the relentless pursuit of living

I'm used to the lies by now.  They are common and easy to say.  I say them for the sake of other people, but also for myself.  I have to lie so that I'm not always the guy that sucks the air out of a room, even if that room is the entire outdoors on a glorious fall day at the farmer's market and someone has questions about me, about my life, about how I'm doing.  There is no point in ruining every idle conversation and friendly chatter with truth about my dead son Silas.

You're welcome everyone I spared the honest recounting of my recent life.  It is  the absolute least I can do, and it cuts me with a slice of sadness every time I do it.  Three years since he died and it is still recent to me.  Because it is not so much that time has healed my wounds as much as it is that the wounds themselves are the very nature, the very fabric, of my everyday existence.  I miss Silas as a matter of course, just like breathing, just like moving my body, like blinking, like the beat of my heart.

I am still amazed to have learned that a heart can remain beating when it feels like only dust and awful and the endless void inside.  I am compelled to go forward, no matter the pain of my past.  If anything, his lost life is a fuel for me to live twice as hard, twice as present, twice as calm as I ever would have before.  Not enough, of course, it will never be enough.

Things don't always happen for a reason, and it is always better with Silas sleeping in a room just beyond the wall.  That is a lie I usually don't let people tell me.  That's one I have to correct whenever that awful platitude is thrown in my face. I try to be nice about it, but I can't help but say that no I don't think everything happens for a reason.

I think each of us are a living force to make reason and sanity and beauty and love out of absolute chaos and despair.  We lie to ourselves about feeling okay until one day it sticks a little bit.  We pretend that it is fine to not demolish everything we see out of rage and loss.  We answer the questions.  We smile through the pain, feeling the smile our son or daughter might have shared through glorious living genes.  We breathe their lost thoughts.  We dream their silent fears and inchoate hopes and live a tiny shadow life sometimes of what should be.  What could have been.  What isn't.

I have to remind myself that I'm not crazy sometimes.  When I wake up from the dream where I've missed the flight again, but I don't really care, but I do because I should but I really don't.  I have to lay there for a moment and chill, hoping there are still hours before the appointed time of get the fuck out of bed or else.  And I lay there and wonder how I'm not crazy, with a dead son and lost future and all.  It feels good, then, in the cool autumn morning, when I feel dream-crazy and life-crazy and sleepy-person-lazy-crazy and realize that everyone feels this way.  Everyone lies about how okay they seem to be going down the road feeling fine.

But look at the art. Look at the movies and books and paintings and poets.  Read the headlines.  Walk the streets.  There are endless crazy universes inside everyone's head.  A precise and compelling recounting of life and death and love and loss inside the brain of everyone around you.  Some are people of this community that don't even know we exist.   Babylost medusa crazed father parents that don't have their kids are out there in the towns and cities and hamlets where all of you live.  Not to mention families that are victims of car accidents, cancer, embolisms, old age, and on and on.

The people around us tell us lies to help themselves, to save us, to get by.

I always wanted to crush every moment of time that I have into a succulent nectar of life itself that I could wallow in and enjoy.  I thought that raising my son Silas was going to be the way I could do that.  I anticipated a rich life remembering my childhood as I stood there amazed at his development.  I thought I was going to be the best dad of all time.  I couldn't wait to learn everything I couldn't even begin to comprehend as I watched my son live his amazing life.

September 25, 2008 was supposed to be the start of an incredible chapter of life and growth and offspring and hope in my life and instead it was the complete opposite.  And when he died I had a choice.  I could give up or I could go forward.  For a moment the choice was absolutely clear.  When I was told that he was dead in that moment I could have followed him along directly.  A leap off the building.  A scalpel.  The wall and my head. But then right away thoughts of Lu and family and friends flooded my brain.  I had to be strong because this situation was already going to fuck everything up forever and I couldn't also double down and make it worse.

So for many, many months, not killing myself was the baseline I had established as "doing pretty good."   Plus, when you start there, getting out of bed is like successfully ascending Mt. Everest.  I gave myself accolades for simply going outside for a little while.  But those impulses kept growing, kept beating in my heart, kept pushing me forward.  I learned to lie and love it.  I learned to breathe again.  And yet I'm still not sure I can reconcile what my life should be vs what it is today, right here, one month out from Lu's c-section and the start of everything that comes next.

