Subsequents was a term I learned from my online searches the week after Aaron died. I guess it was an easier way of saying “having another child after losing a child.”

But there was something about this clinical-sounding label that lent a controversial tone to the chat rooms in the various bereaved parent sites.

I never weighed in on any of these conversations. I’m not the online chatting kind of person, frankly, which makes this site a bit ironic for me.

The issue of subsequents had a long response chain, with parents, mostly mothers, offering their perspectives on how they were preparing for (and worrying about) their next child, and on their process behind considering the “right amount of time” after their child’s death.

There were also practical considerations: what to do with their baby’s clothes, the crib, their fears, the statistics of having it happen again in the same family.

And then there were the naysayers. The ones who interrupted these discussions with haughty, holier than thou (can you hear my bias?) diatribes against their decision against having a “replacement child.” I wondered how families whose firstborns died from SIDS felt about that.

Part of the grieving process is coming to terms with your own changes as a mother, as a family, as a woman.

We were a family of five and then we weren’t. Not technically, anyway. Aaron still held his position in our family, and we loved to rehash the special moments with him: his perfectly timed grunts in church, the magical effects of “Yellow Submarine” that would stop his screams in his car seat.

We talked about how much we missed him, but we acknowledged this loss as a move to a different location, not as a removal from our family. Tyler, who was only three when his brother died, was Aaron’s ardent supporter and would quietly correct me with, “Mommy, you have two boys” when people asked about our family.

But Aaron’s memories didn’t count when we were in line for movie tickets or planning a family vacation. I couldn’t let go of the reality that we were supposed to be a family with three children gathered around the Christmas tree, driving to Disneyland, arguing in the grocery store about who could sit in the cart.

Call it zone defense, call it one man down, call it slightly out of control -- I was desperate to return. I felt like a fraudulent mother of two.

By Kimberley Kwok

Labels: a child's death, artistic daughter, cute son, Disneyland, family, first-time mother, grieving, grieving process, Kimberley Kwok, SIDS, subsequents, Yellow Submarine

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My mother was not too chatty on the phone when I called her for Mother’s Day.

“Thank you for remembering. I’m going to church now, but I wouldn’t have picked up the phone if I didn’t know it was you.”

I’m her grown daughter and only child, and now that she’s moved far enough away that she can’t bring us a trunkful of food every time my folks visit, her answering the phone is a nod of specialness that I cling to.

Especially since I’m going to be a first-time mom. She’s gone to town with the shopping. Five cream-colored outfits, plus another five in blue that say “baby prince” await the little hamster that’s germinating in my belly. She’s gotten me a travel satchel, a diaper bag, and maternity clothes from their last trip to Taiwan. But Mom seems as far away as the island nation we’re from, and even as I feel the poignancy of that separation, I realize that motherhood is close at hand for me.

As close as the space between my palms.

Last night, over supper with my mother-in-law, we talked about arrangements for my mom to stay with us for the first few months after our child’s born. Sally is cautionary; her silvery eyelids flash ever so slightly as she says, “Bob and I treasured our private time when we had our babies.” It was the ‘60s, and she was a Supermom before the Enjoli woman could flaunt her skills with frying pans and pleasing her man, and by implication, raising their kids.

I feel somewhat unsure about my natural talents at handling a crying newborn and a malfunctioning breast pump, along with my eager husband who’ll be every bit as much of a novice as myself. So I look forward to my mother bridging that 700-mile gap between Las Vegas and San Francisco. I may cringe when she starts bossing us around as she did with her six younger siblings.

“Boil this. Chop that. Tuck her in. Not too tight. Watch your tongue. Mama knows best.” Or, at least, better than I do.

In my twenties, I loosened the ties that bound me to parental and Confucian ideals. Making my own way when she said, “If you’re not going to be a doctor, then you can be a lawyer or engineer.” Defending my choices when she accused me of losing my mind, studying to be a shrink. Fighting for outward independence, but knowing that I was never completely free within. The maternity clothes won’t be the first thing of my mother’s that I’ll wear. For a long time it’s been a cloak of guilt, rational and not so rational fears in a world that won’t always give you what you want.

I wonder what kind of mother I’ll be, because there are dangers in the world, and every mother will lift the proverbial car with her bristling biceps to save her child. I’ve already seen that fierce instinct unleashed, in the prenatal clinic of all places, where a shimmering black and white image of my unborn child arouses my desire to protect him or her at all costs. And, yet, already the child pushes away a little, squirming, turning away from the prying wand of the ultrasound.

I can respect that. Even though the physical distance from my own parents evokes regret, touches of nostalgia – I must accept that this child growing inside is becoming his or her own person, growing her own eyes and hands and feet and intellect, claiming the sphere of my womb as her own.

By Li Miao Lovett

Labels: first-time mother, mother-in-law, Pregnant mother, waiting

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