Mother's Day

The first blooms ever from Kai's dogwood tree that wee planted last fall.

Celebrated my second Mother's Day with only one of my two children. It hurts knowing that I've been pregnant twice, given birth twice and had two babies... but people we saw celebrating Mother's Day all would have assumed we were parents of an only child. They should make a t-shirt, pin, bumper sticker ... something that tells everyone " We have a child/children that died but he/she/they are still very present in our hearts each and every day!".
I did enjoy the day with the child I do have and my husband. I received the traditional breakfast in bed with flowers picked from our garden, a chocolate croissant from the french bakery at the end of our street, tea and an orange. Yum! For the time that I was eating, adoring the pictures my daughter drew for me and opening my present I was fine. Content. But then, when my hands, mouth and eyes weren't busy my mood slumped and I had that familiar overwhelming need to sleep. So, I slept for a couple more hours and then tried really hard to want to move. I did and the rest of the day was spent celebrating my role in my family of 4 ( that looks like a family of 3).

Friday May 7th Kai would have been 16 months old. When does one stop counting the time? Why do I do it? In my mind he will always be a baby. So why do I keep time like I did for my first child? For her it was to mark her growth, her time here since she was born, her developmental milestones. Kai doesn't have any of that. I guess it is just a way for me to keep track of his one milestone of being stillborn. A way for me to make him more concrete in my life... counting the amount of time since we first held him in our arms. Counting the amount of time that we have held him in our hearts because we cannot physically hold him ever again.

I have to make it myself

This afternoon I finally finished the card I was making for a Mother's Day card exchange. The card is for another woman who lost her infant. It was organised by a woman in Ontario who has also lost a child. I think it's a great project! We sent her our name and address along with our child's name. She then sent each of us another participants name and information. You have to send a Mother's Day card to the mother that you received and it is done in the name of the child that was lost. I made my card. The mother I received lost a little baby girl. I used my handmade rag paper and decorated it with ribbon, a paper butterfly and paper flowers around the butterfly. I tried to make it a girlish card, like one my daughter would pick for me. I hope she likes it!

I'm fearing Mother's Day. It is two days before Kai would have been four months old. I have not booked anything for that day just in case I end up not being able to cope. I hope it doesn't hit me hard like Easter did.

May 5th is Boy's Day in Japan. I'm trying to make a Koi no bori (carp windsock) to hang outside for our son. I guess I could buy one, but I really feel that I need to make it. This would have been his first Boy's Day. We even have a Japanese jinbei for him. When it's done I'll hang the koinobori outside from our Mulberry tree. Probably no one will understand why it's there but I often feel the need to tell people about Kai - that I had a son over the winter and he was stillborn - that I do all of this to comfort myself and to remember him- people don't want to hear sad stories so instead I make these little tributes for Kai and put them out where everyone can see them. This way I feel like I am telling everyone about our baby boy, but at the same time I am not.