Pitter-Pat: A Mother’s Journey from Loss to New Life

By Amy Erickson

No one goes into pregnancy expecting to lose a child. Even when it happens, the event can feel so surreal a mother can wonder if she’s just woken from a terrible nightmare. In Pitter-Pat, author Amy Erickson offers a touching and often heartrending memoir about a mother trying to make sense of her life after the unexpected loss of her second child, Gabriel, who was born prematurely and who lived briefly before passing.

Written in the form of letters to her lost son, it documents the events in Erickson’s life that transpired following her loss. The correspondence reinforces her deep and abiding love for Gabriel, her devotion to his memory, as well as her commitment to telling the world her son lived, he mattered, and he will always live on in heaven. Her depiction of her relationship with her first son, Julian, is equally touching, as this family of three tries in earnest to bring another child into their home.

Pitter-Pat shares a raw, unfiltered, honest portrayal of what it means to grieve for a child, subtly addressing the pressures of society to heal quickly after loss, the difficulties in maintaining previous relationships in a world turned upside down, and the isolation and alienation grieving parents often feel. This memoir offers insight for any parent who has experienced the loss of a child or anyone seeking to better understand this journey of grief.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982217914

Amy Erickson

Amy Erickson is a writer, a blogger, and a mother whose personal story of love and loss is both heartbreaking and healing. Starting out with a degree in psychology and a career in fitness, she turned to writing after the death of her second child to cope with grief and with hopes to help others suffering from loss. Erickson lives in Washington State. This is her debut book. Visit her online at Awakeningwildflower.com.

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Copyright © 2019 Amy Erickson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-1790-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-1792-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-1791-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018914479

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/25/2019

To mothers and fathers who have loved and lost …

To their children who soar blissfully in Heaven …

To my angels, Gabriel, Boo, Peanut, Pumpkin, and Ki-Ki …

To all of my children, here and there …

And especially to Julian, my living light.

xoxo

CONTENTS

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Epilogue

"Sometimes the smallest things

take up the most room

in your heart."

Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time, mere moments before midnight, a father sat down on a cold hospital floor to write a letter. It was a letter about the birth of a child … it was a letter about the death of a child … it was a tool, of sorts, to help deal with this man’s grief … it was a voice sent out to friends and family that wouldn’t crack and waiver when it spoke. Gabriel, they had named him, a beautiful baby boy, who was, for every moment of his short life, embraced in LOVE.

His short life. Forty-eight minutes, to be exact. Forty-eight minutes to absorb the treasured life my husband and I had created in simple love. A life that fought to stay, causing his legs to kick, his arms to reach, his forehead to wrinkle, and his tiny heart to continue beating, all while we gently held him and watched. Because, that was all that we could do. Watch … and love. The ache I felt as his inevitable end grew nearer was unrecognizable to me. Yet even then, somehow, I knew in my heart that we were …

… lucky.

Lucky to have been given that time. Lucky to have had those fleeting forty-eight minutes to soak up every single detail about him. Because, most parents who lose their children at birth have little to none.

Still, there’s no denying that I was naïve in the days, hours, even the last few minutes before my son’s death. A phrase from the lullaby version of Three Little Birds … don’t worry, about a thing, ’cause every little thing, gonna be all right … had been my silent mantra from the very first ominous cramp. Even when I was bent over, nearly on the ground from the pain the contractions were causing, I still refused to believe that I could ever lose my child.

Because people like me don’t lose babies, my mind argued. I was healthy, in good shape. The death of a child? No … that could never happen to me.

Yet it did happen, and on August 29, 2011 not even twenty-four hours after the death of my second child—my husband and I, along with our three-year-old son, Julian, stood outside near one of our flower gardens. This was where we were going to bury him … in our yard … in a flower garden. In my husband’s hands was a shovel, yet, in the beginning, no one moved. We were frozen, limp statues, Julian’s tiny hand squeezed tightly in mine. Then somehow, after God only knows how long, my husband’s body did move, the shovel in his hands seeming to understand that its job was to dig a hole.

STOP!

Our arms seemed to understand that they had to lower our child’s casket down into the ground.

No, no—NO!

And the dirt that had been dug up seemed to understand that it now had to return to its place in the earth, into that hole, to cover our dear child up.

Wait—he can’t breathe!!

That moment there, the moment when the dirt hit Gabriel’s wooden casket … it was, without question, the worst moment of my short life. A slap in the face, really, from some unforeseen force, completely shattering the ignorant innocence I’d had all along about pregnancy and childbirth.

Gabriel’s passing, as it turned out, was the result of an infection inside of me. They gave it a name—chorioamnionitis—and told me that it was the cause of the premature rupturing of my membranes. He had died, they explained, so that I … could live. It was an infection that had had no desire to go after my son. From the very beginning, it had only been after me.

