Halfway through February, fourteen days until we no longer call this place home.

And, it’s Valentine’s Day.

The bitter, the sweet, and everything in between.

“Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Getting through it, and by it I mean packing.

Ugh.

Packing has never, ever been something I’ve mastered. And I’m even worse at unpacking which means that I generally suck at moving, so it’s a good thing that we’re moving!

I will say that I’ve done a better job of getting rid of things this time around, as opposed to the many other hasty moves I’ve made in past where I pack things like expired coupons. If I really, truly think about it, most every move I’ve made has been hasty. Out of necessity, not choice.

Where I will land on the other side of this remains to be seen.

My big kids have landed at their dad’s house. He went out of his way to change his work schedule so as to accommodate being a full-time father to school aged children. He has stepped up more than ever, and his support and flexibility through this transition deserves to be commemorated, even in something as trivial as a blog post. He even watched Roux for me this evening so I could get to a meeting at school.

The last time my big kids and I were separated like this was when Babe and I first moved to Portland. Ultimately, I would spend 88 days away from them, and what I remember most about that time is the missing of them. Like I just wasn’t all there, a part of me absent from everything.

I don’t expect to be away from them nearly as long during this upheaval, but the fact that I can’t say with any certainty when I’ll next be able to spend the night with them is the kind of despair only understood by another mother separated from her children.

How, how, could I have let this happen?

I think of a million ways in which I could have possibly prevented this, and then I think of million ways in which I will definitely grow from this. In which they will grow from this. We all will grow from this. And I can’t speak for everyone, but I most certainly want to continue becoming a better version of myself.

This is me looking on the bright side.

For our last family meal in this house, we made burgers. Easily everyone’s favorite, because that Mister Baker makes a damn fine cheeseburger. As we sat around the table, my mind travelled to all the many meals we’ve shared together. Most of our earliest moments as a newly blended family revolved around making and eating food together, when I had just begun writing Small Time Cook.

That was a time when love was what mattered most. We focused on each other, the kids, our dreams, our plans.

Cooking alongside my handsome husband, cooking for my family, this family, will always be my favorite thing to do. I look forward to the day when we’re once again gathered around a table in a home that we share, eating food that we have prepared together.

For now, I’m grateful to the hundreds of silly old blog posts to sift through to remind me of when what mattered most was what we were going to eat for dinner.

Together.

It occurred to me, as I was combing through my Google Drive, that every single thing I will ever write henceforth will be part of my miscarriage recovery story. That even now, this horribly painful and unexpected transition is itself another element to the tale. And wherever I go from here will also be part of the tale. And wherever I go after that.

There are no more sequential posts for me to share, everything I’d written in the immediate wake has been published here. There are a few outlying entries from last Fall which will find their way over to this space, and I’ll create some sort of tag or button so all of them can be easily searched for, but for now, I’m giving myself a little distance from those archives, in order to focus on what’s immediately in front of me: moving on.

When Roux was born, so violently and surrounded with chaos, I had never previously experienced such pain or trauma. The weeks after his delivery were some of the darkest, most agonizing, intensely challenging. It took me close to two years to begin to regain a solid footing, just in time to find myself pregnant again.

Learning that I was expecting a fourth baby brought to the surface a lot of dormant fear and anxiety I had suppressed in the wake of the beginning of Roux’s life. I wasn’t focused on healing, I was focused on surviving, so I never directly addressed much of what I had encountered. But with another pregnancy rapidly progressing, I knew I needed help, to process the underlying and residual PTSD so that I could be prepared to welcome a new member into our family.

Losing that baby was so hard. It is still so hard. The agony of those days, and the weeks thereafter, was all consuming. Never had I been so devastated, hollowed, broken.

Which makes my current situation all the more hurtful. Because this is, by far, the worst.

It just doesn’t seem possible. And yet, here we are.

PS: I posted the twentysixth piece of my miscarriage recovery story, if you’re interested.

Gutted is about the only way I can describe my current state of being. Or humiliated. Or maybe it’s just vulnerable.

And sorry. So very, very sorry.

I can’t help but feel responsible, that’s the narcissist in me. It’s always my fault. I’ve created this chaos, this unsettling, this trauma. This is happening because of me.

Of course, the part of me that is eternal, and wizened beyond common rationality, is aware of what has happened, is happening, has yet to happen. And there is no blame, there is only now.

What I know for certain is that I’ll be alright, I’ll pull through this, I’ll reconcile this loss somehow.

PS: I posted the twentyfifth piece of my miscarriage recovery story, if you’re interested.

I will get through this, moment by moment is the only way I will survive.

Love is the answer. It is, always, the only answer. To almost any question!

This process isn’t easy for any of us, I don’t think there is a single member of this family feeling particularly well at the moment. I know I’m not.

The faith I have in myself, my husband, our family. This is the kind of faith out of which wonders of the world were born.

I’m putting up one hell of a fight.

“We gonna get a new house, mama?”

“Yes, baby.”

“For Roux?”

“Yes, for Roux.”

“Let’s go get it today, mama!”

If only we could, baby.

PS: I posted the twentyfourth piece of my miscarriage recovery story, if you’re interested.

The happiest chapter of my life is suddenly, rapidly coming to a close.

At the end of February, we will move out of the home we have shared as a family for the last three and a half years. The home in which I became a mother of three, the only place my youngest child has ever lived, rooms filled to the brim with memories of some of the very best moments of my life. I have loved living here, with my precious family, in this peculiar and unreliable old house, in this cozy neighborhood, in this vibrant city.

I’ve started to pack, which has never been something at which I’ve excelled. As I sort through our things, deciding which to store, which to sell, which to donate, which to dispose, I’m confronted over and over again with relics of a season that was overflowing with good. I will only remember us as happy here. Even when we struggled, even in the wake of tragedy and in the depths of sorrow, we were happy here. And so in love.

The future is fraught with uncertainty. I am acutely aware of exactly how little control I have over this or any other outcome; I can be responsible only for myself, my thoughts, my deeds. I can also be responsible for my children, acting in their best interest, working on their behalf to continue to preserve the innocence of their youth. Whether three or thirteen, they are still young and impressionable and deserve to know the adults in their lives are striving to protect and support them.

There will come a time when this will be yet another catastrophe I have survived. I will look back and recognize how, in spite of the devastation and heartbreak, I grew into someone even stronger and more flexible than I am today. I am nothing if not resilient. And I will never, ever stop believing in love.

PS: I posted the twentythird piece of my miscarriage recovery story, if you’re interested.

Seven months ago, in the midst of what felt like the greatest loss I could possibly suffer, I could have never imagined the losses I would suffer subsequently.

Unfathomable.

Digging deep to find grace in the fact that there is only one place to go from rock bottom.

PS: I posted the twentysecond piece of my miscarriage recovery story, if you’re interested.