strong threads

I don't remember how I found her...clicked over from a comment at another blog, probably.  Her story was familiar - a son, stillborn, his absence huge and bewildering - and yet utterly specific...one particular little face missed, one particular family sorrowing, one particular struggle to resurface.  I was in a quiet place in my own grieving and surfacing, and the I hear you.  I feel you.  I'm so sorry that resonated in me never found a voice.  But I clicked back now and then, because her words moved me and her story felt like kin, her Callum an ephemeral brother to my Finn in this strange circle that binds us, the babylost.

Then she shocked me into speech.  Callum's anniversary, and a link to a series of baby slings by the company she started, then sold in the aftermath...slings that are being sold this month under the wry banner of Carry On My Wayward Son, with all proceeds donated to stillbirth research.  Carry on, indeed.  And oh, how I laughed, having howled that cockrock anthem beside moonlit bonfires, choking on smoke and the high notes - the perfect title.  But then I clicked through, and saw the label on the slings, and tears began to burn behind my eyes.

Because in early 2006, pregnant for the second time, still raw with grief and hospitalized on bedrest four hours from home, isolated and in despair at what felt like the hopeless cause of ever bringing home a live baby, it was her sling, made by her own hands, that happened to be the first baby item I ever dared purchase.  It was an act of defiance and an act of hope, clicking "buy now" there in that awful Craftmatic bed.  I lay still, eyes darting to the door, afraid that someone would catch me red-handed in the ridiculous, preposterous act of imagining myself with a happy ending.

I got my happy ending, that time.  The baby came safely, as did the sling.  It was the cocoon from which I introduced my son to the world during his early days...and since September, it's been doing the same for his sister.  It's made of strong stuff, well-sewn.  Of all the accoutrements of parenthood that have cluttered my house over the past few years, it's the one that I value most deeply, the one that testifies  to how tiny my babies were when they nestled almost invisible within it, the one that symbolizes my hard-won motherhood for me.  But realizing that C. sewed that sling - C. who did not get her happy ending with Callum - knocked the breath out of me and made me weep.  My heart sang out to her, You! You helped me heal! and I knew that she would understand.  And yet I would not wish anyone in a position to know how much that means.

Connection matters.  A year ago this weekend Kate and I first met face-to-face, and sat together and talked into the night of our sons and of Medusa-hood and of community and grief and love.  Glow in the Woods is the progeny of that night, thanks to Kate's tireless work and the contributions of everyone who writes here and visits here and comments here...it is, more than anything, a place for connections.  The threads that tie us within this circle of babyloss are messy threads, narratives of sorrow and brokenness, healing and resurfacing.  When the threads are all woven together, connected, our hope is that they make the circle a less lonely place to be...and make it easier to carry on.

What role have connections with other babylost parents - online or in person - played in your own coping and healing?  Have you had any random encounters or small-world experiences where your babylost identity and the rest of your life have collided, as I did with C?  Have you met many people who share your experience outside the ether of teh internets?

two solitudes

In that last hour, our hello and goodbye, it was Dave who cried.

I'd never really seen tears well up for him, before.  I haven't since.  Watching him cradle our son as those few salt drops slid onto Finn's blanket was one of the tenderest things I've witnessed, a benediction of fatherhood more fitting, for us, than the baptism we'd rejected.

I didn't cry.  I was too fresh from birth, too present, too amazed by this firstborn boy I hadn't known I'd always wanted, too busy trying to fit a lifetime into the minutes we had.  I sang to him, raw-voiced, petted his dark hair, gazed in wonderment at his tidy, perfect ears, his finger gripping mine.  I told him he was wanted and loved.  I whispered and hushed and said, mama's here...it's okay, little one, don't be afraid.   I knew exactly what was happening, but in that moment - small mercies of shock - it was not happening to me.  It was happening to my child, and just to be present and with him was all the mothering I was ever going to get to do and all my mind could take in.  And so, somehow, I did not cry, me who weeps at car commercials and bristles with indignant tears when the least of my feelings is trod upon.

But later I filled buckets...tears of sorrow and of rage and hopelessness.  After his death was done happening to Finn, it happened to me a thousand times in replay, all the loss and brokenness that did not touch me in the moment crowding in tenfold.  The bright yellow walls of our kitchen, painted in the first days after we returned home, have my tears in their butter hue.  The backsplash of broken tile is a mosaic created of therapeutic sessions, me and a hammer and licensed destruction that kept me, I think, from the siren song of disappearance, of hurting myself.

