everything but Silas, part 1

Looks like we're going to need a babysitter now and then. All they will have to do is take a trip to the Peace Park up the street from our house and water the tree we are about to plant in memory of our son. But you need to be able to transport several gallons of water there every week to sustain its life, so it's not a job for just anyone.

Most weeks we will water his tree ourselves. We considered a service that would take care of it, but I figured we should be able to handle a once-a-week task no matter how much of disruption it might be on those odd, busy weeks. After all, taking care of a fucking tree should be a hell of a lot simpler than raising my son. So we'll handle that weekly chore, one way or another.

That's how we get through a Day, anyway. One way or another. Somehow, someway, as we often say to one another.

I have no idea how the fuck we are going to get through Saturday, when we plant this tree and scatter some of his ashes and are crushed into blubbering by the mass of friends and family that are gathered around us. The awfulness of what we are about to do is hard for me to comprehend. Which is why the planning of this has gone the way it has.

They've called to see about bringing food and what we need, but I never have much of an answer. "Bring whatever you want," I told people. "If we don't have something, we'll call around the corner or up the street and order it. Anything we might need, we can get, easily."

Ha. If only that were true.

The pasta and chicken and bread and beer are all very much appreciated, but we simply don't have the energy to coordinate and organize. This event is suddenly large and largely unplanned because there is just no good way to organize the memorial of your infant son.

We focused specifically on what was the most important. Lu researched the options and then we went and picked out a tree. That day was oddly trivial and unbearably profound all wrapped up into a ball of confusion that was impossible to understand.

Wait, we're doing what? Instead of picking out toddler shirts and a new carseat it's... a tree? A tree that is supposed to mark the fact that our son was on this Earth? What kind of Math is this? What branch of Logic does this fall under?

My dad -- Silas' Grandfather -- is going to say a few words. He officiated our wedding and my brother's, and years ago said the eulogy for his mom, my grandmother. I don't know of anyone else that could perform this task on Saturday. We are so thankful that he is doing this for us, and I hate that it must be done.

I am planning on reciting the Hopi Prayer of the Soul's Graduation, as I did when we planted the peach tree up in New Hampshire. I think I can do it. I think the impossible pain of our son's death is something I can withstand for a few public moments before our gathered loved ones. I bear that pain silently every moment of every day.

Really all I have to do is show up, read the poem, and then withdraw. Even if I crumple halfway through, there's enough people to carry me home. But that's not going to happen.

Instead, I will recite the poem into the faces of the people I love, and then I will smash all the other trees in the park. I'll tear the river from its bed and swallow the clouds in a single gulp. When I am finished devouring this reality I hate, I will use the swingsets as toothpicks and saunter home unsatisfied.

On Saturday I am allowed to let the sad, torrential rage flow through me unfettered. On Saturday, I don't have to be okay, just like I'm not every day.

Give Her What She Wants

"Super Phones for Super Moms In Super Colors! (snip) Stay connected while she's at home, at work, or on-the-go!"(Verizon)

(Shakes box, holds it up to ear.) Hello? Hello? Can you Hear me?

"Make Mom Proud. Get her Gifts there on Time!" (1-800-flowers)

Proud?! Bella saying "please" and "thank you" makes me proud. To be frank, I'm not sure what if anything about Maddy makes me "proud." Punctuality is really the least of it, though. I think it's ok if children just show up live, frankly.

"Send Your Extraordinary Mother extraordinary flowers!" (Robertson's Flowers)

That would be funny, considering you're rather an extraordinary daughter.

"It's not too late! Get mom an e-gift!" (Mountain Gear)

Oh, it's too late. Believe me.

"What is the best gift you can give to mothers everywhere this Mother’s Day? Healthy, strong and thriving children!" (March of Dimes)

Oh Sweet Jebus, is that ever an understatement. 

:::

Believe me, you can't give me what I really want. That would include time travel and metaphysics and alien life-transformative powers only seen in the worst movies from the cheeziest of magic wands.

