Heather S. Ingemar's Blog, page 15

Michael

I want to scream

his name

As loud as my lungs will allow.

Scream until

his name

Echoes from the mountains,

Resounds in everyone’s ears,

Tells the world:

He was my son

and

He existed.

I want to scream

his name

To banish the fear of speaking it

Held dear by those around me.

Just Say It:

Michael.

Say it because it’s

All I Have.

Tagged: acknowledgment, grief, loss,

Plans change…

It is Autumn once again and I am struck by how different I thought my life would be. There’s not a day I don’t think about you, little Michael, and imagine the life we might have had.

As it is every October, it is roundup time for our small herd of cattle. Like last year and every year since I married my best friend, we spend a portion of our days bopping around our tiny chunk of wilderness on the ATV, looking for beef to bring in. I am bundled up like a yeti against the windchill as I look in all the cows’ favorite places. This time I wonder what it might have been like had you stayed with us: would you be bundled up with me like a pioneer child, secure and sleeping in the warmth of my jacket as we trawl the countryside? Would you be lulled by the steady movement and cow song? Or would I be rocking you at home on the porch, ready to open the gates at a moments notice while you fuss and squirm because you’d rather be with your daddy? You would be almost four months old now, and as bright-eyed and rambunctious as you could be, I’m sure.

After work at The Day Job I buzz off to music lessons with my local students, then hurry home to prepare dinner. Would I be hurrying right home instead, to greet you and relieve my husband of his duties? Would I then be greeting students who drive to me for lessons instead of the other way around? Would I, instead of working in town, be teaching more, perhaps in a private studio of my own, while you slept to the slightly out-of-tune notes? Would you then throw a fit if I had my students learn a song you didn’t like? You were always rather up front about your musical preferences…

What would it be like to have dinner as a family instead of a couple?

What would it be like to make a “quick run” to the grocery store? How many people would you charm with your smile?

What would it be like to compose a gentle lullaby to keep instead of another pain-filled ballad to throw away? What would it be like to make plans for you instead of career plans for me because I need something other than your absence to consider? What would it be like to announce “This is my son,” triumphantly — instead of the words “he died,” quietly, sadly, softly as a secret and filled with my self-doubt? What would it be like to have others smile at your news instead of cry?

What would our lives be like with you in it, instead of this strange mockery of “normal” that they are now? When we were children, the game of “house” helped us imagine marriage, but it never prepared us for the loss of you.

I don’t know. The leaves begin to blow in the wind, reminding me that all is fleeting, yet I will always wonder it would be like if Autumn had never come like this…

Tagged: coping, grief, loss, neonatal death, Pregnancy

Lessons NOW via Skype!

That’s right folks! I am now offering music lessons via Skype for ukulele, guitar, saxophone, and piano. Same rate as my in-person lessons ($12 per half hour), and I accept payment via PayPal. Contact me to see about scheduling yours today!

Tagged: announcements, guitar, lessons, music, piano, saxophone, ukulele

Artisan Scroll

I present, my official Artisan scroll. I received it at Baron’s Ball. Isn’t it lovely? I am just in awe of the detail and the color (the photo really doesn’t do it justice)…

Tagged: achievements, artisan, medieval, music, sca

Baron’s Ball 2013

Two words: Totally. Awesome.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I competed for a Bardic Championship this weekend with the early Elizabethan-era song, The Three Ravens:

And I am proud to report that I won.

But this weekend was immensely awesome for other reasons than personal satisfaction at completing a goal I set for myself. It was awesome because:

I got to watch Husband very nearly clean house at the Rose Tournament. In the Rose Tournament, each fencer’s “inspiration” receives two roses representing lives in the ring. If your fencer loses a bout, he or she must take a rose and present it to the winning fencer’s inspiration. Each of those two roses serves to set up a double-elimination tournament. I am proud to say my man won more roses than he lost! It was such a pleasure to watch him pursue his passion with such joy, tenacity, and talent. It makes my heart sing to see him fulfilling his niche.

Dear Husband with his rapier on the morning of the Rose Tournament. Photo by Thorkell Paulson

This weekend was also awesome because of time spent with friends. Everyone told me when we started playing in the SCA that the people in your local group become a second family. I admit I didn’t believe it, but as we approach our two-year anniversary in the game, I am finding it is true. I always find I leave events like these uplifted and with that happy glow you return with after spending time with very dear loved ones. It’s such a great feeling.

I can see myself doing this for a very long time.

Tagged: bardic, happiness, music, performance, Rapier, sca

Keep Voting for KWGT!

Voting is still open for the “Known World’s Got Talent” competition put on by the SCA, and I am leading the pack! Please go ‘like’ my video on YouTube (using the thumbs-up feature) if you haven’t already, and please tell your friends. It would be awesome to win this for my barony!

