JACK at RANDOM

35 Months Old Is Cool With Me

2012-01-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Stella, my darling girl, where has the time gone? How have you become so old, so downright smart, so fiercely independent, in such short notice? Where is my crawler, my swaddled babe? Where is that mohawk?

At every stage of your life thus far, I have anxiously anticipated the next stage. I couldn’t wait for you to smile and when you smiled, I couldn’t wait for you to laugh. And when you laughed, I couldn’t wait for you to eat solids and when you ate solids I couldn’t wait for you to crawl. And then I couldn’t wait for you to walk, which was so glorious and back saving and miraculous. I couldn’t wait for you use words, and when you said you first word, GO, I couldn’t wait for more words. And then I couldn’t wait for you to potty train, and when you kicked diapers to the curb, I couldn’t wait for you to talk, which was something I anticipated almost as much as your arrival. To hear you utter words and sentences, to listen to your mind piecing thoughts together, was a dream come true. And when you started talking freely, sometime in the fall, I found myself in a strange place.

I don’t want you to grow up anymore.

Can you stay here with me in time, can you stop getting older? I don’t want these bottomless free hugs to go away, or cuddling with you before bed, my arm wrapped around you, my face against your back. I like being best friends, I like talking about every little part of your day, I like all of the fun things we get to do together, like dancing in the evenings to Florence + The Machine, or running errands together, or playing in the yard with your friends or building things like castles and cardboard forts. I like the constant jokes, even though poopoo butt jokes can only take us so far. I’d like these things between us to exist forever. Capiche?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love the little girl you’re becoming.

It Tolls for Thee

2012-01-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

I am practically left speechless by these profound words from Dr. King, which I heard yesterday and have been pondering ever since. It's possible I have never felt these words until this past year, never had the capacity to understand them. And yet they seem to be true. The idea that my character, my well being, my hope, my pain, are unequivocally connected to these things in mankind, in the people that I share in this life with, is an idea that I hope will one day flourish in my own life.

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." And he goes on toward the end to say, "Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." We must see this, believe this, and live by it if we are to remain awake through a great revolution.

- From Remaining Awake During A Great Revolution, sermon preached March 31, 1968, at the National Cathedral in Washington DC - the last Sunday sermon by Dr. King.

Nine Days

2012-01-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

I'm writing over at Glow In the Woods today, talking about our best friend's baby Lyla, born nine days before Margot. Please feel free to stop by Glow and read my post, nine days, and join the discussion.

Evening By Evening : A Scattered Review of 2011

2012-01-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

One of my kids runs around the living room making mischief in her underwear, her heart beating miraculously, while the remains of my other kid rest softly in a little brown and gold box from Budapest, which sits on a shelf in our living room, next to the rocks from her river, next to the photograph of water, next to the necklace with her name on it. I'm as used to this reality as I am shocked by it.

This was 2011.

We spent the majority of our evenings on the couch, heads on either end, feet tangled in the middle, talking about our new reality. After long days with Stella, with work, the evenings were our time to sit openly with our grief, to face the sadness and heartache without worrying about how it affected Stella or how it affected our friends. We wept and cried. We lit candles. We counseled one another through anger and jealousy and guilt. We stared at the ceiling in disbelief. We held each other fervently, allowing a decade of flourishing and perpetual love to wash over our brokenness. Evening by evening, we faced the darkness, hoping enough evenings would accumulate to slowly heal our aching hearts.

Our days were spent with our Stella, who turned two in February and never looked back. She potty trained the week before her second birthday and marveled us with her words. Hearing her talk is like a dream coming true, slowly and steadily, always inevitable but still surprising. By summer she was screaming out little sentences and by December she was successfully negotiating with us. Our little firecracker of a girl, so full of life, of jokes, of independence. The burden of 2011 was surely eased by the joy of watching her live so fiercely.

We made two new friends that I think will be around for the rest of our lives, a rare gift in the complicated scheme of life.

We lived in community as we have always imagined, with our housemates who rock the floors above us, with our friends who live ten houses down, with our gang that gets together for wine and vegetarian food.

Everything else about the year seems trivial, forgettable, barely worth a mention.

Perhaps the most stunning thing I can think of, on this warm January morning, is that we made it this far. We haven't completely lost our minds. We haven't lost our substance. And in the ocean of sorrow we find ourselves in, we are facing the waves and undertow and storms with as much courage and tenacity as we can muster. We are still here, clawing forward, somewhat intact, and this feels like something to cautiously smile about.

Jackson Family Christmas

2011-12-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

Evee

Grandpa + Jamie

Stella

Miles

Mike + Miles

Blocks

Stella + Momma

Play Time

Sweet Iris

Cousins

Grandma + Papa + Stella

Miles + Stella

Presents

Eaton Canyon Hike

Margot Was Here

One In the Other

2011-12-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I allow myself, when I can't take it anymore, when I can't feel M, when I achingly long to hold my little girl, I look at pictures of Stella at the same age as M would be now.

Today, December 26, Margot would be nine months and two days old.
Stella was nine months and two days on November 23, 2009.

I search through iPhoto, scrolling through the months until November 2009 and the days until the 23rd and the pictures until my Stella appears.

There we are, the three of us, happy as can be, walking the streets of our downtown home, ice skating in Pershing Square, frolicking around our loft. And there is Stella. Smiling, making mischief, living freely and willing to wear pants.

Blue eyes, thin upper lip, full cheeks and the Jackson'est smile you'll ever find.

Margot, Margot, Margot, my love, my dearest, with your perfect blues, are you in there somewhere?

Muddle Through Somehow

2011-12-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

We pulled up around seven, parked in a nice little spot, and ordered some food. Burgers, fries and a soda. The three of us sat in the car and waited for our number, the interior lights giving the older of us enough light to see the younger of us swinging wildly between the seats. Chocolate! she screamed in anticipation. A morsel of mint cocoa for a finished burger.

It's Christmas Eve and the weather is mild.

Nine months today.

We turn on the radio, looking for Christmas music, the first Christmas music of the season, some six weeks later than usual. An older gentleman begins singing while we dunk fries into ketchup and she tosses the bun for quicker patty access.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

After the Storm

2011-12-15T09:27:00.000-08:00

We head up to Margot's River, as we have all come to call it, every so often, when the day feels right or when Stella feels like picking out a rock for M, or when a massive wind storm hits Los Angeles, which happened a few weeks back.

We hiked and crawled around the forest, picking our way across the creek and climbing over downed trees and logs. We carefully selected the biggest rock yet to add to M's jar, and Stella, of course, wore her pink dress with a recently added star patch, which covers an impossible stain.

Her and You, Then and Now

2011-12-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

The following is the address I gave last night at the MISS Foundation's candle lighting service for National Children's Memorial Day. It was a beautiful evening, remembering our kiddos, talking about our kiddos, sharing it all next to dear family and friends. Thanks to Sari and our dedicated leaders for putting this together and inviting me to share.

Her and You, Then and Now

December 11th was a Saturday last year and already, our house was dressed in Christmas. Ornaments and colored lights adorned our tree. Festive trinkets were neatly placed around the house. An ironic glass snowman in the bathroom. A vintage santa clause on the bookshelf. And my relentless christmas playlist blared on repeat, pounding us with Mariah Carey and at least eleven of the sappiest versions of Silent Night that I could find.

On this day last year, my first child Stella and I played in the yard with our housemates. That evening, we prepared for our first christmas movie night by making popcorn and turning her room into a fort, outfitting our creation with a plethora of blankets and pillows. We watched a Charley Brown Christmas and snoopy's hysterical antics were the hit. And my wife Kari was twenty-four weeks pregnant with our second child, Margot June, and the holidays were a welcomed distraction from the hibernation that we normally go into during pregnancy.

Looking back on this day, I can almost smell the innocence on my breath. I can practically taste the richness of life, and feel the simplicity of my emotions.

Fourteen weeks later and twelve days before her due date, my blue eyed baby girl was dead.

The pain was, as you can attest to, more fiercely felt than I knew was possible, as if all of the heightened emotions I had ever experienced in my life were suddenly reduced to utter dullness in comparison. For the heart to swell with the deepest of love, and to break into a multitude of pieces, one right after the other, almost simultaneously, is something that only this unfortunate group can know.

I could have never imagined on that December evening, watching snoopy slide across the icy pond, that a mere fourteen weeks later I’d be facing the darkest of nights, smothered in anguish and sorrow.

But, such is life, I have learned.

It is full of accidents and full of fortune, full of complicated twists and full of predictable outcomes, full of beauty and full of gloom, full of exhaustion and full of youth, full of hope and full of despair, full of suffering and full of wellness. I have come to see these attributes of life as not either-or, but both-and-together. A freak accident took my daughter, a fortunate clotting of blood saved my wife. And on and on we could go, showcasing the audacity of life’s complicated nature.

I feel this new life around every corner, both the splendor and heartache of what it means to be alive, what it means to be fully human. I think of this more acutely, I feel of this more deeply, especially on a night like tonight.

Thirty-eight weeks after Margot died, the exact amount of weeks she was alive, I stand here with you. My fellow survivors. YOU who comprehend, YOU who whisper the names of our children, YOU who abide with us, YOU who we can be our whole selves with, YOU who usher us out of the loneliness, YOU who say, “I understand.”

I could have never imagined, on that dreaded day when my daughter was here and then wasn’t, that thirty-eight weeks later I’d be sitting here with you, facing our losses in abiding unison.

In you, in this society of the suffering, I see the beauty of life. And on this cool December evening, as we light our candles and remember our lost children, I see the hope, however soft and delicate it may be.

5x7

2011-12-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

I copied her to a USB drive and slid her into my pocket.

We arrived to the neon lights and glossy floors and aisles of nonsense just in time for an upbeat version of jingle bells.

Not so jingle this year, I thought to her, squeezing the plastic drive.

I pushed her in and she appeared, still warm, hair still wet, still wrapped in blankets.

Hey kiddo.

I stood up to cover the screen, surprised by my own instincts, to protect her from indifferent eyes.

4x6? 8x10?

How about 200x200? Would that be okay?

Here is your picture, he says, handing her back to me.

Beautiful Empty

2011-12-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

I'm writing over at Glow In the Woods today, talking about the purity in missing. Please feel free to stop by Glow and read my post, beautiful empty, and join the discussion.

To M on Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

Letter #63

Margot,

Hey kid. I started referring to you as M from time to time, which I think sounds kind of endearing and wonderful. I like to draw little pictures of the lowercase m. I stamp it in my little journal and doodle it at work while I'm thinking through a project. Truth is, I'd like to scatter little m's and m phrases all over the city; on trees and sidewalks, on concrete walls, in the front cover of books, with stones in the river, with shells at the beach.

m was here.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have called you this if had you lived. Way to go M, I might have said. Or, happy Thanksgiving M. I always wanted a hip nickname when I was a kid, but unfortunately, all I got was juicy jackson. Hey juicy, pass me the ball! Ain't nothing hip about it. And then in dreaded middle school, one guy started calling me jacksypads. That was a long month.

Your big sister has been calling your mom and I "sweetie" lately. Sometimes when I call her name, she'll say, yeah sweetie? as if it's a completely normal way to respond to someone. I'm pretty sure you would have been added to her selective sweetie list. And I think she would have called you M sometimes too.

Well, today - on the eight month anniversary of your death - would have been your first Thanksgiving. I can just imagine you nibbling on a tiny piece of turkey, and posing for pictures with your buddy Lyla, or getting sideswiped by the older kiddos. If you were going to be anything like your parents, I think you would have had a grand time.

I normally spend the days leading up to Thanksgiving thinking about what I'm grateful for. It's a habit I got from your sentimental Papa Dennis, who always wanted us to share what we were thankful for. And even though you're not here, I couldn't help but to do the same this year.

I'm certainly thankful for you. I know this is complicated, but I'm so glad you're a part of my story, even if I can't always see it. For now, it seems missing you is mostly where I'm at. I'm thankful for your mama. I still can't believe she is all mine. I count my great fortune every single day. Her beauty and intelligence and strength is something that I see every day in your sister and miss every day in you. And your sister, of course, whose very existence feels like a miracle. She is simply perfect. I'm thankful for those family and friends who talk about you openly, for those who ask how we're doing, for those who don't ingnore or diminish what we have lost, for those we can be our whole selves with. I'm thankful for our new friends, who feel like a gift from you. The first of many, I hope. And I'm thankful for less important things like the movies and a job that allows me to work with my hands.

Even without you in my arms, even with the brokenness that I feel, there is much to be grateful for. Thanks for helping me remember.

Sometimes in the quiet mornings, before the sun has come up, when it's just the two of us, these little chats bring me comfort. I like to imagine the world consisting of just you and I, that I'm the only person on earth in these moments that is thinking of you, talking with you, picturing your face. There is a sacredness in this space my dear. Don't worry baby, your memory is safe with me.

Dad

For George

2011-11-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

I built this little box for our friends, Leif and Brianna, and for their son George, who died on March 31, 2010 after twenty-four short minutes of life. They wanted something to hold his precious belongings, so I crafted this box out of reclaimed doug fir wall paneling.

We never got to meet George, but the impact he has had on my family through his Dad and Mom is tremendous. I don't know where we would be without the love, tenderness and understanding that their friendship has brought to us since meeting them shortly after Margot died. The very existence of our friendship, the profoundness of it, the sadness behind why we met, the source of joy it brings us, is still a complicated mystery to me.

To George Ellsworth Hanson. Thanks for all you have given us.

A Walk In the Woods

2011-11-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

We got dropped on Friday around 11pm. It was in the 30's, the moon high, three quarters full. The four of us zip up our respective wintery gear and start walking, climbing to 6855' and then 6680' and so on. The night views catch us off guard around a certain bend and we stare out over the landscape, the mountain behind casting a shadow on the valley below.

This is the Pacific Crest Trail. It runs from the Mexico border fence straight into Canada, some 2600 miles all said and done. Yes, if you can imagine it, there is a trail that stretches across the entire United States. And ever since I heard of such a miraculous thing, I wanted to walk on it, all the way. Or attempt to anyway, over the decades. This little weekend jaunt started where I left off in 2009, at mile 265 out of 2663.

My tent partner and I swallowed a benadryl and we were off to dreams. We woke up to the sun and food and many miles in our immediate future. At 8am I won a bet about snow, and scored seventeen pringles.

As we climbed up, the temperatures dropped down, almost secretly, like it wanted to catch us off guard. The snow fell lightly, and then fell all damn day, inch after inch, covering the place magically. It looked exactly like something fabricated you might see at Disneyland, except it was real and hard to walk through. And it made everything wet, which created a nice entry point for potential frostbite.

One of us, the partner of this friend, took pictures from time to time, lucky for us.

By 4:30, we had stepped through 17 miles of forest. Night was rising. We were freezing. And despite the fact that being in our tents for the next fifteen boring hours seemed like torture, it also seemed like a smart idea considering the elements. So we pitched some tents and shrugged off the concern. Let's get warm, we all said to each other.

Then we heard some guys running, literally running, in shorts and stocking caps. And they stopped and offered help. And Bob and Micky came back with a truck an hour later to pick us up, and fed us homemade cookies and spaghetti, and let us display our wet gear all over the living room and staircase and bathroom, and cleared off the ping pong table so we could play, and brought out blankets and pillows, and let us crash on the couches and mattresses, and then went to the store in the morning to buy orange juice and syrup so we could have home made waffles. And then said, "thanks for coming" on our way out the door, as if our whole misadventure and rescue had all been planned.

The next morning, from the comfort of Bob's living room.

Signs

2011-11-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm writing over at Glow In the Woods today, telling a story from a recent trip to Whole Foods. Please feel free to stop by Glow and read my post, signs, and join the discussion.

Spoken Word Project

2011-10-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

I am (reluctantly!) joining Angie's project, where she asks those of us who have experienced baby loss to read one of our posts. I've loved watching the others who have bravely shared -- thanks for taking the first steps. :)

The Heartache Of Infant Loss

2011-10-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

I read this piece in the Milwaukee Journal last week and thought it was worth including here. The piece is written by Laura Schubert, who lost her daughter five years ago, and her words ring so achingly true. In some ways, her piece feels like a summation of all the heartache I have been writing about since Margot died. There are two sides to every lonely day, both the sorrow and joy, and she captures the sorrow part well.

Infant loss is nature's cruelest practical joke. It's investing all of the required time and effort into pregnancy, only to be robbed of the result. It's cradling a body that grew within your own and trying to reconcile the cold, lifeless form in your arms with your memory of the baby who turned double flips in your womb.

It's worrying that you'll forget what your child looked like and snapping an album's worth of photos that no one will ever ask to see. It's sobbing so hard you can't breathe and wondering if it's possible to cry yourself to death.

Infant loss is handing off a Moses basket to the nurse who's drawn the unfortunate duty of delivering your pride and joy to the morgue and walking out of a hospital with empty arms.

