comfort

Two years out from Lucy's death, a friend called to tell me a mutual acquaintance lost her son at 36 weeks. Stillborn. No reason found. Could I talk to her?

Same as Lucy's death. Of course.

I wanted to talk to her. This person was present for me, you know, the one time I ran into her. She just stopped what she was doing and sat. She listened and cried with me.  I left feeling like a fat fool, getting all blubbery and snotty in front of God and everyone, but also I felt immensely grateful for the safe space she created. I wanted to seek her out again, but I didn't want to burden someone with a new friendship that would most certainly be completely one-sided.

I am finally two years out.  Maybe I can be present for someone else. Maybe I can just listen. Maybe it isn't all about my dead baby. Maybe I can be the person I wanted in my early grief. I made plans with her almost immediately after the phone call. We met for coffee.

photo by marina.shakleina

"I just want it to go away. The pain. I don't want to think about it anymore. He wasn't a person," she said. "He wasn't a person yet."

He was a person to me, I thought. Lucy was a person to me, but I get what you are saying.

I nodded. I did not think her not wanting to acknowledge or remember her son was at all weird or strange. I thought her way of grieving was as normal and natural as mine. Whatever feeling I had about my daughter's death, whatever the reaction, the opposite reaction lurked right behind it. Did I want to take pictures of Lucy? Yes. I took them, but at some point in the hours leading up to that decision, I thought no, I wouldn't. I couldn't. I arrived at a decision, but I wondered the whole time if I made the right one. I realize now, I just made a decision, neither right nor wrong, just the one that worked in that moment.  I did the best I could.

"You won't feel like this forever. But I can't tell you when that will change, just that I know my feelings about Lucy have changed through the years."

She said she just wanted another baby right now. She wanted to move on. She didn't want to talk about it anymore. She didn't want to think about him anymore. It was an unfortunate thing, but it was over. She didn't want to be one of those women whose whole lives become about their dead baby.

There was an uncomfortable silence. I write about my dead baby. I have an altar to my dead baby. I blog about my dead baby. I have an Etsy shop in which I paint about my dead baby. I hang out with other people who have a dead babies. My whole life has become about my dead baby. She looked at me.

"I am one of those women," I said.

"But what you do is good," she reassured me.

"I am not offended, but I still am one of those women. It doesn't feel nearly as depressing as you make it sound."

"I can see that," she whispered.

I couldn't explain it in a way that didn't sound defensive. I wanted to tell her what it is like now, how I am completely different, but that isn't a bad thing. I feel like I have integrated Lucy's death into my life in an organic way, but maybe it is strange. Maybe I am a cautionary tale for newly bereaved parents. I look sad from the outside looking in. This life seems surrounded by sadness, baby death, grief, bereavement and losses upon losses but it is actually full of love and joy and gratitude. It is the opposite of depressing. All of those things I do seem like love to me, they are my ways of parenting the baby I cannot parent.  That is what it feels like from the inside. It feels like comfort. That was it. She was still on the outside looking in, she still hadn't quite figured out that all of this--the dead baby and the grief that comes with it--is her life now too.

In my early days, the days of keening and leaking breasts, I didn't want anyone to inform me about grief. I wanted nothing to do with anyone who tried to tell me anything about what grief was about, or what to expect in the first year of babyloss. When I searched for other women with dead babies, I didn't search for people two years out from their loss. I searched for people on the same time line as me. I didn't search for people with wisdom. I searched for people just as lost as me, just as ripped open, just as damaged, who grieved the same way I grieved. I looked for a place where I seemed normal.

We grew quiet together and I realized that perhaps it was not comforting at all for her to talk to me, as my friend thought. I couldn't offer her what was comforting, because that thing that is comforting is different for each of us. It is like a claw game in the arcade, you can reach blindly into a pile of comforting things, and pull out some shiny thing that works for one person, and it looks like some cheap, anger-inducing cliché for another. And really, here I was, sitting with a woman I respected, liked, felt heartbroken for and with, whose loss was like mine, and I was seeking to comfort her. Had I learned nothing in my grief? Nothing I said or could say would have comforted her, because there is nothing comforting about your baby dying. Our babies died. That is pitiable. That is sad. That is fucking heartbreakingly uncomfortable.

