Capture Your Grief 2020

For the past 7 Octobers, I have participated in a Capture Your Grief project created by Carly Marie Dudley of The Carly-Marie Project Heal and the Seashore of Remembrance.  I have not seen any information about it happening this year, but I know Carly has been through a great deal lately and has stepped back from being in the public eye.   I do know that this event is meaningful for a lot of people.   So, I have decided to use her as an inspiration and create a daily prompt list here.  Many of these prompts are inspired from those of previous years I have participated. 

Please note, this is NOT my idea or my project and I am in no way attempting to co-opt it for myself.   

I just wanted to carry it on for anyone who wanted to participate.  Carly Marie deserves all the credit for the creation of this project.   Also, my friend Elizabeth of Our Little Beastie Blog has helped me put some topics together for this.  

For those unfamiliar, Capture Your Grief is a daily photo prompt challenge for the month of October - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.   It is meant to be a way to heal, to honor our babies, and to bring awareness to loss and grief.   

There is no requirement to do every prompt, so you should only do the ones that speak to you - or the ones you feel up to doing.   This should be helpful - not hurtful.  You know your heart the best.  Do what you can when you can.  Also, all prompts are completely open to interpretation.  Feel free to change it to suit your needs.

Day 1:  Sunrise 

If you can, get up before sunrise and find a place to sit with your thoughts.  Take a picture of the sunrise wherever you are.  If the weather isn't ideal, take a photo from your window.  Breathe and take some time to think of your child(ren).  What do you hope this month will bring you?  Healing?  Time and space to deal with some difficult emotions?  The ability to share your grief with others?  None of us wish to be here, but you are welcomed into our circle with outstretched arms and an open heart.

Day 2:  Named

What did you name your child(ren)?  Write their name somewhere, even if you don't post it.  Hold it in your heart for a moment and then if you're ready share why their name is so special.  Share any memories you have regarding their name - how you feel when you hear it spoken by another person?

Day 3:   Before 

Who were you Before loss?  How did you see the world?  

Day 4:  After

We are all profoundly different.  How have you changed?  How do you feel about these changes in yourself?   What has been left unchanged?  

Day 5:  Friendship

Is there a friendship that has become especially important to you?  How has this friendship affected you in your loss?   If you can, write a message to this person (people) to tell them what their friendship means to you.

Day 6:  Space

Do you have a specific area dedicated to your child(ren)?   A memorial space you've put together?   Or just a space in your mind and heart you've created as a pocket where you keep their memory tucked away?  How does having this space help you honor them?   

Day 7: Rights

What are some rights you feel the bereaved should be granted?   If you could create a list of fundamental rules everyone would follow in dealing with those grieving, (or YOU in particular)  what would be on it?  

Day 8: Seasons

Is there a particular time of the year that always makes you think of your child?  What feelings does this season bring with it when it comes?  

Day 9:  Broken

Loss destroys us.  We all break and we all try desperately to piece ourselves back together.   Where are you in this process?   How are you feeling about where you are?

Day 10: Comfort

Where do you find comfort when you need it?   Is it in a family member or friend?  A walk along the ocean?  A warm cup of tea or a snuggle with a pet?   What helps you find peace when you need it the most?  

Day 11:  Stuck

Sometimes, many times, we feel like we aren't moving forward.  We feel stuck in our grief, unable to move.  When is a time when you've felt stuck?  What did you do to help yourself get out of that place?   Or are you still there?  (and that's ok) 

Day 12:  Hope

In the darkness of grief, we can't always see the light of hope - of a life lived in the face of grief.  Maybe it's too far away.  Maybe the darkness is too thick.   Have you found your hope yet?   Are you still searching?  

Day 13:  Breathe

Take a day to take a break.   Focus on your breath and let yourself feel calm.  In 2020,  this is especially important.   

Day 14:  Support

What has been a support for you?  An online group?  A website?  A book?  A charity or organization?  How have you found support in these places?

Day 15:  Wave of Light 

Today is Baby and Child Loss Remembrance day. Light a candle at 7pm to honor all of our children and let the wave of light carry their names around the world. Share anything about your baby you want carried on that wave of light.

Day 16:  Treasured

What is a treasured object(s) you have that reminds you of your child?  What are they and what do they mean to you?

Day 17:  Beliefs

What is your belief system? (spiritual, religious, agnostic, atheist)  How have your beliefs (or non-belief) shaped your grief?   How has your grief shaped your belief? Have others' beliefs helped or hindered your healing?

Day 18:  Empty

Grief is a shattering followed by an emptiness that really never goes away.   What does it feel like to be in that empty?  Are you early on in your grief and overwhelmed by it?  Are you farther along and able to sit inside that emptiness?  What does The Empty mean to you?

Day 19: Deed

"Grief is just love with no place to go".  Today, find a place for your love to go and do a kind deed in honor of your child(ren).  You could buy coffee for the person behind you in the drive thru - or donate to a charity in their name.  If money is tight, send an unprompted message of love to someone who may need it.  Anything you see fit to do is ok.  

Day 20:  Obligation

What is something you feel obligated to do for your child - or for other loss families?  Is it an obligation you enjoy and appreciate - or does it wear on you? Could you take a step back if you needed to?

Day 21:  Mantra

What is a phrase or mantra that keeps you going - or one that you feel encapsulates your journey of grief?  Share what has spoken to you and why.  

Day 22:  Create

What have you created - or have had created - in honor of your child?  Artwork you've made or purchased?  Tattoos?  Jewelry?  Share something made by you - or by others - that honors your baby.  

Day 23: Cultivate

How do you tend to your broken heart?  Or, what would you like to be able to do to help yourself heal?  How can you cultivate a place of healing within yourself?  If you're not sure - where would you like to be eventually?

Day 24:  Music

Share some music that reminds you of your baby.  How did this music make you feel when you first heard it?  How does it make you feel now? 

Day 25:  Trigger

What are some triggers that come with your grief?  What do you do when confronted with a trigger?  Have they gotten better or worse?

Day 26:  Release

What especially painful piece of grief do you hold on to too tightly?  Why is it so hard to release?  Share your thoughts on how you can start letting go - not of your love, but of what causes you pain.

Day 27: Self Care

Take a minute to do something for yourself today.  If you choose, share what that is.  Remember, you are worth taking care of.  You are worthy of feeling good.  Loss has not changed that.  