It's boxing up brand new baby clothes and buying a 24-inch casket. It's sifting through sympathy cards, willing your foolish body to stop lactating, clutching your baby's blanket to your chest in hopes of soothing the piercing ache in your heart.

It's resisting the urge to smack the clueless individuals who compare your situation to the death of their dog or who tell you you'll have another baby, as if children are somehow replaceable.

Infant loss is explaining to your 7-year-old that sometimes babies die and being stumped into silence when she asks you why. It's watching other families live out your happy ending and fighting a fresh round of grief with every milestone you miss.

It's being shut out of play groups for perpetuity. It's skipping social events with expectant and newly minted mothers because, as a walking worst-case scenario, you don't want to put a damper on the party.

It's listening to other women gripe about motherhood and realizing that you no longer relate to their petty parental complaints because, frankly, when you've buried a baby, a sleepless night with a vomiting toddler sounds something like a gift.

Infant loss is pruning from your life the friends and relatives who ignore or minimize your loss. It's recognizing that, while they may not mean to be hurtful, the fact that they don't know any better doesn't make their utter lack of empathy one whit easier to bear.

My baby girl would have been 5 years old this month. I don't know what she'd look like, what her favorite food would be. I've never had the privilege of tucking her into bed, taking her to the zoo or kissing her boo-boos. I will never watch her graduate or walk down the aisle.

Infant loss is more than an empty cradle. It's a life sentence.

- Laura Schubert, The Heartache Of Infant Loss

Fall Movie Guide

2011-10-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

There was a time, a lifetime ago (early 2011), that I posted movie reviews fairly regularly on this blog. Kari and I have been walking to the theater for a strong eight years running now, a love that has only grown with each new film season. We used to joke around and say that if tragedy ever struck us, we figured it would be the movies that would heal our broken hearts. So as Oscar season approaches, we'll head back down the street to the movies, facing the irony, hoping a few good pictures might lift us up, even for a moment.

These are the twelve movies I want to see this fall in preparation for Oscar night 2012, a night which is met in this household with more vigor than we have for most major holidays.

As a side, I should mention that I have already watched Drive (twice), which was so perfectly perfect I can hardly imagine anything better, and Moneyball, an incredible adaption of the stunning book I read in 2009. So here are the rest, and PLEASE let me know if I am missing something.

We Need To Talk About Kevin: Tilda Swinton alone is almost enough to get me into this movie. Adding John C Reilly to the mix is like icing on the cake.

Hugo: A Martin Scorcese film in 3D? I'm in.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The preview for this film practically gave me goose bumps. Gary Oldman looks freaky good.

The Descendants: One, George Clooney is in it. And this guy always seems to pick films I love. And two, it's directed by Alexander Payne, the famed director of Sideways and Election.

War Horse: Okay, so the story of a man and his horse doesn't exactly pull me in. But Steven Spielberg directing and Richard Curtis writing (he wrote Love Actually) means this could be a nice epic little film.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Finally! The book, by Jonathon Safron Foer, is one of my all time favorites. I have been hearing about this movie for years and it's finally here. What gives me hope for this film is director Stephan Daldry (The Hours). What scares me is Sandra Bullock.

We Bought A Zoo: I'll admit, the only reason I want to see this movie is because Cameron Crowe is directing. I just hope the Cameron Crowe from Jerry McGuire shows up, and not the Cameron Crowe from Elizabethtown. And if Sandra Bullock scares me as an actress, then Scarlett Johansson is like a terrible nightmare. We'll see on this one.

The Ides of March: One, Ryan Gosling is in this film. Two, George Clooney is directing. Three, George Clooney is writing. [Clooney also wrote and directed Good Night and Good Luck, a film I still think about six years later). Four, Paul Giamatti. FIVE, Philip Seymore Hoffman. That's four more reasons than I needed.

The Rum Diary: Johnny Depp and rum and Hunter Thompson seem like a nice concoction.

Young Adult: I honestly don't know how director Jason Reitman has done it. His first three directed films have all been insanely good. He followed up the brilliant Thank-You For Smoking with JUNO. And after Juno, he directed Up In the Air. Can he really pull off a fourth straight great film? I hope so.

A Dangerous Method: A movie about Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud? Directed by David Cronenberg? With Viggo Mortenson playing Freud? I'm in.

J. Edgar: L. Dicaprio

Quiet

2011-10-18T01:52:00.000-07:00

It’s quiet around here. Unbearably quiet. The silence is getting louder as the months trudge on.

I can practically hear Margot, her hands clapping together in wildly uncoordinated fashion, throwing small objects, yelling here and there. I can almost see her too. She is crawling around the dining table, under and through the chairs, she is pulling her big sister’s hair. She is sitting at her high chair, scooping mashed bananas and scattering cheerios to the four corners without even trying. She is outside, the last of the non-walkers left in the yard, eating grass and dodging kids.

Her car seat faces backwards. Stella pulls at her hand from across the seats and updates us on all her silly faces and unseen gestures. She is there at the beach, in the park, down the street, up the stairs.

She is in my arms, in the middle of every night, gulping down milk and making little faces, just like her sister did. I sing to her, yawning between each little rhyme.

I love you Margot, yes I do,
I love you through and through,
every part of you.
I love you Margot, yes it’s true.
I love you Margot, oh I do.

I can feel the emptiness on little vacations and around meal time and on little jaunts around the neighborhood. I feel it in the happiness of others. I feel it in my own happiness. And I feel it at nighttime, when there is nothing to do but wait for the morning.

Stella is here. Kari is here. I am here. We are here. But our noise isn't enough to overcome the silence of her absence.

She is everywhere and no where to be found.

Jackson Lake

2011-10-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

We drove to Wrightwood this morning, an hour into the mountains behind our city, and ate some food and played in the park and browsed a little bookstore and hiked around Jackson Lake. It was a really nice day.

Trickster

2011-10-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

The two of us spent some time in South Pas on Saturday, roaming the streets, taking pictures together and of each other. She only smiles for me if I will smile for her (she's slowly perfecting her bargaining skills). She has nearly mastered the iPhone as well. Little tech savvy trickster.

Trains

2011-10-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

The ride on the Metro is familiar now.

"CAVE DADDY!" she says with no less enthusiasm as the ride before, as we enter the first tunnel under Old Town. "HOLD YOUR BREATH!" I hold my breath, she makes awkward faces and little noises in her sincere but failed effort.

At the Memorial Park stop, she yells, "PRETEND CHOO CHOO TRAIN UP THERE!"

At Del Mar she talks about the fountain and somehow, without my prodding, about Santa Clause, who she believes she saw in December of last year. "I see Santa Clause. Big beard! Do you remember Dad? I miss Santa." This girl's memory is something profound, or perhaps completely normal, as this is my first go at living with a two and a half year old.

Before the Mission stop appears, she says matter of factly, "our stop," and then promptly gets ready to disembark.

Normally it's just the two of us, but this past Friday Grandma Gwen came along for the ride.

Glow In the Woods: ESCAPE!

2011-10-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

I'm writing for Glow In the Woods today. Feel free to stop by Glow and read my post, ESCAPE!, and join the discussion.

Falling In Love

2011-09-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

There was this moment, in the balcony of an old church, during the first days of my freshman year of University, that I still remember so vividly. It’s when I first saw her. I mean, I had seen her before, but this time I really saw her. And I heard her talk. Her voice sounded exactly like tender ferocity, and her words were articulated magically, and her tone and expressions filled the dark balcony. I’m not exactly sure if I fell in love with her in this moment, but I sure fell in something.

I’d like to think that somewhere, deep inside my brain, something was signaling me, pointing me towards her. Shouting at me: THIS IS THE GIRL. THIS IS IT. STOP LOOKING. YOU WON’T FIND ANYONE BETTER. SHE WILL BE THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO YOU.

A year later, we were rounding the bases in softball dugouts and eating sunflower seeds on road trips and pretending to care about anything else. And I figured that was the last time I’d fall in love.

A decade later, though, I found myself in a room full of white coats and reeboks and bright lights, and it happened again. I saw the top of a cone shaped head, with jet black hair all wet and warm, and I was dizzy once more.

No one ever told me having kids was like getting to fall in love all over again.

I knew I’d love being a father. I knew I’d deeply love my kids. I knew they would be everything to me. But I didn’t expect the same range of emotions I had experienced ten years earlier. The gushing, the pride, the inability to focus on anything else, the magic of it all. And perhaps what surprised me the most is that it all happened, it all began, so instantaneously. Her head, her hair, her face, her shoulders, her belly, her knees, her feet, her cries. That was all it took. I was in love with my Stella, her big cheeks and blue eyes and crazy hair, her whole being.

+++

Margot was handed to me by an older nurse. She was swaddled in a hospital blanket, a little stocking cap on her head. The nurse said, “We did everything we could,” as she handed me my second daughter.

In the rush to the emergency room, in the agonizing wait to see if Margot lived or died, I had hardly given her face a thought. I wanted her to be alive, I wanted everything to be okay. I had forgotten what it feels like to see your baby for the first time. I forgot it’s love at first sight.

And then I looked at her.
And she was perfect.
And my heart swelled with love,
and my heart broke into pieces.

+++

Six months later, I'm still not sure how to handle this simultaneous feeling of love and brokenness.

Six months ago today, I fell in love with my beautiful Margot. Dead or alive, she is mine.

Fly Like Tinkerbell

2011-09-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

My first sister and I, circa 1982

Most first kids eventually get the fortune of holding their little sibling, just like I did when my first sister arrived. They get to observe them nurse and have their diaper changed, they watch for smiles and tears, they listen for coohs and cries and laughs. They learn how to help out and nurture and then one day, the little wordless sibling morphs into a little playmate. And the rest is predictably beautiful, as the story goes, a future filled with friendship and angst and fighting over the front seat.

My social little Stella is navigating a different journey. She is learning about death and about life, how elusive and tragic and beautiful it can be. She is facing sadness and heartache, things that she knows very little about. And without knowing it just yet, she is missing out on the beautifully complexities of siblinghood.

The only way Stella can be a big sister is to think and talk about Margot, which she does every single day. She wants to see her ashes. She wants to drive up to Margot's river. She picks flowers and then asks if she can trade her flowers with Margot for one of Margot's rocks in a jar. When she is sad, she says it's because Margot died. When we recently asked her what it means to die, she stated in no uncertain terms, "Margot die. Squish a bug it die. Mamma almost die." Yep.

And then yesterday in the car, out of the clear blue, using her new multi-sentence speaking abilities, she said:

"after school i'm gonna put on my wings and fly like tinkerbell and like airplane and i'm gonna look for margot and i'm gonna put margot in my belly and fly to my home and put margot in momma's belly and say 'YEAH!!!' and then say, 'does that feel better?' and i'm gonna put my wings back in my room with george and say 'YOUR WELCOME!!!"

Brilliant idea.

Hi, My Name Is Josh and I Have A Dead Baby Too

2011-09-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren’t telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.

- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, page 107

We go to a support group. It’s on the second Wednesday of every month and the group is held in this little blank room in the middle of some kind of Jewish center in the middle of West LA.

On these Wednesdays, we get in our car and start and stop and turn and start and stop and use my blinkers and somehow, some sixty minutes later, we’re on the other side of the city. I couldn’t tell you a solitary thing about the drive, as my mind is transfixed on what is about to commence. What will it be like today? Will there be anyone new? What part of our story should we talk about?

Upon arrival, I’m faced with a security guard who mans the entrance to the parking lot. He sits in his booth looking purposeful, wearing a gun and motioning people through after a brief interchange. I never know quite what to say about why we are there.

Hello sir. We’re here because our baby recently died and my wife and I don’t know how to handle it and we found this support group and thought it might be helpful because we are in so much pain. Could you let us through?

I mumble something about a support group and then it’s a blur again and suddenly I’m sitting in a chair with a sticky name tag attached to my chest, feeling what can only can be described as anxious exhilaration. My heart pounds within my chest, I twitch this way and that, trying to get my nerves together. Tears have already begun lining up near the back of my eyes, waiting in unison to fall freely if the need should arise. We’re ready when you are, they murmur.

I watch as people come in slowly, like a whisper, and gingerly find seats. Some of the faces are familiar. And some are heartbreakingly new, like last night when two more couples came for the first time, their desperate stares a reminder that babies are still dying.

I’m never sure what to say, so I find myself lost in thought, staring downwards, my arms folded together. And then, as our caring and insightful facilitators open the group, the exhilaration begins to sneak into my anxious heart. I feel like smiling, like laughing, like breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Because these are my people.

They are young and old, african american and caucasian and hispanic and asian, married and single, years removed from their loss and months removed from their loss. Their broken bodies and broken hearts enter the room from around the city, from incomplete families and empty cribs, from lives that they didn’t imagine. And while I can hardly remember their names and I know next to nothing about their backgrounds, or where they work or where they live or what kind of people they are, I do know one thing: Their babies died too.

We share our stories of loss, down the line we go. Genetic disorder. No known cause. Cord accident. Medical malpractice. Placenta abruption. Heart defect. Around the circle we go, trading tissues and tears, our stories uniquely different but with the same tragic ending.

And then we cry some more, and laugh a lot, as we trade updates on our present grief, as we share our sadness and hope.

This stranger said this. This family member said that.
I lost this friendship. I found this friendship.
I’m infertile. I’m pregnant again.
I don’t think I can make it. I think it’s getting better.
My hair is falling out, this new life is so hard, I miss my baby so much.
Us too, us too, us too.

And then our time is up.

See you next month, we say to each other afterward, a little different than before.

PINK

2011-09-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest. Neither Mom or Dad are pink people. And despite our efforts toward gender neutral clothing, this girl sometimes pursues pink with a laser guided color seeking missile, like when we ventured into the American Apparel factory store in Downtown LA.

"Pink dress!!!" she squealed.

Even though this dress could be spotted from space, and may possibly glow in the dark, I can't help but love her in this. And yes, in regards to the last photo, she did wrap chains around the neck of her lion and push him back and forth.

Your Life Is Your Life

2011-09-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

Charles Bukowski's novel, Ham On Rye, is neatly stacked alongside my other sixteen favorite books, which sit in a sacred place on top of my bookshelf. I was deeply moved by troubled Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego, and his difficult and lonely Los Angeles upbringing. I went on to read the rest of Bukowski's novels and much of his poetry, and despite his sometimes crude writing and dark outlook on life, something kept bringing me back.

I stumbled onto this beautiful poem through a close friend, who wrote about the poem so eloquently, and it came at just the right time. I keep reading it over and over, finding solace and comfort in these beautiful words.

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

___________________

your life is your life.
know it while you have it.

YES and AMEN.

Glow In the Woods: Searching

2011-08-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Today was my first post as a contributor for Glow In the Woods. I feel grateful for the opportunity to write for such a beautiful site designed to help those who have experienced babyloss, and I feel grateful for the way in which it connects me to Margot. Feel free to stop by Glow and read my post, Searching, and join the discussion.

If Margot Could Talk

2011-08-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Margot,

Hey buddy. I miss you something fierce.

Did you know that we were second guessing your name the night before you died? We stood in the kitchen with our housemates and laughed and drank wine and talked about calling you Vivian. It’s funny to think about now, too, because you were Margot from the very start. Your Mama picked your middle name and as soon as she said June, I was in. I told her it was perfect because I could call you MJ, and she said that June was out if I was going to call you MJ. For the rest of the pregnancy, as you were growing limbs and developing lungs, I would call you MJ just to give her a hard time. She always kind of laughed and kind of gave me that certain beautiful eye, like she’s gonna kick my ass if I ever utter MJ after you were born.

You weren’t named after anyone in particular, but we did get your name from our favorite movie, The Royal Tenenbaums. Margot in the movie is a depressed chain smoker, living a complicated adopted life in the middle of a complex family. I secretly hoped there wouldn’t be any irony in this one day.

Did you know that being a dad is my favorite thing in the world? I knew it long before your sister was even born. I felt it on a ferry in Norway and wrote it down on a piece of paper, alongside one other little tidbit.

WHAT I REALLY CARE ABOUT IN LIFE:

Kari.
My kids.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be a parent to you. And I’m so sad I couldn’t parent you in the flesh.

I think your big sister, if she knew what she was missing, would probably miss you as much as we do. I wonder if she’ll grieve this one day later, when she understands death and sisterhood. Perhaps she’ll have another little sister or brother, and it will make the grief lighter. It’s hard to say what she’ll take from all of this one day. I wonder if these will be her first solid memories. Your Mom in the hospital, all swollen with tubes coming in this way and out that way. Our daily sobs and blank faces over the reality of your death and our new life filled with sorrow. I hope she can see the gifts you’ve given us, even though I don’t even know what those gifts are yet. I hope she will be better equipped to face a complicated world, where death and life go hand in hand.

