Arlo died 6 weeks before Christmas, and everyone said to me repeatedly that I didn’t need to do Christmas this year. Okay, there would be sadness surrounding Christmas, but Christmas was about getting together as a family and that’s what we needed right now. We had thought about going away to Disney, but being away from our families at this special time of year wouldn’t be right for us. Aside from that, Christmas preparation was a distraction. It was a simple tick-list task I was able to do and complete so I could feel some kind of accomplishment for. Also, we had Alfie! We simply had to do Christmas! He’d lost his brother, he’d had 4 months of uncertainly and upset, he needed some joy in his life. Father Christmas needed to visit and it needed to be the best Christmas ever!
Our Christmas saviours came in four different forms, but combined together they saved us from despair.
The first came in the form of a small red elf, named Douglas. He came crashing into our lives on the first of December and he was brilliant. Alfie was made up to have a mischievous elf causing chaos around our house and it brought so much more fun and laughter to our Christmas too.
This Elf, the little chaos monkey, truly managed to bring back the Christmas spirit, and I couldn’t be more thankful. I dragged my sorry, grieving self out of the chair every night on the way to bed (and sometimes hauled myself back out of bed and back down the stairs when I forgot to move the little gremlin) and I made sure that little guy in red was causing his chaos in a different place. I hated him with every fibre of adult body, but the innocent inner child needed him to escape the anguish and reality we were facing. There was ketchup on my kitchen tiles, a child with eyeliner all over his face and underpants all over my patio doors (don’t ask) but I couldn’t be happier seeing the smile on Alfie’s face every morning. That was something that has been missing from our lives for far too long.
The second was in the form of an amazing local charity ‘A Little price of hope’ every year they gave away gifts tailored to individual children who had been through a tough year.
I had nominated Alfie for one of these. Mrs Claus had selected him and she contacted me to come round and present Alfie with his present. It was arranged for the 21st of December. Arlo’s due date was the 21st of December, and I couldn’t help but think he’d sent Alfie this gift on a day that would be an extremely difficult one for us.
The day before, Day and I had bickered all day, I know now that it was probably anticipation of Arlo’s due date. We were so excited for our little extra special Christmas present this year, instead our arms were empty, our hearts were broken and the superhero slot beside Alfie remained vacant. yet we soldiered in every day striving for normality (even though we weren’t completely sure that even existed anymore).
Arlo’s due date itself was horrendous. I was so so sick. I lay in bed all day feeling like I was going to throw up, eventually I was sick and I felt much better. I actually made myself sick in sheer determination to see Alfie get his present from Mrs Claus. I still don’t know what caused this, was it the dodgy chippy I’d had the night before? Or was it grief catching up with me? See, she was always there, lurking, scratching at the door, threatening to pull the rug out from underneath me. Overshadowing any moment of pure happiness with the questioning of why I was able to smile. A hot shower of guilt that made my cheeks flush and made me feel ashamed. It seemed that through distracting myself, I’d forgotten that smiling was forbidden and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. I may have temporarily forgotten to feel miserable, but under no circumstances had I forgotten Arlo. However, in the throws of grief that’s impossible to justify to yourself.
Alfie was absolutely made up with his gift from Mrs Claus, he was going to visit Old Trafford, the home of his favourite football team, Manchester United! He sat, open-mouthed, hanging off her every word. He was thrilled. A little beacon of light graced his dark sky. We couldn’t wait, it would be a lovely family day out and away from it all.
The third came in the unmistakable form of Santa himself, the Big F.C. Very good friends of ours had nominated Alfie for a visit from Father Christmas on Christmas Eve. I was nervous about how he would react to this one, because he should be in bed, softly snoozing when Father Christmas came. Instead he was actually going to see Father Christmas delivering his very own presents underneath his very own tree! I was upstairs reading Alfie his bedtime (Christmas) story, I think it was possibly ‘The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas’ our favourite! When Day came up and whispered that we needed to come downstairs… we crept down the stairs and Alfie poked his head round the door. I’m so glad I witnessed this next moment with my own eyes because it’s one I will never forget. He’d had to cope with so many grown up situations and emotions that I felt like he’d forgotten the true wonder and joy of being a child. His eyes sprung open, impossibly wide, his eyes fixed on the mystery in front of him. Father Christmas was in front of our tree rooting in his sack to find Alfie’s presents. The Christmas lights glistened and danced, making moving shadows on the wall. He stayed this way, eyes fixed, for a long second while his brain processed what he was seeing. He then gasped and darted past me and began to run up the stairs. Day and I both tried to coax him down but he was having none of it. If Father Christmas was here then he should be in bed, and that is where he was going!
This moment was so truly beautiful, full of childlike wonder and imagination. As a child, you in bed imagining that man in red sneaking into your house. Laying those longed for presents under your tree. I can picture it so clearly, but yet it feels like a dream. It feels like all those childhood imaginings rolled into one. I remember this moment as thought it was a mirage, it doesn’t seem real, it’s like I’m remembering it through the eyes of myself as a little girl. I hope it’s an image that will stick with Alfie forever. I know it will stick in my memory and inside my heart.
It was the true magic of Christmas that we needed, the true spirit encapsulated in those few moments. The magic carried on with our family christmases, being surrounded by those close to us was what we needed.
They were so special that they were our fourth saviour.
