From Ashes and Dust

Like any good Catholic, as I stood in line this Ash Wednesday morning to receive my ashes at Mass, I was thinking about the heap of files on my desk which were begging for my attention the moment I left church. I was lost in my to-do list when I felt someone from across the moving aisle touch my arm. I looked over to see a family friend look down at my belly, and back up at me with a smile. And suddenly, the day's list of things to do was forgotten.

Pregnant women have a glow. It's true. I find people whispering and pointing at me with smiles on their faces everywhere I go. I think pregnant women just make people happy. But I've found that this pregnancy makes people exceptionally happy. Blake told me that one night he got a call from Gail, a food server in the hotel where Blake bartends and Ben was formerly the executive chef but whom I hardly know, and she demanded to know if it was true that I was pregnant. She is alleged to have cried when Blake confirmed for her that I am. This pregnancy has done more than just bring me joy - This pregnancy has restored the faith of so many all around me. This pregnancy has been a sign for family, friends, and anonymous followers who have witnessed miracle as well as the grief and the pain of Gabriel's short life and subsequent death, that life can and does in fact go on. More than that, even through pain we can find triumph.

It's been difficult since Gabriel's diagnosis to know what could be the right thing to give up for Lent. I feel that I've already given everything. In fact, I think the Lenten season finds me a little angry at God - We make such a big deal of God having given His only son to die for our sins, and we talk about how great His love for us must be because of this sacrifice. But God didn't really do anything that He hasn't asked many parents on earth to do too. What makes God so big and bad? More importantly, if He knows that grief so well, why has He put other parents through it? I don't feel that bad for God, because He could have spared us all the pain.

Of course, that line of thinking doesn't take into consideration the good that God can bring from what seems so bad. Because Jesus died, we get to live forever. But even if you don't buy that, I can tell you that because my son died, I have lived every day for him, even when I didn't want to. I have lived because he can't. I fight, because he fought. I cherish Gabriel's new brother or sister not just because he or she is my child, but because I know that even loving and cherishing that child is not enough to change God's will for them, but love is what I have to give. I love Marcos because I know what it's like to endure heartbreak and I love that somewhere deep inside of me I know that I can trust that he will always take care of my heart. And maybe, maybe, I wouldn't know how to love Marcos or how to accept his love if I didn't also know how to hurt.

My hurt has been very public. Pregnancy, childbirth, the death of a child, and the death of a marriage can be very public things these days - almost unavoidably so. Rather than dodge the public eye, I've embraced it, and chosen to show the world that I am sensitive and vulnerable and susceptible to very raw, very human emotions. I think a lot of people have hurt right along with me, for me. I think a lot of people have learned to grapple their own ghosts and demons and emotions through my sharing. I think a lot of people genuinely share in my happiness now. I think a lot of people have found through my experience that faith and perserverence can pave the way to happiness. In our hearts, it's something we all want to believe.

"I'm so happy for you," people stop me to proclaim. And they glow. And I know that it is more than just happiness for me that causes them to beam. I know it is their renewed faith that lights them up inside.

On this day I as a Catholic am reminded that I came from dust, and to dust I shall return. It's a reminder not of my mortality, but of the mortality of the temporal life. I've of course made the great leap of faith to believe that there is life beyond the dust. And maybe there is and maybe there isn't but one way or another I guess I can't confirm it until I'm there. What I do know is that I've got one life to live here and during that life I don't just want to live, I want to rise from the dust in triumph.

But For the Rain

It's 1:30 P.M. on a Friday afternoon, and I've finally torn open the box of Thin Mints that has been sitting on my desk since Monday. Although I've opened two other packages earlier in the week I am still proud of the resistance I've shown. Once the Thin Mints are open, they may as well be written off. They won't last long from here. I imagine they won't see 5:00.

My afternoon deposition was cancelled, to my relief, but the medical records from the case are still open before me on my desk, along with Wikipedia tabs for the entries on "compartment syndrome" and "fasciotomy." The applicant that I was supposed to depose today had a severe accident and sustained nerve injury that resulted in loss of function of his left arm. The medicals are peppered with discussion of amputation. The applicant isn't even 30 years old.

