Upended

My husband and I re-watched Pixar's "Up" last night. And boy, was that a huge mistake. We were both basket cases, crying our eyes out until 1:30 in the morning.

It was my fault really. I had to choose between "Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs" and "Up" on Netflix because my husband didn't want to watch my original choice, "Zombieland." So to get back at him, I chose "Up" in-between his complaints about being zombie-d out and emphatic reminder that we already saw "Up" last year.

"Yes, I know," I said, a bit annoyed, "We saw it in a free drive-in movie where we barely saw the screen because of the huge SUV parked in front of us and we kept running into problems hearing the movie's dialogues in our car radio because of too much static interference." He didn't argue after that.

But how could a children's movie reduce two adults into a sniveling mess? Well, there was a scene in the film's opening narrative that showed Ellie and Carl decorating a baby's room. Oh scratch that. We actually started getting teary-eyed when they were looking at clouds, which transformed into babies, and it cut to that nursery decorating scene.

Talk about major trigger-rama. It brought us back to the many days spent in Kai's room, planning what furniture goes in what corner, what kind of stain goes together with the wall color, what accessories are safe to use, etc. It made us remember the time when my poor husband had to unbrace the changing table, move some furniture around, disassemble others because I kept changing my mind.

Like Ellie and Carl, happily decorating the walls of their own nursery, we also happily filled the room with stuffed toys, whimsical wall decals, baby clothes and cloth diapers. I remember just sitting there, admiring our handiwork and thinking that Kai would love it in that room. Oh how excited we were. Each day we would go into that room and look at it with pride. We would practice taking an imaginary baby out of the crib and putting him on the changing table. "Think of it as a dry run," my husband would jokingly say.

But what was even more heartbreaking is that, like Ellie and Carl, our expected baby never came. He never came to use that lovingly-decorated room. Now, it's just there - so full, yet so empty. 

I haven't decided when to clear that room and put things in storage. I guess I'm not ready yet, even though I haven't set foot in it for about a month now. The grieving mother part of me wants to keep it intact for a little while longer. Maybe until she can gather enough courage to come in there without breaking down and to look at it with pride once again. Maybe she's waiting for a reassurance of hope. A hope that the room will someday welcome a living child.

I often wonder if we'll ever get to use that room as a baby's room. "What if it's just gonna be the two us?" I asked my husband as we recover from our crying bout. "What if, like Ellie and Carl, we would never have a baby?"

"You don't know that," said my husband. He's always been the more logical and optimistic one between the two of us. So he doesn't like what-if questions that much.

"No seriously, what if we can't have another baby anymore?" I persisted. "What if we end up like Ellie and Carl, old and childless?"

My husband of nine years knotted his forehead and didn't say a word. I thought he was seriously getting annoyed with me and my what-if questions. But I waited. He fidgeted, wiped his tear-stained face with the back of his hand and said solemnly, "Then I'll grow old with you no matter what."

I burst into tears again. It felt comforting to know that my husband and I are in this grief journey together. It's not a fun adventure. In fact, it's fraught with fear, anxiety and self-doubt. Oftentimes, we're not even on the same page. But I'm glad that no matter what path our life takes after losing Kai, he's with me every step of the way.

But damn, I should have just picked "Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs." (;_;)