Blue balloons are tethered to the porch columns, and a big sign has been pushed into the grass declaring “Celebrate Baby Boy Hayes.” The letters are so big, I’m certain they could be seen from space. They’re also covered in glitter, and a memory of when my cousin Clara sent me a birthday card with glitter all over the front comes back to me. Robbie went to read it and then had glitter stuck to his fingers. He complained for days that he was still finding glitter everywhere, no matter how many times he washed his hands.
My cheeks tug upwards reminding me I can still smile, even if they’re few and far between these days. As painful as they are, I love these kinds of memories.
The front door opens and Clara stands there, her protruding belly covered by a gorgeous navy blue wrap dress with white flowers on it. She’s glowing and looks more beautiful than ever.
“Jolie! I’m so happy you could make it.” She leans forward over her belly and pulls me as close to her as she can to wrap me in a hug, which feels more like two people bending over so only their arms wrap around each other. I squeeze her back and attempt to swallow down the emotion clogging my throat.
“Look at you,” I say.
She pulls back and smiles, rubbing her hand over her belly. With a deprecating roll of her eyes she says, “I know. I’m huge. I’m so ready for this baby to be here already.”
Her eyes widen and then she grabs my hand, and before I can object, she places it on her stomach. “He’s kicking! Can you feel him?”
She watches her stomach, her eyes shining bright, and I’m grateful she can’t see the shine of tears in my eyes which I quickly blink away before they can fall. A thump beats against my palm a few times before stopping, and the tug in my chest isn’t from the pain of losing my husband this time.
There’s a chorus of laughter inside the house that causes Clara to finally look back up at me. “Oh my gosh, why are we still standing out here? Come in, come in! The party is in full swing, and my friend has a game going where you can’t say b-a-b-y,” she says, spelling out the word with her hand over her mouth like she’s filling me in on a secret.
Then she takes my hand and leads me inside. The room is filled with several of our relatives—all with varying degrees of pity on their faces when they see me—and many of Clara’s friends. Some I recognize from her wedding, but others are new faces. The new faces are a relief; they don’t look at me the same way as the others who knew me before Robbie died. This was part of what I was dreading about today. The stares, the pitying embraces, the probing questions about how I’m doing while they inevitably talk about how tragic my life is behind my back. If they only knew how tragic it truly was.
Losing a loved one has a tendency to overshadow everything else because it’s an outward loss everyone can see. But I lost something else after Robbie died.
I was nine weeks along and barely functional from the grief I was experiencing from losing my husband when the bleeding started. I thought nothing could hurt worse than losing Robbie, but losing our baby was like adding insult to injury. It made the loss so much greater because I didn’t even have a piece of him to carry on his legacy, his name, a living symbol of our love for each other.
I had nothing.
Not a fucking thing.
I’ve never been as low as I was then.
We’d tried for years to have a baby, basically from the moment we got married. When I finally got that elusive positive pregnancy test, I was in such disbelief I ended up immediately taking the other two in the box because I was convinced it had to be a false positive. The joy on Robbie’s face when I walked into his home office and told him will forever be burned into my brain. He cried with me and then immediately went and ordered a custom Rapturous Intent onesie for our little peanut.
Apart from our wedding day, it was one of the best days of my life.
We hadn’t told anyone yet. After our struggle to conceive, I wanted to wait until we passed the first trimester, so when I lost the baby, I dealt with my grief mostly in silence.
No one talks about miscarriages. They’re treated as so taboo to talk about there isn’t even a title for a woman who loses a child.
Lose a parent, you’re an orphan.
Lose a spouse, you’re a widow.
Lose a child—born or not—and you’re…no different than before. Life is supposed to carry on as usual.
Newsflash—that’s all bullshit. Everything is different after that kind of loss, and life doesn’t just pick up like nothing happened. You’re forever changed.
“Jo,” my mom’s voice breaks through the cacophony of female voices, and I spin around to see her standing over by the beverage station they have set up on the kitchen counter.