In my mind, I know this guy has it bad and I'm sorry for him, but in my heart I'm struggling to care much today. It's just one of those days.

Maybe it's the way the sky keeps taunting me. This morning there was rain but by the time I got to the office it had stopped, and when I left for lunch only a few tell-tale puddles remained glistening in the sun, which had broken through the clouds to make an appearance. But before I finished my lunch the clouds had opened up again, emptying the much-needed rain into our valley, giving local farmers a taste of liquid hope.

I hadn't worn a sweater and was shieled from the rain only by a thin jersey-knit dress and a pair of maternity panty hose hiked up over my belly. I sloshed through the water, grateful for the height on my patent leather heels, back to my car. I abandoned the errand I intended to run on my lunch hour and instead darted straight back to the office.

Here I sit. Half a roll of Thin Mints down. Outside the sky is dark but still and for the moment, the rain seems to have passed. And as I sit, I wonder what's really so very bad about the rain. I wonder why a little cold should necessitate a cookie binge, when somewhere out there a young man is learning to live without his left arm and I am typing this blog, able-bodied.

When you take a step back it becomes a little easier to acknowledge that every storm will pass. Every storm, every rain, every flood is just temporary.

But when you're standing in it, when the water is seeping through to your bones, when you're cloaked in the rain and you can't dodge the storm you are simply helpless. You are exposed and vulnerable and you ache and you feel anything but cleansed by the showers falling from the sky and though you know you'll find shelter eventually, as you're standing in it you know that you are stuck just having to wade your way through.

As I look past my little boy's picture this afternoon through the windows at the dark sky, I know that I will have to brave the weather again. I know that the time will come today when I will have to leave my office, and when I do it will likely be raining outside. Right now, Rocco is moving inside of me, content with lunch and cookies having been delivered to him or her. I love Rocco so much, so very much. Still, I love Gabriel too, from the bottom of my aching heart. The longing Gabriel is ever-present, even while I press myself into any shelter I can find, always threatening to storm and flood my world again.

There is no rainbow, but for the rain.

10 Years That Changed My World

Ten years ago today I walked into Charly's Bar to run a solo shift for the first time. It was a Wednesday, and I had been training for the previous two nights with Jed, who promised he'd make an appearance that evening to hold my hand, should I require hand-holding. That evening was also the first time I met Charlie Gibson, who had put the bar manager Cindy in charge of hiring me. He was drinking a gin and tonic at a barstool right in front of the drink well, and though he was kind and unintimidating, I was nervous. I was 22, and had only been bartending for a year. I'd walked out on my previous job as a cocktail waitress at Black Angus, though I was in the process of paying off my DUI fines at the time, and I knew I needed this job. I knew I was fortunate that the employer took a chance on me, an unemployed, under-experienced 22-year old girl who may or may not have had a drinking problem at the time.

In those days I was known for two things: Long, thick dark hair and naivate. Though when I first started at Charly's I was already recovering from some trauma, not the least of which was the still-raw feelings I was wrestling from having been raped by two aggressors less than 3 years earlier, I found that doe-eyed innocence served as the best schtick for me among my fellow-bartenders. It was a persona that was missing among the staff, the niche that needed to be filled. I wasn't cool like Jed, I wasn't busty like Cindy, and I wasn't old like Charlotte with a gravely smoker's voice, and so feigned innocence it was.

That night Sean Talbert walked in at about 11:00 p.m. Although I had served Sean for the past two nights during my training with Jed and Sean drank the most popular call, Bud Light, I struggled to remember on my first shift what his regular drink was and had to be reminded. He sat at the end of the bar near the game machine, where I would see him many times in the next year, and where, after his suicide, I would be able to imagine him most vividly.

Some might say it took courage to return to work at Charly's after I discovered Sean's dead body in his apartment nearly one year later. The place for me was drenched in his memory. But I couldn't stay away. I didn't want to stay away. I wanted to be where we first met, I wanted to be where we had made so many memories. I wanted to be where, when I was alone at closing time, I could still feel his presence. I wanted him to haunt me because in my guilt I felt I had to be haunted by him. I didn't think I deserved to move on, even when I did.

