A haunted night

Three weeks ago, at about this time, we were holding Harper as she died.

And tonight I can't sleep.

The truth is, I have been thinking a lot about Harper's death over the past few days. Not the fact that she died, but the night of her actual death. It's there when I close my eyes, it comes to me at odd moments during the day.In some ways, that one day of her death has become more vivid, the most distinct memory I have of Harper, which makes me sad. I've been watching the videos of her and looking at pictures, as a way of forcing myself to focus on other memories, to try to banish the memory of that last night which is haunting me.

I think it's because of Lou's Kindle. Which we can't find. When he told me he was looking for it a few days ago, I told him that I thought the last time I saw it was that last night before we went to the hospital. I thought we'd packed it. We were expecting to spend the night there, and reading while holding Harper was something we frequently did - it was a good way to stay awake, and I sometimes even read aloud to her from whatever book I was reading.

Looking for the Kindle began my thinking about that night. And now I can't stop.

Right before she died, Harper snorted milk through her nose. Part of her body's process of shutting down, I imagine. But it was alarming to see and seemed to distress her, so we called for the nurse, who used suction to aspirate her nose and mouth. And it looked so uncomfortable, painful even to have her little nose suctioned like that. At the time, I was alternating between crying and watching her heart rate go down on the monitor and watching the nurse suction - and I wanted to yell, "Stop, stop, you're hurting her and she's dying and stop it, stop it, stop it!" But I didn't.

I wish I had. I kind of hate the idea that that painful looking aspiration was part of her dying moments.

But maybe the sensation of drowning in milk would be worse. Maybe she was beyond feeling anything at that point. I don't know.

 All I know is that at night, I can't stop thinking about it. The anxious rush to the hospital. The never ending detour through Virginia. The quiet hush of the NICU. Her stripey pink pajamas, belonging to the NICU, and the flash of regret that she didn't ever get to wear her own clothes, the take-me-home outfit I'd brought with me. The flurry of activity to move Harper to a private room. The going in and out to set up a cot for us. The pain of being separated from her, even for just a few moments, while they transferred her oxygen line to the new wall hook up. How I kept crying to Lou, "She's dying" as I watched her heart rate go down and repeating to Harper, "I love you, bean, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, Mommy loves you." The harsh, loud sobs escaping from me and from Lou as we realized she was gone. That her heart had stopped. The official check with the stethoscope as I held her. The hushed reverence of the NICU staff as we sat with our dead child, as they turned off monitors, shut down the oxygen.

The utter and total surrealism and wrongness of my first experience with human death in the form of my tiny, baby daughter.

We took pictures, you know.

I had asked the nurse to take off the tubes and the tape. "I've never seen her face," I told them. "I want to see her without the tubes and tape. I want to hold her without the wires."

And so we took pictures of her face free of the oxygen catheter. Free of leads and wires and the NG tube, with only the dim echo of tape marks on her cheeks. Because we didn't have the opportunity to do that while she was living, with the exception of a couple of quick pictures taken after the first minutes of her birth.

They're terrible pictures. I can barely look at them. There is no mistaking that she is dead. That she is a dead baby, and that is a truly horrible, terrible thing to behold. Maybe it's because she was so sick. Maybe it was because we were not in any state to think about things like flash and focus and lighting.

But I can't bring myself to delete them either. Her last pictures. Our last moments with her. Before they took her to the morgue.

Another memory of that night - how difficult it was to hear they were taking her to the morgue. How much I really wanted to stop that from happening. Because how could they take my tiny baby to the morgue? An infant on a metal table or slab or whatever? How could that happen, how could that be?

Today was a wonderful day. Full of sunshine and laughter and friends and good food and wine and all things happy. Full of honor for Harper bean and gifts in her memory and time with my family and plans for the future.

Now it is night and the images of that last night are infecting me, there every time I close my eyes.

My father told me that at around the time Harper died, he and his wife noticed that a neighbor's wind chimes, typically known for their obnoxious, irritating sound, played a beautiful song, lovely music. They both remarked on it at the time, not knowing that hundreds of miles away, their grandchild was taking her last breath while her parents cried.  I love that story, love that her spirit was somehow captured by those windchimes.

I just want these memories of that last day, that last night to stop. To cease replaying like a broken record in my mind. Watching your baby die, even when you know it is an end to her suffering, is traumatic. It is haunting in the strongest sense of the word. It is a terrible, terrible thing.

I just want to close my eyes and be able to go to sleep.