food for thought

I remember at some early therapy session, back when I wondered how much of my fee was spent on tissue, that I started going through the list.  You know the list, the list of things that you lost in addition to your baby.  As if that wasn't enough, I also seemed to have misplaced joy, happiness, fun, the ability to communicate with others, a sex drive, a flying poo about my health and hygiene, and taste.

I lost my ability to taste.

"I lost my ability to see in color," admitted my therapist, referring to the period after her mother died.  "It was as if the world was black and white."

+++

I'm not sure when I became a foodie.  I think perhaps it was there, latent, with my careful reading of Bread and Jam for Francis and how I fantasized about elaborate and difficult lunches with doilies and salt and pepper shakers.  I lived on escargot when I went to France at age six.  I dreamed up elaborate picnics with mini quiches in High School.  I fell in love with a foodie, and we spent our Honeymoon at a cooking school in Italy.  We were the odd couple who rarely ate out, made almost everything from scratch, and relished trying new recipes.  When we moved into our new house, in our new city, we were so relieved to finally be in a place where people knew and loved their food.  We started a raging debate in the cell phone store on our third day here when we casually asked where to get the best . . . I honestly can't remember what we asked about. But everyone in the store had an opinion.  We felt as if we were in heaven.

I'm not sure when it hit me, that food was sawdust.  The first few weeks after Maddy died I lived solely on food that people brought over:  cookies for breakfast and lunch, and then I'd pick a bit at a well-intentioned dinner, announce that I was tired and going to bed, and retreat upstairs to cry.  After the gifted food and the freezer stash ran out, I segued into cereal.  That's it, cereal.  I honestly can't remember what I fed Bella or what she would have been eating at that  point in time -- I'm guessing a slew of frozen chicken nuggets and mac&cheez.  My favorite bourbon barbecued chicken may as well have been a soggy bowl of bran.  Everything tasted like cardboard.  

The only thing I could barely perceive was coffee.  I'm not sure if it was the taste or smell per se, maybe just the jolt of caffeine or now that I think about it, the mere act of normal routine and comfort of holding a warm mug .  There were months where the only thing making it possible to swing my feet off the bed and onto the floor was the thought of making coffee.  I drank a lot of it.  I figured it was better than other things I could be drinking.  At some point I realized this probably wasn't the greatest thing I could be doing for myself and decided that in between cups, I needed to drink three glasses of water (and say three hail Marys).  It's a small measure of guilt I carry with me to this day, even though I never make it beyond two.

We didn't eat out.  Not because I didn't want to, or we couldn't, but because I didn't want to waste money on food I wouldn't enjoy.  It's not that I stopped eating, it's that grief masked flavor and thereby erased one of my greatest joys.  My great grandmother lived to be 100, and became extremely depressed right before her death because she lost the ability to taste her food.  I got where she was coming from.

"I remember the day, very vividly," said my therapist, "when I realized I could see colors again."

I'm not sure there was a day, a hammer on the head, or a gelato I could point to, but there was a slow creep.  And a year and four months after Maddy died, a friend took my husband and I out to dinner at a very good restaurant and I realized through the multiple courses and accompanying wine that I could taste again.  I could discern the nuances in the wine, I could decode a sauce. I could enjoy a dish simply sitting over it and inhaling the aroma without even taking a bite.  

I could experience food for the first time in over a year.  It was as if someone colorized the black and white movie my taste-buds had been living in.  Lettuce became green, capers became salty, coffee became lovely. 

Appreciating food again wasn't the pinnacle of recovery by any stretch of the imagination; I still wasn't getting the whole Joy thing.  But it helped considerably to know that grief hadn't completely eradicated something I loved so much, because losing my daughter was miserable enough.

What -- if anything  -- did you lose in addition to your child(ren)?  Have you found it again?

"swapping little pieces..."

"Jackie wants a black eye,
some proof that she's been hit
John wants the answers
but the questions just don't quit..."

