30 Days of Jude

I've only been to one funeral in my life, and I think that's enough. The morning of my son's funeral, the rain had stopped and the sun had begun to peek through the clouds. How unfair. The weather seemed to remind me that the world doesn't care about my son, about me, about anything. Life goes on. The world didn't stop like it should have; the sun still rose every morning after Jude's death; people continued their lives when mine was stuck in a haze of pain. I just remember thinking that the birds needed to hide, the sun needed to be clouded over and masked mirroring in my feelings with a darkened sky. But there it was, shining brightly like the hopes that we had to bury along with my son that morning. The sun and Jude's tiny white casket is what I remember the most. Nothing that small should have to symbolize such heaviness. Small things are meant to be cute and cherished, not covered in dirt and buried. Yet, there it was, atop a plastic fold away table...

Yoga teaches you to set an intention at the beginning of every session. Set your mind to something you're working on, or trying to work through, and for that one hour, breathe through your intentions. Never have I given my breath a thought till I was faced with the fact that my son would never breathe on his own. Ever. Every mother waits with anticipation held breath at the birth of their child. Holding on until they can hear, clearly and loudly, the first squeals coming from their child. If this is the case, I am still holding on to my breath. Jude never made a sound out of the womb. As quiet as a lamb would be an understatement. He was silent. In order for breathing to occur, the physical functions of his body had to have been working. Or at least present, both of which were non existent for Jude. As a lay open and bleeding on the operating table, I hoped, prayed, longed to hear his cries. Sadly, I got nothing but the beeping of my heart monitor. The only machine letting me k...

The first time I felt my son move inside me was after a meal from a pizzeria from Long Beach. It was Veggie Pizza. The pizza itself was ordinary, but the moments afterwards are what are ingrained in my mind, burning to burst through at sometimes the most inopportune moments. The ride home was uneventful. But as soon as I had laid down on the cream colored couch we owned,  that was the beginning. I had never felt my son before and had only read what it was supposed to feel like: butterflies, gas. What the hell does butterflies feel like? Gas? There was so much I had yet to learn and not enough moments to learn them in. But Jude, he was different. Nothing was textbook with him. He jerked so hard that night that Wes was able to feel his movements through my stomach. Even at an early gestational age, he was announcing to mommy and daddy that pizza was something he enjoyed. It was the most overwhelming sensation in the world. It was not gas, nor was it butterflies. It was Jude. Fr...