Save the Queen

Four years.

Four years ago today.

This time four years ago...

...This time four years ago, I was laying in bed with my husband, calling my family in between bouts of crying. Listened to the sympathy pouring out from the phone. Feeling... so alone, like a piece of me had vanished into thin air without any warning.

Four years ago today I lost the Raisin, my little tiny baby. Felt it pass from me with pain I imagine to be that of actual labor - mingled with the pain of loss, of grief. So much possibility, so much potential... gone. Little Catherine would never watch me water marble my nails and beg me to do hers as well, or ask me why Princess Garnet ran away and would she ever go home? I would never get to watch Dave teach little James to shoot a free throw, or watch Hayden impress his small half-brother with parkour and kung-fu, and teach him how to do vaults as well. Little parkouring basketball-playing Jimmy. Never.

Never...

Such a powerful, small, final word.

I had the Raisin with me for a rather short time - I was only aware of him for two months - and yet in that short time that tiny little life became a huge part of my life. I would sing (badly) to it, talk to it, think about it and wonder and hope. And all of that was brutally ripped from me, leaving me bereft, confused, devastated.

I honestly don't know how I dealt with it. I remember that pain, that grief - far worse than when my grandmother or father died... worse than when my beloved Elayne died. (I know Elayne was a cat, but she was my cat... and I think I imbued my hopes of childhood on her.) Like... again, like part of myself had been ripped from me without any warning.

It's been four years, and I still think of the Raisin frequently. Not every day, but lately... a lot. The pain is still there, but it's different now. Faded. A memory of pain. Almost like the entire miscarriage happened to someone else... but I remember it too closely for that to be true. If for no other reason that the endometriosis that has infiltrated my body, a reminder that yes, you were pregnant, and you screwed that up too and hello there! I'm the consequence.

But of course the memory goes way beyond that.

I know people have asked, and probably still wonder, if I'm ever going to try again. The answer is no. No, because the probability of carrying a baby to term with endometriosis thrown into the mix is slim. No, because I don't want a baby... I want the Raisin. No other baby will do. Little Kitty or Jimmy, that's all. No, because I'm afraid of it all happening again, a Groundhog Day of failed pregnancies. No, because... because two people have filled that ache in my heart, the void that the miscarriage left. I know Hayden and Linz are someone else's kids... but I've come to love them as my own, in every way but having given birth to them myself. I know I've only known them a relatively short time, but in that time they've also become part of me and soothed the wound that the Raisin left behind.

That wound, once so open and seething that even seeing another baby would send me into tears, has faded. It's not any longer a pain that makes me want to crawl into bed and huddle into myself and stare at the wall with blank unseeing eyes, or drink until I can't feel anything at all. It's a kind of... wistfulness, almost, a wistfulness that makes me look around the house and think, Three and a half years old. What would little Jimmy be doing right now? And all I have to think about is what Jason and Melanie's Serenity was like when she was three and a half. Would Jimmy/Kitty have been similar? It's a wistfulness that makes me smile a little sadly at babies and small children and their mothers. I was almost you.

Wistfulness does kind of hurt, but it's not the soul-wrenching agony of fresh grief. I'm thankful for that. Because while having the grief fade kind of makes me feel like a bad person, like I should emotionally flagellate myself daily to, I don't know, somehow make up for my body's failure... no one can endure that level of pain for very long. Much as I think I should, I know I couldn't.

And so I feel that wistfulness, and I endure that.

I seriously don't know why my brain insists on making me dream unpleasant things. I seriously don't. Does it dislike me this much? Does it get some sort of sadistic thrill out of torturing me? I don't get it.

I used to go to bed so late and so exhausted that I wouldn't dream at all. Of course, this makes me miss out on the cool dreams (I just had one a few nights ago where I was a general in an army - that was cool), but at least I'm not tormented by the unpleasant ones.

I would like to point out however that these are not nightmares. I haven't had a nightmare since I was five years old. Seriously. I had the granddaddy of all nightmares when I was five, and apparently that one made up for a entire lifetime's worth of nightmares, 'cause I haven't had one since.

(For those of you who are curious, my little five-year-old self had a dream in which I had to watch Satan torture a guy. It was... well, terrifying. Poor li'l Chrissy.)

