turn and face the strange

you haven't changed a bit, she effuses, intuiting this wisdom from a superficial eight-second conversation in the grocery aisle amidst the turnips.

i swallow a flippant reply.  i haven't seen her in, like, nineteen years, maybe since high school graduation.  i recall the picture of she and i at prom, casual friends: in said photo, i am wearing a pastel floral puff-sleeved dress in which i resemble a large Laura Ashley sofa, and my hair is braided on top of my head like Heidi of the Swiss Alps.  my shoes have bows on them and my eyebrows are as fluffy and thick as a caterpillar.   haven't changed?  haven't changed?  oh god, old girl...shut your mouth, that's crazy talk.

i understand that my once-upon-an-acquaintance was merely being polite.  she wasn't trying to suggest that i haven't grown, or grown up, or that i look like a refugee from 1989.  but her comment still spawned in me a bizarre and powerful urge to strip my clothes off right there amongst the root vegetables and the happy shoppers and force her to see my scars, acknowledge them...all the years and the wrinkles and the sorrows, all that life has wrought on me and me on myself.   i wanted to shake those raw, scabbed beauties in her placid face, shock her with them, own them.  at least, erm, figuratively.

it's been a couple of months since i had that conversation.  in the interim, i've wondered at the vehemence of my reaction.  it most definitely stemmed from my grief, however far along the healing path i may think i am.  and it reflects, i think, a process of integrating grief into my own identity.  in the early months after Finn died, all i longed for - on those rare occasions that i subjected myself to random interactions at all - was to "pass" as normal.  had some aged cheerleader told me then that i hadn't changed, i would have preened, i think, at a performance gone right...and then darted back to the sanctuary of home to nurse the raw wound that was my reality.  later still, i just longed not to be reminded publicly of said wound at all; hated to be exposed in my grief in any circumstances not under my control (ie, any circumstances outside my own blog, basically).

but then i guess i internalized it.  i accepted it, and came to terms with it, and became able to speak it, and became accustomed to it as a part of me.  and that has been good.  bringing my grief out into the light has, for the most part, shrivelled its power to wound me, and allowed me to become some version of whole again.

but i'm not the same as i was before.  as i was not the same after any of the other great upheavals/sorrows/betrayals of fate that have sporadically marked me since that hideous prom picture was taken.  as i was not the same after i fell in love for the first time, not the same after i brought home my living son and discovered the strange half-life joy of sleep deprivation.  life changes us, the best and worst things the most deeply.  i think that needs to be honoured, though not necessarily in grocery store aisles.  and yet i wonder if i've integrated grief too much into my sense of self?  if it's normal to react so fiercely to someone's passing comment that i haven't changed?  if it's healthy to have integrated grief and scarring so much into my identity that i'm offended when someone - even innocently - tries to pretend it's not there?

i don't want to go back to the person i was before Finn.  i'm not sure i ever did, even in the worst of it:  hell, i was not so carefree even before, and in his short life he taught me and brought me things i will keep close to me all of my days.  but as i've healed, i've become more attached to that not wanting to go back, more invested in my self-identity as this tempered vessel, this patch-ridden human being.  i have become disdainful of attempts to present life as sunny and perfect, dismissive of easily-won happiness as naive, even banal.  i have also become inclined to assume that things will go wrong, particularly around pregnancy and childbirth, because my experience has repeatedly borne this out in one way or another.  i have succumbed to the hubris of believing that i am special, unlucky, marked...even though in this online world i have come to realize that i haven't lived the half of it.

i think part of this identification with loss has been a reaction designed to assert my right to space and existence in a world that often seeks to dismiss the sorrowing, bury them with their dead.  but i wonder about going too far, holding so tightly to the fact of loss that the rest of me gets subordinated to that tragedy?  is the fierce, fey compulsion to inflict my stretch marks on a bygone acquaintance at the Shop & Save an, erm, bad sign? 

do you want to be told you haven't changed a bit?

How I Knew

For the record, I was never a Tom Cruise enthusiast, but I never in my life thought taking antidepressants would be for me.

