Hey...

As weeks go, this one is a whopper. Easter advertisements everywhere, even in my junk mail. All pastel colors and adorably grown up kid outfits. On, you know, actual kids. Kid models, sure, but still kids. Smiling, making like they get along, all of them, but most especially brothers and sisters.

This week, of course, is also Passover. Which is all about saving a people, or forging one. It is a holiday about family, both in the sense of the story at its core and in terms of who one traditionally spends it with. But it's also about dead firstborns. A minor detail, that.

And this weekend will be a lot about, you know, resurection. And lovely pastel outfits.

So I thought it's time for one of these again, a how are you thread. So...

Hey... How are you? How is this new season treating you? How are you treating yourself?

Winter. Discontent.

I must admit-- it snuck up on me. Suddenly, it's dark by five and it's snowed twice since Sunday. Fall around here was a blur of pass the flu, and have you seen my deadline, but good things too, like sneaking away for a retreat or taking a short family vacation over Thanksgiving. And somehow in the midst of all the crazy, or maybe because of
it, I managed to not let myself dwell on the the impending change of seasons, to chase away any stray thought of it that snuck in univited.

Winter, which I used to love without reservation and which still contains many things I love, is now my grief season. A's anniversary isn't until the very end of January, but for the third year now, I begin to feel its approach with the change of seasons. I am thinner this time of year, more transparent. The wind blows straight through me, or maybe through a hole in me-- I can't tell. It whistles the tune of longing, of missing, of love. 

Anniversaries abound in the bereavement blogosphere these days. But for those whose actual days come in a different season, and  for those whose losses are too recent still for any -versaries, there are the holidays to contend with. Ubiqutous decorations, ever-present lights, mandatory good cheer. Cards in the mail, commercials on TV.

So I just wanted to stop for a bit and ask-- how are you? How is the season treating you? How are you taking care of yourself these days?

Come, sit a minute. Have some tea. Have some wine. Have a good cry. Tell us how you are.  

gratitude

It’s gut wrenching how much I long for her these days.

A whirl of small brown leaves flies against the windshield of my car as I drive by their tree, almost bare.

Hello, Beautiful…

I feel her close, I really do.

And also, deep in my gut, everywhere in my heart, in all of me – the awareness that my child in her body is missing.

For about a month, we’ve had her picture close by in the dining room of our new home. It’s in a temporary frame… I’m working on something much more grand, much more beautiful. But her sweetest face is there in all its 8x10 glory, peeking out at us as we eat, draw, do homework, putz around on the computer, talk. As I write this.

There she is… and yet that’s not her. It’s just her photograph. Sometimes I feel her there. Sometimes she is in the leaves. Sometimes in the occasional milkweed seed that reminds me of the oh-so-sad-so-terribly-incredibly-painfully-sad week we spent in the mountains after we said goodbye to her. Sometimes in the red tail hawk that flies above Cincinnati, though much less frequently than she did in San Francisco.

When I look at that photograph, I just miss my Baby Girl… in the flesh.

I am reminded each time I look at it just how beautiful she was. And how much she struggled with each breath. That’s when the tears come, when I remember those days in between,

She’s doing surprisingly well… this is what she’ll need in order to come home,

and,

She just can’t get enough air into her small fragile lungs, even with all this support.

That’s when I imagine what it would be like now if things hadn’t turned, if she had come home on oxygen and continued to get stronger.

*****

I know how lucky I am that I got to know her when she was alive. I know how lucky I am that I got to hold her, to kiss her, to sing to her, to touch her soft skin, to look into her eyes as she looked into mine. I know we didn’t all get that in this community of deadbabyparents… I wish we all had. I wish all of our babies were still here, in the flesh, alive and well.

Maybe I have more photos of my baby, but it doesn’t make it easier to have lost her. Nothing can make it easy to lose a child. Easy isn’t a word I identify with anymore. As a word, it feels trivial and doesn’t serve me much. But hard… that feels too simplistic. Sometimes it isn’t hard. Sometimes it just is.

Strange feels more like it these days. Strange because I can simultaneously feel acceptance and disbelief. So many days that is my normal. I still say to Tikva, several times a week, silently or out loud,

Oh Baby Girl… you died. You died.