Dave, though, did not cry again.  He held me, weathered me, all that long summer...and all these years since, in the moments where my bitterness and hurt and grief have burbled up to the surface and unleashed tears and wounded cries.  But this has not been how he has grieved.  His sorrow seems to have no questions, no self-pity.  He went back to work five days later, because he had to and I had already lost my job, and he came home lunchtimes in those early days...mostly, I think, to make sure I wasn't hanging from the rafters. And he answered a multitude of questions about how I was doing and he listened to a multitude of secret stories that came spilling out about others' losses long since unspoken and he came home at night and we sat on the deck and I tried desperately to think of something to say to him but came up silent because I had nothing to offer but lamentations...and sometimes he seemed like a stone that I could only break myself on.

I don't think anyone ever asked me how he was.

And yet even in the worst of it, I knew we were lucky...because there was trust between us, implicit and otherwise unscarred.  Because I knew he tried hard not to judge me for how I grieved, no matter how ugly and exposed our differences made me feel.  Because I knew and did not doubt that he, too, loved our son and missed him and thought of him...even if we weren't able to find ways of speaking that aloud to each other.

But we were still two solitudes, living separate lives for a very long time, hurting - and in ways hurting each other - even while trying to comfort and build.

There is a terrible intimacy in having to share grief with someone.  Even if you both feel it deeply, you almost inevitably will not experience it all in the same ways and at the same time.  And I wonder if there isn't something about grieving that makes some small part of all of us a little like a cat who crawls off to find a corner alone to die in.  The urge for solitude, sanctuary to lick our wounds in in some form or other, seems to be almost a categorical imperative...no matter how we may share ourselves on the internet and even long for commiseration...the reality of mourning in tandem is almost always messy.  Grief exposes too much of us, makes the intimacy of eyes searching ours overwhelming.

Dave and I have come out the other side, three years later.  I can hold his gaze now and look back without flinching, without hiding, without seeing pain there or pain reflected.   There are no other eyes in the world that have shared with me what his have, and we are both healed enough now, in our own separate ways, that the bond doesn't rub raw but honours, commemorates, cements us.  I am grateful for his having been there all along, for not having had to find my way alone.  And yet I know, if I am honest, that we were alone, in the core of ourselves, stumbling along harnessed together by good faith and nothing else for much of that time.  And I catch my breath and think, damn, no wonder divorce rates are so high in the aftermath of loss like this.  And I fear to look deeper than that, because I do not want to feast my eyes upon the scars any longer.

Perspectives: How to be there for your friend

Lest it appear that I am bragging, let me fess up—I am sort of bragging. I have some incredibly supportive friends. We've been through thick and thin together, many times and in many ways. When A died, we couldn't imagine not having them by our side, and for the most part, most of them have not disappointed. But even among the very good ones, some stand out in this meta-way that maybe only a true geek can appreciate. These friends not only do what is right, but they are the ones who can articulate why they do these things in this particular way. They are the ones, in short, with whom you can have practical conversations about needing that damned drink already and philosophical conversations about your experiences, the asshats around, about why they are such asshats, and about what it is about the asshats that gets you so much. My friend Aite is one of these very very good friends.

Our little forest campfire hadn't even been going for a week when we got an email from a friend of a very newly bereaved mom. What can I do, she asked? What is there to do? A flurry of emails later, Kate put together the compilation of our thoughts and suggestions. Interestingly, that was also right around the time I had my little rant about the me-me-me type of "friends."

That was when Aite told me those two things have prompted her to formulate her own thoughts on being there for the friends in grief. Which, given the kind of friend she has been and continues to be to me, made me think that her perspective might be at least as valuable as ours to other good friends out there, friends who want to do what's right but are not sure how.

And so, without further ado, I am proud to present to you my friend Aite and her thoughts on being there. She is around and reading comments. She is kind of shy, but she promised to jump into the conversation in the comments if warranted.