And I did move on. I pushed myself through the rest of the year at CSUB. I continued to bring my homework to the bar during my shifts, five of them per week amounting to 40 hours a week, to work on during the down time. Customers quizzed me on French vocabulary and encouraged me to keep moving forward. They urged me to smile, even when I didn't want to. They delighted in my updates as I applied to law school. My first acceptance letter, from Whittier Law School where I ultimately attended, was circulated proudly among the patrons. It was a group accomplishment.

Sometime after I received that admissions acceptance, Marcos Lopez walked into my bar on his first date with a girl. There was nothing eventful about the evening for me, that I can recall, and even for Marcos that first date never amounted to much more, until years later when we encountered each other again on Match.com.

In the years following that first meeting with Marcos I went to law school, returning to Charly's which by then had been sold to Rick and Lynn Wright and become The Wright Place during the summer and during winter breaks to fill in shifts here and there. After having my offer with the Public Defender's Office revoked due to a county hiring freeze, Rick and Lynn let me come back to work as a floater. I took on shifts as they came up, and did some legal practice by day.

Shortly after I was married I learned I was pregnant, and at two weeks proudly made the announcement to Rick and Lynn and patrons of the bar. I endured the inquiries from patrons after I miscarried 7 weeks later. I held the secret of my second pregnancy until I thought I had passed the danger zone, at which point I announced the impending birth of what I knew in my heart was my son. I'd intended to leave the gender to be a surprise, and so it must have come as some surprise to the patrons who received my letter in March, introducing my son Gabriel to them. Of course, the bigger surprise was revalation of Gabriel's birth defect and fatal prognosis. Still, when I returned to The Wright Place after the great reveal I was met with love, support, encouragement and kindness. My customers, who over the years had grown to be my friends, watched my belly grow and waited with anticipation on the day that I delivered. They rejoiced with me in my son's birth. They helped fill a church and cried with me over his death. They allowed me to continue serving them even when I wasn't happy, even when I couldn't listen to their problems because I was drowning in my own. When I needed it they made me feel the way a bartender rarely gets to feel - Like I mattered more than the customer. They made me feel like I could make it through this, even when I thought I couldn't. They reminded me how I'd survived Sean's death years before. They reminded me that I would survive even the divorce that followed Gabriel's death.

Gabriel lived for ten days, and in that ten days he changed the world in a way that few people get to do in a much longer lifetime. I've been in and out of Charly's/The Wright Place for ten years, and those ten years have shaped my world.

My schtick has changed. No one would mistake me for naive anymore. My hair is a little thinner, my skin a little thicker. I'm now more than a persona - I'm truly the bartending lawyer with strength, intelligence, and endurance.

Sean's ghost still sits on a barstool at the end of the bar. Gabriel's picture is displayed prominently above the register. Sometimes I stumble across pictures from my bachelorette party, when I was still so full of hope in my upcoming marriage. The memories of the last ten years are still very clear in my mind.

But I continue to make new memories. I find myself behind that same bar, pregnant again with my rainbow baby. The love of my life and I find ourselves sitting on those same old bar stools on the occassional Friday night. When I am there I am surrounded by the people I may never have met but for a little dive bar in East Bakersfield, but who have become the friends that have carried me through the most difficult times in my life and who I am pleased to celebrate this new phase of my life with. After a decade of major life changes, some things remain the same. That little hole in the wall is more than just a neighborhood bar. It's the place that built me.

Still Loved

It's the most romantic day of the year and all that crap, which is what I was banking on when I decided to give Sean the weekend to himself when he wouldn't answer my phone calls on Thursday February 10, 2005. My plan was to let him have the next few days to think about things, and to miss me, and I would talk to him on Monday, on Valentine's Day. Of course, the results are well-known by my blog followers: I showed up at Sean's apartment after class on Monday to find him dead, lying next to the rifle he'd used to shoot himself.

