Of Greif and Greatfulness

Trigger Warnings Include: Death of a mother during childbirth, death of a child

The phone rang.

I didn’t pick it up.

The phone rang again and again.

I never picked it up.

Instead, I rolled over in bed and put pillows on my ears. I knew who it was. I knew why she was calling me. If I picked up the phone, I would be brought back into a life of pain I had escaped three years ago.

I turned over in bed and looked at Daniel. His pack-and-play was too expensive to check with our luggage, so my little son had to sleep in the hotel’s king bed with me. He was cuddled up with his little tiger in his arms.

I watched him sleep for a moment. He was born in this place, but it held no memories for him. For me, on the other hand, it held a lifetime's worth of memories. Being here hurt more than anything, but he deserved to see where he came from.

I then turned to lie on my back and stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t believe I had come back after all these years. I never thought I would be here again.

My eyelids fell closed, and I slept. I dreamed that night, but it wasn’t just a dream. They were my memories, but not a perfect picture of them. They were a jumbled mess, the details changed, the meaning remaining the same. It was what I dreamed about every night.

In the dream, I sat on the ground, a pile of nothingness. Tears fell hot against my cheeks as I leaned on the hospital door. Nurses came in and out of the room. Some spoke to me. Others didn’t. It didn’t matter if they did. I couldn’t hear anything anymore besides my screams.

One put her hand on my shoulder. I knew her well. I was also a nurse at this hospital in the same L&D department I was crying in now. I had spent many nights at cafes with these women after night shifts. 

We were friends, good friends, this nurse, Abigail, and I. She was a bridesmaid when Emmilen and I got married a month before. That was likely why she was the one chosen to deliver the news. “They’re gone,” Abigail said.

“No.” I shook my head. “She can’t be.”

She grasped both my shoulders and made me meet her eyes. “She is gone, and the little girl is gone. Do you want to see them?”

I shook my head again. “She’s fine. She has to be fine.”’ I pushed the woman away. “She is fine.” My own body betrayed me and screamed out an earth-shattering sound. “My Emmilen is fine.”

Abigail grabbed my arm and pulled me into the room. She didn’t pull me towards the bed, but she pulled me towards two bassinets. One was empty. The other held a crying baby. “This is your son,” she said, gesturing towards one of the bassinets. “Do you want to hold him before they take him to NICU?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I turned away from the bassinets, the baby not the focus of my attention. I looked at the bed. It was a mess of blood that I could barely see through my tears. I took a step toward it. My chest was heavy, and I couldn't breathe. I reached out and pushed some hair out of Emmilen’s face.

“No!” I screamed out. “Come back to me.” I pulled her to my chest and noticed our little girl cradled in her arms. They were gone. They both were gone. “Come back to me!” I choked through tears. “I need you.” I held both of their lifeless bodies.

After a minute or so, Abigail came to me and pulled me away from them.

“It’s time for them to go,” she said.

“How could you?” I said quietly. The heaviness in my chest was turning into a burning fire. I hit her with my fists, not hard as I was weak from grief. “How could you let them die?” I asked.

Abigail pulled me to her and stroked my hair. “We did everything we could.”

“No,” I shook my head. “She would still be here.”

“She bled out. The coagulants didn’t work fast enough. There was nothing we could do.”

“I hate you,” I said, even though I pulled her closer.

“You should,” she replied. She pulled away from me. “Let’s go see your son.”

I shook my head. “I want to go home.”

We walked to the lobby, and I found Aunt Lovette. When she saw me, she pulled me into a tight hug.

My tears began flowing again. “They are gone. My little girl, my wife. They’re gone.”

Her hug tightened. “I see.”

I could feel her tears on my neck, and she let go of me, her falling to the ground. She hit her hands against the floor and let out a scream that rivaled my own. “My baby!” she cried out. “My beautiful baby girl.”

The dream changed, and I was lying on the couch in my old apartment.

A woman burst into the apartment and came up to me. “Get up!” Aunt Lovette pulled my cover off.

“No!” I pulled the couch pillow over my head.

“Get your ass up!” She shook the couch.

I brought down the pillow and looked up at the woman. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” she stated.

