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Under The Norah Lights

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Under The Norah Lights

Focusing on making the neonatal, pediatric, & cardiac intensive care units feel like home.

23/10/2024

Eye spy with my little eye…

A wildflower. A bug most rare. A girl most loved!

Do you see her?

Don’t worry if you don’t!

It takes me a minute to find her sometimes too.

Here, let me help.

Rest your eyes.
Take in the warmth of the day.
The green of the leaves.
The colors of the flowers.

Take it all in.

Don’t get frustrated yet!
Slow down.

Follow the curves of growth.
Shhh, listen to those birds off in the distance.
Now, take a deep breath in.

Hold it.

Now look.

There she is!

As clear as day.

I told you!!!

She’s always right there.

Like that old saying goes: If at first you don’t see, pause, pause, pause and try again! (Errr, umm, well something like that!)

[Hey Alexa! Play: Hang On Little Tomato by Pink Martini]

12/04/2024

Here’s the thing.

Life doesn’t stop life-ing.

And grief doesn’t stop wanting.

I’m here… still TRYING to heal from the loss. STILL.

Yes I said it.
Still a wreck.
Still a mess.

Still don’t know what I’m doing.

And yes. It’s been 4, going on 5, years… this September.

And I’m still as lost and ANGRY and hurt as the day she left.

You know how they say that grief comes in waves… well they don’t stop coming…

I find myself back in denial.

Denial of living this life without her. Denial of all responsibilities and obligations. All notions or ideas of “normal”… I don’t want it!

This ISN’T NORMAL!

So, does this make me bad, or wrong???

Maybe… maybe not.

I guess that’s one thing time will do… reveal it’s answers… but I’ve never been a good test taker. Or a rule follower… or patient for that matter… so who knows.

Maybe because I’m still (fill in the blanks)… maybe I should be STILL??

Trying to ground my body and mind to what is and what was… and not float off to what could have been… but man, oh man!!!!!!! How beautiful it would have been… how tempting. How luring. To fall… To rest more… To keep floating up and up…

Miss Norah Bug! I love you. With such fierceness. Never ending. ALLways. College was fun… and it was a beautiful distraction, to share you and learn more because of you. But what next? In this quiet space of the internet, I grieve. Because you were here. Because you’re there. And because you’re mine, and I’m yours.

**Alexa! Play: That’s How Strong My Love Is by Otis Redding**

14/02/2024

Shh… can you hear it?
Can you see it??
Feel it yet???

Deep in your heart, those quiet, fuzzy, almost blurred out moments…

I only have a few captured… but then again… don’t we all?

Cherish them, I know you do.

❤️🌈🦋

Dear loves of my life,

How lucky am I to call you mine. The joy and fulfillment you have brought into my life… is indescribable. Thank you for the adventures and the stories that fill my pages. For the quiet and loud moments of love and chaos. I pause, breath it ALL in, and cry tears of gratitude and longing. How I love you so. Happy Valentine’s Day.

(Riccardo can you believe that our love made that little Bug?! What we wouldn’t do for her, what we still do for her. Let’s keep going, we got more to do and more to tell her one day. ‘Cause for her, anything. ALLways.)

Yours forever,
Miranda

**Alexa play (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons by Nat King Cole**

09/09/2023

I go, you go babe.

It’s a dual state of mind.

Anger, gratitude.

Here, there.

Changing, consistent.

It’s our secret, and my confession of an obsession and admiration for you.

It can’t be… yet it is… 4 years. Another lap.

And one too many.

New ways to think. New people I have met.

Old familiar talks. Old comfortable tears.

I see you bug. I feel you and hear you.

I love you. More than you know.

You. ALLways.

29/07/2023

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
By E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

*Summer stories are still being written and my heart is a flutter. I have so much to say but sometimes stepping away is needed. Never far, just a moment to breath and take it all in. Sending my love and wishing you peaceful sunny days. Let’s chat soon.*

03/04/2023

The space of you and me.

Like an open window and the heater on.

The crash of cold and warm
in my heart
and on my chest.

