Don't forget

*Sorry that my posts are so long. I need to write this stuff down to structure and process it for myself.*

I do feel less angry with some of the people mentioned in yesterday's post, so I guess venting did help. I want to let go of this anger so I don't waste time dwelling on it.

I also need to start picking myself up and try not to fall too much deeper into the vat of self-pity. It's just not constructive. On the other hand it's really difficult to clamber out of the vat once you're in it and much easier to just stay there.

I want to spend more time thinking about Moksha himself and not about me. So given the starting point which I unfortunately cannot change, what do I want for Moksha?

1) I don't want him to be forgotten
2) I ultimately want his short life to have a positive effect

Okay, it was going to be a long list of things but they boil down to these two. What can I do / am I doing to make these things happen for Moksha?

1) I don't want him to be forgotten.

I think there are two ways in which this can happen since Moksha isn't here. One is in people's minds and the other is through tangible, earthly, durable things which can serve as reminders, information and focal points.

In people's minds: clearly I will never forget Moksha as long as I live and maybe for sometime after that too. DH will never forget Moksha either. But even my memories fade. If I didn't have pictures of Moksha I would have already forgotten what he looked like. When I think back to my actual memories of the birth, I don't find his face in them. I wept about this to my therapist this week. It's through the pictures that I know what he looked like.

My mother was present at Moksha's birth and she will never forget him although even she finds it hard to know what to say to me as she is scared of hurting me. But in the spirit of this being about Moksha and not me, it shouldn't matter whether she mentions him to me. I know that she will never forget him. My FIL and MIL came to the hospital and held Moksha in their arms. They will never forget him. I am not as close to them as I am to my own parents, but this I am sure of.

These were the people that actually saw Moksha and for whom he is not an abstract concept of "Rosepetal's baby". On the other hand sometimes even I struggle with the question of did he really ever exist? This is one of the things I need to resolve.

Actually, the doctor and midwives also saw Moksha. I don't know how much they remember him and who he was. Sure, they probably remember him as an event but maybe not his name. (Well my OB does, but the OB is by definition more concerned about me than Moksha). I can't help but think they see so many babies every week, why would Moksha stand out? I have been toying with giving my OB a small picture of Moksha so that it can be put in my file. Has anyone else ever done this? I'm not sure how she would take it.

Then there are other close family members did not actually see Moksha except in the form of ashes or in pictures. My father said, "He was 25% me". My brother will also never forget him. He basically flew into Europe from the US for the weekend so that he could be at Moksha's goodbye ceremony. My SIL couldn't come but she will also never forget. She wrote a poem to be read at Moksha's ceremony in her physical absence.

So I think these people will never forget Moksha, whether I talk about him or not. There are a few friends who I think will not forget him either.

In terms of tangible things:

- Show other people Moksha's photograph so that they can realise that he existed, he was a baby and not an abstract concept. Hell, I need this reminder myself, so I can't expect other people not to.

- Before Moksha was born, we had already chosen, ordered and paid for birth announcement cards. We were just waiting for him to arrive to fill in the details (name as we didn't know the sex, weight, size) before the cards were printed. The cards had a space for his name on front and some text inside. They were relatively sober cards to start with. So we decided to get them printed anyway.

They still have his name on front. Inside it now says, in French and English:

"We thank you for your message after the unexpected stillbirth of our dear son, [Moksha], on 29th July 2006. We ask you only to remember his name and to speak it freely."

We are sending them out to those who sent us condolence cards. Yes, it's bittersweet to put these cards in envelopes - it should have been a happy moment announcing our future with Moksha. On the other hand I feel glad about doing it. I'm glad to see his name in print. I feel as though trashing these cards would mean that Moksha wasn't good enough for them. I also feel as though I am speaking my heart - please remember his name, that's all. I know, that even with that, not everyone we send these cards to will remember his name. But maybe some will.

- Moksha does not have a grave - we scattered his ashes in a small pond in the forests near our home. There isn't a plaque or tombstone which commemorates him and I think I need this. So we are going to try and get a memorial bench placed in the village my husband grew up in. We found a spot facing a large lake with the Alps as a backdrop. It's a very beautiful place. My MIL and FIL still live there and it's only about a 30 min drive from where we currently live.

Yes, kids may carve stuff onto the bench and put grafitti on it. I was worried about that and how I would cope if it happened. But DH said that Moksha himself would have scraped his knees and got hurt every now and then. We wouldn't (and it's painfully obvious that we couldn't) protect him from everything. I think it's a good analogy. I still may not cope well if someone damages it but I'll try to draw on this analogy for strength.

I hope this project of a memorial bench will see the light of day. We have to get all sorts of permissions to do it as the bench would be in a public place, and I now live in a very rules-oriented country! It's not really a tradition here to have memorial benches.

- Where I live, when you get married, you're issued with a family certificate on which your future children are officially inscribed. After some hassle, we were able to get Moksha's name inscribed on our family certificate. So officially he is in some computer database somewhere as our first born son.

- I am going to get a plain wedding band. Yes, I already have a wedding band, but this one I will wear on my right hand. I'll get Moksha's name or initials and his DOB engraved inside. I think this will also help me move forward in my grief - to always have something intimate with me which represents Moksha may help me feel less guilty if I don't think about about him for a while. As Kate once commented, some people get memorial tattoos and I guess this will be my equivalent. But (maybe this is morbid) I can also hand it down as a sort of heirloom (I am assuming I will have heirs....). Maybe someone will remember Moksha after I'm gone?

- When Moksha's birthday rolls around each year I want to do something to mark it. Not only for DH and I. I don't know what that is yet, maybe it's a simple announcement in the paper or maybe it's a get-together or a donation or I don't know what. But I know I want to do something. (At the moment I am still marking each month but in a more private way).

- I will for sure tell any future children I may have about Moksha. My brother already said that once my niece is old enough, they will tell her about Moksha too. (And here I was going to type.... and my nephew but since he isn't due until Christmas, I now cannot assume that he will be born alive :-( and so I couldn't type it...)

So this is already too long and you're probably bored to tears. So number 2) I ultimately want his short life to have a positive effect will have to wait for another time. I'm not so clear on how to achieve this anyway.