What is it though, to want nothing on a day like this?

In my estimation, Mother's Day is one of those truly awkward holidays for everyone involved -- and for the record, I thought this long prior to February 2007. Interestingly, the early proponents of "Mother's Day" in America in the late 19th century, were peace advocates (and the woman who is most credited with advocating for a Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, actually did so out of a longing to honor her dead mother). Mother's Day was proclaimed a National Holiday by Woodrow Wilson in 1914; an era when women probably heard tales of a generation not far behind that told of mother's losing sons in the Civil War.  Mothers in the early 20th century may have known a loss of their own during WWI. Also interesting was discovering that Jarvis grew distraught at the rampant commercialization of the day she had for so long proposed:

Jarvis became known for scathing letters in which she would berate people who purchased greeting cards, saying they were too lazy to write personal letters.  ----  MSNBC

Anyway, point being: the origins of this holiday, at least in this country, were already tangled with death -- the absence of mothers, the absence of grown children, gone off to serve their country. It was never meant to be a day where you bought diamond baubles or sent a Hallmark.

(Shakes box) If you're listening, I like sapphires better, anyway.

Because Mother's Day has become so ungodly commercial, it must, for it's economic livelihood, focus on the living. You cannot take a dead mother to brunch, buy her a cell phone plan, or send her a card. It puts pressure on daughters of mothers who neglected or abused, and I imagine, makes them wonder what they're missing -- having no one they'd really care to spend hard-earned money on.

Even for a day.

I could take you to breakfast, box, I suppose. You'd fit in my purse.

The flip side of this, of course, is that a dead child cannot purchase -- or, even imaginatively create -- you diamond studs or a necklace of twine, wood beading charms, and "flowers" (read: dandylion weeds). There is no entity there to cry through a meal of stuffed french toast, or hand you a self-picked bouquet of garden treasures (read: onion grass weeds and slightly molded azalea).

And there should be. Because you carried it, you birthed it, you longed for it. You probably longed for this day, the public outing at church, the family gathering where you could finally show your card at the door and receive admission into the club. The day that -- for a few hours -- put you on a pedestal, and gave you freedom to bitch about sleep deprivation and bask in gooey hugs and greetings.

This holiday is so difficult because while "everybody has a mother," the original intent of the matter has been lost: instead of merely thinking of or remembering yours, and contemplating the universal concept that everyone has a mother -- even the dead, we are supposed to buybuybuy and showshowshow. For those who have no mother to hug or greet, the effort seems lost in the application. I am so incredibly sorry if this holiday hurts you for this very reason.

And believe me, I'm also sorry if it hurts you because, although you're a mother, there's no son or daughter there to validate that simple fact.

Hallmark made it easy, Hallmark made it hurt.

:::

Mother's Day '06: We sat in a coffee shop chain, on a rainy day, with a realtor, and put a bid in for our house (which we got). Maddy was conceived sometime over that weekend.

Mother's Day '07: I am still crying at the drop of a hat, and implore everyone I know to please leave me be and ignore it. Bella is too young to even know. I garden in silence. I stupidly think I can play with radioactive material, and leave the card store with my stomach up in my throat, unable to buy my own mother a card.

Mother's Day '08: I like the idea of a day of gardening. I ask for this. Bella makes me something in school. For my mother, I finally settle on a donation to NILMDTS . She seems genuinely touched.

Mother's Day '09: Four years of ignoring this holiday has had the cumulative effect of not even realizing it was approaching. There was no anticpatory anxiety because I completely forgot about it until Bella announced that she was making me a surprise at school, "For Mother's Day. It's a Plate."

"Shhh! Shouldn't it be a surprise?"

"What's on it IS the surprise!"

She made me open it immediately upon arriving at home last Wednesday. That was fine with me.

