I'll See You in my Dreams

Myrtle sent me flowers, because it was something that Myrtle would do and it is why I will always love her. I burried the products of my pregnancy. I felt silly doing so for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm not religious and I wasn't that far along. I salvaged it for the long shot of being able to send it to pathology for chromosomal analysis, but my RE confirmed my suspicion that it would most likely be insufficient. I didn't want to throw it in the regular rubbish bin, as it was biohazzard material, and I didn't want to bring it into work, just to place it in the correct recepticle. I couldn't bring myself to flush it down the toilet as if it were a goldfish, although a goldfish is something that was actually alive. I know there was no life within that tissue, but it represented something that could have produced a life. I held no love for it, but I knew how capable I would have been to love our baby. The anticipation of the experience, feeling the baby move, hearing the first cry, watching him or her grow, was all very real. There is a spot on the very upper edge of our back garden that overlooks the San Francisco Bay and enjoys a beautiful sunset each night. Now all of our memories and associated hopes and dreams remain in that place. I laid Myrtle's flowers on the replaced dirt. As touched as I was by her gesture, looking at the bouquet only served to remind me that I had reason to feel sad. Additionally, I didn't want to see them wilt and die and need to be discarded. I didn't cry and I didn't leave any words, but I'll close this post with some lyrics from a song written by Isham Jones in 1924, which was featured in a recent episode of Boardwalk Empire:

Lonely days are long,
Twlight sings a song,
Of the happiness that used to be,
Soon my eyes will close,
Soon I'll find repose,
And in my dreams, you're always near to me,
I'll see you in my dreams,
Hold you in my dreams...