Make 'em laugh, Make 'em laugh...

My daughter had a tiny little coffin. It was small and white. It was also free. They don’t charge for baby coffins in England. How do you put a price on honouring the memory of your child? They don’t charge for baby funerals at all, unless you want something out-of-the-ordinary.

We wanted ordinary. We wanted the ordinary alive baby that other people took home. Instead we had an ordinary little coffin.

We discussed our wishes with the funeral director. She showed us a death catalogue: the caskets, the urns, the cars. She said ‘you can have any car you want, even a Limo.’ We turned away, our shoulders shaking. She left the room, respectful of our grief.

But we weren’t crying.

She offered us the limo and our eyes met. We knew we were thinking the same thing. We were thinking of driving up and down the main drag of our city hanging out the windows of the limo like kids on their way to prom; whooping it up with our little tiny corpse.

We laughed. Because what the fuck else would we do?

The day after we’d been to see Iris for the last time, I was gathering the hot, fresh laundry from our dryer. I held it in my arms and breathed deeply. David said ‘isn’t it nice, having something warm to hold?’ Loaded silence. Hysterical laughter.

We laughed. Because what the fuck else would we do?

We overheard our living daughter and her little friend. They were playing a crying game. They were sobbing huge, fake sobs. ‘Oh boo hoo. Oh boo hoo hoo. We are so sad. Boo hoo hoo hoo. We are so sad that baby Iris is dead. Boo hoo.’

We laughed.

A relative brought a gift for me. A lovely, well-meaning, slightly misguided gift. Iris scented soap-on-a-rope. Because who wouldn’t wash their armpits with sweet babylost memories?

We laughed.

A former colleague bemoaned the lack of sympathy extended to her when her cat had an operation: ‘when Jess’ baby died, everyone was so supportive, but no one seems to care as much about my cat.’ 

We laughed.

When I was pregnant with my son, we'd high-five after every sonogram: 'Woohoo! Let's give it up for an evident HEARTBEAT!'

We laughed

Today my husband had a bad day. A very bad day. He said 'well... no one died... No, wait, actually she did!'

We laughed.

We laughed.

We laughed.

Because what the fuck else would we do?

What makes you laugh now, following the loss of your baby or babies? Do you find humour in the darkest of places, or are some things Just Not Funny? 

the language of loss

A colleague of mine lost her son last month. His car went off the road on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and he passed away from his injuries.  Another friend lost her 8 year old niece recently in a similarly unexpected and tragic accident.  Their deep sadness echoes within me and I've spent many moments living in their skin when I think about their grief. Or maybe it's the other way around.  Maybe it's that suddenly I could see them wearing the same stretched skin and hollow eyes I know so well.

I hated seeing it on them and in them.

I never knew Silas as a grown boy or young adult.  I never knew him as anything more than the potential of everything we were about to become.  I felt his kicks and saw him grow behind the veil of Lu's bulging belly, but I never had him all to myself, not even for a moment.  My friend knew her niece, saw her grow and develop.  My colleague had 23 amazing years to share with her son.  All three of our experiences are terrible beyond words, and I'm certain none of us would like to trade with the other, for any reason at all, ever.

How do you qualify for being one of us here at Glow?  What are the parameters for Medusa-hood, for babylost?  Those people were their babies even though one was a man as well as a son and the other was not her offspring but still her child in so many ways.  Does a miscarriage at 10 weeks count?  How about a father of 80 who buries his son of 40?  Or by that time does the father already know that the Universe is far from fair and things like that just happen?

I went to Tommy's memorial and heard the amazing things his friends and family said about him.  As I absorbed the stories of this wonderful friend, brother, son, man, I wondered what people would have said about my son.  And then I wished I would never know because he would have died after me, after a long life together where I could nurture and cherish him and teach him to be a good person and a great friend like my father taught me.

The twisted layersof 'what-if' and 'what-should' and 'what-isn't' were nearly overwhelming. At the end of the memorial that was 400+ people strong, I gave my colleague a long, deep hug and told her how sorry I was that her son was gone.  I could barely even look at his younger brother, the loss and shock etched into his face was terrible and so all I could do was tell him to hang on and hold on to his parents and just hold each other up, any way they could.

