Silence, My Old Friend

We buried Anna today.

Anna’s parents wanted her and her baby buried on their family plot in Connecticut and helped Theo make her funeral arrangements. Molly and I watched Weatherly and Andrew while he sorted things out. He tried to explain to them what had happened but they didn’t understand. They both kept asking me where their mom was and I didn’t know what to say. Adam had taken care of my travel arrangements for the funeral and decided to come with me.

I stopped by his place after dropping the twins off with Theo the day before we left. I sat on his couch while he talked to a liaison for his publisher on the phone in his office. When he came out I was staring out the window and sitting on his couch. He sat down next to me and pulled me against his body so he could hold me.

“You know what I remember so vividly?” I said quietly after a long moment, “The scrubs the doctor and the nurse were wearing. They were bright pink. It seems like such a weird color to wear when you tell someone that their wife and newborn daughter are dead, right?”

I chewed my thumbnail while I was lost in thought and Adam rubbed my arm.

“I miss her.” I started crying and he held me tighter.

“I know.”

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Molly, Zoey, Adam, and I had all managed to get on the same flight with Theo and the twins. The girls and I wanted to make sure Theo had as much help as possible with them as he travelled since they’d never been on an airplane before and kids that age can be a challenge even with both parents around. I ended up holding Weatherly almost throughout the entire flight. Andrew was doing fine but Weatherly cried for the whole first hour after take-off and Theo brought her over to me.

“Can you please take her?” He asked with exhaustion.

“Of course.” I reached out for the crying toddler and held her in my lap.

I tried rocking her and singing to her. I tried bouncing her on my lap and letting her play with my phone. I checked her diaper to see if she needed it changed but she didn’t. Weatherly is actually potty-trained but she had stopped using her potty chair a few days before we left. Zoey said it was normal for kids this young to do that when they were upset or stressed out. The only thing that got her to stop crying was letting her watch a video I’d taken of Anna the weekend she met Adam on my phone. She was playing with Weatherly and Sasha.

My eyes welled up as the video played over and over again and I had to look away. I stared out the window until Weatherly finally fell asleep.

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I was exhausted by the time we got to the hotel yesterday. Adam checked us in but we immediately had to go to the family viewing for Anna. Her parents had wanted a private viewing for family and close friends and our flight had gotten in late, so we had no time to breathe. It was dark outside and the funeral home was a gray brick building with a sloping, perfectly manicured lawn.

The foyer was completely filled with flowers and pictures of Anna in preparation for the funeral. Her coffin was in a separate room. It was flanked by two enormous flower arrangements and there was soft lighting. I stopped and stared into the room without going in.

“Are you okay?” Adam asked quietly.

I looked up at him with tears in my eyes.

“I…I don’t think I can do this.” I was breathing fast and started looking for the exit.

Adam pulled me to a quiet corner off to the side.

“Look at me.” He said touching my arm, “You can do this.”

“I can’t. I can’t…” I shook my head.

“Faith, you need to say goodbye to her.” He said staring into my eyes, “You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.”

I swallowed hard. He was right and I nodded. Adam held my hand securely.

“I’ll be right there with you. I promise.”

I nodded and took a deep breath and we walked up to Anna’s coffin together, still holding hands. I was struck by how young she looked. She was holding her daughter; Theo had decided to name her Emily. While Theo made the arrangements for Anna’s funeral he was really disturbed by the size of the coffin needed for Emily and decided to bury them together instead. Emily was swaddled in a blanket Anna’s mom had made for her and nestled in Anna’s arms. They both looked so peaceful.

It wasn’t until we finally backed away from the coffin that I had realized how hard I was gripping Adam’s hand.

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The funeral today was hard. I didn’t sleep last night, I just stared up at the ceiling of my hotel room and listened to Adam’s deep breathing next to me. When I saw the sun start to creep through the curtains I got up and dressed in a conservative black dress with black tights and shoes. I woke Adam up with the sound of me rustling through my suitcase and he got dressed in a black suit. Anna had always told me how pretty she thought my hair looked when I pulled it back in a bun and even though it seems silly, I pulled it back into a bun for her. The fluorescent lighting in the bathroom of our room was harsh and uncomfortably bright but I forced myself to look in the mirror and do my hair. For Anna.

Adam cleared his throat and I realized he’d been watching me.

“Ready?” He held out his hand.