Subsequent events included a 911 call, a parade of emergency vehicles, a brief questioning by the police to clear me of any participation in his death, a phone call to his dad Gary as I tried to beat the authorities to the punch so that he didn't have to hear the news in an official declaration the way I did, as though my eyes hadn't already told me all I needed to know. There was a meeting with Sean's mom Laurie which led to a verbal assault as to why I kept pursuing a relationship that was so clearly wrong, comforting words from Gary, Sean's sister Tracy, and his friends, a reversion to the Catholic faith after a 5-year leave of absence, and nine years of guilt even while my brain tells my conscience this wasn't my fault. Nine years of mourning a life cut short by his own hand. Nine years of wondering who he would be today, what his children might have looked like. Nine years of missing the person who clearly wasn't meant to be my life partner, but who did understand me and my hurt and my trauma at the time better than anyone I had ever met. Nine years of wondering what's become of his soul.

I don't think there will ever come a time when I don't cringe at the sight of Valentine's Day decor. The memories of Valentine's Day 2005 are a stain in my memory that won't be dissolved. But this year the blow has been softened slightly by a message received in my Facebook inbox from Laurie this year. Unlike the meeting nine years ago between a devastated mother and a 23-year old girl still in shock, this was a message from one mourning mother to another. We now had the unspeakable in common. We were now two women, struggling every day to keep ploughing through life with the holes in our heart left when our sons left this world.

Laurie told me that I would never really get over the loss of my son, but I would learn to find happiness again. She told me that the day Tracy was married was the happiest day of her life and I know, even without her saying so, that as happy as she was, she distinctly noticed Sean's missing presence on that day. I know that she must have felt something like I feel when Rocco moves and I long for Gabriel's two and a half year old's hand to place over my belly to share the moment with. I know that on this holiday, when the world is so full of love, Laurie and I are both suffering in a way that we've become experts at disguising.

I've learned the hard way that I'm better off spending Valentine's Day sober. This year, for the third year in a row, I will be the sober host of the Anti-Valentine's Day party in the very bar where Sean and I met ten years ago. The backlash against Valentine's Day commercial grossness has grown, and for the last two years the party has been well-attended and well-received. We make angry toasts to our exes, and heckle the unfortunate couples who dare to enter our territory and display their affection among us. We sing break-up songs, done-me-wrong songs, and get-lost songs and find surprising joy in an evening centered on something so seemingly negative. We're all happy to be right where we are. I always make my last toast to Sean, and urge attendees that even while I mock this most romantic of holidays, I would encourage anyone who is able to find love to grab it with both hands. We should never let go of love.

This year I also can't help but note that one more thing is missing: My Valentine's Day gift from 14 years ago, my cat Lily, was put to sleep last July. I've spent many February 14ths, particularly since Sean's death, celebrating her homecoming day in effort to redirect my focus. I do miss her this year, even while my parents' home where she resided now houses a new kitten.

I've come to accept that there will always be people missing from my life. It's not the "normal" kind of missing, either - Who expects to bury their boyfriend at age 23, and then their child at age 29? Who knows how to come to terms with those losses without grasping and falling short and screwing up sometimes? I've done all of the above, but I've been blessed to have people to cling to, people to pick me up, people who don't abandon me when I screw up. On this Valentine's Day as I once again wrestle my warped views of life and love and romance I have confidence that after I make it through this day once again, tomorrowo I will wake up still damaged, still struggling, still stained by the events in my life, and still loved.

Just For One Day

Looking back, maybe it was a mistake for Ben and I to choose David Bowie's "Heroes" as the entrance song to our wedding reception. We like David Bowie, and "Heroes" is twistedly romantic in its own way, a tale of a self-destructive couple who peaked, crashed, and burned.

I don't like to be called a hero. But Ben and I, we were heroes. We were heroes, just for one day.

One day a doctor told us if our child were born alive, he or she would die shortly thereafter. That was three years ago, January 31, 2011. Those words devastated us, terrified us. They changed everything about us. They set us on an irreversible track. But with those words we learned something else: There wasn't a thing any doctor could tell us that could make us stop loving our baby.

One day we sat in Mass and listened to Deacon Dan's homily on late term abortion, an option that we had been offered. Deacon Dan described the procedure wherein a solution is injected into the unborn fetus' heart to stop its beating, and then the forceps are used to remove the baby from its mother, possibly limb by limb. Ben leaned over and said to me, "We are not doing that to our baby." Because there was nothing anyone could tell us to make us hurt our child.