Day 28:  Love

We grieve forever because we love forever.  Share your love for your child in any way you see fit.

Day 29:  Connect

What do you do to feel connected to your baby?  Do you have any specific rituals or routines?  A yearly event?  A daily occurrence?  When and how do you connect?

Day 30:  Vision

Take a minute to look to the future.  Maybe it's a year from now.  Maybe it's tomorrow.  Where do you see yourself in your grief journey?  Where would you like to be?  

Day 31:  Sunset

Find a moment to take in the sunset and reflect on this past month.  Did you learn anything about yourself or your grief?  Did you feel more connected to your baby?  What did this month of prompts do for you?  How are you feeling?  Be gentle on yourself as you come out of this month of grief-reflection.  Take care of yourself as you continue to heal - and thank you for sharing yourself and your baby with us.  

The Dragon

I can feel the rumbling.  Deep and guttural.  The Dragon is stirring.  He is shifting in the darkness, stretching his claws.  I have quite literally tried to outrun him, but I know he will catch up to me.  This whole time I have been running, I have known this.  I have felt his hot breath on my neck.  My old scars have ached with remembering.   And the truth is, I can't escape this.  

I feel weak and powerless.  I feel like no matter how hard I try, February will still devour me.  Chew me up and spit me out - again.  

And the anticipation of what's to come makes me want to hide beneath my blankets until March.

The reliving has begun.  The happy memories of pregnancy are tainted with what I know what is to come.   The jokes I made about heartburn.  My attempt at painting my own toenails.  My baby shower.  My maternity photo session.   All counting down to my own personal D-Day.   It all feels so pointless.    Not all the time - just these memories - just these months.   Everything good that happened from now until February 25th feels like blood money.   I paid the ultimate price for those memories and I don't know if they will never not be tainted.  

Today, I am tired.   I am wondering if I will be successful in my attempts to fight the Dragon that I know is coming for me.   I've been polishing my armor and sharpening my sword.  I've been keeping my eyes on the prize, visualizing my victory.   But, as I begin to hear him start to wake, I am terrified it won't be enough.  Already, my armor feels impossibly heavy - my sword awkward and unwieldy.  These last few months have been nothing but preparing for right now, and I am scared he will still overtake me.   Actually, I know he will.  

He will rise from his cave and swoop over me like a thunderstorm.   He will sink his claws into my back, his jaws into my neck.  He will rip into me as I run.   

These next six weeks will be the hardest six weeks of this journey because I have to continue to work just as hard as I have been, but I will have to do it while being shredded by the Dragon.  I will have to drag myself, limping and bleeding, through the rest of my training and across that finish line.  

Tomorrow, I run eleven miles.  And as I run, I will turn my music up to drown out his growls.  He's coming for me, but I won't go down without a fight.  

Behind Closed Doors

Soon, three years will have passed.   Three years.   It seems like an impossible amount of time.  Life has moved forward, and a lot has happened in the wake of her death.   However, reading my blog, seeing my status updates on Facebook, even hanging out with me in person, you see only part of the story.   You see me trying to make a difference in her name.   You see me excited when I am able to do so.   You see pictures of my rainbow, laughing and growing.   You see a life that has joy again.  All of those things are true and wonderful, but you don't see everything.   You don't see the private times,  times when I am alone in my car or in the darkness before I fall asleep.  You don't see what happens behind closed doors.

Behind closed doors, I still touch her weighted rice owl - every day.   I slide my hand across the fabric.  I straighten the button eyes.   When I pick it up, 5 pounds feels like 5 tons, and it crushes my heart.  

Behind closed doors, I look at her belly tracing hanging on my wall.  I remember making every new hill with excitement and innocence, and I'm angry that all I have left of her are memories and ashes.

Behind closed doors, I feel my heart skip for no reason at all, except that it's trying not to stumble over the hollow bit that rests inside.

Behind closed doors, I can only look at the shelf where her urn sits for a maximum of a few seconds.  I can't bear the fact that my beautiful first born is encased inside a vase smaller than my closed fist.   I think about scattering her ashes, but the thought of not having a physical part of her close to me makes me panic.

Behind closed doors, I wake up at 3 am to a silent house and I immediately begin to convince myself that my rainbow is not dead in her crib.  Paranoia and I play a dangerous game of tug o' war, and I am usually pulled right into her room.   Once I see her little chest rise with her breath, I finally let out mine.

Behind closed doors, I reluctantly slide Kenley's baby shower books into her sister's bookshelf.  And when she brings me one of them to read to her, I push back my tears as I turn to the first page.  

Behind closed doors, I check my "On this Day" hoping to find a status about her, just so I can feel her again.    On days where I know the past is going to be especially hard to read about, I check anyway.  I want to feel it.  I have to feel it.   And the tears that come are a purposeful release.

Behind closed doors, I know there are things I cannot say to everyone, so I say it to my friends who will understand, my friends on the other side of my computer screen who share my broken heart.   The life I used to lead is gone, and we mourn it together. 

Behind closed doors, I feel alone and out of synch.  I can't relate to other moms and "normal" mom problems.  Even when I myself am consumed with the daily struggles of making dinner and doing laundry, I still can't participate in a discussion where that's the biggest gripe.   I often feel like a fake.

Behind closed doors, I get jealous when people have healthy babies with very little effort, and I always feel cheated.  Why couldn't someone else be the statistic?   Why was it me?  Why was it her?  I hate myself for being so jaded.

Behind closed doors, I give myself permission to miss the friends I've lost along the way.  Because if I can't relate to them anymore, how can I really expect them to still relate to me?

Behind closed doors, I hate myself for being the person who cries when a song lyric hits her ear just right or who can't stop staring at the dark haired toddler holding her mother's hand in the grocery store.   I wish I was stronger.  Better yet, I wish I didn't have to be.

Behiind closed doors, I picture her face in my mind, and the heat from my tears rises from the pit of my stomach up through my neck, stealing my breath and stopping my heart.   

Behind closed doors, I let the emptiness fill me.  Because sometimes the only way to not be consumed by it is to give it permission to exist.  

Behind closed doors, I worry what others will think of me if I say these things to them.  How they will misunderstand.  How they will call it "dwelling" or "unhealthy".   How they will think I am unable to cope, when every single one of these things IS coping.    

Behind closed doors, I strip off the mask that helps me pass for acceptable. I unwrap the binding that keeps my broken parts from spilling out onto the street and I am relieved I no longer have to pretend it doesn't suffocate me.

