Fathers Day

Today was Daniel's second Fathers Day. His first came just three months after Avery died. I remember last year that the day was so hard on me. I felt worse for him that day than I had for myself on my first Mothers Day. This year was obviously much more hopeful, with Jude on the way and doing so well. Today also just happened to be the start of my 25th week pregnant. That, as we all know, was the week we lost Avery.

Hitting week 25 feels much better than the weeks leading up to it. Getting here and knowing Jude is still thriving and kicking away calms so many fears. But this week is still an emotional one for so many reasons. Avery's due date is on Wednesday, the 22nd. That's still so sad to me. She should be having her first birthday sometime in the next week or so. But it won't happen. Then of course, today being Fathers Day was hard.

I always worry that people won't acknowledge Daniel as the father that he is. He isn't as publicly vocal about his feelings of Avery and that's just his personality. His thoughts mirror mine and he hurts just like I do. Time has not chased away his love for her or his pain. He even told me today that he felt sad about her and missed her a lot. Fathers Day worsens that sting, just as Mothers Day does for me. But it makes it so much worse when people deny you the day. I felt so upset today, and I catch myself still feeling bothered by it now, when someone close to us wished Daniel a happy "future" fathers day. That comment was followed by "This time next year, you'll be a gleaming father!" It broke my heart. Especially because we love this person and they would never want to hurt us. I just feel so surprised that they wouldn't consider Daniel a part of fathers day after all we have been through. I hate to think that people only consider us as "almost" parents only because I'm pregnant with Jude. I do not get how people could think that way. How is Daniel not a father? That baby we buried? She looked exactly like him.

Why would I have to give birth to a baby if she was just so easily discarded? Why would we have a funeral for someone who doesn't count as a person? Why do we miss someone if she isn't considered our daughter? Our flesh and blood? Why would I tattoo her name on my body to keep with me forever if she is so easily forgotten? How does being pregnant for six months with someone that has a face and a beating heart, laboring and giving birth, burying a baby, and grieving their absence on a daily basis not count for anything? I really hate feeling like I have to justify that we are still parents even before conceiving Jude.

The definition of parenting isn't just limited to taking care of a child for a specific period of time. Sure, typically, you care for your child until they are 18 or so and go off on their own. But what if your child dies at age 10, does that just erase their existence and completely revoke your title as father or mother? Or do they count because they were here for a little while and other people got a chance to know them? So then tell me, how many years need to go by for the life of a person to count? I'm not sure I've come across that time table. If your parents die, that doesn't mean that you never had a mother or father and it doesn't mean you're no longer a son or a daughter. Even parents who give up their babies by choice for adoption at birth and never see them again are still called birth parents... Birth mother, birth father... If getting the chance to raise or take care of a child for a substantial period of time is what makes it count, then what about fathers who are deployed for a large part of their child's life? Do you say that that father isn't a real father because he hasn't even met his child or had the chance to take care of him? Of course not. His child is just not with him.

And so it's the same with us. Our child is not with us. But she lived. And she lives now in Heaven.

I guess I just find it hurtful to go through so much devastation and to love a child so much even in death and then be denied her. It makes me feel like people don't care about her, that they don't consider her a meaningful life or something that matters. I feel like her death is dismissed as nothing more than simply being not pregnant anymore. Why do I have to keep being made to feel like this? How can people that were at her funeral and saw our brokenness and received her photos and watched her get buried just ignore the fact that she was here? It makes me feel so much more sad for her. So sad that she's really made less of an impact than I thought she had. Breaks a mothers heart.

Just a last thought... Some (not all) people with living kids think they have it so much harder than bereaved parents. Please do not make the mistake of assuming that the challenge of raising children is harder than the absence of children due to death. We were in no way "let off the hook" when we lost our children. We grieving parents aren't ignorant enough to think that raising a child is all sunshine and easy street. We don't have this ridiculous fantasy world painted in our minds where we have absolutely no clue what we're missing. We are aware that there is definite stress and hardships involved. But no parent of a living child could ever tell me, even on their most difficult, end-of-their-rope, ripping-their-hair-out day that they would rather trade places with me and have their child be dead and visit a stone in a cemetery instead of snuggle them close or watch them grow up. I'd take infinite stress over devastation any day. It's worth all the challenges and hassles to take care of a child. You don't get anything out of the death of your child. You lose more than you can bear. And the void lasts forever.

So besides that simple comment that caused so much emotion, Daniel had a decent day. I made him feel as special as I could, telling him what a wonderful father he is. It takes such a special man to be the father of a dead child. He has loved both of our children even before they were conceived. Lots of men have trouble bonding even sometime after birth. Not Daniel. He loves both Avery and Jude as if he carried them himself. He never felt Avery kick. He only saw her on three ultrasounds and heard her heartbeat while she was alive. And still he loves her and mourns her just as I do. Already, he is in love with our son. He talks to Jude, touches my belly, marvels at his developments each week and loves to feel him kick. He doesn't need to meet Jude to love him. He already does. I love that about Daniel. Such a beautiful father. Avery and Jude are so blessed to be his.