All that said, I feel incredibly blessed by the time I have had with both my children so far. I thought I might have trouble bonding with this second baby, knowing what I know about the potential for loss and the inevitable pain that would be associated. However, I can’t help loving him more with each passing day. I enjoy every kick, punch and roll, even when they wake me early on a Saturday morning or come uncomfortably close to my bladder. This baby reminds me daily of all the happy times I had with Noah, and he helps me look toward the future with hope. I don’t want to wish away these precious days of his gestation, but at the same time, I desperately want to get to the point where I can look into his eyes and feel his breath against my skin.
We are now more than six weeks past the one-year anniversary of when we lost Noah, and I occasionally find myself playing the “this time last year” game. There are some parts of that time of early grief I remember as clearly as if they were yesterday, and others are such a blur I struggle to piece them together. I do have distinct memories of wishing I could fast forward time, knowing there must be some point in the future when the days and weeks would be easier to get through. As I look back on that time, I am so thankful to be where I am now. The grief will never go away, but we have experienced an incredible amount of healing over the last year.
I haven’t written much about Noah’s first birthday/anniversary since it happened. I think I will always remember it as something of a turning point in terms of my ability to make peace with what happened with my firstborn and with Noah’s unique place in my heart and in our family. Not that September 16 was some kind of magical day – I had been working toward that point throughout the year – but I think the time we dedicated to reflecting on our experience with Noah and the rituals we did helped me cross some kind of line.
On the day itself, Mark and I were on the beach by 5:47 a.m. – the time of Noah’s birth. We watched the sun rise, read some passages of Scripture that have been particularly meaningful over the last year and remembered the day we simultaneously welcomed or first son into the world and said goodbye to him. Mark gave me a necklace that has a charm in the shape of a mother-child symbol, and inside the charm are some of Noah’s ashes. We shed some tears, but in general it was a very peaceful time. That evening, we listened to a sermon in which my uncle tells Noah’s story and we watched the slideshow with beautiful pictures of our baby boy.
Noah’s birthday fell on a Wednesday, and that Saturday we scattered his ashes. Though we had never thought about what we would do with the remains of our child before we lost Noah, we knew almost immediately when we were asked what we wanted to do with the body that it felt right to scatter his ashes in the ocean. I had spent many hours of my pregnancy walking the beach, imagining the baby growing inside me listening to the waves and wondering if he would have an inherent need to be near the ocean when he was older. Because of the generosity of a dear friend who has been an incredible support to us since the beginning, we were able to release a biodegradable urn with the ashes from the back of a boat into the ocean in view of the beach I walk nearly every day. The day was cool but gorgeously clear – very much like the day of Noah’s memorial service exactly one year earlier. We had some other friends with us, one of whom is a pastor who said a few words, and Mark and I spoke a bit about Noah and the amazing blessing he has been in our lives. Again, we cried, but the whole event felt peaceful and appropriate.
This post has grown quite long, so I’m going to wrap it up now and plan to not let so much time elapse before I write again. I’ll close with some pictures of releasing Noah’s ashes.
