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Posts tagged as “Penelope”

A Couple Of Dang Turkeys – November 25, 2021

Picture this:

It’s Thanksgiving. The 23-pound turkey is in the oven and cooking nicely. Stuffing is warming in the slow cooker. The first bottle of wine is open and halfway to the bank. Your kids are dressed like little turkeys in outfits gifted by the babysitter. You find yourself with a brief moment before the sun dips behind the horizon.

What do you do?

If you’re me, you throw the kids on the lawn and take some dang photos. And, with the help of our friendly neighbor Doug, you get a couple almost-good family portraits. To be fair to Doug, he had the barrel of the lens pointed directly into the setting sun. A valiant effort, but we’ll have to try again.

Enjoy the photos.

When the Sun is Nice, Take Some Photos – November 10, 2021

Sarah purchased these outfits for the girls a while and ago and we’d been looking for a good time to use them. She worried that we were too far into autumn for another outdoor shoot, but the climate change gods came through for us, delivering a warm, lovely November afternoon. We were also fortunate enough to have the sunset shining directly between the houses with which we share a weird, communal back yard.

All in all, we had about four minutes of prep time for these. Get the girls dressed. Throw a blanket on the lawn. Go go go. The sun dipped behind the buildings shortly after taking the last photo. It’s nice when things come together at the last minute.

A For-No-Particular-Reason Photo Shoot – October 25, 2021

Sometimes you just bathe the kids and force them to sit near a window as the sun sets so you can get some photos. I think it is important to make regularly scheduled photos of the girls, even if you have no great purpose. They’re just growing so dang fast.

A bunch of these came out really nice. I find I have a hard time editing out photos because I have emotional feelings about the subjects. So, you get bloated, unfocused galleries. No big deal.

I was playing with a diffusion filter I purchased recently. I think it added a pleasing, dreamy haze to some of the photos, even if it wasn’t quite the right light for it. In other photos, it kind of just looks, I don’t know, soft? Diffuse? That’s the point, of course, even if the outcome wasn’t exactly what I normally like.

The Inaugural Pumpkin Patch Visit – October 28, 2021

One of the nice things about working from home is that I can decide to get up and go to the pumpkin patch in the middle of the day on a Thursday in late October with Sarah and the girls. And no one except my dwindling prospects and collapsing career can tell me otherwise! Supreme freedom!

It was a beautiful day here in lower, slower Delaware and we couldn’t bear to miss the opportunity to drag the children out for photos. And I think they’re pretty dang cute in their Halloween-y witch outfits. They seemed to enjoy the trip. Penny was totally jazzed the rest of the day, until 6pm when she promptly fell asleep.

Upstairs, in a Window – August 8, 2021

Here’s a gallery of photos of the girls sitting on the sofa upstairs I shot this summer. Well, sort of sitting. Slumping. Sliding off. Loafing. It took me a while to share these because, well, I am forgetful and I didn’t yet have a way of sharing Google Photo albums. But now I do! So I am sharing these. This also means sharing photo galleries will be easier in the future. Be excited.

I’ve shared some of these photos on the social medias already, but Instagram really crushes the quality out of them.

Sarah’s Address to Olive.

Sarah wrote a powerful piece on the loss of Olive and her experience of grieving over on Facebook. In the interest of storing it for posterity, I am reposting it here.

Losing a child feels like the whole entire universe is reduced to a grain of sand.

Empty, yet somehow filled with so much energy all the same. An unpredictable kind of force that will blind you. Grief is a tricky thing— it’s not linear. It sneaks up on you, and it doesn’t care if you have plans. It’s absolutely ruthless and there is no map.

Things still come in threes. As the days and months go by, I find myself sifting through gifts sent in three, gifts sent with love and without the unthinkable notion that we wouldn’t be bringing all three of our baby girls home. I cycle these gifts in and out as the girls continue to outgrow them. I always know when they’re wearing something that has a third, and it’s painful but I also find it comforting. I find myself desperately holding on to these moments— because it’s a reminder of the time before, the time of “is” and not the now of “was” that breaks my heart daily. It’s a reminder of a joyful time when we were just thrilled by our new reality of raising three little girls. And while it’s hard to see the third onesie or the third set of eating utensils, I’m actually more terrified of reaching the day when things start coming in two.

Moments like these have a particular kind of sting. They make me feel farther away from the time that Olive was here, and more thoroughly a part of the now where we exist without her.

I know by now that nothing will actually keep me from Olive, that there is no without, because she’s with me every moment. When I wake up and when I go to sleep, and in every step I take. Even still, I feel like I’m desperately hanging onto right now because I don’t want to keep taking steps that move me forward, creating this inevitable distance from the time that I last held her in my arms. I want that time back, I want to be back there. It was hard, but it was so beautiful.

