I guess I chose his name at the time he died. Not at the very moment, even though the moment he died plays in my head over and over… my body let me know, I just was not ready to listen, so my body decided to ignore it too… for a while I lived a happy life with a dead baby inside, with all the planning, with all the dreaming, with all the hope – with a dead baby inside. And a name, a name I wanted to be significant, a name that would spark a conversation, a name that has been called by the wind making its way through the forest for ages gone by. His name.
His name was only mine for a long time, I knew it was his name. I had shared it with my husband a few times, but he took it casually and went on with his thoughts. So I kept it, for myself, for our times where I would just lie in bed and repeat his name to a growing baby, to a dead baby. When his death made itself aware to me, when I got sucked in to a hole of sorrow so deep there was no light that ever made it there, his name still stuck with me. It was the only place where his name was written, my heart, my mind, all over me. I am traumatized by no recognition, not birth or death record – was he ever real? Or is it just a name full of hope paving its way through all my senses?
It took us 3 months to order his memory plate, 3 months till his name would be written and displayed, I cannot describe the importance that holds for me. Just before we entered the cemetery office my husband said; “But we don’t have a name.” Of course we always had a name, when he was alive, when he died, when he was born, when I left him behind, when he became one with the ground and when we visited him without his memory plate existing. He always had a name. That was just the day I started using it every chance I got, I started spreading it around, because that memory plate, no matter the size or quality or price, that was the first form of his name being shown and displayed for others to see. I miss you, God Of Forest.
With Love, Tina
Tina, personal archive
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