My Sweet Frannie

When Gray was in the hospital there was a nurse who had a picture of her little boy in the badge holder that hung around her neck. One morning I watched as she weighed a brand new boy while his elated dad stood by taking pictures. He noticed the photo and very enthusiastically told her how cute he was and asked his age. She thanked him and told him that he had passed away when he was a few weeks old. The dad stumbled out some sort of sympathy and she changed the subject back to his baby.

I couldn't do much those days except sit next to Gray’s little crib and watch the nurses work. All day I watched her care for new babies. Hold them, change their diapers, bathe them, and rock them back to sleep when they cried. Many days I watched her doing her job wondering how she did it. How did she come back? Her loss was fairly recent, within the last year or two. Still, there she was, taking care of new babies without any signs of outward bitterness. She was so good with all of those perfect babies, mine included.

While driving home one night, Somewhere Over the Rainbow came on the radio. I knew the song had often been associated with loss, but I felt like I was hearing it with new ears. I was in an emotional place, leaving my baby in the hospital, and it hit me that she at one point must have driven home from somewhere realizing that she would never see her baby again. She could not go home, shower and come back to him a few hours later, safe under the watch of a sweet nurse. She would never run to the store, grateful for a few minutes of alone time but still tiptoe into his room when she got back and kiss his perfect sleeping face. She could not throw him birthday parties or try her hardest to fulfill bizarre Christmas gift requests. She would never even hold him again. Not even for a few minutes. I cried for her all the way home and wondered how God could take babies. I thought about how lucky I was, because isn't that what it comes down to? Often times, the most terrible things in life happen by chance. Some of us skate through never knowing how chance spared us time and time again.

I've thought of her off and on over the last couple of years, but never so much as I have the last few weeks. I've read that placental abruption occurs in one percent of pregnancies. Who imagines being the one percent of anything? How can you possibly be the one percent? You’re always the 99. My little Frannie was born on April 19th. She was so beautiful and so, so perfect. I told Jared over and over that I have never seen such perfect little toenails. Perfect little toenails that would never be painted. She only lived for a few minutes. I would endure anything to be able to live those moments of her kicking her little legs and stretching her arms again. I would give my limbs to be able to spend a few more minutes holding her. I play a game in my head while we’re driving these days. I try to come up with the most terrible punishments I can think of and ask myself if I would bear it for another few minutes with Frannie. I haven’t thought of one that I wouldn't so far but I’m pretty far from sane at the moment.

 Driving seems to bring out the irrational in me. I tell myself this is all one of those vivid nightmares you can’t wake up from. I look out the window while we go to my parents and try to convince myself that my brain could come up with all the details I see. Yes, I tell myself, your brain can imagine that gravel. Each individual piece. Your brain can visualize exactly how the rust would form around the dent in the car in front of you. Your brain is pulling all of the names on these political signs out of it’s subconscious. None of this is real. In a moment you will wake. You’ll sit up and grab at Jared. You’ll tell him about the horrible dream you just had and he’ll say something incoherent that he thinks in his half-awake state is comforting. Then when he’s back asleep you’ll lay awake, so scared you’ll have the same dream.

But it isn't true. I won’t ever wake up from this. Frannie is never coming home. I had to watch her die right in front of me. I had to call the nurses when we decided it was time for them to take her. We had to call the nurses when we decided that we were wrong and that we needed more time, please, please bring her back! Then we had to call the nurses and tell them it was time all over again. I had to walk out of the hospital without her. With a memory box and literature on grief. We had to cry when we told her brothers. We had to cry when we called to cancel doctor appointments and delete the reminders from our phones. We had to cry when we moved my pregnancy pillow to the basement and when we saw the little slippers I had bought sitting on the shelf. We had to cry when we picked out her urn. We had to cry when we decided we weren't dressed properly to pick her up. We had to cry and cry and cry. Every day we cry.

I was the first to see she was a girl when she was born. I’m strangely proud of this. I want her to know I saw her first. I loved her first and will love her forever. I’m back at work now and it’s awful. It’s awful when people act like everything is normal because everything is not normal. The whole world has changed forever and they can’t feel it. I know that is a crazy, self-centered view. Our loss is not everyone’s loss, but it feels like it should be. I want to scream, but I can’t. That seems to be the theme of my life now. Wanting what can’t be.

 I've had a song for each of my babies while I was pregnant. The song that I heard and loved for Frannie was Rainbow Connection. The one that Kermit sings. I know. When I told Jared this while I was still pregnant, instead of thinking it was silly, he listened to it with me over and over. He thought it was perfect. The first time we listened to if after she was gone we both cried. It reminded me of the other rainbow song.

I played the Ingrid Michaelson version, it's my favorite. It brought me back to what I felt for Gray's nurse and suddenly here I am. I am another person that wants to be on the other side of the rainbow. I too am one of the people that God took a baby from. I can't believe that I have gone from hurting for someone else I didn't know to this deep pain of my own. I realize how shallow my previous feelings were and I want to go back and beg her to forgive me for being just another person that didn't understand. At the same time, I'd give anything to be just another person that doesn't understand.