Images of Max

Images of Maxie have been dancing in my head all morning.  Warm and Cozy, warm and cozy....Maxie all wrapped up in a towel, smiling at me.  Jumpie, jumpie, jumpie....Maxie in his jumperoo, smiling at me.  Maxie Moo Moo!  Maxie Moo!  Maxie Moo Moo!  Maxie Moo!  Maxie sitting in his car seat, chewing on his Cat in the Hat soft book, smiling at me in the mirror.  Sometime several weeks before Maxie died, he was on the changing table and I was about to put a diaper on him when I heard a loud "TOOT".  Max farted.  I yelped and jumped back a bit.  He started cracking up.  I started cracking up.  We both laughed and laughed.  There are a couple of big red chairs on my mom's deck, behind the tree, next to her pool.  I used to like to sit in the chair, on the deck, looking out at the trees with Maxie on my lap, his face occasionally pressed against mine, while he played and played with my infinity necklace Ted gave me for our wedding.  I used to lay Maxie on the bed and hold him by the hands, and then sit him up, he would crunch his little ab muscles to help me help him up, his face full of a concentrated look.  Then after I had him sit and I would pull him up to stand and his face would go from concentration to a big smile as I said "Up up up up and All the way up!"  I am so lonely without Max.  Everyone asks me if there is anything that I do that gives me any relief.  Here is my answer.  There are periods that I don't cry.  Is that relief?  I enjoy being with Ted but I recognize that I am sucky company and he may not feel the same way about me.  He makes me laugh though and that is a good thing.  Honestly, I am sad all day and all night long.  This isn't real.  It is much too devastating to be real.  Real life would be me, putting on the Raffi Pandora station and dancing around the livingroom with the baby, who we made, who lived inside of me, who I gave birth to, who I nursed and fed and sung to sleep.  My little pumpkin, my punky, my monkey, my Max.

It was on Catalina Island that I first remember knowing that one day I wanted to be a mother. My cousin Nathan was born when I was around 19 or 20 years old. Like everyone else in my family, I fell head over heels for him and became completely obsessed. He was SO cute and he had the best personality. I just adored him. When he was under a year (though I can't remember exactly how old) we came to Catalina, as we did every summer. Natie got fussy over breakfast and I offered to take him outside and walk around with him. Up and down the beachfront drag I walked with him as people stopped to comment how cute my baby was. Several people asked if he was mine. "Yes!", I replied and they said, "He is so precious!". "Thank you!" I wasn't too young to be Nathan's mom and it thrilled me to know that people actually thought I was. I kept this up for years. I would take Natie to the movies or the beach and just steal him down a separate isle from my aunt in the drugstore so that people would think he was mine. Now he is a teenager in Portland and I doubt he would let me get away with that but it was fun while it lasted.

Max was mine! He even kind of looked like Nate. He also had a beautiful personality. I loved taking him to the supermarket where people would say, "What an adorable baby!" I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember. It was so much better than I ever even imagined. The amount of love I feel for my Max is endless. It is consuming. It is the most wonderful deep love I have ever felt. I will never let go, I will never move on, I will love him for my entire lifetime. Nobody will take his place, he will always be in my heart. This shouldn't be. I should be taking him to the movies and the beach and the drugstore and beaming every time someone stops to say. "What a beautiful baby! Is he yours?"....YES, he is MINE!

To be clear..

I have openly expressed my desire to have more children. To be clear, nobody will EVER take the place of my Maxie! So, please, know that it isn't reassuring to hear "get back on the horse" or that ANYTHING is "meant to be". MAX WAS MEANT TO BE! Max should be here with me now! Actually, he is supposed to be at grandma's for the weekend. Ted and I are in Catalina for our anniversary. We planned this weekend several months ago. It's so pretty. Ted's first time on the island. I want to show him all of the secrets of Catalina but I am so sad. We came here every summer when I was a kid. I ALWAYS thought I would bring my children here in the summers. Clearly, everyone thought they would. The place is crawling with families. I miss Max so much. I wish I could snuggle him again. I wish I could kiss his cheeks. I wish I could hold him. My heart is so broken! Feels impossible to move at times. More tears for Max. A lifetime of tears won't even do any justice to pain I feel.

