At the top of my closet, in an unobtrusive but visible place, is a wooden box, about one foot by two feet, about a foot tall with rounded top and black hinges and handles. J used to call this Ronen's "Treasure Chest." In the box, are relics of a life short-lived, those pieces connected to Ronen that I couldn't bring myself to give away. Mostly they stay invisible, contained within this mostly-plain pine box. Over the last five years, especially on Ronen's birthdays and yahrzeits, but sometimes also whenever anyone asks, the items in the box have given us a framework in which to tell stories and share feelings.
Today, on Ronen's 5th birthday, I opened the box again. It has been a while since I've taken it down out of my closet. I feel the low-level hum of stress rushing around my body, and the cathartic deep breathing as I explore these relics connected to my son.
Some of his ultrasounds. Amazing how 3D ultrasound technology makes it possible for us to see the faces of our babies before we ever meet them. D says, "He looks squished." In this picture on the right, where we got a glimpse of his foot, I am struck by how ethereal it looks.
Even though Ronen was whisked away very quickly after birth, he received a hat (as all the babies do) at Holy Cross Hospital, and wrapped in one of these pink-and-blue receiving blankets. I don't know when this blanket came home with us, it probably isn't the one in which he was transported to Children's Hospital by ambulance, but in life in the NICU he was always surrounded by this pattern.
While I was still recovering in the maternity ward (it's own special kind of hell.... a story for another time), Bob went with our then-unnamed baby to Children's National Hospital. After thirty hours of labor and the whirlwind of diagnosis and transport, that Bob wrote and scratched out his own name and wrote in ours feels so indicative of the exhaustion of walking in, acclimating in the chaos of diagnoses, medication, new lingo, and worry.
Two beautiful and different pieces of art in honor of Ronen's birth from Krayna Feinberg, which says Ronen's name, and another from another friend which says, "Welcome, Ronen Eliezer."
The Shabbat handout from the congregation where I am the cantor, which was published the Friday/Saturday after Ronen was born and wishes us a Mazal Tov on his birth.
His hospital band / foot monitor, and his pacifier. Things he used in the hospital. And one of several photos, of a 3-year-old D touching Ronen's "toesies" for the first time.
After Ronen was diagnosed with CDH, we connected with CDH International, and they sent us a box of information and gifts. The CDH Awareness Ribbon is Blue, Yellow, and Pink with clouds, and the bunny was made to match. The bracelet, blue and pink with the words, "Faith, Hope, Awareness" came in the same box -- and Bob wore it until it totally faded and broke. (I have since replaced it for him.)
When, at 7 days old, Ronen was finally named (in absentia during a service) and we told his nurses his name, one of them made this very cute name plate that hung on the end of his bed.
This was the last outfit I dressed him in, one that had been gifted to us by a friend. It's a hat, booties, and a pajama snap-up onesie. If you ever have a friend in the NICU long-term, snap-up onesies are super important instead of zipper ones or ones that have to go over the head... you can put them on without having to unplug anything, and all the wires, tubes, and ports can stay accessible. The last Shabbat Ronen and I spent together, he was wearing this outfit.
After you're in the NICU for a few days, they stop giving you daily stickers and start printing monthly passes so that you don't have to wait in the security line. Always weirded out that mine, which I got in the beginning of September, expired the day that Ronen died.
This item actually didn't belong to Ronen. It's a "bris Kippah," which you tie on a baby boy's head at his bris. We had it for Judah, but I think it was my brother's. We were going to have a bris for Ronen when he got home... but since he never did, we never had the chance to use it.
When Ronen died, we were given a circular box from Project Sweet Peas. Some of the items we were given in that box have become use items in other places, or we have gifted them to others. I am grateful to Project Sweet Peas for their materials and support resources they are able to give to families leaving the NICU without their baby.
As part of preparing Ronen's body to leave the NICU, they took this card (which had been provided in the Project Sweet Peas box) and stamped his hands and feet. The card reads on front, "Some people come into our lives / And quietly go, / Others say for awhile... / And leave footprints on our hearts, / And we are never the same."
After they did the stamp of Ronen's hands and feet and cleaned those up, the nurses did a plaster cast of one of Ronen's hands and one foot.
The clothing we tore at Ronen's funeral: My scarf, Bob's shirt. I know Bob will never wear this shirt again, but periodically I do put this scarf back on when I want to feel close to Ronen -- I can tuck the frayed tear in the back of my head. This pair of sunglasses was the pair I was wearing at his burial... and then Judah stepped on them and they broke. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away.
These are only a few of the many letters and tributes we got in honor of Ronen's birth and in memory of him after he died. I am grateful to read and re-read these, even if they are difficult. They remind me that we are connected to a large, powerful web of family and friends.
And over the years, new things make it into the box as we continue to make meaning from Ronen's short life. The charm on the left was a gift from the mother (found through HumanMilk4Human Babies) who took the 500+ ounces of breast milk from our freezer that I had been saving for Ronen, so she could feed her own child. The pop-it is one left over from a now-annual project of care packages that include fresh-picked apples we donate for NICU families. And this year, I joined my sister in Portland, Oregon for the Lady Bug 5K for CDH Awareness.
I have been on edge all day today, and I wonder why. It's not like I shy away from talking about Ronen any other day... Nor that I don't remember and think of him all the time. Why does the loss feel so hard now, even five years later?
I'm thinking about the idea that that the dead are as closest to us, as present for us as they can come, the days we think about them most. The more we remember them, the more they endure. Though Ronen is part. of me always, his is most "here" on the days I let him take the center of my attention. And -- these are the days it hurts the most.
As tradition in our family now dictates (and has for the past four years), today we made cupcakes, a macabre birthday celebration. Each of the children will light and blow out a candle in his memory, ask a wish for the world. It's no use imagining a world that might have been; even beautiful things have grown from our deepest sadness. Onward and upward we live through our grief, and sometimes we are even blessed to touch joy.
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