I shook my head. “I said I can’t.”

Aunt Lovette pulled me off the couch, and I fell to the floor.

I looked up at her, heat growing in my chest. “I can’t do it.”

“I have been merciful for the sake of Emmilen, but you have not gone to see that little boy once in the past two weeks.” She held up two fingers and put them in my face. “Two weeks!”

“I’m not going.”

“That boy is your son!” She swatted at me but, this time she didn't make contact. “You haven’t even named him.”

I put my face in my hands and shook my head. “She was his mother, and she is gone.”

“Pfft. Ridiculous things you say. You are his mother. You were his mother the moment you married my Emmilen. You knew what you were signing up for. That child may not have your blood, but he is your child! Same as you are my child if not more so.” She turned around. “You are going or you leave this house and never return.”

“You’re going to kick me out?” I asked. “I’m your daughter in law.”

“You are an ungrateful child and neglectful mother.”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

The scene around me disappeared, and another formed before me. It was the NICU Daniel stayed in for the first few weeks of his life. 

The halls of NICU were darker than the rest of the hospital. It was the most solemn place in the entire hospital. Parents losing children was hard. I stopped at the room Aunt Lovette told me to go to. A purple butterfly was on the door. I reached out and touched it. A tear fell from my eye.

I opened the door slowly. Inside there was a clear bassinet with a little curly-haired baby inside. I hadn’t even noticed he was born with hair until now.

He looked like her. That was the main thought running through my head.

He would never meet her was the second thought in my head.

I knelt in front of the box he was enclosed in. “Hi,” I said with a slight wave to him.

He was so small. Impossibly small. Babies weren’t supposed to be that small.

A nurse walked in and saw me. “Are you mom?” she asked.

I nodded.

She smiled at me. “He’s doing good, but he will be here for a few more days.”

I nodded, trying to hold myself together. “What’s his chance of… surviving?” I asked.

She looked at him. “I’d say about 98%, he was born at 30 weeks and he is doing well.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Can I hold him?” I said quietly, like it was a secret desire I never wanted to share.

The nurse smiled at me. “Yes,” she said.

I stopped breathing and looked at her. “Really?” I said. “He’s so small.”

She pointed at a chair next to his box. “Sit there.”

I did as she told me.

Slowly she opened the box and picked him up like he was made of glass. Then she walked over to me and placed him in my arms.

I looked down at the small baby. Tears welled in my eyes. His little hand wrapped around my thumb.

“Hi,” I said. “I… I’m your mom.” A tear fell.

His little hand squeezed around my thumb.

“You had another mommy. She loved you more than anything in the world. She’d hate me for how long it took me to come here.” A tear fell from my eye onto the blanket he was wrapped in. “I’m sorry.”

It was like nothing existed in the world anymore besides him and me. Now that I was with him, I would never leave again.

“Do you have a name yet?” the nurse asked me.

I nodded. “My little Daniel.”

I woke up in mourning all over again.

I opened the window and looked out over Auckland. This place, every piece of it reminded me of her, of how I lost her. I quickly shut the curtains hoping it would protect me from my memories of her, but it couldn’t. Nothing could.

I felt a slight tug on my leg and looked down. Daniel was standing beneath me, hugging his tiger close to himself. “Mommy,” he said.

I smiled at him, the one light of my life. “Yes,” I said.

“Are we going to see grandma today?” he asked.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to take him back to the airport and away from this place forever. I didn’t like the person I was here, the sad and mournful woman who had lost her wife. I didn’t want him to see me like this, but I also didn’t want him not to know his family.

He needed to hear about the woman who gave birth to him, his mother. Grandma Lovette needed to know her grandson/great-nephew. 

I always had a hard time knowing what to call her. She raised Emmilen but was technically her aunt, and Emmilen called her aunt. Something didn’t feel right telling Daniel she was an aunt. I thought Emmilen would like him to know her as grandma—his only grandmother.

The phone rang again, and this time I answered it.

“Where did you go?” Lovette scolded me.

I sighed. “We’re at the hotel.”

“Hotel? What hotel,” she began. “You don’t stay in hotels when you visit family. That’s a waste of money is what it is.”