All I could really do is cry into a cup of coffee with her.

Since the death of your child(ren), have you been asked to reach out to someone who has lost a child? What was that experience like? Did you reach out to another babylost parent you knew after your loss? Was it comforting or more upsetting? Have you met a fellow babylost parent who grieved in a different way than you? Did you feel defensive? Did you understand?

Boom

Jess at After Iris submitted a guest post not long ago, and her voice and words resonated with so many. She has a way of capturing a feeling perfectly in the fewest possible words. A gift we all wish we had. She combines cheekiness and deep insight harmoniously to give new wisdom into our own grief.  In May 2008, Jess' second daughter Iris died while she was in early labour. Though she writes infrequently on her blog, Jess is Glow in the Woods' newest regular contributor and fire-spitting medusa. We are so honored. - Angie

I’m a noisy beastie.

Ra-tat-tat-tat-ing. Clattering around.  Today I stood up and made a racket:

LISTEN TO ME WORLD! LISTEN TO ME OCCUPANTS OF MY OFFICE! I HAVE FEELINGS I MUST SHARE WITH YOU!  I AM UNHAPPY ABOUT THE DELAY WE ARE CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING IN OUR RECRUITMENT PROCESS! WE NEED MORE STAFF!  IMMEDIATELY! I AM EXTREMELY PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS! AS EVIDENCED BY THE SHOUTING!  DO NOT SHUSH ME! DO! NOT! SHUSH! ME!

Noisy beastie with her noisy-loud-fist-on-the-table feelings.

I live out loud.

But I grieve in a whisper.

Or even quieter than that.

I grieve in the tap-tap of fingers on a keyboard. I grieve in the silent shudder-shake of waking with an aching face. I grieve in the hush of a turned cheek: turn away, turn away. They don’t know. They don’t know. I grieve by the light of a screen, a muted scream.

But in the quiet, my grief finds a voice. My grief can have a voice here, in this place.

If my tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Yes, in these Woods.

+

This is my first post for Glow as a regular contributor, and I want to hear your voices.  Do you speak your grief in a shout or a whisper? Have you written a post you wish everyone could read about your baby or babies? If you don’t write a blog, what’s the one thing you wish you could mutter in the world’s ear? I'm listening.

All That Remains

I started thinking about this post in specific while I was doing some project close out tasks. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, project close out involves dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. You document everything. Why you made a decision, why you didn’t, who agreed and who didn’t. The theory says you retain this information, so that if someone needs to understand the context or revisit the issue they don’t have to do all of the same work again.

It turns out, at least in a project, you are never really gone. I was looking at issues from 3 years ago; hunting people down, asking questions and requiring that they dig deep in their memory, think about things that have not seen the light of day in almost a lifetime.

While I was doing this, I was thinking of what we leave behind. When I die I will be gone in a way that someone with children can never be. When Mr. Spit and I are gone, our son will be gone as well. There were only a few people in that room, and when we are gone, Gabriel will be gone in a final way as well.

As I read the project documents, closing things out, I sometimes get a sense of what might have been contentious. I get a sense of what decisions came easily and the ones that inspired angst. I have been thinking about this as I think about what will happen when I die.

Someone will come into my home and pack up my things. We do not know what we will do with our estate, often joking we will leave our worldly wealth to a home for unwed cats. Someone will sort and pack, picking and choosing what is sold, what is thrown out. Like all hindsight decisions, I shudder to think at the image they will receive. Why did she keep a lemon juicer so covered in dust? She had a secret addiction to microwave popcorn judging by the cases in the basement. Did she never buy new underwear?

You could live your life imagining what would happen if you died tomorrow and strangers came into your house. When my Father in Law died, there were discoveries. Nothing salacious or even inappropriate, but things that are best understood through the lens of those that are related to us; those that have a shared history, shared memory. Those people can balance the strange with the memory of normal.