Lucky

I got pregnant with Max on the first try.  What does that mean?  It means that I stopped taking birth control months before but that the first time that we actually TRIED, with intent, and did it on the day I knew myself to be ovulating, Max was conceived.  I remember bragging about it to Dr. Dwight, to which he responded, "Don't tell that to any of your girlfriends."  We were lucky.  I did tell my girlfriends.  Perhaps they will forgive me now.  We are not so lucky after all.  I have been lucky a lot in this life of mine.  Lucky to have had parents that loved us to the moon and beyond.  Lucky to have grown up in a beautiful neighborhood, in a big wonderful city, close to beaches and mountains.  Lucky to have known all of my grandparents.  Lucky to have been so close with them.  Lucky to have had lots and lots of fun and close cousins.  Lucky to have gone to wonderful schools, to have made the best of friends, to have traveled the world, to have a career that I love, to have the 2 most awesome and adorable dogs, and to have met my wonderful husband and convinced him to spend his life with me.  I am lucky.  I even once won dinner once a week for a full year at Koo Koo Roo.  Lucky.  Has my luck changed?  I feel like the most unlucky woman in the world.  Somehow I still feel lucky to have had my Max at all.  He was the most lucky thing that ever happened.  I felt lucky every day that I got to be his mother.  People have written me to say, "I hope you are doing ok".  Doing ok?  How could I be doing ok?  My child is gone!  I am not ok.  There is nothing OK here.  I am hanging by a thread.  Still, I have the nerve to beg the universe to make us lucky again.  To bless us with more children.  To give Max the siblings that he would have loved.  I am beginning to realize that luck runs out quicker than you think it will.  If nothing like this has happened to you, consider yourself lucky. You think you and yours will be safe forever....no such luck  Pray that we get lucky.......I'll pray for you too!

Pregnant with Max, feeling lucky and relaxing with Jake

Grandma's photo shoot

My mom called herself the "official Maxie photographer" and always took beautiful pictures of him when she was babysitting.  She often bought him new cute outfits for his visits as well.  Several months ago, we picked up Maxie looking quite dapper in his new shirt and tie from Grandma.

The weekend before Max's incident, my mom babysat and was taking Maxie to a cocktail party.  She specifically requested that Max come with his tie but I knew I hadn't seen it since we picked him up the day of this photo shoot.  I tore the house apart looking for it and couldn't find it anywhere.  So, Max went to the party without the tie.  I know my mom was disappointed.  I still don't know where the tie is or when I am going to come across it.  Feel like it might take my breath away.  I am lost without this boy.  Every minute without him takes my breath away.  He would be 11 months yesterday and I know he would be even BETTER (if that's possible) than he was 6 weeks ago.  My little angel....my Maxie Moo.  I miss you with every fiber of my being.

Babies everywhere!!

Were there so many babies everywhere before?  I didn't notice them.  AND - I WAS LOOKING FOR THEM!  Now, I am also looking for them, or should I say, I am on the lookout for them.  They are everywhere.  In really unlikely places even.  Suzy and I had lunch at the Laurel Tavern on Monday.  There were 3 different families with 3 different babies, all under 1 year.  It's a bar!  For last night's anniversary dinner, we went to a restaurant in downtown Burbank that seemed safe.  There is a big bar and kind of a nighttime vibe.  I would not have brought Maxie there.  Of course, 2 minutes after sitting down, a loud family with a baby (probably 4 months old) sits in the booth directly behind us.  Ted and I switched seats so I wouldn't have to look at the baby.  The family is cooing over this baby, we can hardly get the waitress's attention because she is all about the baby.  Ted is staring at the baby.  I am staring at Ted staring at the baby.  Ted asks again what this test could possibly be about.  We make a pact to sit "belly up" at the bar from now on or ask to be moved in the future when a baby is seated next to us.  Babies are now the scariest things I can think about.  But, again, I LOVE BABIES!

To be honest, I did not like taking Max to restaurants.  When he was under six months, it was partly because I never knew when I would have to breastfeed him and I was not a real "comfortable in public" breastfeeder.  I would have used the "hooter hider" and been comfortable, if Max would have let me, but he liked to look into my eyes, so I couldn't really drape him under anything for very long.  Sometimes I would just take him into the back of the car and put on the air conditioning to nurse him, but, that wasn't exactly an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.  Often, the food would come right at the moment Max would start crying and I would have to step away.  I liked going to people's houses, where I could sneak off to another room or having people come over here (preferable).  The truth is that Max brought out the homebody in me.  If you hadn't seen me in 9.5 months before this tragedy, it isn't because I don't love you or because I didn't want to see you, it is because I wanted to be at home with my baby.  I wanted to be in his environment, with all of his toys and food and stuff.  I wanted to put him down at bedtime and not keep him up for our entertainment.  I wanted to work around his schedule.  That is what made he and I happiest.  I hardly liked going out for the evening and leaving Max with my mom to babysit.  I was just thinking about Max the whole time I was out anyway, so why go out?

I miss Max today and everyday.  I miss his little squeaks and yelps.  I miss the way he chewed on his little fists.  I miss his smirky smile.  I miss his easy ability to connect with people.  Is this a test?  If so, are we passing it?  Was there a reason that a lovely, angelic, innocent baby had to be sacrificed to test Ted and I?  Do things like this really just happen at random?  Where the hell is my baby?  Why the hell did this happen to us?  Ted and I are good people!!!!!  I am so angry!  Nobody good to be angry at either.  I am angry at god!  So angry.

