Meeting Harper

I knew this day was inevitable - the day I have to force myself to go meet one of my best friend's brand new baby girl. Tina and I had been pregnant together and knowing she was due August 4th, I had been trying to prepare myself for this day for some time. After Harper was born on Tuesday, I was positive I would be going home this weekend and that part of the reason would be so I could meet Harper. It was the right thing to do in so many ways. Tina, despite feeling a bit like the pregnant elephant in the room, showed up at the hospital to support me when Nolan died. She, her husband and her in-laws all showed up to Nolan's memorial service. Tina gave me a get out of jail card for her baby shower, knowing it might be too difficult for me to attend and she sent me the most thoughtful care package when I left for Charlotte. She's been there for me through the loss of my son and I want to try to be there for her and share in her excitement over the birth of her first child.

Marshall, having already met Harper in the hospital on Wednesday, was not interested in going with me to Tina's so I called my friend Stacey to accompany me. As fate would have it, Harper was hungry just as we got there and despite Tina's best efforts to pacify her, she eventually had to leave us to go breast feed. So we spent some time chatting with Jamie and his parents and watching the Olympics. When Tina and Harper rejoined us, Tina asked if anyone want to hold Harper and I told her I did. I'm know Tina wasn't sure if I would want to or not and I appreciate her asking in a way that did not make me feel obligated. But the truth was, I did want to hold her. I've held many, many babies in my life and lots of them were my brand new baby cousins. I knew this was going to be different and I wanted to test myself and see if I could handle it. I felt like if I couldn't, this was the place to find out. There was nobody in that room that wouldn't understand if I started balling while holding her and handed her off. Nobody would judge me or think any less of me for it. But, to my surprise I held myself together. It helped that Harper looked nothing at all like Nolan to me so I didn't draw a comparison at all. She was heavier than him, even though he was a bit longer. He was long and skinny and Harper had some fat to her. Fat that Nolan might would have had if he had lived until he too was full term. Shortly after I held her and she fell asleep in my arms, Stacey and I left. I thanked Stacey for going with me as we drove back to my house and I knew she knew it was hard for me. She asked me how I felt about it and I told her it was a lot of mixed emotions. I'm happy for Tina and Jamie, but it reminds me of what I had and lost. As if I need any reminder.

Back at home, we met Marshall, my Mom and Billy and decided to all go grab some Fuzzy Peach together before Marshall and I took Mom and Billy out on the boat. This was the first time we ever took Billy on the boat, even though Marshall had mentioned to Billy weeks ago about taking him out. We had a pretty great time swimming in the cove at Masonboro and looking for shells. I had decided to go take my shells back to the boat and ended up sitting in it hanging out until I heard Marshall and Mom yelling at me from the beach. It took me a moment to realized what had happened. We had lost our anchor and I was quickly drifting out into the channel! Yikes. I started to freak out. I tried to start the boat and it wouldn't crank. I looked around trying to trouble shoot why it wouldn't start and couldn't figure it out. So, I stupidly jumped in the water and tried to tow the boat. Yeah, right. Sure our boat is only 17 feet long, but the tide was rapidly coming in and there was no towing the boat anywhere. I climbed back in the boat and toggled the drive shaft and realized it wasn't fully clicked into neutral. I tried to crank it and it started right up. I drove towards Marshall who was wildly waving his arms at me but I couldn't hear anything he was saying until I got near to him. Apparently, Marshall had tried to swim out to me but got caught by the incoming tide and had worn himself out. He too was freaking out but while I was freaking out inside a floatation device, Marshall was freaking out in 20 feet deep water. He had was convinced he was about to drown and by the time I got to him all he could do was hang on to the ladder. It was a scary few moments indeed. Gladly, it all ended well except for the loss of our boat anchor. Oh well, I hated that anchor anyway. Maybe our next one will work better.

I drove the long way back to the marina and the ride back was breathtakingly beautiful. The water was calm and the sky was packed full of low hanging clouds. It was as if there was no boundaries between the sea and the Heavens. There were far less boats on the way home as there were coming and the ride was peaceful and pleasant. All and all it was a great afternoon out on the boat. Exhausted from swimming, sun and the boat/drowning disaster, Marshall and I were pretty unmotivated to do anything other than lay around our house. We ordered take out from Thai 2 and watched Olympics on the couch and had a great evening just being with each other at home. It was a packed day full of emotional stress, but the ending to the day was just what we both needed to relax and rejuvenate.