We saw an expert and she confirmed the worst news we'd ever received. We went for another very special ultrasound and learned that our child was our very special baby boy. We named him, and we shared his story with the world.

One day we walked into a hospital to induce labor and welcome Gabriel into the world, knowing our "hello" would soon lead to "goodbye." One day, against the odds, we took our son from that hospital knowing he would die in our home. One day we made a decision to share Gabriel's photographs, even those where his defect was apparent, because there wasn't a thing anyone could say to make us ashamed of our son.

One day we watched our son seize and suffer for five hours. We told him how much we love him. We told him he didn't have to be strong anymore. We told him it was okay to leave us. There was nothing on this earth, not even our own grief, that was worth our son's suffering.

We held him as he took his last breath, we prepared his tiny body for cremation, we announced his passing to our family and friends, and we planned his funeral. One day, one moment at a time.

A hero isn't a hero for simply doing what is right. That's all we did: The right thing. We're heroes because these days, not enough people do the right thing. 92 to 98% of mothers like me elect to terminate their pregnancies on diagnosis. 92 to 98% of families allow the fear to take over and they forget that they, too, love their child more than they fear any diagnosis, more than they want relief from their grief, more than they dread watching their child suffer. They all have it in them to do what Ben and I did. We're not special. We just listened to our hearts above all else.

We're not unshakeable. The choices we made after Gabriel's death are proof. True to the song's protagonists, I was mean and he drank all the time, and sometimes I drank all the time too. We said cruel things. We grew cold. We allowed ourselves to grow apart. We peaked with Gabriel, and then we crashed and burned and ended in a divorce just short of two years after receiving our devastating news.

We live separate lives now, on separate ends of the country, sharing only our experience with Gabriel. But even after it all, we can still say that were heroes. Just for one day.

The Sound of Silence

I'm trying this new thing, this thing where I go to bed at a reasonable hour and get up in time to do everything I need to do in the morning, like a normal person. After a year and a half of working the Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 grind, the need for a little routine in my sleep schedule has become pressing, have fallen asleep at my desk one too many times.

Trouble is, years of night owlism have my body trained a certain way. Long days make falling asleep by 10 fairly easy, but find me waking up at about 1 in the morning to spend the next two to three hours wide awake. As I endeavor to put myself on a normal sleep schedule only to be thwarted by my body's habits, I take joy in sharing those quiet hours with Rocco, who also seems to wake up about the same time. It's not unusual for Rocco to be active the entire two to three hours that I am awake. We watch "I Love Lucy" re-runs and roll and kick and play. We listen to the dogs snore and sigh and stretch. We play Candy Crush. We worry about staying awake at work the next day. We just hang out.

"Sleep while you can!" I've been admonished. I'm told sleep and showering and generally feeling like a human are to come to an end upon Rocco's arrival. Perhaps some would even say that Rocco's waking at 1 a.m. now is just a sign of what to expect when Rocco is born. I can only say that I look forward to the day when Rocco's cries wake me up, at any hour. I look forward to a house filled with sound.

On a quiet Friday morning, May 14, 2010 I woke up to the cramping pain of a miscarriage. For ten days I woke up not to the sounds of my crying infant son, but to his muteness. In the silence of the night I checked Gabriel to make sure he was still breathing, still alive. I had to set timers to remind myself to feed him - he couldn't let me know with his cries that he was hungry. Even when he was having a fit, typically during diaper changes, though his mouth opened wide and his head shook in protest, no sounds came from his mouth. The only time he ever made much noise was when he was dying. The sounds that I remember from my son are his death cries. And those memories can wake a mother from her sleep, too.

The silent sounds of my empty home and the empty nursery became haunting, so much so that I hardly spent any time there in the two years following Gabriel's death. The sounds of a running toilet, an agitating washer, or a creaky ceiling fan weren't enough to fill the silence that should have been filled by my son. Though I enjoy my personal time and space I found that too much of it left me longing for the life that I thought I would have. I longed for my children. I longed for nights made sleepless by their needs. I slept well in that time, because I frequently fell asleep boozed up enough to get me through the night. But I woke up in the same empty home with the same gaping heart, missing the things - the people - that were missing.

