other women
The groom’s sister looks pale and smiles wanly. Her black cocktail dress fits trimly over her belly; she looks six, maybe seven, months along. In the reception hall she is seated alone across the table from me. Her place setting is adorned with a small white candle and a photo in a black felt frame— her father, who died a few years ago.
I happen to know that hers is an IVF baby. That she is 39, single, and has decided to parent alone. Her grief is so palpable and familiar—alone with sadness at a happy event— that I find myself wondering if this is her first pregnancy attempt, or if there is a loss in her past, or if her baby has complications. She looks so ethereally sad for someone whose brother is getting married. Maybe she just misses her dad.
I should ask her. This new, compassionate me, who is supposedly unafraid of grief, should ask, How are you really doing? But I don’t. I make small talk. I am embarrassed.
I am faking this wedding. I am going to have a good time, dammit. One of my best friends is getting married, the banquet hall full of old acquaintances, and I just want to pretend I am okay. So I do. For the first time I put a huge parenthesis around my dead baby and prattle on about my beautiful stepdaughter, my great new husband, our upcoming move, and how beautiful the bride looks. This is how I get through it. This is how I have a good time.
Later I regretted this portrait of my life. Not because I hid my baby daughter—there isn’t a person in the room who meant enough for me to share her name with them. But because of the other women I might have wounded with my fakery. Because in that moment I chose to continue the cycle, chose not to break the silence.
At the wedding, I try to be cheerful with Alice, who is spending the evening at the edge of the terrace, the edge of the ballroom, the edge of the crowd. She is fidgety with an angry look on her face. Her very tall husband smiles at everyone, mingles, brings her drinks. I’ve met her only once, at a shower she threw for the bride. There she let something slip about how painful fertility testing is. I see the look on her face tonight and wonder. How many losses? How far long? How many failed cycles? How many bad test results? To me, she looks like grief.
photo by laura mary
When I approach her, she barely responds. Her husband swoops in with drinks. Conversation falters. We end up chatting about my stepdaughter and her adventures at summer camp. This is stupid, given what I know. I want to say, How is the testing going? It’s okay to talk to me. I know something about this. But I don’t. I smile and mention Lilly’s name too many times. Finally, we sidle away from one another. But I watch her all night.
Later I find Nissa, a vivacious Filipina in her late 40s with a poet for a husband. I used to pal around with her and the bride, but that was years ago. She wants to catch up and hear my news. I tell her I am a stepmama, and that I am about to move to her old stomping grounds in the west of the state. Her husband points out that they grow good weed there, not that he’s tried it. We laugh.
As I speak, she hears happiness in my voice. She doesn’t hear the parenthesis. So you like being a parent?, she asks. Oh, that is so great, oh…. She looks up at her husband, and I see the pain cross her face. They have never been able to have children. And now I am the jerk, bragging about “my child” to the childless. I could have told her then about Angel Mae. She would have been kind about it, but it would have felt like backtracking. See I am not really a jerk because my baby died and I haven’t been able to get pregnant again either…
But at that moment, I don’t know how to say it. She is wearing a bridesmaid dress and has a champagne glass in her hand.
Jane is on the dance floor. I haven’t seen her since college. She moved to Colorado, then Paris, then back to the Southwest. She is lively and nerdy and gorgeous, just as I remember her. It has always been hard to get a negative word out of her; she smiles broadly even as she tells me about rupturing her Achilles tendon a week before her wedding. The kids are doing great, she says, total opposites in personality, though. Her younger one is adopted.
I could ask why they chose to adopt. I wonder about losses and secondary infertility. I look for answers in her face, but she is still smiling and grooving as Prince’s Seven blares loudly from the speakers. Maybe she adopted simply because she was adopted herself.
She asks if I am on Facebook. I tell her I used to be but not anymore. Why not? I dodge the question.
Maybe this is just me, seeing loss everywhere. Maybe these women felt fine and could have cared less what I rambled about. Maybe I should mind my own business. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t make myself into the crazy dead baby lady at the wedding.