Today I'm working in the yard. I should be out there right now, sowing seeds in our recession vegetable garden, watching the neighbors walk and drive by, dressed up on their way to brunch, the museum, the mall. We'll all work, we'll grill some burgers. This year, after getting gobsmacked by a series of articles and opinion pieces on women in far away countries who lack adequate medical care during and after labor who then suffer from Fistulas, I made a donation to the Fistula Foundation in my mother's honor. Because I guess now more than ever, I believe motherhood should be more about healthy AND live, mothers AND babies.

(Sets box back up in bowl on the top shelf.) I miss you. I miss you so much.

Call me.

:::

What are your feelings on this day -- or when Mother's Day falls in your country?  What do you do to get through?  Has babyloss changed how this day makes you respond to your own mother (regardless of that relationship)?  Believe me when I say, I'm thinking of you all.

Waxing. Poetic?

As I sit here, at my kitchen table, typing this, my left leg is waxed below the knee. My right leg is not. (Not that you would be able to tell, since I am, as is nearly always the case these days, wearing pants. But that is a different part of this post. Be warned.) This is the way it's been ever since Saturday, when I decided to use Cub's naptime to test out one of those drugstore waxing kits. Which wasn't that bad. Actually, it was pretty good. Not like those old time home kits. Lemme tell ya-- those kits were, quite possibly, the cornerstone of the conspiracy devised and perpetrated by the salon owners with the goal of increasing revenue and tips. Because really, once you tried that at home, you were willing to pay whatever it took to have a professional do the job. I know I was.

Professional is such a stretchable term, isn't it? I sure met my share of ladies who stretched it but good before stumbling onto Vicky, the goddess of wax. Who is now, just so you know, the only one allowed down there with the hot, sticky stuff. I also don't trust anyone else near my eyebrows, or even near the insult to injury that is the PCOS-induced facial hair. In fact, nobody else is allowed to wax me anywhere. Period. Vicky is un-humanly quick, equally efficient, and she has this technique for minimizing the paaaaaain. She's also rather thorough, which means that she will make sure to get every.last.hair. Every last one. She is nice to chat with, and just plain nice.

So why then, given unrestricted access to the gold standard herself, am I sitting here with only one leg waxed? Good question. I could say that I was trying to save money. I could. And if I did, I wouldn't even be altogether lying. But why don't you settle into an armchair, or a dimestore, or whatever metaphor for ridiculously transparent psychology you prefer, and let me tell you a story? Warning-- I may or may not restrain myself from the completely unnecessary editorializing at the end. So, the story.

I saw Vicky sometime in the first half of my pregnancy with Monkey. Eye brow wax, I think, before a fancy shmancy function. She mentioned then that a number of her clients come to see her for a bikini wax before giving birth. Makes it less messy after, they said. Uhm, thought I. Not really sure I want to try the lift your leg like so acrobatics inherent in the procedure when I am, you know, huge.

But then it turned out that I had placenta previa. And by turn out I mean I had a huge bleed in the middle of a mall, the day after my thesis defense. Better than the day before, no question. Anyway, these bleeds, they come with hospitalizations and bedpans. Fuuuuuuuun! But as my previa was partial, and as I was deemed a highly responsible and compliant patient, and as I live a short distance away from the hospital, I was allowed to go home after these episodes. And then the placenta moved, and I was cleared for a vaginal birth, but with a big red star on my folder, indicating that should things go to pot, there was a c-section with my name on it faster than you could say any of it.

These hospitalizations, though, taught me a few things. One, I hate bedpans. Hate them. Two, duuuuude, blood is messy. Especially when you can't see so well what all you are doing cleaning it up. So I started rolling that whole bikini wax idea in my head. Still wasn't too excited about it, but could now see the point. So I made a deal with myself-- if I should make it to the week of my due date, I will make an appointment for the day before said due date. I did, and I did. And I went. And Vicky, being the goddess of wax, used all kinds of tricks and table positions to minimize the awkwardness of the lift your leg like so bit.