I think of the practical and the mundane and of larger, more existential questions when I think of my death. I wonder what will become of my things – the everyday items and those that are precious. I worry about the conflation of the two; the ratty old apron on a hook. I never wear it, but it was my grandmother’s. I wonder about the precious things, the four sets of china. I feel a responsibility to provide for my things in the way that others might provide for their children. I have an insurance policy that provides money for the care of my pets.

I wonder too, when I am gone, what will remain of me? The things that I hold to be precious, important and worth carrying on. The things I would have taught my children, and indeed the things that I have learned for the short time we travelled together.

Who will I teach about afternoon tea and pass on the history of my grandmother’s cucumber sandwiches? I look at my friends and the children around me, and the stories, the lessons and the essence of what I think really matters and I wonder: do I make a list?

Do I teach one of my nieces about afternoon tea and the sorts of purses and shoes a lady wears? Do I tell another who is more academic about my mother and her nursing degree, taken because my Grandfather would not pay for law school for a woman?

Most of this sort of learning is inspired and not planned. A teachable moment comes up, you seize it and it passes on. Maybe something stuck and maybe something didn’t. Life’s lessons bear repeating.

I have thought about endowing something. Leaving a memorial fund, creating a foundation. The problem with that is that it does not actually leave anything of mine save my name and my money. We could skip on the name and just use the money toward something that already needs help. Does it not make more sense to endow an existing scholarship than create a new one?

I know I promised you answers. Well, in hindsight, I promised you questions, and I said that good questions would lead to good answers. The PM in me, the mother in me, the wife in me, the person in me believes this too.

I have no answers. I do not know if this is because sometimes the answers take time or if my questions are not good enough, not yet. I am curious though, do you feel a need to leave a legacy other than your children? How do you do that? What matters to you in your legacy?

the smallest jar

About ten months after Lucy died, Sam's uncle visited our home. I never met this particular uncle, but I had heard many stories about him from many different perspectives. He is the wrestling uncle, the basketball uncle, the chummy kid-at-heart uncle. Sam was very fond of him.

I had just kicked off my shoes for nap time when the bell rang. It was an hour before they were due to arrive, but there they stood on our doorstep. Sam hadn't quite made it home from work in time for formal introductions. I welcomed them into our home. Offered them drinks and kept my voice low. "There is a sleeping child in the house," my demeanor whispered. And so we retired to the lounge with some sparkling water. We sat back for a moment in the uncomfortable silence of not knowing how to break the ice after questions of travel and traffic.

"So, Angie," the uncle looks at me very intensely, "how did you bounce back from your stillbirth?"

I breath in and think.

She fits into the smallest jar I have ever seen, Uncle. One that only three years ago I would wondered aloud what possible use it could have. When it arrived, filled with Lucia, I couldn't believe they fit all my baby into such a small container. I don't know if you ever bounce back from holding a baby one day and then fitting her into the smallest jar the next.

There is her jar, Uncle. It is silver and inlaid with turquoise and has a pattern of the dove. It was too much to think about the day before Christmas when the funeral director came to our home with a catalogue of urns. Big ones next to little ones. I didn't know which one seemed appropriate, or right for my daughter.  I asked the funeral director to put the catalogue in a manila folder, and leave it on my desk. He was very accommodating and gracious. He walked around our house blindly trying to find the office, the desk, the manila folders.

I hate the choice I made, but I also can't imagine transferring her ashes to earthenware or something more like us. People ash is so much more human than I ever thought it would be. It is lumpy and full of pieces of things that make your brain wander dark halls. I am content accepting her urn as part of her.

I don't want to leave her jar some days. I don't want her to be alone in a big house when we go on vacation, or run to the mall. It seems insane, I know, but I want to tuck the smallest jar into my pocket and pretend it has emotion or heart. Instead of treating the jar like a person, I used to speak her name to conjure her. Maybe I can feel her in that name.

