Planning a funeral for a baby is a terrible thing. Lou and I woke up yesterday at a total loss of what to do next, but knowing that we didn't want to leave our Harper bean in the hospital for too long. Neither of us has ever planned a service or even been peripherally involved. This was not the way we wanted to learn.
The memorial service itself is not hard to plan, although every reading and poem and prayer I read seems to make me cry again. And it was so hard to choose pictures, when every one was filled with a face full of tubes and wires, and they showed her getting progressively sicker. But we spent many agonizing hours trying to decide what to do with Harper's body. A word I have come to hate, because referring to my baby as "a body" makes me cringe every time. No other word seems a suitable substitute - remains, corpse - they all are terrible, terrible words.
I thought we should cremate Harper. I couldn't, and still can't, bear the thought of a tiny casket. Of my baby being in a box forever in the cold, cold ground. Harper was so very cold as she died and all I wanted to do was keep her warm. I still do. She spent her whole short life in boxes in the NICU, when she wasn't being held by us. I didn't want that for her any more.
Lou surprised himself by feeling tied to the Jewish tradition of burial. He feels comforted by 6000 years of tradition and after reading some anti-cremation websites, he began to have a discomfort with the idea of cremation. Lou likes the Jewish tradition of natural burial, no embalming, no synthetic coffins, so that the body gives back to the earth. He also liked the idea of having somewhere to go and talk to her, for Shea to visit.
I can't do that, I told him. I have no problem interring her ashes or having a memorial marker somewhere. But I couldn't sit there and talk to my baby, knowing her tiny body was rotting alone in a box below us.
These are the kinds of horrible conversations you have when your baby dies.
There were moments of dark humor, too. Have you ever looked at the websites of funeral homes? It's like shopping for a used car. Funeral package special, they scream. Discount, we match any price. Upgrade your package today. It's like the John Denver song, Forest Lawn. I found myself reciting the poem the Cremation of Sam McGee, as I explained to Lou how I wanted to keep Harper warm. Or when we were wondering how long we had until the funeral home had to pick her up at Georgetown and Lou said, "Well, they told us to take all the time we need, but it's probably like dry cleaning, after 30 days..." Or the discussion of what we would do with Harper's ashes - interment or scattering - and I found myself suggesting we could do "half and half" at which point Lou and I looked at each other and burst into laughter for the morbid ridiculousness of the idea. And in the midst of all this, I called the lactation consultants at Georgetown to ask how to dry up my milk, and they told me I needed to stuff my bra full of fresh cabbage leaves. This is still making Lou giggle.
Harper, sadly, had no favorite places where her ashes could be scattered.
The hospice folks came by to help us deal with all of this and give us some suggestions about talking to Shea and seeking bereavement counseling. They really are a blessing, the hospice folks, we felt much better just talking everything through with them.
Afterwards, drained, Lou and I lay in bed, just holding each other. Lou's reaction to sadness and stress is to get sleepy whereas I feel jittery and restless - tired and wired, that's us.
"Where do you think people go when they die?" I asked Lou, picking up the thread of a conversation begun with the hospice social worker.
He didn't think they went anywhere, they were just gone, which has always been my perspective, too.
But I like the idea of Harper as an angel somewhere. Able to see and smile and be happy. Still with us, watching us. For her sake, I think I might be able to believe that. Or at least take comfort in my imagining of it. I understand now, in a visceral way, the term "angel baby" which always seemed like such an abstraction before.
"Why's there no more baby in your tummy?" Shea asked last night. I told him the baby had come out already. "Maybe later there will be more," he assured me.
Shea has already begun to self-correct his speech, I presume responding to the reactions we do not mean to have but do, when he talks about the baby things scattered throughout the house. Most of the time, no longer is he saying, "Baby Harper will use that" or "This is for Baby Harper." Now he says, "Other babies can use that."
Like me, maybe he's already thinking of the future, when another baby will enter our lives to be loved, loved, loved forever in a way we couldn't do for Harper.
I finally got out of bed listening to Shea sing a song as he left about how much he loves his mommy and daddy.
No comments:
Post a Comment