Baby Blanket

Julia is buried in a small Jewish cemetery in Milwaukee.  We have been to the plot once, about three weeks after her death.  When we went it was cold and there was snow on the ground.  I looked at the mound of dirt and immediately turned around and went back to the car. 

Every time I think of my baby girl in the frozen ground I feel nauseous.   Julia was a New York baby.  Her life was inside of me, and that life was in New York.  Leaving her in a cemetery off the side of a random road in Wisconsin-well, it feels like we have abandoned her.  Jewish law dictates that you bury the dead.  But sometimes I wish we had cremated her instead. 

We are going back to Milwaukee in a few weeks and I am obsessed with bringing something to leave with her.  We bought so many toys for her, and it only seems fair that she gets some of them.  I know people will read this and think I am crazy.  I know she is dead.  I know that the decaying body in the ground is not really her.  I know that an urn with her ashes would bring me little comfort.  I know that leaving a toy for a dead baby is absurd.

I keep thinking about the baby blanket that Julia was buried with.  I remember starting the blanket when I was 4 months pregnant and driving to Indianapolis with my family.  I remember the night I finished it-laying it on the floor and imagining her laying on in while I cooked dinner.  I remember Josh stuffing the blanket into the car seat as we were on our way to the hospital.  My blanket was going to be the first one she ever used. Now that blanket is disintegrating under the ground.

I can handle going to school each day.  I can handle the babies strolling past-as long as I don't see their faces.  I can handle my job, and the typical stress of a busy day.  I can handle the pictures of my daughter.  I can handle another pregnancy. But I can't handle that baby blanket wrapped around some bones that used to be my daughter.

This isn't my life.