Maybe. But I’m pretty sure I’m right about this—that at such a happy occasion, there were sad hearts wandering the ballroom. So I’m still thinking about those women, wishing I had spoken up, wishing we could each have felt a little less alone. But silence was my survival that night. Maybe it was theirs, too.
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These days, how are you with other people’s pain and grief (hidden or revealed)? Has your own loss made you bolder about being with others who are hurting? What is it like when you say the wrong thing, or nothing? Have you ever publicly broken the “time and place” rules because you needed to talk?
14 Comments
Reader Comments (14)
Sometimes, there are surprises. Like the man last week who drove the horses on the carriage ride my husband and I took. His son died when he was born too. We shared our grief and our common ground.
Thanks for this - I've read here for a very long time but never commented because...well, I don't know why. I guess not being able to stay pregnant longer than four-ish weeks is simply not the same as what most of you have lived through. But this particular post shows very well to me the fact that grief is the great equalizer. We should not be so insulated with our stories...but on the other hand, I see nothing at all wrong with going to a wedding determined to enjoy it and trying to let go of what haunts us. Compartmentalizing is okay for an evening - everyone deserves a night off when they can!
Thanks for this post Jenni. It reminds me of something my dad said when we found out that we were going to lose our son (and had just recently lost another baby to miscarriage at 11 weeks). He said that everybody has their "thing" in life, and that maybe this was just going to be ours. Everyone suffers, whether it is losing a child or losing a parent when you're young or financial problems or divorce or...whatever. I like to think that those of us who are living this deadbaby nightmare are maybe going to be spared some other suffering, somehow.
michelle, martha and monique - that's awesome. thanks for sharing these stories of speaking up and connecting. i aspire to do more of that.
keely and amy - thank you for your comments. i agree with you - grief is equalizing. yet it can makes us feel so separate from one another, which is strange. i too hope that anyone who has lost a baby will be spared further suffering, though i can't quite believe that's true.
I was reminded of a day at work, many years ago. I worked in a store in an affluent area, and celebrity sightings were not a suprize. Customers were not always the nicest people to deal with in this place. It's amazing how money can affect one's feelings regarding personal entitlement (not everyone, but some). Anyway, a woman was truly and completely horrible to me one day. I could not get my mind around why she would be so absolutely nasty. I went to lunch, and when I returned, a fellow manager told me she had returned, and wanted to apologize for her behavior. Her husband was dying, she said. Not only was I impressed that she would bother to come back and explain herself, but to do so under so much emotional duress was just amazing to me. That was my introduction to "it's not about me", and the greif and sorrow that exist in the world. Only at that time, I had not experienced it personally. Now I feel for her even more.
I find I am bolder after my son died. I reach out much more readily, and speak up when others falter. I hope I have become a better companion in grief, but I am sure I have stumbled.
I try to speak up about Hope as much as I can, but sometimes it isn't always possible, and the situation just doesn't present itself correctly.
It is such a tightrope, Jenni. And I think on this night, you did a great job of walking it.
Missing Angel Mae.
xo
I hope that if that type of situation ever happens again, I will be able to acknowledge the loss. I hope I can find the words to say "I'm sorry. I remember". If I can, the strength will come from my son and no one else.
I really enjoyed your writing. It was creative and strong.
My heart goes out to you. I am so sorry that you lost your son. I have been on both sides of this horrible grief. My sister lost her son to Tay-Sachs disease when he was almost 3 years old. I had overwhelming grief for the loss of my nephew, but I did not know how to communicate it to her through the years. He's been gone for 11 years now. I lost my baby girl in May and now know how she felt all those years, how she still feels. People just don't know what to say. I didn't know what to say to my own sister. I remind myself when I find myself getting angry at the world that I have been in their shoes. Speak of your son as much as you can. In the beginning, I talked about Julia all the time. As time passes, I find that I am more private with my thoughts. And I find that even though it is so hard sometimes, I have to forgive people that say nothing. Your son will live forever in your heart and in all of those that love him.