The Ring Theory of what (not) to say

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The Ring Theory of what (not) to say

'How Not To Say The Wrong Thing' was originally published in the LA Times in 2013. There is a way, it purports, to show up in the company of people in the middle of crisis, trauma, and loss. People say there is no right or wrong way to grieve and that's true. The aggrieved grieve as they must, a hundred different ways, as is their emotional autonomy. But there sure as hell is a wrong way to be around grieving people. I've seen it. I've witnessed it. Have you?

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"Our baby died yesterday. Please help us..."

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"Our baby died yesterday. Please help us..."

We are strangers to one another. You arrived to me through a website in a series of zeroes and ones. But we are space travellers connected forever by shared astrophysics. I was once pulled apart into a drifting cloud of atoms and molecules. Like oil in a dish, my specks magnetically drew to one another over what felt like millennia until there were enough atoms and molecules for an arm, a kidney, an ear, until I was myself again.

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Common ground

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Common ground

Hiding in a dark was the final step of my poorly executed plan. Avoidance. Protection. Head down. It will be over soon. In an hour, we can all just move on and forget about it. But I couldn’t let it go. The notion that my absence would be noted, that the assumptions others made would be wrong. There are coworkers who have made no mention of my daughter, despite the pictures and stillbirth research fundraising flyers, her name written all over my office. Even from the ones that know of all three of my children, I lack the confidence in their ability to consider my past in the context of the present.

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3 questions: on miscarriage, compassion, and relativity

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3 questions: on miscarriage, compassion, and relativity

Everyone grieves, and justifiably, for all kinds of reasons. The Buddhists sit accordingly. Our suffering unites us. Our longing for things to go the way we would like is the most human of all. We are the only animals to despair. Given that our extended community includes those who have experienced pregnancy loss—miscarriage being on a shared spectrum—how does it change our concept of community and healing to consider that a wider breadth of parenthood loss is the same kaleidoscope, given a twist?

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The lonely road

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The lonely road

I didn't need much from you. I simply needed you to walk beside me every now and then. I needed you to spare me a thought even if you didn't know what to say, even if you didn't entirely understand. All I needed was for you to simply acknowledge that my sadness is real, and that I have lost so very much. I never doubted that the sun would shine again. It’s always there beyond the greyness of the clouds. But until then, I would have liked a gentle thoughtfulness. A recognition that my grief mattered, a thought for the loved ones I have said goodbye to, too soon.

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