I stumbled upon a blog last night through a series of click throughs during my bored pre-bedtime hour & came upon a woman who had given birth 3 month prematurely to boys - one named Ben & one named Liam.
Due to the severity of Liam's brain damage, he passed on. Upon reading that first line, I cried. When I read his name was Liam my heart broke a little, as I sure it does when we stumble upon stories with children who share our own baby's name. I sobbed & sobbed reading their story.
Then she called him lili.
And I couldn't handle it anymore. The ugly cry came & I wept for this teeny, tiny little lili who fought so hard against all odds to stay with his family.
I had never heard anyone else call their Liam "lili" before outside of Matias' family. And yes, I do not like that nickname at all. I've never told Matias because it really is quite petty & not very much worth a conversation. When I read her calling her hurting baby Liam that term of endearment my heart just shattered.
And selfishly, I felt guilty for ever hating that nickname. I felt "survivor's guilt" for still having our healthy, happy, growing lili. It's just a nickname. I knew that all along but I still cringed when hearing it. Now, I cannot get it out of my mind - this other lili.
I read almost every post she had written about her twins - Liam lived for almost two months in the NICU - through surgeries & skin-to-skin therapy, through bottles of pumped breastmilk, through sneezes that amazed the doctors since his brain damage was so severe he shouldn't have been able to make the connections/synapses to put together a sneeze. I watched the videos they had posted of the twins, lying face-to-face in their "nests", touching each other's hands & faces, I watched Liam gurgle & coo defying all odds that he even had the ability to do that.
And I grieved for this woman who would never hold her lili again.
And I felt awful small for every giving a fucking damn about a fucking term of endearment.
Then I went and kissed my Liam while he slept & told him I would see him in the morning.
Some of us are not that lucky.
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2 comments:
Ok thanks for making me cry!! For some reason I feel like my kid's names are mind until I come across someone else who has a child w/the same name. Like it's my "own" special thing- stupid I know :)
Yes, you made me cry yesterday too. And then a co worker came over and probably thought I was insane... Opps.
What an excellent post - as a reminder to all of us whose in laws can drive us nuts - it is a good reminder that some where out there someone it not as wonderfully blessed as I am to have my little Matthew who gives wet kisses and the best hugs on earth...
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