11. Los Angelitos
Leaving the Death Star was a bit hysterical. A hospital cannot relinquish its addiction to equipment; it fears the human body untethered to metal and plastic, silicone and nylon. Even though I’d been out of the hospital for a week, they wouldn’t let me walk out of there with my baby in my arms; they made me ride in a wheelchair. It was surreal. We almost couldn’t keep a straight face. They sent a nurse with us to make sure Eva was properly strapped in her car seat; they were required to do this under the terms of their insurance policy, she said. Obediently we buckled our daughter’s tiny still body into the seat. We were filled with a sense of exhilaration, of escape. We drove one block and then at a red light I crawled into the back seat and extracted my angel from her plastic container.
When I had her in my arms the world went from surreal to real again. I became an adult again, a mother, cradling my hurt angel on the long drive home, up through the clouds, into the light.
And then the peace beyond fear settled over us. Love filled the sky. Our friends came to see us and felt it. Dr. Rao and Inez came to visit and felt it. They held our child, received her silent blessing. You could see it: we did not have words for it. But we all felt it.
Los angelitos siempre nos ayudan––
That month the marine layer spread over the ocean every day; cloud-covering the city, shielding us. We were aloft. At summer’s end in this part of the West the light rains down like a benediction, touching everything with gold. The scent of sage and coyote brush filled the air. Tendrils of cloudmist reached up from time to time, touching us with coolness like prayer.
The moment of handing over your child’s dead body is the cleanest cut. There is none of the mangled confusion of other losses; nothing is simpler. Her hair was still soft on my lips. Her mouth still curved up at the corners like my brother’s. The weight of her still felt like heaven in my arms. And then she was gone.
And then you are split clean open; then the wind blows through you.
Now you are not one thing. You are nothing, and everything.