the land on which i stand
I am an Incognito Disaster.
You can't see the mayhem only millimeters out, but it's there, inside.
You can't see my toes curl as I cringe when I re-live the day Silas was born.
Cars swerve around my thoughts as I drive.
You can't hear the breath
the deep, deep breath
when you trundle in, laden with newborn and bags and Hope.
The Hope smells like crushed pine needles and jasmine covered in maple syrup, honey and soy. It makes me sick to my soul because I can't swallow that anymore.
Today:
Pregnant lady holding the door for a n00b mom with n00born and they passed a look that gutted my heart.
From one: "Oh how cute! (you don't know what you're in for.)"
The other, laden within: "I can't wait to be on that side of this (bloated mess.)"
Wife sick of her pregnancy, Mother sick of her kids. Father and To-Be on either side unaware of their peril.
From nowhere in their realm, from no vantage of their many views could they see me frozen nearby. They cannot see the land on which I stand. They cannot taste the ashes of my dreams despite their sudden sneeze. To them, my flesh does not sag with endless despair.
I gasped and turned, gutted, I let them pass and flashed into everything each of them promised.
I burned with how bad everything can go, in an instant.
In a day.
In a night of pain and labor.
In a life or three or many, many more.
They should never know any of this and I hate how much we've had to learn.
I'm sick of learning. I'm sick of fortitude and strength. I'm sick of wisdom and grace and getting by.
I want to swallow the sunlight. I want to consume Hope for breakfast and shit rainbows of beauty and joy.
Instead:
Creases in my cheeks from the tears & tears.
Instead:
Holes in my heart that I stare into thinking, sinking.
I lead a double life. There's this one here alone with Lu and the impossible one with Silas, too.
Both are true, both are me.
I will never let either of them go.
I am a Disaster in Disguise.
I am a Master of the Lies I have to tell to get through the day.
I'm so good at it now, I sometimes even almost fool myself into being a little bit okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can you describe an instant of recognition or insight that surprised you or caught you off-guard? How many lives do you lead? Do you ever feel okay? And are you okay with feeling a little okay, sometimes?
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"I'm sick of learning. I'm sick of fortitude and strength. I'm sick of wisdom and grace and getting by."
Yes. I constantly feel like I am leading a double life, particularly now that more than a year has passed and no one can see how much pain I still carry with me everywhere I go. Its those little moments, like watching a mother with a child, that I am reminded so piercingly of all the moments I won't have with Ezra.
Apparently, it's impossible. But I don't care anymore. I don't give a shit about maintaining my incognito. It took too much energy.
I don't want to ever let go of Liam. I could never wish away or tidy up what his birth and death did to my heart. That's what I realized this morning, teetering on hurt and anger, but then finding your beautiful words. Thank you Chris.
I am a Master of the Lies I have to tell to get through the day.
I'm so good at it now, I sometimes even almost fool myself into being a little bit okay."
Yes, this, exactly this, and I can't see an end.
I let people around me be happy for me and my big belly even though it's hard and scary and I often have to bite my tongue to keep from telling them that this doesn't make everything better or erase my son, that I'm afraid, that it could go wrong again, that (should I be so lucky) even happy endings are more complicated than they know. I spend many of my days like this - the restless, terrified person inside and the small-talking shell outside at the same time. I wish I were brave enough to speak the scary things aloud to those around me and to let the me who is always missing my child out in public more often.
Rich, gorgeous post, Chris. Thank you for this.
I do feel ok, sometimes. Mostly when I'm alone or just with Simon. But when I'm out, I'm like you - no one can see my real pain. Sometimes I wish it was appropriate for adults to act like two year olds, with all of our emotions out on display. Pretending all day gets so hard.
I trick myself into being okay too. Sometimes I wonder if I really am okay, like I could just easily choose to stop being sad...if only it didn't hurt so much.
Now, with my amazing, beautiful son's second birthday approaching next week, I have to work hard to create opportunities to mention my daughter and my family's devastating loss. She was born and died 4 1/2 years ago, yet her absence remains part of my life every day. To others I look like a happy mom with an adorable toddler, a wonderful partner and a beautiful life, yet I carry this grief and loss with me all the time that simultaneously yearns to be recognized and fiercely protected.