Behind closed doors, I hide from a world that doesn't understand - a world that thinks loss is contagious, death is unspoken, and grief is limited to a timeframe.   

Behind closed doors, life is not always the show you see on stage.  It's not the flashy costumes and the shining spotlight.   It's dark and shadowy and full of secret passages.  Passages where anything can - and does - hide.  

Behind closed doors, there are moms just like me, doing the best they can every day to hold it together, to feel "normal", to bring some sort of purpose to their life after loss.   Moms who are in a constant battle between what they are trying to be and what they actually are.

Behind closed doors, a sanctuary can become a prison if you let it.    

Life moves forward, and you adapt yourself to the changes that brings, but you don't grieve less.  You don't hurt less or miss less.   You just learn to show it less. 

 And you let it out...behind closed doors. 

                               

 

Forgetting

The further away I get from February 25, 2013, the harder it is to hold onto her. You would think every inch of her was burned into my memory. Isn't it part of a mother's biology to know her child backwards and forwards with crystal clear clarity? I am trying so hard to picture her face, not the face in her photos, her real face. The face I stared at through my tears. The soft, white face. The slightly slack mouth. The eternally closed eyes. I want to hold her image in my brain, but it is grainy and slippery. It falls through the holes in my memory, and I can't grasp it. Every day that pulls me farther away from that terrible Monday creates another thin layer of fuzziness over her.
I am forgetting her. I am forgetting the heaviness of her in my arms. I feel it now only slightly, when it used to weigh me down like rocks. I am forgetting her face and her tiny hand. I see them in her pictures, but those pictures aren't her. Those photos are wonderful, but they don't capture the true beauty of my little girl, and I can no longer fully remember it. I can no longer fully remember my own child, and it feels like I am losing her all over again.
Her sister has taken over my life, and I am immersed in changing diapers and cutting fruit into bite-sized pieces, in singing songs and reading board books over and over and over. I can remember all of the words to "Giraffes Don't Dance" but not all the details of my firstborn.
How did this happen? How has my brain somehow let her slip away?
I have looked at her pictures so many times, those are the images I see when I close my eyes. The black and white baby with her hand over her left eye. The side pose with the bear and the bracelet. The curled up child in the long sleeved gown. Those are the pictures my brain remembers, but I can't see her. The real Kenley in my arms. The real face I looked down on. The real hand I held. The real head covered in black hair. Those images keep pulling farther and farther away. I try so hard to keep them with me, but they won't stay. They are leaving me. Silently slipping out the back door of my mind.
How long will it be before she is gone completely? Before all I know of her is the four pictures that aren't really her? Before I can no longer feel her in my arms? That day is coming. I only had two hours with her. Thirty six weeks and then two hours. It's not enough time to burn enough memory. It's not enough time to make her stay with me. I reach out for her with desperate fingers, but I can't take hold.
I'm losing her. I'm losing her. I'm losing her.
And my heart is breaking all over again.

The Box

You'd think that with all of my writing, I would have worked through the more difficult moments. You'd think I would have written everything I need to write and sorted through what I need to sort by now, but that's not true. It's not even close to true. There are moments I can't bring myself to think about for more than a few seconds. There are moments that hurt so badly that I have to keep them in an armored box, far away from my conscious mind, or they will break me.

Writing and talking about her has certainly helped keep that armored box free of clutter. I've been able to move many memories out into the open that way. Some memories that used to stab merely prickle now, but there is still quite a bit of darkness in that box. There are still several memories that hulk inside there, powerful and frightening and covered in pain. Memories I keep trying to bring out into the light, but just can't. They are too heavy, too sharp, too painful. The moment my hand clasps around them, their spikes shoot through me, tearing me to ribbons.

I know people want me to be finished with grieving, and that they don't want to know about the armored box. They want to think the worst is behind me, and that there is only growth and light in my future. But the truth is, the box exists. It exists deep within me and it contains pain I am not brave enough to feel or strong enough to sort through. How it felt to sit in a hospital for hours, knowing she was gone, yet was still inside me. How it felt wondering what it was going to be like to give birth to my dead daughter. How it felt to walk into the delivery room swollen with death. How it felt to wake up empty. How it felt to hold her in my arms that night, so still and pale and silent. How the sound of my own anguish still echoes in my ears and reverberates within my soul. What it was like to roll over in my bed, knowing I had just seen her for the last time. How it felt to reach over the railing of my bed for my husband's hand in the middle of the night, knowing I would find him desperately searching for me too. How it felt to go from two to three over the course of 8 months and then back to two in less than 8 seconds. How the world seemed to fall away from us in a gray and foggy swirl, and how the two of us just continued to spin as we clung to each other in sorrow and fear. How I don't know the color of her eyes because I never saw them open. How I only know what her feet look like in photographs, but how, every day, I still see her face, her beautiful face, white and slack-jawed. How I will only ever know her face as a face of death, and how that breaks my heart more than anyone can ever imagine. What can you do with memories like these? You certainly can't live with them on a daily basis. It's just too much. It's why we all have a box.

The box stores them for me. It keeps these memories from pulling me into the darkness. It protects my heart from the onslaught of pain these memories hold. It's simply impossible to feel all of this all of the time. It would kill me.

I know I need to get them out of the box. For the past several months, I have felt the need to talk about them, to share them, to bring them out into the open. But, there are no words for them. They are so primally painful, there are no words. There is only pain and dark. There is only brokeness. There is no way I can communicate how they feel without being misunderstood, without people thinking I have succumbed to the darkness, without people seeing me as irrevocably broken. There is no way I can revisit them without bathing myself in their agony. To deal with them, I have to feel them. And I just can't. Even two years later, I am not strong enough. Even just dipping my big toe into their icy, black waters sends me reeling backwards in pain. And so I leave them there. Closed up in that armored box. I can feel them stomping around. I can hear their screams. They want out. And I can't release them. I don't know how, and even if I did, I am not sure I would want to.

Maybe one day, I'll be strong enough for what lies inside that box. Maybe one day, I'll be able to work through the blackness beneath the lid. Today is not that day. I don't expect tomorrow to be that day either. I expect that box to always exist, to always shield me from the harshest memories in one way or another.

I wish I was stronger. Better yet, I wish she was here.