For starts, I never suffered from depression.  Sure, I had the teenage angst years where I boo hoo'd over the boyfriend who dumped me, and the "what do I really want to do with my life" mindfuck when my graduate department admitted they had erred when they let in too many students ahead of me and there was to be no financial or professional assistance in the form of grants or jobs in my future.  Sure, I wrote overly-emotive poetry and listened to Pink Floyd's "The Wall."  I had a solid six-hour cry 18 months into my trying-to-conceive misadventure which was odd enough that my husband came home from work early to sit with me.  But I always felt a solid foundation going through these moments -- a sense that there was more to me than that.  I watched a friend crumble after failing her pre-lims, and realized she had wrapped her entire life -- her entire identity -- into this potential profession.  It hit me (as I passed the kleenex) that I was rather lucky:  I liked  this profession enough, but I had other stuff too.  I liked to cook, I liked to run, I liked to travel.  I had super friends, a fabulous boyfriend (who became my husband) and I figured if I had my wits about me, I could probably make money somehow.  Oh, and someday, I wanted a family.

Furthermore, and this is rather embarrassing, but I was never into mind-altering substances.  I  thought smoking was gross, and never even had the experimental attempt -- of either flavor.  Wouldn't know what drugs to take or where to get them, and I was not remotely interested, anyway.  I didn't realize beer tasted good until I moved to the midwest for grad school, and didn't like wine until I could afford something that didn't come in a box or with a black and white generic "Wine" label on it.

Finally, I liked having ultimate control of my body.  From very early on my life, I was a violinist and a soccer player.  So at a young age I figured out that if I practiced something for literally months on end, suddenly one day my fingers would click and lo, I could play the fingered octaves at the start of the Winiawski Violin Concerto.  I liked that if I did wind sprints around my block (two driveways on, two driveways rest) that come game time, I could throw my internal gear shift and move around someone.   I liked the way I could make my body do things, and there was no interest (no way, really) in allowing something to alter my mind that would mess this up.  I liked the control, not the fuzz.  I had no interest in being numb.  

What I failed to perceive, probably because of my immaturity, was that on some level my brain actually wanted to do these things.  That I liked doing these things.  It just seemed too easy that if I set my mind to a marathon, I could eventually make my legs follow.  And I did.  It all worked perfectly.

****

My husband and I joked (in the macabre way that you do, what with the terminal child in your arms) with each other during Maddy's brief week that we were going to need therapy.  But I think it really hit us, a week later without her, that we did indeed need something.  So we dutifully marched in, sat on the couch, and ground our way through the first awful few weeks of having so much to say and not wanting to say a word.

But I still didn't think I needed antidepressants.  Sure, I was depressed all right, my baby died!  Who wouldn't be?  This is just grief.  Everyone probably wants to crawl in a cave and stay there for 20 years.  I wasn't suicidal, I wasn't in denial.  I wasn't showering or eating much out of the coffee food group, but I was getting out of bed.

And there was Bella.  Two and half, still in diapers.  Not in daycare, because, you know, I was going to be home with the baby anyway.  She was my job, my responsibility.  She was my safety net, my bullet proof vest, and I strongly believe the candle which kept me from wanting to stay in my cave for eternity.  And for a good month or so, I could limp from my bed to her room, change a diaper, find her clean clothes, and start a day.  Probably one spent indoors, or sequestered in the yard, close to the door.  If we were lucky, a weepy trip to the grocery store.  Never the playground.  Never a playdate.  We let her activities lapse.

And one afternoon, Friday, about four weeks after Maddy died, she decided not to nap.

This was a completely unremarkable occurrence for a child who had never really napped in her lifetime, no different than any other day circa 1 p.m. where my tone of voice edges on exasperation.  But she would not acquiesce to quiet time, she would not stay in her room, she would not sit still and have me read to her.  And I was exhausted.  Of it all.  Of the grief, the loss, the aching, the trying, the getting up, changing diapers, putting my feet on the floor every morning with the realization that this was my life -- not some nightmare.  I collapsed on my bed, and could not get up.  I could not open my eyes.  I could not deal with my life.  I lay there glued to my sheets, with a toddler ambling about my house, and I could not call anyone on the phone, sequester her in the room with me.  Immobile.  Tired.  Comatose.

