Still
Just before the turn on the year Angie asked for one word. One word from each, to make a community poem, to kick off the year of still life 365, the art blog by and for the community. I didn't have my word until it was too late, until the submission deadline was past. I had two, actually, but they were connected and I even knew which I would pick if I had to pick just the one. But deadline was past, and so the choosing was academic. Except that my next thought was that surely both of my words must've made it in by someone else's hand, being so obvious and all.
The poem came out beautiful and stunning, and heartbreaking. Just like you would hope it would. However, and this was a bit of a shock to me, my first choice word? It wasn't there.
The word was still. I meant it in terms of time, as in ongoing, continuous, in progress. Although, of course, the other meaning, the one the describes state of being, defined as "calm, motionless, quiet," didn't escape me either. I kinda liked the double meaning.
I miss him, still. I am not the same, still. It hurts, still. I am sad, still, at times. Of some things, I am less forgiving, still. Of others things-- more, now. I love him, always.
The week building up to A's third anniversary days was busy. And mostly normal. That was ok, comforting even. I thought, at times, that the busy was preventing me from getting ready in some sense I didn't fully understand myself and couldn't really articulate. At other times, though, I've thought that the busy was protecting me from really looking at what it was we were moving towards.
Three years gone. In its approach, it felt to me like an anniversary significant in a whole new way. It's not the first, the towering marker at end of that first overwhelming year, last of the firsts when you don't begin to know what to expect. It's not the second, the first after the first, when maybe you are starting to recognize the outlines of the thing. The third felt, if this makes sense, like the first of many. Like maybe I should have this figured out by now. And for most of the weekend it seemed like maybe I did. Until last night.
What took hold of me as I climed into bed last night wasn't gentle. It wasn't the missing, to which I cop freely any day of the week. It wasn't the sadness-- I know sadness and this wasn't it. No, the thing that made me cry the full-bodied cry like I haven't in long-long time, the thing that made me howl, the realization that felt physically like what I imagine getting kicked in the chest by a horse might feel, was unexpected and it was brutal. I realized, suddenly and inescapably, that I don't just love A, and I don't just miss him.
I realized that I want him, still.
It's not that I thought of him as unwanted until then. He was certainly wanted. It's just that in a universe governed by laws of physics continuing to want him now doesn't do one a whole lot of good. And it's not that I was suppressing this wanting, at least not in any way that I was aware of. I just didn't know that the wanting was in the picture, you know, still.
The realization did nothing to my perception of reality, by the way. That internalized understanding of the futility of my wanting is exactly what made me wail with impotent sorrow. Time is still unidirectional. And A is still gone, and always will be.
I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and it still took me the whole damn day to write this post. Processing, integrating, thinking, feeling. I woke up this morning feeling tender, like I went a couple of rounds with something much bigger than me. I guess I did.
How long has it been for you? What, if anything, has been surprising so far? If you've been at this for a while, how have the anniversaries treated you?
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Reader Comments (30)
I thought of you a lot this week, and of course baby A.
xo
It surprises me how the oddest things will catch me off-guard. How the times when I miss him most aren't when I relive the memories of holding him those short four hours, when I speak of how beautiful he was, and how the few pictures I have don't do any justice to how perfect. It's sudden, like it needs to sneak up on me- and then I cry. And it hurts- oh it hurts. I never imagined how much something could tear you apart inside. Yet I go on. Most of the time, I laugh, and am a happy upbeat person. Those who know, wonder how I can be so positive. Those who don't - envy my happiness. They don't see the cloud that eternally hangs over all- waiting to catch me when I least expect it.
I brought up how much I still miss her once with my DH in the past year or so, and he wanted me to move past it as he had. He's somewhat practical that way, he grieved her and misses her in his own way, I know this. So with that, I would say one surprising thing I have found in this is journey, and it's embarrassing to say, is jealousy. I am ashamed to admit, but I sometimes get jealous when I read how husbands, friends and/or family remember along with you. I feel so alone in this.
So, I am left to read here and other babyloss blogs at work and hide behind my cube wall and hope that no one comes around the corner until my tears dry up and the red eyes go away.
I was surprised when, six weeks after we found out the baby had died in utero, the grief suddenly hit, and I started to walk through a very dark place.
I was surprised at how insensitive some of my friends are, and how sensitive others are.
Rory, I am jealous of that too. I wish my husband was more willing to talk and to... just miss the baby. It hurts to feel I'm the only one to miss it, even 2 months in. Before it was even due to be born.