All I'm saying is, for example, I've had pleasant interaction with babies that hasn't resulted in them all dying. In fact, I've only had interaction with one baby that died. Instead of having pleasant dreams about babies with said pleasant interaction, which accounts for 99% of my interaction with babies, my brain apparently wants to kill them all off and pass it off as my fault, which only accounts for 1% of said interaction. Thank you very little.

Meh. I know that I can't do anything about it except whine about it. But at least I can do that. :P

So it's getting around toward Thanksgiving again. I guess our plan is to take the kids up to Dave's mom's house again this year. This was nice last year, so I have no complaints. "But Christina, all you do is complain." Har har. I'll have you know that I eat sometimes and sleep occasionally as well as complain, thank you.

I really don't remember very much about Thanksgivings with my family (should I be thankful for that?), but I do remember that almost invariably we'd have it with my grandmother, who was freaking awesome, and of all the people I know that've died, I think I miss her the most. I often wonder how my father turned out to be such a jackass when he had a mother like her.

I think she was the only person in my family that I ever really respected. There was just something about her that commanded respect. Like, you're going to respect me, or I'll kick your ass and then you'll respect me, but either way you're going to respect me. Not that we were afraid of her... okay, we were a little afraid of her, but it was fear mixed with love and awe at the same time.

(Now I have to tell Kim's story. I should get her to tell it, but she's not here.)

So my grandmother had lung cancer. She'd had a tumor in her lung for year, but through sheer strength of will fought it off well enough so that the tumor stayed the size it was when she found out about it... until she had minor surgery on her toe, which diverted her immune system there and let the tumor go nuts, which it did, and at that point she only lived for like another month. Anyways. Have you ever forgotten whether you're still writing in parentheses or not? Just wondering.

Anyway, during the last two weeks of her life, my mom and I moved in with her to ease her out, and Jean and Kim would visit almost every day. Grandma's mind was one of the first things to start slipping, and she was on morphine to boot. (What an odd phrase. Also, I seem to be in rather a parenthetical mood today. Wonder why.)

So Kim's sitting on the sofa, and Grandma's laying in the hospital bed we've moved into the living room for the duration. After a few minutes, Kim gets up to go to the bathroom.

"What do you think you're doing?" Grandma demands.

"Uhh... going to the bathroom?" Kim says.

"No you're not. Sit down."

"But Grandma, I really have to go to the bathroom," Kim explains.

"No you don't! Not that bad. Now sit down!"

Kim sat. As she said years later, "I wasn't about to get up. She told me to sit down, so I sat. Not like she could have gotten up and punished me, but I wasn't about to disobey her."

I think probably Grandma was the only person in Kim's family that she respected, too.

Hehe, I have to tell this one, too. I was getting Grandma something to drink, and made some smart remark, and in a rare moment of lucidity, she smiles and says, "Smartass."

:-( People keep saying that to me and I don't understand why. /further smartassery

Coffee and pineapple is an odd combination.

Well, that all started with me babbling about Thanksgiving. I can tell what kind of a day this is going to be. Then we started having Thanksgiving with Jason and his family. I seem to remember always having fun, Then there was the Thanksgiving that Dave boarded a plane (which he hates doing), flew for nine hours (which he hates doing), and spent Thanksgiving with me and the Cartwrights (which was half-and-half - he liked spending Thanksgiving with me... not so much with the Cartwrights... which is a tale that may or may not get told today, depending on... well, whether I tell it or not. Man, I'm in a rambly mood today. This is what I get for not posting anything meaningful to Livejournal for weeks and weeks. Well, I feel like I have nothing meaningful to say. Wow, I'm still going on in parentheses. Focus, Rothwell.)

Yeah, that was a nice Thanksgiving. And after we got married, it was no longer a option to go have Thanksgiving with the Cartwrights, so we had it at Dave's mom's, and last year we brought the kids with us, and it was fun, so we're doing it again this year.

Oh yes, and there was the time that I had Thanksgiving with the Cartwrights, and then Kim decided I was having another Thanksgiving with her family, wherein the following exchange occurred:

Bethany: Christina, where's your cape?
Christina: *blank stare* My cape?
Bethany: Yeah, the cape you always wear to your sacrifices.
Christina: Oh! Yeah. Crap, I forgot it at the last sacrifice. Man, Lord Rupert's going to kill me. Can you imagine sacrificing a goat without a cape? What am I going to do?
Roger: *very studiously trying to look like he's not paying attention)

And now I have to explain this. See, I told you it was going to be this kind of day.

