Nine Days

The two of them met for a brief moment. One of them was alive, nine days old, seven pounds, four ounces, and still under the lethargic haze of infancy. One of them was dead, four hours old, seven pounds, twelve ounces, and still warm from the womb, from the closeness of working organs and a rapid heartbeat. The dead one was lifted in front of the live one, a surreal sight if there ever was such a thing. She was going to be your best friend, the mother whispered. It was hello and goodbye in the same minute.

They were meant for each other, our two girls, Lyla and Margot, born nine days apart to best friends who live on the same street.


Long before children were on the immediate radar, the four of us dreamed of a scenario where our kids grew up together, close in age and close in proximity. We imagined our babies crawling around together, our toddlers fighting over toys, our pre-schoolers trading sentences. It's only natural, of course, for two couples to wish the sort of closeness between their kids as they share themselves.

The mothers navigated the frightening waters of middle school together, and then high school and then University. The fathers own a business together. We have backpacked through three continents, riding crammed busses and jumping off bridges and sleeping in cars along the interstate. And somehow, despite living in different parts of the world for the better part of six years, our friendship remained steadfast.

And then one day they decided to move across the country, straight into our neighborhood. Then they fell pregnant. It was July when they told us, on a blisteringly hot afternoon.

Almost incredulously, ironically, we conceived Margot on the same blistering day we found out they were pregnant with Lyla. One tiny miracle created out of knowledge of the other. The women who became fast friends at the age of twelve, who have known each other for nearly two decades, were just five weeks apart. The stars were aligning.

In those early weeks, those early months after Margot died, it was hard to even imagine what we needed from our family and friends. It was shock and awe, the inability to focus, night time meltdowns, a mountain of anguish. Friends and family came and went, supporting and helping and listening in any way they can. But mostly we just tried to survive each day, one long minute at a time.

And then, suddenly, without notice, it felt like we were all alone in our grief, as if the veil of sadness had been lifted for all but us. It’s all fine and understandable, but the longing for wholeness became a desperation, to be able to share with someone our whole selves, both the anguish and the joy, however unbalanced these emotions were in our early grief. I found myself fracturing, turning into a splintered version of myself. I would smile and nod and deflect questions and give the world a sad, but more or less coping, version of myself. I longed to be my whole self, with more than just my partner. If we couldn’t share the aching burden of our missing child with friends, how on earth could we share any joy we found out of life?

But there is Brooke, mother to Lyla, friend since middle school, standing with us, kneeling with us, walking with us, crying with us, never afraid of our grief, never afraid to talk about Margot. She asks questions and then asks more questions, always wanting to share in our pain as deeply as she can. When a group of us are at a party, with babies everywhere, it is Brooke who talks about missing Margot, it is Brooke who asks what it feels like. Whenever I post a new vulnerable blog about our grief, it is Brooke who talks about it. She has abided with us, without a timeline, without expectations. And what is most astonishing, is that she has done all of this while in the midst of mothering a child for the first time. If there have been sleepless nights or breastfeeding issues or colds or exhaustion or hard days or figuring out the right bottle or any of those new parent realities, we never hear about them. And the love, the sheer perfect love of a child, that normally oozes out of a new parent, has been miraculously toned down around us. Her abiding grace, under such difficult circumstances, is perhaps the most selfless act I have encountered in my lifetime.


Nearly ten months have passed since our babies passed by one another. For a long time, it was hard to even look at Lyla, the most physical reminder of my Margot. The smiling, the giggles, the sitting up, the pure baby charm. Each little milestone was so acutely felt. But somehow through the months of abiding with Brooke and her husband, through the inevitable time that has passed, I can smile at Lyla now, hold her hand, watch her laugh. I can ask about her. She has become integrated into my pain, fused with it. She is part of the missing and she is part of the remembering.  But it is not too bitter. It is sweet. And somedays I wonder, when the rest of the world has forgotten my darling girl, when only her mother and I really miss her, will Lyla be like a marker in time, a beautiful reminder of our little girl, gone for so long?

Were there any children born around you when your child died? How does it feel to watch them grow up? How has your relationship with the parents changed? Are you able to be around the child, or is it too painful? Has this changed with time?

