no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible

Readying for another late night of work and writing he looks at me from across the room, contemplative, and says softly out of nowhere it wasn’t your fault, you know.

I stop typing to look at him. He’s about to go to bed for the night and I’m just hitting my usual stride, not likely to slip next to him for at least another four hours yet.

You have to let go of it, the guilt. You have to stop punishing yourself and running away. It’s not healthy. I'm worried about you. I miss you.

Funny how you can think and think and think and think and wish your brain would just shut the hell down for a while and yet, 18 months later, never have considered something so elemental.

I know it’s not my fault, I reply. I know it cerebrally, but not in my gut.

Why can’t you let it go? he says. He wants his wife back.

It’s not like I wake up every morning and choose it, I reply. I’m not even really aware of it, but I think you’re probably right that it’s there.

He looks at me and I try to explain, learning as I go.

Imagine you’re driving through a blizzard and you cross the centre line and crash and I am killed, or one of the kids. And imagine that for the rest of your life, they make you walk around with the wreck of the car fused to you so you can hardly fit through doors and everyone stares at you and everyone knows and for the rest of your life you ARE that wreck, stuck behind that wheel. You’ll be that damned driver forever. You’ll eat and walk and sleep and do everything until the end of your days surrounded by all this twisted metal, the seat next to you browned with dried-up blood. You know it was the black ice, not you, that did it. But you’re still the driver. You were the one behind the wheel, and you’ll never forget it.

He nods silently.

+++++++

I made peace with the absence of Liam long ago, but have not yet made peace with this body. It’s some kind of muscle memory, something instinctual and ancient, this shroud.

Peter Ustinov said love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit and Voltaire said no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

We’ve all been buried by a force of nature, by undeniable randomness. What lends strength to the rescuing shovel is the dogged practice of not only admitting to the randomness but believing it as our heart’s truth.

Because I'm getting the sense that it's not just a matter of time. It's an act of defiance, a matter of robbing the blackness to take back what belongs to us.

Have you shed your wreck, or are you still behind the wheel? What keeps you where you are, and how does that manifest itself in your everyday life?

Comments

[tash]

Such a beautiful, heartfelt post, Kate.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "wreck." Do I feel guilt or feel responsible for what happened? No. I'm lucky that way, there is no point at which things would've been fine, nothing I could've done differently, I had close medical attention, and it missed everything. It had nothing to do with me (well, it might have had something to do with my genetics, but only if that doctor is right). The only thing I could've done to save her is not get pregnant.

The only way I could've avoided the wreck was not leaving my house in the first place. And that point is moot.

But the "wreck" itself? The aftermath? The seatbelt? The crushed headlight? I doesn't haunt me like it used to, but yes, still there, still trying to fit the bent seat through my doorways. I try not to fight it, figuring one day it will shrink and disappear (the parts are much less than they were). I try and tell myself that I don't want to be defined by the headrest stuck to my shirt, but by the person to which the headrest is attached to. And that gives me a bit of confidence to move forward.

[Heather]

I love the title of this post. Very thought provoking.

I am still the car wreck. Like you, I know logically what happened wasn't my fault. But I still feel guilty.

Since my baby's death, I've paid the utmost attention to my body- tweaking and repairing as if it really was a car wreck. Pristine nutrition, excellent exercise program, etc etc. It's all done as preventative measures for "trying again". I know it's not only to give my future baby the best chance, but to soothe my guilt. If I lose another child, I need to know I did everything in my power to stop it. Preventing guilt: that's my motivation.

[niobe]

I'm very, very lucky. I've never been in a car wreck.

And I'm pretty sure you know what I'm trying to say.

[Erica]

Funnily enough, the thing I don't feel guilty for is the decision we made to forgo extreme life-saving measures, but I often wonder if I could have changed things or done things differently before or during my pregnancy, if I could have been just better, if I missed a chance to have saved him. It comes to me in waves, even though every doctor I've talked to has told me there was nothing we could have done.