***

Aite writes:

One time someone I know asked on her blog what to do when a tragedy befalls a friend. The post made it sound abstract, and most commenter didn't know it was precipitated by a stillbirth among our rather large group of friends and acquaintances. One commenter (who recently lost a close relative) reminded the blog's author of an experiment when two groups of people were told to keep their hands in very cold water—it's harmless, but it hurts. Both groups were to report the intensity of their pain on the same scale.  People in the first group went through the experiment alone while those in the second had one other person in the room. This additional person did absolutely nothing, not even making an eye contact with the participant of the experiment.  It turned out that people in the second group reported less acute pain. Clearly, the matters aren't that simple with grief, but my own comment built on the "presence in the room" analogy.  Here it is:

This topic cannot be discussed in the abstract. Let me talk specifically about grief arising from irrevocable loss. In such a case, saying things like "Everything will be all right" are out of question, by definition. The comment about the experiment suggests that you should simply be present for your bereaved friend. Using this analogy, before you can do anything else, you must enter her room. It helps me to remind myself that it's not about me. That thought helps to spend less time hesitating at the door before possibly deciding that it must surely be too late to enter now—no one expects you there anymore.

What are you going to say? Where were you before? Won't you somehow make it worse? What if you end up looking stupid? The point is that none of that matters very much because you, a friend, are by far not the most central figure in this situation, and the particulars of your actions matter infinitely less than the fact that there is nothing to fix. What's wrong can't be fixed. This is the essence of grief. Do not try to fix the irreparable, and you won't say anything stupid and inappropriate that could hurt your bereaved loved one.  Her grief will not get worse if she voices her pain. It's always with her. By and by she is learning to live with it, and it may take up a slightly different place in her life, but this process never ends and it's pointless to wait for its successful completion. And if she feels better right at this moment, it doesn't mean she is now better for good, and if she feels worse, do not be frightened, the rough patch will not last forever either.

Bereaved people often mistakenly believe that those around them forgot about their tragedy, or perhaps never cared in the first place. Those around the grieving ones, in turn, mistakenly think (even more often) that people who suffered a loss above all else want to be left alone.  True, some of them do, but that happens orders of magnitude less often than we tend to believe.

You have to realize that things will never be the same for you either whether you try to be there for your babylost friend or hide under a rock. If you bail out, it will cost you at least one relationship, and likely a good measure of self-respect. It's not that a babylost mother is necessarily keeping a score on who's been a good friend (although she is certainly entitled to).  It's just that you can't count on preserving your friendship if you can't deal with her grief.  Staying by your friend's side though babyloss is challenging and scary in part because it will inevitably change you as well. It may challenge your beliefs, your worldview, the way you look at people, they way you think, feel and behave in many instances. It will give you knowledge in areas of life where ignorance is certainly bliss. But it will allow you to continue and possibly deepen a valued friendship, to not be ashamed of yourself later on, and, well, to be of some support to your friend.

I think of my bereaved friend as the same person I've known all along, now in pain and grieving. This way, our history together can serve as the starting point for how we relate to each other after her loss. It's good if you can draw on things which always provided you with your strongest connections. (If you bonded primarily over happy carefree pregnancies—tough. You'll have to think of something else.)  You'll know best what you can offer to your friend, but realize that some of the offerings will have to wait for a bit.  Early on, concentrate on keeping up communication. The more you communicate, the less you'll need to think how to do it.  It's your responsibility to keep your conversation from being awkward and uncomfortable, so don't expect your friend to be articulate or take the lead. It doesn't mean she won't. But it does mean you need to abstain from placing any expectations on her and your conversations. Don't insist on her telling you what she needs right now. She may or may not know or concern herself with that at this point. If you stay connected, she will let you know in due time. Get in touch with her often, ask if it's a good time to talk, and take cues from her on how long she wants to talk. If you don't know where to start, ask her about something you two discussed in your previous conversation.  Express your concern about other members of her family. If there was an initial outpouring of sympathy, do not be swept away as the tidal wave recedes. Stay on.

You have to learn to put your babylost friend first in your relationship. On the other hand, you are responsible for keeping yourself on a firm ground. Hopefully you find other people who can prop you up. It goes without saying that you must have your grieving friend's consent to discuss her situation with them, if you feel that's what you need. But it's good to have someone to whom you can answer the question of how your babylost friend is doing in some truthful detail. I've been lucky in that my husband lent a steady, unflinching compassionate ear. I can mention to him still baby's pictures, cemetery issues, autopsy details, fears and grief without feeling like a pariah of the polite society. If you have midwives or doulas among your friends, they could be of good support to you because they often find themselves supporting babylost families as well. Stay away from people who are likely to suggest that you are enabling something unhealthy by being there for your friend, that you are reminding her of her grief and not letting her be all better already. Such attitudes are likely to make you angry and frustrated.  Depending on your personality, you may try to take them on, but I prefer to avoid them.

