amnesia
Counting the months on my fingers β November, December, January β I realize that itβs been more than a year and a half since the twins died. That's a long time, but, apparently, not quite long enough. When I sum up what I've been doing since it happened, I decide that, mostly, I've been trying to teach myself to forget.
Back when I started my blog, a commenter named Julie suggested that I take a look at the end of Deuteronomy 25, pointing to the verses about the Amalekites, a tribe who attacked the Jews following the exodus from Egypt: Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt . . . you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.
Though Julie had no way of knowing, this was one of the biblical passages that, as children, my brother and I found particularly hilarious. We even developed a whole who's-on-first routine about it.
--Remember, one of us would say, you need to blot out their memory.
--Blot out whose memory? the other would ask, eyebrows scrunched in mock confusion.
--You know who.
--Just remind me.
--You need to forget the Amalekites. The Amalekites. The A-mal-e-kites, Forget the Amalekites. Remember to forget the Amalekites.
--Okay. I've got it. I'm forgetting the Amalekites.
Pause.
--Wait. I can't remember. Remind me again. Who was I supposed to forget?
But remembering to forget turns out not to be a contradiction in terms. If you can't erase the past through an act of will, you can obscure it, soften its sharp edges, dim the spotlights, mute the voices. Back at the beginning, when I was terrified that that I'd never be able to escape the words and pictures in my head, I deliberately questioned each of my recollections, cast doubt on every memory as it surfaced. Was I in the hospital for two weeks or three? What did the social worker suggest that I do? After a while, I couldn't be sure. And I feel fortunate that there's no anniversary date for me to dread, because I can no longer remember exactly when they were born.
I realize that many people, most people, perhaps, want something different, want, in fact, the exact opposite. But I sometimes wonder if remembrance causes more pain than it eases. And despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, I tell myself that if I had a way of blotting out all memory of the twins from under heaven, I would do without a second thought.
Here's the thing. Imagine you're on a ship setting sail. For a while you can still decipher the expressions on the faces of the people standing behind you, crowded together on the dock. Eventually, though, the expressions, the faces, the people, and the dock itself shrink, blur, run together. More and more, your attention turns to the grey sky and the greyer water in front of you. The waves curl white and you take out a chart and run your finger across it. On shore, everyone is eating dinner at their own tables in their own houses. The dock is empty and no-one is watching, wondering if it's really true that the tips of the sails are the last part of the ship to vanish beneath the horizon. Even if you looked back, there would be nothing to see.
niobe
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Mmmm...I know where you're coming from.
You are so eloquent. I don't know how one person can be so obtuse and yet full of such clarity all at the same time.
As you know, I like the remembering. But, even so, I have had to learn to compartmentalize my remembering so that it doesn't invade every minute of my existence and overtake the here and now. Sometimes, I do have to forget to remember.
Thing is, I would like to forget too if it were humanly possible, but it's not within my power to do so.
And now I need to remember to go read the Hebrew when I get home because my memory of the verse is different....
It is horrifyingly right to let go.
Your post reminds me of the last time I saw my father's face in a dream--after he committed suicide. I was young, almost ten years old when he died and I greived his loss for many, many years. I think it was actually fifteen years before the world actually shifted back into focus and his loss was no longer the focal point of my every emotion. Still, years before that, I had this dream and in it, I could see his face, clear as day, but the rest of his body was disappearing. Even at ten years old I knew there was something significant about this dream. I knew that on some level I was beginning to forget, or get over, losing him. I distinctly remember the feeling I had when that thought occured to me. I was walking to elementary school, taking a short cut through the woods near my house. I was alone, no brothers in sight, and I was walking over tree roots protruding slightly out of the dirt. I remember stopping, just as I was looking down at the ground, at the roots, and I had almost lost my breath in panic. I stopped in my tracks, desperately wanting to make the forgetting stop. I never wanted to not be able to see him in my dreams. I wanted to hold on to the picture in my mind's eye. But, of course, I couldn't. (Can you imagine going to elemenatary school after that early morning thought?). I honestly have never had another dream where I could see his face. However, I have learned that not being able to see him does not change the fact that I know he existed. It does not change the fact that I know, in spite of his sadness, that we loved each other immensly. And it does not change the fact that I know there was nothing I could do to change the outcome of his life or to prevent his unfortunate death.