Then a voice within me will remember, will insist,

But you lived, too. I won’t ever forget that you lived. And for that, I am grateful.

It may have been a blink of an eye, like a daydream… but I wouldn’t trade it in for forgetting the loss of you. Not ever.

*****

I was terrified last year at this time to spend Thanksgiving with our family. I was terrified to be up close and personal with Tikva’s cousin, who was born during the weeks in between my daugther’s birth and her death. I was so scared of being face to face with the reminder that my baby wasn’t there, that he was here and she was not. The fear became something bigger than itself, and I almost spent Thanksgiving separate from my entire family.

But in the end I went. And I sat with this beautiful little boy on my lap, felt his newness, looked into his big brown eyes that reminded me of Tikva’s. And I saw his bright soul, felt his pureness. The ease of being with an uncomplicated soul that a baby is. Connected to him as his own self, not as a reminder of what I didn’t have. He had no idea that he had a cousin who died shortly after he was born. One day he will, and forever he will remind me of the age Tikva would be if only…

But in that moment he was just pure love. And I let myself take that in.

And I looked around at my family all over the house, watching football, taking one more bite of pie while talking and drinking coffee. And I felt so deeply grateful for every single one of them who had held me together before, during and since Tikva’s life. The loss of the months leading up to last Thanksgiving didn’t take away my gratitude for all that remained.

I felt I was still here because of them. Because of my husband and my incredible and brave older daughter, my Dahlia. Because of my sister and my father and my family and my friends – my community. Because of my city, my ocean, my park to walk in, my hawks flying above. My yoga classes to cry silently in. My work to go to for a day’s worth of distraction from my thoughts, and time to read a babylost blog when I needed to go in.

And because of this place I stumbled upon in the early months after Tikva’s death. Where I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t alone, and soon felt the uncomfortable mingling of that relief with the realization that the only way I could not feel alone here was for other parents to also have lost their babies. Where you just get it without my having to explain.

Thank you.

*****

I’m not much for holidays honoring consumerism and the massacre indigenous peoples. I’m not a huge fan of turkey and the gluttony that accompanies this holiday, especially when I know that many of us aren’t blessed to eat every day, much less such a feast. But I do get swept up – just a little – in taking pause for gratitude.

For me, gratitude after loss is different. It’s too simple to say that because of all I have lost, I appreciate what I have so much more. It has something to do with the impossible-to-shake-now-and-probably-forever recognition of just how fragile it all is… that all I really have, no matter how much time I get here, together with those I cherish, is this moment I am in. That understanding just doesn’t let go of me, and neither does the gratefulness I feel that seems to go hand in hand with it.

Because if all I have is this moment, then I better kiss my Dahlia one extra time today, better eat that last piece of dark chocolate waiting for me in the cookie jar, better call my dad to tell him I love him, better tell my husband one more time just how proud I am of him… and I better be kind and gentle with myself.

*****

Thank you, Tikva, for awakening me to the present moment more than anyone ever has. Because with you, I could do nothing greater than be completely present – unconditionally – for as long as we would get together.

And beyond.

.::.

How does gratitude feel to you now? Is it there? The same? Different? If you do feel it, what makes you feel grateful?

a great and noble life

I sit in the sanctuary. It is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year on the Jewish calendar. The year when even the least observant Jew can be seen in a synagogue.

I am not the least observant Jew… Not really possible with a husband who is studying to become a rabbi. Not really possible with the amount of Jewish tradition I was raised with. Not really possible with Polish grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Not really possible with the number of Jewish food calories I have consumed in 38 years.

And yet it is still somewhat a surprise to me that I am there, in this synagogue, following along with this kind of service. It is a traditional Reform Jewish service. The prayer book – Gates of Repentance, special for this day of atonement – talks of

God as Lord,

God as male,

God as judging,

God as forgiving.

I can’t quite bring myself to recite along during the call and response. I can’t bring myself to say, God, oh Lord… out loud.

This is not how I relate to God, to Source, to all that is around and within me. This is not how I connect to my divine essence. Not in this language.

My “God” is not separate from me.