There are a lot of you who are trying hard to comfort us.  Sending texts messages and emails and trying to make a visit.  I appreciate it all, really, especially because most people have disappeared by now.  If I haven't given you enough positive reinforcement when you have tried so hard, please take it with a grain of salt.  My world has caved in.  I am not thinking about how to make sure you know that I appreciate you.  If you have made the effort, I appreciate it, even if I haven't called you back - I appreciate it.

9-6-9

Two years ago today, I married the man of my dreams 

on our beautiful beach in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

Teddy, I love you forever and always

So Many Activities

There are so many fabulous toys and activity centers to delight growing minds.  Maxie liked lights and music and buttons and things to grab onto.  When he was really little, we would put him on his playmat and his face would light up.  This crazy song plays with a evil little laugh in the background.  Ted and I liked to sing along.

The next level was the bouncy seat.  We bought him one that just vibrated to start and he liked it fine. He would sit and watch the monkeys bouncing.  One day we went to Auntie Jessica's house and sat Max in baby Everett's seat and Max went nuts.  He was entertained for the whole visit.  So, of course, I left and bought him one that very day.  Anything for my Max.

The "boring" bouncy seat.  He liked it but nothing like the "Rainforest Bouncer"

Here he is in Costa Rica, in the Rainforest, in the Rainforest Bouncer.  

He loved it so much, we brought it on vacation with us.

Nothing that came before delighted Max like his exersaucer, which Amy M. deemed "the office" for her kids and which we adopted.  Max LOVED the office.  He has one at our house and one at Grandma's house.  Grandma even fed him in the office.  He loved all of the buttons and pullies.  Ted and I also most loved to sing along to "1....2....3...Let's Jump!  Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba BA!  Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba BA!  JUMP!"

I have no videos or photos of Max in his jumperoo.  He loved jumping up and down in his Einstein Jumperoo.  We found a new one on the "Booby Brigade" Yahoo group site and drove to Pasadena one day while Max was napping.  The couple who sold it to us said their daughter just cried and cried when she was in it.  Not my Max!  He got so much exercise in that thing.  I would sing "jumpie!  jumpie!  jumpie!" and his smile would get bigger and bigger as his little chubby legs would jump up and up and up.  

Arrowhead was lovely.  Jan's cabin is perfect and there is a deck with a view of the lake.  Ted and I played chess and cards and watched a movie.  It was nice to get away.  I tried, just for one day, to put all of my sad thoughts to the side.  Then, I went to sleep and had that most horrible dream and I woke up Sunday a total wreck.  I spent most of yesterday in a panic.  The horror of Max's death slapping me in the face over and over again.  We went to lunch "someplace fun" (Ted wanted to go "someplace fun", we settled for Gordon Biersch in downtown Burbank).  Wouldn't you know it.  Two families, one inside and one outside with beautiful sets of twins.  The inside twins were probably 4-5 months old, the outside twins were about Maxie's age.  The panic grew so much, tears were flowing down my face and my heart was racing out of my chest.  Then, in one instant, I faced my fears and just watched the babies, because I LOVE BABIES.  And, I WANT MORE BABIES.  I am just so sad that I will never again see MY baby.  My favorite little person.  I have to try to focus on the idea that we will have more babies and that this will NEVER EVER happen again, right?  I mean, this can never ever happen to us again, right?  It just can't.  I wouldn't make it.

I almost forgot to mention that last night Ted was grilling some salmon for dinner.  He called me out on the deck and pointed out the most beautiful, perfect rainbow in the sky.  I actually don't think I have EVER seen a rainbow that didn't come after a storm.  This rainbow came after yesterday's storm though and it felt like a good omen perhaps.

Glendale Pediatrics

I just woke up from the heaviest dream. I was with my mom and our friend Rob and I was telling them how worried I was about Max. I was saying that ever since his incident, his development seems to be stunted. I wasn't sure what to do, did they think I should try a new pediatrician? They looked at each other with a "should we tell her?" glance and Rob said, "if it will put your mind at ease, do it." So, I ran around looking for a private place to make this very important phone call and finally started to dial 411 for the number for Glendale Pediatrics, a practice where many of my friends take their children. While making the call, I was feeling more and more frantic, like I was running out of time. Then, my childhood friend Danna, who is a lawyer in real life but was a doctor in my dream, came over to me and put a hand on my back and asked what I was doing. I told her, in a panic, that I was worried about Max and calling a new pediatrician. She then asked me what was wrong with Max. Couldn't she see I was on an important phone call? I started to explain to her that he had had an incident and that, since then, something wasn't quite right. She allowed me to continue talking but was looking into my eyes and reminding me with her gaze that Max had died. That the incident killed him. I woke up with a gasp! Oh my god! I can't believe this really happened to my Max. It is 4 am and the nightmare of my reality Has just slapped me in the face again.