This weekend I compete with an Elizabethan song, “The Three Ravens,” for a bardic championship. Wish me luck! Ideally I’ll have a video of it up soon as well, and… Maybe… Some videos in-garb of my original bardic offerings, too…

Tagged: bardic, medieval, music, performance, sca, Society for Creative Anachronism

I am the guitar

I have a hole in my heart.

A piece of my soul is empty and missing, and every day I have to live with it. Every day I have to put on my “big girl panties” and pull my shit together and deal. Every day I wake up and the absence of a crib and a baby to feed haunts me. Every day that I go to The Day Job I am reminded of what I don’t have. Every time I stumble across those pregnancy photos on my iPad that I don’t have the heart to delete, I am doused with the cold reality of my broken dreams.

You might think this makes me bitter, or angry, or incapable of “moving on,” and at times, I am angry. At times I am bitter. But I am not incapable.

I am not incapable because I am present. I’m not holing up in my house like a hermit who can’t live. I go out and have fun. I can, and I do. For the most part, I am happy. I laugh, I joke, I pursue my projects and music with the same fervor I always have. I understand, and am at peace with what happened and why it happened. I have come to terms with my faith and my God over these events He saw fit to allow. It is coming on four months now, and I am truly okay with it.

But the truth is that no matter what I do now, I am reminded of how it should have been. Even when I am happy, even when I am in the throes of joy, there’s still that out-of-tune twang of sorrow. There’s still that ‘off’ warble. And there always will be, because my son is gone. I may be “young,” and I may indeed “have another,” but nothing on this earth will ever replace Michael.

I’m like that guitar I fixed up. It was BROKEN. The previous owner was just going to throw it away because it had been trashed! I was appalled at what had been done to it. But it was not a lost cause. A little time, a little love, a little care, and it plays again. It plays beautifully. And though it has been adjusted and repaired to make lovely music again, there’s still an intermittent buzz, a sporadically audible flaw in the sound. 97% of the time, you can’t even hear it. But it is there, and will always be there. It doesn’t mean that guitar can’t play beautiful songs and bring joy to others. It’s just a leftover from the time when it was broken, a reminder left of a time when life was not good. A scar left of its’ past.

That’s me. I am the guitar. While each day brings me closer to being whole, I will never be truly “fixed.” In losing Michael, I lost parts of myself that I can’t get back. Those losses won’t go away, even if the next forty years or so are perfect. They are the sour note of this performance — the note has already been played, and can no longer be recalled.

But what does a good performer do?

Keep playing. Good performers keep playing because no performance is ever perfect, and the experience of the song is the most important part.

Tagged: coping, grief, guitar, loss, music, neonatal death, performance, Pregnancy

In His Name

My son seems to be making his mark even despite his absence.

A few weeks back I got a letter at the Day Job. One of the ladies of the Friends group that helps the library handed it to me, along with a hug, and said that it was for J and I to decide how to use it. I was puzzled by her crypticness, and tore open the little square envelope. There was a card inside, and as I pulled it out I saw “donated in memory of Michael Stearns” and a dollar figure. It was signed by the donator.

Someone donated money to local library in my son’s name.

(As I found out later, it was actually the decision of multiple people, not just the one who signed the card.)

These people — who never knew more of my son than just his end — wanted to remember him with us. They wanted others to remember my Michael.

J and I chose to use the funds to buy a children’s book. Today, it arrived:

We chose “Saint George and the Dragon.” We were largely influenced by our activities in the SCA, but I especially loved the story. It’s a tale of perseverance, and honor. George is asked to come slay a dragon that is plaguing a city. It takes him three days to do it, and he nearly dies several times in the course of the battle. Still, he gets up. Every day, he gets up. And he picks up his sword and tries again, and again, and again, until the dragon is dead, because he made a promise to help save the townspeople, and he would keep his promise.

It’s a beautiful story, with the most lovely graphite illustrations I think I’ve seen. I think my little boy would have liked it. He would have liked it because his daddy is a good man just like the Knight George, and he would have liked it because the Knight slays the evil dragon with a sword. I can see it very clearly. My little boy playing sword fights in the yard with his daddy and all the ensuing games involving dragons and damsels and Good winning against Evil… Michael would have loved it.

As it is processed for addition into the library’s catalog, it will receive a bookplate inside the front cover reading, “In Memory of Michael Stearns.” The years will pass, and though many will not know who Michael was, they will know that he was important and that he was loved.

Tagged: coping, gifts, grief, loss, neonatal death, Pregnancy

Border War 2013

Since becoming involved in the SCA in 2011, my husband and I made ourselves a goal to attend an event every month. It makes for nice “us” time – with the nature of our mundane lives, it is tricky to schedule the traditional week-of-vacation, so we prefer to schedule mini “vacation weekends” where we can go play our game and spend time with our medievally friends. As I mentioned in my previous post about my SCA life, I am finding that I spend the year counting the weeks until the next event on our calendar.

Border War was our latest medieval escapade.

