Hummingbirds

Last week my grandmother died. As a child, I used to accompany her to the field across the street from my grandparents' house where she liked to throw out birdseed every morning. I remember being confused by this because I had been watching some Disney movie or another where a momma bird brings home a worm to feed her baby bird. Worms, not seeds. One day I asked my grandmother about this. Her reply: "Well, I know birds eat worms. I'm just afraid they'll run out of 'em!"

When my grandfather died more than 10 years ago, I swear he stuck around to visit me in dreams and to give me the strength to take care of some personal demons. My grandfather had big, powerful hands and feet. Or maybe I just remember them as being big and powerful because in most of my memories with him, I was a child. Now, when I look back to the time after his death and the events that occured in my family, it is the image of his strong hands and kind face that I envision.

Now that my grandmother has gone, I am searching for that image of her that will soothe me. I suppose it should be enough for me to know that she is no longer suffering, but it isn't. I miss her now, and am having trouble grasping the fact that I will never again hear her voice and will never again read another funny letter from her.

Recently, I have become interested in hummingbirds. I don't know why, and I didn't even realize that it was happening until after my grandmother died. But over the past couple of months, I have been incorporating hummingbirds into my life. There's the hummingbird feeder that we bought for our backyard last month and the background that I recently chose for this very blog. And the week before my grandmother died, I recommended to my mother a hummingbird nightlight to give to my grandmother for Mother's Day. After my grandmother died, my aunt and I began going through her apartment to pack things up and I found a beautiful pocket mirror that I had given her a long time ago with the image of a hummingbird on it.

So what gives? I decided to do a little informal (read: Google) research on hummingbirds to see what the Interwebs had to say about them. I found a lot - some of which does not apply, but some that does. I read that they are a symbol of beauty, love, joy. Also, because a hummingbird can fly backwards, they teach us that it is okay to look backwards into our past but that we should not dwell there. Good stuff. Remind me to address just how to do this in my next therapy session.

In my life, I fight a great Impatience. I am always looking ahead to the next phase of life, regardless of how precious the current one is. The one exception to this has been with my grandparents. Since I was old enough to appreciate the finality of death, I understood that I would outlive my grandparents and would one day have to say farewell. It seems that with both my grandparents, and perhaps only when spending time with my grandparents, I was a hummingbird flying in place, hovering in the moment, trying to drink up every sweet ounce of nectar they had to offer me. It nourishes me now.

Another baby step for me

Talk about feeling slightly defeated. My sister-in-law informed me today that her 7-month old is sleeping 12 hours at night now that they have let her cry it out. Apparently, Baby S is sleeping soundly and waking up happy, and momma sounds well-rested and, well, elated.

Why do I feel slightly defeated? Your guess is as good as mine. I am happy for them that they are getting rest at night, but I guess the thought that Baby S was turning out to have similar night waking issues to Madeline was a validation to me. If it's in the family (as in, hereditary), then I don't have control over it and I can finally relax and stop trying to defend myself and my choices so much.

I have struggled with this issue of cry it out versus letting M nurse on demand for too many months now. I have not had the heart or the desire to let her cry it out, but I lack the courage of my convictions to launch a solid defense of our current practice of co-sleeping and nursing on demand. Seeing Baby S respond to cry it out so well isolates me again. It leaves me feeling helpless to defend myself against those of my friends and family who like to say "Kelly you have absolutely lost your mind. You have to let that baby cry it out or else she will never learn how to sleep independently." Or worse is the person who says nothing at all because there is all that empty silence to fill and guessing as to what the person is thinking (do they approve or not approve and why do I care so much??) All this matters because everyone always wants to know if Madeline is sleeping yet...and more importantly, if I am sleeping yet. The answer is and has been for months, the same: "(Yawn)...No, not yet."


But this is just another mini-lesson in the bigger lesson that I have been trying to learn and internalize for a while now. My choices are just that - mine. Nobody else's (except for my husband's, who is thankfully 100% in agreement with me on this issue). I don't need anyone else's approval and I don't need to recruit others to our side. The fact that I feel the ceaseless urge for that deserves further psychoanalysis. But not today.