The iPhone Never Forgets

Preface to the Preface: I am a complete nerd. I fully admit and embrace that about myself. Thank you.

Preface: When I started this post way back when, it had one theme. The iPhone. Now it has several. The English major in me says that is BAD structuring. The lawyer in me says it's fine: a single motion will often address multiple claims and arguments. If I was wearing my lawyer hat when writing the title to this post, it would have been something like this: "The iPhone Never Forgets; Rough Patch; Little Reminders; Publications; Hope; Conclusion." But no one in their right mind would read that. Anyway, the post...

It seems I've hit a rough(er) patch. It's all relative: of course rough doesn't begin to describe what my family and I have been going through since Weston died. But things have been worse lately. By that, I mean that I am crying in public again. I'm always crying on the inside, but lately I can't stop the tears from spilling over to the outside...everywhere I go.

Little reminders of Weston keep cropping up. As if I could, or would, ever forget. The other day, I found some lipstick in my purse. This discovery took me back to Weston's memorial service: I had put that lipstick in my purse in case I needed to reapply it at the service. You know, because it's so important to look pretty at your son's funeral. Mascara would have been much more practical.

I got my car washed yesterday. When I was cleaning it out, I found the long-expired parking pass the hospital gave us the day Weston was born. They gave us a month of free parking, which was thoughtful: something I never would have thought about at the time. It expired August 7, one month after he was born. He didn't even live long enough for us to pay for parking. I have always meant to put the parking pass in Weston's chest so it won't get lost. But I still can't bear to take it out of the car. It just sat there on our console for the three weeks he was alive, and it gave me hope. Every time I handed it to the parking attendant, I felt a pang of excitement: I was about to see my son! The lipstick is still in my purse too.

Last week, I was going through my 2012 calendar (yes, I still keep a paper calendar) to transfer birthdays, etc. to my new 2013 calendar (which, incidentally, is called Lost for Words: it has beautiful photographs and quotations from bereaved parents). When I got to June, I found a little reminder card for a follow-up appointment with the perinatologist clipped to that page. When hope (and Weston) was still alive. Sigh...

Tomorrow I will see a new physician for the first time. I am petrified. I will have to tell Weston's entire story, and I won't be able to get through it without crying. Filling out the lengthy intake form today was hard enough. Fortunately, she is a naturopathic physician, so she won't try to shove pills at me.

But, the iPhone. Mine is the palm-sized vessel for all things Weston, both good and bad. First, the good: my background picture is of me holding Weston when he was alive. Every single picture and video of him I ever took is still on my phone. It is backed up elsewhere, but I cannot bring myself to delete even one picture of him. So I can look at him whenever I want to.

And, the bad: the ringer and alarm clock tone. For a while, they were the same tone, so I couldn't necessarily distinguish whether my alarm was going off or if someone was calling me. When Weston was alive, I was setting my alarm to ring every three hours around the clock so I could pump. The same tone went off whenever the phone rang. I became intimately familiar with that sound.

I know I've blogged about this before, but I'm going to repeat myself here.

The sound of my alarm still causes...I don't know what. It takes me back to the morning Weston died. That morning, my phone awoke me at 6:00. I was supposed to pump at 6:00, so at first I thought it was just my alarm. When the alarm went off, I glanced at my clock, saw that it was 6:00, realized I had slept through the 3:00 a.m.* alarm somehow and therefore skipped a pumping session, and felt very bad about that. I felt all of those feelings instantaneously. Then I picked up my phone to turn off the alarm. It wasn't the alarm; my phone was ringing. It was the hospital calling.

*Weston's condition started deteriorating around 3:00 am the day he died (when I should have been pumping). It just now occurred to me that I slept through that. And the rest of his rapid deterioration, until the last hour of his life. Great: something else I will have to endure for the rest of my life.

Now, the hospital had called me before. No big deal. But they had never called at 6:00 in the morning. My brain was still fuzzy from sleep, but I KNEW at that moment that the hospital was not calling with good news.

I don't set my alarm on a regular basis anymore. Weston no longer needs my milk. (And I have a little human alarm clock that is much cuter.) But sometimes I do set my alarm, usually when I need to run early in the morning (like tomorrow, when it will be about 34 degrees out).  I do not hear the alarm often enough now to associate the sound with something other than the morning of Weston's death (but who knows if that would actually happen anyway?). So, that sound literally reminds me of the most pain a parent could ever experience EVERY DAMN TIME it goes off. I don't know how to change it, but I don't know if I want to either.

The NICU is still listed in my contacts. I see it every time I scroll through my contacts list.

During Weston's last week, the medical staff and we were worried that Weston had developed necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC. (I would link back to that post here, but I cannot bear to look at my early posts right now.) NEC is a very serious bowel infection that is often fatal. (We don't know why Weston died, but it was not from NEC.) Anyway, I must have written multiple text messages, emails, Facebook posts about it. Because now, every time I start to type a word that starts with the letter N, it wants to auto-correct to NEC. Or sometimes NICU. NICU is OK, because it was Weston's home. NEC is not: it takes me back to the paralyzing fear I felt that last week of his life.

But, as tragic as these iPhone reminders are, they are palpable links to Weston. I am sad every time I see them. But I guarantee you that the day my phone stops auto-correcting to NEC, I will be more devastated. Because time will have moved on further. I will have typed enough text messages NOT mentioning Weston's medical conditions that my phone will have forgotten about him.

Fortunately, there has been some good mixed in with the bad. There was the New York Times article that paid tribute to Weston that I mentioned last week. And today I got the quarterly magazine from Baylor University, my alma mater. The magazine includes an alumni section in the back for births, deaths (usually of students or former students), career and other life events, etc. I had submitted Weston's picture and a brief synopsis of his birth and death, and it was in the newest issue. Once again, someone else saw it before I did (but this time it was someone I know!). It was hard to see the contrast in the midst of all the healthy, chubby, "future Baylor Bear" pictures, but, regardless, I am glad I submitted Weston's story.

January is usually pretty blah. It's cold. Christmas is over. Everyone is all disciplined and boring because they made New Year's resolutions. I have a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks: Karen is coming for a visit. We are running a half-marathon (yes, I look forward to those!). I am going to New York to visit my sister and her family and meet my new nephew. But these will be bittersweet events: Weston died during Karen's last visit. My new nephew, Weston's cousin, was born barely three weeks after Weston's due date. There will be a lot of pain mixed in with the goodness of being with people I love.

But, I am finally feeling God's presence...a little bit. I just learned for the first time that two family friends were in the NICU waiting room praying for us on the day of Weston's death. They did not know what was happening/had happened, but they had a feeling that something was not right. I (and they) have no explanation other than God's prompting. And I don't think it's coincidental that I learned of this during such a difficult week.

I am so tired. Grief is exhausting. Working through grief with my counselor is very hard work. I don't even have the mental and emotional energy to find a poignant quote for the end of this post. So, this profound insight will have to suffice: January is blah, indeed.