Next day, the due date, in fact-- spontaneous labor, no real surprises (except for a little bleed at the end that made them all nervous for a bit, but turned out to have been only a long scratch courtesy of Miss Monkey), no def con anything, one gorgeous, loud baby. [If you are squeamish, skip to the next paragraph.] Ok, I warned you-- also hemorrhoids that the nurses on the post partum floor called bad. You know you are screwed when the nurses call them bad. And one haematoma, just for giggles.

For weeks after that, as I stumbled around with my little blue donut pillow, the one that made it possible for me to sit, I praised the wisdom and skill of Vicky, the goddess of wax, at least once daily. Because she clearly spared me some major post partum hassle. And I vowed that I would totally get a wax next time. Like no duh.

Of course next time was different, in so many ways. The baby, he was gorgeous, but not loud. Silent, forever. The labor, induced and weeks before due date. So among these big things, it didn't bother me that I didn't get that wax. But the added mess in the weeks after-- it stang a bit every time I was dealing with it, taunted me in its small way with how hugely not to plan the whole thing went.

You know what was worse? Needing to go see Vicky right around my actual due date. Because I had, without considering all the logistical implications, agreed to go on a cruise vacation shortly after the due date. JD made a pitch centered around the tragic truth we all know only too well-- everything around us was the same, everyone else's lives were the same. It was only our world that crashed. Let's not sit around looking at that, let's go somewhere else and try to make new memories. Sounded reasonable, and so, despite feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect, I agreed. Forgot to consider the whole will need to wax thing. In fact, forgot to consider any of the self-care things that go into an undertaking like this.

Result? Surreal and agonizing few days, as I packed, got a pedicure, got a wax, packed some more. And talked to friends about how I was terrified of happy people trying to engage me in a conversation. In the middle of all that, I had to call to make the appointment for that wax. And then I had to go to said appointment. With Vicky, who's known me for years. Years. I was facing the prospect of not only having to get a not-pregnant wax, but also, and this was gonna be FUN, having to tell yet another person that my baby died. In the end, my sister went the day before I was scheduled to go. Ostensibly to get an eyebrow wax. But really, to tell. To make it less of a horror show for me. I love my sister.

I also love Vicky, who was instinctively wonderful when I came. Not intrusive. Not spouting platitudes. Gentle, kind, on the ball. She did all she could do, and yet, it was not enough. Not because there was anything else she could've done. Simply because nothing, then, could've been enough. It was my mistake-- doing things that used to make me happy when nothing could make me happy. I poisoned the well.

And so this is principly why my left leg is waxed below the knee while my right one is not. I was using the home kit, and then the virus I contracted sometime Friday really went to town, and so I didn't have the lung capacity to deal with the other leg. Maybe this weekend. But I was using the home kit largely because the activation energy for making an appointment with Vicky has grown for me since A died. Oh, I still go. I am not suicidal enough to attempt bikini waxing by myself. (I went before the Cub was born, for example-- guessed the right week in my modified bedrest saga and everything. Made for a much easier self-care while living on the NICU couch afterwards, let me tell you.) And I take my face to Vicky once in a while too. But I used to go more frequently, I think. At least it feels like I did. Once I am there, I am good. It's just there is a higher and steeper wall to climb in picking up the phone to call for an appointment.

Well, since we are being this honest, there's likely another reason I am not eager to see Vicky these days. I am huge, again. And this time, there is no excuse in progress. I am trying to be nice to my body. I understand that most of these offending pounds tell the story of pregnancies and hormonal upheavals they bring with and leave behind. But it doesn't make me happy to see it. And so I wear mostly pants. And I avoid putting myself in a position where I have to face the heft unnecessarily. Which is, of course, a very debatable point. What is unnecessarily? And I don't really know how much of what I put into this word is just the heft, just my discomfort at being this large, at being this uncomfortable in my body, and how much is the bereavement, still.

photo by Meredith_Farmer

What about you? What are your habits of self-care? Have they changed in your bereavement? What do you miss? What is new, in the after?