Some days I wish you could have talked to me for a few minutes before you died. And I don’t mean little infant sounds. I mean a real conversation that takes place a few minutes before we both know you’re going to die. I hear stories of folks talking with their loved ones on death beds and get a little envious. These people talk about how their loved ones told them to be happy in life, to move on, or whatever little gushy and beautiful thing they said just before dying. I wish we could have this kind of moment. It would have been nice to hear you say that everything was going to be okay. Or that you were content with your pending death, or that you wanted us to be happy, or that we will see the light again one day. Things like that.

Sometimes I just tell myself that Margot would have wanted me to be happy. It gives me a little hope amid the darkness. I hope you’re okay with that.

Dad

The Loss and The Losses

2011-08-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

I thought it would just be the loss of Margot. And it was, for a while. Her death was all there was and everything else, the other losses that sat on the other side of the imbalanced teeter totter, seemed rather inconsequential compared to the reality that our second child died on the freeway as we rushed to the hospital.

And now, not so much. The other losses, some permanent and some temporary, have crept up, adding to what already seemed hard enough.

Like the fact that we recently made an appointment with an infertility specialist. Even though we luckily got pregnant on our first try with Stella and Margot, it seems that massive blood loss and placenta abruption can lead to other problems, some of which may affect our ability to get pregnant in the near future. Every new monthly blood spill feels like another chip off the block of hope.

K has now been denied health insurance from everyone on our list, due to her kidney failure, a pre-existing condition that now marks her health history, like the scar that runs across her belly. Sometimes when the tears dry up, the wonderful gift of black humor comes rolling in, and we joke with one another. We got a dead baby and a pre-existing condition! Can’t say that very often.

The loss of our day to day is starting to weigh heavily. No more meet ups or mom groups or play dates with close friends. Too many babies cooing and crying, too many innocent mothers gushing over their newborns (as they should), too many mothers complaining about how hard it is to have two kids (as they should). Too many conversations that could lead to painful places. Like when a well meaning friend recently said, “When you have your second child, at least Stella will be older and having two kids will be easier. I guess in that sense, you’re lucky.”

Instead of the normal day to day, our vast community of friends and moms and neighbors has been replaced with a cave where few are allowed to enter. And we stick mostly to our cave, where it’s safe, where we can have the freedom to express our sorrow and our joy, without pressure to get better or cry less. It can be lonely in this new dwelling, so we fill it with books and our family upstairs and work and Stella, who bounces around excitedly as if this new normal is actually normal.

There is the constant reminder of what could have been, a haunting reality that comes and goes as easily as the wind. They say that when you lose a parent, you lose part of your past. When you lose a spouse, you lose part of your present. And when you lose a child, you lose part of your future. I feel this particular loss so deeply, the loss of all the ways our lives would be different if Margot had lived.

A dear friendship sits in hiatus. We mourn with them, separately and sometimes together, hoping this too shall pass.

And then there is our precious little L who preceded Margot by a week, who lives a few houses down, whose parents happen to be our best friends. We dreamed of sharing our little tikes together, of daily hang outs and nightly card games and watching Stella care for them and most of all, watching them grow up together, little hand holding little hand.

Some days, like today, when the grief feels heavier than ever, when it feels like this will never end, I have to remember that it’s not just Margot we have lost.

An Open Letter To Grief

2011-08-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

Dearest Grief,

It seems as if we’ve been intimate for as long as I can remember, even though it’s only been a little over four months. I suppose this is where I should start.

I’m grateful it took so long to become acquainted with one another. Thirty-one years seems like quite a long time of living without you, especially when there is life to be considered. The possibilities for death seem endless, yet I never knew death. The reality of heartache and depression and sorrow seem almost inevitable in this life, yet I somehow managed to escape their grip. Nor have I known the pain of a life that didn’t turn out like I hoped, something I was always frightened of.

Was it simply my good fortune we haven’t met for so long? Was it my background or family or decision making? Was it a fluke?

I guess it’s neither here nor there. Everything happened and nothing happened all at once, preventing our paths from crossing, allowing my innocence and happiness to fill your absence. I suspect you were always right there, weren’t you? Waiting for me if the time came.

And then, of all the beating hearts that had to stop, it was my daughter’s.

You stretched out your hand and I didn’t accept.
I held my hands behind my back and closed my eyes.
I’m strong enough, I tell myself.

I peaked at you.
Before I could reach up, you reached down.
I lie on the ground, beaten and bruised, empty and bloody.

You flood my mind and heart, I almost drown.
Your weight is a thousand pounds, I can hardly breathe.
I can’t do this, I tell myself.

On my knees in the mud, clawing ahead, clawing together.
The mud turns to grass and then back to mud.
My knees become my feet and then I’m back to my knees.

The months go on, we trudge together through the storm.
Sometimes on my own, sometimes with K.
Sometimes with her.

Sometimes with a thousand others, with all of history, we trudge.
Sometimes I see friends, on a parallel path, with dead babies, with you, in the mud.
They whisper over to us, you are not alone.

A friend you have become, a friend you are.
You are my dark cloud and my hopeful sun.
To whatever may come, to however long we will be intimate, I reach out my hand in surrender.

2:12 am

2011-08-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

I wake up. I'm back there in a flash.

It's the hardest part. And the best part.

She is there, wrapped up in a pink blanket, a little hoody hiding her black hair.

Her face is close. I touch her nose with my nose. I kiss her lips with my lips. I nuzzle against her cheek with my cheek.

We are both sideways. My hand on her back, her cold body against my chest, her head under my chin.

I open the lids for a peak and find blue.

I'm so sorry sweetie. Repeat.

The rain pours. Water cascades down the window, as if trying to reach out and wash over us.

I'm back there in a flash. As if I ever left.

As if I ever left.

The Day I Lied

2011-08-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

I could sense the question coming as soon as the woman started in on Stella’s eyes.

“Oh my God, them are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen,” she pronounced with an oomph.

Stella dismisses her casually, as if she has been here before. I say thank-you, as if I’ve been here before.

“What color are yer eyes, boy? Let me see them eyes!”

“Hazel.” I say, without giving her a chance to see the pain.

“Oh, she must get them pretty things from her Momma then.”

“Yep,” I add, hoping my dismissive tone will be picked up on, ending our brief exchange as soon as it’s started. I’m weary of these kind of conversations now because I know where they lead. I avoid them at the park and the grocery store and just about anywhere else I go alone with Stella, even willing to act a fool, or a jerk, just to skirt around them. It’s not as if I mind going there, of answering the question, but I don’t want to put them through it. I don’t want to see their face. I don’t want to be what they think about for the next thirty minutes or two hours or the rest of the day. I don’t want to burst their bubble of innocence.

I look at her, pleading with my eyes for her to simply finish ringing our lunch through the checkout. My face contorts this way and that in a hapless attempt to express my misfortune without opening my mouth. Surely, I think to myself, after months or years in her profession, she has learned to evaluate the mood of customers and then act accordingly.

“Girl, come look at the eyes on this little girl.” The cashier calls for her friend, the barista, to come over for a peek.

“Oh, sweetheart, just look at you!” her friend says with almost the same sense of urgency and pizazz as her co-worker. These two are a match made in sanguine, extroverted heaven.

Stella can no longer shrug it off or resist this persistence. She has taken the bait and all but forgotten about her pizza and juice and one promised chocolate covered peanut. She laughs as big as ever, showing her teeth and puffy cheeks, giving them everything they asked for and more.

“Oh lordy!” the women shout in near unison as they raise their arms and sway their hips to Stella’s reaction. The main culprit’s big hoop earrings flail about, shooting in one direction and then another, signaling the climax of her blue eyed obsession.

I can visually see this scene unfolding before me. I can hear it. But I’m already drifting, wondering how I’ll answer the question that is inevitably about to rise forth out of this woman.

Just as she finally settles back into ringing the last of our lunch items through, she finally comes out with it.

“Is she your only one?”

My mind races, my mouth freezes.

“Is she your only one? You got any other beauties with blue eyes?” she asks again, laughing this time as she clarifies her question.

Under normal circumstances, with my family and friends and acquaintances, Margot is all I want to talk about. There have even been times when I want to talk about her to strangers, as if spreading her story around the city might keep her spirit alive a little longer.

I could be straightforward. Actually, no, my second child died three months ago and her eyes were as blue as the Mediterranean, I could say. I could just come out with my sadness and deal with her face and the possibility of a sweet or frustrating response and then eat my food a few steps away and walk out of the store.

Or I could tell her more gently, in a more removed, it’s in the past sort of way. I could tell that I have two kids, but only one who is living. And I could try and conjure up some sort of contentment in my face, as if I have made peace with the fact that my second daughter died.

But, as it happened, neither of these responses came to my lips.

“She’s my only one.” I say quietly.

As my lips utter this lie, I have this unexpected moment with Margot. It’s just her and I together, looking at one another playfully as if she is my little secret. I know you’re there baby girl, I say to her. I know Dad, she says with a wink. And before I can tell her how much I miss her, she is gone. Just like that.

July 2011

2011-08-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Highlights: We spent a few wonderful days near Joshua Tree with some dear friends to celebrate a birthday, take pictures and eat good food. And thanks to some generous folks, we spent a few days in a cabin up in Northern California. Wineries, kayaking and a visit from another friend made it a nice break. A few photos from the month:

[stella dancing her heart out for a crowd of jazz lovers]

[fun at the porter creek winery]

[stella and i kayaking away from the cabin on the russian river]

[housemates sharing the ipad]

[outside a thrift store in the desert. this girl is obsessed with animals]

[stella loves finley]

[lots of trips to the beach]

[playing with my new canon 30D]

State Of Flux

2011-07-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 8pm: I am SO motivated.

We have our calendars out - my laptop and keyboard, her paper and pencil - and sit across a wooden table from one another in our kitchen nook. I feel ready for a schedule. I feel ready to plan five days in a row. I am done shuffling listlessly from here to there, without directions or purpose, blown by the winds of grief from hour to hour.

This time every Sunday evening is sacred in this household. For our parenting sanity. For my routine driven personality. For productivity. And it prevents me from wasting time, something I can occasionally do with reckless abandonment. We haven’t sat down like this since late March.

Monday, K says, let’s talk about tomorrow. We trade tasks and plans and switches and meals and add them to our calendars in unison. I start by typing 5:45am: WAKE UP and feel steadfastly confident in my ability to get up that early again, as I did in my former life.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Lock it in.

As it stands on paper and screen, it’s going to be a good week. We are going to exercise more. We are going to tackle some home projects. We are going to try for another baby. We have time for reading and writing, time alone, meals with friends and enough shared energy to give Stella another action filled week.

Sunday, 8:30pm: The shutting of my computer is the beginning of the end, though I don’t know it yet. My shoulders drop. I stare out the window as the traces of light shoot across the yard. She is always on my mind. Would she be sleeping now? K gets up and makes a couple of drinks. Whiskey and vodka, for this crew.

Sunday, 11pm: We fall into bed early. I set my alarm. You can do it, remember this feeling of motivation, I press myself, and I still have a small part of me that thinks I can manage. I read a little Bukowski and laugh again at his dedication in Pulp: Dedicated to bad writing.

Monday, 5:45am: A soothing sound rises from my phone, which sits on the ground just within reach. For a split second, I’m awakened to a new world, a fresh day that doesn’t have a dead baby stamp on it. Then I remember. Margot is still dead. This is still my life.

Before all of this happened, the bed was like a magnet, pulling me back towards it, beckoning me to rest just a wee bit longer. I rarely caved in then. Now the bed is a wall of concrete, with a heavy ball and chain deeply set into it. The chains wrap themselves around my limbs, the ball sits on my chest, leaving me in a state of heavy submission.

I stare upwards for a moment. The fan blows cool air in from the window. I feel a small drop of comfort in the familiarity of this grief. I skip the snooze altogether and reset the alarm for 7:30. I turn towards K and close my eyes.

Right Where I Am Project: 141,471 Words Later

2011-07-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

This piece is dedicated to the 160 babyloss parents who took part in Angie's epic Right Where I Am project (as of July 18) and to all of our babies that were lost. It is also dedicated to the thousands of faceless parents around the world that lose babies every year (some 30,000 in America alone). I originally joined the project because I wanted to soak up as much as I could from everyone who has gone before us. And as I feel Margot slipping away from me as the days without her trudge on, I felt like this was a way for me to be close to her and to honor her death. So, I read and read and read, all the way up to last night, when I read and filed away the 160th post in the project.

I just want to say a huge thank-you to all of the babyloss parents who participated. Words cannot describe the gratitude I feel for each one of you, whether you are years out from your loss or just a few weeks or months. Each and every post, whether heart breaking or hopeful or a blend of the two, was so meaningful and raw and beautiful in it's own right. There is solace in this beautiful mess of a community we have formed since all of our losses. I titled this piece Right Where We Are because in some strange and mysterious way, no matter how many miles separate us, we are in this TOGETHER. There is strength in numbers and I pull from your strength every day.

Cold is the water
It freezes your already cold mind
Already cold, cold mind
And death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence
But it will not steal your substance

But you are not alone in this
And you are not alone in this
As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand
Hold your hand

- Mumford and Sons. "Timshel." Sigh No More.

If you're interested in having this file for yourselves, please leave a comment below with your email so I can send you the file (it's really large and downloading it from here won't allow you to print it full size).

A few notes on the project:

- Basically, I took one word or a few words or a sentence from every single post and added to the piece. Each line and color represents a new post, starting with the first post and ending with Angie's. I read every post at least twice and looked for a theme within that post. Whether it was sad or hopeful or depressing or content, I tried to honor that person's post with what I chose to include in the document.

- On a deeper level, to begin with, I also put all of the collective posts together in one document and then read through the document as a whole piece to see if I could find lots of repeated ideas that were communicated. For example, how we will all miss our babies forever or how hard it was for so many people to deal with friends or how anxiety filled the subsequent pregnancy was...stuff like that. And then I tried to include this kind of thing as well from different posts that were written for the project.

- Special love goes out to Sally (Hopes Mama) and Jill (Only A Whisper) - they commented on almost every single post in the entire project. I felt their presence as I read and copied and pasted for hours on end.

- All in all, there were approximately 141,471 words written or 239 pages in my word document. This doesn't include a few BLM's that had private blogs that I couldn't access.

- I went over and over through this piece to make sure I didn't leave out any baby names. I hope I got them all, and I'm fairly certain I did (excluding those who have private blogs that I couldn't access). But if I missed one, please let me know and I can add their name in.

- The original document itself is 4800 X 6000 pixels and 300 DPI, so it prints really clearly at 16 X 20 inches.

The Best Case Of the Worst Scenario

2011-07-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful.

I find myself thinking of these words between the rising and setting sun, as the weeks and months click over and move into the past.

But what I have found to be remarkable about these words is that I don’t need to remind myself of them. It’s not as if, in the middle of the sometimes intolerable sorrow, I need to dig deep and remember what I’m grateful for. Nor is it conjured up, a coping mechanism to get me through. Instead, this gratefulness is always just there, as with my grief, and together they seemed to have formed a balancing act that allows me teeter totter my way through the day. These two powers reside somewhere deep inside the cavernous parts of my being, both existing together without being forced or contrived.

For how can I stay in the dark when there is my Kari? How can I keep sinking when there is my Stella? How can there only be sadness when there is my life, which is still filled with more beauty than I could have ever imagined?

Some days my grief shouts louder than my gratitude, leaving me in a paralyzed state of sadness. On these days, I would trade everything good in my life to have Margot back. But some days, like today, I close my eyes, stretch out my hands, crank up the volume and let the gratitude wash over me, one person and experience and fortunate circumstance at a time.

Anticipation

2011-07-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

It was July 2010 and the line on the pee stick was faint. I hardly even believed K when she showed me, my eyes squinting and focusing, trying to find the line that meant we were having a second child. But there it was, all fuzzy and gray as I held the stick in front of the window.

We embraced near the toilet and exchanged a few excited words. We imagined the little pin point embryo taking shape inside her, the cells multiplying to form the tissue and organs that would become our second little tike.

All it took was that line. We were in. The colossal ball of anticipation began rolling down a mountain that was forty weeks tall. We walked out of the bathroom with eyebrows raised and a lightness to our steps. I could feel my heart expanding, making room for another child to fall madly in love with. We were going to be a family of four. Stella was going to be a big sister. April 2011 couldn’t come soon enough.

And then we thought and talked about that little person every single day. We followed it’s progress week by week, looking at pictures of how big it was, reading about what new development was happening inside K’s growing belly. We guessed the sex, our guts always playing games with our minds. It’s a boy. I think it’s another girl. No, it’s gonna be a boy. Back and forth we went on it’s gender, just because it’s so damn fun to think about.