I can disguise the wreckage that's attached to me quite well at work, but partly because of the effort that takes I'm often at my worst at home. Which means the person I love the most gets me at my worst. Some days he's the only one I trust with me at my worst, but I can't help but feel that it's a bad bargain for him. Some of the scrap metal that's still attached to me has sharp edges.

[janis]

In the beginning, for quite a while, I wanted to get back in that wrecked car, ramp it up and this time, really drive off a cliff and make sure that this time, I really die myself, too.
Recently, I have gotten out of the wreck, and just destroyed it, it is no longer relevant. I have tried to take that guilt and make it something else, something more productive. Some days I succeed better than others.
((hugs)) we need to let ourselves die into life.

[Catherine]

The minister who presided over the funeral of our first stillborn baby said this...people would understand if I had a broken arm because I would walk around with a cast on it...there is no cast for what I've been through...no visible reminder to anyone else that my heart has been broken so terribly. So while it might be hard to carry that wreck around, I feel this is infinitely more complicated...invisible and inescapable. Sure, it gets better and some days I think it's gone...but it always returns...and now I'm not supposed to talk about it.

[Sally]

I'm still behind the wheel and I think all my limbs have been blown off. I'm only three months out, and I have a long way to go I sense. Do I feel guilt? Absolutely. Do I blame myself or think it was my fault? Not entirely. What I do know is, her death was 100 per cent preventable. I went in to hospital one day past my due date, in labour and was sent home. Had they let me stay that night, she would have been delivered alive and well. This I know. I just wasn't far along enough as far as the hospital was concerned. Three days passed, my labour stopped and started, in the mean time, my waters must have broken with a leak so small I didn't notice, and a bacteria crept its way in and caused an infection. It only took 24 hours to kill her. They told me to stay home. I trusted them. I put my daughter's life in their hands and I was wrong to do so. Yes no one suspected anything was wrong. Yes I was doing what I thought was best. But I still chose to stay home. This will play over and over in my head for the rest of my days. I am not supposed to be here. But there is nothing I can do to escape now. My car is wrecked and I'm stranded, helpless on the side of the road. I'm not sure who or what can help me at this stage.
As I said earlier, I have a long way to go.

[Martha]

My wreck has been towed away, the parts disassembled and reassembled after a period of depression, tolerance of abuse, and addictions.
With the help of a couple good therapists and hard work, I made it through the fire, my steel stronger and tempered by the flame.
I acknowledge my loss and pain, it gives me a vessel to receive joy. I read that someplace and can't remember where. The pain of losing the ones I love is the price I pay for their love, of this I have no control. What a Brutal equation and one I've learned to abide.

[K.]

About few months after she died, I was sitting on the floor of my nursery. As I stared into her closet, I saw the breast pump that I had bought only a few weeks before her birth sitting on her shelf. My mind went back to the night that I bought it. I drove three and a half hours in blizzard-like weather, late at night, to purchase it.

This memory, as simple as it is, shifted something in my mind. So much of the guilt and the self-loathing went away.

I wanted her. And if it had been up to me, she would be here. It just wasn't up to me.

[HMC]

My husband and I have had a similar conversation, in which he also said it was not my fault. The way I explained to him was I asked him to imagine that he was holding our perfect, beautiful, flawless child in his arms. At that exact moment, through no fault of his own, he develops a strange disease that causes immediate paralysis of his arms. They give way, and our child falls to the floor and is killed. This disease, this flaw in his body would be no more his fault than my incompetent cervix is mine, but still he would have been the one who let the baby fall. No one would have blamed him for this failure of his body, but how would he feel knowing that he was in charge of keeping the baby safe, and he didn't?

[Jennifer]

The guilt still defines who I am. I knew at some gut level, he was not okay and I let all of the doctors and tests tell me he was fine. I should have trusted my instinct, but I know in the end that it wouldn't have mattered. There was nothing to be done to save him. It doesn't change the fact that my body (by genetics or some other reason) couldn't make two healthy babies. I have felt that I failed as a mother since before they were born. I knew he would not be okay. Two years out and I still feel like I failed. No one understands this and all treat me like it unreasonable to feel this way. My mind knows that there was nothing I could have done, but my heart is still heavy with guilt that I couldn't get him here safely and healthy with his brother.