Early on you are likely to have a lot of conversation that start with, "Oh, have you heard what happened to the X family?" When you answer yes and that you are in regular contact with the bereaved family, many acquaintances will share that they are thinking about it, but aren't sure what to do. Communicate babylost parents' preferences. Many people assume that it's somehow indecent to contact the family, especially if they haven't been in touch for a while—that it betrays inappropriate morbid interest or something of the sort. I ask such acquaintance if she would have contacted the family have the baby been born alive and healthy. The answer is usually yes. Then what's the reason not to send condolences?

Some mutual acquaintances will ask if they can do anything to help. Again, communicate the family's preferences with respect to memorial services and charities of their choice. There may not be anything the acquaintance can do for the babylost family, but depending on your relationship with the person who's asking, you might get some logistical support. If you have small children of your own, ask people to look after them for a few hours so that you can spend time with your bereaved friends. This is very concrete, emotionally uncomplicated and highly valuable help.  In some circumstances, you may need rides or help with shopping and cooking.

As weeks and months pass, people will ask you how babylost parents are doing. What and how you answer is important. I usually say something along these lines: "Some days are better and some are worse. They find certain situations especially tough, and sometimes those aren't the most obvious things and present themselves unexpectedly."  I typically qualify this with "naturally" and "of course" in a few places. Here is why I think this works. It's important for people to understand that babylost parents aren't "over it" and "all better". It's equally important to make it clear that they aren't some kind of extraordinarily sad exception because they aren't. That you in no way expect them to be. That you don't suppose the person who's asking to expect such a thing. You may hear, "But I saw them as such-and-such social function and they seemed just fine," refer to what I said above about being momentarily better or worse.

I believe there is one more reason to make whatever effort it takes to be there for your bereaved friend. This reason, this goal is at the same time the most abstract and the most practical, the most ambitious and most naturally served by your effort. Our social circles are large. Bad things happen to people. It is important for us to learn decent, appropriate ways to respond to someone's crisis, both personally and on the level of our widest social circle. The courage to respond appropriately comes from experience. Contrary to the common exasperated cry of how hard, maybe impossible, it is to know what to do, the model is very, very simple:  remember that grief belongs to the mourner, come to her side, take cues from her, abide by her wishes, respect the finality of her loss. Do not expect everything to be all right again, ever. Do not leave. By taking these simple steps you challenge, and maybe even shift, conventional wisdom (or, shall we say, stupidity?) that it's oh so hard to know how to respond. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we personally aren't in a good position to help in a particular crisis. Stepping up when we can, we can help ensure that no one we know is left all by herself with her grief in her room.

grade me not

So once, when some (!!) people said and acted really insensitive and stupid to me, I cried. Not right in-front of them. I was hypocritical, weak, and dumb. So I acted like it was ok but once home I burst into tears. And so poor R had to comfort me and he told me, "In times like this, you really get to see the true mettle of people. You know what they are really made of."

Whoa. That made me tilt my chin up. Huh! Now I have been placed in a position where I can judge and evaluate people, woo-hoo! So, based on what they said or did not say; did or did not do, I get to grade them, yes?? I get to tick off what they are made of. Heck, if they appear in-front of me wearing a shirt the wrong hue or a pair of sandals I just hate, I can give them a thumbs-down and put them on a black list with skull-bones and hissing snakes as border. Wow. It's like getting a new toy.

Except, very soon, a small little voice in me asked, "So you think you can judge them because your baby died?" I have flashbacks of soap operas or movie scenes wherein one accused the other, "Don't think you can judge me just because you are blond/taller/bigger/fair-skinned/older/skinnier/younger/drive a fancy car/have a PhD, etc!!!" There was not one that said, "Don't think that you have a right to judge me because your baby died!"

No, I have no right. Sure, there are dumb ones, clueless ones, obnoxious ones, whatever ones, but I am sure at one point or other in my life I was also dumb/clueless/irritating/annoying/obnoxious/crappy, etc.

