eggs & brooding

This morning I woke up somewhat early, as my dad & stepmom were visiting and I wanted to see them off. After they left, I thought, well, I have a couple hours before work and the baby's still asleep; breakfast is sounding pretty good right now.

I wanted eggs, but possibly fancy eggs, not just the same old boring fried/scrambled/whatever eggs. So I went again to my favorite cooking blog and searched on 'eggs' and was poking around in the search results. First I came across this tasty-sounding eggs-poached-in-tomato-sauce recipe that sounded rather appealing and quick - because the baby may be sleeping but you never know how long that'll last - and then while reading the recipe it said to let the tomato sauce cook for like 20 minutes so that was the end of that little breakfast daydream. Then I saw her article on 'how to poach an egg' and even though I have a special pan just for egg poaching I clicked on it to learn more about her technique and guess what? She posted it on 8-8-08.

August 8, 2008 is my own personal day that lives in infamy. That was the day that my daughter was stillborn. You might say the thick, ugly, misshapen scar on my soul is written in those numbers; that is often how I envision it: twisted, lumpy skin stretched awkwardly across a surface that is stretched too thin after having a huge piece torn out and being patched back together.

And I thought, for fuck's sake, I have a fucking egg poaching pan. Why did I even want to read this stupid article anyway? So I read it, since I was already there and the date had already metaphorically bitchslapped me, and it was the same fucking technique I've read on a dozen other cooking blogs, although with better pictures and wittier writing because Deb is the shizz.

I don't blame her, obviously, for giving me a harsh reminder of my reality. It's not her fault that nearly two years ago she was blithely posting about egg-poaching technique while I was nearly paralyzed with grief, a walking ghost, longing to follow my daughter into the ether and bring her back to earth with me, alive and wriggling in my arms.

And yet... and yet. It's ironic that the most hellish thing that can ever happen to a person has also made me realize how ridiculously fucking lucky I am, how grateful I am that she is a part of my life at all, how thankful I am to have a baby that's alive and happy and so delightfully, heartbreakingly sweet, and a husband who's loving and caring and funny and such a great dad to her and such a great partner to me.

I am a survivor. I have lived through the worst of the worst, the death of my child. It's been almost two years now since she died. I live with it every day. And I haven't let it destroy me, although it was frankly a close call, there, for a while, as I tried to climb step by torturous step out of my own personal hell. But I came through.

And I set aside my laptop and made some boring motherfucking eggs and put 'em on a toasted bagel, and couldn't even taste the fresh chives that I'd listlessly pulled into tiny pieces and dropped into the eggs as they cooked. But at least I made the effort. Sometimes, that's enough.

And when I came back into the family room and looked at my beautiful, sleeping girl, I thought, thank you. Thank you for helping me understand that whether we want it to or not, life goes on, and if we can hang on long enough, we can patch our broken souls back together again.