“I know,” I told her. “I just needed somewhere closer to the airport for last night. I promise we will be there soon,” I lied.

I took my time packing up everything, and after a few hours and some more unanswered calls from Lovette, we made our way to her home.

When she opened the door, she instantly pulled me into her arms and held me tightly. It took everything in me not to cry. “You’re home!” she said.

I nodded. “We’re home.”

She insisted we drop off our stuff and going to a local park. So we did. We left our suitcases in the front entry, and went to the park.

Daniel climbed over the toddler playground and sat with Lovette on a small bench.

Her lips pursed into a straight line.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You should move back here," she stated matter of fact.

“We’d have nowhere to live.”

“Nonsense! You could live with me. His nursery is still set up and you can be in the guest room.”

“We can’t do that to you.”

“It is no problem.” She placed her hands on her lap and leaned forward. “I hated you, you know. When you just took that boy and ran. Took him from me, from his aunts and uncles, from his family. I almost didn’t believe it when Janis said she saw you at the airport with him. I told her, ‘No, she would not do that to me.’ But you did, and I hated you for it.”

“What changed?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and looked at me. “I realized you didn’t want to leave, you had to. Everything here is filled with her. I see her in every leaf, blade of grass, reflection in windows. I realized you did too.”

“I needed time,” I told her. “Time to heal, and I wasn’t about to abandon him. So instead I abandoned everyone else. I… I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me, girl. You are not sorry for leaving. You are just sad you hurt us. That’s it.”

I nodded. She was right. I was about to speak when Daniel came up to me and opened his hand. He was holding a little black and red spider. “Look mommy!” he said. “Pet!”

I couldn’t move. “Daniel,” I finally said. “Put the spider down.”

He shook his head. “I like it.”

“It’s not safe honey,” I told him, reaching out for the spider.

As I was trying to take it from his hand the spider ran and bit his arm.

I swatted the spider off of him and looked at Lovette. “Where is the closest ER?” I asked her.

She didn’t say anything. Instead, she picked up Daniel, held him tightly, and began to run.

I ran after her and within a few minutes, she was inside an emergency room screaming for help.

A nurse came out of the doors to the back and led them through to the patient rooms. Inside Lovette placed Daniel on the bed and then came to me.

“You should go be with him,” she said.

I shook my head. Memories of losing Emmilen ran through my head. I was paralyzed.

“I’m going to get you a coffee,” Lovette told me then she left.

I sat outside the ER room. The doctors went in and I heard they were cutting the bite off Daniel’s arm and I couldn’t watch. Instead, tears fell hot against my cheeks as I leaned on the hospital door.

I screamed out in terror. How could this happen, my sweet baby was in danger and there was nothing else I could do but trust the doctors.

Lovette walked up to me and handed me a coffee. My tears fell onto its lid.

“He will be fine,” I said to myself. “He has to be fine.”

She pulled me to her and held me. “He will be.”

“I can’t lose him. He’s the only thing I care about anymore.”

“I know,” she said.

Someone came out of the room, and Lovette let go of me.

“Are you his mother?” the man asked Lovette.

She shook her head. “Grandmother.” She pointed at me. “This is his mother.”

The man turned to me. “He is doing good. But he will need to be here for observation for a few days. If he had been even a few minutes later… I’ll just say he was lucky you got here when you did.”

I nodded and walked past him into the room.

Daniel’s eyes were on me as I walked to him, sat on the bed next to him, and held him.

Lovette came in after me.

I looked at her. “I think… we should go back home when he gets out.”

“I understand,” she told me. “You like your life in America.”

I shook my head. “No, we’re staying here. We’re going home with you.”

She smiled brightly.

She was the closest thing I ever had to a mother, I needed her.  It would be hard, but I wasn’t going to leave her again. Lovette had saved Daniel, Lovette had saved me.

“Thank you,” I told her.

“For what?” she said.

“Everything.” I didn’t have the right words to say it, but I would have never made it without her. After all this time, I was still grateful for Lovette. I had just never had the words to say it properly, that’s why I had always avoided her. How does one put into words how another had saved their life. Now I realized I never needed the right words, I just needed to say it.