Everything is always coming next, and it is the incredible human spirit, our very nature, that allows us to face the day and tell the lies and forge the hope we have no right to expect and yet we do, and we do and we do.

Make your lies wishes.  Live extra bright and do not let the lies you have to tell stop you from living your life as honestly as you can.  We will always have a special armor, a veneer of experience that is too awful to wish on anyone but also incredibly, terribly, powerfully true.

Go easy through your day and let the simple, innocent grace of your lost child guide you toward patience and serenity.  Oh and also, don't go any more crazy than you are.  We're all crazy enough as it is, and that's the truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What are your lies?  What are your truths?  Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?  How do you fit the truth of your lost child or children into your sense of the how the world works?  Do you feel crazy and okay like me?

Comments

[Jen]

Chris,

We're about the same time out and maybe that's why everything you write here resonates so strongly with me. I feel like I just took an exposed walk through my own hidden little world.

Everything happens for a reason has to be my absolute biggest bullshit calling line too. Always has been. It's horrible.

Love to you and yours.
Jen

[Monique]

I think we have to pretend. Every day. Most people aren't concerned with an honest answer to the question "how are you?". And part of it is also protecting myself from the unsolicited advice of others in response to our dead-baby truth (see above-mentioned everything happens for a reason). I often don't bring it up b/c I don't want their pity or advice.

Beautiful post, Chris. Lots of love to you & Lani.

[Ruth Bowman]

Thank you, Chris. When my life partner died tragically many years ago I felt as if I was quite literally carrying death, in the form of a skeleton, around on my shoulders. All day every day. I had to be very careful or both of us -- me and death -- would fall into the dark abyss that was always looming just a few steps in front of us. People asked me how I was doing and I said, okay, or I'm managing. To the two adults closest to me, my mother and my friend Gail, I told the truth and they helped me heal -- in time. Here is to the incredible human spirit!

Love to you and Lani,
Ruth

[Mary Beth]

I tell myself lies like, "These people really ARE thinking about my dead daughter," and, "They really DO want to hear about her." Also, "This person doesn't want to upset me by bringing up my dead daughter, that's why he/she never asks." I don't give people the opportunity to disappoint me anymore--I lie to myself about other people because I would like to be in the company of other people and not hate everyone.

[Jeanette]

Chris, every word you write resonates with me. Walking home from school today in the rain I missed my baby girl so much, a moment of intense missing, tears sprang to my eyes, but to most of the world I lie, I say I'm ok. I let others joke about my large family and inside I'm screaming, but outside I'm calm, I'm ok, I smile.
I hate the "everything hapens for a reason" shit. It doesn't.

[michelle]

So true how going forward in life seems like an accomplishment now instead of just part of living. Not killing myself was also my biggest accomplishment after Jack passed, now its one step at a time and going from there. If you ask to many questions about how life or the world works you will go crazy trying to find the answers. I agree with Jen that there is a reason is BS . There are no reasons, there are no answers. Well wishes to you and yours

[Angie]

Beautiful post, Chris.

I hate the everything happens for a reason line too. Always said by someone whose kid lived. And yet, I also believe that we make meaning from the tragedies of our life. We try to find an immortality for them by telling their stories, writing their names, seeing them with other lost children. We succumb or flourish in spite of, not because. And that meaning making appears to be a reason to those on the outside looking in. People have said to me, "See, Lucy didn't die in vain. Look at the amazing work you are doing with your grief, look how you bring people together." And it makes me cringe. Do not take my child's name in vain. Do not use her name to soothe your fear of mortality, to make my life seem beautiful. It was all I could do. Literally, the very least. I'd rather have carried her home and never created a piece of art again in my life. This is the only way I know to survive.