The silence of his birth, the absence of noise, the ability to hear a pin drop … nothing—nothing—had ever prepared me for that cruel shock. No one had warned me that because my son was coming too early, he wouldn’t have the ability to cry. No one had told me that I would never hear my child speak. How could I have possibly known that something as pure as silence was, at this level, as dark as death?

Hours after Gabriel’s passing, my husband and I began to believe, as I’m sure all grieving parents do, that our child had been special, perhaps even … unique. Even the doctors and delivery nurses had vocalized about how they’d never seen anything like it before, a baby boy at only nineteen and a half weeks’ gestation, hanging on for so long … showing such a strong will to live.

He was a teacher, of sorts, one nurse comforted me after he was gone. "He taught us what to do when a baby at such a young gestational age comes out of his mother with so much movement and then continues to live for so much longer than we’d ever seen before. Your son, Gabriel, taught us to be patient and to give your family time to let go. He taught us … to wait."

Before leaving my room, she turned at the door to say one more thing. "You know, maybe most important of all, Gabriel gave us an incredible lesson on love tonight. About the love that two parents can have for their son, about the love that a big brother can have for his sibling, and about the love of a family, in life and death. Your child was here for a reason. His presence here on this earth did make a difference. For each child that dies … the world is better off because they were here. Somehow, they touch us, somehow, they touch the world, and it becomes our job, after they’re gone, to try to figure out what gift they were trying to give us."

So, here I am, haunted by those words … haunted with the unrelenting question of, Why? Why did Gabriel die? And, why did I live?

Here is my story. Without consciously trying, I sat down at my computer one day and started writing. Without consciously trying, I sat down to try to figure it all out. The following pages are the story of that journey. The following pages are those of a mother’s conversations with her ever-present, ever-loved angel.

"Do not judge the bereaved mother. She comes in many forms.

She is breathing, but she is dying.

She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.

She smiles, but her heart sobs. She walks, she talks, she cooks, she cleans,

she works, she is, but she is not, all at once.

She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity."

Author Unknown

ONE

They say a person must fall before she can rise back up again. From Confucius to Jesse Jackson, and many great minds in between, the quotes on this topic are numerous. But in all my research, during all my sleepless nights, not one of these great minds was ever able to give me a definite, foolproof, step-by-step recipe for … how.

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January 10, 2012 …

It was a bit like a horror movie, the echo in my mind … olly olly oxen freeeeee … the footsteps running toward me down the hallway forming a muffled buzz at the back of my head … come out, come out, wherever you are … like a monotonous whisper rapidly mutating into a razor-sharp scream … ready or not, here I come … I squeezed my eyes shut, begging it to end … show yourself, now …

Mama?

STOP IGNORING ME!!

Hey! Mama!

I opened my eyes. There was Julian. Your big brother, Julian. He was looking up at me with an odd expression on his face—that of … fear?

Hi, Mama, he repeated, this time, carefully. The phone’s ringing. OK?

I hear it, I finally said. Yes, yes … I hear it. But I didn’t move, except for a slight jerk, when it rang again.

He should be used to this by now, I thought, me, not answering the phone. Because it was rare for me to pick up the phone anymore, at least not the first-time friends called, friends who cared, each one of them checking in to see if I was OK. Since you died, I’ve become strangely unable to speak to anyone without first preparing myself with the proper things to say. And sometimes, it doesn’t even matter what I say. Sometimes, it’s merely the sound of my voice that unnerves them, the hollowness, the … dark. It had become so draining, me trying to adapt my voice so that no one could figure out what I’d become.

But today, a new beast came to visit, a beast that took near-physical form in my mind. Because when the phone stopped ringing, instead of the relief I usually feel in the silence, a heavy presence came down on me. Suddenly, I could feel them, every single person who’d called me this week, as though they were standing on the other side of our windows, glaring in at me, screaming, Amy! Pick up the goddamn phone!

And then I saw your brother watching me. I saw him grow quiet … I saw him grow still. Mortified at what he was witnessing, at what he was probably thinking! I dropped the laundry basket in my arms and ran to the safety of our bathroom’s four walls, slamming the door shut tight behind me.

Olly olly oxen freeeeee … perhaps he assumed that we were playing hide-and-seek.

Mama?

When, in reality, I was only trying to breathe.

Wanna come out and play, Mama?

I placed my back up against the bathroom door, closed my eyes, and let myself slide down to the floor to something solid. Julian was on the other side of the door. I knew he was there, and I knew he was scared. I also knew that he wanted to come in, and … I wasn’t ready for him to come in.

I’m fine, I called out to him. Give me a minute. Just … go grab a book, or something. Wait for me on the couch.