Devastated

It doesn't matter what grief counselor or spiritual healer or rabbi I meet with, none of them can bring back Maxie.  They are just going to help me learn to live without Max, something that I am not sure that I can or even want to do.  I am just devastated.  I have never felt so old and so young at the very same time.  So old because  I am experiencing something that I NEVER thought I would experience in my lifetime and so young because I could very well have many many years ahead of me still.  I am just beside myself.

Ted's Aunt Jan is lending us her cottage in Lake Arrowhead for the weekend.  We are just going up for the night.  Beth wrote me yesterday and told me that we should enjoy ourselves because we deserve it.  We SHOULD enjoy ourselves because we DO deserve it.  Enjoying myself sounds so foreign but I LOVE my husband and I would like to see us happy again someday.  Maybe we can take some walks and sit on the deck.  Maybe we can find some semblance of peace for a night.

Thank you Aunt Jan... Will let you know how it goes...

Angel Baby

We have not received the coroner's report yet, but it is pretty clear that Maxie died from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), even though we were careful to make sure that none of known risk factors were present in our home.  We did not smoke, we did not have any loose blankets of stuffed animals or anything else in his crib, Maxie was put to sleep on his back, in a wearable blanket, in a crib with a tightly fitting sheet.  That is the absolutely crazy thing about SIDS - there are no warning signs and even if you do everything "right", it can still happen.  It is like these little babies are predestined to die.  I have made "friends" with a few mothers of SIDS babies.  I haven't met any of these women yet but I have been emailing with them.  One wrote to me when she was forwarded a message that I wrote to a support group leader.  Bianca found the other two: One because her sister's friend has a child in pre-school with Bianca's boys and the last one had a friend who contacted Bianca after she posted my blog on a mommy website.  They are all in various stages of grief.  One is only a couple of months ahead of me.  The other two are "on the other side", meaning, that they are still sad every single day and that even though the hole in their hearts will never be filled, their hearts have grown as new children have been born.  I am looking forward to that eventual time, but wonder how on earth I would ever sleep again, knowing that healthy babies can be put in their crib and stop breathing.  The statistics say that .06% of the 4,000,000 babies that are born every year die of SIDS, so the chances of this ever happening to us again must be even less than that.  But, we have been part of the "never gonna happen" statistic and there is nothing that can assure me it isn't ever going to happen again.  I just have to have faith, something so elusive to me right now. The mommy who is in the same stage as me says it gives her some peace knowing that there is nothing she can do anyway.  That even if she stayed awake all night long and stared at the baby, if the baby stopped breathing, she probably wouldn't be able to revive him anyway.  She wasn't able to revive her baby that just died.  Max's daycare wasn't able to revive him and they started CPR right away.  I would still probably use a breathing monitor...but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

In the SIDS community, the babies who have died are often called "Angel Babies".  (I think that many people who have lost children call their babies Angels but I have noticed that it is particularly common in the SIDS community.)  With all that the medical world knows, with all of the research and vaccines and medicines, THIS is still a disease or cause of death that is a total mystery.  The only explanation parents can wrap their brains around it seems, is that these babies must have been angels.  The idea helps parents make sense of the whole scenario.  They call the babies that come after the angels "Rainbow Babies".  Maybe because they appear after the terrible storm.  Maxie was our angel...always was...he didn't need to leave us to prove that.

Teddy's favorite children's song is "The Rainbow Connection" sung by Kermit the Frog.  I have sweet memories of Ted, Maxie and I, hugging in our living room and dancing slowly to this sung.  Those were the moments when it struck me that I had everything in the world I could ever want and we were our own lovely little family.  When Maxie was in the hospital, Teddy played the song for Maxie over and over again and we sang and cried and hugged him.  Last night I had a weird dream in which I found a little girl who seemed to be lost, in a room full of other children and babies.  She had Maxie's spirit somehow.  Anyway, I sat behind her on the floor and put her in my lap and together we started singing the Rainbow Connection.  The song got louder and louder as others begun to join in.  I woke up and the house was quiet, only the sounds of breath coming from Ted, Jake and Layla in the room.  I had to pause for a minute to catch my own breath.  My heart was beating out of my chest.  When I closed my eyes and laid my head on the pillow, I heard the song again.  It was too much actually, like a sound frenzy.  I decided to concentrate on my own breath and try to clear my mind.  Finally, I fell back asleep.  The songs we listened to with Maxie are so bittersweet.  I wonder if "The Rainbow Connection" will be too sacred to share with our "Rainbow Baby" or maybe he/she will just deserve their own soundtrack.  Will I always cry when I hear the sweet songs from Maxie's life?  I never ever want to lose Maxie's soundtrack, just as I never ever want to lose my Maxie.  I will keep him in my heart forever.  My first born, the love of my life.