When I reach her, she wraps me up in a hug and whispers in my hair. “Holding up?” She pulls back, and her gaze is gentle with a hint of concern, but not so much it would be obvious to anyone watching us.
She’s the only one who knows about the baby. I called her when I knew what was happening, and she stayed with me for several days as I went through it. I’ll forever be grateful I didn’t have to experience that completely alone.
I give her the slightest nod and a small smile.
“Tell me if you need an excuse to escape. I’ve come up with several ideas, and it gets us away from Molly,” she says, with an annoyed roll of her eyes that makes me smile, bigger this time. My Aunt Molly has the habit of being a giant know-it-all, but because she’s family she gets invited to everything, even though most people can’t stand her holier-than-thou attitude.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good, grab that tray, will you? I was about to head out to the living room with more snacks.”
“Sure thing,” I say, grabbing the tray she gestured toward and following her into the living room.
The baby shower isn’t as painful as I thought it would be. There are moments that are bittersweet, and more than once I can’t stop myself from wondering what my baby shower would’ve been like. That thought leads to a slippery slope of what woulds—something that happens after such a life-changing loss.
What would my baby look like if I’d had it? Would he or she take after me or Robbie? What would life be like if Robbie had lived?
What ifs and what woulds are dangerous places to live in. Like quicksand, they look harmless enough, but they’ll suck you into an abyss you can’t escape from, a mental prison that will make life unbearable.
I’ve learned it’s better for my sanity and mental health if I focus on the here and now and what is, even if that’s easier said than done. It’s also made me appreciate things in a way I never did before. If there’s a silver lining to grief and loss, maybe that’s it. I don’t take anything for granted anymore because I know how quickly it can all go away.
Eventually, the party starts to wind down, and my mom makes an excuse for us to leave while others stay and mingle.
“Your dad dropped me off, so can I get a ride with you?”
I give a side glance to my mom. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
She smiles and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
With a light laugh, I say, “Oh, I’m sure.”
Shaking my head, I unlock the car, we both get in, and then I head toward their house. My parents moved to California after Robbie died. They sold the house they’d lived in for the last ten years outside of Austin, Texas, in order to be closer to me. My mom told me a few months ago she couldn’t bear the idea of her baby girl being alone.
I wasn’t exactly alone—Tristan and the rest of my RI family were constantly checking on me—but it was a huge relief to have my mom there, especially after the baby. Sometimes you just need your mom, no matter how old you are.
“Did you see my text about the photography show at that little gallery you love in San Bernadino?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“And?” she asks. I don’t have to look at her to know anticipation and hope are written all over her face.
I’ve been into photography since I got my first camera for my photography class in high school. I needed an elective and didn’t want to take a regular art class. Photography seemed interesting, so I thought I’d give it a try. The moment I held my camera in my hands and looked at the world through my lens, I was hooked. From then on, I always had my camera with me, capturing the world around me and falling in love with the art form more every day. When Trent, the lead singer of Rapturous Intent, the band Robbie managed, asked me to be their tour photographer, I freaked. It gave me an excuse to go on the road when Robbie went and the opportunity to make a career out of the hobby I loved.
My mom has been trying for months to encourage me to submit a portfolio to a local gallery—something I’ve always wanted to do—in the hopes it might relight my passion for it, but I can’t work up the energy.
Every time I look at my camera, I see all the memories I’ve captured with it, almost all of them with Robbie, and I can’t do it.
“I’m not ready yet,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say anything, but I can sense her disappointment, even if I’m too chicken to look at her to confirm it. Disappointing my mom is the last thing I want to do, but I’m still figuring out this new chapter of my life without Robbie, and it’s hard enough without adding more pressure.
What if my photos aren’t good enough?
I don’t think I could take that kind of rejection right now.
“Give me a few more months. Someday I’ll be ready, Mom.”
“I know, sweetie. I just don’t want to see you putting your life on hold.”
I know she doesn’t mean for her words to hurt, but they do, mainly because I know she’s right. I know someday I’m going to have to start putting myself out there again.
Someday, but not yet.