He hesitated, but always a good boy, your brother, he eventually did as I asked, his feet padding away from the bathroom door to our living room couch. Then, and only then, did I permit myself to open my eyes. Which was a mistake … Hello? … because across from me was my reflection.

"Who are you?" I whispered, gazing in disbelief at what I saw. There was a stranger in the mirror, someone I’d never seen before, staring back at me with flushed skin, wild eyes, limp and … oily hair. Suddenly, I remembered that it had been at least five days since I’d last showered.

How? I heard myself whimper. How could this happen? Where did you go? Were you ever really here, or … My voice cracked, and I started to cry. …or were you just a dream? Something that I made up, something that I only thought was real?

I realized, as I curled up into a tight ball, that I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to anymore. Was I talking to the reflection in the mirror? Or, was I talking to you, my dead son?

Five months. You have been dead for nearly five months. But, in seven days from now?

My body shook as the sobs took over.

In seven days, Gabriel … you are due.

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January 13, 2012

Hurry! Hurry! Smiling chubby cheeks flew in front of my face, along with the book in Julian’s hands. He was holding, Hurry! Hurry! by Eve Bunting, and with breakfast still sitting on the table, your brother had decided it was time to read a book.

What an unexpected surprise … I thought, as he settled himself onto my lap.

It had been a surprise. A big surprise. Julian’s uncensored love for this particular book. A story of birth and new life, I’d felt uncertain about what your brother’s reaction to it would be. What was he thinking, for instance, the first time he turned the page to see the baby chick in the book eagerly pecking his way out of his egg? What were his thoughts when that same newborn chick was immediately surrounded by the animals on the farm who had come to witness the event? Did he think about the birth of that chicken and then remember the exact opposite circumstances occurring with the birth of his own baby brother?

No … I didn’t think so. I couldn’t think so. His face was too joyful, his eyes too happy as we read, and his fascination with this story of birth sent a clear message to me that if he did remember the night when you were born, he didn’t remember very much. And for that I felt … relieved.

So grateful that your brother wasn’t damaged in some way over what had happened to you. Because looking back on that night, I realized that Julian had witnessed way too much.

He had entered my hospital room just minutes after you were born—Hi Mama! A few minutes too soon, actually … I wasn’t prepared.

Get him out of here, Todd! I had screamed at your father. He can’t see this! Get him out!

Julian’s radiant face—happy to see me—had crashed. Not because he’d spotted you, weak and dying in my arms, but because I’d yelled out those words the moment he’d walked into the room. He’d thought that he’d done something wrong, and before I could make things right, your father grabbed the back of Julian’s jacket and pulled him out of the room.

Less than an hour later, we brought your brother back into my hospital room to meet you. We placed you in his arms. This is your baby brother, Gabriel. But we didn’t tell him that you were dead. We didn’t explain to him why Mommy and Daddy were crying. And we didn’t offer any explanations for why his new baby brother made no moves … made no sounds.

We made so many mistakes that night …

Too many mistakes. In our own shock and grief, we forgot how to behave as parents. We forgot that it was our responsibility to help him, a child, in that moment.

That moment when he first set eyes on you.

That moment when a brother met a brother.

That moment, when love began.

Baby … he’d said tenderly, smiling down at you while gently touching the skin of your cheek … Hello.

So, I watched him today as we read. I couldn’t help myself. But in the middle of giving thanks for his joy in reading this book of birth, I suddenly choked on some bile in the back of my throat, because—what was he thinking!!

Yes. What was your brother thinking the day after you were born? The day we brought you home? The day we placed you in a deep, dark hole? The day he watched us cover you up with fresh black dirt from our backyard?

God help me. I want to die.

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January 14, 2012

Whatcha got going on in there? Julian said, running into the kitchen.

I’m sorry? I asked, raising an eyebrow.

In there! he exclaimed, pointing behind him, then grabbing my hand impatiently to pull me into the bathroom. This day here on the wall! What’s the red for?

I stared at the calendar beneath Julian’s finger. The square for January 17 was circled in bright red.

It’s your brother’s due date … Um …

What’s it for? he asked again. Is there going to be a party?

No. Not anymore.

It’s just a day, I quickly stammered. A day Mommy wants to remember. He tilted his head, wanting to know more, but I was done. Do you want to play a game? I quickly interjected.

Yes! I do! he grinned, easily distracted from our conversation as he spun on his heels to go find a game. But I lingered, staying behind by the wall that held the calendar for January 2012. It was only three days away, your due date.

The square for January 17 … I’d had special plans for that particular square. It was supposed to have had a smiley face drawn onto it, one that I’d intended Julian to draw in his messy three-year-old scrawl. The smiley face was supposed to have been a special memory for our entire family to look back on for years to come, the calendar page cut out and glued into your baby book, next to a picture of you as a newborn. But the square I stared at today was empty, except for the glaring red circle around the number 17.