Caretaking

Yesterday was pure hell.  It felt all day like my soul was trying to leap right out of my body.  Every second of the day was torture.  I sent Ted a text during the day to see how he was feeling and he wrote back, "pretty rough".  I figured he must be having the same kind of day that I was.  As it turns out, the day for him was rough in a different way.  He was stung by three wasps - on his head, his face and the side of his chest.  Poor guy!  Between the stinging insects and the poison oak, he cannot catch a break.  Since he didn't pass out and have to go to the emergency room, I think it is pretty safe that whatever put him in the hospital the week after Maxie's funeral was not a wasp.  These stings or bites that he has now have swollen up and are really red.  The mystery insect hardly left a mark. 
My mom went on Monday to get her arm checked out and it is still broken in half.  It hasn't healed much (if at all) since the day she broke it.  This means many more weeks in her terrible cast.  It breaks my heart.  I have been spending a lot of time with her and I get kind of annoyed when she wants to talk about something other than Maxie or how painful this all is.  She is a fighter.  She works hard to be a really happy person and everyone who knows her knows that her hard work pays off.  She is a very happy person, even though I know this is killing her.
Last night I asked Ted to help me picture what our lives will be like when we are happy again.  He said he can't see that far into the future.  I started crying.  He said he was sorry, he just wasn't in a good mood.  Of course he wasn't.  He had huge welts all over his body from the stings.   I am sorry to both of them for being so selfish.  I am the healthy one.  I can't keep looking to them to take care of me.  Sometimes I feel so ashamed about how much pain I am in when there is nothing physically wrong with me.  My pain is all emotional.  Even if it feels like my heart has been torn out of my body, it hasn't. 

Wallowing in My Misery

Losing anyone close is absolutely terrible.  It can be earth shattering.  From what I understand (and believe) losing a child is probably the very worst thing that a person could go through.  This little person was the best thing in my life, the person that I knew would outlive me, that I would get to go through the rest of my life with.  I was (and am) madly in love with him.  There isn't one second that goes by that I am not thinking about him.  It is totally consuming.  Here is the thing - I know that I am wallowing in my misery and there isn't anything I can do about it.  My world has been rocked so hard that I fear I may never recover.  My arms feel empty and my chest is tight and I am sad sad sad....all day long.  

For Max:

You are my Sunshine

My only Sunshine

You make me happy, when skies are grey

You'll never know dear

How much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

The other night dear

When I was sleeping

I dreamed I held you in my arms

When I awoke dear

I was mistaken

So I hung my head and cried..............

Making Max Laugh

I have described Maxie as a very happy boy, always smiling.  Getting Max to laugh took a little effort.  Not a lot, just a little.  The sound of his laugh was so lovely.  My chest hurts thinking about his laugh and I am so sad that we have no videos of Maxie laughing.  We each had our own ways of making Max laugh.  Max sometimes would laugh a little while breastfeeding.  It IS kind of funny if you think about it.  I would be looking into his eyes and he would smile a little, without breaking contact with me, and give a little "u-ha".  The first time we heard of him really laughing was from my mother.  She said that she had been able to make him laugh over and over again.  She was sort of tickling him with a stuffed animal.  A couple of days later, we discovered that squeezing his little thighs made him laugh.  Ted could really get him going.  When I tried, it was hit or miss...it wasn't my "go-to" move.  Tisha, from daycare, would get in his neck and kiss and gnaw on him when he was all bundled up for naps and that always worked for her.  He laughed and laughed.  I ended up with a few tricks up my sleeve too.  I would walk my two fingers up his body really slowly and sing, "YOU ------   ARE -----  MY -----BABY!" and tap his nose.  I would do it over and over until the giggles came.  Another fail proof technique was to lie Max in my bent arms, holding on to him, and then lower him down and up.  It must have been loads of fun, because he really would just laugh and laugh.  He laughed when Ted and I played peek-a-boo and towards the last few months, he really liked when Daddy hung him upside down by his feet for a second or lightly threw him in the air and caught him.  That is how Daddy's and their boys play together - Maxie loved it.   My favorite way to make Maxie laugh was to sometimes take his little hand, while he was nursing or taking a bottle, and stick it in my mouth and gum it up while making munching noises.  He would giggle and give me a "Mommy, you are so silly" look.