So, I was deflated. Chin down to chest. I slumped back down into my little corner to ponder life after a loss.

BUT. I was not left alone.

There are people who think they can judge me because my baby died. Grade me even. You know, how well, or how awful I am coping? How slow I am getting out of my grief. How bad I am mothering my two living daughters. How I could have done more. How the house could have been neater, since I do not have three, but only two kids to handle. How I must be in self-denial. How I am ruining my children's lives. How I should be over it already, and quick! have another new baby! How I think too much. How I am thinking the wrong way. How I am blah-blah-blah or how I am not blah-blah-blah. I am either too blah-blah or not blah-blah enough.

I don't need all these evaluations, judgments, or advice. Unless I ask. And sometimes, I do like to know, like if I totally am beyond salvation; if I should just go jump off a cliff already, or if i have a halo above my head. If the cake I baked is out-of-this-world or awful-inedible. If I really should get some hot-pink lacy underwear, or if my face resembles a prune by now. But, often I get unasked for judgments and evaluations, and even more harassments, without my asking. I just need to stand there and whoosh--- watch out! there they come.

Why? Is it just an expression of the overwhelming need to be of help? And thus, they have to give an opinion of how I am doing? Is it an art of conversation? To tell the other where they are on a certain scale? (Good/not bad/ failure/ try again)

How do they know? What makes them the expert? What makes them think that they know? But really, if they wanna help... come and clean my house. Come and cook my meals and do the dishes and scrub out the kitchen grout. Buy me a good supply of expensive chocolates and/or truffles (dark ones ONLY, please). But really, if you cannot bring me back my baby, just sit there. Just hold my space.

Sigh. I just want to be a human being. That means, I am not static, even though it may look that way. But bear in mind that you are not in my skin, and looks are deceiving. Being means to be, and that -ing part means ongoing. To me it means constant change of the state of what one is. From one second to the next; from one breath to the next. Even if I choose to remain in a state for a longer period, it is my decision. It is my journey to walk. (If you tell me everything happens for a reason, then maybe there is also a reason why I need to freakin' dwell.) The best you can do is walk alongside with your mouth shut, unless I am stepping right off the cliff; or a bear is breathing down my neck already or you can run and get me water when I run out; or keep watch for me when I need to sleep. And you know what, journeys are not necessarily made in a straight line. Not every journey is a straight line between destination A and B. Sometimes it is a circular path that needs to fold over and revisit some places. I sometimes think it is a spiral, always coming back to some same points, but passing with a distance, and it is never static. Although sometimes I do need to sit down. Or lay across the road. (If you come across me like that, step over. Please do not try to evaluate if I am dead or alive.)

But please, let me be. Just like I have no right to judge you because I lost my baby; you have no right to judge me because you have not lost a baby. Especially if you do not get it. Don't tell me what to do.

I know, the line between being concerned and being intrusive is very fine. Sometimes it takes intrusion, a gentle one, to express concern. It truly is not easy being a friend to one who walks the grieving/healing path. So I thank all those who have done so and for being so patient and wonderful. And those who have stuck around despite my sour face the last months? Precious.

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What about you? Do you feel judged and evaluated? Do you feel concern is sometimes intrusive? What are the best ways someone can express concern without making you feel evaluated or judged?

The Rule of Thirds

“Keep in mind the rule of thirds:  one-third of your friends will be supportive of your need to mourn, one-third will make you feel worse, and one-third will neither help nor hinder."

--From Alan D. Wolfelt, Healing A Parent’s Grieving Heart:  100 Practical Ideas After Your Child Dies

A good friend who lost her husband very suddenly to a brain tumor in ’04 sent me this book last year after Maddy died.  She liked the “Spouse” version, and being cut of a similar cynical edgy sports-lovin’ foul-mouthed cloth as I, thought I might appreciate Child version.  I did, it’s the griefbook I appreciated most, and still find myself picking it up a year later.  One thing I really like about this book is that every page is a topic with a few bullet points, so you can open it randomly and discover something, and if something sits wrong on a particular day you can just flip to the next page and see if that feels better.  (Or put it down, and pick it up months later.  I find it to be rather timeless that way.)  No need to sit and feel like you need a few hours to go through something linear.  I also like that, for-all-intents-and-purposes, it’s genderless and can be applied equally to a husband or wife -- and let’s face it, very little out there on this subject can be.