A few weeks later when I saw my colleague again I gave her another huge hug, but I didn't ask her how she was doing.  I always hated that question in those first days and months and years after losing Silas.  I know it is just something people say because they have no idea what to say, but I still hated it so I didn't ask.  Instead I just told her how we have been thinking about her and her family and that I hoped they were holding up as best they could.  And then later that day we talked.  We talked about how some people we knew well were quick to pull away in our times of loss.  How people we never expected were able to stand right up next to us and hold on tight.  How getting up and taking a shower could be counted as an enormous accomplishment, to say nothing of getting back to work, back to the World, back to the everyday experience where our offspring were not.

I could look her in the eye and hold her in my heart and I was not at all afraid of what she had become or what she represented.  This wasn't some theoretical possibility in my life.  In some way that transcends Tommy's age or Silas's even briefer life I knew to the core of my marrow the filthy chaos and shocking confusion that gripped her tight despite her ability to stand there and talk about her son that was gone.  The pit that was hollowed out within me nearly three years ago is so deep and black and awful that her pain just slipped right in and swirled around comfortably.  I hoped that by standing there with her and using his name and letting her speak about her new awful life that I could lessen her burden minutely, if only for a moment, perhaps until the conversation ended, if that.

For so long, the despair I felt seemed larger than me, something I could never contain.  But somehow I've managed to grow and now it fits into my life without overwhelming me.  It doesn't seem less, not at all.  Instead I had to change the shape of my soul so that everything about losing Silas is in me and a part of me.  Speaking to my friend about her son Tom, I realized that I could stand with her and listen and absorb a bit of her grief because I know how to digest the truth of death.  That sick, awful feeling is to be expected, that it will not destroy me, and that hopefully this loss won't destroy her either.

I hoped that I could serve as a signpost along this path of sadness, that somehow by engaging people in their time of grief that I was doing right by Silas.  It is always better if he were here, but since he's not I have to find scraps of good and use them to the best of my ability.  I will never shy away from people when they are confronted with death because I know how important it was to me when people would talk to me and listen to me and help me to pretend that I was not losing my mind during my worst times.

I can talk to people when they are stricken because I know this language, all too well.  It is a terrible gift from Silas but if it helps one other person pull back from the brink I am more than happy to make use of this awful knowledge.  Even though it feels like we are each all alone with our absent child, the fact is it is all too common.  The death of a child, no matter how old, is always exceptionally shocking and wrenching.  It is something no parent should ever have to experience.  But as we know, 'should' doesn't count around here, just what is and what is not. 

Silas isn't here, and now Tom and my friend's niece are absent, too.  And so for those of us left here, devastated and alone, we have to help each other face each day and grow into people that can survive what we should have never had to endure.  We can only do it together because no one can withstand this alone.

Are you able to speak with people that have lost children or relatives?  Is it something you encounter often, sometimes, never?  Do you feel specially qualified to engage in these types of conversations, or do you prefer to keep your grief and experience private? What words do you use?  How do you speak to people when they are raw with sadness?

at the kitchen table: time

According to the Alan Parson's Project, "Time Keeps Flowing Like a River (to the Sea)."  Jim Croce wants to "Make Days Last Forever" ("Time in a Bottle"), and Green Day claims "Time grabs you by the wrist/Directs you where to go" ("Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)").  

Me, I think of Time and I think of Flavor Flav and his awesome enormous watch or the neighbor I wanted to punch in the face.

Days after walking out of Children's without Maddy, I had to walk my dog.  I kept my head down and walked fast and prayed I wouldn't run into anyone.  No such luck, a neighbor whose name I didn't know but whose dog I knew quite well walked out of her gate.  "How's the baby?" she asked with a cheerful grin and through a rainstorm of tears, I told her.  Dead, she's quite dead, thanks for asking.

Neighbor looked extremely sympathetic and said . . . well I can't remember now exactly, but one of those platitudes about time.  "It will feel better with time," sounds the most right, but it could've been "Give it time."  In either case, I wanted to fucking clock her in the nose right there on the sidewalk.  There was no amount of time that would ever, ever make me feel better.  I will die a bitter old woman with tears gushing out of my eyes, thank you, pointless neighbor.  I believe I grabbed the dog and without saying a word, kept walking.

