remembering christine: a mother's gift for every day

 

it's funny, the things we remember. the things we choose to not forget. i don't remember the pain of giving birth to you. but i do remember silent night was playing as you were being born. silent night. holy night. all is calm. all is bright... and you were here. at 11:40pm on christmas eve, you were born. you were 14 inches long, and weighed 2 pounds 2.25 ounces. so they scooped you up and swept you away from me so quickly, to immediately begin giving you the very best of care, i didn't get to see you right away. our wonderful doctors brought word to me, you received nines on all your apgar scores. though you were just down the hall, any place but in my arms felt too far away from me, and i couldn't get to you fast enough. still. i will never forget, in a thousand eternities, the very first moment i saw you. you were so precious, so beautiful, to me. so tiny. so perfect in every way.

i remember crying because i wasn't allowed to hold you. because of all the tubes and wires and instruments. it was so hard for me to see all those tubes in you, and hear all those monitors beeping around you. and to see you silently cry when your wonderful nurses and doctors needed to insert or remove the occasional needle from your tiny little hands and feet, broke my heart. i know this was necessary to help you. but the knowing did not hurt my heart any less. if there was any earthly way possible for me to have breathed for you, and offered my arms and my hands and my feet for the needles, in place of you, i would have given myself in a heartbeat. when the time came for me to be released from the hospital, it was so hard for me to leave you. they tried to prepare us for the long two months road ahead until you could come home. but it didn't make it any easier. i missed you so much. every moment i was away from you, i missed you so much, i physically ached for you.

i remember, it snowed for the first time in many years, the day you were born. mount hamilton was blanketed in a majestic, white dusting of snow. and so, the day i was released from the hospital, we set aside some time for just the two of us, to drive to the top of the snow-covered mountain, to talk about your coming home... and to name you. you were named after me, for my middle name... christine. and your middle name was special, for the sacred day you were born... christmas eve. children of every age built snowmen and threw snowballs outside, as the car windows fogged inside, from the warm tears of our joyful conversation. i remember the notes of pachelbel's canon hung still in the air as i wrote your beautiful name for the very first time, with the tip of my finger, in the fog of the frosted windshield. christine eve driscoll. i never washed the inside of that windshield where your name was written. and for many years, though fainter and fainter it grew, whenever the window was veiled in fog... the gift of your beautiful name appeared before me.

i remember singing to you. for the seven months i was able to keep you safe inside me, i sang to you... you are so beautiful, to me... and i softly sang our little song to you, every day, at your bedside. i so longed to hear you coo and cry and sing the songs of your beautiful little voice to me. but your ventilator tube restricted your vocal chords from vibrating. so i was not blessed to hear the sound of your beautiful voice in my ear. still. it melted my heart that you knew mine. whenever i would speak or sing, you mustered your gentle strength to turn your head to the sound of my voice, and open your eyes to see me. looking into your eyes is one of the sweetest gifts i have ever known.

i remember the sixth day. we were getting dressed and ready to come be with you when the telephone rang. it was the hospital. your bilirubin level had elevated overnight, and they were calling to receive our permission to perform a blood transfusion. i wanted to give my blood to you...you had very rare type ab- blood, just like me...but there was not time. the doctor said the procedure was fairly routine, would take about an hour, and we were not allowed to be present during the procedure. so i passed the time sitting on the bedroom floor, pasting pictures in your baby book, while your daddy was sitting on the bed, sewing one of my childhood stuffed animals for you. we watched the clock on my bureau, and when the hour had passed, we were on our way to be with you.

i remember smiling while warm water flowed down my skin as we washed our hands and arms, up to our elbows like they taught us, at the sink outside your room. i remember the smell of iodine, and the yellow stain it left on my skin. i remember hearing the door to your n.i.c.u. room slamming open behind me, and turning to see two doctors in your doorway. "you can't go in there!...who are you here for?", came at me in a single sentence. "we're here for our daughter, christine", i said. i looked them in the eye. but their eyes could suddenly find a hundred other places to look, anywhere, but into mine. i remember my smile breaking. a whirlwind of blue and white coats went flying past us into your room, and i was determined to join them, "i want to see my daughter! will someone please let me in, i want to see christine!" gloved hands grabbed me firmly by the shoulders and held me from entering your room, "ma'am you cannot go in there!" i stared into her chest. her stethoscope was shiny and there were tiny mists of blood on her blue coat. "please come with me."

we sat in silence in small wooden chairs, waiting, in the little room they ushered us to. you were still warm when they brought you to me. free of all the wires and tubes, they handed you to me. and i held you in my arms for the first, and only, time. swaddled in a white cotton blanket, and wearing a tiny pink hat that one of the nuns from the hospital chaplain's office had knit, i tenderly kissed the warm-cool of your paling face. i kissed you and kissed you and kissed you, and silently whisper-sang...you are so beautiful, to me...i didn't want to let you go. i gently handed you from my arms into your dad's. then, i covered my face with my yellow hands, and i cried what was left of my heart out. if there was a song playing the moment you passed through the gate, i don't remember it. if a symphony was playing with a choir of angels singing, i didn't hear it. the earth stopped turning, in that moment, for me. my world was silent... you were gone.

many years have passed by. i can count, on one hand, the sacred few who remember you and me on mother's day. their sweet gift of three precious words, happy mother's day, mean more to me than i will ever be able to thank them for. i remember you every day. and through the years, i have come to know with every fiber of my being, you are not gone. you are not gone, at all. i see and hear and feel you, everywhere. you are a part of me. i am a better wife, a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend...more importantly, i am a better human being...because of you. i am so immeasurably thankful for you in my life. you are such a sacred part of the woman i am growing into and so long to Be.

i love you, christine eve driscoll, beyond words.

and to every mom and dad: whether you are a new parent with a healthy newborn, or healthy little ones scampering at your feet; or a parent with an adult child or adult children, grown and on their own. whether you are a parent who has chosen to not give birth; or a parent who has chosen to give birth through adoption. whether you are a parent who has lost a child of any age; or a parent who has lost a child before giving birth. whether you are a parent separated from your child physically, or emotionally. you are a precious parent. and your precious child's life has a purpose. a meaning. there is a reason this life was to Be. and, no matter what, you will always be that child's parent, no matter how old. whatever day of the year it is, to every mom or dad who finds yourself here, in this moment...from christine's heart and from my heart...please, allow us to gift you these three precious words. happy mother's day. happy father's day.

~ janean christine mariani