Hell, I'd be happy with forgetting to remember. I'd love amnesia. I'd like a lobotomy of everything post 5/06 when Maddy was conceived. Would love to obliterate the entire mess and never have it intrude in my brain every again.
And yet, I kinda fear that too. The days when her face is fading away.
I've sometimes asked myself, "Will I forget? Ever? Forever?" I've sometimes felt that the whole thing did not happen. Just some brain error; memory playing tricks. And then I read of old ladies remembering to the end of their days, and sometimes I wonder if I will be like that too. I want to remember, but not in a burdensome manner, if that makes sense.
so true that boat...
This is beautiful, and I understand your feelings... but no, no, it is not for me. I would never choose to forget my Jack. I fear the forgetting, every thing I forget makes me feel like I lose a tiny piece of him. I want to remember everything of him forever, the wonderful and the horrifying, until I see him again.
I think we all do what we have to. For some people, allowing oneself to drift away from trauma with time - and not fight that current - is what healing looks like. For others, the effort of forgetting is an emotional pressure cooker. I've seen that, seen old, smothered hurts casting shadows over relationships.
But I've also seen it as acceptance, sensibility. It all depends on what makes sense to individuals.
I still can't believe we sat in the same room yesterday and you said, "Oh shoot, am I supposed to post tomorrow? I'll have to think of something..." and then you came up with this, and now you'll have me thinking all week. :)
There are whole chunks of my sons' delivery that I don't remember. I have consoled myself that it's a combination of the At.ivan and my brain protecting my psyche. And yet I have flashes of sensation, along with gaping holes in my experience of their existence.
I, too, feel the drive to remember every moment of my pregnancy. Especially those last 10 days, when I knew it was all I would have. Even the horror. Sometimes I cling to it.
But sometimes I want to forget. I want to wish away this nightmare. But it's all I have.
I'd love to forget how and when my heart broke. but the time I was pregnant was the happiest in my life. since I never had that before or since, it's truly all I have besides my grieving heart.
THere are parts of William's time that I want to remember forever, things I have lost, that I wish I hadn't and things I cling too, hoping I will never forget but know that they are fading with each minute he is not here.
We do what we can, what we have to walk the road.
Do we want to forget everything? Or just remember it without pain and trauma?
Because they are very different things, and after many years I can remember Matthew without pain, but other things are not so easy. They may take longer, more work. Part of it, is that I specifically sought out therapy that would help with the trauma, and it may help others?
I used EMDR, and took propranolol so that I could remember the events around my losses but not feel like I was right back there, right then feeling such terrible pain, And it works.
Just an idea, for anyone who is interested.
i don't think i've ever understood as clearly your take on handling grief as when i did when i read this post just now.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Time makes it all seem like a dream. I turn to my partner sometimes and say "I was pregnant, really I was." And she says yes, yes you were, you didn't make it up. Because sometimes it really seems to me that I must have made the whole thing up. I'm exactly as I was before, with nothing to show for it. I still haven't thrown out the full sharps container, but other than that the world has returned to its natural state. The aberration was that I was ever pregnant at all.
After my daughter -- born at 24 weeks -- died; after her father, lost in his own shock and grief, left me, I had a complete psychotic break. When I came out the other side, there were holes in my mind, in my memory, in my knowing. Filling in those emptied spaces was like knives on flesh. Of all my regrets, of all the things that I could wish were different about what happened After -- knowing that I cannot alter what happened -- oh how I have wished with all the fervor of my shattered life and mind that those memories had never been obscured.