The first anniversaries were horribly painful, the second ones are much more peaceful so far. It's still just all so very sad.
And yes, they are still loved and we want them still.
Still.
Always.
Thinking of you. Thinking of him.
Still.
Always.
xxoo
PottyMouthMommy really hit the nail on the head with me. I'm a very happy person to the innocent observer but the fact that I can make myself look a certain way says nothing about how I feel on the inside. Some of us are just chameleons that way, I guess. But it hurts sometimes when people assume all is well and that they don't need to ask anymore. Because I want them to ask because she really is always on my mind in one form or another.
Niobe - that struck a cord for me, also. How can I love someone I really never knew? We named her Olivia but I made it clear while I was pregnant that I would be calling her Olive. It was a big joke to everyone because hardly anyone agreed with me that Olive was the most wonderful name ever - though they did agree that it fit for a child of mine. It was perfect. But I don't call her that now. I just don't feel like I knew her well enough to call her by her nickname, which really sucks.
I'm surprised by how long it has taken me to grasp the fact that she isn't going to come back, that her life was complete in those three days.
I'm still surprised that she died. There is a part of me that doesn't quite believe it, not yet.
That she's still gone. Every morning when I wake up. Still gone.
And I still want her.
Thinking of you and A.
I try not to live in should-haves, because it should all be quite different, but it isn't. It is how it is and no amount of wishing changes that. What catches me up is how suddenly I can be knifed through the heart, even now. How quickly I can go from joy to despairing, wailing sorrow, and how little I cry anymore. It's like those tears were put away, and they only come out on big, messy, can hardly breathe occasions. Otherwise, it's largely quiet and soft. An acknowledgement that he is missing and we miss him. I do find it a little harder right now, past his due date, knowing he ought to have been born, to avoid the should-haves. But I think that will get easier again with time.
Still and the duality - what a perfect word.
I am surprised how the loss can still come out of nowhere and take my breath away, make me weak, make me weep. Sometimes there is a clear trigger, but sometimes it is out of the blue. It is not so often now, but when it comes, it hits hard. And again and again I learn what I already know: that this is forever, that there is no getting past it, no reaching a point where it goes away, but forever is too much to take in all at once so I take it in in short gasps. And then go on feeling almost normal, until it hits again, out of the blue.
I'm surprised how much of my brain has been lost recently. I meant to say that I'm surprised that all of my strange feelings are textbook.
I am thinking about her, wondering what to do on her day. But it no longer knocks the wind out of me. The absolute dailyness of living without her has fully settled in - I am not wailing at the moon or sobbing in the shower any more. I am just lonely, quiet, feeling beat down, afraid to ask too much of life.
I've been feeling a little bad about not feeling worse this month. Christmas was the worst. November 19th was the worst. Maybe I'm done for now? Maybe I just do not want to go there - do not want to rehash for myself once again the terror, the physical pain, the indescribable, you know, that comes after.
But I've definitely learned this: the grief will get me again in it's own time. I don't have to schedule time to be overwhelmed with pain. It will just wash over me when it wants to. It will recede when it wants to. So now I just go about my days without her and take care of the things in life that need taking care of. And trust that I'll get knocked off my feet again when the time is right.
I miss her still.
Thinking of you and A.
Also like CaDaLily, I think over and over that I'm surprised at the resilience of the human spirit. We saw a social worker when I was 29 weeks pregnant and we thought we'd be raising a child with health issues related to the syndrome and she said to us 'you'll be surprised at the strength of the human spirit'.
Part of what scares me about this grief is the 'still' nature of it. It's going to be here forever. Every year they'll be a birthday for my child that isn't with it. I'll still be missing her and I'll still be wondering what she would have been doing for the rest of my life. I try not to think about this - it makes me anxious.
How quickly my emotions swing has surprised me. In the beginning I thought it would be good days and bad days but now I find I can be laughing one minute and crying heaving sobs the next and back the other way.
How little effort some people make to understand what this could possibly be like surprises me. And the fact others just seem to even though they haven't been here.
That's there's a whole community of us surprised me and the fact I find more support from this community than most other sources.
Maddie x
I want, I want, I want...
It's a hard thing to want, knowing that I can't have. But still...