Turns out she was right. (Turns out she was also one of the good ones.  She showed up at my door days later with a homemade Greek Tear Jar, and asked Maddy's name so she could think of it when she thought of her, and me.) Time did make me feel better.  Just time, just getting through days, just existing until enough water had gone under the bridge and enough miles had passed from the event to make it just distance enough that . . I felt ok.  Time didn't make it disappear, and I didn't "get over it" on some anniversary, but those big ol' clock hands did some magic.

Time seems to be winding it's way through our corner of the internet of late, so we thought it an appropriate, um, time, to do a kitchen table discussion.   Our answers are here.  Want to join in? Post the questions and your answers on your own blog, link to us here at Glow in the Woods meme-style, and share the link to your post in the comments. If you don't have your own online space, simply post your answers directly in the comments on the Kitchen Table page.

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1. How much time has passed since the death of your child(ren)?  Do you mark grief in months, weeks or years? Does it seem to be going fast or slow?  

2. Do you have an end goal to your grief?  How much time do you think that will take?  How much time did you think you'd need to get there right after your loss?  How much time do you think you need now? 

3. Rather than a clear end goal, is there a milestone or marker to indicate that you are feeling grief less acutely, i.e. going to a baby shower, listening to a song that made you cry early in grief, driving past the hospital?  How long did it take to get there?

4. How do you view the time you had with your child, either alive (within or outside) or already deceased?  Before you all answer "Too short! Not enough!", did you have time to "bond" or develop a future imagination about what this child would be like?  Perhaps depending on whether yours was cut short, how do you now feel about the nine-month period of gestation -- too long or not long enough?  

5. One grief book suggested that it took 2-5 years to incorporate your grief into your life.  Where are you on this timeline, and you do you find that to be true?

6. There's a familiar saying, "Time Heals all wounds."  Do you think this is true?  Or do you subscribe to Edna St. Vincent Milay:  "Time does not bring relief, you all have lied"?

7. Has your relationship with the future (immediate and far) changed since the death of your child(ren)?  How about your relationship with the past?

8. How long did it take to answer these questions?

If I could talk with the animals

We shaved our cat.

Correction: We had our cat shaved, by a professional cat groomer.  When Mr. ABF told me the cost in a rather "Shit, I'm sorry, this is a killer" way, I said, "Seriously, what is a good price for SHAVING A CAT?!"  Talk about a thankless job.

Tucker, our Maine Coon that we rescued off the cold streets of Chicago, is sixteen this year, and has decided to stop grooming himself.  Because of his thick, long coat, it happened rather overnight-ish, and we suspected his thyroid was wonky again, and guiltily trudged him into the vet expecting to be berated for negligence.  The vet was wildly sympathetic, his thyroid and everything else was normal/great (despite the fact that we occasionally miss a dose), and she sighed and said, "He's sixteen.  Sometimes cats just get tired of grooming themselves."

So he came home a thin wee rather-freaky skinny thing, and I ran out and bought a comb determined to get in the habit of grooming him once a week.  Despite the crazy schedule, the daily medications both cats get, houseguests, heat, a toddler, a garden that desperately needs harvested, laundry, playdates, car maintenance, birthday parties . . .  I will take care of this cat.  I love this cat.  He has stood by me, through everything.

:::

I distinctly remember the afternoon, a whole geological era ago now, that I went into the bathroom and realized I was miscarrying my first pregnancy.  I went on the bed to sob and yell and call the OB and catch my breath and when I came out of my fog I realized I was surrounded by pets:  both cats (Tucker and Kirby) and my dog (Max) had silently but loyally jumped on the bed and taken positions all around me.  To comfort?  Protect?  They knew, they obviously knew I was upset and came just to be.  Just to be near me.  To abide.  When I came home from the D&C months later ("leftover product" wouldn't ya know) I scooped them all up and rubbed chins and told them a baby was coming, but I'd never forget them.

The night I labored with Bella (two years and four months after the crying on the bed incident, thank you infertility) I went into the living room and told my husband to sleep.  The contractions were tough, but far apart, and I'd need him later.  Tucker however, abandoned his usual digs for the night and sat on the floor right next to me.  All night.  He never left my side.

