost, in utter shock and disbelief that our sweet, smart, funny, adorable little boy’s life ended so suddenly and violently. At one point this morning, as I started crying (again), I thought of Caitlin, of what she might bring to us, of how God might use her to heal our hearts. And suddenly I remembered a very important person from the Book of Ruth that I had somehow forgotten: Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi.

Let me give you a quick rundown of Ruth and Naomi’s story, which I know really well not because I am a Biblical scholar but because I’ve listened to the Adventures in Odyssey dramatization about five hundred times. Once upon a time, in ancient Israel, there was a woman named Naomi. Naomi’s husband Elimelech decided that since their sons were having a tough time finding wives in Israel, the family should move to Moab where Elimelech had found two eligible young ladies who were looking to get hitched. Naomi was HORRIFIED by her husband’s plan because it was a big no-no for Israelites to marry outside of their culture and religion, but Elimelech insisted that it was the best course of action.

Well, as it turned out the move to Moab sucked, Naomi’s husband AND her two sons died. She decided to cut her losses and go back to Israel, and she refused to let her daughters-in-law return with her. You see, the tradition in Israel was for a young, childless widow to marry a one of her husband’s relatives so she would have a chance to carry on her hubby’s family line. But Naomi didn’t have any immediate family left and she said it would be cruel to take these young ladies away from THEIR land where they might have a chance to be happy. That sounds kind of noble, but I think that she was pretty much doing what lots of people do when they are really hurt – pushing everybody away so she could wallow in her pain. I say this because oddly (or not so odd, I guess, if she were a modern-day pop star), Naomi also began insisting that people call her by a different name: Mara. You see, Naomi means “pleasant” but Mara means “bitter,” and Naomi felt that the Lord had left her bitter and alone. See? Total (justified) pity party.

Amazingly, one of Naomi/Mara’s daughters-in-law, Ruth, wasn’t put off by her bitterness. Ruth told Naomi, in no uncertain terms, that they were family now, and family sticks together:

Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!

This is why I always loved Ruth – because of her steadfast love and commitment to Naomi when Naomi needed it the most. I thought, “Wow, that is a good woman. That is a loyal and loving woman. That is someone who takes her commitments seriously, who doesn’t back off from a painful situation, who loves her family even when it is inconvenient and impractical. I want my daughter to be like that.”

It wasn’t until this morning that I thought about poor Naomi – about why she was so bitter and why she needed Ruth so badly. She lost not just one child but two. AND her husband. She was living in a strange land full of people who did not understand her religion or customs, and had no one with whom she could share the intimate pain of her loss. You see, one of the things that comforts me is knowing that Jon fully understands what I’m feeling because he’s also Garrett’s parent. We may approach parenting differently, since I’m a mom and he’s a dad and we are (duh) two different people, but we loved and knew Garrett in a way that no one else did, so we can comfort each other – imperfectly, yes, but there is comfort in knowing we are in this together. And Naomi didn’t even have that. Of course she was bitter – she felt truly, completely, alone.

But Ruth saw beyond Naomi’s bitterness and loved her anyway. She didn’t feel that her commitment to her husband’s family ended with his death. She went all-in.

Well, as she settled into life in Israel, Ruth met Boaz, a distant relative of Naomi’s who was super impressed by her commitment to her mother-in-law. He was all like, “Wow, that chick right there is pretty freaking awesome,” and honestly, who wouldn’t agree with him?

And Ruth was all like, “Heeeeey, you’re a nice guy and kind of cute. Let’s make babies.“

And he was all like, “SRSLY? But I’m like so old. It is impressive that you take your commitment to your dead husband’s family so seriously that you would marry an old dude like me instead of chasing after some young’un.“

And she was all like, “No, SRSLY, I am totally into you, this isn’t just about the weird customs of my newly chosen culture. But if you think that’s hot, we can totally pretend that I’m completely altruistic.“

Or something like that.

Anyway. So Ruth and Boaz got married and they lived happily-ever-after. They had a son and Naomi got to do “the grandma thing” and spoil the dickens out of him, and all of Naomi’s girlfriends were thrilled for her. They said, “May this child restore your youth and care for you in your old age. For he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you so much and who has been better to you than seven sons.”

Now.

I do not think that our Caitlin Ruth will replace Garrett.

She most certainly will not be “better” than him. Or “worse.” Or whatever.