Christina; Your dad probably thinks I'm a bad influence on you. I mean, I don't smoke, drink, do drugs, have sex with every guy I see... I'm terrible.
Kim: Yeah, but he thinks you're going to make me sacrifice a goat.
Christina: ......................................He did not say that.
Kim: *laughing* Yes he did.

Because I have a weird religion, and he hated my dad. (Not that I blame him.) So I proceeded to make up a fictitious deity (Lord Rupert, King of the Goats) and crack jokes about said fictitious deity at just about every opportunity. Well, Roger of course took me seriously, and talked about it with others, as is proven by the following exchange:

Andrew: Hey Christina, do you really sacrifice goats?
Christina: *blank stare*
Kim: Yes she does.
Andrew: *eyes go round as beach balls* Really?
Christina: Oh man.
Andrew: How do you do it? And where? *proceeds to ask more and more questions*

Hahahaha. This reminds me of the time... Feel free to stop reading at any point, because the rest of this entry is just going to be more of the same rambling from subject to subject. I'm serious.

Anyway. That reminds me of the time that TSC Asshole Ben came up and brought his idiot cousin Kenny. Somehow Kim started on about Lord Rupert, and Kenny believed every word we said. So naturally we spun him a rather large story about Lord Rupert, and the ceremonies and sacrifices and whatnot, and he believed us, regardless of my stopping halfway through because I couldn't stop laughing. When we finally told him that we were just messing with him, he gave us the old "Oh, I knew that" routine. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, dude.

Haha. That also reminds me of the time where I had to move out of the house 'cause Mom gave the papers to the bank. The windows were still covered up in plastic because of the winter, and Kim found a black marker, and proceeded to write goat propaganda all over the plastic. Things like "Have you sacrificed today?" and "Fear the goat!" and "You shall worship the Lord thy Goat or he shall rain goaty death upon you!" I still have pictures of that somewhere.

No wonder people think I'm crazy.

Jae wrote recently that she was more into older music than anything today. Something along that line. I’m finding myself doing the same thing. I mean, there’s modern music that I like, but I find myself gravitating toward older stuff more. For example, I like a lot of U2’s music, but I’m really of the opinion that 80’s U2 is the best. Actually, I’m really into 80’s music right now. Probably my favorite song is ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’ by Naked Eyes.

I think this is in part because most modern music is insipid. Ooooh I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in an entry. I’m all impressed with myself now. Anyway, yeah, insipid. Vapid. Meaningless. You’ve got a dude on a guitar, a dude on drums, and a guy talking his way through the song – which doesn’t even make sense – sounding like he’s stoned. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good. ‘Cause most of the time it isn’t.

There was a time where musical talent of some kind was required to be a successful singer/musician/band/whatever. Not anymore! Now all you need is sex appeal, bam! instant popularity.

I was going to rant about how the only reason Lady Gaga’s popular is because she was a stripper, but I actually think she has a neat voice, so I can’t really go there. Don’t laugh at me. I can’t help it.

For me, there are four qualifications for whether I like music or not. They are as follows:

1 – The lead vocalist must have a great and/or interesting voice.
2 – The lyrics must be meaningful.
3 – The group/artist must sound interesting, neat, and/or different than whatever else is out there.
4 – The music must be phenomenal.

One of these doesn’t make up for the lack of the other three. I can deal with two out of four, but the best artists have three or four. Most artists today only have one, or two at best – and most of the time, #2 isn’t included. I mean seriously. “I can ride my bike with no handlebars… no handlebars… no handlebars.” Well good for you. Now that you have a hit song, maybe you can afford a bike with handlebars, eh?

Well, if I were the arbiter of good music, there’d be a lot fewer artists saturating the airwaves. It’s probably a good thing I’m not.

Back to insipid. We went over to David Beattie’s house Saturday night and hung out with him, his dad, and his (girl?)friend Christina, who introduced us to Speed Scrabble. For those of you not familiar with this fabulous game, you play it with one other person. Each person takes ten random Scrabble tiles, turn them over at the same time, and proceed to use all ten to make words. Once all ten are used, by either player, both players take another five, whether the other person’s used all of theirs or not. This continues until one or the other of the players has used all their tiles and there are no more to take.