What stunned me was not so much that I couldn't get up, but that my mind ceased to ask for it.  My brain -- instead of screaming at me to lift my eyelids already -- shut down and concluded that this semi-conscious state was acceptable, regardless of the toddler who could possibly tumble down the stairs, walk out the front door, or figure out the safety latch under the kitchen sink.  My husband was at work, but I couldn't lift the phone.  Two neighbors had offered to come at a moment's notice if I needed a "time out," but I somehow forgot.  I could no longer rely on my mental faculties to prod me in the right direction and encourage the rest of me to move.  The part of my mind that once compelled me to run 26 miles now couldn't force me to lift my head.  It was . . . . frightening. Sorry Tom, if your brain doesn't send the signal to take vitamins or go for a jog, you ain't gonna.

First thing Monday morning, with resignation, I called my doctor for antidepressants.

A few of my friends had tidy little metaphors for exactly how ADs made them feel:  a tufted cushion to stand on; a buoy to keep their head above water.  I'm not really sure what my reigning metaphor was, but I can tell you this:  it slowed my brain way the hell down.  I went from racing from one deadbaby thought to another to actually being able to catch my breath between sobs.  It allowed me to sleep without tossing for two hours.  It allowed me to drive without breaking down in a (hazardous) blinding torrent of tears and shudders. It also diverted my attention from sticking on one ugly thought for too long:  going through the life support removal replay?  Mind quietly segues to lunch.

It allowed me to function.  I dare say, it helped me grieve.  I had a job to do, and it helped me do my job.  Although my brain never went to the place of endangering myself or Bella with weapons or whatnot, by having my body do nothing, it was in fact endangering us both.  The antidepressant did not make me numb, it did not make me miss Maddy any less.  It by no means made me happy.  It made me get up, it made me move when I needed to, it helped me pay attention.

After a few months, it became readily apparent to me that I had lost my short-term memory --  most likely from the shock of Maddy's death, but possibly abetted by the ADs.  I also noticed when I went to play the ABC -game ("Your name?  Gah.  Lessee:  A, Alice, Allison, Angie, B, Barbara, Betty . . . ") that my mind would not stay on task and focus long enough to get through the C's.  I'm guessing the ADs saw this as anxious fretting and tried to shut my brain down and think about puppies or daisies or something, but it became increasingly frustrating to the point that it made me overwhelmingly anxious.  Heart-racing, short-of-breath anxious.  Given that I felt a bit better all around anyway, I quit taking them at six months.  I haven't felt like I needed them since.

It probably bears repeating that I didn't feel I needed them until a good 4-5 weeks after Maddy died.  If I were to search around in med journals, I bet I might find some reason for this.  I don't think it's unreasonable to think that our body produces hormones and adrenaline after childbirth in order to get us through the first grueling sleepless weeks of our babies' lives.  I know the act of breastfeeding produces oxytocin, and I'm willing to bet letting down does a bit too.  All this conspires to both give us an amount of energy and simultaneously relax and think, perhaps, that we can do this just fine, thanks.  The first month or so many of us are also gently supported by the onslaught of cards, flowers, donations, email, phone calls, meals, and friends and family.  They too dry up about 4-6 weeks later.  I've seen a number of women here on the 'net crash weeks to months after the event.  It's not unusual.  And don't think if you haven't sought help by that point that somehow it's embarrassing if you do now.  It's not sliding backward, it's just what's happening now.

ADs are not to be taken lightly, in either direction:  you may not need them, but grow to rely on them.  Conversely, you may need them, but fear or not understand them.  Either scenario is dangerous in my estimation.  I can't tell you exactly when and if you need them, or when or if you should go off.  In my mind, it was crystal clear:  the day not only my body, but my mind stopped responding was the day I felt I needed them.  The day my mind began to rebel against their function I got off.  To quote every big-pharm commercial:  see a doctor, but please see one, if you think you might need additional help, or need a different dosage or flavor with less side effects, or or if you're ready to leave them behind.

