Getting Comfortable With Death

Yesterday I went to the Mission District,
The heart of the Mission on 24th Street,
To get some things for Tikva's little altar
For Dia de los Muertos,
The Day of the Dead tomorrow.

I wanted to get a sugar skull and maybe something else.
A funny little skull made out of sugar, frosting and colored foil.
They were all over the neighborhood.

I found myself in a store filled with beautiful things from Mexico and Central America.
Little skeleton characters and skulls everywhere,
Silver earrings like those Frida Kahlo wore,
Jewelry and artwork in bright colors all over.
I found a sugar skull and a skeleton with butterfly wings
And went to the counter to buy them.

A beautiful woman owned the store,
She looked very indigenous from Mexico
Or elsewhere in Central America,
But had clearly been living in the Mission for a long time.
This was our conversation:

"The sugar skulls, they look like they have tears flowing from their eyes, are they crying?"

"Crying and laughing, you know how when you laugh a lot you get tears in your eyes?"

"So it's all about getting comfortable with death?"

"Yes, we make fun of death."

The skeletons all have these facetious grins on their faces.

"Every year I make an altar for my dad, whose birthday is also on November 2. And I have a party for him."

She smiles, beams, as she tells me this. I think, Wow, she is so comfortable with death.

"My friends and I are making an altar for our babies who died."

Silence. Her smile is gone. Her face is quiet. She looks serious.

"I lost a baby a long time ago. He was 8 months."

"Mine was two months. She lived for two months."

She points at her belly. "Mine lived 8 months inside me. I don't talk about it very much."

Tears start... just start... to fill her eyes. But no more.

"Do you make an altar for him too?"

"No, well, maybe with my father's. I don't talk about it very much."

"We're making our altar at the south side of the park, the direction for babies who have died. I will think about your baby."

She smiles. I ask her name and tell her mine. Thank her.

As I walk back to my car, I wonder at how different it is when you lose a baby.
How different it is to losing a father, someone older.
Even in a culture that celebrates lives that have passed,
Laughs at death as a way to look it in the eye and get a little more comfortable with it,
Even there it's hard to talk about dead babies,
About lives cut much too short.

I think that I will probably have conversations like these for the rest of my life.
One day I'll be 40 years from this time
And will tell a young woman I know that I, too, lost a baby many years ago.
Already I am doing it - talking about it in a way that normalizes it,
Even if it doesn't make everyone that comfortable.
I'm not doing it for shock value,
Nor trying to make anyone uncomfortable.
It's just part of my life story now,
And not something I want to hide.

I spent today with Tikva.
As the rain poured outside,
This first rain inviting us into fall and winter,
I made something beautiful for my Baby Girl.
I made a shoebox altar, a kind of diorama,
With photos of my mighty, fragile daughter,
Cloth flowers sewn onto the cloth diaper
(One of the ones from the hospital that I used to wipe up milk when I pumped)
That covered the outside of the box,
Pink baby socks and a pink teddy bear hat,
Collage flowers and paper stars,
The sugar skull and the butterfly skeleton,
Pictures of hawks and dragonflies and hearts,
Words of love...

It felt incredible to be making art again,
To be creating - soothing, meditative, calming.
It felt so right to be making something beautiful for Tikva.
And you know what felt the best?
Allowing myself the space to just be a mom who lost her Baby Girl.
Making no apologies for being here,
Allowing myself to be here even though I know that Tikva is so much bigger than the little baby she was,
Even though I know she is eternal and still with me as spirit, as pure energy.
Just being here,
(Dare I say still being here?)
And that felt good.

I cried, I smiled, I thought about all of the moments captured in those photos.
I spent moments feeling stunned that our story unfolded as it did,
All the while feeling love... pure love.

It sucks telling people that my Baby Girl was very sick and died.
I wish more than anything that I was holding her right now,
Healthy and well and home and in my arms.
But that's not how it goes,
So I better get comfortable with it all
Because it's a huge part of my story now.

I will get further away from it all,
From the rawness, the vividness.
I will hopefully have another child one day.
But this part of the story won't ever change,
And I don't want it to anyway.

I'll keep telling people about Tikva when it feels right to do so,
Prepared for some to turn to stone, silent, when I do,
Prepared for tears I may not expect from another person,
Prepared to hold space for grief they may share.
Maybe one day helping someone else on this strange, strange road.

My baby died.
My baby died.
My baby died.
My baby died.
I wonder how many times I could write that before it started to feel natural...
Will it always make other people uncomfortable?

Tomorrow at Dia de los Muertos,
With friends who have also lost babies,
I will honor my daughter's life,
Her short but magnificent and powerful life.
And I'll be able to say, "Yes, she died."
And I'll be able to let myself feel sad...
Unapologetic.