A birthmother shares her grief over the loss of her son, first through adoption and 23 years later through death
By Candace Cahill
For years I kept his blue baby blanket in the bottom right-hand drawer of my dresser.
I stole it from the hospital.
I remember lifting it to my face and noting the sharp odor of sour milk mingled with the intoxicating scent of baby. Without a thought, I slipped the soft, waffle-like material into my brown paper sack.
When I got home, alone and hollowed out, I curled into a fetal position with the blanket bunched up like a pillow and cried.
I refused to wash it, hoping to hold on to what little remained.
In fragile moments, those times I couldn’t pretend anymore, I’d pull it out to hide my face and collect my tears. When the storm passed, I’d fold and tuck it away, careful to nestle his first pacifier and hospital identification bracelet, the one with the name I gave him on it, into the center, like eggs in a nest.
Now, thirty years later, that blanket cradles the other keepsakes I have of him. Pages of handwritten updates from his early life. A collection of school pictures and snapshots from vacations and holiday parties with his adopted family. A construction paper daisy chain. And now, his funeral program and a favorite stuffed animal, Scrappy, handed over by his adopted dad as an offering of solidarity.
Over the years, the blanket faded from baby-blue to the color of glacial ice, and my tears washed away his scent.
All that remains is the stale smell of sadness.
Candace Cahill lives in Denali, Alaska with her husband Tom. She recently completed work on a memoir,Lost Again, which tells the story of losing her son twice: first through adoption as an infant and then twenty-three years later, after a single face-to-face meeting, when he died in his sleep. Find her on Twitter @candace_cahill_ and look for her blog.
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