We sat in front of a screen at twenty weeks and saw it for the first time. It swooshed and turned and flipped while our doctor probed and pushed until coming to the conclusion that we both guessed at different times along the way. Our little baby was a girl. A girl. We held hands and smiled to one another as our doctor continued to look things over. Stella was going to be a big sister. The colossal ball of anticipation became even larger, if it’s possible, as it rolled past twenty weeks, halfway down the mountain.

The naming of this SHE immediately followed our appointment and the conversation went on for months. We started in on the car ride home. Do you still like Margot? I asked Kari. I think so, she said. I think so.

Prepping Stella for this new sibling was an easy task. Before K’s belly was even noticeable, Stella was already elated. When we told her she was having a sister, just like mommy and daddy had, she grew even more excited. And when K’s belly began protruding farther and farther out, Stella talked about it every day. Momma’s belly have baby, she would say. She would usually follow this up with a joke that was funny even after the 100th time. I HAVE BABY TOO, she would yell as she pulled up her shirt. DADDY HAVE BABY TOO! Her older sister responsibilities began when we told her the baby’s name. Margot? she asked. Margot! she yelled. Almost every day she would gently rub and kiss K's belly and talk to her little sister. Her engagement with the whole process was something we talked about every day because it seemed so astonishing.

As it is for most, pregnancy is not easy with K, as I wrote about in some detail at thirty-two weeks: Her ribs hurt this time around. They feel as if they have been kicked, on repeat, for several months straight. The only nice part about aching ribs is that it steers the pain away from her back, which has methodically worsened with each new pound that adds itself to her chest, legs and belly. When she's not shifting uncomfortably in bed due to muscle soreness and joint pain, she is getting up, on average, six times to pee at night. She is inevitably tired for most of the day, as universal a sensation as there is for a woman with child. Her emotions swell and contract on a weekly basis, depending on the hormonal shifts that tinker and toy with her mood and eating habits and outlook on life, as if she needed something else to push her over the edge. There is also energy inefficient Stella to contend with this time, the little tike that can go from sunrise to sunset without taking a breather, blowing energy on running and talking and getting dirty and always asking us for "two more minutes" to play before nap or bedtime. And all of this while miraculously carrying a little fetus that is developing on auto-pilot just below the surface, whom she shares nutrients and oxygen with through a small, life allowing cord, a feat so primal and beautiful it's hard to even conceive.

And there was everything else. Getting our closet ready for her arrival. Ordering those tiny little diapers and bringing back out the baby clothes and planning for the arrival of our families. We spent more time with Stella as our family of three would soon be no longer. We ate out more, took longer walks, wrestled and loved and cherished as deeply as we could. It’s the end of an era, we kept saying to one another.

We knew what the final push in labor and delivery would mean. The single greatest moment of my life had been seeing Stella’s body emerge from K. The rush of love in that moment practically barreled me over. The pure joy, the sheer ecstasy of that first moment is almost too profound and mysterious for words. As the great ball of anticipation charged past thirty-six weeks, this moment was all we could think about. What will she look like? What will labor be like? Will she be big and long like Stella? Will she have lots of hair? It simply goes without saying. We couldn’t wait to meet her. We couldn’t wait to introduce her to Stella. We couldn’t wait to introduce her to our family and our friends. We couldn’t wait to introduce to her arranged best friend Lyla, who was due to make her own entrance just a few weeks before Margot. We couldn’t wait to dump the copious amounts of love on her that we had been storing up since first seeing the fuzzy line.

By the time the ball of anticipation plowed through thirty-seven weeks, it was all there was. It felt as though we had been holding our breath for her arrival for so long that we couldn’t wait to exhale again as we held our little girl. When people asked if Stella was my only one, I would tell them she wouldn’t be my only one for long. Our baby is coming, our baby is coming. I wanted to shout it out Paul Revere style everywhere I went.

And then, right at the very very very end, just as the anticipation was nearing climax and after all of the deep longing and build up and growing love and physical hardship and everything else that went into those nine and a half months, Margot died.

June 2011

2011-07-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

In an effort to remember everything else going on these post-Margot days, I'm bringing back the end of month recap. Some days it feels like grief is all there is, but after looking over the past month in pictures, it's nice to remember we got up to some other stuff as well.

HIGHLIGHTS: We spent most of the month playing in our neighborhood with friends and kids, with our fenced in yard being the focal point. My dad also swung through for two days (supposed to be the first time he met Margot). We spent some time hiking at the memorial site, or Margot's River as we have come to think of it. And we made it down to San Diego to see our perfect little nephew Miles turn two. And we got some tattoos. Two circles, one for each kiddo.

The Night I Used Birds To Fight Off My Demons

2011-06-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

I lay in bed and stare upwards. My hands are folded across my chest, my legs outstretched on the bed. There is a flicker of light coming in through the heavy curtains, enough for me to imagine cosmic shapes in our outdated popcorn style ceiling. My eyes are blank. My breathing is slow. I have things to say to Kari, who lies next to me, but before I can move my lips, my blank stare takes over, paralyzing me as it does from time to time.

My demons named fear and irrationality and anger have burst forth, taking advantage of my tired state of mind and heart.

I think of the accident. It replays over and over, almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. Where I was, where she was and all the calculated changes in our day that could have prevented it. I think of Stella in the next room over, sound asleep, and this new fear of death makes me want to sneak into her room and double check that she is still breathing. Scratch that. It makes me want to sleep right next to her on the floor every night until she leaves the house for good one day. I think of Kari’s broken body. I think of how unfair it is that she suffered so much and got nothing out of it. I think of how lucky everyone around me seems to be, with all of their kids and all of their hearts still intact. I think of quitting my job. I think of moving away, to some far off place, where every family has lost a child. I think of how impossible tomorrow seems, facing people and our new reality and my job.

There is a reason my lips can’t seem to form words. Kari doesn’t need to wrestle with my demons tonight. I shift under the sheets and turn on my side towards the wall, my back pushing up against Kari’s side, as if she is my grounding force, the only energy keeping my mind from drifting off into hopeless skies.

I’m scared. The inevitable death that is somewhere in my future, in my families future, seems so real and possible and close. I plead with the universe. Give me five years. Five years before something else happens.

I can hear Kari dozing peacefully and I hope her dreams aren’t too awful. I crawl out of bed and head to the bathroom for some perspective. I have learned over these long three months to not trust a single thought I have while laying in bed. I find my phone near the sink and turn it on without much thought. I see Angry Birds, an app that filled my sleepless nights at the hospital, and open it up. I start chucking tiny colorful birds, with all different special powers, at little egg stealing green things that hide in structures. Before I know it, twenty minutes has gone by and my demons have receded.

I clamber back into our loft bed, phone in hand, and continue flinging birds through the air in a frenzied, pathetic attempt to get three stars on each level. And somewhere between one level and the next, I’m sound asleep.

The Weeks Turned Into Months

2011-06-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

I remember when Stella turned three months old. My best friends were in town and it was the last time I used weeks to describe how old she was to the world, just as I stopped counting in days when she hit number seven. On 5.21.09, she was no longer twelve weeks old. She was three months old and it blew our minds at the time. And it kind of felt monumental, a milestone in her little life.

Even though only ninety some days had passed, the three of us had already been through so much together. Her birth was a thirty-six hour saga that left us in a state of blissful exhaustion. We parented with total abandonment and lots of sleep deprivation. We kept a detailed diary of her feeding and sleeping and pooping and watched her change from day to day. We saw her first smiles and coos and watched television during her three am feedings. I bathed with her in the tub every single day, studying her little limbs as I gently cleaned her on a nightly basis. When she spent a week straight in collicky hell, I had to hold her like a football, her face down in my hands, her legs straddled around my forearm, and take her on long walks around the city. I would sing You Are My Sunshine on repeat until she finally fell asleep, somewhere between our loft and Pershing Square. The camera lived around my neck in those three months and we constantly found ourselves repeating to one another, look at her, look at her, look at her.

We took this photo on her three month mark and quietly congratulated ourselves for making it that far. She was so big and mohawky and full of independence. This was the only way she would let us hold her those days. Girl needed some space.

If it is possible to miss Margot more than yesterday, I miss her even more today, three months to the day since she was here and then wasn't.

DIY: Stella Inspired Outdoor Puzzle Table

2011-06-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

While I have three grief posts brewing and one big Still Life art project in the works, I figured a post of some kind was do.

Stella and I finished this piece last week for our porch. There aren't many days that go by without the two of us getting her blocks out so we can play dominoes and build tall buildings. Or as Stella puts it, "build city dad?" She loves one particular design that we came up with because we can see each other through the building and play little games of hide and seek. So when K and I decided it would be nice to have a porch table for wine glasses and feet to rest on, Stella's favorite block design won out. I used reclaimed scrap wood from the shop and Stella helped as much as she could with handing me wood and adding the finish.

Desperate For Different

2011-06-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

There's a thought that haunts me. It quietly creeps in when I wake up in the morning and then lurks around during the day, getting a little louder as the sun sets, and then in those dreaded late night hours when the moon is high, it knocks me over.

What if nothing changes.

What if I lose a baby and my life stays the same?

But the fucked up irony is that I want the most important aspects of my life to stay the same. I love getting to spend so much time every day with my partner and first child. I like my job and I like that my life controls my job and that it’s not the other way around. I like where I live. I like my friends and the community we have created for ourselves. My values and desires have always been right in front of me, as if in the back of my mind, I knew death could come at any moment. Take nothing for granted. Love passionately. Live the life you want. This kind of thinking, passed on by my parents and fueled into fruition by my woman of a wife, consumed me from week to week. This tragedy hasn't really changed any of this. As I held my Margot and willed my partner to keep fighting, there wasn't any wake up call to life.

And yet I can’t just settle all the way back into my former life. I need something to be different. I need Margot’s death to produce some sort of change in me, or my day to day routine, or something. Otherwise it all seems so much more tragic. My baby died and then nothing happened.

Some changes come through effort. I am now a blood donor. I am having two tattoos done. I go to a support group for babyloss parents. My blog, formerly a family record, is now a family record and a diary about loss and sorrow and dead babies.

Some changes have come unexpectedly, without much effort. The rivers and lakes and oceans I find myself hiking through and wading in have miraculously turned into Margot. It’s her way of saying, I’m still here Daddy. And I see people differently now. As grief latches onto my skin and pulls me under, it’s like I can see the color orange for the first time. This was what it was like after having my first child. A new color emerged, one I had heard about, but never experienced for myself. Now another color has suddenly burst onto the scene and it changes the way I see people who are hurting. My innocence and naivety and have been replaced with an empathy that I never knew before. For the first time in my life, I better understand what it means to be fully human, to be fully alive, to be able to identify and understand the world's suffering in a new light. Full of joy and now full of sorrow.

What changes lay ahead are simply there. I don't know what they are. I can't see them. But I sense they are coming, eventually, and I hope I'll embrace them when they do.

DIY: For All Of Us

2011-06-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

I finished building our new reclaimed wood dining table in the shop last week. I cut and ripped and planed and cried while listening to Margot's mix, my tears and sawdust coming together to form something of a tribute. Going along with our desperate desire for our lives to be different now, in some small way to honor Margot, we decided to build a new table for our family and friends to sit around. I engraved the bottom with the date and our initials. K. J. S. M.

The Day We Said Goodbye and She Rode Around the City Alone

2011-06-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

[march 25, 2011]

It was 2am and everything was a blur. My face was soaked with tears, my eyes were red and blotchy, my heart felt relieved and broken all at once. Kari lived, Margot died.

A nurse waited outside our door with a baby cart from labor and delivery. Her eyes were kind and her smile dripped with empathy, the raised corners of her thin lips said everything that needed to be said. I’m so sorry.

We took some pictures with Margot. We said things to her. We kissed her cheeks. And then it was time. I picked up her swaddled body, pressed her against my chest and walked out to the nurse. She stood off to the side as I gingerly placed my daughter in the cart.

As Margot rolled away, I turned back towards our room, towards my wife who was pushing her morphine button with one hand and waiting for my hand with the other. And that was that. She was gone.

There was little sleep that night. I could physically feel the brokenness of my heart, rapid beats interspersed with slow, monotonous pumping. It felt like it was fragmented into three parts and spread throughout the city. One piece was at home with Stella, who was sleeping peacefully, innocence still intact. One piece with my Kari, the first to get my heart a decade earlier. And one piece went rolling away with Margot, slowly cracking as it followed her down the halls toward the morgue.

As a father to Stella, I have been there, with her, almost every step of the way from the very first ultrasound to last night, when we sang row your boat in our funny voices before bedtime. We took baths together when she was a baby and we went to the doctor together for shots. I was there for her first words and first steps and first friendships. She is simply always in our care, or in the hands of our family or housemates or friends. She has never been alone in her life, she has never felt a moment of being lost.

But there Margot went, off without us, alone for the first time after only nine hours in the world. Her father was missing and she was alone and this still pains me to no end.

I wish I could have rolled away with her that night, my hands on her cheek and chest. I wish I could have sat by her in the morgue. I wish I could have held her as she rode to the clinic for surgery. I wish I could have watched over her as they opened her heart and removed her valves. I wish I could have told the coroner her tragic story as he tried to make sense of her death. I wish I could have been on the freeways with her, roaming around Los Angeles, from clinic to hospital to funeral home to cremation center. I wish I could have been there when she was cremated and I wish her sacred ashes were never in the hands of impassive strangers.

The irony in all these wishes is that she has always been here with me. For somewhere that night, perhaps after I finally fell asleep, her presence filled that cracked piece of my heart that followed her down the hall and made it’s way back to me.

Cold Water

2011-06-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

We walk along the trail at a leisurely place. The winding path is dusty in most places and wet in some places, mostly down near the creek that moves rapidly over boulders and the roots of swollen palm trees. Jagged rocks tower over the north side of the gorge. They take the oppressive heat in stride and have an air of intimidation about them, as if they are keeping watch over the miraculous water that helped form their very existence. A dry, mountainous desert borders the south side and seems to go on forever, ridge after tiresome ridge. Lizards run over rocks and around trees and seem to be anxious about everything. This is Indian territory and we tread solemnly, with regard for the sacred land. A half mile in, we find a nice smooth rock near the edge of the creek and take our shoes and socks off. Sitting down, I wrap my arms around my knees and dip my feet into the cold, cold water.

I can already feel my daughter, running over my toes and around my ankles.

Looking back, I don’t think there was ever much of a choice about what we would do with Margot’s little body. A casket and burial seemed like too much in those early hours after her death, as we held her in a state of shock. It felt like too many details and too unnatural, her body slowly decomposing away in a sealed casket underneath the ground somewhere in a city that we have just started calling home. Besides, what if we moved one day? How would we access her then? Instead, we opted for cremation. We wanted to spread her ashes into the earth.

We placed most of her ashes into a seasonal creek that runs out of the rocky and formidable San Gabriel Mountains. Once out of the foothills, the creek joins forces with the LA River and eventually makes it’s way out to the Pacific, the largest puzzle piece our earth possesses, connecting continents and bodies of water to one another. I didn’t know how important this one act would be until I started sensing Margot’s presence every time I entered into the ocean or river or stream, as if her ashes multiplied a million times over to cover every body of water I find myself in.

I slide my feet deeper into the water until the coldness hits my knees, the hair on my calves swooshing back and forth in unison. Margot rolls past, over and over until I lose myself in the symbolic water. I want to tear off my shirt and submerge my whole body under the surface. I want to swim with her, downstream, as far as she will take me.

I wearily immerse my hands into the water and collect as much of her in my cupped hands as possible. I miss you, I whisper, and then bring the water up to my face and let it wash over me.

Right Where I Am: 67 Days

2011-05-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

My free moments often take me down long and heart wrenching rabbit holes looking for stories about baby loss. Sometimes I click and read and click and read, digging deeper and deeper until I suddenly find that the depth of my despair has plummeted to the depth of the rabbit hole I’m lost in. Like when I read about parents who seem to give up hope or when I read about the mother who lost four babies. But every so often, I dig down and click and read and then, promptly, I find myself emerging out of the ground in a better place, with more hope and less despondency. I had one of those moments today when I stumbled upon a beautiful blog called Still Life With Circles. In her latest post, she asks her baby loss readers to write about where they are now in grief. So that is what I will do.

It’s been sixty-seven days since our Margot June died. We were so, so close to meeting her. She was right there, breathing and kicking, just about to enter into our lives. And we lost her. And I miss her so much I can barely let myself think of her, my actual physical second child who weighed nearly eight pounds and closely resembled her older sister. And this is perhaps the dominating face of my grief on day sixty-seven. I miss my daughter. I want her to be here. I want to lay her across my bare chest and breath together. I want to see Stella interact with her. I want to share her with our friends. I want to crawl into bed happily exhausted from caring for two children, instead of crawling into bed hoping the nightmares will pass by me. I miss her. I miss her. I miss her.

There are other emotions of course, less forceful, but lurking none the less as I approach seventy days.