Music may have saved my life, my marriage, my soul.  Even in the darkest, bleakest hours of those first days with Silas suddenly gone, music pierced my impenetrable grief and keep something alive within.  Beck's albums Sea Change and Mutations managed to capture my attention even when I could barely think.

"And we're sitting in the rain
and we're feeling like the weather.
You could say that we're alone
but we're lonely together..."

When the endless flow of tears finally drained me to dessication, music filled me up again, if only to help me cry some more.  When I couldn't speak to anyone, couldn't listen to another word, couldn't feel anything but the black gaping chasm that used to be my heart, notes and chords and lyrics all-too-true wandered softly and impervious through that terrible void.  Music was an inevitable truth, something completely outside of me that connected specifically to my pain.  The music was a True Form that kept me tethered to reality.

"We're all in it together now
as we all fall apart
and we're swapping little pieces
Of our broken little hearts..."

Songs I had heard a million times suddenly became fraught with meanings I never suspected but were now powerfully, unbearably obvious.  Give 3rd Planet by Modest Mouse a try and listen for the line "and baby come angels fly around you, reminding you we used to be three and not two..." and just try not to sob.  Their other songs The View and One Chance are equally correct attempts to describe what we are all going through.  I had no idea, not until Silas died.  Then all of a sudden it was a like a code had been broken in my mind and all the secrets hidden in these songs were laid bare for me to soak up.

"Jackie's jumping in the quicksand
But it isn't what you think
she's safe cause she knows
the more fight the more you sink..."

It turns out that if anything has saved me from utter despair and pure insanity it has been music.  Love & friends & food all play a big part in keeping me upright and pushing me forward, but music gets inside my soul in a way that is extremely personal and completely my own.  I feel my brain speeding up as I speed down the highway with tunes blasting through the car.  Music far too loud had their been a child with me, but just right for someone trying to learn how to be alive and broken all at the same time. Songs stitch me back together again.  Songs take my holes and make me whole again.

"And we've been hurting so long
that our pleasure is our pain.
Are we madly in love?
Or madly insane?.."

Best of all are the live shows, though.  Blasting music in the car or in the house is great, but nothing compares to a completely spectacular live performance.  Lu and I found each other through music.  Our first real kiss was at Madison Square Garden on New Years Eve during a Phish show in 2003.  This year they played there again, and again we attended.  The brutal and beautiful history we have shared between those two nights is hard to fathom, but it was perfectly clear to me that I am with the exactly right person.  We had so much fun.  How that's even possible when I think about how much pain we both still feel is a complexity of the human spirit that completely baffles me.  But it is true.  We had an incredible time.  And they played just for us, as they always do.  The song The Story of the Ghost is always about Silas.  The first line:  "I feel I've, never told you, the story of the ghost, that I once knew and spoke to, of whom I'd never boast, for this was my big secret..."  And then the jam.  The pure music portions of that song where there are no lyrics, just notes, it always takes me on a journey into the heart of my pain, and I always, always need it and love it and want it.

"Yesterday's love defines you
and today that love is gone.
Tomorrow keeps you guessing,
the roller coaster's rolling on..."

There must be multiple, endless Universes out there, each with a slightly different path, each with their own cosmic tune.  The only way I stay sane is by entertaining the insane idea that there's another version of our family, one that is complete with a bright and beautiful little boy named Silas.  Maybe a sister or brother on the way.  Different numbers in our bank account.  A home up the street or around the corner with a little more room, a little more light.  And even crazier, since I know this to be true, is that the other version of me, he knows how close he came to all of this.

That helps me, somehow.  It is as though I'm taking on all the pain and loss for all the other possibilities, sparing them this terrible ordeal.  And those other possibilities, they are giving back to me a little bit of light and a little bit of hope that I have no reason to feel.

My reality cracked open the day Silas died and I have been diverging from my expected truths ever since.  Music, though is a truth I can always hold on to.  The notes and chords have become a scaffold I can hang my tattered soul on.  Their rhythm replaces the beat of my heart when the pain is too great for it to pump another drop of blood.  The lyrics tell me about my unbearable pain, but then trick me into moving, into action, into thoughts that maybe, just maybe I can bear his loss for one more day, if I just turn it up real fucking loud and belt out the words I don't yet quite believe.