February Fog

February has never been my favorite month. Other than my dad's birthday, there really hasn't been anything in February that I have enjoyed. Valentine's Day might be nice if they didn't set out those boxes of candy on January 1, thus confirming it's all about the cash and has actually little to do with appreciating your significant other. Also, February in Florida is generally the coldest and harshest month. I am a native Floridian and am still here for a reason. I hate being cold. Hate it. Anything below 70 just makes me grumpy. So, when February comes blowing through with winds that make it feel like 40, I am pretty crabby about it. A sweater AND a jacket? Closed toed shoes? Arg!!!! I just want February to be over so March can warm me up.

Two years ago, February gave me yet another reason to hate it. It stole my child from me. February will always be the month Kenley died. It will always be the month where everything I was was swept away, where I was broken down into nothing, and where I had to relearn how to live in a world without my daughter.

This year, February hit, and I didn't notice right away because I was so wrapped up in getting the Heartbroken Mother video finished. After I had finalized the changes, uploaded it to Youtube, and breathed a huge sigh of relief, February sucker punched me in the gut. I watched the final video as a Heartbroken Mother instead of a critical video maker, and I just fell apart. All those babies. All those mothers. Each of them with a February of their own. And then, as the video closes, my beautiful Ninja shows her face, and I see the reason behind it all. The reason February is so soul crushing for me.

There's a weird haze I walk around in during this month. A fog that clouds everything except for one thing: a countdown. That countdown is all I can see. Today is February 10th. That means that I had 14 days left with her. 14 days of being blissfully unaware that she was tangling herself in her cord. 14 days of excitement and expectations. 14 more days to organize her nursery, to make plans for her, to imagine her birthday. Tomorrow, it will be 13. Then 12...11...10....all counting down to the day where I lost her forever. To the day where the life I thought I had turned itself into a cruel and twisted reality.

It's difficult to pull myself out of this fog during these days. It's hard to ignore that countdown, which ticks in my ear, loud and looming. Every day closer to the 25th is one day closer to the worst day of my life. How do you go about your day normally when you're inevitably taking steps towards heartbreak?

I try to remember the flipside of February. It's Kenley's birthday. She deserves a birthday. She deserves to be celebrated. She deserves to be thought of with joy and love, and not just sorrow and anger. So, I try to plan events which make me think of her with happiness. I try to plan things where my heart feels full instead of impossibly empty. Last year, my wonderful photographer friend, Jeanee James, took family photos of us on Kenley's birthday by her tree and then we all went out to dinner. This year, in addition to continuing our picture tradition, I plan on making a bear at Build a Bear and inserting a heart on which I have recorded her heartbeat. I will give the bear to Piper on her first birthday in April as a way of bringing my two girls together. Thinking about doing that makes me excited for the day as opposed to filling me with dread. I think that is the key with these types of birthdays. It's important to plan something that honors your baby, but is also something you can enjoy doing.

Regardless of how I am looking forward to taking pictures and making a bear, I still don't want February 25th to come. I still don't want to countdown every day until that day. Giving that day purpose does not really distract me from the reason I have to search for meaning in the first place. Kenley should be turning two. She should be running around in a new outfit and pigtails. She should be getting a tricycle for her birthday and singing "Let it Go" at the top of her lungs. But, she's not. Instead of planning a party with gifts and guests, I am planning a way to remember her. Instead of organizing toddler party games, I am organizing a day full of "meaning" so I don't fall apart. There is no way that anything will make this okay. And this is only year two.

February sucks.

Healing Words

Today, I'm pretty excited to share something with you.  I have been working on adding a page to the blog for the past few weeks.  Mostly, it's been just a jumbled mess in my head, but I finally got around to organizing it onto the computer.

Check out the "How to Journal through Grief" tab at the top of the page.  Let me know what you think.

Shifting

My grief is changing.  I can feel it.  It's shifting and transforming.  It's settling in.

At the beginning, everything is so raw and open.  Sorrow and rage and shock join forces in the dark and rush at you full force.  Grief stabs you repeatedly in the heart with the sharpest knives imaginable.  Blood pours, thick and metallic, from your wounds.  It bubbles up and out, choking your screams back into your throat.  The beginning is flashes of pain, thunderous screams, and gnashing teeth.   You lay on the floor, weak and beaten, helpless to do anything about the fact that all the light and goodness that once filled your soul is seeping out onto the cold tile.   You wait to die.  You are pretty sure that you will.  After all, what else could you really expect?  You have just been torn open like a gutted fish.   But, you don't.

As you lay there, bloody and broken, expecting the darkness to just take you away, you realize it's not going to.  You don't get to escape.   This is the first shift of grief.   The shift from painful chaos to sorrowed silence.  In this stage, you don't really do much of anything.  You've been ravaged by wolves and you're really too weak to even move.  So, you lie there.  Drained.  Empty.  Full of nothing but an echo of what once was but is no longer.   You wonder how you will ever get the strength to move, let alone stand.   Eventually, you do.  You wiggle your fingers and your toes.  You bend your knees and your elbows.  Slowly, slowly, slowly, you manage to pull yourself upright.  You are still a bloody mess, bits of you still raw and hanging.

This is the third shift of grief.  This is the part where you attempt to put yourself back together.  All of the pieces ripped away and torn apart - you gather them up and you try to shove them back where they belong.  Only, they don't really fit.  Some been stretched out and ripped to shreds. Other parts of you are lost forever, and you will never have them back.   So, you do the best you can with what you have left to make yourself resemble a human again.  This stage is never really, truly done.  Throughout the rest of your life, you will always have to rearrange your pieces.  Tuck things in, pull things out, move things over.  Nothing fits right, but it's what you've got.

Then comes the settling in.  Once you've figured out the basic mechanics of keeping yourself in place, you have one more thing to do.  You have to make room for your grief.  You can't leave that behind.  It's a part of you now.  It's a hard, lumpy boulder that you must fit into yourself somewhere.  You nestle it in among your soft insides, the weight of it crushing the air from your lungs.  It's heavy and cumbersome.  It makes you hunch over with effort.  Maybe one day, your muscles will gain enough strength to straighten up, but not yet.  For now, you are Quasimodo (which in Latin means almost, merely), misshapen and malformed.  You limp through your life, weary and burdened.

This is where I am now.  Carrying my grief inside like a rock.  Hard and unyielding - and as much a part of me as Kenley ever was.  It's exhausting.  Day in.  Day out.  Heaving this load around inside me.  I can't set it down.  I can't let it go.  I don't know what else to do except live with it.  So, that's what I do.  What I will continue to do until it shifts again.  

