Matilda is thriving here at the Ronald McDonald House. She’s constantly making new friends and spends hours on the playground every day. There is a learning lab three days a week that she loves, she just started swim lessons, and she gets to go to the beach whenever mommy can muster up the energy. I knew she’d do okay with the transition, but I couldn’t have dreamed she would do this well.
She loves being a big sister so much. She is always putting her hand on my belly to feel Walter kick, singing songs to him, reading books, and introducing him to complete strangers:“This is my baby brother Walter.”
We’ve been going for walks at the end of the day to try and pass that last hour before daddy gets off work, when Fletcher is hangry, and mommy is exhausted. Today she also put her stuffed animals in the stroller, she said they are her “babies” and need to go on a walk too. She insisted on being the one that pushed the stroller for the whole walk.
She wants so badly to meet him, to hold him, feed him, and tickle his head like she did with her new baby cousin back in April. She is at the perfect age to be a helper, and I want that experience for her so desperately. We try to tell her that this will be different, and she replies with a quick, “I know.” But my heart aches because I know that she doesn’t know.
She just turned four—an age where I imagine every mom is grasping for those last little bits of toddlerhood and innocence. It’s a hard balance figuring out what to tell her. She’s smart, inquisitive, and doesn’t accept “we’ll explain when you’re older” as an answer. She’s been fixated on mommy getting “cut open” the last few weeks. She will randomly bring it up and say she doesn’t want it to happen.
One of the friends she made here at RMH had open-heart surgery last week. He showed Matilda his scar yesterday, explaining how they glued it shut and put bandaids on it to help it heal. Today, she overhead me talking about the C-section, looked up at me, and said, “It’s okay mommy, they’ll put bandaids on you and you’ll heal like Josiah did.” I am so grateful for that little boy’s scar. I don’t want her worrying. I want her playing and just being four, even while we try to prepare her.
I just try to keep putting one foot in front of the other most days. But there are thoughts that stop me in my tracks and take the breath right out of my lungs. Most of them have to do with her.
The thought that instantly brings tears to my eyes, the one I truly cannot fathom, is having to tell my fierce, loving, four-year-old little girl that her baby brother didn’t make it.
For now, I am holding onto the image of her pushing that stroller, holding onto her fierce joy, and praying with everything I have that one day she gets to push her baby brother Walter in a stroller.
“From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety,” Psalms 61:2
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