"And we're all in this together now
as we all fall apart
and we're swapping little pieces
of our broken little hearts."

--Dr. Dog, Jackie Wants a Black Eye

What are your songs?  How do they help you?  What band or song or music has transformed for you since you lost your child?

rest now

clink crackle sschwipp hum

 These are the small noises of my acupuncture clinic. They are the sounds of care, the sounds of someone watching over me.

When I come here, they seat me in a fuzzy recliner. I roll up my sleeves and the legs of my jeans and settle in. The acupuncturist drapes me in soft fleece blankets, folding them just so. He crouches next to me and gently takes my pulse. I feel like a small, sick child, in the best possible way—I am tucked in and a grown up has come to check on me. 

He asks a few questions in a soft whisper. How am I feeling? How is my mood? Am I sleeping okay? I stick out my tongue, and am told that it is a little puffy, or a little red, or looks good. Then comes the clink of a jar lid and the crackle of the plastic coming off a new needle. The tiny pinch goes into my foot, and I hear the sschwipp of the plastic sheath sliding away, leaving the needle in place. Six in my legs, four in my arms, and one between my brows, which I always ask for because it makes me sleepy. Then the best part—an electric heat lamp over my bare toes. Hum. 

“Rest now,” he says. And I do. But half asleep, I like to listen to the sounds in the room. Another patient rustling in. The soft, sibilant conversation assessing today’s aches and pains. Clink, crackle, sschwipp, hum. Care is being given. Somebody cares.

* * * * * *

I first crawled into the acupuncture clinic fourteen months ago. I walked in actually, but emotionally-speaking I was on my hands and knees. Depression runs in both sides of my family, and for several months I’d had an eagle-eye on that nearly indiscernible line between it and grief. I’d been fighting hard for every little bit of serotonin I could scrape together: long hot showers, daily chocolate brownies, stupid comedies on DVD, a few, barely tolerable minutes outdoors with sunshine on my face. This was the first six months after losing her. This was pure survival.

Then one August morning I woke up and knew I was over the line. I couldn’t fight on my own any more. I was tired, pissed off, and scared. We talked about antidepressants, and decided to try acupuncture first – I had a friend who was studying it, and he recommended a clinic where I could be treated in a group setting, in a comfy recliner, and pay just twenty dollars.

So I crawled in, and I told the acupuncturist everything—this perfect stranger. He listened so quietly and didn’t turn away. There were very specific questions about my moods and the care I received during and after the loss. And then he said the best thing—that treatments would not get rid of my grief, but would lessen the depression and anxiety so that I could grieve more fully. Well, how about that? This place just gave me license to grieve.

So I have grieved there—twice a week, draped in blankets, with heat on my toes and needles in my arms, I have cried silently and dreamt of my daughter resting on my chest. I’ve imagined a new future, a new child. And I’ve simply slept. This whole time, I’ve been treated with nothing but tenderness, and the needles have done their job—I no longer feel like I’m in free fall towards the pit.

Photo by Green Heat

When I say that acupuncture helped me, most people don’t understand the enormity of what I’m saying. My baby died, and nothing can make that better for me—not the love of family and friends, not the beauty of nature, not support groups and bloggers, not hot showers and brownies. These things are all crucial parts of my grief journey, and I would be lost without them. But nothing makes a dead baby better.

However there is something about the acupuncture clinic that is, miraculously, healing a part of me. Its gentle professionalism may be off-setting some of the damage done by the carelessness of my medical doctors. It might be the fact that the acupuncturist is simply a stranger, not friend or family. When we talk I don’t need to take care of his feelings, and the only thing I owe him is a check for $20.

