The Afterlife

When I die, I want to experience everything that I have missed and will miss with Julian. I want to snuggle him as a live, squirmy newborn. I want to nurse him and watch him try his first solids. I want to see all versions of his smiles: toothless baby smiles, tiny-toothed toddler smiles, snaggle-toothed smiles, awkward teen smiles, confident young man smiles. I want to hear his laughter and see what his face looks like when he's mad. I want to hold his tiny newborn hand the way I did in July, but this time I want to feel him squeeze my finger back. I want to admire his strong adult hands and marvel at how fast and strong he grew. I want to see him stare in awe at airplanes and big snowplows the way his daddy does. I want to hear him shriek with delight at getting a favorite present on Christmas morning. I want to hear him yell triumphantly when he gets his first/best college acceptance. I want to smell his newborn smell and his toddler smell and his stinky little boy smell. I want to hear him sing.

I don't know what happens after we die, but I would really like this to happen to me.

Others Who Understand

I read a book in less than twenty-four hours during our weekend in Stowe. It was a book about a couple who's first child, a son, was stillborn. The mother is the author, and her experience and reaction to her son's death really resonated with me. Her story is so similar to mine. I had heard of the book several times over the last few months, but was not ready to read it until now. It turned out to be more cathartic than painful for me to read. It is somehow comforting to know that there are other people out there who are dealing with the same hurt. The book is called An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken.

"...the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending"

This weekend, I stumbled across another work by someone who understands what it is like to lose a child. While Taison and I were on our way to go bowling with friends on Saturday night, a story came on NPR that almost brought both of us to tears. It was the story of a man's experience losing his young daughter to cancer. It was unique because it was from a father's perspective. I haven't come across many accounts that are so honest. I am so grateful that this man, Anthony Griffith, shared his story, and I hope it was healing for him to do so. Click here if you would like to see it.

Fleeing Nemo

We (literally) escaped to Stowe, VT this weekend. We left on Friday afternoon just ahead of Winter Storm Nemo, which dumped over two feet of snow on the Boston area from Friday afternoon through Saturday. There was a driving ban in place from 4pm Friday through Saturday afternoon for the whole state of MA. No non-essential personnel were allowed on the roads. Craziness.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our weekend:

Of course I have to start with the food. There were a lot of good restaurants in the area, many with a focus on locally-sourced meat, produce and cheeses. We ate dinner at Blue Moon on Friday night. This was the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. 

Saturday morning in the parking lot of Bear's Lair, the hotel we stayed in on Friday night. VT only got a few inches of snow on Friday afternoon and evening. Just enough to make everything picturesque (and to make Taison excited for the "fresh powder" on the slopes).

We visited the Lake Champlain chocolate factory store (and the Cabot cheese store next door) on Saturday morning, then shared a delicious apple-cheddar-bacon panini at a local apple cider mill. 

We spent the rest of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday nights) at Stowe Mountain Lodge. (We stayed at the less nice Bear's Lair on Friday night because we went up a day earlier than planned.) We chose this place because it has great skiing but also a nice spa and non-ski activities. I got a facial and took a yoga class (and convinced Taison to do a couples massage).

I don't have a picture, but we had a nice dinner on Saturday night with friends. We happened to run into a couple that we know at a ski shop in town on Friday. The husband is an intern at MGH (Taison recruited him) and the wife works at the UN. He's black, she's Singaporean. We probably quadrupled the minority population of the state this weekend ; ).

View from our room Sunday morning.

View from the ski lift 

Top of the mountain

This was Taison's second time skiing. Ever. Apparently he's a natural. He went out on Saturday and Sunday, and loved it (and came back in one piece). 

My outdoor activity was snowshoeing. It was fun, and a good workout.

I had a different mental picture of snowshoes. This is what they look like nowadays.

Birthday dessert after dinner at the hotel restaurant on Sunday (which randomly had an excellent crab cake appetizer-you don't expect to find good crab cakes so far from MD). Taison asked the waiter to bring the dessert at exactly the time I was born. He's cute.

We left on Monday morning. I cooked brunch (our suite had a beautiful kitchen), and then we packed up and headed out. It was a nice weekend, and we hope to go back next year.

Consolation Prizes

Up until July 22, I was planning for a very different life. I was planning to be busy, tired, stressed out, carefully watching the budget, and doing lots of laundry. Instead, I've traveled, bought more clothes than usual, eaten lots of nice meals (home cooked and at restaurants) and sang in a bunch of concerts with the BSO.  I know I'm fortunate to be able to do all of these things, with a husband who I love to hang out with and great friends and family, but it all seems like a consolation prize. Every spontaneous outing, every dinner out, every quiet evening at home, I think about how we would be spending our time if Julian had lived, and how much I would rather be sleep deprived, splattered with baby fluids, and watching my son grow and do new things every day.

Planning things has been hard for me because of this. I drag my feet to book trips or commit to events. There's a whiny, petulant part of me that says "I don't want to do any of this, I just want Julian". I also now feel like I'm just trying to occupy myself until we have another child. An unquantified amount of time stretches out in front of me, and it must be filled. So, we go to Stowe next weekend, and then Turks and Caicos, and then I'll visit my parents in VA, and we'll go to Chicago, and New York, and Newport, and the Vineyard, and maybe we'll get a dog, and maybe I'll schedule some more voice lessons (and Taison has taken up skiing). And this is my life now. It's certainly not a bad life, it's just far from the one I thought I would be living.