I guess I am still in the wreck. I try to hide my wreckage from the outside world, but it is always there partially visible. It affects me in all I do. My tendancy to be overprotective of my son, the strain in my marriage, and the isolation from family and friends is all due to the wreckage I carry.

I agree with defiance. It just depends on the day and how tired I am from carrying this around. I want my life back and it is my choice to find a way out of the darkness.

[Carly]

I would say I was the wreck and now I just carry some damage that we couldn't afford to fix.

Its been 22 months for me. My husband and I live in the same house but really we live in different time zones. I go to bed 6 hours after he does. I don't even sleep in the same bed as him. I sleep in my girls bedroom with them, paranoid that they might die in their sleep or someone will break in and snatch them. I know its not healthy but thats where I am right now. I sit on the internet for hours each night working on the names site and reading stories of other women and their losses. I feel incredibly alone when it comes to my loss. I have no one close by who really knows my pain. Instead I have developed relationships through the internet. My real best friends I have never actually met in person, they are what keeps me going.

My relationship with my husband has suffered greatly. I think he wants the old me back. In fact I know he does. I will never be the old me. This may sound strange but I love the new me. Everything in my life is so rich now, before Christian things were just average.

I don't know if the damage to my car will ever be fixed, I think that would mean that Christian wouldn't matter anymore.

Thanks for the post, made me realize a few things about myself

[Natalie]

I seem to have escaped the guilt. I still wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if I had chosen to do A instead of B, if this had happened on that day instead of the next. When I look back on it I can see the signs I missed. But at the same time, I know it's hindsight. I don't necessarily believe I did the right thing, but I don't fault myself, either.

Sometimes I feel a little perplexed and why I don't carry it around with me like others seem to. Why am I able to let that go, when most of the time my mind can't move past these things? I don't know. Maybe because I have to, to do it again.

I don't know. The wreck happened. I was in it. Maybe I should have seen the car coming. But who really expects the car barrelling in from the side when you're in the middle of a desert road?

[Kymberli]

Heart-wrenching, but lovely analogy.

[Monique]

I was steering the ship it it was the titanic. I was in charge and had one task - keep the baby safe. I failed miserably. Even though I was sent home told to relax and everything was fine (even though I knew it wasn't). Sanctmonious doula told me that the baby was sleeping (moron). Everyone let me down and I did not trust my instinct, so let my baby down. Regret, guilt, fear and anxiety are my new compainions in life.

[Rach]

I had to make decisions and choices and decide on things that people should never have to do. Of course I feel guilty. I can't imagine that this feeling will ever subside. I may look fine but I am not. Because I am not laying in a heap on the ground people think all is dandy. But people who have travelled the same journey - they know what is going on inside.

[Lori]

At some point, I do think it is an act of defiance, or will. I knew I just had to stop. I had to stop blaming myself, wishing for different outcomes, wondering what could have been different...I just had to stop. And at some point, I did. Most of the time. Almost always. Except in quiet moments, every now and then, when I wonder...

[Sarah]

The guilt is unbearable at times, so irrational and yet so present, so real. The rational logical me can't really imagine what else I could have done, but the grief takes over so that deep down I will always feel responsible.

[Becky]

I don't think I blame myself. I think I did for a long time.

I was sorry I got pregnant and hadn't wanted a baby. Did I wish him away?

My back hurt and I went to a chiropractor two days before the beginning of the end. Did that kill him?

I was supposed to be on bedrest for 12 weeks, trying to save him. Save the whole thing. Did I get up too often?

I was supposed to be on complete pelvic rest, with no sex (duh) but I did have an orgasm. Did my pleasure become his undoing?

I had a few glasses of wine here and there, and the day before I lost him, I had half a beer. Did that do it? Was losing W punishment for not taking good enough care of him?

Those were some of the ways I did blame myself for a long time.
I beat myself up for a long time. I don't anymore...I don't think???

But I miss him. Oh how sad I am and how much I miss him sometimes.