A Royal Heartache

So, the royal baby has arrived.  First Kim Kardashian, now Dutchess Kate.  I get to watch through green-tinted lenses as the entire free world celebrates the birth of one baby.    

Don't get me wrong, I am glad Kate had a healthy, happy baby boy.  I am glad she and William are able to bring him home where he belongs.  No mother should be where I am, and I am relieved she does not have to go through this pain - especially under the hot lights of press cameras and media scrutiny.   She was able to have what most mothers do.  She was one of the lucky ones.

Meanwhile, the unlucky have to sit and watch.   When we turn on the television or open a magazine, we are slapped in the face.  Forced to see what we cannot have.  There will be adorable photos released.  Probably with the baby in her arms while the two parents gaze adoringly down at him.  The media will scurry to capture him learning to crawl, his first words, his first steps.  He will be celebrated beyond measure.  The whole world will know him and watch him grow.  

Meanwhile, I scream at the top of my lungs for someone to recognize my baby.  Meanwhile, I have to accept that no one will know her - no one will watch her grow.  The only thing keeping her memory alive is me and the small circle of family and friends who put in the effort to do it with me - possibly the occasional passerby of my blog.

It's hard to see other people so effortlessly have what I do not.  It's hard to see so much attention showered on someone - attention my baby should have received, but did not.  I don't wish anyone ill will.  I don't mean to complain, but it's tough.   It taps that knife in a little deeper.

I suppose I'm just feeling extra sensitive today.  I miss her so much.  I want to kiss her cheeks and nuzzle her belly.   I want to watch her try to crawl.  I just hope Kate never takes even one second of her life with her son for granted.  

Hell

"Everyone's hell is different.  It's not all fire and pain.  The real Hell is your life gone wrong." - What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson

When this movie came out in 1998, I was a sophomore in college.  I loved the vivid imagery used in the scenes.  The symbolism of the colors.  Blue for their children and loss.  Red for their love and journey together.  Green for the complicated emotions of grief.  I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't even know it was a book first until a few years later.   I read it in an afternoon.   Matheson's interpretation of life and death, love and loss is amazing.   It always struck a chord with me.  Now, it does even more.  

In both versions, one of the characters is stuck in hell.   She is not burning or being tortured by an outside source.  Instead, she is trapped in the most terrible version of her life.   Her house is dilapidated and falling apart.  The floor is covered in thick, black, cold water.  She knows something is wrong, but she can't figure it out.  She knows she is alone, but she doesn't know why.   She is scared and unable to see anything other than the fact her life is not what it is supposed to be.  Even when her husband, her soul mate, comes to try to rescue her from her own private hell, she does not recognize him.   She sees only a life that shouldn't be.

Do you want to know what hell is like?   Hell is living 8 bliss-filled months anticipating a new life and having that life torn from your body and then handed to you still and silent.   Hell is watching your husband crumple when he puts his daughter's coming home outfit away for the first and last time. Hell is seeing other people do what you failed to do -  bring their babies home.   Hell is knowing your daughter should be sitting up and working on learning how  to crawl right now, but instead sits on a shelf in your living room in a pretty pink vase.  Hell is never knowing what her first word would have been, what books she would have loved to read, or where she would have gone to college.   Hell is feeling that you have been catapulted into the wrong timeline - into a life you weren't supposed to have - forced to live each day without your baby.  Hell is the inability to do anything about it.

Right now, life is hell.  There is no point in sugar coating this.  It is what it is. I live every day in the best way I know how.  I try to bring meaning to her death with my blog and my volunteering efforts.  I work so hard just to feel normal, but I never do.   I always feel heavy and burdened with a tragedy I didn't deserve.  If I am not constantly working on something, I feel empty and hollow.   I'm tired of fighting so hard to distract myself from the pain.   This should not be my life.  But it is.  No matter how hard I pinch myself, I am not going to wake up because this is not a dream.  This is my life gone wrong. This is the life of a mother without her child.  This is hell.

If you've watched or read What Dreams May Come, you know that the story doesn't end in hell, though.  You know that the two main characters, who are true soul mates, choose to go through hell together rather than being separated.  As a result, their love pulls them out.   And then, they get to start over.  

Today, it's hard to see how my life will ever get better.   It's hard to see past the pain of being without her - the anguish of knowing that this isn't what was supposed to happen.  It's hard to believe I'll ever feel anything else other than despair and anger and jealousy.  But then, I remember that somewhere deep inside, there is another feeling.   A soft, fleshy nugget nestled deep beneath the sludge.  Warm and light and good.   Love.   I have love.  Love for Kenley.  Love for Mike.  Love for life beyond loss.   Love can pull me through hell.  I just have to be willing to hold on to it.

Craving Kapa'a

The more time that passes, the more I want to get out of this life.  (Don't panic - not like that)  At first, when everything was turned so upside down, I clung to things that were familiar.  My friends.  My family.  My house.  People asked me if I was going to go back to work at the same school, and I said "of course."  Because to make things so different on purpose seemed insane to me.   Why would I create even more turmoil for myself?  

I hear stories of couples who break clean away from their old lives after losing a child.  They move to a new city.  They get new jobs.  They embrace change out of necessity. Not because they are running away, but because they are running towards something else - something better, something lighter.   Sometimes, the past is too painful to hold on to, no matter how hard you try.  Sometimes, you need a fresh start.  I get that now.   If I had the financial means to do so right now, that is exactly what I would do.  I would move.   Far, far away.   

When Mike and I were on our honeymoon in Kauai, we took a day trip from Lihue up to the north coast.  On the way there, we stopped for breakfast at a coffee shop in Kapa'a.   Just across the street from the pacific ocean, the shop was a small wooden building painted sunshine yellow.  The original structure had been added on to over the years, making it look a little like someone was playing dominoes with box cars.   Inside, local artists proudly displayed their work.  Canvases thick with paint and inspiration covered the indigo walls.  The barista was a woman probably in her late twenties, who's tank top was covered in coffee stains and who's arms were covered in tattoos.  The breakfast crowd obviously consisted of regulars, as they chatted with each other and the employees with ease and familiarity.   The atmosphere was both electric and mellow.  As we ate our breakfast, surrounded by art and ocean air, I thought about what would happen if we just didn't come home.   What if we just stayed in Kauai?  I could work at this coffee shop.  I could paint some art for the walls.  We'd get a tiny bungalow on the beach with gray, wooden floor boards as wide as my open palm.  We'd sleep with the windows open and the sounds of the waves pushing onto the shore.   Our kids would be water babies, able to swim before they could walk.   In those twenty minutes at the coffee shop, I imagined a whole new life for us.  I pictured myself pregnant and swollen, wrapped in a sarong, walking barefoot on the beach.  In those twenty minutes at the coffee shop, I was ready to trade my life here to become a Hawaiian hippie.  

