The Christmas Memorial

12.4.13

      I had gotten an invitation a few weeks ago to attend the Christmas memorial at the hospital we delivered at. I'm really thankful that our hospital is the one that is so committed to healing and connecting with other moms who have been through the same situation, but I wasn't sure how I felt about going to the memorial. I felt like I was doing okay, and I didn't know what to expect or if the service would make me more sad.
      The other thing that scared me was that the service was on a Wednesday, so Alex couldn't go with me. I was debating for a really long time about going. I went ahead and RSVP'ed yes, but I gave myself permission to bail at the last moment. I know that I could have called Jenny to be a wingman and she would have been happy to go, but for some reason I really felt like I needed to do this by myself or with Alex and that's all. I had even tentatively asked my mom is she was going to be in Austin that weekend to see if maybe I could talk her into driving up to go with me. But she was going back to our hometown, which is a good 5-6 hour drive from our house and I didn't want to take her away from my dad again.
      At the last minute on Wednesday, I decided to go. I drove to the hospital and this time the group was meeting in an auditorium on the third floor of a medical office building that was attached to the hospital where my Mom, Dad and I had taken an infant CPR class two weeks before Kaitlyn arrived. I had a hard time going into the building, but I did it. In the front lobby I ran into a couple who had been at the last counseling session I had gone to at the hospital, and the wife was kind enough to sit next to me during the service. It was nice, there was a group of about 10 people singing sweet Christmas songs as we all waited quietly in the darkened room. We had each received a little electric tea candle on the way in, and on the screen there was a power point of all the names and dates of birth for all the babies we were remembering. There were probably close to 50 people there, and we all sat and watched the names roll by. Eventually, I figured out that Kaitlyn's name wasn't going to flash up there. I guess they didn't get my email RSVP'ing and saying that I would be there.
     All I kept thinking while I sat there looking at my little candle is how much I didn't want to be there. Not that I didn't want to be there at the candlelight service, but I didn't want to be there memorializing my daughter. I didn't want to remember saying goodbye to her. I didn't like that I was so sad at Christmas, and how happy we had anticipated this Christmas being. I wanted to hold my little girl again. I cried a lot at that service, but I was in good company as each of the moms there was there for the exact same reason and none of us really held it together. We all yearned for our babies to be in our arms, to not see their names flash up on a screen in remembrance.

       At the end of the service, I went up and asked them to put up Kaitlyn's name just so I could see it up there. It really was pretty.