Ever since we attended last year, I’ve been itching to return. We arrived early on Saturday morning, ready to battle it out. It was a special day, as I recently became authorized for rapier combat (think Three Musketeers), and it would be my first time taking the field alongside my husband.

In a rapier “war,” the fighters sort themselves into teams, and can use whatever parrying device of their choice (staff, cloak, buckler, dagger). Given the time period of rapier combat, the fighters are also allowed one-shot RBGs, or Rubber Band Guns, to simulate the early blackpowder firearms and artillery of the time, which they may use in addition to their sword and parrying device. The Marshal-In-Charge then announces the scenario (often involving backstories like privateering, street-fights, tavern brawls, and period insult throwdowns) to pit the sides against each other, and the fighters go to it.

Border War is unique and fun because it is located on a lake, and the rapier fighters got to play on the docks. All our scenarios were privateering-related, such as fighting to claim the shore, but one scenario involved a box of loot to be transported back to the end of the dock, and the first team to get it there won. My husband and I helped our team win that one with our RBG ribauldequin and a mad dash with the chest of loot to the end of the dock (complete with laughter and squealing on my part as we were chased down by a speedy Wealdsmerian).

In the evening there was court, feasting, and my favorite: bardic.

As a newly-sworn Artisan, I am honoring my vow of fealty by making it a personal goal to take on every bardic performance or competition I can. At feast, I presented my song, “Storyteller,” and darn-near brought the house down. It was a very proud moment for me, and I wished my Baron and Baroness could have been there to see my performance and subsequent win. I was especially honored for those who approached me afterward and complimented my performance. One gentleman said I brought tears to his eyes, that my song really spoke to his heart.

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of my bardic performance, or my taking the field alongside my husband. I had decided that this weekend, instead of viewing the event through the lens, or capturing moments with my iPad, that I would relish the event with no electronics or things to take me out of the moment. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that I was there and it was awesome.

Tagged: bardic, medieval, music, Rapier, Society for Creative Anachronism

Revelations

This week started out horribly.

Everything I touched seemed to fall apart, and I was racked with doubt and fear about the cause of Michael’s death. I worried that I had done something to kill him during my labor. I agonized over the choices I could have made: a cesarean instead of a vaginal birth, pain management instead of none, staying at home to birth him into my husband’s arms rather than into the arms of the on-call O.B. I fussed and stewed and made myself miserable over it. My sense of self-worth hit rock bottom and getting through the day felt like a monumental task. Dear Husband and I fretted over our church’s discussion of what is a Trial, and certain people’s insistence that Trials are either a punishment for wrongs or visited upon us by God to “make us better people” — which we need to be “happy” about if we’re “good Christians.” J and I stressed over what we may have done to anger our God and cause the death of our baby boy at birth.

In short, I was a wreck and J wasn’t whole lot better.

Then yesterday morning, my adopted sister called to tell me she was going into labor with her little girl.

I was emotional all day, worried for their safety. When I finally could get on the road, I had to fight the urge to drive like a bat out of hell to the hospital so stressed I was. I cried, multiple times. I trembled with anxiety. The prayer to spare my childhood friend and her family from what I now knew never left my lips. “Please, God, let them both be okay. Let me not be driving over there to be a shoulder for tears and loss. Let them never know this pain.” I was beside myself, and I felt sick as I entered the maternity ward.

As I entered the room I nearly cried with relief to see her cradling her newest daughter. Everything was fine, just fine, and the little gal had vigorous Things To Say about the world. She was beautiful. My sister let me hold her for the better part of an hour after feeding time, and the little darling fell asleep in my arms with the most delicate yawn. It was amazing, and my heart ached over it. I cried a little, but they were good tears. And it felt so good to hold a living child.

My drive home last night let me contemplate much. As I drove, I found myself thanking God for the evening: my sister’s good health and that of her new daughter, my ability and emotional strength to hold the baby, and the comfort I found in it even though the experience was tainted by my sorrow. I paused, and then found myself once again voicing confusion over my son’s passing. “I’ll never understand,” I said to the dark.

In that moment, I heard God. And I get it now. It doesn’t make dealing with the fallout easy, it doesn’t tie it up neatly with a bow, because I will grieve Michael for as long as I walk this earth. I was — am — his mother, and as Angie Smith said in her book “I Will Carry You,” the mother’s heart doesn’t know how to stop loving, even in the wake of death. But I get it, now. Michael’s death was out of everyone’s hands, and while I suspected as much all along, hearing His words brought it into much sharper focus. There was not anything I or anyone in that delivery room could have done differently. Michael was mine, Michael was my husband’s — but he also belonged to God, and you know what?

I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to have in charge of my son.

Today, the turmoil is gone, and the hole left by Michael is quite a bit more closed than it has been.

Today, I have peace.

Today, I understand.

Tagged: coping, grief, loss, neonatal death, Pregnancy