Un-seasonal

It was sunny and warm here the last couple of days, and is supposed to be again come weekend. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain cats and dogs. And a week and a half ago we had snow. It was wet and clumpy, and there was enough of it to break things. Not near us, but close enough to affect friends. And it wasn't even the first snowfall of the season. That's how crazy the season has been. As I drive around, the trees are in a spectacular rich fall palette-- whole streets under canopies of gold, houses framed in the very colors of fall. There's a tree that glows red in the fall on one corner of my drive to Monkey's school. Every year that tree catches me off guard. Every year I keep meaning to come back with the camera.

It's warm, for now. It's gorgeous, really. But when I step outside I can't quite believe it. It's like the snowstorm tripped the binary switch somewhere in me, and now I know it's coming.  My season of (more) longing and (more) missing and (more) sadness. You know what else? Even without the snowstorm, how could I escape-- there's a frigging Santa figure, like nearly life-sized, parked in the isle of my local pharmacy.

I remember so vividly that four years ago, in my first fall of bereavement, the first snowflakes made me want to holler. They fell, tiny and fragile, melting almost on contact. The snow was here again, the planet being nearly through its yearly orbit. What I saw, or heard, or maybe felt in the first snow of that season was that time passes only for the living. That simple, cold truth got me that day. I am feeling nudged by it again. On the mornings when I have to defrost my windshield before I can start driving and on the mornings when I wear hiking sandals. It may be warm out, but I know it's temporary.

With the holidays (and snow) encroaching, I wanted to do this thing we haven't done in a while-- ask you how things are for you. So pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable, or as comfortable as it gets these days. Grab a mug of tea or a glass of wine and tell us: How are you?  

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.

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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.

Pull up a chair

It's cold and rainy 60 degrees here. So far today I've had a big mug of homemade latte (long live my foam-making gadget) and two medium mugs of hot tea. I am planning to have at least one more of those.

I don't know whether it's because it's a rainy day, or because a fellow medusa and her family are staying with us for a couple of days, or because I'd nursed a general unease for half the day today before locating its source in it being a date of significance, the first of the "five years since..." ones, but whatever it is, I am suddenly feeling that it's been way too long since last we asked how you are doing.

So grab a mug of steaming with whatever you are in the mood for. Or, if you prefer, pretend it's actually nice and sunny outside and we are sitting in a sidewalk cafe, and umbrellas above us are reflecting in our drinks.

(Though if your drink is really reflecting an umbrella above you, I am jealous and I am not sure I want to know.)

Whichever way you go on the drink, though, do stay a bit and tell us how you are. What's been going on? What is on your mind? Let's talk.

Hug Thyself

The other day in the car my preset was broadcasting a program which I sometimes find interesting, but this week according to the  host was about "loving yourself."  And woah, for me that screams touchy feely and sounds as enticing as root canal.  So I found some angry music to hum to instead, but on the way home grew weary of heavy bass lines and forgot about the lurve fest and clicked back through just as the host was asking the guest to explain the difference between self-pity and self-compassion.  She paused, had to figure out which definition to chew through first, landed on self-compassion, and finally blurted out something to the effect of:

Look, everyone hurts.  Everyone experiences hurt.  Everyone suffers.

(I'm paraphrasing pretty heavily, but some of these catch phrases are not mine.)

The words flitted out while my fingers twitched on the dial.  Self compassion respects a common humanity, and the idea that life is difficult for everyone . . .  It's not self-focused, it assumes we're interconnected. . .  Suffering is part of the human experience, this IS normal, everyone experiences suffering.

Ultimately this should feel better than self pity because it means we're not alone.

Huh.

I don't toe that line very often anymore, the pity party one, with the self-absorbed balloons and memememe cupcakes (hey, I'll cry if I want to), but if I get close it usually doesn't take much to pull me back far away from the line with a sharp slap to the face.

It's all but impossible to stay wrapped in my bitter cocoon during a week like this, with a disaster of one sort, followed quickly by one of another, followed immediately by yet a third uncontemplated -- all upon one population.  It makes me realize how lowly and small my place is, and how contained my problems.  The losses there are so massive as to be unbelievable, unfathomable.  How the earth could move and then the sea could rise and make so many disappear within minutes is the stuff of fiction and space ships, not here, not on earth, where we watch television and twitter and eat chocolate and drive to the grocery store listening to the radio chatter about giving yourself hugs.