My mind and heart continue to be on different teams, each vying for my allegiance, each making the necessary arguments. My rational reminds me that death is part of life and that it wasn’t long ago that losing babies was somewhat normal. It implores me to hold these truths close and tells my heart to relax a bit. My heart gushes forth the obvious. Margot died. Her body was cremated a few days later and a few weeks after that, we poured her ashes out in the river. And we will always long for her, no matter how normal and frequent death is. My mind usually sweeps in when my heart can’t take it anymore.

I wondered in the hospital how long it would take for us to laugh again. I wondered how long life would run in slow motion. I wondered when I’d be able to walk at a normal pace again, or smile to a passing stranger. I wondered when we would care about anything else, like who won survivor or what to build next or where to go on vacation, if there could ever be such a wonderful thing as a vacation again.

But in the midst of Everything That Happened, we have laughed since Margot died. We laugh when Stella uses her funny voice, a low, deep sound, like she is old and southern. Helllllllo Daaaadddy. And Kari and I still laugh about random things, just like we used to. We dance every day together as a family, just like we used to. Of course, we swing our hips to the Margot June mix instead of Bob Marley, but we’re still dancing. I walk to work at a normal pace and sometimes, when I’m ripping a 2X10 or sanding a beautiful piece of reclaimed hickory, I feel a tinge of normalcy. And we leave for Palm Springs in the morning for two nights in the desert. I can’t call it a vacation, but it’s something I guess. I couldn’t have imagined that in the midst of the constant pangs of loss and a sorrow deeper than I could have ever imagined, all of this would somehow still exists.

If you took the pieces of my emotions from the last twenty-four hours and scattered them around the screen and dissected each one, you would learn rather quickly that where I am on day sixty-seven is an utter mess. And by mess, I mean depressed and hopeful and sad and happy and angry and controlled and desolate and content all at once. And I’m learning to be okay with this new reality, however long it exists.

[as a side note to everyone who has been following our journey. thank-you for reading this blog for the past sixty-seven days. i can't even begin to express my gratitude for your repeated hits and comments. each one seems to be a shot of hope and your empathy and shared grief is often just what we need. so please keep following and say hello from time to time.]

[special thanks to Angie at Still Life for this beautiful project.]

Old Blood, Young Body

2011-05-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

I donated blood today. It was the first time I’ve ever donated. It was the first time I ever considered donating. There have been many chances in the past to donate and I dismissed each one of them for various reasons, but mostly because I just didn’t feel like doing it. During one blood drive in College, I played ping pong in the same room where everyone waited in line.

The mere thought of losing Margot and my life staying the same is enough to make me lose my mind. For nothing to change, for nothing to be different feels like she died all over again, as if her life came and went without any significance. I find no meaning in her death, no good reason whatsoever. But I desperately want my life, in some way, to be a tribute to her.

I walked in through the door marked “donor entrance.” My pockets contained my photo ID, headphones and my iPhone, which was already cued up to play my Margot June mix. I was ready for the needle and the tears and the reflection.

On first glance, the inside of the center was as I imagined it to be. White walls, florescent lights and floors scrubbed to a glossy finish. Nurses moved around gingerly from donor to desk, looking purposeful and bored all at once. The large open room smelled fresh and seemed to breathe hope, as if the pints of blood were letting off an aroma of life.

As I sat down to fill out my information, a more careful look revealed an unexpected sight. Several old men were wrapped in red cross blankets and watching a television that was suspended in front of them. They too had needles, but their tubes were connected to big machines.

By the time I arrived in the little room where a nurse took my vitals, I had already been thanked four times by various nurses and volunteers. I didn’t know how to reply.

The nurse took my blood pressure, pulse and poked my finger to see if I had enough red blood cells to donate. I found out the old men were donating platelets and that it takes nearly two hours a session. She says most of the platelet donors are older folks. It was all I could do to stop myself from leaving the room to run to the old men. I wanted to kiss their cheeks and hold their hands and thank them for donating the miraculous platelets that help people's blood to clot. I imagine Kari an old soul now, her blood filled with platelets from the elderly.

Following vitals, I had to answer personal questions on a computer screen. Have I lived in the UK for a total of three months between 1980 and 1996? No. Have I had aspirin in the last 48 hours? No. Have I paid for sex anytime since 1972? Nope (but why is 72’ the cut off?).

I wanted the nurse to ask me why I was donating. I wanted to tell her it was because my daughter died on March 24, 2011. And that my wife would have died without the 14 blood and platelet transfusions she received. I wanted to tell her that I want my life to be different now as a tribute to my daughter, that I want to join the beautiful cycle of giving and receiving that happened when Margot donated her heart valves to three babies and strangers donated their blood to Kari. Instead I sat in silence, with a band-aid on my finger and straps around my arm, and thought of my tiny Margot.

The needle goes in on the right side and immediately takes me back fifty-five days to the hospital. As the blood flows out, I remember the blood flowing into Kari, one pint after another, as I desperately waited to see clots form.

Maybe it was better to keep our story to myself. Because for those seven minutes, in the presence of nurses and white walls and televisions and cubicles and red cross blankets, Margot and I shared some time together, just the two of us.

The Day My Daughter Showed Her Innocence

2011-05-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

[april 25, 2011]

The three of us sit on our uncomfortable couch. Stella in the middle, us flanking her on either side. It’s in the evening, curtains are closed, our Margot June mix playing in the background. The oldest of us are crying, missing our second child, wishing desperately she was here. Stella is playing a word game on my phone until she interjects at the appropriate moment, as if she was listening the entire time.

“Margot died mamma?” she asks it like a question, but there is a certainty behind her tone. We go through these motions every day with her.

“Yep, Margot died sweety.” Kari replies.

“Sad so much?”

“Yes, we are so sad buddy. We miss Margot. She is your little sister.” I repeat these words several times a day, hoping they will one day mean something special to Stella.

“New baby?”

“We’ll try.”

“Baby brother?”

“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe.” Kari looks at me longingly. I know what she’s thinking.

We reach out our arms above Stella and grab hands, tears welling up as Crazy Heart plays in the background.

Suddenly Stella giggles for no apparent reason. An innocent smile darts across her face as she reveals her little secret.

“I just farted.”

Spray, Run, Repeat

2011-05-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

They Smell Like My Past

2011-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I went back to work yesterday for the first time since March 24. I didn’t really feel like going back to work, it was just that we thought it might be a nice distraction. Normally this would be quite the break, the kind of prolonged vacation only reserved for long trips or a new baby. Or a dead baby, come to find out.

I dug out my tattered jeans from the bottom drawer and slowly slipped into them, trying to avoid putting my feet through the holes in the knees. I snagged my t-shirt and pulled it over my head. Since I was planning on working the day after The Day, neither article had been washed. They smelled of sawdust and sandpaper and the rich odors of reclaimed wood and it just about killed me to realize they were, perhaps, the last tangible reminder of my former life. I remember walking home from work that day. I remember placing the clothes in the drawer and getting in the shower. I remember how excited I was for Stella to get up from her nap, to hear her say “no night night time daddy.” I remember the sweet taste of anticipation, the kind that seems to build exponentially from week 37 on. For we were having a baby girl and Stella was having a sister and we were going to be a family of four.

There are other reminders of our former lives. I look at pictures from the month before and the days before and I can see the anticipation, the happiness oozing forth in every shot. Me kissing Kari sheepishly over pizza with a friend, us holding our dear friends new baby, Kari and Stella laying together in the rocker. Or I remember events like parties with friends or moving or trips around the world or getting married and all I can think about is how innocent we were. But these clothes, this ridiculous work outfit, it's like I can physically touch and smell my past.

I practically choke on the smell. Tears burst forth as a desperate longing to rewind takes over my whole body.

This is the lay of the land these days; trying to live while never forgetting. Wake up, think of Margot. Go to bed, glad to tick off another day. Play with Stella, wish Margot was here. Eat dinner, cry over Margot. Laugh with friends, hope to get pregnant.

Go to work, remember your former life.

DIY: Reclaimed Wood, Raised Bed Garden

2011-05-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

2011 garden, a little more sophisticated than last year. Along with our housemates, we decided to build our own raised beds this year. Thanks to some extra salvaged wood we had from the shop, some free dirt and trimmings from around Pasadena and a friendly neighbor who shared some vegetables, we have ourselves a garden.

The Day I Went To the Dentist

2011-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

[april 15, 2011]

I knew the dentist I was about to see. I remembered him from three years before, when he examined my teeth and told me a crown was probably needed.

He looks to be in his late fifties. Gray hair, but full and coarse. He’s tall and slender and has the appearance of old wealth. A few wrinkles dart across his face. His smile shows average teeth, which makes him seem trustworthy. I remember his gentle spirit, the way he gracefully moved the utensils around my mouth, the way he carried himself in and out of the room. I was drawn to his sense of calm and paternal concern.

I was a different person way back in 2008 when I saw him last. It was, as I’ve come to think of it, the Before Margot time in my life (It’s strange to think that six weeks ago was also the Before Margot time in my life). Kari was five months pregnant with Stella and we were blissfully happy. After finishing his examination, he gently explained that I needed $1500 worth of work done in my mouth. I may be the only person who smiled contently after such news. Well, it’s better now than after she’s born, I told him happily. Let’s do it, I exclaimed.

That was back when I thought being pregnant would automatically lead to having a baby.

Today I slip into the chair and wait, with wet eyes, in the After Margot era of my life. In this moment, all I want to do is tell him what happened. That I just lost my baby. That she weighed 7 pounds, twelve ounces and that her name was Margot June. That she was just as gorgeous as my first born, with her big cheeks and blue eyes. I want to tell him that I feel sad.

I can’t seem to understand this desire to tell him, or to tell others who I think might empathize, as if their pity will somehow validate my pain, give meaning to my sadness. Perhaps telling strangers is some form of acceptance, acknowledging out loud that this tragedy did happen. And any little trace of acceptance that creeps out of my heart feels good these days.

Good morning, Josh, he says casually. How are you?

Thanks

2011-05-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

When it comes to giving thanks, to all of you for everything you have done for us, I feel very short on words. We have simply been overwhelmed. From the very moment this happened until now, some forty-two days later, we have been inundated with kindness, love and generosity.

To our inner circle of family and friends, we would have barely squeezed by without you. From weeping together on the first night, to holding Margot together, to the morning food runs, the daily hospital visits, the massages, sharing in our tears, caring for Stella and for sharing in our grief into the future, thank-you.

And to everyone else, from family and friends far away, to those who brought over meals every evening, to those who sent cards and emails and texts, to those who left comments, to the strangers who reached out to us, thank-you for everything.

The road ahead appears long and tiresome. There are good days and awful days and we are learning to let each day be just a day, not giving too much credit to good days and not giving too much weight to bad days. We will continue to share our journey on this blog, so please feel free to stop in from time to time.

If we could have added emails, Facebook messages and texts to this picture, the entire room would have been filled. Our deepest thanks for all that you have done and all you will continue to do.

The Day I Picked Up Her Ashes

2011-04-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

[april 14, 2011]

We decided on a Thursday that it wasn’t the right day to pick up her ashes. Something just didn’t feel right about it, as if we imagined there would be a day when it would make sense to pick up the ashes of our dead baby girl. So we went on Friday, in the afternoon. We picked a particular funeral home because they only charged $241 to cremate Margot, and the other funeral home I called wanted $635. Screw that, I said to Kari after hanging up. For a split second I wasn’t calling around about the price of cremation, but something more ordinary, like the price of carpet cleaning or an oil change.

I had driven by the funeral home a hundred times since moving to Pasadena. I always marveled at the beauty of the place. The red stone walls, the spanish bell tower, the lush landscaping.

I parked the car at the back of the lot, in a place where people wouldn’t be able to see the tears that I knew were coming. We walked in through the double doors and made our way down a long hallway with classy carpet and ornate frames filled with fabricated images of nature. Kari sat in a chair halfway down the hallway and I walked up to a large woman sitting at a desk. She wore a business suit and a look of disregard. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say? My name? My daughters name?

I felt like the whole world should know about what happened to us. I felt like this woman should have seen us coming and had everything ready.

Hi, she said blandly, as if I just interrupted her.

For a moment, I wanted to slap her. Any of the anger I had experienced suddenly had a target. I felt like unloading the shitstorm of the past two weeks onto her with every gruesome detail. I wanted to ask her how it was possible to be so damn surly, even when almost every person she encounters is there because of death. Then it was gone and I’m standing in front of her with my head down and my eyes glazed over, trying desperately to find some words.

Hi, I muttered back.

I’m here to pick up my daughter.

Amen and Amen

2011-04-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

The waves of grief continue to pound the shores of our hearts, slowly breaking off tiny pieces that sometimes feel irretrievable. Some of the waves are familiar now. Like the subtle and obvious reminders of Margot that seem to be everywhere we look. Babies, sisters at the park, ashes in the fire, an empty belly, the eery quiet of our home that should have been filled with infant wailing and dancing and friends. Or when I look at pictures of Margot, which I do every single day. I stare at her face and limbs and try to see something new, like the shape of her knees or the tiny dimple above her lips. Or the inevitable reality that most of the world has gone back to normal life. To jobs and counting their blessings and happiness and Facebook updates and exclamation points. I’m not sure this familiar grief has gotten easier to face, but it’s gotten something....perhaps there is comfort in the familiarity of it, or maybe even peace.

Then there are the waves of grief that come as a surprise and force me to take a deep breath in order to avoid throwing up. Like why must I wake up at 5am thinking about the fall on the sidewalk? Why does it replay over and over in my mind like a cruel slideshow where every slide is the same image? Or sometimes the grief is a sudden flash into my future life. This wave seems to build up steam, getting louder as it approaches, and then states boldly in no uncertain terms: Margot is still missing. I don’t even know how to begin handling this kind of unexpected grief. It builds and crashes and knocks me over until I’m standing naked and overwhelmed, lost at where to turn next.

And yet. AND YET.

Every so often, even smack dab in the middle of this grief, as the waves pound with fury, I find myself face to face with something so profound and beautiful I can hardly believe it can exist. For there in the darkness lurks courage.

From the early moments of this tragedy until now, a poem by William Henley has allowed us the words to declare our courage.

I whisper it in the depths of my despair. I chant it when the anger bubbles up, when I’m the worst version of myself, in order to bring myself back down. We utter it to each other in the most hopeful of moments, when it feels like we actually believe and feel it.

It was one of the first thoughts Kari shared with me after waking up from our five hour nightmare, when life and death teetered back and forth almost inevitably, as if losing a baby and a mother in the same evening isn’t out of the ordinary.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul...

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Amen and amen.

Standing In the Rain

2011-04-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

My Dear Stella,

I am so, so, so proud of you buddy. Despite all that you have endured over the past month, you have handled everything with so much strength. You have been shuffled between grandparents and aunties and friends, so many different people putting you to bed and singing you their own songs and feeding you and taking care of you. Knowing your love of regimen, I can only imagine how hard this must have been at times. You had to visit Mommy in the hospital, even when she didn't look like Mommy, with tubes sticking out of her neck and fifty pounds of fluids in her body. You have had to deal with constant tears and sadness, all for something you don't fully understand. The rain has come, and stayed, and you keep walking along and singing your songs. You are the bravest of all of us these days.

Love,

Dad

About Today

2011-04-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

We hardly talked today. There were few exchanges and little effort. We slept in and then laid next to one another, our eyes and toes facing the ceiling, our hearts fragile. She showered and I slowly packed up our shared suitcase. We had breakfast at a little diner and made a few comments about the food. A pregnant woman sat in the booth across from our table, looking so happy and free in her third trimester. On the drive home, we couldn’t even muster a sentence. Sadness hung over us like rain and every time I tried to claw my way back to a rational thought, the sadness seemed to take notice and gush with more force.

But what is there to say? Do we repeat everything that has been said already?

In the past, pre March 24, sadness never stayed around very long. Partly because I’m not one to dwell on the despondency of life. And partly because my nature has always been to overcome it with some form of distraction or positivity. But now, post Margot, the sadness comes and I have zero motivation to overcome it. Nor do I feel any need to get over it. And sometimes, like today, I don’t want to get over it. For there seems to be some kind of strange healing in my new friend named sadness. It feels like this sadness, which lurks around every new hour, hides in every conversation, and stares at me in the distance, just might eventually be my ticket to acceptance.

One Decade In

2011-04-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

The old man with the jeans and white tee shirt searches for buried treasure. He looks as weathered as the cliffs that dot the coastline. He swings his arm back and forth, waving a broom, listening for metal.

An oversized teenager yells to her parents from the edge of the water. Momma! Momma! Look! Seriously, look! Come on! The mom creeps closer and closer to the sixty-five degree water, her feet slowly shuffling forward to the last inch of a wave about to retreat.

A boy in board shorts chases pigeons. His shorts depict the American flag; red and white stripes on the legs, blue stars in the rear.

