Most readers of my extremely inactive blog know: I paint each of my babies their own painting. I usually am inspired during the pregnancy to paint a scene relevant to something I did, or enjoyed (or didn’t: Estel’s) while pregnant.
This baby’s, baby #7’s became the hardest.
This is long winded, heartfelt, and most likely poorly constructed as I feel this more than I have words to speak it.
For the first time ever, I was sharing the time of pregnancy with two local sister’s (in law) on the Huffman side. I don’t know how many times I told people there would be three Huffman grand babies crawling then toddling around my mom’s for Sunday dinners, the Holidays, summer parties; there wouldn’t be fighting over holding a baby because this year we were going to have three to go around!
Were.
I had known early on in my pregnancy that somehow I was going to figure out how to include those feelings of excitement, joy, the sharing of parenthood and childhood, into my baby’s painting: the three ‘Huffman’ cousins that were going to grow up partaking in all the same local memories and experiences.
Were.
Shay is one of my closest people, our babies were definitely going to grow up together; swim in the pond, adventure, play backyard sports, enjoy holidays and family gatherings - Amara and my little one were going to live life side by side.
Were.
So when Shay, the first of my sister in law’s was due, and had little Amara, it was supposed to be the beginning of the Huffman grand babies of 2024.
But instead Amara Kay Huffman came into this world on March 11th, at 11:14AM and left it six hours and twenty minutes later.
Wave after wave of heartbreak and mourning have crashed over me since.
In the world she left behind, the most insignificant version of change, is knowing Amara’s absence forever altered the childhood of my baby. My baby will never know what s/he has missed out on without our keeping Amara’s memory alive. And so, truly, the least of all ways her absence changed the world, is that my vision for my baby painting shifted. Now I had to embody the spirit of what I had looked forward to, along with the absence I will always feel while my baby only ever hears of it; I wanted to depict the feelings of emptiness and loneliness I carry, but also the hope and joy of our future.
Amara’s life was not lived in vain, she may only have been here a short time, but we loved her for the 9 months Shay carried her, and for the few hours she lived, and we love her still; we remember her, we look forward to heaven where we’ll finally meet her.
Somehow my painting had to show the life that was lived and lost, so that my baby can look at it and in some way share in the missing of Amara.
During the first few weeks after Amara went to heaven as I drove back and forth to my mom’s, or talked on the phone, asking if anyone had heard from Daniel and Shay, ‘how are they?’ ‘did they need anything?’, in my minds eye I was always following the route to and from these places. And this painting began emerging.
The road probably has an official name, but growing up we always called it the Bainbridge Roachdale Road, it connected our town to the next. Siblings starting going to North Put, situated on the road, sometimes we now refer to it as the School Road. Now that we live in Ladoga, still connected by the same road, you might hear me refer to it as the Road to Roachdale and I’ll likely follow it up with ”you know, the Roachdale Bainbridge road?”, never sure who refers to it as what.
Whatever you choose to call it, in so many ways, this road is a thread that connects our lives to everywhere and everyone we love the most.
From our house we can see it, we hop on to drive south, there’s a little old church currently being restored to be our home church building someday; we pass Mark and Josie’s; take a left and you’re at my childhood home, now Daniel and Shay’s, where we spend countless summer hours at the pond, where Amara’s grave will be; take a right and you get to my family’s 6 year old ‘new place’; keep on and you pass our very first home, now Lemuel and Mariza’s; and on past Bainbridge is Wesley’s parent’s farm.
This road connects us all.
In my painting it’s this road that signifies the intertwining of our families lives, of our connections, and of all the shared memories made over the years, and shared memories yet to come. Amara won’t be here to make these new memories with my baby, but my baby will always know who she is.
And so, in many ways this painting isn’t just a painting for my baby; I painted this for Amara also. It holds love and lost memories of her, all the ways I wanted to share her life, how I dreamed of walking side by side with Shay in motherhood, all the ways I’d thought of, and many ways I’m sure I hadn’t, that I’d get to be in, witness, and share life with Amara.
When I see this painting, I won’t only think of our baby, but I’ll also, always remember Amara, and not with only the sadness that often encompasses me when I think of her; I’ll remember her and how knitted together her family is. She may be absent from us, but her short life drew us together in joy and excitement and the memories we’re making in her absence will still include her.
My baby will know and remember Amara.
The complete collection, so far:
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