There were so many moments where missing Arlo completely overwhelmed me. I remember being at Day’s grandma’s house, we had just finished getting everything ready for Christmas dinner. The table was set, everything was heated up (everyone in the family had their own speciality that they bring to the Christmas dinner table- mine is Baileys cheesecake) everyone was beginning to file into the dining room to get stuck in to their lunch. I glanced around the table and like a sedgehammer to my heart I realised there was a place missing. I went upstairs to the toilet and had my moment. I didn’t cry, that could come later, probably when I was in bed and the excitement of the day made way for the all those feeling is buried earlier on. I missed him. I missed him so much. I yearned for him to be in my arms. I’d have given anything to be eating one-handed, cradling my tiny baby with the other arm. Anything. I managed to fight grief off for now, but I knew she’d be there waiting to floor me with the corner of the rug clasped tightly in her long slender shadowy fingers. Plus, I knew if I opened that floodgate right now I wouldn’t be able to close it and I had to be strong for Alfie. I looked in the mirror, I drew a breath, I shook myself down and I blew out that breath, like a sprinter about to take on the 100 metres, and I walked back down and sat at the table. Lots of people get upset when family members don’t mention their lost babies, but the truth is it was too raw for me at that time. I was still just about upright. If a big thing had been made I don’t think I’d have coped. The thing is, I felt the weight of Arlo’s loss from all of our family throughout that period. It didn’t need a big speech about Arlo not being here, we just needed the acknowledgment that our boy existed, because he did, and we all felt the weight of his loss so greatly that Christmas. People remembered him in many different ways, cards with his name on, ornaments with special meaning, understanding the fact that Christmas might be difficult for us, but at the same time not judging us if we raised a smile.
Arlo was thought of so much, the school I work for and Alfie attends, did their Christmas concert collections for Liverpool Women’s Newborn Appeal and Honeysuckle Bereavement. It was so touching and comforting that others would be helped in Arlo’s memory. In the run up to Christmas I decided that I would go into school and help them walk down for their Christmas concert practices. Whilst waiting for the children to feed ready, one of the children I worked with excitedly bounced up the corridor and hugged me, he said, “I knew you were in school, Miss Ward, I could smell you!” before enveloping me in a hug. (I still hope to this day that he meant my perfume and that I don’t give off some vulgar odour that I’m blissfully unaware of!)
Looking back now, I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how I found the strength, but I did. I was glad to accept for a number of reasons; I wanted to be close to Alfie, I’ve always worked with children and not being involved in Christmas festivities would have probably plunged me further into the black hole I was dangling in, and, what else was I to do? I’d made the dog a new bed, I’d painted the kitchen, I’d done little bits for charity, there was only so much of my own company I could take. After the Christmas concert the Headteacher made an announcement that they would be collecting for the charities close to my heart that I mentioned above. I was by myself because I was helping and away from Day who was in the audience, I slid closer to Alfie, sat him on my knee and slunk down behind him and I squeezed him far too tight. My strength was waning and I needed Alfie, and I needed to be invisible.
The kindness was overwhelming, yet I still loved the thought of being invisible. If I didn’t exist then maybe the pain would go away. I was now ‘the woman who lost her baby’ I was the stereotype, the taboo, the one strangers fleetingly felt sorry for, and I hated it.
People couldn’t help how they reacted, that was me, that’s who I was now. I was indeed a woman and I had indeed last my baby. They were facts, they were hard to swallow facts, but they were the facts. The amazing choir from school sang during our extended Christmas shopping hours and they had a collection bucket for Arlo. I heard a woman ask what the buckets were for, the other last answered, “A teacher lost her baby and they’re collecting for charity.” Part of me wanted to run away and part of me wanted to scream at them that his name was Arlo. He had a name, he was a person. He existed and I missed him, but that’s as far as I would have for before collapsing into a heap. So what was the point? He was raising money to help other babies live/ families that had lost their babies survive and be supported.
I spent my time like a pendulum, flip-flopping between wanting a cloak of invisibility and wanting to make a holy show- wanting to scream at everyone that Arlo existed. I was not just a woman who’s baby had died. His little life mattered and if you could see inside my heart you’d see just exactly how much it mattered, probably before crawling back to my cave, Gollum-like.
Something that really helped us as a family, was getting away for a few days. One of my best friends got us a nights stay in a hotel for new year as our Christmas present. It was exactly what we needed. Time away from normality was exactly what we needed. Time together as a family to reflect and see if we could find our new normal. We’d need to find our new place, we’d need to find a new way forward without our missing piece. We needed to find a way to stay together when, both individually and as a family. we were falling apart.
That first Christmas without Arlo was terrible. But we made it. We survived. We didn’t find a new normal, there would always be a place missing at the dinner table, and there would always be a huge chunk of our hearts missing too, but we had got through with the support of our families and our aforementioned Christmas saviours. There were so many moments when missing Arlo was overwhelming, and there would be in the future too. Knowing what to do and how to be was impossible, we made it through by doing anything that brought us comfort. It was a delicate balance, it needed to be enough, but not too much, it needed to be right for us as a family. We honoured our boy by creating new Christmas traditions. We made a bauble with him on for Alfie to hang on the tree with the vision that, going forward, he would do this every year. (Even when he’s 35!) And we bought some hand made decorations of us all from another mother who had lost her little boy and created them in his memory.
We bought them to hang on our tree because that was our family. Day, Sarah, Alfie and Arlo. He may not be with us physically, but he would always count, he would always matter and we, as a family, would make sure of that.
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