And then there are the cozy blankets. I am so used to working hard at taking care of myself, and others. So much that I do requires an outlay of energy—even the things I do for myself, like taking a walk, or calling a friend. Acupuncture is an utter reversion. I am a child under those blankets. Something bigger than me is at work. Someone knows what they are doing. Someone cares and wants to make things better.

I have lost all sense of that kind of order and goodness in the world since my baby’s death. In the clinic, amidst the clinks and sschwipps and hums, for a couple of hours each week, I find it again.

* * * * * *

Acupuncture is my thing. What’s yours? Is there a person, place, or activity that has supported you unconditionally? That has eased your walk with grief? That has restored your faith in… anything? When you are in the dark, it can be hard to talk about the good stuff, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on what could possibly help this most un-helpable thing.

a walk among friends

Today's post comes to us from Louise of Radar of Chance. She writes: "...'After' began in May 2009. Laura was a gift: a surprise pregnancy when clomid was the order of the day, a 40th birthday present, a second daughter to a mother with six brothers, new life and hope when our lives had veered off the path of plain sailing. She was all these things and before we knew it she was gone...."

photo by maine momma

My friend is pregnant.

I am not.

With every bit of my being I yearn to be pregnant. My fantasy is not of some cute child to dress up and show off, when I think of pregnancy. My fantasy is labour. I want to feel a baby being delivered out of me. I want to feel the effort and pain of labour, and feel it with the hope that the baby who slithers out of me will roar, will nuzzle, will pee, will stare at this strange new place with big, dark, all-knowing, out-of-focus baby eyes, will breathe…….

But my friend is pregnant.

I am not.

There are two people in this world that are allowed to be pregnant, two people whose pregnancies I could genuinely rejoice in. Everyone else is in a category somewhere between envy and so-can’t-deal with-this-at-all. This friend is one of the two people.

She has been pregnant before. This time two years ago, she was bubbling over with excitement for the life that was growing inside her. She had asked me to be her birth companion (if I wasn’t pregnant. Why would I be pregnant? That was not on our agenda.) I was bubbling over with excitement for the life that was growing inside her.

I got a phone call after her twelve-week scan. “My baby has died.” Not before a lifetime of plans and dreams had been made for this child and her love for this child had taken root and entwined itself deep deep down in the depths of her soul. I had never seen someone hollow with grief before.

She became pregnant again and miscarried again, this time just before I found out I was pregnant with Laura. We could have been pregnant together, she just a week or two ahead of me. Our babies could have been friends. Telling her I was pregnant with Laura – an unplanned, most unexpected pregnancy after three clomid babies – was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Throughout my pregnancy with Laura, as she journeyed with her own loss and sorrow, this friend was a constant presence. She talked on the phone with me for hours when we were told, after our twelve-week scan, that Laura was high risk for Down’s Syndrome. In all her pain she still accompanied me. She rejoiced in my blooming body. She came shopping with me for maternity clothes. She stayed on the phone when I had no words and only tears were flowing.

And then one day I called her and said, “My baby has died.”

She was there instantly. We walked the hospital grounds together, the sun shining, me still beautifully pregnant. She left me a notebook and pencil, just in case…. I woke at 5.00am the following morning and began to write.

While I was in labour she went shopping and bought the babygros I had spotted, but hadn’t yet got around to buying. We didn’t ask her, she anticipated the need and offered. They were left at the front desk of the hospital for us as I delivered Laura into this world, perfect tiny girl babygros.

She came to meet Laura. She couldn’t hold her – not because she was afraid to hold a dead baby, but because her own yearning to have a baby was so strong, she was afraid she would not be able to let her go if she did hold her. And yet she came and sat with me and cried with me and stared in wonder at the beauty of our little Laura.

My friend is pregnant. I called to visit her a while back and wondered, “Is that a pregnant bump?” She was only six weeks, but it is twins. She is allowed to be pregnant and I am able to rejoice in this pregnancy, but……

In the time since Laura has died, I have been learning a lot of things about myself. Most of this learning, this unfolding of who I am now, has come after the fact – after I have found myself in a familiar situation, but reacting differently from before. I don’t know this world anymore, or I don’t know who I am in it.