Christina and David demonstrated. Christina won. We had decided that the winner would play the next person… which was me.

I won. Then Sandy challenged me. I won. Then Dave challenged me. I won. Then David challenged me. I won. Then Christina challenged me again. I won. Mind you, it was really close a couple of times, within a matter of a second or two… but I still won. It was pretty cool, and a lot of fun, but I’m not too optimistic about people continuing to play against me. They could take the approach of, let’s keep trying till we knock her off her throne, but they could take the Cartwright approach of, let’s not even try.

Meh. My N key doesn’t work properly. I guess it’s not the end of the world, just a little annoying. I’ll live.

Oh. I bet you’re wondering what Speed Scrabble has to do with the word ‘insipid’. Well, nothing really. Just that big/uncommon words remind me of word games, since ‘insipid’ would have brought me like seventy points if I played it in one turn in Scrabble. That is all.

We’ve been burning wood in the fireplace when it gets cold, and we’ve been getting wood from the park. This has a point, I promise. The log is making funny noises. It’s like there’s a squirrel somehow trapped inside the log. I’m serious. There are little scratchy chewy noises coming from the log. But here’s the thing. There’s nothing in there. There can’t be. How could a squirrel survive a tree growing around it, and continue to survive to gnaw its way out?

Besides, the other log that was doing this we’ve since burned, and – here’s a shock – there was nothing in it. I know, it’s ghost squirrels! We’re haunted now. Oh good. Well, I guess if nothing else I have a interesting story now.

So I finished Le Miserables, and have started The Red Badge of Courage. Oh yeah, I’m reading the classics. Well, at least the ones that don’t bore me to tears. The Red Badge of Courage is trying. Le Miserables was pretty good, if a little sad. The Count of Monte Cristo was way better than the movie. The Three Musketeers was…meh, okay. Hmmmm. Frankenstein was… probably terrifying for its time, but I found it dry and kind of boring. I didn’t finish it. I tried, mind you, I just couldn’t make myself do so. Okay, commence the hate mail, “wtf how could you not like Frankenstein it’s a classic!!111!!!eleventy!!!!shiftone!” Whatever, dude.

Dave’s boss is driving me freaking crazy, and I don’t eve have to work with him, so imagine how Dave feels. I was trying to think of a masculine equivalent to calling someone ‘Nagatha’, and all I came up with was ‘Nagamemnon’. As far as I can tell, Nagamemnon is more than willing to try to make Dave do everyone else’s job, and then bitch him out over stupid piddly little crap. Because clearly it’s all Dave’s fault. It just inflames my sense of fairness and treating people with equity. I mean, even if all the stupid piddly crap were Dave’s fault – which it’s not – it’s not right to bitch people out about it. Far less than to make him do everyone else’s job as well as two or three of his own, especially when the architect on one of these jobs is a raving lunatic.

…Okay, I’ve never seen her rave. Okay, so she’s not even a raving lunatic. She’s just a spaz. A control-freak, ultra-detail-oriented spaz. Not to mention the homeowner, who I think I can call a raving lunatic and not be exaggerating by very much. Without going into a lot of detail, Dave has bent over backwards for these people for months (seriously, I started hearing about this job at least back in March), and every aspect of it has been a total freaking nightmare (up to and including phone call upon phone call while we were in Tahoe. Hey Stacy, how about you go on vacation and I’ll call you about stupid piddly crap two or three times every day of your vacation, would you enjoy that? No? Huh, what do you know.)

…Yeah, I might be sort of done here.

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;-)

Just kidding.

The last time I stayed up all night was January 10th-11th. I was spending that night miscarrying my baby.

argh4itchytasty asked me the other day how I've been feeling since the miscarriage. It's hard to explain. Because on the one hand I think I'm doing better - I don't think about the Raisin every hour of every day now, and there are times when an entire day will pass without me thinking about it.

But is this me recovering from the miscarriage? Or is this some sort of defense mechanism that I've initiated so I don't go nuts from grief?

Maybe both. Maybe instead of me recovering from the pain, I've just mentally distanced myself from it. I don't freaking know, it's too late to properly analyze this... but let me just say that I'm not all better, but far better than I ever thought I'd be.