I'm sure I read this particular passage long ago, during the first pass, but wish it had stuck.  It did not.  And so I am constantly amazed at those thirds who fall at the ends of the spectrum, the ones who surprise me with their understanding and kindness, and the ones who floor me with their inability to show even a modicum of compassion.  The other surprise for me was that this “third rule” included family.

Let’s start with the innocuous middle third.  There will always be those who will treat your life-altering experience as a vacation:  you were gone for a while, you came back, maybe shared some pictures and stories, people mingled around the water cooler for a few days to follow up, and then it got dropped and life moved on.  At some times I’m a bit taken aback at what appears to be complete ignorance (“Did I tell you?  You do know that my kid died, right?”) and yet 30 seconds later am so fucking relieved to be deeply involved in a conversation about how maybe I should pay attention to the  Penguins in the playoffs this year.  Aback that they wouldn’t say anything, relieved that they said nothing, all the while rather pleased that they don’t view me as some bad jinxy hex that needs avoided altogether (although I may be missing some crucifix and garlic waving when I turn to leave).  And frankly I’m at the point where I’m rather pleased that I can go places and talk to people WHO KNOW about things like books and dogs and whether the Steelers did right in the draft (another quarterback?  really?).

I’m constantly surprised by the bookends.  I’m blessed to have some very good friends and family in my life that I knew would be supportive, and they are, but I’m always so impressed by how much.  These are people who have such grace, they make it seem so effortless to say the right thing at exactly the right time.   I end up thanking them, they are just so meaningful and classy, and they look at me as though I’m thanking them for breathing or combing their hair – they simply can’t understand what it is they’re doing that warrants praise when it is simply how they are.  And I realize:  I probably wouldn’t be one of these people if I were on the other side of this mess.  I’d be tongue-tied, never knowing what to say, not horribly sure of my own emotional sanity, and probably wind up in the innocuous middle chatting about the NFL draft.  

But I know I give thanks, and am so surprised by the outpouring of kindness, because of the other end of the spectrum where people shock me with their unsympathetic cruelty.  I don’t think in a million years I would’ve thought that someone could turn my baby dying against me, but indeed, some have.  If someone had told me the day after Maddy died that friends and (gasp) family would not just behave awkwardly around us but actually treat us poorly I would’ve scoffed.  No way.  People are not that stupid and cruel, are they?  (are they?)

Um, yes, gentle reader, they are.  It really began in earnest around six months after.  And suddenly  people began leaving signs in fluorescent paint:  enough.  Stop.  You’re wallowing.  Party poopers.  Isn’t it time to move on?  How dare you suck the life out of someone else’s joyful event.  Don’t want to call me?  Well, two can play at the game.  Apparently six months is about the time when the people of little patience move into that end of the spectrum, and begin a not-too-subtle dance of pushing you, hurrying you, belittling you, ignoring you.  I think it dawns on others, if you’ve ignored them for this long for other reasons (say, they have children that would’ve been the age of your deadone and they haven’t been horribly involved anyway, staying in the middle third for so long), that you’re avoiding them.  No, you’re angry at them.  They develop a complete psychosis about how you must feel about them, without them asking you.  And if you’re unlucky, someday they’ll dump it on you – like one of my neighbors did.

Perhaps most surprising and upsetting to me was that family fell into this category of the “make you feel worse” third.  I should add a disclaimer here that I do have a couple family members – one who I assumed would handle the situation poorly given past experience, and another who had a baby shortly after who we ceased contact with – who have flabbergasted me with their solid appearance in the front end of the spectrum.  They are patient, articulate, compassionate, and the latter even defends us against the detractors despite the fact that we haven’t seen them much since the birth of their son.   But to think your own flesh and blood would grow tired of your grief -- tire of hearing of their relative!  Maddy!  Don’t you miss her too? --  impatiently try and hustle you along through the alleged grief steps (“They must be in that anger phase”), wonder if you’d ever snap out of it.   And then do things like fail to show up at a memorial service for your daughter after promising they’d be there, refuse to answer your calls (even on holidays) after telling them they were disappointed, and as Julia so eloquently put it a few days ago:  refuse to check their shit at the door.  It’s not about them, none of this.