But this morning as I identified with Naomi’s pain I realized that it is not a coincidence that we had named Caitlin Ruth BEFORE Garrett’s passing – that we gave her the blessing of a legacy of loyalty and friendship and redemption. In no way can another child take the place of the one we have lost. But in no way will she be unloved or unappreciated. No, she is already a vital part of our family and a comfort to us.

I sometimes wonder if people think that I am naive to cling to my faith at times like this. I could look objectively at all the scholarly, rational arguments for a real, powerful, good creator, but in emotional times objective arguments don’t help much. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that life is hard but God is good. And I hold on to that because I can’t imagine living a life based on the premise that there is no redemption in suffering.

Perhaps that does make me naive. But I don’t much care.

I believe that our dear Caitlin Ruth is one of many ways that God will heal our hearts. We will miss Garrett deeply, yes. We will mourn for all the things we were robbed of by his senseless death. We will always wish that he was here with us still. But we will rejoice in the new life that God has brought into our family, this lovely girl that God created and named before we knew how important she would be.

But I never thought that I would be devastated like this – that grief would stop being an abstract concept and become a member of my family.

This is what they don’t tell you – that after you’ve sat by your braindead child’s bedside for 48 hours, you come home to find out that the hospital will bill your insurance (or you, if you are not lucky enough to have insurance) tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege.

They don’t tell you that your insurance company will question the validity of the claim, wondering if perhaps your 2-year-old’s hospital stay should be covered by worker’s compensation or your auto insurance?

They don’t tell you that getting up and dressed in the morning is a major accomplishment. That you’ll find yourself watching television shows you hate or playing computer games for the first time in years because staring at flickering colored lights for hours on end is preferable to dealing with your thoughts and feelings.

They don’t tell you that putting in the effort to clean your toilet or sweep your floor will wear you out enough to require a two-hour nap.

They will say that you should get back into the swing of things, that work will be a good distraction, but they don’t tell you about hiding in the bathroom every day so you can have a breakdown in peace. They don’t mention that you’ll sit on the couch after you come home every night, unable to carry on a conversation or fill a plate for dinner or put your empty soda can in the trash.

They don’t tell you that every time you interact with someone you have to lock your grief in a room waaaaaay in the back of your mind just so you can speak coherently for a few minutes. You know, you think, that it’s GOOD to talk to people about the weather and the Super Bowl and how so-and-so just got over the flu, but at the same time you start to question your sanity because you find yourself pretending (and making it look convincing!) that the world you live in isn’t completely fucking wrecked.

They don’t tell you that AFTER you return from the real world, after all that pretending, you’ll find that you’ve so successfully stuffed your emotions into that back room that you don’t recognize them anymore. They don’t tell you that it takes hours or days sometimes to reacquaint yourself with who you are and what your life looks like now and how you are REALLY feeling and that when it all finally hits you again, it SUCKS. It really, REALLY sucks.

They don’t tell you that you will feel, quite literally, like a zombie – like a rotting, stinking dead thing that is stumbling around in a world that is too bright, and too loud, and fearfully hostile.

They don’t tell you that everyone else will just be going on with business as usual and wonder why you’re so damn touchy. Sure, your friends will make allowances for you, but they have their own shit going on and even if it’s not “as bad as” your shit, they still have to deal with it. They can’t really hold your hand 24/7, and it would creep you out if they did, and so it’s just easier for you and for them to do the pretending thing – yes, that thing that makes you lose track of reality and feel like a zombie and then have the crashing realization of your loss over and over again.

And the people that aren’t your friends? Sometimes they’ll be sensitive to what you’re dealing with, but sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they’ll be absolute jackasses about it, and give you a lecture about how it could be worse and thank goodness you had the time you did and he’s in a better place now and you’re not doing yourself any favors by wallowing in it.

They don’t tell you that you will be confronted with a very real conundrum on a regular basis: whether to punch the jackass in the face and feel the tiniest bit better or slink away muttering, “sure, thanks,” just to avoid assault charges.

They don’t tell you that living, just breathing in and out and in and out again, will become your full-time job. And that you’ll hate doing this job, even though you know, somewhere instinctively, somewhere very deep inside you, that you MUST do it.

They make being a “survivor” sound so hip and sexy. They don’t tell you – probably because they have no idea – that it’s a terrible thing to have to be, that it’s a million times harder than it looks on television, and that you wouldn’t wish it on anyone.