Birthday

This is a picture of James from my birthday last year. If anything, I imagine James was mildly surprised when at least one song was not sang directly to him. Possibly relieved.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 28 years old. For perspective, that is 10,220 days. James lived 257 days, or roughly the rounding error between 10,220 and 10,000. When I was young, I made a point of celebrating my birthday as an event. Terrified of being lost in the cluster of holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I made a big point of forcing everyone to celebrate my birthday independently, to recognize it as my own special day. I was a horribly selfish kid like that.

I don't want to celebrate this year. I've been lucky so far. Only my secretary noticed the sign in the break room at work. Friends and family I can limit to text messages, or better yet, facebook posts. When someone asks what I want, I direct them to James' fund. That tends to deflect them quickly from asking what I want to "do" for my birthday. I simply want the day to pass.

There's no achievement here. If anything, my birthday is a reminder of the fact that somehow despite all of my many mistakes, I'm really doing just fine. I will be completely ok this year, and probably the year after. Without trying particularly hard, I've managed a little over a quarter of a century on this Earth. Looking back on it, I've wasted a good many of those. I never really felt that way before. There was just no sense of urgency.

One of the "grief" e-mails I got today encouraged me to write about my anger "to unload some of that pressure." That's how my birthday makes me feel. I'm angry. I'm angry that I don't have my son to celebrate it with. I'm angry that I get to nonchalantly cruise through the years when he barely got months. I'm angry about the e-mails in my inbox directed to "James Sikes" wishing him a happy birthday and offering him a good deal on a birthday dinner or bottle of wine. I'm angry at myself for filling out the forms with my first name. I'm angry about all of the time I feel like I wasted when he was here away from him. I'm angry that he never really had a chance, after all we put him through. I'm angry I can't hear him laugh, and that I've memorized all the recordings I have of him laughing down to the second. Above all, I am angry without purpose, because I'm not prepared to deal with the alternative.

Some days are better. Some days I'm grateful for the time we had. And I am. I would never wish that James were not a part of my life. Holidays and events have an unfortunate tendency to remind me that he isn't, and focusing on that rarely ends well.

In other news, I'm slowly making way through the comments. I'm in June now. At this rate, I'll catch up with the current entries sometime next spring. Looking back, it's amazing how much support we had even in those early days. Thank you.

Jinxed

Sometimes I think that I caused James's tumor.  Alot of times actually.  I tend to blame myself when things happen, and so I naturally have come to think that something I did jinxed James.

When James was born, I created a facebook album called "52 weeks of James".  I took a picture of him every week in the same chair to document how big he was getting.  I stole the idea from my friend Courtney, who did it for her son Isaac (who is the absolute cutest little boy).  I loved watching Isaac grow, and I thought it was just such a neat idea.  At the time I titled the album, I had a nagging thought- Was I tempting fate?  But I thought of course I would have 52 pictures in that album.  One for every week of his first year of his (long) life. 

I now go back and analyze those photos.  At which point did his head start to get larger?  Was it the camera angle, or was it the tumor creating the hydrocephalus?  Did he have a headache beginning in this one?  Did he constantly have a headache that I just missed? 

People asked me (way before James got sick) whether I wanted more children.  Most of the time my answer was that if I was so lucky to only have James, my life would be full.  Sometimes I said yes, but I really believed that if he was my only baby I would be happy.  I wrote before that I felt like my life was complete when he was born.  So did I jinx him from the beginning?  Did I somehow put all my hope into him and that's why he was snatched away from me? 

Did I jinx him by making him my world?

Over the entire 8 months of his life, I kept repeating to friends and family that I was so fortunate to have a healthy baby.  I knew that there were families all around the world that were suffering because their children were sick and there was nothing they could do.  I said over and over again how thankful I was that James was healthy.  Maybe if I had never uttered those words he wouldn't have gotten sick. 

Alot of people have emailed me telling me how James has affected their lives.  I'm thankful that since I can't change what has happened, that some good has come out of it.  But I would trade it all in a minute to have him back.  The truth is that I was perfectly fine with him not affecting anyone's life.  Anyone but mine that is.  And selfishly I wish that the whole world never knew him and that this afternoon we would be outside in the yard swinging instead of me sitting on the back patio writing this blog post. 

I opened his closet this weekend and saw the clothes hanging that I bought for him last spring.  There were all far too big for him- I was buying in advance for the fall season while the cute smocked clothes were on clearance.  There's an orange and brown pumpkin outfit.  A green "Gone Fishin" outfit with a little reel and line hanging off of it.  A Christmas outfit similar to the one he wore last Christmas so that this year's picture would match last year's.  The tags are still on- I hadn't even washed them with the huge container of baby detergent that still sits on my washing machine. 

I don't know why on earth I bought so many clothes for the future.  Clearly I had no clue about what was going to transpire.  Maybe I did jinx him by buying outfits for the future.  Stocking up on diapers that I have since given away.  Buying in bulk baby shampoo and baby wash.  I just never thought that there would be a time that it wouldn't be used. 

So the guilt sometimes just eats me up.  I don't know if it's normal to blame yourself or not, but I definitely do.  When I get to Heaven, maybe God will have the answers for me as to Why.  I just hope that me taking James for granted wasn't the reason.