After it happened, I thought the pain would just go on and on. I honestly wondered if it would ever stop, if the gaping hole in my heart would ever heal.

Now, most of the time it just feels unreal, like something that happened to some other Christina. I remember the pain, I remember being pregnant, it's just... farther away, now.

MckMama is making me think. I've been thinking about her and her baby all day.

I couldn't do it.

Be as strong as she's being. I know my limitations, I know my faults and weaknesses and strengths, and I know perfectly well that I just could not do what she's doing.

Her faith astounds me. That someone could believe in God that much...

Don't get me wrong. I believe in God, I always have. Ask my kindergarten teacher. I have different ideas about God and religion than most people, and my relationship with my father has influenced my perception of Him, but I certainly believe in Him.

But to keep such strong faith in Him throughout a huge trial such as this... it boggles my mind.

God is merciful. God is merciful in ways we often can't comprehend.

It's like those math word puzzles we got in fifth grade. "Jimmy and Susie go to the candy store with a dollar apiece. Licorice sticks are fifteen cents, gummy bears are ten cents, lollipops are twenty five cents, and chocolate bars are thirty five cents. How much change would Jimmy get back if he bought ten jawbreakers?" And one of the choices would be "Not enough information". (Those were always my favorite word problems, by the way.)

I don't have all the information to understand why God does and/or allows different things in my life.

I'm thinking about the Raisin. I don't know why I miscarried. I don't understand why it happened, what benefit it serves (because God works all things together for good)... all I know is that it happened.

I know that God isn't cruel. I know that He knows what He's doing, even if I don't.

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say, using a million words to say what ten might say, if I only knew them. This of course causes me to fumble through every word in the English language and make sense of none of them, when what I really should do is go find something to eat after deleting this entire entry.

But I won't.

Well, I might go get something to eat.

So yesterday we go over to the Beattie's house. I'm prepared to answer any and all questions about the miscarriage, as it is an interesting topic of conversation to most people, and they seem to think I want to talk about it. (Which sometimes I do. Sometimes. Not constantly.)

We get there. Sandy and Monica meet us at the door, hugs and handshakes are exchanged, and Sandy looks directly at me and asks quietly, "Are you okay?"

I nod, then say, "Yeah, I'm okay."

And that was it.

I was thinking about it on the way home, and came to the conclusion that I really appreciated their approach to it. Not having to discuss the miscarriage helped me to kind of forget it happened, at least for the night, and just sit back and have fun without being reminded of it.

On my to-do list today: dishes, laundry (at least folding the laundry I've already done, I'm such a lazy wench), cleaning out the refrigerator, and I had something else and of course don't remember now what it was.

I really need a new mood theme.

The next person to ask me if I'm okay is going to get ninjapunched in the face.

I know they're all trying to show me that they care, but honestly, what am I supposed to say? If I say "Great!" then the obvious reaction would be a, "She's lying her butt off", or b, "WTF she just had a miscarriage?"

If I say "Terrible!" I make everyone feel bad, which is not good.

I've been saying "I'm okay", which is more or less the truth, and then the conversation inevitably goes to "Is there anything I can do?"

Again, I know they're just saying this to show that they care, but honestly. I seriously don't know how to answer this question yet. "Yes, you can invent a time machine so I can go back and prevent this from happening"? "Yes, you can wave that magic wand I see sticking out of your pocket and make the Raisin a viable fetus so we can have our baby"? "No, now bugger off and leave me alone"?

I've been saying "If I think of anything I'll let you know", but this doesn't seem to work either.

I know I probably sound like I'm just being an ungrateful bitch, but I'm honestly just frustrated. And I really can't even explain why. I would very much like to pretend this never happened, or at least get over it quickly, and I guess I feel like if people keep talking to me about it it'll never go away.

However, I don't want people to totally ignore me either. I guess it's true - you just can't make some people happy.

"UGH I JUST WANT THIS DAY TO BE OVER."

This is what I said when I accidentally hung up on Sarah, and I seriously feel this way - I just want this day to be freaking over with already.

BECAUSE APPARENTLY MISCARRYING IS AN ONGOING PROCESS AND I WASN'T AS FINISHED WITH IT AS I HAD THOUGHT.

UGH I just want this to be over.

Goodbye, Raisin.