I still hear the sounds of monitors in the PCICU, in the streams of the shower, the dishwasher, in traffic— everywhere. I often wake up expecting to head to the hospital, just like I did every day for months. I realize that’s not the case, and it just reminds me of how impossibly hopeful I was that things were going to turn out okay. I long for the time when there was still a true flame of hope. But honestly, I can still feel it burning in my heart months later. Even though Olive is gone, it persists. It’s as though that hope hasn’t completely caught up with reality. Hope doesn’t know how things are going to turn out, it exists regardless of outcomes.

I can’t express how badly I wish I could see Olive again, boop her nose, call her muffin. Some days are just more painful than others, but every day I’m considering every moment in terms of what it would be like if Olive came home. What would this whole experience of parenting feel like with Olive here too? Would she need a million hugs like Bea? Or would she be more independent like Penny? She would absolutely be something entirely her own, something 100% Olive. Ask any of the amazing staff at Johns Hopkins, Olive was not to be messed with— she was a sass machine, and she was also the sweetest baby and delicate in so many ways. She was little but not without personality, her impact vast and infinite.

I constantly feel the absence of her, I feel it framing my every experience. I feel it so deeply that sometimes it’s hard to breathe. I miss her. I just really miss her.

There’s a lot of not saying things throughout this process. There is a lot of skirting around the darkness with new acquaintances and coworkers. Almost every day I’m meeting new people at work and answering questions about myself, that’s kind of how it goes in a small town. People are interested in my life, my story. Do you have any children? What are their ages? Inevitably, I find myself answering the question I dread: you had twins?! I hesitate, I hope they can’t sense my hesitation. People are excited to share in the wonder of twins, I get it. It’s something that stirs up joy in just about everyone. But my mind travels to a hard place. I’m still figuring out how to navigate this loss. I tell myself that when it feels right, one day I’ll tell the whole story. Or maybe they’ll find out some other way— they’re actually triplets, not twins.

At their check-up, both nurse and doctor asked if Penny and Bea have any other siblings— we say no, but we think something different. I wonder if they “know” and how it feels for them to ask a loaded question that they are simply trained and required to ask.

It’s been a little over three months since Livvy passed. Last month the girls celebrated their six-month birthday. It’s a complicated celebration, a messy jumble of sincere joy for our two little ding-dongs, combined with feelings of great loss and immense aching for the now that could have been— the now of three and not two.

I’ve been hesitant to speak on or with anyone concerning Olive for the last few months because I’ve been too scared to move forward. I’m still just so scared and so unbelievably sad. But I do believe that the steps present themselves organically.

Just last week a coworker heard about our loss and asked a question that helped me turn that corner. She asked me, “What was her name?”

Olive. Olive, I told her.

It felt so good to speak her name. And I realized that my fear is that people will be too nervous to say her name— when all I want is to hear it. Olive. Never be nervous to ask about Olive, and please continue to say her name.

There’s still so much to uncover and learn in this process. I’m still figuring it out, and I’ll probably always be figuring it out. But I feel ready to start. I feel embraced by the love I have for Olive, her sisters, and her father. My heart got bigger because of Olive. It got stronger too.

The world is better for having had Livvy in it for whatever amount of time. Not enough time, that much is certain. But time feels different to me now. When Olive died time changed completely. The short time that Livvy was on this earth was enough to expand and fill an entire universe ten times over, absolutely crushing the trivial meaning of time. A few months, a few years, or a hundred. The love we have for Olive is infinite. My heart is a lifetime. To the moon and back, Livvy bear.

“We are photons released from a dying star
We are fireflies a child has trapped in a jar
And everything is distant as the stars
I am here and you are where you are”
— Nick Cave

Olive Shields Dillingham 1/20/2021 – 5/09/2021

My dearest Olive,

I am sorry.

I am sorry you spent your brief life sick and hurting. I am sorry for the tinkering and experimentation and discomfort we put you through. All your mom and I wanted was for you to have a shot at a normal life and we were willing to do whatever we could to give that to you. We would have done even more, everything and anything, if we would have thought the pain you lived in was going to be fruitful. But it wasn’t, and suffering for suffering’s sake is no life.

I am sorry you don’t get to grow up with your sisters and your mom and me. I am sorry you never had a chance to leave Johns Hopkins to be warmed by the sun on your face. I am sorry you never felt the wind or saw the moon. I am sorry you only met your sisters a single time. I am sorry you never met so much of your huge family and that they never got to meet you. I am sorry that your stink-eye is something you only ever shared with your nurses, not your siblings. I am sorry I only got to hear your tiny cry a single time. I am sorry for all the onces and nevers, in all their terrible shapes.