Now, I realize that was just the idealistic dreams of a newlywed.   My life with Mike had officially begun, and I wanted to conjure up the best one possible.  Realistically, I knew that would never happen.  I knew our time in Hawaii would have to end.  But, it was okay because we had our own pretty great life to come back to.  We had plans.  We had a future.

And then life sucker punched me in the gut - quite literally.  Just like that, the plans I made were gone.  The future I had envisioned disappeared in a flash.  And sometimes, I feel like there is nothing left for me here.  Everything is a constant reminder of what is missing.   Everything.  From the friend who was going to take Kenley to the zoo to the baby thrift shop I was planning to frequent.  I am surrounded by a life I can't have while being crushed by a life I don't want.  

I want to start over.  I don't want to be the mother of a dead daughter.  I don't want a life where I have to search for meaning everywhere just to keep myself from falling a part.  I want to grab Mike's hand and a suitcase - and just disappear.   I want to make art and coffee in Kapa'a.  And I want to look at the night sky with wonder and joy once again.

A Catch

It's a catch. A snag. Catching you by surprise, it starts in your chest, just above your stomach. It plummets into your gut and then springboards back up into your throat. That's where you try to stop it, but not before it pulls the tears from your eyes and the breath from your lungs. You push it down, hard. It's not the right time. Not now. You take a few deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. You close your eyes to keep your focus - and to keep the tears from falling and betraying the illusion of normalcy you've worked so hard to maintain. You purse your lips and hiss the air out. Slowly. Calmly. You clench your fists, flexing your fingers with each exhale. And it works. For now. Until the next time when the emptiness becomes too much for your soul to support and your heart breaks all over and over and over again.


It's exhausting to continually keep myself from crying at random - or not so random - moments. I never know when tears are going to overtake me. When a word will hit my ear wrong. When a memory will loosen itself within my brain. When a thought of a future that doesn't exist will stir my soul. "Oh, no, not again." A "normal" day can turn on a dime. 

When these moments find me, I want so badly to give into them. To surrender to the sobs and just let them wash over me like ocean waves. To let the foundation I am working so hard to rebuild crumble into pieces. A good cry is often what we need - but it's not always what we can do. If I let these moments dictate my actions, I would be perpetually in tears. I would sob uncontrollably when the woman at the airport lovingly fastens her baby into her stroller, or when the color of someone's shirt reminds me of the color of her nursery walls, or when I, for no reason at all, begin to wonder if Kenley would have liked to eat bananas. I push back tears on a regular basis. It's just what I do now. In the same way you brush your teeth in the morning, or use your turn signal before changing lanes. It's habit. It's life. 

Sometimes, I let myself cry. When I'm in a position to do so. Like at home or with friends. But, not at the grocery store, or at a restaurant, or doing the regular day to day activities I have to do. Sometimes, I cry anyway, despite my best attempts to thwart it. Sometimes, no matter how hard I push it down, the walls that contain my tears break and the flood gates open. And I am a sobbing mess in the corner booth, or aisle 6, or the next car over. It just happens. 

I don't know if I will have to be en guarde for regular crying jags for the rest of my life - or if they will slow down eventually. I hope they do because I am exhausted - and probably also dehydrated.

   

Four Months

I sit side by side with my broken down soul
while she cries shining rivers of tears
Her hands are too small for the pain she must hold
Pain she feels she's been holding for years

She's tired and weary and can't catch her breath
and she bleeds from a wound that won't heal
What she thought would be hers belongs now to death
What should be a dream is too real

As I look in her eyes full of sorrow and rage
my heart breaks and splinters in two
One piece remains with me in this cage
The other is taken by you

My body is healing, my days come and go
Underneath, I am cracked full apart
Without you, my spirit crumples and folds
For now, we must share half a heart

My soul and I clutch the other's cold hand
As we stare at what is to come
A lifetime without you is so hard to stand
But it's something that can't be undone

Our only recourse is to rebuild the walls
Of this rubble that used to be strong
So we pick up the pieces, the big and the small
And we learn to sing a new song

My soul and I sing of the piece we have lost
Of what's missing and forever will be
We sing of a meadow covered in frost
We sing of a caged bird set free

We sing through our sorrow. We sing through our pain
We sing, though we don't know the words
We sing to the sunshine in spite of the rain
We sing notes that may never be heard

We are broken and bloody and losing our voice
But we refuse to give into the night
Without you, we are left with no other choice
We use our love to make our own light

Tubby Time

Imagine two bathtubs side by side.   Go ahead and get fancy, and think of those huge, white porcelain tubs with the claw feet and the long, swooping faucet.  One of those tubs is full of water.  Filled to the brim and almost spilling over.   The other tub is completely empty.  Dry as a bone.  Ok, so I suppose it's a little weird that these tubs are right next to each other, so let's go ahead and move the empty tub to another room.   With such fancy clawed feet tubs, we must be in an enormous mansion, so how about we move the empty tub to a bathroom in the back of the west wing?   You know where the west wing is, right?   Down two flights of stairs, across the grand ballroom, past the library and then the third door on the right just after the kitchen.   Got it?   Alright, so now, I'm going to give you a job.  It's a very important job and it must be done as quickly as possible - otherwise everyone will get very impatient with you and probably make some inappropriate comments about your abilities to do it.   Your job is to transfer the water from the tub upstairs to the one in the west wing.   What should you use to move the water from tub to tub?   Hmmmm...here's a thimble. That is definitely big enough, no problem.    Oh, by the way, you want to make sure that once you're done that there is absolutely no water in the upstairs tub whatsoever.  We are out of towels, so you can use this sandpaper, as long as you don't scratch the porcelain.   Oh yeah, also, every once in a while, I'm going to turn on the faucet up there and let it run for a few minutes.  You know, just to keep you on your toes.   Then, obviously, I'll probably have to let a little water out of the west wing tub every few minutes too.   People will want to take a bath in there and they'll need it completely full of hot water when they do, so you'll really have to stay on top of that.  Now, remember, the world is timing you, so you'd better do this pretty soon.  Plus, we're all watching you, so don't spill anything either.  Did I forget to mention, you'll need to be wearing these roller skates?   Aaaannnnd....GO! 