A natural disaster waiting to happen.

Tumbling, rolling, crashing and splashing.

Birds hide and hills cry.

They see we long for more.

A peak out the window and all is still.

We are here.

And there.

Inside
and out.

A natural and perfect disaster
waiting
for
dawn.

-Miranda Fregoso

[Thoughts from a stress filled Spring semester evening. I cannot wait to be back. I miss you all more than you know. My heart and mind work for her and for you. To learn. I accept. To explore. To cherish. I’m here and there. A super power of the grieving parent. Cheers beloveds.]

02/02/2023

Norah Cole Fregoso.

What a beautiful name.

Fitting. Perfect. Wonderful.

We talked and shared stories extra today.. daydreamed about what a big 6 year old you would have been... wondered what kinds of experiences you might have had.

I still wish it was you here Bug.

I guess I’m as close as the world will get to you… they’ll have to make do and fill in the missing pieces with your light.

Happy Birthday my heart, my Bug, my forever girl.

You were born and the world was never the same again.

Thank you for being mine.

You Bug. Allways.

11/01/2023

Here we are, a new year and with it new experiences.

New classes. New adventures. New days…

Maybe if I ignore 2023 it won’t happen… maybe time will stop and we can all just freeze right here!

No.

I tried that in 2019…

Further from her and yet… closer than I was before.

An ode to you Bug. Love of my life.

I will do, for you, as I have always done and will always do.

For you, anything.

The mundane and the extra… once, twice, together or separate.

Unlimited and ever changing, I go to you.

You. Allways.

Cheers.

20/12/2022

Answering the un-askable question:
Why decorate her sight?
(From Norah Cole Fregoso’s Mom ❤️)

Thoughts: Why do you still cook that one dish your grandma use to make that no one really ever liked? Why use the same tree topper or keep hiding that pickle ornament?

I think it’s because we all have traditions we cherish; loving the old ways, creating and celebrating new ones…

We remember how she used to hum and sing while cooking. We put up that one tree topper that was bought during the apartment days years ago. We find that same old nostalgic feeling from these actions that we do year after year.

Traditions. Family. Memories.

But sometimes… these traditions become… unattainable. The recipe was lost… the tree topper breaks… the child passes away…

What then?

For us, we try to keep our traditions going without loosing our minds.

In my family growing up, we had either a kid tree or a grown up tree. And every other year we would rotate, some years the tree was filled with kid ornaments and tinsel, other years it was breakable glass balls and white lights with bows.

Norah experienced this traditional rotation… once. One grown up tree, one kid tree…

I think about how she might have fought for this grown up tree to be a kid one this year… or how we would have decorated right after Thanksgiving like we once did, not on December 18th with hesitation…

Keeping traditions going when a piece is missing, hurts… it’s not the same… not even close.

But the human heart and spirit is determined; love cries for acknowledgment and effort… an attempt to act on a quiet wish.

So, you buy the ingredients you remember she used, you look for a new treetops that you hope will last as long as the old one did, and you go to her sight and decorate a kid tree.

No, it’s not the same. But you it do with love, allways.

Whatever and however you celebrate, with old traditions or new ones, I hope you take a bit of time this season to see all the love.

The love of the past, your present,
and what’s to come.

Cheers.

13/11/2022

Always. Allways. All ways. All the ways.

November is here.

It’s beautiful how school can keep the mind busy and the hands moving, helping time along. But my heart… she has nothing better to do than to beat for that girl… paying no mind to time.

Norah. Norah. Norah. Norah. Norah.

Over and over and over again.

Every day and every night.

A beautiful echo of love and waiting.

This week in class we practiced a journal centering activity: write it all down without stopping.

“Allways…”

I paused after and realized something beautiful in this typo… see always is more than time, more than forever and beyond.

Always, is all the ways. The ways we did, the ways we didn’t. The ways known, the ways unknown. ALL WAYS.

Norah. The limitless girl, forever here and forever there. Magic and wonder all in one.

All the ways, always. You Bug.

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