Sometimes it's hard to watch this hurt, to listen to people talk about how within minutes life changed forever.  I realize I told a similar story once, but now I feel nothing but sympathy:  that control I thought I lost?  I had both hands on the wheel compared to this, not to mention afterwards I got to retreat to my nice warm home while they're talking from a tent without water or food or family.  With the threat of nuclear meltdown to boot.  I wonder if what I felt was really pain at all.

When I hear of a new babyloss blog I try and find the time to go and leave a comment, and 99 times out of 100 I say, "You're not alone."  It's not much, but I hope the message conveys.  I remember feeling so bereft, so completely alone, as if I was the only person living on earth to ever undergo the freakiest of freakshows that ever freaked.  But here this lady is saying what I now know to be true:  not freaky at all, not remotely.  If Japan had a blog, this week I'd say, "You're not alone."  None of us are.  I just hope they hear me and know how sincerely I mean it.

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Writers use simile, it's a fact of life like taxes and death.  And when writers are trying to describe something that's happened to them, but not to many others -- like say, the death of an infant -- that hurt like a motherfucker and changed their universe in the blink of an eye, they grasp at any metaphor, any simile, any analogy to try and explain their pain.  I know I'm guilty, I've compared Maddy dying to a car wreck, I've discussed being stabbed in the heart, I've described the earth shifting under my feet, I'm sure I've even spoken of feeling flooded or even waves.  Tidal waves.

And this week I feel like an idiot because it's abundantly clear just looking at the headlines that I know nothing of feeling the earth move or the rush of a wave as high as a building crashing over my head.

Perhaps I shouldn't make comparisons to things I don't know about; losing Maddy was like hell I write, but I know nothing of that other than what I picked up in Inferno. (Although, if it does exist, I am headed there.  And will let you know as soon as I adjust to the lighting.  Call me!)  Am I doing a disservice to excrement saying I felt like shit?  I do know that I will pause before I speak of the auto accidents and volcanic ash and post traumatic stress disorder because maybe . . .  maybe it wasn't like that at all.  

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The other thing the guest lady on this radio program said before I moved on down the dial for something more uptempo was that in order to even begin to understand something like what happened in Japan, you need to be compassionate with yourself.  You need to acknowledge that it will hurt, that it's difficult to read about and adjust to, be kind to yourself as you abide with other's pain.  And I wondered, as I clicked away, about all the people who failed to even attempt to understand us:  who just moved on, and ignored it, and forgot it, and refused to talk about it.  The people who thought they were insulating themselves against our deadbaby juju by stepping a good ten feet away and using hand sanitizer.  The people who thought our lives were "too negative!" and they were doing them-positivity-selves a favor by not reaching out into the morass.  

But maybe this woman is right, and these people couldn't muster up enough kindness for themselves to open the door to someone else's hurt.  I'm not sure I have enough self-compassion to feel sorry for them, but it did make me think about them, even for just a few minutes.  I realized we aren't the pity parties, they are.  They're the self-absorbed ones, who blather on about wallowing and moving on.  We're not the one's who are alone, they are.  We're the normal, the ones with suffering, they're in denial.  The people who can sit and be with us and our pain?  Are truly good to themselves and understand compassion and its interconnectedness -- probably to such an extent that it's interwoven and unconscious.  I should probably strive to be one of these people.  I owe them so much.

It also means, if this radio chick is right, that by reaching out to others in our situation, by stepping outside of ourselves for even a few minutes online, that we've done this first step of being good to ourselves.    It's funny to think that I may actually be more gentle on myself after my baby died; here I gained a ton of weight I couldn't lose, and now swear uncontrollably and grew more cynical, and bleed bitter out of my eyeballs  . . . . but maybe I did.  Maybe we all did.  Our interconnectedness -- if this radio chick is right -- proves it.

Good for us.  /pats cyber self on back

Do you ever trip over the line into self-pity?  (It's ok, I'm sure I did.)  How do you pull yourself back?  Do you experience self-compassion -- that is, do you feel some connection with others in your suffering?  How about in their suffering? Are you good to yourself?  Or does the whole "be good to you!" conversation give you the heeby jeebies?