Farewell Sweet Maggie

My step-grandma passed away April 28, 2013 after a long decline from Alzheimer's disease.  She came into our lives in 1991 when she and my grandpa married.  It was a second marriage for each of them, and it was much needed companionship.  She was a brilliant cook, often just cooking by instinct rather than from a recipe.  She also sewed without using patterns.  

The sad thing was that I never really got close to her until after she began to decline.  She wasn't a mean woman, just not the squishy milk-and-cookies kind of grandma.  She didn't want us to sit on the floor, roughhouse in the back yard.  I chock that up to the time she was born and raised in and not any form of malice or spite.  She loved us in her own way and we loved her back in ours.  

I will keep the sweet moments of dancing with her in the living room while Ella Fitzgerald serenaded us.  Giggling over the cute, silly things she said.  Kissing her utterly adorable nose!  

How much she loved my Grandpa.  

Mary Margaret Nightser Labouy Wildi 

1922-2013

There was a viewing, and many dear friends from the neighborhood she and my grandpa lived in came to pay their respects.  

My mother and neighborhood friend admiring Maggie's dress.

Mr. Parker and his sweet Mama!

Viewings can be weird for people.  Some people, like my fiancee find them morbid and weird.  This turned out to be a wonderful time with family and friends.  We told the best "Maggie Stories" and laughed until we cried.  It was wonderful.  We celebrated that she wasn't in pain any more, that she was at peace at last.

Maggie and her Georgie <3 p="">

Silent Mamas

Mother's Day was, until three years ago, a day of celebrating my mother and looking forwards to the day I can be a mama too.  It wasn't until I endured, suffered, experienced loosing my own tiny little baby that I came to think about the mothers who don't show any outward signs of being a mama.  And I want to acknowledge them too.

This would have been my third mother's day, and then my child's third birthday.  It still is my third mother's day, and I'm kissing my little one in my heart.

This is my mother, and the mother of four children.  She also lost a little one, and waited eight long years before she and my Dad welcomed me into the world.  Aslan, the cat in the picture above, was her other baby and I am sure helped fill the void in her heart, at least until I came along!  

Heehee.  Sorry, buddy.

Arasmus is my Aslan.  My snuggle buddy until such a time as I have children or am able to get a puppy.  

Celebrate the Mamas, and then take a quiet moment to send comfort to those whose time will come.  Send them love and peace.

The Hope Project

I haven't written about this idea before, so don't worry if it suddenly sounds new to you. :) It's been percolating in the back of my mind and on my heart a lot lately. Since I spend the bulk of my time alone all day, there is a lot of time to think, and sometimes that thinking isn't terribly productive. It's often revealing of what's on my heart though, and this is how Project Hope was born.

Last October I lost my first baby and it was traumatic, horrible, and scary. I have hoped for so very very long to finally have a child, and here I was, loosing that which I desired above all else. I did what any self-respecting student of Elizabeth Zimmerman would do and knitted. I made a little tiny hat for someone who would never wear it. I wrapped it in tissue paper, stuffed it into a box and tried to forget how much it hurt. Here I am, ten months and twenty days later, still knitting. I am drawn to baby projects, I admit it. I want to knit tiny baby things to soothe myself. At first I considered this idea idiotic, why knit baby things for a baby you don't have? What not knit baby things for other people's babies? I do sometimes, but it's always with the knowledge that I still don't have one. My baby hat is still empty, my heart still has a baby shaped hole in it, waiting for that beautiful day when I can finally hold my child in my arms.

Then I caved. I made booties. Tiny, perfect, little baby booties for feet that aren't here yet. These languished for a while on my crafting table waiting for a time when I'd finally put buttons on them. Yesterday I did just that. I tucked away all the little yarny ends, I sewed buttons on them, I took the obligatory knitting-blog photos and something in my heart changed. Project Hope was born. I don't want to be bitter (It'll never happen), or scared (What if I loose another one?), I want to knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises, until I reach the day where I can pull out the bonnet and put it over a little head, until the day when I can tuck tiny baby toes into handmade booties. I want to hope for that day, and in so wanting, I allowed myself to knit. I permit myself to knit things for my babies to come because it's theraputic for my soul. Other things for other babies will be made, but there will also be extra special things just for my babies, to be tucked away in the box labeled Hope.

A box, labeled Hope.

Indulge me in a moment of reflection and sorrow.

I don't know why it's on my mind so much, but I look at friends, blogs, women who are going to have their first baby and all I can do it miss the one that I lost. Perhaps it hasn't been long enough for the emotion to ebb fully, not that it ever really should, but you know what I mean. To recede to the point where I can be happy for the other women and not feel that little nagging voice that says, "You almost had this." As if I never will?
That is not the case, I counter. I will have children, just not now. Not anytime soon. I want to finish college, and find a stable job in theatre, or teaching theatre and then, when I have the means and the peace of mind, then I can try again. I can try at all.

For now I tell myself that I can't and all it does is make me sad. It makes me worried. I pray for peace, I beg God to make it go away - the wanting so very, very badly - make it go away until I have the time in my life. I can't afford to want a sweet baby right now. It's not an option. It just doesn't stop the wanting inside. So I knit, I keep my life busy in a good way, I spend oodles of time with my honey. And wait. With deep breaths, with patience, with love, I wait. I send prayers up to Heaven to the little one that almost was, telling them I loved them while they were here, and the family that has gone ahead of me will love them until I am there.

*sigh*

And now back to your irregularly scheduled knitting and theatre drivel. Thanks.

~A