I never, ever thought I'd need ADs.  I had seen them work for others, so I wasn't opposed to them as a rule, but just didn't think I was the type.  I had a foundation!  I was more than this death!  I had a life to live!  I've run a marathon, for Pete's sake!  But all that meant nothing when I realized I -- my mind -- had neglected Bella for an afternoon.  And not cared.  And there was no way I was going to let it do that to either of us again.

journey's end

My father and stepmother were in town, so they took me out to dinner at a restaurant a good deal more upscale than the ones I usually frequent.  The menu, printed in copperplate gothic bold, featured a smörgåsbord of resolutely non-kosher choices -- Curried Tasmanian Crabcakes, Ginger-Wrapped Skate, Pork Loin Dulce de Leche.  I asked the waiter what the soup of the day was, but he said he couldn't tell me because "The chef personally creates it based on what he finds freshest at the market that morning." 

We reviewed my nephews' soccer season, wondered why my sister never seems to be able to find a job or a boyfriend, critiqued the recent Supreme Court decisions on money laundering, and lamented the housing market in London.  

At the end of the evening, as we were saying goodbye, my stepmother reached out to hug me and said, "We were so worried about you, Niobe.  We didn't even know what to say."

"I'm fine,"  I said.  And I meant it.

After the twins died, I read a lot of articles about bereavement and mourning.  They said that the journey of grief goes on for a lifetime.  They said that you never truly get over the death of a child.  They said that the child who died will always have a special place in your heart. 

They didn't say what to do when you come, unexpectedly, to the journey's end; when your fingers fumble, searching for that familiar hole in your heart, only to find it's no longer there.

holding onto hope

jen, swirly, andrea, canon digital rebel xti

There are many morsels of my friendships that I hold dear to my heart. One of them that is so very special to me is something I have learned from the amazing women in my life.

On the days when the sadness feels overwhelming and I struggle to hold onto those positive, manifesting thoughts, I hear them say..."release that pressure to be positive all the time. give it to us. let us hold onto the hope you need so that you can rest your head and feel whatever it is you feel in this moment."

I am grateful for this gift. Grateful that it teaches me how to be a better friend to them when they lose hope. It teaches me to be more gentle with myself. I have so much faith in the power of loved ones in my life holding onto a dream for me during those moments when it feels too heavy or out of reach.

I have this vision of them circling me, cupping my hope in their hands, leaping, dancing and lifting it to the sky and when I am ready, they gently hand it back to me.

...and it somehow feels lighter and closer and real again.

Today's bonus post is contributed by another sort of sister--the gorgeous Boho Girl, who glows for those who live through infertility, who face a test of endurance in the journey towards motherhood. She is a breathtaking photographer and a warm spirit, and we borrow her image, words and hope with thanks.

little yellow flowers

Here at Glow in the Woods we have so many friends, family and loved ones who have perspectives to share -- people who have been uncommonly generous of spirit. Today's post is from one of them: Marita Dachsel, a poet, mama and friend.

I have no memories of my brother. This pains me incredibly.

My brother Dean died of SIDS on Halloween, just two days before he would have turned two months old, the day before I turned 25 months old. He would be 32 this September.

I was too young to really understand what had happened, but at the time I was aware enough to know that something had happened. For sometime afterwards I would ask "where's the baby?" and my mother would answer the best she could. I can't imagine how hard that would have been to face. I still feel guilty about this. 

Both my sister (who was born twenty months after Dean died, with a miscarriage and a vasectomy reversal between them) and I have always known about our brother. He was never a secret within the family and for that I am thankful. He has always been a part of my life despite him being here for such a short time.

I asked my mother how she did that, and she said that she simply talked about Dean when we were little and answered any questions we had as openly and age-appropriately as possible. I don't remember there being any photos of him on display, but I think there may have been one when we were very young. He did have his own photo album, however, and it sat along side the others.

When I was a teenager, there weren't many conversations with my mother about Dean. I don't think I have ever talked about him with my father. I know I had a lot of questions, but I was afraid to bring him up in fear of hurting my parents, as if I was opening old wounds. As if those wounds had healed.