That is what overcoming grief is like.   

Mangoes

The weekend I found out I was pregnant, Mike and I had plans to visit a local plant nursery for Mango Madness.   The nursery had arranged for a mango expert to speak a little bit about the care of mango trees.   They also had about two dozen different types of mangoes to sample.  Did you know there are over 100 different types of mangoes?   Well, there are.   And they all have a slightly different taste.   Some are slightly grainy and bitter.  Others are smooth and buttery.  While Mike sat at the front of the room, listening intently on how best to cultivate a tree, I circled the sample table, grabbing toothpick after toothpick to see which type I liked best so we could buy that specific tree.   I had known I was pregnant for less than 24 hours, and already I was thinking about how old our baby would be when we could harvest our fruit.   A mango tree takes about two to three years to produce fruit.   I pictured our little baby in her highchair, smiling and laughing and covered in golden goo from our first harvest.

After the presentation, I told Mike I had figured out what type of tree to get.  We chose a Kent mango tree.  It's fruit is slick and sweet - and it was my favorite.  As we walked through the nursery with our cart toward the trees, my hand never left my stomach.   This was my baby's mango tree.  We would eat the fruit together.   We placed the tree in the back of my Honda coupe, laying it on it's side with the back seat folded down, and drove home.   Mike planted the tree in our backyard while I called my mother to tell her the news of her future grandbaby.

You might be thinking to yourself, "Well, it's ok.  Your future children can eat those mangoes."   That would be true if the tree's story ended here.   February in Florida is usually the coldest month.  It can get below 50 for several days in a row.  Sometimes getting into the 30's, but not often.   This year, February was unseasonably warm.   I remember sitting out at recess with my teacher friends the Friday before we lost her remarking about how nice the weather was.   It was as if winter had forgotten us.

When Kenley died a few days later, winter remembered.   March was ridiculously cold.  And not a day or two here and there as we are used to.  It was repeatedly below 60 degrees for the entire month.   I like to think it was because the world was mourning with me.  I like to think March was so bitter because my heart was so full of sadness.  

March killed the mango tree.  It is a dry and shriveled shell.  It's brown and brittle leaves hang lifeless around it's tiny trunk.   Like Kenley, it's not coming back.  All through April, Mike tried to work his gardening magic on it, but it's gone.  We really should pull it up, but I can't bear that right now.  

I suppose symbolism is really what you make it to be, but I always considered this tree to parallel my daughter.  We planted it when we found out about her.  It was her tree.  We were going to eat the mangoes together.   It would grow and so would she.   When she died, all the warmth left my world for a solid month.  Literally and figuratively.   And the mango tree couldn't take it either.   So, no Kenley and no mangoes.   Just an empty crib and a hole in the ground that holds yet another broken promise.

Dear Kenley

To my precious Little Ninja, 

Oh, how I miss you.  Today, I woke up crying.  When the first gray streaks of morning filtered into my bedroom and my eyes fluttered open, they were already full of tears.   My tears try to fill up the hole in my heart, but there is never enough.  Even though I cry rivers, the emptiness you left behind is too big.   Nothing will ever fill it.  

I can't believe you are gone.  I can't believe I had a beautiful, healthy baby one day, and then an empty body and heart the next.  Sometimes, I still expect to feel you move.  You had one mean left hook, you know.   Sometimes, I still expect to hear you cry from the next room.   Every once in a while, I think I might wake up from this world from which you are missing, and run to you in your crib, where you are smiling up at me.   I don't want this to be real, baby girl.  I don't want to be a mother without her child.  But I am.    You are not here, and I am left to carry on without you.  Some days, I am able to pull myself together.  Some days, I am able to take your memory and wrap it around me like a blanket, soft and warm and comforting.   I snuggle into you and my heart swells.   You'd be so proud of your mama on those days.  But, on other days, the blanket is full of holes and the world is so cold.  On those days, my darling daughter, nothing is enough to keep me warm, and my life without you is dark and broken.  I don't want you to see me like that.  On those days, Little Ninja, look away.  A mother should be strong for her child, and I am trying so hard.  So very hard all the time.  Please know that.

Today is Mother's Day, and it is already a hundred times harder that I feared it would be.  I am wracked with sobs as I write this to you.  I am so very sad you are not here with me  - that I don't get to hold you in my arms, or kiss your cheek, or inhale your sweet scent.  I am so very sad I never got to know your life outside of my belly and that I'll never get to watch you grow.  I loved you more than anything I could ever have imagined.  I loved you with a love so great and powerful that it holds me together and tears me apart at the same time.   I still love you.  I will always love you.  Until the last breath of air leaves my body, until my aching heart beats for the last time, until I grow cold and still with death, I will love you. 

I'm sorry you don't get to have the life we planned for you.   I'm sorry you'll never feel my arms around you.  I'm sorry your Daddy will never get to teach you about science and I'll never get to show you how to frost cupcakes.  I'm sorry I'll never know the color of your eyes, or what your favorite food is, or what games you like to play.  I'm sorry for so many, many things.   But, I am not sorry you existed.  Not for one second.  I am not sorry I carried you for 36 weeks just to end up brokenhearted.  Even though I lost you, I am not even a little bit sorry for the life you did have.  For a tiny sliver of my life, you were in it.  Your heart beat because mine did.  I would rather have had you and then lost you than never have had you at all.  For that, I will never be sorry.

You made me who I am.  Because of you, I am forever changed.   You made me a mother, Kenley Evelyn.  You transformed my ordinary heart into something more - something spectacular.   And even though right now, that heart is jagged and torn, it still beats with a rhythm just for you.  It always will.   One day, you will have little brothers or sisters, and they will help sew it back together, but you will always be inside it.  A nugget of light inside my patchwork heart.  Your light will shine through me wherever I go.  You will be the candle in my lantern, and I will use your flame to bring light to the darkness.  With one foot in front of the other, I walk through this life with your lantern in my hand and your father by my side.  You will always be a part of us.  No matter where we go, what we do, or who we meet, you will be there.


I love you now, always, and forever.