Sometimes I am still angry at the unfairness of it all. But I believe the world is broken. Things that should be are not, and things that shouldn't be, simply are and I don't know if it's random. I have a hard time believing that. But I don't believe it's a blame/guilt/fault issue either.

Blame and Guilt are not an issue anymore. But the why's and how's are not settled either for me, obviously. I used to be sure that it was some punishment for wrong doing. What a sad place that was to live in.

As I type this, I realize I haven't fully escaped that feeling. Is anyone else confused by me yet?

It's a battle. Yes, it's a battle to be fought till the end. I don't think time will heal and I'll just suddenly some day, magically, be at peace. Nothing in this life gives me reason to believe that can ever happen.

[kate]

Heather, I love the notion of repairing your wreck – I hadn’t thought of it that way. we’re thinking of doing a short series on physical/alternative healing, and we may put out a call for posts (everything from exercise to reiki to healing touch to massage to yoga). Keep an eye out, will you? I’d love to hear more about your body. (in meant that in the automotive way of course. And I’m kidding.)

K, your blizzard-drive for the pump…. how that story and your ‘I wanted him’ struck me right in the heart. In a good way. thank you for that.

Sally, just three months out… my heart. your comment makes me want to gather you up and take care of you and feed you and listen to you. I hope so much that you have warm souls around you that can do this for you. I’m thinking of you today.

Carly, this may be no surprise from my post but your comment was so familiar to me, too. It’s a strange thing – I don’t blame our husbands for how they miss the simpler times, but at the same time, it only makes it worse to try and hurry up the process of healing… at least that’s how it feels for me.

Becky, you’re not confusing at all. You’re human. That’s what I find difficult about all this, holding all these emotions at once.

All your responses were so evocative and sad but hopeful…. thank you for that.
xo

[Carol]

I have a way of thinking of this, and it's this: I have two brains.
The intellectual brain can listen to what the midwives and doctors say, it can compute that there was virtually nothing of logic that could have been done by anyone to prevent the cord accident from happening. The event that caused the compression was my water breaking; it was the very act of my body going into labor that killed her. Things were a-okay before that.
Which brings me to the second brain, the emotional brain, which tells me that I am her mother, and if there were to be any one person in the world who should have known something was wrong, it should have been me. I see myself pacing restlessly in my house that dark May night, adreniline pulsing through my veins as the reality set in: I am having my baby, I am in labour. But the true reality would not hit me for some time, and that truth would be that while I was pacing, my baby was dying. The life was being crushed out of her as I walked, as I clambored quickly down the stairs to get to the toilet, as I rolled from side to side trying to find a comfortable position to "get some rest". All the while, she was dying.
And shouldn't I have known?

So whilst it is possible that my emotional brain presides at times, I would say that the wreck is still parked in the middle of my front lawn, and that my body and mind will forever remain deeply scarred from the accident.

And do you know, a therapist I once spoke with described it as just that. She said, you have survivor's guilt, it is as if you are the one who survived the accident unscathed. How true.

And my husband also does not get this, not one bit.

[Katherine]

Yes. My big invisible albatross.

My husband wants his wife back too, but doesn't understand that woman is long gone and that he is living with a stranger who needs to learn to be his wife.

[Martha]

Thank you, Kate for the gift of your words and kindness. It means more than you will ever know.

[MLG-believe N miracles]

Undeniable randomness. I have used this thought process to try and cope, the wondering why? and what else could I have done? haunts me, so I really try not go to that place. Randomness is the only explanation, if there even is one. No one deserves or asks to feel the kind of pain we have felt, it isnt supposed to be like this, yet we have experienced the pain and many have come before us and many will come after, and how do we explain that, I have no idea, so I will go with randomness.
My doctors, therapist, freinds and family all reassure me that I did everything humanly possible, I believe that, but it still doesnt make this okay, it will never be okay.
I try to keep going for my husband, my family and my friends, they need me. I know they want the old me back, but she is gone, there may be parts of her left but I am stil trying to find them. Now I am looking for a new normal, whatever that may be, I am ready to find it somewhere.
I try to remind myself, that this is a part of my life and will always be a part of my life but this is not my entire life.