But my sister and I would talk about him occasionally in hushed voices in our bedrooms. Our conversations consisted of the what ifs and whys. We imagined who he would have become. We knew from looking at baby photos, that he and my sister looked eerily alike and so I would often imagine him as the male version of my sister: tall, athletic, gentle. They whys were harder to talk about. We would always end up at the unsatisfying place where "it happened for a reason." Although neither of us are religious and both have a strong aversion to the thought of any god playing with lives like that, we always had to end there. The unfortunate reality is if Dean had lived, my sister—my sweet, best friend of a sister—would never have been born. During times of childhood cruelty, when I was at my most wicked, I'd remind her of this fact.

With people outside of the family, I didn't talk about him much. It wasn't because I felt like I had to keep Dean a secret, but because he was special—so very, incredibly special—and I wasn't going to share him with just anyone. That said, there were a few times when I was younger when I'd bring him up to shock people. I wish I could crawl inside my younger-self's brain to understand because I can't really remember why I would feel the need to do this. I guess I can just chalk it up to the drama of youth.

When I was alone in the house, I would often take his baby album off the shelf and look at the few photos we had of him. I would talk to him. I realize now that my mom probably did the same thing.

A few years ago, I was given a photo album that had belonged to my Nana. In it were some photos of Dean and of the two of us together. I look at those photos all the time now. I am exceedingly grateful to have my own photos of him.

Like all relationships do, mine with Dean has evolved over the years. I no longer imagine him as my guiding spirit, my protector, but I do still feel his presence. The largest shift has happened relatively recently, since becoming a mother myself.

When I was pregnant with my first son, I thought of Dean more often. I carried an edge of fear and uncertainty that I don't think most women do with their first pregnancies. I refused to have a baby shower because the only baby shower my mother had was for Dean. Because the true cause of SIDS is still unknown, I was afraid that perhaps there was a hereditary link. The days leading up to when Atticus turned the same age Dean was when he died, I was obsessive. We were on a day trip to Lake Louise on that day and I wasn't enjoying it at all. I couldn't stop thinking about Dean's death and was overcome with fear that Atticus would die that day, too. Luckily, I was able to talk about it with my wonderful husband and he calmed me down. Afterwards, my fear of Atticus's death had greatly diminished to almost nothing.

With my second pregnancy, I was much more relaxed. I had a feeling I was having another boy, so I asked my mother if she would mind if we gave him Dean as a middle name. I am very thankful that she gave us permission. I had a twinge of superstition, worried that it would be a bad idea, that the name was somehow cursed or that because he was the second born we were tempting fate, but I simply acknowledged the fear, the superstition, and let it go. I am so glad I did.

Since becoming a mother, I've started talking about Dean with my own mother more. I like to think that it has been really good for both of us. I know, thirty-two years later, that there are not many people she can talk with about him.

When Avner, my second son, was born, my mother came out to help us for two weeks. At the time I didn't even think it might be difficult for her to be around him. About two months later, both my parents came for a visit and at some point she said that Avner was a lot like Dean. This made me both very happy and very sad.

I asked her one night over dishes if it was hard for her to be around my boys because of Dean. She said no, not at all, not my boys, and I was relieved. The unsaid, of course, was that it was hard, or at least had been hard, for her to be around other baby boys. We were quiet for a moment, and as she dried a plate of mine with yellow flowers on it, she revealed that small yellow flowers always reminded her of Dean. Her eyes were watery and mine became so, too. It was such a small detail, but it said so much. I've wondered how many people know this, how long she's carried this around. Since then, small yellow flowers remind me of my mother and her lost little boy; I picture them together, full of hope, joy, and possibility.

While I have no memories of my brother, he has greatly impacted my life. For those of you who have lost your own babies, you may find it hard to know how to keep the memory of your child alive amongst your living children. I urge you to try to find a way to do so that feels right to you. I'm sure it will be painful at times, but I can attest how important it is. We love and miss them, too.

