The Answer

The intersection of grief, creativity, and writing remains a place of such deep beauty and personal horror, I stand in awe of people getting their hands and souls dirty in it, exploring it with art, music, and writing. Kenny is a songwriter and musician from Bloomington, IN, whose band Gentleman Caller, has just released their fourth record, Wake (Mariel Recording Company). This record meditates on the loss of his daughter, Roxy Jean, who was stillborn at thirty-eight weeks on August 1, 2007. His music breaks me wide open in such an important way. I learn more about my own grief. Kenny agreed to join us at Glow as a regular contributor where he will be exploring his grief with his wise insights, brutal honesty, and dark humor, and of course through his music and words.  —Angie

In the year following Roxy’s death, I was just hunched, squinting and holding on.  I tried to outrun my thoughts, but they were in every hiding place I ran to.  I self-medicated with booze for a few weeks.  Became an expert on panic attacks. Sometimes I just waited, counting days away from the day she died. There was more comfort in math than hugs. I held on and flailed, as quietly as possible, inside my hollowed-out flesh-cage. I went to therapy, took anxiety meds and tried to get to know and understand my new, messed up self. 

During that god-forsaken year, 3 friends also died early, tragic deaths.  One by house fire.  One by drowning.  One by aneurysm.  All three under the age of 40. It seemed unreal and impossible at first… then, inevitable.  Remember, in The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo snaps “NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS!” before successfully flying through an asteroid field?  My life, the lives of my friends and family… ours had become the exact opposite of that.  We weren’t beating the odds, but being destroyed by them, and those odds were giggling.  

Hollowed out by losing my beautiful, dark-haired daughter, and managing my anxiety with medication (prescription and other), I was sliding down and increasingly absent of hope. I started recognizing patterns in the memorial services I was attending. The hollow, crying eyes of the mother, the trembling, shaking hand of the father, all while speakers talked about what the deceased loved, how they loved and who they were… and there was always a song. I was so embittered by all the loss, and death just seemed right around the corner for everyone I loved. I was certain I would not live to be an old man. I felt that no one I knew would. 

So, I decided to write my own funeral song.

I wanted a song that would just tell the bleak truths of my life… a song that wouldn’t put a bow on the end of my life, but a thudding and appropriate period. Somehow, it felt like the bravest thing I could do.

It happened immediately upon returning home after the last memorial service I would attend that year. It took literally the amount of time to write that it does to sing it. It remains, easily, the quickest I’ve ever written a song. It also remains the most cathartic:

THE ANSWER

I did not find the answer in church
I did not find the answer in church
I did not want a god that would not spare the rod
I did not find the answer in church
I did not find the answer in my home
I did not find the answer in my home
I was a stranger to my kin
I was a stranger to them
I did not find the answer in my home
I did not find the answer in school
I did not find the answer in school
I was sucker-punched and thin
I was not like the other kids
I did not find the answer in school
I did not find the answer at the bar
I did not find the answer at the bar
Beneath the stale embrace
I was always out of place
I did not find the answer at the bar
I did not find the answer in prescription drugs
I did not find the answer in prescription drugs
I took every pill they make
But I was still awake
I did not find the answer in prescription drugs
I did not find the answer in your eyes
I did not find the answer in your eyes
Not your hands and not your lips
We were always passing ships
I did not find the answer in your eyes

 What songs, if any, have been a comfort to you since your loss?  What songs can you no longer listen to? What would be your funeral song?

Holding On

KING PHILIP

You are as fond of grief as of your child.

CONSTANCE

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

King John III.iv, William Shakespeare

I love the thought of ghosts and lingering souls

Spirits present, dark shadows with intent

I don’t fear eerie noises or the cold

Air shivering in our ancient vents.

And as I want my living children to

 Fulfil their full potential so I wish

For silent Iris to turn poltergiest

Possess my house and lightbulb filaments

Or leave me gothic portents where she can

Prevent calamity or incident.

More than only ash at least, more than

Dust and tears for my lost innocent.

I still hold on despite advice and proof,

Can one let go of nothing? Empty air,

Would she drift off to haunt another womb

If I moved on and left her memory there?

I’m ever fondly constant in my grief,

It must go on, it must go on for her,

There is an odd betrayal in relief,

That loyal in my love I shall abjure. 