I am sorry you will never get to experience all the joys of life, both regular and exceptional. Eating pomegranates outside during the summer. Listening to a great song that connects with your soul for the first time. A perfect cup of coffee on a cold morning. The pride of knowing you did a job as well as you could. A warm blanket and cool feet as you sleep. Falling in love and fighting to keep that love alive and healthy. A visit with a friend on a lazy Sunday. Christmas morning treats. Silly photoshoots. Blankets. Warm fires. Mountain tops. Birthday dinners. Late night karaoke. Chocolate chip cookies. Making art. Hugs. All the silly little and big important happinesses that we take for granted. I’m sorry I cannot share them with you.

And I am sorry for all the sadness and annoyances you will never endure. Heartbreak and loneliness and embarrassment. Being kept awake at night thinking of some stupid thing you said to someone a decade ago. Seeing an ex on the street and quickly deciding if you are going to be polite or pretend you didn’t see them. Annoying work e-mails. Saying something unintentionally rude and having to own up to it. The shame in knowing you failed at something because you half-assed it. Fights with your sisters and your parents and your friends. The feeling that no one understands you. All the stupid little miseries that make all the silly little happinesses so much sweeter. I am sorry I cannot comfort you through them.

I am so, so sorry that I don’t get to know what kind of woman you would have grown up to be. I would give anything to know you as a child and adolescent through your awkward teenage years and into your formative young adulthood. And then as an adult and potentially as a parent. And if you didn’t want to have kids, that would be ok too. I wanted you to have a life that was your own—Olive’s life—to make decisions on how and where and with whom you live it. Olive’s choices and Olive’s mistakes. Olive’s triumphs. Olive’s failures. The tapestry of a life that should have been uniquely yours.

I am sorry you don’t get to grow into the old lady name we gave you. I am sorry you only ever got to experience the little girl version, even if “Livvy” is an especially cute nickname. It was such a perfect plan: strong old lady names with adorable little girl versions. Your mom and I were willing long lives for all three of you to allow you time to make the most of the names we gave you and to become the perfect, distilled versions of yourselves. I am sorry you will miss that.

I am sorry your sisters will grow up without their middle triplet, the filling in their sibling sandwich. Since we learned that there would be three of you, your mom and I had a thousand ideas about what sort of life you girls would have as a trio. We imagined you all growing and learning together, experiencing life as a unit. What would the dynamic have been like between you all? Was Penny going to be the protector and Beatrice the quiet accomplice to Olive’s adventures? Would you all be friends or not? What secrets would you have shared together? What tales would you have told each other? I am sorry they don’t get to have that and that you don’t get to be a participant in our lives. I am sorry that they will only ever know you from photos and stories. I am glad your sisters are spared from our current sadness, but I am still sorry we couldn’t share you with them.

And please know, my little Tapenade, that we did everything we could for you. We pushed you as hard as our hearts, modern medical science, and the counsel of the medical team in the PCICU at Johns Hopkins would allow. We spent every single moment we had with you in the hospital to advocate for you in the busy times and love you in the down times. We thought long and critically about what the best path was for your care. We subjected you to serious risk with some of the things we allowed, some of the things we pushed for. But all of it was with the hope that something would break through and allow you to get better so you could come home to us. So we could be a complete family. Olive, Penny, Bea, mom, and dad. All your mom and I ever wanted was to have all three of you home, together, and safe.

I hope, my heart, that we made your last few days as lovely as we could. We strove to fill your hospital room with as much color, brightness, and love as possible. We wanted every second of that limited time to be free of hurt. Everyone in the hospital who knew you and loved you came by to say goodbye and make a memory with you. There were photos and hugs. Nurses and doctors cried and shared stories with us. We had three days of photos and decorations. We smelled your little head and kissed your cheeks and played with your funny little poof of hair. We held you as much as we could in those final days to try to make up for all the time you were in the hospital when we couldn’t and all the time after the hospital when we wouldn’t be able to.

And I hope, in the end, as you passed away in our arms, that it was gentle. You were surrounded by people who loved you so much and cared for you so hard. I had my hand on your chest and felt your heart slow and then stop. I watched you take your final breath, and then we knew you were gone. I will never know what it was like for you in that moment, but I hope it was as easy for you as it was terrible for us. I would have traded your pain with you in a heartbeat. I would have given everything of myself for you, if I could have.

My sweet little Livvy Bear, I don’t for a second regret the horrible decision your mom and I made to let you go. Given the same set of circumstances, I would make the same decision again. We chose your comfort over our own. But I am forever, forever sorry that you didn’t get the chance you deserved to live, to thrive, and to be. I love you, Olive, and I am so very sorry.

Love always always,

Dad.