Xavier's middle name is Joseph.
I always loved the name Joseph. For our first born we settled on Xavier as Dwayne didn't really like Joseph (said it was 'too religious' - little did he know!).
Eden's middle name is Dominic. And Augie's is Vincent. I know, all very religious. I'm a very lapsed Catholic and I don't even believe in a Catholic God really. But, once we started on Saints names, I kinda liked the theme and they are all beautiful names as far as I'm concerned.
By the time my last pregnancy came around I'd decided that if he was a boy, he must be Joseph. I guess Dwayne had come around to it by then. Maybe he settled because I yelled to Joseph on the neonate resuss cot "come on Joseph, come on little guy!" and then crashed sometime after myself. Maybe Dwayne was too traumatised to argue. So, Joseph Gabriel he was.
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There are babies everywhere at the moment. Xavier's kinder teacher has just given birth to a little girl and 2 of the mums at kinder are also due early in the new year.
And now, just tonight I hear that my cousin and his wife also just had a baby. A boy, 3 or so years after their little girl. They struggled with fertility.
I remember when Xavier was born and my cousin found out the name he said "you bugger, you stole our name". His wife is Spanish so loves the names, and Xavier's nickname for quite a while there was 'Javier Jose'. Beautiful.
Seeing these pregnant mums twice a week is really hard for me. Still.
Hearing the news that the kinder teacher has just given birth is kinda stabby. But the announcement I just saw on fac.bo.ok, that they have a beautiful baby boy, called Gabriel Dominic? Well, now I just feel sick to my stomach. Of course I'm happy. And, of course I think it's a beautiful name. But Gabriel? Gabriel? Why Gabriel? I doesn't matter really. It shouldn't matter really, should it? It's only his middle name afterall, and, it's not like I see them that much, maybe once very couple of years. But. Faaark!
Is it always going to feel like a stab to the heart?
Is it always going to make me feel sick to my stomach?
Is it always going to make me feel like I want to scream?
Is it always going to hurt so much? All this? These baby announcements?
Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I should be 'over it' a little more by now, nearly a year out.
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I feel an intensity for Joseph and my longing for him. It will be 11 months tomorrow since he was born. It's getting so close to one year. I can't stand being so far away in time from him. I know I don't want to be back in that early grief, but feel like he was closer to me when I felt that raw grief. That intense missing, longing and keening. I still miss and long and love and keen, but it just feels more distant now, for the most part.
I'm trying to plan, in my head, his birthday. As well as Xavier's birthday (which is 3 days before, on the 13th) and then Christmas and it feels overwhelming.
We kind of cancelled Christmas last year. We went through the motions of the kids opening presents. But, we were camped at my parents place for about 3 weeks after Joseph died and I came out of hospital to recover. We did a small family lunch on new years day instead, but not the extended family as would be the norm. So, approaching Christmas is bringing it all back. Which I guess would be how anyone would feel approaching their gonebaby's first birthday anyway?
I love the idea of sky lanterns and will try to order them in time (they take about 3weeks to come from China). Can you share with me ways you honoured your baby's first birthday?
I would really love it if anyone could write Joseph's name in anyway and take a photo to send me for his birthday.
It just seems all so futile though.
All I want is him back. Waking him and watching him tear at wrapping paper for his birthday and Christmas. I want to make a cake for him and see him spit at a candle trying to blow it out. I want a photo of all 4 of my boys on Santa's lap. I want it all.
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I love music, and I love music that moves me. Some music, performers and songs can bring me to tears.
Do you ever have those experiences when you hear someone sing and you want to tell everyone that you know about it? And then you want to tell everyone that you don't know about it? And when they listen, you want to grab them by the shoulders and say "do ya get it?, I mean...really, really get it?"
I had one of those experiences on Sunday night. I heard someone I'd never heard before (and never heard of) and I want to leave you with this song.
I heard this amazing lady at the Nick Drake - Songs to Remember Tribute Concert. The lineup of performers, including the orchestra was incredible. The whole show was awesome, you could hear a pin drop after each song. But this lady - Krystle Warren was a standout. Her range like nothing I've heard before. Please enjoy (turn it up) and tell me that you get it. That you really, really get it!
I've got to say, I'm so grateful to be alive to enjoy music like this, to have experiences like this and to have memories like these.
'One good thing about music, when it aches, you feel no pain' - Bob Marley.
Hoping you have some peaceful moments coming your way.