How do you feel about the possibility of "moving on"? Do you want to?

pomegranate

I open my mouth. The scream escapes. It is a primal, ancient scream. The Banshee wail that precedes death and mourning. It has been building inside of me through all of my tragedies, humiliations, fears. But the death of my daughters propel it forward, out of me. It is also the scream of Demeter. It comes from deep inside of all women. The goddess roars through me. It is hardly a noise one knows before a child dies, it is something entirely different. A different cry, an animal sound, a wild rage that tears through normal ears. It is the hurricane. The volcano. The typhoon. It is in the Ancient Greeks, the Druids, the Celtic gods, the old Norse and Inuit tales where I find my story into the underworld. We babylost are no longer of this era and we should stop trying to be. We come from the distant past. The grief goddesses inhabit us to retell their stories. We channel their woe, their anger, their cries. We are transported to a place halfway between heaven and hell, the blessed and the cursed, the living and the dead.

+++

I can only really muster worship to the goddesses of grief--Demeter and Hecate, the Norse goddess Frigga, the Aztec goddess Coatlicue. There is a distinguished lineage of goddess grieving. She rarely behaves well. I learn the lessons of grief from mythology. I starve the world. I punish others. But the earth people will be restored. It is me who withers again when Summer leaves, every year, when I am reminded of my daughter's death. It is me who curses the most human parts of myself.

The chill moves through me. I nod to Autumn, bow to her, make elaborate arm gestures to welcome her through my life again. Autumn equinox marks Persephone's descent--her return to Hades, the god who abducted her all those millennia ago, raped her, held her captive in the underworld, fed her pomegranate to seal her fate. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, begins her long walk around the world weeping, mourning, taking the life from the crops. Autumn equinox marks my descent too. I walk into my grief season, seizing the harvest, choking the life from everything around me, falling into a deep darkness. It is a welcome turn, when the earth and sky match my insides. It is my slow trudge until my daughter's death day on Winter Solstice.

This veil is thin now in October. Do not underestimate its power. The ancestors step just out of view, like through a gauzy film, whispering: Be better than you think possible.

I shake my head and rub mud into my skin. I light bonfires and bring them forward. "Oh, no, I mourn now, grandmothers. I am my shadow and myself. Two people mourning. Weep with me. Share half a tear, half a cry with your half-daughter."

On the first year, when the earth opened and swallowed Persephone, Demeter walked the earth for nine days searching for her daughter. She ate nothing. She drank no ambrosia. She refused to bathe. She just hunted her only daughter, desperate and possessed with the finding. There are rumors that Persephone screamed before she was taken. Hecate heard it, in fact. And they ask Helios, the sun god, who tells them it is Hades who stole the virgin, raped her. When she was told what happened, she enlists the help of her friends Famine and Petulance to punish the humans until she can see her daughter once more. They are the withered old hags of goddesses, but powerful nonetheless. They delight in cauldrons of poison and starvation and cackle to themselves. And Demeter, a compassionate goddess, felt justified in her actions.

Persephone is allowed to return home only if she has eaten nothing. But she could not resist the allure of the blood red pomegranate, sexy and furtive. The juice drips down her chin, and Hades licks it off her, sealing her fate to return for six months every year.

photo by zenobia_joy.

I find myself jealous of Demeter, seeing her daughter for six months, exacting her grief in such a global way.  And the jealousy reads like a sweet nectar of what could be. I drink in the hope. Lucia ate pomegranate in my womb. Or rather, I did. I pulled the seeds from the membranes one by one until my hands were sticky and stained. I didn't know better. The seeds shone like garnets in my hand. And I, gluttonous and greedy, ate more of the underworld. I couldn't stop at six. I ate the entire fruit and then more. I ate resentment and anger, grudges and hurt egos, swallowed them whole. They were still alive and writhing when they hit my stomach, inches from where Lucia slept.

When she died, I walked this liminal land, the space between the dead and the living. The land running alongside the river Styx. I barely heed the warnings of those who came before me:

Do not pay the ferryman if you see him. Do not approach him. But wave across to the others, vacant and plodding through the dark. Ask for your child. Wail, if you must, the shriek of Demeter will be recognized here. But do not get on the boat. And for the love of everything holy, do not eat any pomegranate seeds yourself any longer. They mean something different now, love. Even though they taste like Lucia. They mean something different.

I have existed in liminal spaces for a long time. The borderlands are my patria. My homeland. I am half white and half-Latina. Half-American and Half-Panamanian. I am half a believer, half a skeptic. I am half straight and have AB positive blood. The creatures drawn to me wear horns, and tall boots with twenty-seven buckles, and white make-up, wooly vests and listen to songs about vampires, but work in a corporate office during the day. I live in a suburb, a small town that feels like mid-town. Halfway between city and country. We have a farmer's market and tattooed vendors who smile at your bike trailer and say, "Right on."