Pigeons aimlessly walk around the sand, bobbing their heads up and down with authority. They work in pairs and occasionally peck into the sand. The purple on their backs glisten in the sunlight. They seem comfortable yet tentative around humans, as if they haven’t quite figured out the difference between a chasing little kid and a bread generous adult.

A teenager catches a wave on his boogie board and miraculously floats on it nearly one hundred feet to the shore. He screams and hollers the entire ride and his smile is as epic and free spirited as his ride along the white washed wave.

Two sailboats in the distance. Four girls scream with delight just before the wave crashes.

The man in search of treasure disappears over the small rise without his shovel ever touching the ground. Just another day, he thinks to himself.

A couple celebrates ten years of marriage by sitting in rusty beach chairs where the sand and rocks meet one another. They type and write, grieving together, taking the sun in one ray at a time. This is nice, she says to him.

The Society Of the Suffering

2011-04-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Every day we’re astounded by our sudden strange and intimate connection with those who have experienced loss. There are those in our inner circle who have experienced this sort of sorrow in the past. Others outside of our circle have shared their own tragedies and each story seems to trigger these unexpected feelings of intimacy and empathy. Even the grief of the people we’ve only heard of seems to move us. All of these people and their stories suddenly mean something more, as if there is this alternate reality out there, this society of people who have learned to find normalcy and harmony within the grief. These people, near and far, dead and alive, are like magnets that keep drawing us in. Their stories call to us, asking for our brokenness and sadness, inviting us to share in the pain together, and in doing so, they weave our shared pain into this complicated and beautiful tapestry of grief.

These people look at us differently, with deep pools of understanding in their eyes. They’re not afraid of grief or death or freak accidents or confusion. They have a quiet strength about them. They are resilient. They have sure foundations. Somehow they have made peace with their own losses and become fuller human beings, more capable of love and empathy. They remind us that while death is no stranger and though life is not certain, hope remains.

We joined this society of the suffering not by choice. It would have been nice if death could have passed us by, if we could have lived a little while longer without this deep sorrow, but here we are.

Life is fragile.
Death comes when you least expect it.
A dozen different decisions on March 24 could have prevented the accident.
But,
Kari did fall.
Margot did die.
And grief hangs over us.

My hope is that eventually we can become like those we have joined.

Morning. Afternoon. Evening. Repeat.

2011-04-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

I’m struggling to put these last several days into words. Our emotions seem a steady portion of sadness with a dose of peace sprinkled in from time to time, which only seems to come as the tears stop rolling and we find ourselves remembering how much death and loss and grief are part of the full human experience.

We are finding ways to cope.

We have learned to measure our days and weeks in small blocks of time. Morning, afternoon and evening. The mornings seem to be the hardest, like a cruel Groundhog Day repeat moment, except the clock radio that wakes up Bill Murray is replaced by images of Margot and the harsh reality of her death. Getting through each block is our main focus, knowing that in the end, the simplicity of the clock ticking on and the calendar pages flipping over will bring healing.

Distraction has become our closest ally, giving us much needed breaks from the grief that often seems insurmountable. An afternoon playing with the kids outside, chasing them around the yard, looking for worms in the garden. An hour watching Survivor. A meal with friends. Late night fires on the back patio.

Music has helped. From The National to Eddie Vedder to Alison Krauss, we have found solace in the beautiful, soul soothing lyrics and sounds. The three of us slow dance to “Fix You” by Coldplay and for those brief few minutes, the world seems just fine.

There is sleep, precious sleep.

There is all there is to be grateful for, which we calmly repeat every single day, multiple times out. For life. Stella. Family. Friends. For all that could have been worse but wasn’t. The hundreds of strangers who have shared in our grief, sent meals and even some who have told their own tragic stories of loss.

Our thoughts and rational allow us to be comforted. We know this loss is a common experience for so many individuals and families, that death is a part of life. We know this has been the case throughout history, is the case now and will be into the future. It feels like we’re just waiting for our emotional feelings to catch up to our rational thoughts.

Ashes to ashes, morning to morning.

The Memorial

2011-04-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Since death is such a part of life, today we choose hope and acceptance, because despair is too great a burden.

The Hardest Part

2011-04-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't be this way. We shouldn't be packing up a closet that was meant for Margot, shouldn't be telling Stella that we lost her little sister. We shouldn't be having to face reminders around every corner. The flowers shouldn't be covered in sympathy. The cards shouldn't be wet with heartache. Stella shouldn't have to be so confused by our constant tears and blank stares. Our families shouldn't be flying in for this reason. Her body shouldn't have gone through all of that for nothing. We shouldn't be picking up her ashes and deciding on a memorial site and thinking about a service.

We shouldn't have come home empty handed.

And yet here we are, facing this reality, without any warning or instruction book.
Oh, how it hurts. Oh, how it hurts.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Coldplay. "Fix You." X&Y

The Hospital

2011-04-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

We went through so much here, I hardly even know where to begin. Our Stella was born here and our Margot was lost here, just a few rooms down from one another. Years from now, when we reflect on this delicate place in the foothills of the San Gabriels, I imagine this is what we will remember more than anything. But for the fourteen days we lived here, it has been agony and triumph, nurses and specialists, movies and visitors and cries of grief for Margot and desperation for two fist sized kidneys to regenerate.

A few pictures to remember these long, tiresome days:

[our room in the coronary care unit: most of the blood and platelet transfusions happened here, as well as our time with Margot]

[digits and catheters]

[the board in room 1422]

[view from room 1422. we spent hours sitting in front of this window, looking at the mountains that we have hiked and played in for the past six years]

[the hallway where our daily walking took place from day 7 to 14. we walked at least 20 laps a day down this hallway]

[dialysis. those two tubes are running into kari's neck]

[dialysis machine]

[the bereavement card outside our room, signaling to those who entered that we were in mourning]

[visitors. our families and friends came up in the morning, afternoon and evening to bring food and help us pass the time. we couldn't have done it without them]

[stella + eisley + sam]

[our wonderful, loving, tender dr. wu. he delivered stella and margot and shared in our grief more than we could have imagined]

[kari + stella, sharing a legs crossed moment]

[our wonderful nurse sheena removing the catheter from her neck. no more dialysis! kidneys are healing. we longed for this moment]

[perhaps the defining picture of our entire stay here. when kari was fighting for her life, she remembers wanting to simply feel the sun again. every day on our walks together, we would stop for several minutes in this window, letting the beautiful sun rain down on our bodies and our grief]

Home

2011-04-06T08:59:00.001-07:00

After 14 blood transfusions, 13 hospital bed nights - 5 of those in ICU - 7 days of extreme nausea, scales tipping over 180 lbs, elephant feet, 6 days of oxygen, 4 sessions of dialysis, 4 enimas, one catheter sticking out of my neck like a finger, one bruised abdomen, one c section...we are going HOME.

So much to be grateful for. So must lost.

April 4, Due Date

2011-04-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

By today, you would have been close to nine pounds. Your hair would have been darker and thicker and those important feeding reflexes even more ready for latching. And if you were anything like your stubborn sister, who came fourteen days late, this date would have come and gone without much hoopla.

April 4, 2011 has been marked in our minds and hearts for some time now, as we eagerly anticipated your official entrance in the flesh. We think of you constantly and today is no different. We miss you Margot June. We miss what was going to be.

Yes I understand that every life must end,
As we sit alone, I know someday we must go,
I’m a lucky man to count on both hands,
The ones I love.

Stay with me,
Let’s just breathe.

Eddie Vedder. "Just Breathe." Backspacer

Found and Lost and Found

2011-04-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

We endlessly swing back and forth, from grief over Margot to fighting for Kari's health, blown by the winds of bodily pain and baby reminders, neither one being easy, both frightening and unpredictable. It seems we oscillate between these two forces almost moment by moment, never letting one take too much precedence over the other, but never allowing us to fully engage with each emotion either. For when we're focused on getting better, on walking and hydrating and resting, Margot is there. And when we're remembering Margot, Kari's pain and bruises and immobility hangs thick in the air. This is our predicament, the reality of this new story we find ourselves living in.

On the one front, today was the kind of day we needed. We laughed more, smiled more, felt like ourselves more. We shared a meal with friends, wrestled and sang with Stella, spent time laughing with our families and went an entire day without the stay-in-your-bed nausea that has consumed most of our other days. We took long walks around the fourth floor of our building, stopping in a certain window to let the sun drench over us. We shared intimate cheek-to-cheek hugs and tender forehead kisses, moments nearly impossible to have with all of the tubes, pain and nausea that have dominated the past ten days. We spoke of hope and the future and began scratching the surface of what this new story might look like.

But I also lacked emotions today. My eyes were dry, my heart confused. I wanted to join Kari in tears when we spoke of what we were going to do with the tiny room we created for Margot in our bedroom closet. I wanted to cry when Stella innocently asked where Margot was. But there were no tears and few words, leaving my heart in a state of confusion. Where did the gratifying, therapeutic tears go? Why did these emotions, which were always on the edge of my heart and on the tip of my mind, suddenly seem distant and removed?

These are the thoughts and questions I have tonight. They stream back and forth tirelessly from my head to my heart and back again. I search for clues and look for meaning.

If I find solace in anything about today, it's this: whatever we're going through, whatever we're thinking, whatever emotion is dominant, whatever we may feel or not feel, however the day plays out...this is our grief. There are no easy answers, no wrong or right way to grieve, no expected formula. This grief is complicated and simple, creeps in slowly and harshly and manifests itself in many forms. I guess in these early days, I'm learning to embrace griefs tricky, soul soothing complexities, from one day to the next.

163 Hours

2011-03-31T13:04:00.001-07:00

Something

2011-03-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

I wish I was tired. I would kill to be sleeping right now. There are lots of wishes, but this one takes center stage at 10:31pm tonight. I don't want to be awake anymore today.

As Kari lies near me in a mechanical bed, sleeping as deep as she has since around week sixteen of her pregnancy, I stare blankly at this screen, lost at where to navigate. I see those damn bookmarks dangling in front of me, all leading down familiar paths. MLB. Apartment Therapy. Bank. CraigsList. There are folders for gardening and for work and for blogs. There is my documents folder, one I opened and ventured to many times a day for business and personal bookkeeping. Now these little icons and words simply serve as a reminder of what I was doing before all of this happened, a life that seems so foreign and distant now.

I'm only left staring at a blank page that beckons me to slowly tap my fingers. Out of her white space and blinking cursor, she calls me to write about nothing and everything all at once, knowing this thing called grief has no formula or pattern. And tonight, a few measly written words seem like, at the very least, something.

Margot June

2011-03-29T07:32:00.001-07:00

I have written a thousand words in my mind over the past five days, but now, as I lay my fingers to the keyboard and ponder the immensity of this tragedy, none seem to suffice.

The simple heartbreaking reality is that our sweet Margot June never had the chance to enter into our lives. She was there alive, all seven pounds, eleven ounces of her, only days away from emerging, when a tiny misstep sent Kari's protruding belly into the sidewalk. Her placenta ruptured on impact, cutting the oxygen off to our little one and altering the story of our lives in a single, solitary moment.

For nine hours, her swaddled body was with us. She was there against my chest when I mourned over her in a private room while waiting for her momma to wake from her emergency cesarean. She was there in my hands as I held her out to Kari and told her the news. She was there, her body curled up in my forearm, as I begged Kari to keep fighting until the blood and platelets could be transfused into her system. She was there, taking care of me, as I listened intently to any words Kari uttered, wondering if they would be her last. She was there clinging to my body as the seven nurses and two doctors rushed Kari around the hospital to the coronary care unit for more blood and platelets and a morphine drip and IV's and fluids and oxygen. She was with us two hours later, lying in my lap, as I began seeing clots of blood emerge from Kari, the first sign that Kari might be stabilizing.

She was there in the arms of a few family and friends, who quietly wept at what was going to be. She was there lying between us, as we spoke to her softly, telling her that we were sorry and that we loved her and that we were sad she didn't get to meet her big sister, who would have loved her as much as we did. She was there when we unswaddled her and tried to memorize every inch of her body. Her wet black hair, jet blue eyes, Jackson nose and Bray cheeks, her enormous hands and big Stella-like belly. And she was there as we said goodbye to her for the first and last time.

Though only a few hours, her presence carried me through one of the most decisive moments of my life.

As the grief sets in, a new story begins.

Margot June
7lbs, 11oz
21 inches
Stillborn March 24, 2011

DIY: Travel Prints on Canvas + Country Patches

2011-03-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Looking for a way to "collect" some of our travels, I decided on a photo collage of some of our luckiest photos taken from around the globe and a country patch collection.

My friend Jes Lemasters helped compile the photos in Photoshop and then I had it printed for $90 on canvas (it measures 60" by 36"). Then Kari and I bought some scrap wood ($2) for a frame and matted the canvas print onto it with a staple gun. The idea for this came from a museum that we went to in Sarajevo.

The patches represent the countries I've set foot in (outside of airports) and most of the patches were purchased in country for around $1. For the countries where I couldn't find patches, eBay did the trick. :)

Goofball

2011-03-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

A Day At the Beach

2011-02-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Kari and I packed up the Element on Sunday and headed an hour away to Point Dume State Beach for some hiking, reading and sunset watching. The beauty of the Element is being able to transform the back into a full size bed, which is where the reading, napping and sunset watching took place. With Grandma watching Stella and only six weeks before our second child arrives, it was a really nice way to spend the day.

A Hike In the Snow

2011-02-23T08:15:00.001-08:00

Just up the road from us, some four miles away, is a trailhead that quickly ascents five thousand feet towards Mt Lowe and even deeper into the San Gabriel Mountains. Paul and I climbed the peak on Monday after a big snow weekend. We faced sun and clouds, snow drifts and desert, pine forests and charred landscape and changed multiple times over the fourteen mile hike. Here are some of my favorite photos in chronological order.

TWO

2011-02-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

Stella is two years old today and I'm not sure what is more remarkable, that she is TWO YEARS OLD or that we have somehow miraculously managed to raise her to this point. She did it! We made it!

Every so often, Stella and I sit in front of the Mac, open up photo booth and take pictures for minutes on end. This is a collection of the past two years (if you want to skip the first year, which I posted on her 1st birthday, you can fast forward to minute 2:15). :) Music credit goes to Alexi Murdoch.

Potty Training Diary

2011-02-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

We were wondering, like most parents, how early we could start potty training. We wondered wishfully if Stella could comprehend and carry out the concept before turning two or at least before our second child arrives. Of course, we expected it to be sometime between thirty months and turning three, after the shock of a new sister had come and gone. This was several months ago, when the idea of Stella pooping in anything but her diaper seemed remote, impossible even, as every milestone seems before it happens.

And then, somewhat to our surprise, at twenty-three months, she woke up one bright morning and asked, as if she had been mentally preparing for this moment as long as we had, “Mommy buy undawear?” We repeated her question back to her, this being the only way it seems we can discern her growing language these days. “You want to wear underwear?”

“Yeah!” she said confidently, coaxing us with her enthusiasm and frantic head bobbing.

We explained that wearing underwear meant not wearing diapers. We described in detail what underwear meant for her life, going over new ideas like the potty and holding it and wiping and the complicated inconsistencies of bowel movements.

“Undawear!” she sang with happy naivete.

Between the research and our accumulated knowledge of our independent toddler, we decided to give the 48 hour potty training method a shot. She has always surprised us with her ability to learn new ideas quickly and we figured it might be easier on her to squeeze several months of back and forth potty training into a nice little weekend package. A diaper intervention.

So we read an eBook, blocked out a weekend, borrowed some cloth underwear for nighttime, purchased a potty and underwear, and decided M&M’s would be a soothing, long lasting reward.

This is my scattered diary of her success, and our efforts, to turn Stella into an underwear clad, prairie dogging machine.

Day 1, Saturday, February 5:

I’m up early to prepare. While she lies in her bed with no knowledge of the coming change, I oscillate between apprehension and confidence. This is not only going to be a long weekend for us, but it’s going to be tough on my little girl, who after several thousand diapers is suddenly going to be thrust into the world of bathrooms. I roll up the rug, crank up the heat on account of her impending nakedness, double check we have enough fluids to keep her peeing all day long, cover the couch, set out the potty and arm myself with M&M’s. She wakes up and I happily declare it to be potty training day. I tell her about the treats and the underwear and remind her that her cousin Evee and best friend Eisley both already go on the potty, something I would repeat a hundred more times over the next week. I strip her down save a sweatshirt and load her up with juice and the day begins in the living room, her playing kitchen, me watching her movements as closely as ever. Thirty minutes in, she begins dancing around and I keep the potty close. She runs excitedly over to a corner, laughing, and starts letting the urine fly. I quickly grab her and set her on the potty where she finishes up with a smile. An hour later we repeat this. The afternoon hours tick by slowly, Kari and I working in shifts, following her around with a plastic potty in hand, words of encouragement spouting forth. She dances around and we calmly make sure her tush and the potty intersect at the right time. M&M. Repeat.