These last 6 weeks have been a living hell.  All I want to do is get under the covers in bed and cry but I manage to do many other things.  I feel totally exposed.  I can find no comfort or calm.  There is very little laughter.  I am reminded with every second of every day that I am not a mother anymore and that I will never see Max again and it kills me.  Yesterday, my mom took me to get a foot massage at lunch time.  I did find a moment of peace while listening to the zen music and just relaxing.  I started to think about what Max would want me to do with my life.  I think he would not want me to just crawl into bed and cry every day.  No matter how much I cry, he isn't coming back to me.  I think he would want me to live.  I am not there yet but I found some peace yesterday, if only for a moment, in the idea that Max could be the inspiration for the rest of my life - a reminder to live each day to its fullest, because you never know which is your last.  A reminder to be present with my loved ones, because I never know which day will be their last.  Something to cling to...

Our Future Swimmer

As this blog is meant to be a recording of Maxie's life, I want to make sure that I record as many memories as possible before they begin to fade.  Ted asked me to write about our time with Maxie in the swimming pool.  Pretty much since the time Max was born, we had been looking forward to spending time in the swimming pool with him.  Ted and I are both ex-lifeguards and swimmers and we love being in the water. Our first year together, we trained for and then swam the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz..."Escape from Alcatraz".  Ted can spend hours in the ocean or a swimming pool, literally, hours.  My mom and dad both have great swimming pools and we were excited to get Max wet and pass on our love for water.
As I have mentioned, Max loved bath time.  Baths were warm and contained.  Sometimes he would just start kicking up water and the more we would laugh, the more he would kick.  Max's first time in a swimming pool was on our trip to Costa Rica.  The pool in CR is cold.  Especially compared to the warm, humid air.  It is crisp.  Ted brought Max into the pool, held him under the arms and lightly moved him around the surface of the water.  Max just looked content.  It wasn't a beaming smile or a kicking excitement, just a pleasant look on his face.  Ted was so happy to be in the pool with his son.

The next swimming pool adventure was months later at my mom's house.  This time, Max cried a little and it was obvious that the water was too cold for him.  I ended up taking him out of the water, wrapping him in a warm towel, sitting on a chair next to the pool with him and singing, "Warm and Cozy, warm and cozy, warm and cozy" in his ear.  My bundle of love.  My arms feel so empty just thinking about it.
Of course we tried again, this time with a little float seat that my friend Bianca gave us.  It was pretty perfect and we stayed right next to him.  It may have been that he felt a little more independent or maybe the pool had warmed up a bit.  Not sure.  But, he was content again.

Ted missed this experience but more than made up for it a week or two later in my father's pool.  Max and Ted had a really great time with cousin Mandy too.

The weekend before Maxie's incident, I took him to my friend Amy's house to visit with my other friends Bianca and Tallie and their kids.  Amy's daughter, Penelope, was born in the same hospital, with the same doctor, two days before Max.  They had an instant chemistry and they had so much fun in the little pool in Amy's front yard.  It was such a fun day for Max, that I will always be grateful for.  It was his first and only real play date.

 
This little boy brightened up every single day.  Seeing his smile, I still smile through my tears.  He is the absolute best thing that ever happened to us.
This past Sunday, Ted spent hours in my mom's pool.  The temperature of the water was in the 80s.  It was like a giant bath.  Max would have loved it.

Cat Naps

I wake up every morning and think "Maxie is dead" and that basically sets the tone for my entire day.  This morning it took 30 seconds before I remembered and then I felt my stomach sink.  Most nights I dream about Max.  The dreams usually have a frantic pace, like a competitive reality television show.  Last night, I dreamt that I had to find all of Max's baby gear, which had been put away all over the place in various lockers around some international destination.  I had to remember which lockers held my baby's stuff before I could get him from daycare.  Somehow, if I showed up without it, he wouldn't be released to me.  So, I ran around, took buses and boats to locations with rooms full of lockers, tried hard to remember which locks were mine, racked my brain for the combinations.  I went to the daycare without having been able to open any of the lockers and tried to beg for Max, but I couldn't even see him there.  So many hoops to jump through every night to get to Max and in the end, I never get him back.  It is making me sick. My life feels totally purposeless without him.  He was the light of my life, my very most important reason for being.

I have been putting off going back to my office, doing my work from home instead.  I had actually been working several days a week from home since Max was born, so it is something that I am not sure if I couldn't continue.  I guess we will see.  I am meeting with my boss this week.  I am not sure if he just wants to check in and see how I am doing or it if this is the moment where he is going to ask me to step up to the plate.  I know that I am not ready.  I have a pretty public job.  The kind of job where, in order to do it well, I need to be "on" all of the time.  I am not "on" any of the time.  My own friends and family feel uncomfortable around me.  I had a friend tell me that she felt bad that our encounter earlier in the week was awkward.  I had to explain to her that everyone's encounters with me are awkward, it wasn't just her.