I nodded and we went down to the lobby to meet Zoey and Molly. Theo and the twins were staying at his parents’ house and we would see them at the funeral. We all shared a cab on the way to the funeral and sat in silence the entire way there. There just wasn’t anything any of us needed to say.

Anna’s oldest brother gave her eulogy which was punctuated by the sobs of her mother in the front row. It was physically painful to listen to. I looked at Zoey and Molly who were wiping away tears. The pain etched on the faces of everyone in the audience was overwhelming. It was almost a relief when Adam and I slid into the back seat of Anna’s younger brother’s car for the procession to the graveyard.

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We returned to the funeral home for Anna’s wake after she was laid to rest. Her grave was near a willow tree which made me smile. I think she would have liked that. I was sitting on a squashy couch smiling about it to myself when Theo sat down next to me. He stared forward and absent-mindedly spun his wedding ring around on his finger. Adam was in the next room talking to Anna’s youngest brother.

“I kept her ring.” He said flatly.

I looked at him.

“For Weatherly. I thought she’d want it when she’s older…”

“That’s really nice Theo.” I put my arm around his shoulders and rubbed his arm closest to me with my free hand.

“You know…in medical school they teach you how to tell people when someone has died. It’s almost like a script. You’re supposed to express sorrow for the person’s loss but be detached enough and firm enough to make it clear that someone they love is dead. They emphasize it a lot. You have to make it clear the person is dead because when people hear it they go into shock and want to believe there’s still some hope…”

Theo wiped away a tear.

“What they can’t teach you, though, is how hollow those words sound when you hear them. ‘Sorry for your loss’. It means nothing when someone’s life has just been destroyed. There is no comfort in those words…just emptiness.”

Theo looked at me.

“I’m not going back, Faith.”

“What?”

“The twins and I are going to stay here, we’re not flying back with you tomorrow. My residency director was able to pull some strings and get me a position at a hospital here that had an opening. I want the twins to be close to their mom and I need my parents and Anna’s parents to help me get through this and provide some stability to the kids while I finish my residency.”

“Theo…” I was blindsided but could barely say his name.

“I haven’t told Zoey or Molly yet. I will before you guys leave, okay?”

I nodded and Theo gave me a hug before getting up to leave. I knew it was futile to try and convince him to go back home with us, I also understood why he felt the need to stay…Anna’s family and his children were the closest thing he had to actually having her now that she was gone.

Once we left Anna’s wake, Adam and I went back to the hotel.

“Do we have to leave tomorrow?” I asked him.

I was sitting on the bed feeling lost.

“I want to leave tonight if we can.” I said, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“We could try flying stand-by.” He suggested.

I nodded and started packing my things into my suitcase.

“We should probably let Molly and Zoey know that we’re leaving.” Adam said as we stood at the check out counter in the lobby.

I nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” I headed to their room and knocked on the door.

Molly opened it.

“Are you leaving?” She asked staring at my suitcase.

“Adam and I are going to try to leave tonight.” I said.

Zoey popped around the corner.

“We’re coming with you. Just give us a few minutes.

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And right now I’m on a red eye back home with Adam, Zoey, and Molly sleeping around me. I couldn’t sleep so I decided to write everything out on my laptop but it didn’t provide me with the catharsis I thought it would, just an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.

I miss her. And she’s gone.
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(Author's note: Sorry to interrupt the mood of this post but I have some announcements to make regarding a few things. First of all, we're finally up to real time now! Yay!!!! Second: I hope you guys liked my little April Fool's joke...no the blog isn't actually ending, I was just kidding! I tagged the post with April Fool's and didn't realize those of you who read on mobile can't see my tags so I'm sorry if any of you mobile readers thought I was serious, it was a silly little prank! Finally, my mom is having surgery on Monday and I'm going to be at the hospital with her and taking care of her when she's discharged, so I don't have a post planned for that day. It actually works out okay because we'll still be on real time even with the skipped post. I have about half of a post written so far and I'm not sure if I'll finish it and have it ready to post on Thursday or not. It depends on how things with my mom go but if I'm being honest it's probably not going to happen. Normally I would write them this week but I have four tests and a quiz and one of the tests was supposed to be on Monday but I'm taking it early so I don't have the time to write the posts right now and have Blogspot post them for me to cover the posts for next week. But, it's all okay because even if I don't post at all next week, we'll still be on real time when we resume. So, basically, what I'm saying is that we're going on hiatus for likely a full week, but we'll still be on real time when we come back. -del)