After the first snow without her, I became half a mother. Half a breeder. Half of my children are dead. I have half a song. It is about winter, and the triple goddess, and pomegranate seeds which I suck just enough to be allowed visitation rights. She is gone and my summer never comes. Just space and time until I grieve again.

It is half a myth without an ending.

Do you feel between worlds? Which ones? Do you feel close to certain myths or stories now? Has that changed since the death of your baby(ies)?

Mile markers

When I first went to see what would become Monkey's school, I was visibly pregnant, with A. At the open house I chatted with the then-head-of-school, partially about how she thought it was really nice to have a girl be older than a boy in a family because sometimes girls mistake their brothers' age-related competencies for gender-related ones and begin to believe they can't do things their brothers can. I hadn't thought about a dynamic like that before, but for some reason it stuck with me. A couple of months later, after we applied to the school, Monkey had her own interview there. By that point I was huuuuuuge and rather a slow-moving vehicle. I remember plopping down on the bench in the lobby, grateful for its existence, uncushioned hard surface and all.

That bench is still in the lobby, in that exact same place. But A is not. He was dead barely a week after that interview, more than five and a half years ago now.

Monkey loves her school. Not likes, loves. We love it too. And most of the time we are very happy with it, too. Most families at the school send all their kids there. Which, all of it, is making this a tough fall for me.

We have so many hopes and dreams for these little people. Some are general and vague, like that big one, that they be happy. Others are more concrete. We taught Monkey to swim and to ski, and I had some ideas that we would, some day, splash in the water together, A included, or race down black diamonds, me trying to keep up with the rest of them. Hazy, but not too hazy. No date and time certain, but I would've guessed something like that would be happening by the time A was five. There are no guarantees, of course. The boy could've broken a leg, ending a season before it began. He could've even, gasp, hated the whole exercise of skiing and refused to partake. Worse things, too, could've befallen him and us. But statistically those dreams are more likely to come true than not once you hear the heartbeat. And, you know, certainly by ten full weeks past viability.

And then comes The Day. The day their little hearts stop, the day we learn that we will not get to bring them home. All these dreams, visions, plans-- they all come tumbling down that day. We may be too shell-shocked to realize it right away. We all know the big one's gone. But it may take us some time to pick up the pieces of all these other dreams, to name them, and in naming them to mourn them. In that big pile of rubble it may be hard to find the individual pieces. It may be hard to tell whether the shard you are holding is from the play with cousins dream or the holidays at the grandparents' dream or even from the often underappreciated until it's out of one's grasp my family, all under one roof, fed and content dream.

Whether we choose to bag the whole pile and put it on the curb for the next garbage pickup, or to spend the time carefully looking through, from time to time, an errant glimpse of a shard or some semblance of it is likely to catch our eye and pierce our heart. I remember sometime during my first year, there was a post from a babylost blogger who was a good bit further into the process than me, about how she got stymied at a video store by a gaggle of teenage boys picking out a movie. Because suddenly, at that moment she knew with ridiculous clarity the many things, big and small, her son had missed out on because he died-- growing into a boy and then a teenager, and a young man, friends, messing around, movies. You can't plan for these. You might guess what landmine will get you one day-- I fully expect, for example, to some day fog up my ski goggles because of something that will inadvertently unearth a shard of that dream, but you don't know when or exactly how it will get you.

Then there are the perma-mines, the baked-in-the-cake grief mile markers. When we get up in the middle of the rubble, some of these are staring us right in the face-- you know, the family affair where you were supposed to show off the new addition; some are regular and predictable, clearly visible amongst the suddenly bare landscape-- the monthaversaries, the anniversaries, the hangings of the Christmas stockings, if that's your thing.  And then there are the one of markers-- the ones that were there from the beginning and never moved, even if they were, then, too far away to see.

I had a tough time coming up on the fourth anniversary. For some reason, four was shaping up to be qualitatively worse than three, and I was not doing well. The whole month was dreary and difficult, dragging and draining. It sucked, ok? And yet, in the middle of that slow dance of misery, in one bright moment of realization I knew that as bad as this buildup to four was, it was going to be a soft landing compared to what would have been A's first day of school. See, Monkey loves her school. We had decided she was going there before A died. Which means that unless something extraordinary would've happened between his birth and this fall, A would've started Kindergarten at the same school right after Labor Day, about five weeks ago now. In that very same moment of realization when I first saw the start of school marker staring me in the face, with 18 months or so still to go, I also knew, I just knew that on that day I would throw up.

