September

Fall already? Is it possible?

Somewhere in the past four months I must have entered into a time warp. Somewhere deep inside of me I am still in April hearing that distant voice rumbling that my baby was gone...the beginning of a journey leading me to the loss of not one...but two.

Where were the summer days filled with laughter and freedom?

The trips down the river?

The peaches ripening in the sun?

The days complaining about the heat?

None of that happened. None.

Where were the summer nights filled with excitement of lovemaking around the huge belly of a pregnant woman?

The endless waking up to pee?

The altering of pillows to find a comfortable spot?

None of that happened either.

No...I am still in the hospital room...popping kumquats into my mouth...feeling the sting of unwanted contractions. I am still holding the tiny body of my baby...lifeless.

I am still hemorrhaging even a month after that...discovering that there was another unknown person to loose. Another one....

As if one wasn't enough.

As if the universe wanted to prove that, in fact, I really could suffer even more. Yes. More suffering was to be permitted by the universe that was supposed to protect me. No. I would not die from the scream that echoed across the span of my being into the void around me.

Where did the summer go?

It dissolved in my tears.
It hid behind clouds that mocked me, pretending that spring never passed. The cool days mimicking spring. The hours ticked by, but the season stayed the same.

The fruit trees in my yard failed to fruit.

My legs went without the glow of summer; still as pale as they were on April 22nd.

My children stayed home from camp.

I never saw the musicians at the farmers market.

I sit here, looking at the calendar which claims that it is September. My baby is turning 6 years old on the 10th. He was to have been a big brother...instead...he will unwrap packages of legos that no watchful mothers eye will have to protect baby fingers from grabbing and placing into rosebud mouths in the months ahead.

I sit here next to the baby sheepdog with the plushy fur that my fingers stroke in the middle of the night for comfort when I wake up to care for....no-one.

I sit here.

I wonder if Fall will pass in the same timeless way. I wonder if I will ever find my way out of the hospital halls where the tears ran with steady fervor embedding furrows at the corners of my eyes.

I feel so tired. Maybe that tiredness is the clue that the summer has passed; without rest, without laughter, without peace. Maybe that tiredness is a sign that I need to sleep, waking up to the Fall that is and leaving the Spring that was behind.

Maybe.