It's a lot like coming out as a lesbian, which is also part of my life's experience. Just like people who assume I'm straight until I start talking about my partner, people assume I am just another happy mom until I bring up my daughter's death. I am proud of my daughter, I don't ever want to pretend that she didn't exist (like my own parents did after the neonatal deaths of my older twin brothers) or minimize the impact of her death on my family. So I take almost every available opportunity to talk about her, even though I can see that it makes most people uncomfortable. I invite conversation about her with her photo on my necklace and the tattoo of her name on my arm. And yes, some days when I am stretched thin emotionally, I have times where I consciously choose not to mention her even when the opportunity arises. I choose to wear that disguise and pretend to be just another happy, lucky mom with a healthy toddler.
"I wish I could wear a shirt that says something like, my other baby is in heaven or something like that, to let other people know that I am not naive to death, to babyloss. I don't want others to see me or my belly and get hurt or sad or angry, because I have been there. I am still there, just with a baby on the way. Seeing others coo over there bellies makes me angry. Seeing them buy baby stuff while heavily pregnant make me furious, I still want to go over to them and grab them by the shoulders and say, "Don't buy anything yet, your baby may not live!" but of course I can't do that."
The feeling of unending, bone-weariness has bent my back as much as our child's death changed the trajectory of our lives. But sometimes I do feel okay, though it's fleeting. I don't really feel that raw, acidic fury and that's a relief, b/c I could truly have been consumed (or dissolved?) by it. Realizations still happen all the time. This experience is an object of infinite complexity, it seems. I turn it over and over in my hands every single day and I often see new things, new losses, but mercifully, new blessings too. Paradoxically, I'll never understand and the realizations and/or blessings will never explain, justify or come close to matching that simple fact of her absence. But if the absence must exist, well...
I am ok with being ok. I longed for some semblance of 'ok' when it first happened. Ok is different now than it was before; it is - like me - forever altered. Ok is fine by me. Finding some sort of stability was hugely important for me, though I fought it for a few weeks, because I knew once I gained that ground, I would be leaving something behind. But still, for me to survive, to be who I am, I had to find it and let a lot of the pain and anger go.
I personally find the incognito to be too wearisome, so I gave it up. Obviously, to some extent, it persists - I don't run up to pregnant women and admonish them to appreciate their blessings, but neither do I make a show of avoiding them. They are there, and there they are. That is life, and on it goes, I guess. Beyond that though, if I am sad, I explain why. If I miss him, I say so.
The incognito, the masks. . . they didn't help me. Once I let some of that go - including the attempts to hold on to relationships that were crumbling beneath my fingers scrabbling for a hold, I found it all became so much easier for me.
Some people might feel I've pushed on ahead too quickly, just as others felt I stayed in the blackness for too long, but I know I'm not yet out of the woods, that it's not over. But I've gained some ground to see it on.
What a thought provoking post. I do wonder how it will be when I am pregnant again, if I will blend in or if there will be some air that marks me as an outsider from the happy expectations and ignorance of normal pregnancy. I wonder if I will return to pregnancy boards and chat about it or whether I will never feel safe, always feel like an imposter or a harbinger of doom to those happy women - the ones who think that you get pregnant and have a baby roughly nine months later.
Now, a few years under my belt and skin, and I look at pregnant women and the first thought that flitters through my brain is "please don't die." Please be safe. They send me into fits of fear. I simply can't bear looking at the woman, wondering what she'll be like grief-stricken. It's a very different emotion, and it's really only evolved through time.
Things that knock me for a loop now have to be fairly specific. I think in the first year or so everything seemed relevant, now people have to zoom in on a particular topic before I'm really winded. The other night, it was a brief two minute conversation held by other parents about Children's. I wanted to hide under the table.
chris, your words are so perfect. the land you stand on. the land in which we all live. it's this secret invisible babylost life that we lead. that is so out of the real normal life.
i know that scenario too well. the happy pregnant woman, the ones with the newborn. the perfect normal happy life. so outside our realm of existence. so other. i feel so very different. living in another land.
and yes, i also live in this world. and i guess mostly i have to pretend i'm normal and ok. otherwise i wouldn't really be able to deal or leave my house. i smile and i get by. but mostly i feel fake when i'm with other people. even if i feel a little tinge of happiness or feeling normal it feels false unless i can include the loss of my son. the most real, devastating and life altering experience i've had.
and i'm also getting more ok with being ok sometimes. especially when i'm alone or with my husband or a good friend. when lev can be included in the conversation. where tears and laughter can both be held.