I gave my pregnant friend a bag filled with my maternity clothes- it will save her money and they’d just be gathering dust with me. Yesterday I met her and she was me – my top, my trousers, my pregnant bump. This is the unknown territory. These are the things I don’t know. I’ve always passed my maternity clothes around. But this time it is different. This time there is Laura, in all her absence at the centre of everything. When does hard become too hard to bear?

I will walk with my friend through her pregnancy because there is nothing I would rather do more right now. I can handle the clothes. It hurts, but I can handle it and frankly a pretty high proportion of life hurts right now anyway. A few clothes won’t tip the balance either way.

The other day she started talking about doulas. I reminded her I was here if she wanted me to be her companion this time. She had been afraid to ask. She is acutely conscious of how hard it could be for me. I am too, but I’ve never been at a birth that wasn’t one of my own children. Does losing Laura mean I have to step back and deny myself a whole range of life experiences just in case they might be too painful for me?

My friend is pregnant and I will walk with her through her pregnancy.

I am afraid because I am a different person now and I don’t and won’t know a lot of the differences until situations reveal them to me. I don’t know how I will react and that is a risk that I am taking. But, I will be walking with my friend and her growing babies, carrying joy and fear and sorrow and hope with me every step of the way.

How do you feel about other people’s pregnancies since your loss? Do you have friends who make you feel differently about pregnancy? How do you cope with the challenges that other people’s pregnancies present to you? How do you look after yourself and offer support simultaneously?

Discussions

We're thrilled to introduce Eliza of Cotton Socks as Glow's new discussion board moderator. The boards provide a warm welcome and community that's got its own momentum, but we thought it was time to have a little help to consistently set that tone, to faciliate and answer any questions, and to make sure that everyone feels comfortable contributing or just reading in whatever way helps.

If you have any suggestions or feedback on the community section of Glow in the Woods (the general board or the ttc/pregnancy/birth after loss board), please contact us here. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

In the past couple of years, the boards have thrived. We're so grateful for how beautifully you all hear one another and share your stories.

~ Kate 

I was bright-eyed and eager; a new ring sparkled on my left hand and I was desperate to discuss all-important topics like veil length and fresh flowers versus silks. Unfortunately, very few people around me had patience enough to match my enthusiasm for planning a wedding that was still two years in the future. Wanting to dive into this exciting new venture, and I must admit, terribly bored at work, I delved into the internet to begin researching.

And I discovered message boards for the first time. Intimidated at first, I quickly found a niche where I was comfortable, began to make friends and talked about centerpieces and choosing readings to my heart's content. That morphed into a private board of like-minded women, and forays into other arenas, like a sports board or two. It was natural to me to turn back to the world of message boards when I was again faced with something I wanted badly to discuss and had no audience for – trying to conceive and the subsequent three pregnancies were all set to a background of a popular board where it was common to discuss intimate details of your bodily functions, and where looking at something another woman peed on was exciting. All of my pregnancy with Gabriel was shared in detail with strangers that I began to grow close to through daily, unreserved contact.

Had you asked me prior to my foray into boards whether I believed people could really find friends or form real relationships of any kind on the internet, I would have scoffed. But the women I met while planning my wedding remain, to this day, nearly eight years later, among my closest friends. One of those women I met on that message board was a bridesmaid in my wedding, another flew from Canada to Texas to perform the ceremony (and several others drove and flew to attend it). They were the people who held me and supported me – albeit virtually – when Gabriel died. They are the ones who we called from the hospital at the same time we called our families. They are the ones who heard me struggling and arranged a cleaning service for my house. They are the ones who directed me gently to come here, when I was freshly grieving and desperate to be heard by someone who might understand. I came to Glow, lonely, shattered, heart torn open, needing badly to hear that I was allowed to grieve. And here I found comfort, and sustenance in the form of words and understanding that only those who have lived it can offer. Like many others, I devoured everything, back through all the archives.