The eBook warned us to not get distracted during this first 48-hour period, stating that the number one reason this method fails is because parents don’t stay close. We learned this the hard way as we cleaned up after dinner, thinking it would be at least another half hour before the next song began playing in her bladder. I look over at her standing in the living room and watch the poop slowly slide out of her rectum and onto the floor. She yells “poooopooo!” and we manage to catch the last half.

Day 2, Sunday, February 6:

Her happy wake up is turned sour by the news that it’s potty training day again. It appears the novelty has worn off. She doesn’t want to be naked, doesn’t even want a treat and wants little to do with the potty. Oh no, I feel internally. Did we start this too early? Is she going to regress? Will this make it that much harder to potty train her later? We arm ourselves with our eBook knowledge and forge ahead as with day one. She seems to be giving in with each morning urination, though reluctantly and with a certain degree of fuss. By 3pm, the start of the Super Bowl, she is back on target, peeing and pooping on the potty as if she has it down. We are delirious with pride and relief. We head to bed exhausted, knowing it’s been 48 hours, knowing that, at the least, we’re not going to have to quit. She is on her way. No more diapers now. Cancel the Amazon subscription. Tomorrow, day 3, will be her first day with underwear.

Day 6, Thursday, February 10:

One accident per day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, usually when one of us has left her unattended for too much time. We bring the portable potty to the park, out to the yard and everywhere else a potty isn’t close. While Stella isn’t broadcasting verbally that she needs to pee, she is at least dancing around enough that we know it’s time to sit her down. And for the most part, she is learning to hold it in, as much a milestone as actually sitting down and going.

The only fight left in her is when she has to poop. She holds it in as if her life depended on it and cries out, “diaper, wear diaper, wear diaper” when it’s about to come out. Bigger treats, like a bite of a cookie, seem to help the process, as does having her take a deep breath when she sits down on the potty.

She catches me off guard in the evening, when I walk into the laundry room to find her pooping in her underwear. Six days in. I’m visibly frustrated and disappointed with her. I tell her with a few degrees of frustration that poop goes in the potty and carry her into the bathroom for a strip down and bath. I feel sharp pangs of regret as I scoop poop out of her underwear while she stands naked on the bathroom floor crying. I’m so sorry buddy, I gently say to her. Daddy was wrong. Did you have an accident? Yeah, she whimpers. Were you just trying your best sweetie, hoping for quick reconciliation. Yeah, she whispers as we embrace. Lesson learned.

Day 8, Saturday, February 12:

Eight days in and the potty training seems to be over for the most part. She is now loudly announcing her potty needs almost every single time and the poop issue is becoming easier with every fallen log. We resume our normal Saturday and hop on the train to South Pasadena for some cereal, reading and park time. She announces on the train that she has to pee and then manages to hold it until we get to our breakfast destination, where she happily pees on the adult toilet.

She suddenly seems like a kid for the first time.

We are exhausted. Eight days of chasing her around, cleaning up accidents, hoping for her success, attempting to stay calm, nurturing her through bouts of stage fright, carrying toilets on long walks and investing emotionally into every single deposit into the potty has taken it’s toll. We are tired. But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, getting brighter with each trip to the potty, the bittersweet light signaling the end of our baby and the pending emergence of a little girl.

A Day At the Lake

2011-02-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

A new daughter is coming soon, Grandma is here and I left town for a day in the mountains. I brought the winter coat for some hiking, the laptop for some writing and The Road for some postapocalyptic reading. The snow is falling here at Jackson Lake, just on the other side of the mountains from my home. After a peaceful hike around the place, I opened up the back of the Element, crawled in my sleeping bag and dozed off.

Nonrequired Reading: 017: The Dirty Life

2011-02-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

This is the memoir about a single, vegetarian, urban woman who lives in New York City and two years later finds herself married, eating animals and living on a farm in upstate New York. Partly a story about finding love and partly a story about food, what moved me the most was her ability to capture the essence of being a farmer. Reading about the early morning milking and planting seeds and buying equipment and surviving weather and slaughtering animals was intoxicating. And somehow she achieved this without being overly sentimental or cliche.

In preparation for my first garden last year, and in light of the food overhaul that has changed my eating habits, I have been reading books and blogs on food, farming and gardening over the past eighteen months. After reading a piece on NPR about this book, I wondered if it would be a nice companion read to everything else. It ended up being so much more. It captured, in simple terms and forthright language, the story of the farmer behind our food. It's vulnerable and honest and has provoked me to continue to think long and hard about my daily food choices. It also provoked me to think about farming myself one day. For now, though, I'll stick to the vegetable garden in my front yard. :)

"The other day, rummaging for something in the depths of my desk, I found an eight-year-old to-do list scribbled on the back of a receipt: “Reheel black shoes. Pick up dry cleaning. Call super re: sink. Meet P for drinks.” For a minute, I sat there remembering what it was like to be a single woman in Manhattan. Now my to-do list starts with milking eight cows at dawn and ends with closing the laying hens in their coop at dusk. The dry-cleanables wore out a long time ago, and I wear heels so infrequently I’ve forgotten how to walk in them."

-- Kristin Kimball, The Dirty Life

The Pregnant Swimmer

2011-02-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

No doubt, this photo could probably stand on its own. But since I can't help myself, a brief explanation is required.

This is my partner Kari. She is thirty-two weeks pregnant with our second child. She swims twice a week at the gym, a feat that quietly broadcasts the delicate balance of love and sacrifice in the most unusual of places. This is her outfit, the one she resigns herself to in the locker room and then shows off to the lads flexing their muscles as she walks down the long hallway toward the enormous, echoey swimming pool area. Abandoning her sense of embarrassment, she exhibits black spandex shorts with white trim, a sports bra, a meaningless low cut pregnancy shirt and finally, a full dive mask and snorkel, which may turn as many incredulous heads as her white, prominent belly does.

Her ribs hurt this time around. They feel as if they have been kicked, on repeat, for several months straight. The only nice part about aching ribs is that it steers the pain away from her back, which has methodically worsened with each new pound that adds itself to her chest, legs and belly. When she's not shifting uncomfortably in bed due to muscle soreness and joint pain, she is getting up, on average, six times to pee at night. She is inevitably tired for most of the day, as universal a sensation as there is for a woman with child. Her emotions swell and contract on a weekly basis, depending on the hormonal shifts that tinker and toy with her mood and eating habits and outlook on life, as if she needed something else to push her over the edge. There is also energy inefficient Stella to contend with this time, the little tike that can go from sunrise to sunset without taking a breather, blowing energy on running and talking and getting dirty and always asking us for "two more minutes" to play before nap or bedtime. And all of this while miraculously carrying a little fetus that is developing on auto-pilot just below the surface, whom she shares nutrients and oxygen with through a small, life allowing cord, a feat so primal and beautiful it's hard to even conceive.

I think what I find so breathtaking about this picture is that it completely and utterly embodies who she is in these labor pending days. For in the middle of everything else, my resolute partner climbs aboard her bike and heads to the gym for some laps.

Nonrequired Reading: 016: Lonesome Dove

2011-02-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

I have debated for much of the week whether or not what I'm about to say is as objectively accurate as it can be. And it seems after much thought and deliberation, the following statement holds up: Lonesome Dove is my favorite book of all time.

One of the strongest indicators to this declaration was how sad I felt that my reading of the novel would one day come to an end, even though I first had this notion with some 700 pages to go. With 50 pages left, I literally set the book down, took a deep breath and decided to hold out for a few more days, even though I was aching to read to the end. It's the kind of novel that leaves me wondering how a writer could possibly make up such a beautiful and compelling story. Surely great writers are the rarest folks on earth.

The writing isn't mesmerizing like Chabon's, nor does the plot twist like Foer's, but the main characters, Call and Gus and Lorena, were as memorable as any I've ever come across. The plot is straightforward in it's direction and character development, yet this Western cowboy-and-Indian story pulls you in on so many levels, constantly leaving you wondering where the last hundred pages went. It's also a travelogue, as the story revolves around two men who decide to take a cattle herd up to Montana. The come across Indians and women and sandstorms and everything else that makes up a great traveling tale - except the backdrop is this wild west that I know very little about. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

"Evening took a long time getting to Lonesome Dove, but when it came it was a comfort. For most of the hours of the day — and most of the months of the year — the sun had the town trapped deep in dust, far out in the chaparral flats, a heaven for snakes and horned toads, roadrunners and stinging lizards, but a hell for pigs and Tennesseans. There was not even a respectable shade tree within twenty or thirty miles; in fact, the actual location of the nearest decent shade was a matter of vigorous debate in the offices — if you wanted to call a roofless barn and a couple of patched-up corrals offices — of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, half of which Augustus owned."

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove, Page 1

The Five Stages of Grief + Preschool

2011-01-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

Stella started preschool six weeks ago.

When we first visited the Little Lambs school, located in the back of a small house, we almost immediately fell in love. There is a small yard, no bigger than a postage stamp, filled with bits of grass and dirt that have been stomped on over the years. A one room detached garage had been converted into a playroom with a few old toys and tables scattered about. Some pictures of the alphabet and children's art hang on the wall. Adjacent to the playroom is a small patio with a long picnic table, covered by a makeshift tarp. Inside the back of the house is another small space where the kids eat their meals and sit in a circle to begin the day. There are no fancy toys or plush children's furniture or corporate style check-ins anywhere to be seen. It's all very urban and earthy, giving it an unpretentious and accessible feel.

As we toured the the school and asked Miss Alma our questions, Stella seemed to fall in love simultaneously with us. She roamed around, from one room to the next, exploring each little nook and cranny for what it had to offer. She spent a few minutes eyeing the kitchen, opening the oven and then closing it, as if taking mental notes on it's durability. She eyed the crayon drawings on the wall, perhaps imagining herself drawing something similar. She spent a minute or two running around the yard in circles, acting as if she was testing the ground's softness. I half wondered, as we were wrapping up to the tour, if she would wink at me and say, "This will do, Dad."

The first time we dropped her off, she was giddy with excitement. The tiny universe in which she only barely scratched the surface of exploring was back at her fingertips and she barely noticed us walking away. When Kari walked down the driveway four hours later to pick her up, she immediately began saying no and ran away. We were delighted. Miss Alma, her sweet yet strong teacher, was delighted. It seemed the day had only been hard for Kari and I. I voiced the obvious question to Kari, feeling a deep sense of pride. Is our daughter so fiercely independent that she's not going to have to adjust to preschool?

Two days later Stella and I turn the corner towards the school and I can see the questions marks shooting off in her head. Why are we back here? Is this going to be a regular thing? She seems bewildered, her eyes expressing confusion. I can see her apprehension growing as I slide the Element into a space along the street. It's school time buddy, I say happily. She immediately breaks down, whimpering as I open the door and take off her seat belt. No school, she says sadly. As I walk down the driveway to the back of the house, she wraps her limbs around me as tightly as ever, clinging to my waist and back and burying her head into my neck. I love and hate every second of it. We enter the back room optimistically, hoping Miss Alma can work her magic on my frightened little girl. Stella quickly scans the room and dives back into my neck, her tears rolling onto my shirt. Miss Alma looks at me with empathy and gently peals her away from me. I can hear cries as I walk back toward the car. I tell myself to be cool on repeat.

The next few weeks are no better. Monday and Wednesday school days. More tears, more clinging, more confusion.

Our Wednesday morning routine before preschool goes something like this: At 8:15am, I pack up her bag and get some breakfast going. At 8:30, I sneak into her room and snag a diaper and her outfit for the day and throw them on the living room rug. Then I walk back in and enjoy the brief few seconds of watching her sleep before she turns over and squints at me, her eyes adjusting to the light. Then we gather up all her animals and her blanket and sit together in the living room rocker. Then breakfast, then the car. Up to this point, she is as sweet and happy as can be. Then we start the drive down El Molino, towards school, which I have yet to mention. A week or two in, I began noticing something unusual about her mood in the back seat. Since my rear view mirror has been pointed at her ever since she started facing forward, I can track her mood, eyes and demeanor as we ride.

It suddenly dawns on me that she is moving through the five stages of grief as we ride south, moving back and forth through the stages with each new passing neighborhood. Initially, I can see her eyes recognize where we are going. Fear replaces an easiness that she exuded during breakfast and leaves her in denial. No school, she says, crying out. No school, no school, she says over and over, her voice getting softer and sadder as she repeats herself. I try and calm her with some tenderness and understanding, which only aggravates her further. She grows angry and begins shifting in her seat, doing everything in her power to break free from her straps, which may be her most hated enemy in twenty two months of living. She pulls at them and cries. I know it's hard buddy, offering her the empathy I already feel.

She immediately begins bargaining. Home, she says excitedly, as if it was the key to unlocking her from a day at preschool. House? Play? She offers them up with a smile, knowing exactly how happy it makes me when she uses her new found vocabulary. In that moment, she almost talks me into a trip home. I'm ready to throw in the towel, call off preschool, and turn the car around for home. Okay buddy, let's just play today, I want to say to her. But I keep driving, telling her that school isn't a choice. She has to go to school. I want to explain to her that Mommy and Daddy need some time together. We need to read books and have a two hour lunch and do some laundry. I want to tell her that this will be good for her too, after a little while. It will be good for all of us. But all I can muster, all I know she needs, is to tell her that school is a go today.

She sinks into a depression for the last few miles toward Miss Alma and the Little Lambs. Her eyes tell a story about the sadness that is sinking into her. She drops her head against the side of the car seat and blankly stares out the window. And for once in her life, she sits quietly, without making any sounds or movements. I feel much the same way.

Until yesterday, this is the way the last few weeks and preschool have gone for us. Stella moves through the first four stages of grief and we stay fixed on what we think, we hope, is something that will eventually be a good thing. But then yesterday something beautiful seemed to take place in the car as we drove towards school. Acceptance. The sadness she felt at breakfast when I told her it was a school day slowly gave way to a miraculous acceptance. There was a perk in her as she ate her peanut butter sandwich on the way to school. Her big blue eyes, though still not their usual fiery glow, seemed to reveal some level of understanding, as if she was thinking that school might just be okay. And as we started the long walk down the driveway, me briefing her on her show and tell, she took her head off my shoulder and flashed her perfect little smile. Yeah, I said to her, everything is going to be fine.

Best Films of 2010

2011-01-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not exactly sure when Kari and I started going to the movies. There was a time, early in our partnership, when we barely saw a few movies in the theater a year. Maybe it was because the movies we did drop the cash on were films like Just Married, Ashton Kutcher's epic masterpiece about opposites falling in love and honeymooning in Europe. But somewhere in Australia, in our loneliness and need to escape, going to the movies became a part of our lives. While we saw almost anything on our weekly Friday day off, it was in Sydney when we first started going to the arthouse theater for films that would eventually land on the Oscar list. I suppose this is when we really fell in love with film. And thus far, six years after boarding a plane and moving back home, we're still walking down the street to the movies. Thanks to the fact that we live with our friends and can monitor sit, we managed to see 27 movies in the theater in 2010, including most of the this morning's Oscar nominations. Here are my personal favorites (winners in bold).

BEST PICTURE:

The Kids Are All Right
Cyrus
The Social Network
The Kings Speech
Shutter Island
127 Hours
Winter's Bone

BEST ACTRESS:

Juliane Moore [The Kids Are All Right]
Natalie Portman [Black Swan]
Leslie Manville [Another Year]
Helena Bonham Carter [The Kings Speech]
Annette Bening [The Kids Are All Right]
Jennifer Lawrence [Winter's Bone

BEST ACTOR:

Leonardo Dicaprio [Shutter Island]
James Franco [127 Hours] [lead actor]
Christian Bale [The Fighter] [supporting actor]
Barry Pepper [True Grit]
Colin Firth [The Kings Speech]
John Hawkes [Winter's Bone]
Andrew Garfield [The Social Network]
Geoffrey Rush [The Kings Speech]
Jackie Earle Haley [Shutter Island]

BEST DIRECTOR:

Danny Boyle [127 Hours]
David Fincher [The Social Network]
Martin Scorcese [Shutter Island]
Tom Hooper [The Kings Speech]
Christopher Nolan [Inception]
Darren Aronofsky [Black Swan]

BEST SCREENPLAY:

The Social Network [Aaron Sorkin]
The Kings Speech [David Seidler]
127 Hours [Danny Boyle]
The Kids Are All Right [Stuart Blumberg]
Cyrus [Duplass Brothers]
Winter's Bone [Debra Granik]
Shutter Island [Laeta Kalogridis]

In the end, my favorite movie of the year was The King's Speech. Between the performances, directing, writing and cinematography, this film was the clear winner for me. The most fun I had at the movies was the Duplass Brothers', Cyrus, which made me laugh as much as any other movie this year (other favorite comedies included The Other Guys and Kick Ass). The biggest snub of the year - and I still can't believe it's not being mentioned - is Shutter Island. Maybe it was the early release, or the fact that Leo and Mr. Scorcese ALWAYS get nominated, but either way, I LOVED this film. The scene at the end still gives me goosebumps. "Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?"