ReplyDeleteI think names are much more important then many realize. Especially after we lose one of our little ones. All we have is there name. I'm not looking forward to the day where i hear of someone else naming their son my son's name. I'm sure that I will not take it well at all.
ReplyDeletesending you love. <3
I think we must have very similar taste in names! I love all your boys' names. My lost G would have been a Gabriel had she been a boy.
ReplyDeleteYour description of naming Joseph just about broke my heart. I don't think anyone would have dared to changed your Joseph's name after that.
For what it's worth, I found the build to G's first birthday a really difficult time. You've described it so perfectly, that distance growing but the longing being just as strong. And I can't imagine how hard it must being all tangled up with Christmas too.
I didn't do that much for G's first birthday being as it is all tangled up in her surviving sister's. But I planted a rose bush in the garden and that was for her. The sky lanterns sound absolutely beautiful but yes, it is all so very away from the day we would want, no matter what we do.
I love Nick Drake, thank you for pointing me in the direction of this lady's performance of one of my favourite of his songs. His music became even dearer to me since the girls, as one of his songs is 'theirs' to me, Northern Sky. I love Time Has Told Me, so resigned and sweet to me. A troubled cure for a troubled mind . .
Sending you peace and remembering your Joseph.
Oh names. Names get me every time. Hope was never going to be Hope. She ended up Hope as that somehow seemed the only name on earth appropriate for both her, and the entire shitty situation. She was always going to be Lily. Lily Joy. I liked the name before it crazy popular and then when it did, I still wanted to use it. There was no discussion of girls names, it was just always going to be it. Then she died, I never used it, now I've had another girl but I still couldn't use it. That name died with her (though we did use Lily as a middle name). I have known of at least five Lily's born to people I know since Hope died, and a couple even knew that was going to be her name. And fuck, it stings. So yeah, I get this.
ReplyDelete11 months, so hard. The build up to one year is brutal, Kate.
xo
Thank-you for this post Kate. It was beautiful and the questions resonated so deeply, a cry from your bottomless heart.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm a few months behind you, I can't speak to many of your questions. In many ways, you seem to feel and ask the same things we do, and the same things most everyone does at this stage. I don't know if there is any solace in that, perhaps not, but we're not alone.
The one nice thing about Margot's name is that I have never heard of another Margot. I hope it stays that way. I think I would feel similar to you if I did hear of another Margot. Like, christ man, that is our name. Back off.
We still have that sinking feeling around big bellies and baby announcements. I hope this ends soon (when will it?????) because I hate feeling so complicated inside. Happy and angry and sad and jealous do not mix very well.
Anyway, I think I will carve Joseph's name into a piece of wood over at the shop. I'll have a photo soon.
Love and peace to all of you.
Kate~ It is always good to read you :)
ReplyDeleteI was in a store the other day, A woman called her daughter. I don't know if the girls name was Amelia or Camilla but it SOUNDED like Camille, I immediately started crying. Camille is not a very popular name and so I don't hear it often.
What Hopes Mama said was true for us in many ways. We didn't know Camille was a girl until the day she was born. The doctor said "Oh Renel, She is so beautiful." I looked at my husband and said, "we had a girl"
We didn't have a girl name picked out. We couldn't come to a agreement. I didn't even care in the moment what her name was. She was my daughter. So my husband suggested we name her Camille because that is what he had wanted to name our girl. I said that was fine. Once a child has a name it seems so odd that they would ever be anything but that name. Of course my daughters name was Camille, but the strange thing is, if she was alive, that probably wouldn't be her name.
My little brothers name is Joseph. When he was little he was Joey, and when I was mad at him I called him Joegosuffocate...nice huh? Now he is Joe. My mother always only calls him Joseph. Another BLM I know, one of her twins died: His name is Elias, which is my older brothers name. so you see besides my name, my mother was also into what I call "bible names"
Anyway I am just so sorry that YOUR Joseph isn't here with you.
I wish I could offer some insight on the birthday thing, but I am at 4 months and not close to even thinking about it. It is so painful for me to think about an entire year without my daughter. It feels like an eternity to be away from them and also like just yesterday that she was safe inside me. Sending you so much love.
I'll definitely write his name...
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the announcements will ever sound the way they used to. I find myself wanting to say 'Yeah well don't count your chickens just yet' each time I hear about someone's new pregnancy. Such a pessimist.. I know. It is all so different now.. everything I see through completely different eyes.
Sending you love and light...