I’m torn; while I’m relieved to look around the blogverse and realize other people’s families let them down too and we’re not the only dysfunction to arise from the ashes of a deadbaby, I’m also saddened that it seems to be such a pattern.  There’s a dissertation to be written here, about the pressures such tragedies put on extended families and how they deal with them long term.   Are they more invested in our happiness than our friends, neighbors and coworkers?  Or does the law of averages simply say that a third of the people you run with, no matter their relation to you, will fall over there, off the edge into a pit of selfishness and denial and ignorance?

But when they get me down, I flip over and revel in the wonderful part of the spectrum again, and wonder why it is that everyone isn’t wired like that.  I would like to think behaving that way is human.  It’s clearly not.

To the core

You know what annoys me, like, a lot? People around us who manage, effortlessly it seems, to make their interactions with us in our grief, yes, say it with me... all about them. People who make a production, often somewhat publicly, out of agonizing over whether to call their grieving friends, and of what to say. The sort of backdoor self-compliment highlighted on last night's 30 Rock-- "It's hard for me to watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch,"-- the "It's  hard for me to talk to grieving people because of how sensitive and considerate I am" sort of thing.

Luckily, we didn't get many of these directed at us. This past winter, though, I got to witness a public (in as far as an open post on the wilds of the internets is public) display of woe-is-me-I-want-to-be-the-bestest-friend-ever-but-
-it's-so-hard-how-do-I-make-everything-better bit. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was so distasteful to me in that piece of writing and the follow up comments from the author, but then I got it-- it was all about her, about her desire to fix things so she can be seen as the savior, the one who did the right thing, the rightest thing.

Now, I get that humans are self-centered animals, and I am certainly not blameless on that front myself. But dude,  if there is one area, one effing area of human interaction where it behooves you to check your shit at the door, this might be it. Don't you think? I get, too, that doing something, anything, makes people feel less powerless in the face of the big bad random universe. But see above re: checking shit. Because making yourself feel better at the expense of the person already in pain is.. how do I say it... oh, yes-- a pretty shitty thing to do.

This concludes the rant portion of today's post, and brings us to the part where I contemplate, much more calmly, I hope, thoughts this brought up.  

In that post, a few commenters tried, very gently, to tell the author that in grief there is no fixing things, that basically all you can do is be there for your friend, but she wasn't listening. But, but, but was all she had to answer. Finally, Aite, a good friend I've mentioned before, basically gave it to her straight-- it's not about you. Entering the grieving person's space should not be about worrying about how you will look doing the entering. You can't fix anything. Grief is what happens when there is nothing to do. Don't try to fix it, and you won't look dumb. You can't "remind" someone of their grief-- they remember all the time. Whether they want you to bring it up or wait for them to do so is individual, and you should follow your friend's lead in that, but assuming that people forget and you can remind them is pure wishful thinking.

My friend is mighty skilled in this art of abiding, being there for your friend, selflessly, at whatever distance and with whatever in hand your friend needs. I hope, too, that what we are doing here, in this space, is also very much abiding. Talking, listening, not trying to fix the unfixable. Now, if only laptops could dispense booze too... I'd send you all a drink or five.

So who is this grieving person now? If you are the one doing the abiding, who do you assume is in front of you? Is the grieving person changed, forever altered by the grief? Or is this the same person you have known all this time, only in pain and grieving? Are we changed or are we, at the core, the same?

My first impulse was to say that of course we have changed.  A deadbaby blogger who has since gone private was told by one of her friends to not let this change her. What a shitty thing to say, was my immediate response. Would you tell that to a mom who has birthed a living baby? Hell, no. It's a foundational value of our society that parenthood changes people. In the classical mythology of the media and entertainment as well as the assumed playground wisdom, there are things only a parent can understand. Condescending? Of course. But also pervasive and commonly accepted. So why would people not allow it as the same level of truth that having a dead baby should change you? Change you as profoundly and as deeply as having a live one is assumed to change you? And also, don't we all change just by living? Would you want to still be your high school self?

But isn't it also true that we are the same basic people, only now with extra crunchy shitty experiences included? Extra sad.  With extra tender feelings. Extra sensitive to things people say without thinking. Maybe even wiser and more compassionate. But with the same chewy center?  

What defines us as people? Are we changed abruptly, or are we in the process of integrating our grief into the fabric of our selves? Are we defined by grief, or are we living towards defining our grief as a part of our selves? Are we changed, or are we ever-changing?