And I had to wonder, because all I could do was wonder …

… would Julian have drawn his usual stickman figure onto that square? The same smiling stickman figure that Julian always draws for every occasion?

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January 15, 2012

Outside today, your father and brother worked on the lawn around your grave. I looked down on them from a window of our house as your brother ran around like a monkey, giggling and tossing leaves in front of your father’s blower. Then suddenly, they stopped. The blower went silent and time stood still. Hand in hand, father and son stood quietly, gazing at the stone cherub placed on your resting spot.

What were you two doing out there today, by Gabriel’s grave? I questioned your father once the two of them had come inside.

Saying hello, your father replied simply. And, well, for me, maybe having a good cry.

Oh, I lowered my eyes.

Jules didn’t stick around for too long, he ran off to play, but … Here your father paused, a soft smile curving his lips. But do you want to know what he said before he took off? He looked at Gabriel’s grave and said, ‘You sleep well now!’ in his happy little voice. And then he was off, he shrugged, like a bullet down the hill.

I glanced into the next room where your brother was playing with his trains. Do you think that he actually understands any of this?

I don’t know, your father shook his head. "Most days, I don’t even know if I understand any of this."

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January 17, 2012

Are you going to do anything special today? You know, to mark the event?

Special? I asked, sarcasm dripping off the word.

Well, um, I don’t know, my friend began to squirm. "I thought that maybe … well, maybe you could decorate his grave? I mean, it is his due date today, right?"

I tried on a weak smile, no appropriate words popping into my mind. Because I didn’t really think that this particular friend would take kindly to—Why in God’s name would I bother to decorate his grave when I’ve stood by his grave?! And guess what?! He’s not there!

It was true. No matter how many hours I spend at your grave, I can’t feel you there. But how could I explain that to a friend? How could I explain it to me?

Special. She was right. I did need to do something special today. And that something special could only be found in Julian.

Come here, sweetie.

In touching him, in feeling something concrete. The weight of his body, the beating of his heart, the warmth that the two of us created as I rocked him to sleep before bed.

You know that he looks a lot like me, Mama, don’t you? Julian mumbled as his eyes grew heavy. He has blue eyes and blonde hair, just like me.

I tilted my head as I gazed down at his face, confused.

I’m talking about Gabriel, Mama. Because I’ve seen him! He really likes to swim around in the water a lot.

I shook my head. Jules, I don’t understand. What are you talking about? What water? And when have you seen him?

Oh, he yawned, I see him all the time. Every day, even. He likes to swim around in the water right outside of our windows here.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Looking at the window of his bedroom, I wondered … when he says water, does he mean sky? And when he says swimming, does he mean flying? Is this just his imagination, or are you truly an angel, Gabriel, one that only a special child, like my Julian, can see?

You don’t have to worry about Gabriel, Mama, Julian’s eyes fell closed. "Because he’s happy. He told me he’s happy. And I can tell that he really likes to swim."

Your brother fell asleep in my arms after that, and he was beautiful. His brow calmed as the chair’s movements lulled him to sleep, his lips gently parting as the long lashes of his eyes fell like a blanket onto his full rosy cheeks. And I held him, and I rocked him … so very grateful that he was there.

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January 18, 2012

My eyes opened slowly this morning to a room that was cold and black. Lying on my back, motionless except for the movement of my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling in the dark. I knew without looking at the clock that it was over. That I had made it. That your due date had come and gone and that I was still alive. And, as I had feared, I felt no different. There was no relief.

Crisp air caused me to shiver, and I sensed that it was snowing outside, that the storm they had warned us about had finally arrived. Sighing, I closed my eyes, thinking that the day would be tough. Your brother’s school would be closed today, and your father would be stranded at work, an hour away from home. We would be lucky, Julian and I, if we didn’t lose power.

What would I have done, Gabriel, if you had been born last night? If you’d come during this storm? Would I have given birth to you here at home, all alone in the house?

Abruptly, my eyes snapped open with rage.

Of course not, idiot! If you’d have gone full-term with Gabriel, your husband would be home right now! And if a winter storm had been predicted, the whole family would have stayed somewhere closer to the hospital!

Wishing I could hit someone, I threw the heavy blankets off my body and got up out of bed, my feet moving as if with a mind of their own—taking me to you, of course—to the large double windows in our hallway that look out onto your grave. As quickly as my anger had come, it rapidly dissolved, deep sorrow returning as a heaviness came over my soul. For the scene around your grave was breathtaking, magical even, like a hidden fairyland that only I knew about, boasting a stunning display of shimmering snow and ice crystals that I could only hope would one day grace my own resting spot.

Shhhhh, nature seemed to be whispering. A baby is sleeping.

My head jerked, and I looked away. Because a baby was sleeping, and he was sleeping here, in