Baby Fiona lies on my lap. Her big blue eyes are gazing at me. She is wrapped in my new, beautiful linen sling, snug to my chest. She is content to just sit. How lucky I feel to have such a blissfully happy and mellow little girl.
I can't believe this go round. I feel absolutely intoxicated by this baby. I know that I instantly loved my other children but I don't remember feeling so enraptured ever before. I sit on the couch and hold her and breathe in her quiet, milky sweetness and I am in tears before I know it. Is it because she looks like all of them put together? Is it because there is more Charlotte in her? Is it because my three years and seven months between babies made me more prepared to sit back and just love?
Or, is it because there is more love in our house? At night, when I tuck Liam into bed, he likes me to lie Fiona in bed with him, so he is spooning her. He wraps his arms around her and nuzzles her fuzzy head while I sing him his favorite Balkan lullaby. Tonight as I sang, I saw him close his eyes and say to her quietly, I love you, little sweetie.
Oh, oh, oh. Does that just breed more love, or what?
Today Fiona is the age that Charlotte was when she died. Fiona was 8 days early, and Charlotte was 8 days late. So those put together make 16 days, which is how long I have been blessed to hold my third sweet girl for so far. If only something had made little Charlotte make her entrance at such an hour, she might be asleep upstairs right now. My lucky Fiona Clementine. I am so grateful.
7 comments:
Beautiful post and a beautiful daughter. Thank you for sharing.
What a heart you have. Blessings to your lovely family.
Love the sisters photo. Wonderful. Also, thank you for sharing your birth story and pictures. You are a superwoman thru and thru.
xo
I love these images of Liam and Aoife with Fiona.
beautiful. she is just darling. both of them. and what a sweet big brother.
our situations are so different right now, though i hope someday they will be the same. every post you make, i scroll back down to your family photo.. the one of all of you, with a space between you and aoife just right for charlotte's spirit. i want a smile like yours. it's far away right now. so painfully far away. i still think of your post about laying on the floor in charlotte's room, grief-stricken, literally floored by the grief. that's still me. i am tempted to rip kathlyn's mattress out of her crib, and sleep on it on the floor. someday i will do it. the mattress is so heavy. i couldnt lift it when i was pregnant. now im afraid if i use the strength to heave it out from the bars, i will keep going. i am afraid of the massacre on my daughter's room.
despite my grief and raw anger, i love so much more deeply. i have been told in person by workmates and in writing by someone who lives on the other side of the continent, that my empathy and compassion just radiates, and turns into a gentle bedside manner for patients and families in crisis. i never knew this love before. and she's not even here. i love only the thought of her, the image of her, the grief of her, what might have been of her.
i've done it again... my own blog on someone else's blog comment box.
I am so happy to read what you are sharing...words cant describe what a special writer you are. Kiss those precious darlings extra from everyone out here in cyberspace who is thinking of you all so warmly.
That baby is absolutely delicious and the scene you describe with Liam made me cry from the beauty of it. Thank God it's a beauty I know in my own house right now, all bundled up with love and grief and joy.
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