DIY: Reclaimed Wood Frame

2011-01-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

After landing a beautiful piece of art from my talented friend Kate, I decided to make a frame for it out of our reclaimed wood scraps. With a saw, some glue and a router, it didn't take more than an hour to create the frame. I picked up some glass from our local stained glass shop for under $5.

The wood is from the Yorba Linda Regional Park in Orange County and after years of California weather, the Doug Fir has turned into a gorgeous silver rustic color.

The picture, Where We'll Be, shows an old cabin in the woods, among the trees. I envision it being somewhere far away, where a fire cracks and good food sits on the table. It's the exact kind of place Kari and I have ventured to over the years and I imagine it's where we'll be again.

To see more of Kate's amazing artwork, you can visit her Etsy store or her blog.

Boobies. Eat. Babies.

2011-01-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

Our friend Mel B was in town this week and Stella decided to put on a small show. Her post-Christmas remembrances and new sister hello are a few of the highlights. It's long, but mostly worth it. Viewer discretion advised.

Twenty Fourty-Nine

2011-01-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

I keep having this vision. Part trite and part hopeful, it's vividness hasn't escaped me for some months now.

I'm seventy years old, laying on a rickety mattress somewhere in the world, holding Kari's ever increasingly dainty hand. We are close to the sea, perhaps in a beat up cabin off the coast somewhere. She is laying next to me and we're laughing, giggling actually, about who knows what. Our aged bodies are weak and I can feel the fragility of my bones as I lay in bed, doing my best not to cough while I laugh. We are staring at the worn ceiling, with its cracks and spots and rugged beauty. The wind blows in from the open windows, the ceiling fan spins in vein.

We have very little in terms of money, or property or even possessions. Our will is somewhat laughable, which is precisely what we may be giggling about. We seemed to have stripped our decades of life and homes and living room furniture and tools and cars and trips down to a few unglamorous belongings. There are the books of course, which I hold dear, clinging to the Steinbecks and Chabons for how they made me feel and what they taught me about life. There are the postcards and patches, those increasingly significant collections that have been slowly growing since my boyhood, since my first trip to the Astrodome and my inaugural passport stamp. They remind me of my Father and Mother, who quietly pushed me onto the earth's edge, telling me it was okay if I didn't look back. There are a few paper pictures, still attached to handmade frames, each nearly equal in significance. There is the one of my three sisters and I with our Father, sitting in front of a cabin, all wearing funny faces. There are several of Kari and I through the years, the picture always taken by my outstretched hand, camera looking down on our sheepish grins. There are too many of the kids, way too many, because neither of us have the guts to let go of them, each one carrying a memory of one kind or another. There are other pictures perhaps, my vision only taking me so far.

Our kids are grown and gone and I miss them dearly. We worked at letting them go from the time our first daughter took off across the park without looking back, as if she would cross the city before noticing. Even now, as they have their own lives, own families, own traditions, there own way of doing Christmas, letting go is no easy task. I ask myself where the time went, and I can't believe I have fallen so hard into cliche. The kids turned out exactly like I thought and nothing like I thought, another one of life's complications, which after all this time seems appropriate and inevitable.

I glance over at Kari, her hair thin and short, and feel our aloneness. Through decades of spending time with family, of friends dropping in an out, of moving from one home to the next, here we are. Just the two of us. Alone together in a small room, fifty years after first bumping into each other. I can suddenly feel the weight of this one decision, the act of throwing myself into this spirited and tender woman so many years ago.

My influence on the world around me, after decades of depositing here and there, is mostly insubstantial. I left no great mark, especially considering the mark I thought I was going to leave in my early twenties. Between family and work and friends and the occasional walk to the theater, there simply wasn't enough time to do something grand. Simplicity and widespread influence never seemed to mix very well for me.

As I lay there, hands now folded together and resting on my chest, contemplating my past, mulling over the joys and heartaches, considering my life as I remember it, I am suddenly overcome by a comforting thought.

I am content.

DIY: Pallet Credenza

2010-10-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

My latest spare-time-project was this credenza for our dining room. I wanted to build it for as cheap as possible, so I picked up three pallets for free behind a local business that throws them away. Interesting, each pallet had a different IPPC stamp on them and they represented Germany, Spain and Italy. These pallets turned credenza have literally been around the world. :) I couldn't help but build the stamps into the credenza as proof of my lucky find! The top is made of reclaimed Java wood, which I had left over from the dining table that I built with my Dad. I tried a few new things including tapered legs, dowel joinery and doors, which proved more time consuming than I thought.

My original design ended up evolving as the project went on due to the finicky nature of pallet wood and my lack of know how.

All in all, the entire project cost $32, took two days to complete and I used 90% of the three pallets for this piece (the last 10% ended up in our firewood pile, which will hopefully be used soon!).

I Should Be Hiking Right Now

2010-09-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

It's not easy having a child, introducing another human being into my immediate life. Another person to think about it, to take care of, to feel joy over, to feel frustrated by, to spend time with. Because no matter which way you slice it, whether all you see is the joy or the first words or the future wedding, there is something to be said of the hardship.

What I expected from these early years were the long nights of frequent wake ups, of feeling tired most of the day, of the teething fussiness, the constant picking up. The problem is that I didn't get any of that. She wakes up at 10am every day and I can't remember the last time she woke up during her twelve-to-fourteen-hour nightly hibernation. She whines less than a few minutes of the day and is, for the most part, as happy as the day she learned the sign for milk, which sent her squeezing her hands together on repeat for a week.

What I didn't foresee was that my daughter, who stole my heart from the moment I saw the wet hair on her head, could so easily take away something that defined my life with Kari as much as anything else. Our ability to pack up and go, to hit the road or the air, has been slowly crushed and beaten out of us by Stella's hard headed refusal to stay calm in the car. It didn't take long to decide to travel out of state less, on account of her incessant need to whine and moan continuously when strapped down. Even traveling in state has become a tiring endeavor. By the time we reach our destination, even one hour away, our heads are spinning from her refusal to relax, a word that we have calmly and loudly and hopelessly tried to teach our little independent nineteen month old.

I didn't anticipate the emotional toll it would take of being a Father torn by the necessity of work and the desire to spend every last minute with her. Or the guilt that envelopes me every week that goes by when I can't go 50-50 with Kari in parenting duties, something I promised myself would be possible. I didn't think about the moments that come every few days when I realize that even though I've spent plenty of time with her, I haven't actually spent time with her. I haven't chased her around the dining room table or built skyscrapers out of blocks or looked into her eyes for minutes at a time or whispered in her ear that I'm so infinitely proud of every ounce of her.

I never knew that having a child would lead to missing my wife so much.

And I know this is j u s t the b e g i n n i n g.

A few months ago this night, September 27, 11:51am, was on the calendar. Pacific Crest Trail hike 2010, night one in the trees near Lake Arrowhead. I was going to be sleeping in my tiny tent, next to my hiking partner, sound asleep after a fifteen mile hike through the San Gabriels earlier in the day. Tomorrow would have brought twenty-five more miles North, twenty-five miles closer to my goal of making it all the way to Canada one day.

But tonight, September 27, I'm laying in bed alone, tapping my fingers on a backlit keyboard and listening to a certain National's song on repeat. Kari is throwing up every few hours in the living room, and Stella is fast asleep in her darkened room. I cleaned up vomit today, changed four diapers filled with poop, rubbed cream on Stella's rash and ran between living room and bedroom, keeping my eyes on the two people who matter more to me than everyone else in my life combined. Tomorrow I'll wake up and work for an hour before my girls get up and then I'll give a list of Stella's needs to a last minute morning babysitter and then I'll drive Kari to the Doctor for some fluids and to make sure our twelve week old is still in good shape.

And yet, even as the tears roll down and the cumulative parenting burden feels as heavy as it ever has, I absolutely can't wait to be with my family tomorrow. No matter how the day goes, no matter the complexities, no matter the unpredictability, no matter how this life unfolds, I can't wait to be with my family tomorrow. And that seems like enough.

Stella: 18 Months Old

2010-08-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

A few of my favorite pictures from the last month. She turned 18 months old on the 21st.

Compromise

2010-08-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Finale

2010-08-01T22:13:00.001-07:00

In the end, we traveled our way across 2204 miles of the Southern United States in a little under 90 hours, with several stops along the way in Nashville, Arlington, Vernon, Albuquerque and the Grand Canyon. Our loaded down, trusty Honda Civic took most of the brunt with 100 degree heat and several hundred pounds of stuff packed into its backseat and trunk. I couldn't have asked for a better road trip partner than Paul, who was up for anything and made me laugh at least half of the time. What may go down as my favorite line from the trip: After spending four days with my iPhone, playing games and using the maps feature and taking pictures, he says as we neared Los Angeles: "It's like the future, but it's right now." Brilliant.

Here are some of my favorite photos, from East to West...

--A little creature outside our hotel in Eastern Arkansas--

--The Ballpark in Arlington--

--Vernon, Texas--

--West Texas--

--Grand Canyon National Park--

The Road Trip Begins

2010-07-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

Road trip begins now.

I have $100 for our four day, 2000 mile journey west, only because my driving partner Paul is vouching for gas since this is really his move west. I figure $100 should cover some magazines at the airport, a few meals in this town and that city and possibly a drink or three with my buddy Asher.

Food is going to be tricky this time around since my partner and I no longer eat meat. Gone are the road trips of my growing up and pre-turning-30 years where fast food burgers and tacos took center stage in my belly. I imagine eating on this trip will be trickier and more thought driven than simply looking for the pre-exit sign on the interstate that says Arbys. Now we will be forced to exit into the unknown in the hopes of finding a little diner or eatery that may or may not serve something vegetarian. While I will miss the guilt free, road trip fast food that I have come to love since our first family road trips, the adventure of eating local will certainly be interesting in it's own way.

My pack is small and mostly contains food, which is partly because I'm scared of the aforementioned mystery that surrounds our lunches and dinners and partly because it seemed cheaper and healthier to bring my own goodies (cashews, dried mango, puffins and rice cakes).

Also packed is my trusty camera -which I plan to use a lot in West Texas - some charging devices, a CD with Radiolab podcasts, two David Sedaris audiobooks and a pillow for nights under the stars.

Traveling alone is revealing some of my stronger anal tendencies, which tend to hide in corners when I'm traveling with Kari and the more recently acquired Stella, who over the course of 17 months has managed to drive these peculiar habits and unusual pleasures into the far off nooks and crannies of my mind. But sitting on the plane, alone and full of a slowly poured glass of orange juice, I am able to dwell on these tendencies. Like the fact that my seat pocket is neatly arranged in front of me and that my Vanity Fair is void of all inserts. Or at the airport when I had time to arrange my bills from largest to smallest, all facing the same way. Or at home packing late last night, going over every minute detail from the podcast arrangement to the way my luggage was arranged like a puzzle in my pack, with each pair of socks in the exact right place. I know in a few hours, when I join the company of another, that these luxuries will no longer be viable, but for now, I'll keep sipping my orange juice for as long as I want to.

Nashville will be here soon. More to come then.

Stella Ouch

2010-07-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

She has learned a new word and uses it whenever she can. Volume would help. :)

A Few Of My Favorite Things

2010-07-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Trying not to forget...

She tickles everyone these days, crunching her little fingers in other kids faces and making a tsk tsk sound, all while looking like she is being tickled herself. When she doesn't get a laugh out of her tickle targets, she fake laughs on her own and then walks away cheerfully. Last night at the park, she missed a few tickles under the chin and wiggled her fingers straight into the eyes of a few toddlers. When one of them cried a little, she looked at me quizzically as if to say, "they don't really get it, do they dad?"

Our babycenter update yesterday mentioned this: "The challenge for toddlers is not understanding speech, but coordinating their lips and tongue and breath well enough to make themselves understandable." I have a new appreciation for her words now, which on any given day include some or all of the following: car, shoe, dada, mama, wawa, dog, go, ba nana (two words for her), cracker, ba bye, tee (as in television), bubble, hair, eyes, nose, teeth, mow (mouth), cheese, ball, Ieey (Eisley) and her new word that she is in the process of mastering: squirrel (which sounds like qua?, as if she's asking a question).

The inside of our Element has turned into a playground of late. Maybe it's the tinted windows or the moon roof or the ample cargo space (or maybe that's just what I like), but for whatever reason she loves climbing and roaming around the Element after a long drive. She'll pick food out of the cracks of her car seat and then stumble into the front where she steers and shifts and cranks up NPR without much difficulty.

There is a moment that happens at least once a day and it's my absolute hands down favorite part of the day. It's the moment when our little family crosses paths somewhere in the hallway or dining room, with all of us going somewhere but not to each other. Kari will be headed towards the kitchen, I'll be headed to the office and then there is Stella who is walking from her bedroom to who knows where in the house. She always has this interesting purposeful look in her eyes as if what she is about to do was her decision alone and she doesn't need us for any part of it. Sometimes I'll stop, turn and follow her secretly to see what was on her mind. It's usually to drop off something in the living room that she found in her bedroom, like a ball or some paper clips, which she found yesterday. It's only for a moment, that my little child is suddenly on her own and doesn't need us for something, but I always get this rush of contentment and a wonderful dose of reality. It's not just Kari and I, or Kari and I and our little baby anymore. It's US. We are a family.

[Thanks to Mel B. for the brilliant pictures!]

DIY: Homasote Bulletin Board

2010-07-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting a giant bulletin board for as long as I can remember and especially lately, since my collection of Baseball stadium postcards is sitting in a drawer waiting to be hung. My Grandpa built one for me growing up and I filled it with as much MJ and Desmond Howard as I could. (There was also a season where I tacked my multitude of reeses pieces wrappers to the board, for no other reason except that I liked the colors and I thought it would be interesting to see how many packs I consumed in a summer. I'm realizing now that I still do that kind of ridiculous crap.) Anyway...if you've ever thought about buying a big bulletin board outright, you know how expensive it is. So I did some research and found this wonderful stuff called Homasote that works perfectly as a bulletin board. I added a little fabric with a staple gun and poof, a nice bulletin board it became. Since there only sold in 4X8 foot sheets, I had the guy cut three pieces, which means we have two smaller pieces for Stella's room (I imagine them filled with her drawings in the coming years).

There are many postcards and business related items to add, but it's time for lunch...here is the beginning...

If you're interested in making this yourself, I would buy it from a lumber yard to get the best deal (my 4X8 sheet was $34). You can see where homasote is sold by going here. The fabric I used costs $11 from JoAnne's and the screws were .86 cents. Make sure you find the studs behind your wall because this material is fairly heavy.

For a few links with others who have done a far better job with this than I, go here and here.

DIY: Pallet End Table

2010-06-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

I finished this end table this morning. All of the wood is from pallets I picked up a while back and the whole job cost me $3.99 since the wood was free and I had a few screws laying around my toolbox and some leftover polyurethane as well (and some sandpaper, etc). While the design is mine, I got my inspiration from my friend Mel Barlow's end table in Brooklyn.

Miles and Stella

2010-06-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

For the most part, the two played together beautifully. Unless Stella wanted the toy or meal Miles was enjoying, they shared seamlessly. Miles spent much of the time trying to mimic Stella's walking capabilities, making it across the room several times, all the while grinning from ear to ear in pride. In a mischievous retaliation move, Stella got on her hands and knees and crawled around the living room. The highlight of our 30 hours together was on Tuesday night, when they played together on the porch for a few hours and talked, kissed and laughed together like old buddies.

Stella's New Tricks...

2010-06-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Photo Ecuador: Day 5: Volcán Tungurahua, Puyo

2010-06-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Day 5: Our entire stay in Banos was marked by Volcán Tungurahua, which went off every half hour or so. Not only could you hear each eruption, some of them shook our hostel. On the clearest day, we took a taxi up to the power lines opposite the volcano for a better look. A video of one of the blasts follows the pictures and volume would help. Later in the day, we boarded a bus for Puyo, a jungle town deemed the "gateway to the Amazon." We found a monkey rescue center and spent several incredulous hours with the monkeys, who climbed and played all over us.

Photo Ecuador: Day 4: Banos to Puyo Bike Ride

2010-06-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Day 4: This particular day was probably the most fun I've ever had in a 24-hour period while traveling. We biked the scenic Banos to Puyo route for 35 kilometers and had several stops along the way: the four of us jumped off a bridge in the first hour, hiked up behind the raging El Paílón del Diablo waterfall in the second hour, had a memorable trout lunch at a local Rio Verde cafe in the third hour and hitch-hiked back to Banos (with our bikes) in the late afternoon (on the back of a flat bed truck).