The luxury of choice

I recently told a friend, who happens to be a former colleague, that I watch House for professional development. She laughed. Nevertheless, it's true-- my training focused on the molecular level, and not until my current job did I need to know much about organismal, particularly human, biology.  Medical story lines on the show are pretty well researched, and they make interesting and weird connections-- all pluses in my book. But the real reason I can watch the show in that particular way is the writing. No, not because it's that good, or because they place all the clues out in the open. No, it's because they are forced to write the episodes starting from a medical scenario. 

What that means is that while they can and do develop the characters of the doctors on the show to reveal facets of personality or elements of background, to fill in the dimensions, to make them believable, at least to a degree, they have far less flexibility with the patients. If the patient in episode N needs to collapse unexpectedly in the opening sequence, pee blood right before the first commercial break, go into v-fib seven minutes later, fail to respond to the first several treatments House was sure were going to work, lie about something or other, and finally recover or die with enough time to spare to give some  screen time to the storylines about doctors' personal lives, well, that just doesn't leave much room for dramatic  and believable character development, does it? Which suits me just fine. If I don't buy the patient as a real character, I can concentrate on the medical aspects. So yes, professional development. With a side of ahem... eye candy, as my sister calls them.

One teeny tiny complication there-- they do develop their doctors as characters. Which is normally a good thing in a TV show. Completely messes with my frame of reference, though, when they make one of their own a patient. Can even make me cry when they then kill her. Yes, the season finale. Very well done episode, wherein they try and fail to save the life of one of their former colleagues who is also the newish girlfriend of the title character's best friend.

Tears show up for me a lot these days. Any report about collapsed schools in China is guaranteed to make my eyes water. Music can get me to well up, and I won't even watch some movies that I expect to be upsetting. And yet, over the last week I watched over a season of House on DVDs (thanks, sis), learned a bunch of new stuff, made some cool connections with the things I learned over this past semester, but didn't cry once.  I cried over that season finale, though. Couldn't articulate why. So I watched the second half again. Brilliant move, I know. But my need to know what was affecting me so much was greater than my need not to be affected again. I guess I can be analytical like that.

The second time I saw it, I knew right away. It was the dying doctor. Not that she was dying, but that she was making a choice, and articulating that choice. Her boyfriend asking her why is she not angry, why is she ok with dying. Because, she says, that is not the last emotion I want to experience.

She was dying. There was no way out. No choice, it seems. But she found something she had control over, and she made a choice. And the reason it made me sad, profoundly, deeply, for days after, is that I realized not everyone gets to make choices.

One of the things I try to do in my parenting, one of the things I articulate for my daughter is the issue of choice, of responsibility, of consequences.  Most choices children make are not of great consequence. You can choose to wear X or Y today. You can have this or that for dinner. But slowly, as they grow, so do their choices, and the consequences of those choices. Watching my daughter make increasingly more weighty choices has been one of the subtle pleasures of parenting.

I have appreciated for a long time,  from the very beginning, actually, that after A died, we did have some choices.  I chose to start the induction that same night, and to eventually accept pain relief, even though I wouldn't have likely for a live birth. We chose to name him, to hold him, to take pictures, to follow our doctor's recommendation and ask for the autopsy. We chose things after that too. Telling Monkey the truth, but not taking her to the funeral. Leaning on our friends, but not letting them come to the funeral either. Going back to work when each of us did. Many, many choices.

What I didn't appreciate, the way I never looked at this before was that making choices is yet another thing my son never got to do, will never get to do.  Babies have preferences, but no choices. His entire human existence passed, and he had no control of it, he never got to choose. I don't know what the last thing he experienced was. I do know he didn't get to choose it.

Maybe I am nitpicking. There are so many things that our babies won't get to do, so why am I focusing on this? My son also never drew a breath, but that thought has never made me sad for days on end. What is it about choice that makes it so fundamental to me, a loss in its own right? Perhaps it's all about what choice means to me. Autonomy, ownership, even avoidance of guilt. Because to me making a thoughtful choice means making the right choice.

I know that not everyone feels this way about having choices. I know people who hate having them, hate having to make them. So this is what I wanted to ask you today-- how do you feel about choices? Are they a cornerstone of human experience or a giant cosmic torture?