Lucia Paz.

After a few months, Uncle, I stopped wanting to hear her name, even though her name is the most beautiful thing I could imagine. It is God whispering. It is the wind through chimes and trees when no one is listening. It is Nature crying. Her name is Light and Peace and all things too beautiful to hold. When it comes out of someone's mouth, it is like a sacred prayer mispronounced and cut short. She is mine. My moment of horror. My connection to the Divine. Only I know her. Only I whisper her. Only I miss her.

That is what not bouncing back is like for me, Uncle. I think it is only me who misses her, thinking her death was only about me. Lucia does not reside in a small jar. Lucia is not her name. She is our tears, and laughter. She is the trees and the flowers and the wind. She is kneeling and standing again. Lucia exists in the air between us that feels electric and powerful and alive, but it is just the weight and height of love.

In the end, Uncle, your question is refreshing and difficult. I am grateful that you have acknowledged my daughter's death. I am grateful you recognize my trip to Hell. But written in the lines of your question is the answer you want. That mothers come back after walking into the underworld, like Demeter. Persephone is restored, but I am not. I have not rescued my daughter from Hades. I have not been granted six months of her. She is gone. My crops have withered. And spring is no where in sight.

But, still, Uncle, I think I am bouncing somewhere, but not back to where I was. I am bouncing upwards, off-kilter. I am bouncing out of bounds, but still playable, if I get to me fast enough. I am bouncing to a place that resembles peace. I am bouncing with the smallest jar in my pocket. I am bouncing with new vigor and compassion. I am bouncing somewhere, but it is not anywhere close to back.

The question hangs there in the seconds I have took to breathe in, think all this and clear my throat.

"So, Angie, how did you bounce back from your stillbirth?"

"I haven't quite."

He nodded and asked me about the Embran and Woonan baskets from Panama displayed on a floating shelf six inches above my head.

+++

What difficult questions have you had to answer? Do you find it refreshing when someone is blunt about your loss or do you find it upsetting? In what ways do you like to be engaged about your loss and the time after?

comparatively speaking

I believe if you got a room full of widows whose husbands had died of the same form of cancer, each woman would still silently compare herself to those around her.

I wish my husband had survived longer after the diagnosis.

Thank goodness my husband went fast and it didn't drag out.

She's lucky, her kids are still young and in the house to lend support.

She's lucky, her kids are grown and she has time and space to grieve by herself.

I wish I had been married longer.

She's so young -- she's got her whole life ahead of her.  No way I'm getting married again.

And so on.

I also believe, especially early on, that it's a good thing -- it's even a healthy thing -- to compare yourself to others in similar situations.  I think it puts parameters on your grief, and helps set the boundaries of exactly what issues you personally need to move through. 

At first, unsurprisingly, you probably think yourself the worst off in the room -- from newness and the raw angry wound if nothing else.  And that's ok, by dint of still bleeding, you probably are.

But the nice thing about support groups, either in person or online is that you realize you're not alone:  others have gone through the same thing.

Well, not quite the same thing.

And there's the rub:  we're all so alike, we occupy a tidy little corner of the internet where we share macabre humor and toss around familiar euphemisms, but then we hang around long enough and realize there are some odd angles and edges.

Some lose babies earlier in the pregnancy than others

Some lose two children -- or more -- in the same event

Some lose two children -- or more -- over time

Some have to birth already dead babies

Some have to make decisions about life support

Some have to make decisions about termination

Some have seemingly healthy babies who are rudely snatched from their hands -- metaphorically -- weeks after their birth

We ponder these differences, and hell, it doesn't really matter does it?  No of course not, many of us pronounce, pain is pain, and we begin to comprehend still other parts of the stories:

Some don't have living children

Some have to explain what happened to living children and help them grieve, too

Some spouses leave

Some suffer infertility along with babyloss

Some subsequent pregnancies don't work, either

Some had horrible medical treatment

Some have long-standing issues with depression

Some were still suffering from other losses in their lives when their child(ren) died

And I think it's still good - and still healthy -- to compare, and realize, you know, I'm not the worst-off person in the room.  