None of the pets really dug Bella; there is in fact a lovely and slightly sad picture of Tucker peering around a couch days after bringing Bella home from the hospital.  Here was a screaming, loud, running being grabbing for their tails and occasionally succeeding in clenching tufts of hair.  They all dealt, but clearly missed us, the zookeepers.  Max eventually forgot about frisbee lunches, Kirby had to give up the chokeable glitter balls he used to retrieve like a dog, and we began to ease up on Tucker's grooming.  There was plenty of love to go around, but never quite enough time.

We moved to our new house five years ago, and while Max has always seemed a bit out of sorts in the city, Tucker and Kirby especially seemed to thrive here.  There were window seats galore, nooks and corners, heated tile floors.  And again, the night I got up early to phone the hospital to see about my induction for Maddy, Tucker came and sat on the couch next to me.

There was no screaming being this time.  Well, there was, but it was a familiar face who I suppose at least didn't grab at tails or tufts of fur.  I wailed, I sobbed, I curled up in a quiet ball on the bed.  I stayed up late, I had to go on antidepressants because I couldn't bring myself to get up and care for my toddler.  I was distracted and distraught, I didn't speak to people, I usually remembered to walk the dog and feed the animals.  But for all intents and purposes, I ignored the lot of them.  I hated taking Max for walks because it meant I had to go out in public.  I forgot about them, moved around my house as though it was unoccupied -- hell, moved around my life as though it was unoccupied. I floated and bobbed around my daughter and husband, my neighbors, my family, the people at the grocery.  My pets were nonentities, just anonymous flotsam, bobbing along with me, camouflaged against the dark water.

Three months after Maddy died we adopted Buddy, a one-year-old golden retriever who had been abandoned at an emergency vet's office after a run in with a car that left him with two plates in his back leg.  We wondered what we were doing, as did a few family members.  "Are you sure this a good idea?" tentatively asked my father in one phone call.  So concerned were we by this crazy half-baked idea that we even ran it by our grief therapist -- was adopting a dog at this moment so blatantly, obviously, Freudian-ly, obnoxiously replacing?  I was on antidepressants for not being able to lift my body in order to keep my toddler form tumbling down the stairs and out the front door, did we really need another dog?  Another pet? Something else to deal with and try and keep alive?  "Well," said the therapist with a smile, "I think if you want him you should take him home."

And we did.  Buddy helped me realize I could in fact take care of a mammal in need of medical assistance.  But perhaps more importantly, he made me wake up and rediscover my other animals again.  I knew when we brought him in the house we'd need to make a conscious effort to let the other animals know we still loved them, and here I hadn't let them know that for months.  I began petting and walking, allowing cats in my lap and grooming.  I threw balls in the yard, I drove to water therapy, doled out treats, I scratched chins and tummies.  And like those awesome human friends of mine who didn't take the lapse in communication personally, my pets quietly and lovingly took up their old positions.  The foot of the bed, the door when we came home, the computer keyboard.  They were simply abiding, the whole time.

I scooped them all up and whispered, "There is no baby.  But I will still love you."

:::

An experiment mentioned previously on this website concluded that people feel less pain when someone else is simply in the room with them rather than undergoing the trial alone.  I would like to posit that the same goes for furry beings as well:  they couldn't hold my hand or say her name, they didn't bring me roasted chicken or fresh kleenex.  But nor did they sting me with empty platitudes, and stop talking with me entirely after ignoring them for three months.  They didn't assume I was angry with them for not paying attention to them for a spell, and pee all over everything, literally or figuratively.  They never stood us up (well, ok, maybe occasionally for a squirrel -- I can excuse that), or grew tired of tears.  They continued to silently pile on the bed, or next to me during a late night on the couch or computer, and just be with me.

Tucker's curled up next to me on the floor, as I write this, his soft short coat curled in a tight ball with his head under his leg.  Buddy is here, too, sound asleep.  But near, always near.  Amazingly, they never lost faith in me.

There will be no more babies, and the Inn is full -- there will be no more pets.  (Except that wee fish.)  I am here now, for you.  Thank you so much you naughty, adorable, shedding, loyal animals, for being there for me.

Do you have pets of any sort?  Did you have them before/during or acquire them after the death of your child(ren)?  Have they hindered your grief in any way(s), or helped in any way(s)?  Did those ways surprise you?  Oh, and rub those ears for me, would 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?