The Story of Jude and Me

Broken dreams, broken dreams, hoping someday you'll see me.
Sky is gray, sky is gray - but I'm dancing in the rain.
Live this way, live this way, well, you remember my name.
Live a lie, live a lie, well don't you ask yourself why?
Don't you open your eyes.

Only the moon, only the moon, only the moon will hear my plea.
Only the creatures of the night will harmonize with me.
Missed you so, missed you so and I wondered if you know.
The wind has blown me in this corner, and it's hard to let go.

That's the story.
That's the story of you and me.

- Zee Avi

I thought about just leaving it at that, and not writing about what this song means to me. But I need to elaborate. I've been listening to this album for ages, and only just the other day did I actually hear this song, and it clicked immediately as tears starting pouring down my face. I imagine having a real life conversation with my baby. My perfectly formed baby with a darling button nose and little round head, two perfect feet and two perfect hands, the heaviest almost 2 pounds you could ever hold, who's voice I didn't get a chance to hear, who's eyes could never meet mine. It really hit me when I realized it was Jude singing to me in that first phrase, and me singing back to him in the second. Our time together was indescribably short and yet life altering. The story of him and I is a brief one, but full to the brim with rawness, love and pure emotion. I'm fairly certain that this wasn't the intent of the song as she wrote it, but it just fits so exactly for our loss, and I hope that it might connect with other mamas out there who are dealing with the unheal-able ache of losing their baby no matter when or how it happened.

Sky is grey, sky is grey - but I'm dancing in the rain.

These are the most comforting words I have ever heard. Not only does it bring me peace thinking, knowing, that our little Jude is up there missing and remembering us, yet happily watching over us and guiding our every step, but this also describes exactly the aftermath of infant loss. The idea that 'moving on' is so impossibly far beyond the realm of possibility, but that we make the conscious choice to live and find happiness in our new lives as mommies and daddies of angels, even with the dark, heavy cloud of loss hanging over us. All of our angel babies are telling us to live this way. They wouldn't want it any other way.

I once said that Jude comes to me in beautiful sounds, or in music. When I first really listened to this song because of what is started to mean to me, something jumped out even more than all the rest. Nearing the end you can hear the most beautiful crystal-like harmonics in the background. My heart leapt out of my chest and it took my breath away. I feel like that's my baby Jude. I may never know the true colour of his eyes, but I know now, that that's what his voice sounds like. And it's beautiful.