Coming up on the school year I was a wreck. It didn't help that the Kindergarten class has three siblings of Monkey's classmates in it. It didn't help that I knew it would before Monkey ever started at the school, five plus years ago, thanks to the unthinking remarks from a mother of Monkey's then-future classmate. I didn't want to meet new families at the school-- the K class was oversubscribed, and I know that my head would keep reminding me that one of these families wouldn't have been at the school had A lived.

The first day of school came. We brought Monkey to the school, and we hung out, and I didn't throw up. I came close a couple of times, but I didn't. And now I think I wish I did. Maybe then I would be able to walk through the lower school and carry on a conversation at the same time. Maybe then I would not want to shut my eyes every time I see the K teachers lead their charges down the hall. Maybe then I would be done with this, the almost-final perma-mine.

This was the almost final "for sure" marker. I've hit a few of these before. From here on out, I think there is only one more, and the date is less than determined. Had A lived, sometime on or shortly after his 13th birthday, he would've had his Bar Mitzva. I know that will nail me too, probably at Monkey's ceremony first, and then on A's anniversary that year. And maybe a few more times for good measure.

Have you encountered any grief mile markers? Of what variety have they been and how has it gone for you? Are you from a family that celebrates Thanksgiving together every year? Or is it more that you have been stung by sudden recognition? If you can see a marker looming in the distance, how do you prepare? Or do you?

What They Say

Today's post isn't going to be lyrical or beautiful.  It's not going to uplift you or share a new perspective on the terrible tragedy of losing a baby.  And it also contains a fair bit of swearing so be forewarned.  

Today's post is about other people, the ones that have all their kids and don't know one single thing about how to talk to us, how to behave like a true friend, how to navigate in our dark depths and instead say incredibly stupid and insensitive things without using their heart or brain before opening their mouths.  So, let's start with my favorite:

"Well, everything happens for a reason."

What I want to say & do in reply:

Oh really?  It does?  So when I wind up my arm and clench it into a fist and punch that person directly in their disgusting, thoughtless mouth, I can just chalk it up to 'everything happening for a reason?'  What a relief!  I thought the Universe was just random, brutal and unforgiving, but here you are with your deep wisdom born of nothing, telling me I can do whatever the fuck I want because hey!  It all happens for a reason!  And the reason you are flat on your back from my knuckle sandwich is because you're an unthinking, insensitive ass.

What I say instead:

I disagree.  There could never be a good reason for my son dying.  What you are saying is very offensive to me, and I would appreciate it if you would keep those sentiments to yourself.  I know you're just trying to help, but it's not and you aren't and please, please stop. (or else, see above, I say with my eyes)

"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

What I want to say:

Hmmm, let's see, no.  Not true.  Some things that don't kill you make you weak and fragile and bitter and sad.  Some things, like losing your child before they had a chance to make a breath or live a day, make you hollow and desolate and open your eyes to how bad life can get.  The strength I relied upon to live through that terrible experience came from who I was before he died.  His death did nothing but rip the naivety and innocence from my soul and lay the world bare in all its brutal viciousness.

What I say instead:

My son dying didn't make me stronger.  It made me nearly dead myself, and I'm not stronger for his death. I would have been made stronger by getting to be his father. What you are saying is painfully insensitive.  Please stop.

"At least you're young, you can have another."

What I want to say:

Wonderful!  Thank you so much for being a fucking idiot.  Because as you know all kids are replaceable. One breaks or dies, just go out and pick up another one.  How about this?  How about I take one of your four kids and raise it as mine?  After all, you've got plenty!  Spare one for someone who misplaced theirs when they fucking died.  How about it?  Since you're such a dumbass you will probably raise awful children anyway.

What I say instead:

Nothing.  I say nothing to those people.  I just look at them for a moment, shake my head and walk away.

"God works in mysterious ways."

What I want to say:

Fuck you.  Get out of my house.

What I say instead:

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  If this is God's mysterious way of teaching me some kind of lesson, He/She/It can go fuck themselves.

"Is he your first?"

What I want to say:

Why do you want to know?  Or are you just asking things without thinking about it?  Do you really want to know about my first, about how he died?  About how we are still devastated by his absence?  About all our hopes for him and us dashed against the black shards of death?  Or are you just some blissfully ignorant stranger who can't keep their mouth shut and don't really give one fuck about us at all?  Ah, I thought so.