And I speak rather ironically because of course, if you're following my examples here, no one is the worst off person.  Everyone is worse off.  Everyone is better off.  It depends to whom you're referring, to whom you're speaking, whose mind you're in.  Are we counting that refugee I just read about in the paper?  It just depends.

I'm not sure whose particular set of circumstances I'd rather have:  they all suck, and at least I'm familiar with mine.

+++

I gather -- for better or worse -- that this sort of self-comparison is probably a chunk of how we form our identities and selves.  Some comparisons are merely factual, some make you gasp in relief, and some perhaps make you feel a little less of yourself.

He's taller than me.

I'm lucky I like my job.

Her skin is always so clear and smooth, and mine looks like the lunar surface.

And it's what we do with this information that's important:  it shouldn't make you feel like you get a prize of some sort just because your car is a newer model, but nor should it take you in the dumps if your neighbor's lawn looks better this year.  It is what it is.

We sometimes bandy this idea around and call it the Pain Olympics, the idea that some play games to set themselves up as the worst, the bottom of the well, the stink of the trash-heap.  

And I still argue it's good and it's healthy as long as at some point in time -- and it usually takes a bit of time for the wound to cease throbbing and your head to stop spinning -- that you realize maybe, just maybe that person had it worse.  And now that I think about it, that person I read about in the paper?  She did to.  And he did.  And her.  

And suddenly you have perspective, and compassion, depth and breadth to your experience.  You're able to welcome someone with a far different set of circumstances, realizing exactly where your circles cross each other in similar shaded places, and where you diverge.  And you also begin to realize that what one person considers lucky, another considers a cosmic kick in the ass.  What one person deems a lousy situation sounds like a symphony to you, comparatively.  

And before long you're beginning to understand not just how your situation fits into the world, but how your pain does.  And that there are other kinds of pain, and maybe "more" and "less"  and "better" and "worse" really aren't good ways to go about comparing these sorts of things, anyway.  That actor who tried to kill himself when he was 22?  His baby didn't die (he didn't have one as far as I could tell), but you know, in his head, his life was so bad he wanted to die.  My life was never that bad.  That was the day I picked my chin up a bit, felt sympathy for this poor guy, and realized I could keep stumbling.

Who are we to judge what's better and worse, anyway?  Maybe my neighbor uses pesticides on that ultra green lawn.  Maybe my newer car gets lousy mileage.  Maybe I just need to be with my situation and deal with it on it's own terms and use other people for support and inspiration when it suits.

That's the problem with comparisons.  You sometimes don't know the backstory, the consequences of the outcomes.  Maybe we shouldn't do this so much, after all.

+++

Way way back, when I took yoga, in the beginning, the teacher reminded us practically every 5 minutes not to be competitive!  Don't look at your neighbor!  Ok, well go ahead and look if you must, but don't get down on yourself!  Because every person is different, every body is different, every student will have a strength and a weakness.  Work on your weaknesses, don't be ashamed to use props.  Revel in your strengths, but know that you can always grow -- the pose can always be better, made more difficult, held longer.

And I realized, in-shape-runner-me, that my soccer-muscly quads that allowed me to sit in air chair for an eternity outright forbade me from bending over and touching my toes, my hamstrings were so tightly wound.  Meanwhile, the 60 year old lady next to me had her head through her legs and was examining the backs of her ankles.

Grief is like this, I've come to realize.  Pain is like this.  It's mine, it's mine to hold and ponder and hold up and examine.  It's mine to improve.  I appreciate your sympathy in my down moments, and I really appreciate it when you find inspiration in my good moments.   

It's not better or worse, it just is.

How often do you compare yourself and your story to others?  How does it make you feel overall?  Has this changed over time? How do other people's stories shape you and your story?  Do they at all?  Do you find yourself gravitating more towards people at the same place in grief, or who went through a similar situation? (Or both?)