When Maxie was really little, I used to take little cat naps with him.  There was something about his little face facing mine that was so peaceful and I would drift into sleep, opening one eye every couple of minutes and smiling to myself.  No dreams.  Just lovely time with my baby.  When Max would start to stir, I would wrap my arms around him, breathe him in and kiss his little face all over.  When he got a little bigger, he didn't like napping with me anymore.  I MISS our little cat naps.  I MISS my MAX!

Dear Maxie

Dear Maxie,
My sweet sweet baby.  I miss you every day.  I miss you every second of every day.  I hope you know how much we love you.  How our love for you grew every single day.  I hope you know how proud of you we are.  You must know how blessed we feel that you were ours.
I still cannot believe it is possible that your sweet soul is no longer here on earth.  That you were taken away from us.  That you will never be able to touch the hearts of all of the people you were supposed to meet and change the lives of everyone you were going to encounter.  I am scared that there may be no heaven.  Daddy and I are counting on seeing you there and if it doesn't exist, we will be so heartbroken.  All I know is that as soon as you were born, and every day after, I had a feeling that we had always known each other.  You were meant to be my baby and you were more familiar to me than anyone I have ever known.
Maxie, I feel you with me all of the time.  I dream about you every single night.  I want to hold you in my arms so bad, it hurts.  I would give anything in the world to have you back with me.  I would give my own life if it could have saved yours.  I would do anything for you.  There isn't anything that I wouldn't do.  You were and are the center of my universe.  Without you, I am so lost.
I hope that you are safe and warm and being looked after.  I hope you are getting to know all of the grandparents that Daddy and I have lost.  I hope they are telling you dirty jokes and spending whole days walking up a long hill.  I hope that they are telling you how much you are loved. I hope they have arms wrapped around you and lips pressed against your little face.
Daddy and I miss you so much, Maxie.  Please wait for us.  We love you more than anything in the whole wide world and we are praying that someday we will be a family again.
With all of my heart,
Mommy

Living without Maxie

I am so sad all day long.  My face hangs.  There are dark circles under my eyes.  I wear the same sweat pants whenever I can.  Having to dress in anything more than that takes extreme effort.  I have been smoking.  I can't drink anymore - makes me even more sad.  I look around at his toys and strollers and photos and I picture him.  My heart is so broken.  I can't hold it together.  I miss his little face so much.  I miss cupping his little cheeks in my hands and gnawing on his ears.  I miss kissing him all over.  I miss sitting him up on his changing table after his bath and rubbing his little back with baby lotion.  I am in so much pain I can't think straight.  I miss Maxie so much.
I went to a meeting this week.  I cried all of the way there.  Somehow, I held it together for the meeting and even heard my own voice talking about work stuff.  I felt it was a productive meeting.  That being said, I had my marathon panic attack that day.  Maybe those two things are not at all related.  I am taking baby steps to get back to work but I am aware that eventually, more will be expected of me.  I am having a hard time balancing that reality with my personal reality, which is that I am finding it hard to find the strength to even make conversation with my own family, let alone others.
I feel terrible that my husband comes home every evening to find me in the same state I was in the night before - depressed, lonely, vacant, and missing Max.  He misses Max in an overwhelming and deep way too but we express it differently.  Ted would like more diversions.  I just want to sit on the couch or lie in bed and cry.  Sorry for going back to my sad story.
Let me tell you about my heart.  Max is my heart.  He made me feel more important and content than I have ever felt in my life.  I wanted to be around him all of the time.  He made me feel wonderful about myself and I hope I did the same for him.  He was so snuggly, such a love.  I was happiest with my arms around him and his cheek against my chest.  I can't believe I will never feel that again.  Max was my heart and he still is.  Not sure how I am supposed to live without Max.  I am not myself without Max.  I liked my old self (of 5 weeks ago) so much better than any version before or after he came into my life.