This post is a part of The Body Shop at Glow in the Woods -- a month of themed reflections and memes that explore what we do in an effort to occupy these physical selves with grace after babyloss.

losing it. perhaps literally.

“She’s got such a pretty face. It’s too bad she can’t do something about her weight.”

This remark can be attributed to a member of my own family. One I’ve secretly never forgiven.

My love/hate relationship with my physical self started very early. I have a crystal clear memory of being on the school playground in the third grade being called fat by a friend who was angry with me for one reason or another.

I spent high school in a fog of self conscious, shirt tugging anxiety, never happy with myself. Not until someone fell in love with me did I feel remotely confident. That helped, as did the roughly 30 pounds I lost over the summer following graduation. It wasn’t a conscious effort; I simply worked on my feet and rarely stopped to take a breath. Even relatively thin I dressed conservatively for someone my age, feeling as though other people shouldn’t have to be exposed to any more of my body than necessary.

Fast forward, past more than ten years of student and office life spent largely on my arse and I was back to where I was at 15; softer around the edges and thicker around the middle than I’d like.

And pregnant.

By the time Sadie was born at 42 weeks I had gained just under 60 pounds. I was comically rotund but somehow I loved every stretch-marked inch of myself. Even though my knees creaked when I climbed the stairs and I couldn’t get out of bed without rolling out, I felt better than I had ever felt before. My mind was as clear as my skin. Months of clean eating and plenty of sleep had made what I thought would be an indelible impression on me.Within two weeks of Sadie’s birth I had lost 20 pounds. Four weeks later she was gone.

If I’m being honest, I completely lost interest in caring for myself the morning we said goodbye to her.

I’ve spent the past year eating and struggling and drinking and feeling excessively. I joined a gym and went sporadically for two months before abandoning it altogether for three. I suffered from random insomnia and popped pills in all moments of weakness: hangovers, backaches, constipation, and depression. Rest certainly hasn’t come easily for me since her death, not without some sort of help. Whether that was a glass or four of sauvignon blanc or a couple of herbal sleeping pills, it was always something. Like many parents here will understand, it’s when the lights go out and I’m left along with my thoughts and memories that is most painful.

So much for my body being a temple. At the moment it’s barely a lean-to. I can’t decide if I enjoy punishing myself or I don’t believe I deserve to feel good in the first place. Whatever the case, I feel as vulnerable now as that third grader in the schoolyard.

Less sensitive people have been asking us whether we’ll try again for months. Others have tactfully left it to us to bring up if and when we’re comfortable. I have often wondered if Sadie hadn’t been our first, would we be where we are right now. I am doubtful and terrified that my abused old body may not even be capable of making a healthy child. Am I strong enough, physically or emotionally, to try? Am I too far beyond repair to risk it?

My husband has lost more than 20 pounds since Christmas; regularly pounding out God knows how many frustrations at the gym. It wasn’t until he started annoying me with a daily ‘calories burned’ report that my latent competitive streak was roused. Then it got even worse: the bastard started shrinking (damn those men and their superior metabolism). I’ve literally had no choice but to get off the couch and pick up my sneakers.

I’m not making any promises, least of all to myself.

If I were brave I might ask myself why I’ve let the idle lifestyle go on so long. Knowing I won’t allow myself to get pregnant again without being in suitable physical shape first, I might also ask if there is a chance I’ve been using my body as an excuse to put off trying again. But I’ve never been much in the bravery area.

How has your body image changed after pregnancy, and after your loss? Have you ever knowingly punished your physical self, it be with neglect or otherwise?

This post is a part of The Body Shop at Glow in the Woods -- a month of themed reflections and memes that explore what we do in an effort to occupy these physical selves with grace after babyloss.