Because without me, Stephanie cannot exist.And I cannot want for her to be naught but dust, floating downriver, to the sea.
Remembrance does cause pain in the beginning. But as time wears on, remembrance brings peace...stability. Every bit of it is, after all, a part of who I am. To forget it is to forget what I have learned about myself while living inside the pain.
Bon voyage, Niobe.
Being present on your current journey doesn't diminish your love for those left on shore.
that was a great analogy for looking forward
I remember coming across her ultrasound pictures hidden in the dining room buffet, years after her death. My proof that there had been something wrong, my validation to the doctors who told me that everything was fine, that my dates were wrong, that she was just going to be a small baby. I was shocked to see them and debated for just a second what to do, then quickly ripped them into tiny pieces. I chose to forget, but just can't.
Like Slouching Mom said, never before have I so clearly understood. Beautifully and vividly written, Niobe.
I wish I could forget sometimes, yet I can't. It plays over and over in my head, kind of like a broken record. I wish I could turn it off.
Honestly, and this may surprise you to hear from me, if I were given the choice to have all memory of the event completely erased from memory, with never a chance it would ever come back, I'd do it!
Thing is, I feel half memories are worse than full memories because half memories come with those questions you ask yourself all the time and no doubt lose sleep over. As Aurelia says, EMDR therapy made me acutely remember ever feeling, touch, sound and vision of that event. Remembering about it doesn't hurt as much anymore, sort of like eating cake after cake with intense hunger and delight but after a dozen cakes that intensity wears off and your just eating cake without the same joy you initially started with.
But as I said, if I had the choice and it was actually possible to do, I'd like that bit of my life completely erased from memory and everyone who knew about it too!
XXX
A brave and honest post. An understandable defense. But I want to fight you. To stand in front of you and yell.
What is life if death is not tragic?
Why love if we allow people to just slip over the horizon?
And, one day, when the memory catches you blind-side, and it's potency is such that you cannot doubt, know, please know, that you will live through that agony too.
I have in mind an image from CS Lewis Narnia Chronicles. I think it is in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Bare with me, it may take a little while to retell (and will be much less poetic then the original).
There is a story when the boy (Eustace? - I have forgotten his name) finds a dragon cave and steals some gold. He awakes to find his arm aching where the gold band was, and realises the dragon has died, but he himself has become a dragon. He weeps for his old self, but is unable to change. One day, Aslan comes to him and tells him that to change he must shed his skin. He scratches and scratches till it bleeds and eventually he steps out of his skin, but it is only one layer . Aslan tells him to do it again, which he does, but he can only shed one layer at a time. Eventually Aslan says that he will help him, and he digs his claws deep into the layers of dragon skin. I seem to remember the line "the first stroke was so deep he thought it had pierced his heart". With immense pain, Aslan tears the dragon skin from the boy. He leads him to a pool to bathe himself and the water stings sharply on his tender new skin. Aslan leads him out of the pool, breathes on him, and gives him new clothes.
Forgive me Niobe - I am not judging or preaching - only I believe freedom is found when we have stood square and faced the unfaceable. And lived.
I have to believe it. I have staked everything on it.
And today is the anniversary of the death of my daughter.
Barb: Please, don't ever worry about disagreeing with me or presenting an opinion or a way of looking at the world that differs from or contradicts mine. I not only don't mind listening to other points of view, I actually welcome them. It's a little like twisting the kaleidoscope and marvelling at the unexpected play of light and color.
Thinking of you on this sad anniversary.
22 years. 2 months. 15 days. 9 hours.
I did not choose to forget. I chose NOT to remember. I chose to let that moment in time slip from my consciousness into the sea of forgetfulness. But, with a curious click of the mouse, she's back in my thoughts.
Was she even real? Did I just imagine her tiny body in my arms for that brief moment? Is there anything beneath the tiny headstone behind the church?
The answer is bittersweet.
Yes, she was real.
Yes, I held her in my arms.
Yes, she was my daughter.