I worked to embrace the quiet. I found shows that I enjoyed, hobbies that distracted me while I was at home, and little by little learned to enjoy living essentially alone. A full-time job, bartending one night a week, and my commitments to coaching mock trial and serving on the Right to Life of Kern County Board of Directors eventually consumed so much of my free time that deciding how to spend what little I had became a challeng. Do I hang out with friends? Or do I spend this valuable time alone? The alone time became much less frequent. And the loneliness became bearable.

Still, something was always missing.

Sleepless nights will grow tiresome, but I'm told that upon Rocco's arrival they'll be a part of the rest of my life. When he or she has stopped crying to be fed or for a diaper change there will be monsters and nightmares waking me up, and then homework and last-minute school projects, and then curfew violations, and then waiting in antication when Rocco's own children are born.

Twenty minute showers will be traded in for five minute rinse-offs and new clothes will become an even greater luxury and my pub-height table will become a nuisance when Rocco is a toddler - And speaking of pubs, I'll see much less of the inside of them. Most recently I've been told that for the next 12 years I won't eat a piece of chicken that's NOT in nugget form. I hear I will watch a lot of cartoons, though we'll try CNN first and see how that goes.

Unquestionably, life is about to change dramatically. I worry that I'm not ready, that after all of this time I've still moved too quickly. I wonder if I'm selfless enough to devote myself to raising a child. But of course, there's no going back now. And there's no challenge I'd rather taken on. There's no sound I'd rather have filling my sleepless nights than that of the child I've wanted and loved since before he or she was on the way. There's no place I'd rather be than in this moment.

Holding Tight

By my best estimation, it happened eight years ago, in the spring of 2006. I had recently been accepted into law school. A couple came into Charly's on their first date. She knew me, apparently, because she introduced me to her date and informed him that I would be going to law school. I have no recollection of the incident.

Years later I received an e-mail on Match.com in response to my profile which indicated that I am a full-time lawyer by day and a part-time bartender one night a week. The e-mail, the second I received from this person, queried "Did you ever work in that little bar in East Bakersfield in the Albertson's shopping center?" In fact I did, and continue to work there to this day.

Marcos and I have communicated every day since he sent me that e-mail. We're more than just in communication - We're in love with each other, and we're having a baby together. Sometimes I feel discouraged by what I perceive to be a lack of romance in the way we started dating - Through a dating site. But when I consider our one-time encounter and subsequent meeting years after that encounter, the whole thing seems sort of fated.

I wonder why our lives couldn't have been more aligned back then. Why did he have to be in my bar on a date with someone else? Why couldn't we start dating then? Why did it take eight years for him to walk back into my life? Of course, I know that I wasn't in the state of mind to love him, or be loved by him the day that we first met. I had my experience with Gabriel to get to. I had eight years of living and learning to do before I would be ready for him.

I love Marcos, selfishly, because of the way he loves me. I love him because I can tell that he loves Gabriel, even though he never met him. When I found myself a single mother of a deceased baby, I thought that maybe falling in love again would mean I would have to put that part of my life away. But the family I'm forming with Marcos has plenty of room for Gabriel.

I love Marcos for what he is. He is a dedicated son, brother and uncle and dog owner. From the moment he knew about Rocco, he's been a dedicated father. He is devoted to our relationship. In his words and in his actions he assuages, daily, my fear of being abandoned by assuring me that he will stick around. It's hard to imagine that he's really only been a part of my life for a brief period, because he's made my life so much more complete and meaningful.

I love Marcos because last week I watched him cradle his dog Zeke while he had a seizure. I know what it's like to watch helplessly as some being that you love seizes. I know what kind of strength it takes to bring comfort to some creature in need. I love his strength. I love his stoicism. I love him, deeply.

Love - The loss of love, the search for love, the relentless pursuit of love - has been a running theme in my story. In my life. I know well how fragile love can be, and how much it means to find love. Sometimes it's still hard to believe that Marcos' love is here to stay - I question him about it regularly, to the point of near sabotage, but Marcos is unwavering. I've done my share of pushing. But at the end of the day, when I look at Marcos all I want to do is cling to him and our love with all of my strength for the rest of my life. I just want to hold him and be held by him, and never let him go.