Taking a break from sad stories

Many of you have privately shared your horror stories with me in the last few weeks, as I have been sharing my horror story so publicly with you.  Thank you for trusting me as I have trusted you.  Stories of loss are important to share, especially with those of us who understand the depths of sadness that grief can take us to.  That being said, I need to take a step back now because I have become painfully aware that I am not fully equipped at this time to handle all of this information.  I hope that someday, I will be a wonderful sounding board, but I am way too raw right now.  I am sorry.  I spent about 5 hours yesterday in a full out anxiety attack.  It was exhausting and too much for me to handle.  I started thinking about ALL of the things that could go wrong - infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, another child's death, another death period, my own death.  I started looking up scary statistics on the internet and freaking myself out.  I have to believe that Ted and I have been given the most we can handle and that there will be so many good things in our future once we come out of this fog.  If I think anything else, I won't make it.  I am actually going to hold off of the group therapy thing until I can handle other people's stories and not make them my own.
I am going to concentrate on good things for a little while.  Like, just remembering my little Max and all of the happiness he brought to me daily.  I love that baby!!!
Maxie had a little bounce when he ate.  He would very contently chew (with his two teeth) his meal while rhythmically bouncing and looking around the room.  He wanted to see where Daddy was, where Jakey and Layla were and just get a general sense of what was going on.  It was CUTE!  I loved feeding Max.  He really enjoyed food - especially bananas.  If I wasn't worried about them constipating him, I could have easily fed him several in a sitting.  He loved them so much.  Kind of makes sense because we called him our little monkey.  Maxie taught me patience.  Meal times were a real practice in patience because he was a slow eater, like his father.  It was about the experience more than the meal.  Perhaps he was European in a past life.  We all enjoyed feeding Maxie and as I mentioned before, he also loved to feed himself.  In the last weeks, his favorite thing to eat were little puffs.  I could cover his tray with them and he would do his best to pick each one up and smash them in his little mouth.  His aim was 50-50.  It was so entertaining.
My mom found a couple of videos that I had never seen.  I have so few videos of Max and there aren't many left that I haven't already posted, so I will just post one of them for now.  This one is right after meal time.  Cousin Sharon makes another appearance.  Since cellular phones are now cameras and video cameras, it is hard to know whether someone is taking your photo or a video and Sharon and I have both fallen for the "still photo pose while being video taped" predicament, which is hilariously funny when it happens to someone else, kind of embarrassing when it happens to you.  Anyway, check out my happy baby.  He was ALWAYS this wonderful.

Auntie Beth

I am so lucky to have a sister in law who is also a best friend.  Someone who I chose and who chose me years before I married her brother.  A friend who shares my sense of humor, my same taste in people and places, someone who actually shares my exact same laugh.  When we start laughing together, the cadence merges and you almost can't tell whose laughter is coming from who.  I love her.  She introduced me to my love.  She is also my husband's very best friend on earth.  His most favorite person to talk to and be with.  She doesn't believe in our use of Splenda or "I can't believe it's not butter, spray", but it is because she is always looking out for our well being.  I really can't say enough about Beth.  She rocks.

Beth is running the NY Marathon on November 6th, the day before my birthday, as part of "Team Maxie".  The only member of "Team Maxie" in fact.  She is raising money for Maxie's Forest.  It means so much to us and I know it means so much to her as well.  You can visit her fundraising page at http://support.jnf.org/goto/teammaxie.  In the meantime, I would like to share what she has written on the page as it is so incredibly beautiful:

The brightest spirit I have ever known, my beloved nephew, Maxwell Judah Leviss, died most unexpectedly, on July 21, 2011, at the age of 9 months. Maxie’s sudden death has sent shockwaves through the many lives he touched in his much too short time on earth; it has taught all of us the real meaning of heart-wrenching sadness. And remarkably, from this tragic event, hundreds of people have been inspired to contribute money in Maxie’s name to plant a forest in Israel, anchoring his sprit to a land his parents love. To date, that forest is 10,000 trees strong and growing.

Not only will Maxie’s forest grow into a beautiful living tribute to one of the sweetest babies ever born, but I hope each tree planted will somehow start to fill the cavernous hole weighing so heavily on my brother Ted’s and Abby’s hearts. Perhaps that hole can eventually be filled with the outpouring of love that offers them both peace and comfort in a time of such unimaginable pain and heartache. 

I will be running the New York City Marathon on November 6th representing “Team Maxie.” It takes only $18 to plant a tree. Plant one tree or twenty, and together we can build a majestic forest to keep Maxie’s spirit alive forever - a piece of posterity, planted to reforest an area near Haifa in northern Israel that was devastated by fire last winter.

Israel is such a significant place to Abby and Ted. It was there that I first met my future sister-in-law. And it was there that almost 15 years later my brother proposed, confirming my master plan of uniting my two most favorite people on the planet.

Abby has created a blog: http://missingmaxie.blogspot.com . Please visit Missing Maxie to get a glimpse of this little boy. You’ll understand how terribly he is missed and how important it is to all of us that we make his memory a living monument.


My goal is to continue building Maxie’s forest as I run the NYC marathon on November 6th for the first time ever, lovingly and proudly representing “Team Maxie”.

Your support would be so welcome. Thank you!
Beth Gardner


*By the way, if anyone reading this contributed to our fundraising page and accidentally put Max's name in the recognition section instead of their own, please let me know and I will see to having it corrected.  It was a little confusing and I apologize.  You should know that I do receive a back end email that alerts me when a donation is made so I am aware of your generosity.