I'm looking at Elias's piles of books, his stuffed animals, toy cars, easel, bowling pins, soccer balls, and wondering how he will make space for Olive.
Literally and figuratively.
We live in a small house, less than 1,000 square feet. Our two bedrooms both measure ten by ten; so we have to move toys to the shed to make room for Elias's old crib and a dresser that will double as a changing table, given to us for free by our neighbor down the street who moved it to her driveway for her daughter's garage sale but told me: "I can't sell it. It's been in my son's room for over twenty years. I painted it twice even though my carpenter friend said I was crazy to have ever covered the hardwood with paint. I just want you to take it, especially knowing you'll be using it for a baby."
Her son helped Nick load it in our truck and unload it in the backyard where Nick moved it to the shed to scrape off the layers of yellow and blue, sanding away years of a childhood cherished.
We cant keep our children young, stationary in time, like plastic flowers that never fade, so we imbue their belongings with meaning, artifacts from stages they no longer fit-- and this is why you'll find me crying on the floor of Elias's room, surrounded by stuff. One bag for give-away, boxes for storage, what stays? And where does it go?
Elias spent the weekend in Palmer, with Grandma and Pop, a postponed anniversary gift so Nick and I could spend a weekend camping, remembering what first drew us to Alaska, sleeping without sirens in the distance or neighbors who scream at each other at 6:00 am; but we changed plans when Elias came home from school on Thursday with a fever and we spent the night not packing but worrying about H1N1. We decided to stay home, to work on projects and relax.
We spent a day in Girdwood, a small ski village 40 minutes south of Anchorage, where we strolled through the woods, a high-risk pregnant woman's version of hiking, never treading more than a mile from our vehicle. Just in case.
But still, walking. In the woods..
That afternoon we ordered the Italian Classic Pizza at Chair Five as CCR sang, "Someday never comes...". I watched a girl at the table next to us, not yet two, walk around the restaurant on her tree trunk legs, solid and smooth. "I don't really know anything about normal development," Nick said as he watched her too.
"Either do I."
"Elias was always so far behind in everything."
"I know. I was telling Audrey the other day that I don't really know anything about birth either. I just know Elias's." We looked at each other in that way that survivors do, people who have been to scary places they never expected to go, and come out of the depths stronger.
Marriages end here. The words of a NICU nurse our first week in the hospital when we didn't know hour by hour if Elias would live. Make sure you communicate. We did and still do. When all else is uncertain, I can look at Nick and know our love doesn't waiver, I can reach across the table and take his capable hand in mine.
This I know.
But I'm clueless about the world where babies enter without multiple alarms. And now it seems possible to learn. I'm actually ready to make room for the crib. And yet I worry about displacing Elias. As I move his puzzles to the living room and his cars to the basement I realize that the potential for a healthy baby scares me almost as much as another micro-preemie. Its not just the ten by ten room that I worry about them sharing but this world of categories and divisions of needs. Its always been just Elias, his medical spotlight, his quirky show, his cherished room nestled safely next to ours.
And now Olive, not yet here but very much present, named after my father, Oliver, and the olive branch, she moves in my womb as I write, stretching...
Where will she take us?