Happy Birthday Oscar, or Emily 479 (not that Emily)

Death has walked beside me for much of my life. They walk beside us all, in the fragility of the human body and inescapable mortality. But they have been closer to me than most. The depths of their eyes swim with my memories – my parents, my patients, my wife; my child; my own deepest depressions. How often I’ve stood, my hand pressed to the veil. How often I’ve strained against the threads, desperate to reach beyond this life, calling out to an afterlife I’m not sure if I believe in. Whether it’s to reach for the souls that have slipped through my gloved fingers in the back of an ambulance, or to touch a hand I wasn’t ready for to go cold. 

I’m sitting here at the culmination of hell week, on Oscar’s birthday; ten days after Hawthorne’s birthday and exactly two months before the day they left this world. It has been a far gentler week than any of the past eight. 

Eight. Eight invisible candles on a cake I haven’t bought, and not sure I’ll be able to bring myself to buy. Not for lack of wanting (because let’s be real, it’s me and cake, of course I want it), but just a complete lack of ability to pull my shit together enough to make it happen on this day. 

This day is a struggle. I don’t want to be around people; I especially don’t want to be around other kids. This is the first year I have my earthside kid with me all day, and I’m torn between needing to keep them close and wanting to sink into isolation. It’s a beautiful day. The wildfires in Canada are keeping the skies from turning Oscar blue, and it’s a solid ten degrees cooler than it was eight years ago. I’ll be forcing myself to get us outside – the energy required to turn the screens off and get the bodies suitably clothed and fed is exhausting, and the kid isn’t even awake yet. Lucy is asleep in my bed, one arm flung up over their head, baby face in full effect. Sleeping, not still; alive, yet I check again and again for the rise and fall of their chest. 

Multiple times, strangers who see me with Lucy in parks or playgrounds feel like it’s okay to comment that this feral child must not be my first, based on how I react (or fail to react) when said child hangs precariously off some equipment, or launches her body into a splay of limbs on the ground. I know why; I’ve seen the commercials and the podcasters who demonstrate how different a parent acts with their first child versus their second. Pacifiers don’t get sterilized every time they fall, snacks aren’t organic and balanced, and the resilience of childhood is better recognized. I’m not sure if it’s from my years as a paramedic, or having already lost a child, but I know that I watch Lucy with the seasoning of a second-time parent. 

I never know what to say. “Haha, first living kid, anyway!” isn’t exactly the answer anyone wants to hear. “Amirite?”

I never want to dishonor my starside child. I talk about him, often; at parties, even (don’t invite me). He is just as present for me as he was when I carried him, this child that made me a mother. He is forever entwined with my DNA, in every cell that makes up my soft belly. His birth was beautiful. His short life, though lived in darkness, was kind to him. He never knew cold or hunger; never knew the horrors of this world, as we kept the TV volume low and played music loud instead. Hawthorne sang to our babies and played guitar right on top of them both, when the veil was visceral and rather easily transversed. 

I’ll forever be grateful to the midwives and nurses and doctor who cared for us. Who laughed and cried with me as I labored and H slept. I never begrudged them those few hours of rest, their snores mixing in the air with my lowing sounds of labor. I love that I have so many warm memories of that night, that I remember laughter and even a few giggle snorts. After all, there’s nothing delicate or dignified about bringing life into the world, even still life. 

Oscar isn’t really gone, and he certainly isn’t buried. When Hawthorne and their friend brought his ashes home in the smallest urn imaginable, we couldn’t fathom putting him in the ground. He belonged with us. Even if this was all we had of him, he had to stay with us. I hadn’t gone for the ride, but I know that H had buckled in our sweet boy, and showed him the mountains that held our home. Today, the small stone urn sits on my alter, between Gaia and the vase one of our nurses bought and filled with wildflowers eight years ago, a candle that smells of our woods burning beside it. When the flame burns through the wick, the pine and birch scent will stay, and fresh wildflowers will fill the vase. 

Lucy has, on more than one occasion, frankly told people “I have a brother but he died.” There’s no hesitation, just a statement of fact. Lucy is tremendously empathetic, but hasn’t yet learned that talking so candidly about a dead sibling makes people uncomfortable. And why should she? Lucy knows about her older brother, an entity she’s lived with for her entire life. I’ve never hidden Oscar, or what happened, from her; Hawthorne and I never wanted there to be any surprise or shock around him. That’s not to say I’ve given all the details, but maybe more than I realized. 

Lucy woke up a few minutes ago and came to snuggle up in my lap, which is how we start every morning that I’m not already on the way to work when they wake. I apologized for yelling last night (which, to be fair, sometimes 6-year-olds are just little shits) and told her that this is a tough time for me, and that today is Oscar’s birthday. Lucy just snuggled into my chest.

I’m not sure I answered, because the question was a formality. It’s the question that indicates a conversation is done, snuggle time is over, and she’s ready to go. So my earthside child slipped out of my arms and ran to the kitchen. Because in this house, Death is someone who walks with us. On the other side of the veil, they hold the hand of my son, and listen to my wife play guitar. Life doesn’t stop. The world has continued to go by for eight years; a fingersnap of time. 

We do not stop for Death, and I don’t see them stopping for us any time soon. 

And now, we’re off to get a cake.