[bon]

i did feel - at the time - like my life had bcome a wreck...i'd lost my job along with my baby, had never slept before in the house i came home to, and we'd just moved halfway across the world to prepare to welcome him so i definitely did feel as if a semi had run over all i'd been working towards, hoping for, and there was no thread to hang onto or lead me forward.

but i didn't feel the guilt. only now do i realize what a blessing that was. i hated myself, definitely, and none of that wreck of a life was okay with me, but it felt narratively inaccurate to blame myself...i would have felt that i was only heaping drama where there was enough already. this was b/c of circumstances...i had gone to doctors each time something happened and been told all was fine, repeatedly. i wished i'd done more and they'd noticed more...but practically even that might have made no difference, and i knew it. we got unlucky in a way doctors can't fix, at a point far too early for interventions. and once we realized the problem i'd invested all i had in focusing on the baby for whatever time we had, hoping for a long one, but with the possibility of time being short already a part of the relationship....so maybe i simply got my grappling with blame done then, too, and had to throw it out in order to keep the time we had "clean"...i got to realize weeks before he died that blaming me OR the docs did him no good. i did have to forgivethem and others, more than once, after...but i never went back to the subject of blaming myself.

and only in talking with you and others has the gift that i was given in that been made clear. sending love.

[Sue/STE]

I walk everyday with that wreck. For a while, I was able to ignore, deny it even. Now it seems part of me, not just losing Jacob and Joshua, not just their absence, but everything that took place in the weeks and months before and after. I walk with limps of others who suffered along side me, carrying their own wrecks.

I am beginning to consider complicated grief, this depression brought on not just by this wreck, but the others in my life. It is almost too much to carry.

And I wonder, what does uncomplicated grief look like. With such an intimate loss, one literally torn from my body, does the wreck ever get left behind.

[thordora]

i'm glad I popped over to read this. It was beautiful.

Hope..and hugs.

[Dr. Joanne]

Such a very important post for so many reasons...thank you for this.

[cheerleader]

The title of this post is everything, Kate. It is a poignant thought, as always. (Hugs)

[lara]

First of all thank you for this site-I stumbled on here the other night. Beautiful, brave, intelligent, wordy women.

The title the words the reality-yes it all resonates with me. A movie I saw this summer had a line form the leading actess-a mother whose son had died of a terrible illness-and how some how it was her fault, "I gave birth to him and so I condemned him to death" Rational or not it is real. It has been just over two years since our son baby taz died and guilt was one of my biggest struggles for a long time. And still I can very much feel and relate to the wreck. We have the cutest 5 month old little red head baby girl named Lucia Carlin (meaning light and little champion) sleeping in front of me-and perhaps that is why I can relate and am not the wreck-and believe you I wallowed and jumped deep into the grief and had a very torturous pregnancy-not physically but emotionally just one step from the looney bin! Lucia helps, our daughter Lily who talks about baby taz everday helps, life grows back-and so a big hunk of my guilt is gone.

Long before taz the folowing always made such sense to me.
"guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge"-jd salinger So I take my part of the blame, and I give a heap to the doctor, hospital, world. And in the end it is just biology-life. And i know I will always have some guilt because on some level it is my fault-not in a martyr drama way just the reality that I could not protect our little baby from pain.

Carly-I slept with our oldest daughter Lily -who is now 5 and was 3 at the time every night and it made my husband sad that I didn't want to sleep with him-until we talked and I explained it wasn't about him it was about fear-that the only safe place I felt was when Lily was in my arms. He is beautiful and he got it. From that point on we seemed to heal better. We have a giant king size bed in her room and many a night we all sleep in there.
And thank your for doing the name in the sand project it is so very BIG and Beautiful and such a glorious tribute to Christian!

Lara

[Karin]

I think for me, I felt that I could still drive the wreck. Twisted axle, crushed hood, exploded insides. Yep. Still drivable damn it. It was my drive to conquer the unconquerable that got me my Magnus - yet of course, it's all random. He could just as easily not be here, just like his siblings. And there are repercussions from driving a wreck around. One doesn't escape without scars.