photo by corie howell

Of course, I also posted on the discussion board. In fact, the discussion board was the first place I told our story in all the horrifying detail. Once I began, the words poured out of me and were received. This was my safe place to talk, where I could take off the veneer of 'coping' and 'healing' and 'moving on' and simply be whatever I was that day - happy, sad, scared, angry or neutral.  This was the place I could rest and fully feel every emotion without gauging how it affected others; everyone understood and nodded with me.  After a time, I began to offer words of comfort and a presence to others who were joining the ranks, just as lost and bewildered and hurt as I was. It was such a relief, the constant (if sad) reassurance I was not crazy or alone. I was, and am, just grieving.

Message boards are where I feel most at home; perhaps because that is how I started on the internet back in the day. Blogs have often felt like more of a one way enterprise; perhaps because that is how I tend to view mine. So the vibrancy and the back-and-forth and the immediacy and instant gratification of a discussion board is most appealing to me and where I find my stride in this strange new world. A bit of the familiar of the old life, brought back into being.

And these boards here at Glow are the most comfortable for me. It is rare to find such an open public community that freely offers support, whether you have just stopped by anonymously to say 'Today's not good' or whether you post everyday. It is even more rare to find a place that so openly welcomes and encourages all expressions of grief and embraces the uglier aspects with gentleness and understanding.

You make the community what it is by sharing your joys and sorrows, your rants and remembrances, your inspirations, and comforts, and of course, your children. And many of you just sit quietly, and that's okay too. We understand, having gone through what we all have, the ebbs and flows. Either way, we are all in this together.

* * * * *

Did you frequent discussion boards through your pregnancy? Did your relationship with an online circle change when your baby died, or did it continue to support you? How do discussion boards compare and contrast to your experiences of blogging, friendship, and real-life conversation about loss?

chance encounter

“We’re 30 minutes early – we didn’t realise how quickly we’d get here. We’re happy to go sit in a café if that’s easier?”

I’m put on hold for a minute and a half while he makes a call from another line.

“Mrs. M no, its fine, the vendor is more than happy to show you the house herself. She just wanted me to let you know that it’s her son’s feeding time so you may be on your own if he’s fussy.”

.::.

Another Victorian row house, another new and unfamiliar neighbourhood. Another reminder of just how big that ocean is between us and the nearest family member.

Three years ago I would have been in a tailspin at the thought of making this decision on our own. Now, having proven what we can survive together it’s almost… exhilarating, to be experiencing a major life change that does not involve major heartbreak.

.::.

A lovely and very English woman in her mid thirties shows us the front room before we hear a gurgle and the thwack of a sippy cup hit the floor. 

“That’s Alex, I should just check on him quickly. He might be hungry, he might not.”

I’m closest to the door and find myself heading towards the next room uninvited.  In the bright white kitchen a blonde haired cherub looks up at me from his high chair. His instant toothless grin is like a tractor beam. I’m at his side before I realise I had moved. Six months old, chubby folds in all the right places, barefoot and happier than anything. His entire face is a wet smile and eyes full of joy.

“Well hello, Little Man!”

An even bigger smile from both of us and our eyes are locked.

“Why don’t I just take him with us – it’ll be easier. I think he likes you! He’s such a little ladies man already!”

And then it happened. I gave his fat little leg a pat and held out my index finger to welcome his super grip. He bounced in his mother’s arms and waved my hand back and forth, back and forth.

I would have bought the house right there and then had she agreed to throw him in with the deal.

.::.

I haven’t even been near a baby in just over two years and two months. The last time I held Sadie she wasn’t my baby anymore. I wish so many of us here didn’t how firsthand how life changing that is.  I certainly didn’t expect that little Alex would make me laugh so purely with his unadulterated exuberance at the sight of my smile. Wee little hand, huge flood of… what? Relief? Happiness? Hope? Maybe all of the above.

.::.

What was your first experience with another child after your loss? How soon was it? How did it make you feel?