What I say instead:

No, our first son died due to complications during birth.  Then I just look at them while they crumble into despair and I think to myself be careful what you ask people, they just might tell you the truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What insane, awful and horrific things have people said to you when they learn that your child died?  Let's rage on this together with the only people that know the truth and feel a little better by getting it all out for once.

a girl on the train

I am going to tell you this story. I don't think I ever told it before.

 photo by .aditya.

This was a few years ago, and I was less than a year from Lucia's death, and I was pregnant again and coming home from a midwife appointment in the city. I was on the train. I was listening to Stereolab, holding onto a pole, staring out the window at graffiti and darkness passing underneath the city.

Then I saw her waiting for the train. I couldn't believe it. She walked onto the car, brushed past me. I smelled her without being weird. And she even smelled like I thought she would. She had dark hair and eyes like my husband. I couldn't stop staring at her. She was Lucia grown up. I mean, I thought Lucia could look like her. Then I guess I thought she was Lucia. She must have been twenty-two, or so. She looked athletic with wide shoulders. She wore orange and red, and carried a small purse crossed over her chest, nothing ostentatious. She checked her iPhone and listened to music and tapped her toes. She wore cool, sensible shoes. Clogs. Just like me. And a scarf around her neck.

I whispered Lucia's name, but she didn't budge. I turned away now and again for the sake of convention. But I situated myself so I could mostly stare at her while pretending to look through her, like she was a specter, which of course, she was. And when the train pulled into my stop, I stayed on. I stayed on the train to see her longer. To look at her face. Praying she would smile, or talk. She was my baby, but she didn't know it. I wanted to see the way her neck eased into her shoulder. It was a very adult part of the body, and Lucia was never adult.

My God. Lucia will never be an adult.

The fact hits me like I fell in front of the train instead of rode in it. Lucia will never kiss a boy. She will never go to college, or eat a peach or dance in a rainstorm. I will never run into her randomly on the train where we can ride home together. I sometimes forget the details of all she will miss in my missing. She will not wear sensible shoes on a Tuesday, or crazy heels on a dark New Year's Eve. She will not hate basketball, or love it, even. Lucia is missing everything too. This body, this youth, this sexiness, this life we lead when we are young and death is something conquered, not an inevitable destination. Lucia never left the station.

I have nothing left of her. A wisp of hair, and grief. If there was a tea to take away grief, I wouldn't drink it. It is all I have of her--grief. An astrologer said I ride the train through two worlds--the living and the dead. I will never fit in either place. It is my destiny, he said. By the alignment of the stars, and my birth time, and this life, he said, Remember,  you made this soul contract. You picked your suffering. To me, he said, it looks like you picked the express train to spiritual growth, which means this is going to be a hard life.

I want this grief, this dis-ease of the heart. The grief is love, I think. It is the aching part of love. It is the sad part of love. But it is still love. Grief ties me to her. Aching. Pain. Suffering. They are her calls to me, and in that way, the pain is sweet and beautiful. She is just a name now. To my children. They stopped asking me about her weight, and what age she would be. She is Lucy, the very sad story I told them one afternoon. She is a butterfly now, and maybe a ladybug. She is the dedication of a song, or a picture, but not a real girl. She doesn't ride the train, and listen to music. She doesn't wear her hair down. Not like the other sisters.

This ride home felt like a journey between two worlds. I am Orpheus, walking again with a lyre into the underworld, and it invigorates me. It is not unlike going into 8th Street station. It smells of piss and cigarette smoke. There is a darkness in me. One I finally see. If I embrace it, the astrologer says, I will be happier. Even way back then, before I knew about the darkness in me, I paid the conductor, and followed the girl that could have been my daughter. My Lucia is dead. Her ashes are lumpy (so is my soul.) I probably wouldn't recognize my little girl walking and talking like a twenty year old. After all, I never saw her live. But that girl on the train was her for twelve minutes. And I loved her like my baby. The girl gets off the train and runs down the stairs. I watch her disappear behind a wall. Lucia is dead again.

I cross the platform to the train going back to my home. It's only two stops. The car is empty. It is hard not to cry, so I don't fight it.

Have you ever seen a stranger who reminds you of your child? Is there any adult in your life that reminds you of what your child could have been? Who is it? Do you want to be close to them, or far away? What parts of your child's adulthood do you miss most?