My “God” is not in charge, deciding what I will receive and what will be taken away, when I will struggle and when I will overcome.

My “God” does not judge or punish me.

My “God” does not care whether I fast on Yom Kippur, or that my fast today included drinks of water and kombucha, that my day of atonement included a trip to Whole Foods and time sitting on my couch writing in my journal and reading a (non-Jewish) book.

Then I find this in the prayer book during the afternoon service: 

This is the vision of a great and noble life:

To endure ambiguity and to make light shine through it;

To stand fast in uncertainty;

To prove capable of unlimited love and hope.

And it resonates inside.

Hmm… A great and noble life as one that is lived as well as possible in spite of its precariousness, in spite of our fragility. Amid the fuzzy blurred boundaries that keep changing on us without warning, and rugs that are pulled out suddenly from underneath us.

I have proven capable of unlimited love and hope. Each day I surprise myself that I continue to feel it even more. In spite of the uncertainty that comes with knowing that things can completely fall apart and come crashing down again and again.

I never before thought of my ability to bounce back as being a quality of a great and noble life. I never before related to survival that way. Yet survival is what it is, isn’t it? Isn’t that what I’ve been doing? Surviving? 

Or perhaps I have actually… been… thriving…?

***

It is later in the afternoon and the yizkor memorial service has begun. The mood is quiet and solemn and the passage is about our finiteness, words about being on the road towards death from the moment we are born. (I close off some when I hear the words birth and death in the same sentence.) Again I start leafing through the prayer book, unsatisfied with the gloom and doom.

I find this: 

May the pains of past bereavements grow more gentle;

Indeed, let them be transformed into gratitude to our dear ones who have died

And tenderness to those who are still with us.

I was so lost at this time last year. I was so angry… at everything and everyone. I cried through the entire day at our warm and wonderful Renewal congregation in Berkeley, surrounded by friends who were there at every turn to hug me and sit with me or leave me alone outside if I needed that. I didn’t fast. I felt no obligation, no inspiration.

I felt no connection to this day, so soon after Tikva had died. All I could do was picture her spinning in circles in a white dress, dancing to the music, a year later. The two of us together in a parallel universe where she had continued to live.

All I could do was cry an endless stream of angry lost tears.

Now, a year later, the pain has grown more gentle. I think of Tikva with gratitude for the gifts of hope and love she gave me, for the compassion space she cracked open and expanded within me. For asking me to love her in a way I had never before known I could love, for teaching me that hope never completely goes away, even when everything feels lost

Or finite.

And I think of Dahlia, who daily stretches my capacity for patience, who demands my presence, my tenderness like no one else can, who reminds me to laugh in my most frustrated and exhausted moments, and I feel gratitude for both of my daughters, the deepest kind of gratitude for the way things are.

Just as they are. 

***

I surprise myself, that I can feel this lightness, especially today. On this day that for many is solemn and serious, reflective and laden with guilt needing to be cleared and asking for forgiveness. I surprise myself that I feel anything other than rebelliousness about Yom Kippur, this holy day I was determined to mostly blow off this year.

Then I woke up this morning and felt peaceful, held. By an energy that is comforting, serene, gentle. It didn’t matter that I was not spending the day with my community back in California, but instead in my house and at the grocery store and at services that felt mostly foreign.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t asked anyone’s forgiveness, nor made any big plans for ways I wanted to grow and expand in the coming year.

All that mattered was that when I stepped outside to watch four monarch butterflies and two fat bumblebees holding for dear life to the white flowers as the wind blew them furiously around, 

I felt connected… to all of it.

Connected to the wind, to the smells in the crisp fall air, to the bees and the butterflies, to the light streaming through their gold-orange wings…

Connected to Tikva. 

Connected to my essence, the most pure and true part of me.

Connected to a deep knowing inside me that I can and will continue believing in hope and love.

Perhaps the makings of a great and noble life are that simple.

.::.

And you? How do you connect with the part deep inside that is most entirely you? Is there something bigger that helps you feel connected? How have you stretched and expanded through losing your child? What makes you recoil, contract? What helps you to feel you are thriving? What are the makings of your great and noble life? 

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.