Love, 
Your Momma

Not Enough

I don't have any pictures of myself holding Kenley.   I didn't get to change her clothes or give her a bath.   I wish I had known that I could have done that.  And now it is too late.  I will never hold her again.  I will never touch her soft skin.  I will never feel her tiny fingers wrap around my hand.  All I have is the memory of holding her.   I remember how she felt in my arms, nestled into the crook of my elbow.   I remember how soft and smooth her cheeks were.  When they handed her to me, she was wrapped up in a blanket.  Her left arm peeked out of the folds and I slid my index finger underneath her palm.  I didn't know I could unwrap her from her blanket.   I remember worrying about what would happen if her blanket came undone and she spilled out.  I worried the hospital staff would be mad at me.   So, I held her as she was given - a little, still bundle.  I peeked in a little, pulling the blanket away from her neck.  I touched her chest.  But, I never touched her feet.  Or her legs.  Or her belly.  Or even her other hand.   I never even saw the color of her eyes.   I brushed my fingers over her forehead and touched her hair that fell below the knitted cap on her head.   I pulled the hat up just a tad so I could be sure she had the full head of hair my heartburn had promised me, but I didn't cup her head in my hand like I wish I had.  I didn't trace the outside of her ears.   I didn't kiss the nape of her neck.    I wish I had pulled all of the coverings away from my little girl and examined every inch of her so I could have committed it to memory.   I wish I had touched and kissed her all over.  I wish I had taken hours and hours with her.  Instead, I was weighed down in shock and sadness and I didn't know that even though death had claimed her, she still ultimately belonged to me.

Nothing makes me cry more than thinking of this.  Nothing.   I can't go back and have more time.   I can't hold her again - and so all of those things I don't know will forever be a mystery to me.   How her knees bent.  If she had any freckles or birthmarks.   What her toes felt like.   When I think of this, my breath catches in my chest, sharp and hot.  My ears burn and my eyes swell with tears. I feel a sadness beyond measure.  I have tried to write this post several times and usually only get about three or four sentences down before I have to take some deep breaths and wipe the tears from my eyes.   Remembering what she felt like in my arms only makes me ache to hold her again.   Remembering how soft her skin was only makes me want to touch her one more time.   But I can't.   Never again.  

I would give anything to have her back with me, but that is a bargain that has yet to be offered.   So instead, I am here without her, fighting the darkness she left behind.   Trying to hold it together as best as I can.  I miss her so much, I often have to completely stop what I am doing to mentally push through that moment.  She is gone, and I don't get to hold her.  I don't get to touch her or sing to her.  I don't get to hear her laugh or see her smile.   I just get to remember those brief moments in the hospital when I was too shaken to really soak her in.   And that is not enough.  Not by a long shot. 

Forward

Over the last few months, I have met many women who have experienced the loss of their baby.  Through Cherishing the Journey, message boards, and facebook, I have come to learn of many heartbreaks as we walk together in this journey.   One of my closest confidantes right now is a woman I have never met who lives in what I like to call the Great, White North, but what is really just Massachusetts.    We chat on facebook all the time and sometimes text.   She lost her son only a few months before we lost Kenley for very similar reasons, so we have that in common.   Over the last few months, she has become not only someone I can vent to about random feelings and irritating issues, but someone who I enjoy talking to, and who's friendship I greatly treasure.  It's wonderful to have someone who truly understands what I am going through.  I like to think that I am as helpful and supportive to her as she has been for me.  We were chatting recently about various issues and I said something to the effect of moving forward instead of moving on.  I know she knows what I mean by that, but I figured I would tell you.

I have developed an aversion to the phrase "moving on".  It rubs me the wrong way.  Moving on implies that you are leaving something behind.   It implies you are getting away from something.  Heading towards bigger and better things.   When you lose a child, none of that is true, yet you still need to find a way to go on with your life.   You want to heal from your massive wounds.  You want to find a way to not hurt so much.  You want to remove the shackles that tie you to your pain - but you don't want for one second to forget about your child.   It's a very difficult balance.

Because no mother is willing - or able - to give up any pieces of her child for any reason, moving on is impossible.   We will never leave them behind.  We will crawl naked over shards of glass before we would consider going through life without them.   Sadly, Mothers of Loss have little choice.  Our babies are not here, not physically.   They are memories.  Whispers of love on our broken hearts.  Their absence creates giant holes in our lives.  Great, gaping chasms of darkness that can only be filled by our love for them.  So we have the world's greatest dilemma.   How do we release our pain without releasing our love?  Normally, people feel at peace when they have "let go" of what troubles them.  Letting go of our children is impossible for us.  So, we will never move on.   Not in a million lifetimes.  We will carry our children - and our pain - with us wherever we go.

What we will do, though, is move forward.   Before our loss, we were like a car with four fully functional tires and a full tank of gas.  We moved at an appropriate speed, smoothly and gracefully.  However, we hit a stop stick, flipped over a few times, and exploded.  Now, all of our tires are shredded, our body is dented and ripped away, and all of our fuel has detonated.  With all of this damage, you'd think the insurance company would just "total" us, but it doesn't.   The world completely expects us to rebuild ourselves and keep going.   So that's what we do.   We take every piece of ourselves and we keep going.   Every slice of burnt rubber, every shard of glass, every chunk of metal.  We gather it up and piece it back together the best we can.   And we move forward.  We are broken and slow, but we press on.   We have to stop and rest more than we did before - and we definitely can't go on any highways - but we keep going.  And we carry our pain with us.    It hurts to go through life like this, but we aren't about to trade in for a new car.  We aren't going to leave any bit behind.  

We will always hurt.  Always.  We will not leave our children behind - and so we can not leave our pain behind.  We will not move on.  We will not forget our past.  We will not forget what has brought us to where we are.  In order to remember our babies, we have to remember why they aren't here with us.  Our children and our pain are intertwined so we can't let go of either.   But, we can find a way to carry on.  Our love is glue and welded metal.  Our love patches our tires and seals the cracks in our windshield.   Our love cushions the sharp shards of glass we can't fix and fuels the gas tank.  It does everything it can to keep our car on the road.  While we know we are unlike most of the other cars - bright and shiny cars that have no problem keeping up with the speed limit - we are still moving.  Forward - not On. We never learn to move on from it - but we do learn how to live with it.  We carry it all with us.  Our memories. Our pain. Our love.  All equal parts of us.  All part of what pushes us forward.