Yes, to all of those. Nearly four years since Freyja died. Just 2 years since Kees was born, and nearly 2 years since he died. Only 5 months since Jet died. And I miss them. I love them. I grieve for them. I am filled with pain anew every day. I am angry. I am hurt. I am unforgiving.
Still.
And I suspect that this won't change in the immediate future.
As someone before me said, I am also surprized by the support I feel from this community-Ive never been one much for the internet, really. Yet here is where I come to find understanding and to not feel so alone. Surprized there are so many of us, too.
I have found so far that the anticipation of significant dates has been harder than the dates themselves, but one year is looming over me, and I think it will be the toughest.
I wasn't around for the one word project, but Im going to check it out and see if my word is there, it would've been LOST.
I used to find it surprising how grief could rise up out of the blue to overwhelm me. The situations I plan & prepare for usually turn out fine, but there's always those unexpected moments I haven't planned for or couldn't anticipate that will catch me off guard. It's not a surprise to me anymore that they happen, but the how/when/why often still is.
P.S. Somewhat off topic -- the Commodores/Lionel Richie song "Still" was one of my favourites back in high school!
Our family traditions for Delilah's birthday include folding origami cranes (one for each year) and hanging them on her plum tree in our backyard and the memorial tree we had planted for her in a local park; picnicking in a lovely nearby town; and, of course, cake (I am a baker). This year, since our son will be 2 1/2, it will be interesting to see how much of it he understands. I'm quite sure by next year we will be having conversations with him about his sister, especially since (as long as the universe cooperates this time) we should have a 7 month old baby by then.
Even though they do get easier, anniversaries are always hard. This week was the 21st anniversary of my mom's death (she died when I was a teen) and I still miss her as much as ever. I expect the same will be true for my daughter, for as long as I live.
Thanks, Julia - this is a beautiful post.
It has been 3 years, 2 months and 29 days since our son Ian was born. April 12, 2007. He had died in utero at 21 weeks because of an undiagnosed genetic blood disorder I have that had not been diagnosed - anti-phospholipd syndrome. If my extended family had discussed things more, maybe I would have insisted on more testing.
Maybe... what if... if only.
I had a mother's intuition for weeks before we actually knew that Ian was gone - when my OB was ignoring the signs, ignoring my crying voice mails where I was yelling for her to listen to me. I sat my husband down the night before our visit to a specialist and told him what I was expecting to happen the next day, tried to warn my dad and step-mom who just told me I was overreacting and that God had assured them that it was all going to work out fine. The last thing my OB tried to tell me was that she thought my son was malformed - that his intestines had formed outside of his body.
When I was induced and delivered Ian, the hospital room was so quiet except for tears - not mine. I was just numb, I couldn't look at my son. My husband, my mother-in-law, my aunt - all assured me he was perfect. Absolutely perfect - no deformities at all. Extended family came in over the next day - all took the time to see Ian in the back room of the nursery. I held him briefly, couldn't do it for long - I was afraid I would crush him. I am glad now that we took the steps to name him, hold a memorial and burial service.
Afterward, when I was diagnosed and told that factually, my condition had been to blame, I gave my husband the "divorce" option. I told him that he could leave me and I wouldn't be upset. He never considered it for a second. I wish I could clone my husband's feelings and support for those of you who have husbands who have been less than ideally supportive.
Now, for the anniversaries, we go to his grave - it's in a cemetary out in the country, by a small pond, there are a few trees around the Angel Baby section. We've hung wind chimes in the tree, we spend time with Ian and then go to recognize and mourn new grave markers.
I still have moments when I lose control. We've had 7 confirmed miscarriages since we lost Ian. My husband I think has always been more externally emotional. I am the quiet griever. We now have an instinct, an unspoken arrangement, that when one of us is taking a downward turn, the other remains strong. We alternate our grief. When we had family here taking care of the house and supporting us in the weeks following his death, we could afford to have simultaneous breakdowns.
We are beginning to talk about adoption. I'm 36 and my team of doctors may never be able to mix up the right cocktails of medicine to trick my body into allowing a pregnancy to go full term. I'm coming to terms with that - slowly.
You all are strong, wonderful women. Thank you for sharing!!
And ...still...and ....always...the joy. It's all ours, personally, individually, as a family, and as a community. It just is.
Thank you, too, for allowing us to 'share' this on facebook and elsewhere....maybe some people who think mothers 'should just get over it in 6 weeks' [grrrr] will read it and understand a bit more, hopefully.
Blessings in the joy and in the sorrow.