[Susan]

Yep, absolutely despise the "everything happens for a reason". Oh yeah, then what's the F***ing reason??? Please tell me.
Like Monique, people don't really want an honest answer to "how are you". Because they probably cannot handle the truth of "I'm thinking of my dead baby girl". I think of her often. I still cry a lot when I think of her and her lost future. Our lost family.

**subsequent child mentioned**
I lie a lot when people ask about our baby boy. Is he our first?? Most of the time, to avoid awkward conversations, I take the easy road and say yes. Then my chest feels crushed under the pain of excluding Charlotte. How I could I brush her memory away like that. I strategically choose when to share about her. But it gets harder and harder.
I lie when people ask how I'm doing. They assume that things are great because we have this precious boy at home. I truly love my son but he is not my daughter. He is not my first child. I know how lucky we are to have him with us. It will never change the fact that we lost her. I think I try to ignore that myself sometimes.

Am I crazy, yes. Am I ok with it, most of the time yes... probably because it is becoming more normal and easier to blend it in.

[Brianna]

I think this may be one of my favorite posts of all time here. It feels real -but also it feels so hopeful.

This is just amazing:
"Everything is always coming next, and it is the incredible human spirit, our very nature, that allows us to face the day and tell the lies and forge the hope we have no right to expect and yet we do, and we do and we do."

The lies I tell now I am not ashamed of anymore. I used to feel so terribly for ever denying the existence of my son so I never did. Even if it was just the poor clerk at the check out line who was simply asking me how my day was (it is terrible because my son is dead, thank you very much). I don't feel the necessity to tell everyone about George anymore. He is real to me. He existed to me. And it doesn't really matter anymore if that clerk knows for that instant (because you know as soon as I walk out the doors he has already forgotten about my dead son) that he existed.

Oh, and yes, I am most definitely crazy and most of the time ok with it.

Thanks for this.

[Josh]

Beautiful writing here Chris, so many lines to consider and reflect on.

"I miss Silas as a matter of course, just like breathing, just like moving my body, like blinking, like the beat of my heart."

I am just coming to see and feel this at seven months out. It's been there the whole time, of course, I guess I'm realizing that it's always going to be there.

I share your sentiment about others who tell their own lies. It's true, and good to reminded of this every so often.

No, I don't believe everything happens for a reason. I never have. I think we could all write an entire post on the shortcomings of this ridiculous idea.

Thanks for sharing here. We have been following your journey and hope and hope that your next little one emerges safely.

[Paula]

We tell ourselves we will be fine, we get up and paste on a smile. When people say things that hurt, we brush it off and act like it is all okay. When a baby walks by we say the appropriate response, your baby is beautiful blah, blah, blah the whole time not really wanting to talk about their baby when all we can think about is our own. I smile hellos and it is also a lie, I don't really feel like smiling. Honestly I would rather just walk around being sad and not pretending but that is not an option. So I lie like so many of us do and just try to act like it isn't that hard to get out of bed each morning and function.
And I lie to myself sometimes and say everything does happen for a reason but I know this is the biggest lie I tell myself, there is no reason for this and the truth of that hurts worse then the lies.

[Anon]

Two months after losing B I sat in the back of a taxi while the driver attempted to make chit-chat. When he asked me if I had children I said yes and found myself living the story as if it had been--rather than how it was. I still find myself wondering if it was hope or despair that spoke that day. Thank you for a beautiful post.

[Jill (Fireflyforever)]

I'm crazy and fine - happy, even, to be. I hated the lies people told me about my living children. At least I have them, at least they make it better. And it's a lie which belittles them by making the consolation and it belittles Emma by suggesting the loss of her is consolable.

It is true that they make my heart sing but there is a lie in the comparison.

Actually, I hate any lie that begins "at least ...."

[Cathy]

"You're welcome everyone I spared the honest recounting of my recent life." True, that!

We all know "everything happens for a reason" is a favorite of the minimizer's toolbox. Translation: "Your grief/suffering is making me very uncomfortable. Stop messing with my denial of harsh realities. Do the polite thing and shut up."

Of course, this is violently galling. Supposedly there is this very tame, polite conversation going on - but there isn't. And you know it. And they know it. Which you find out if you WON'T shut up...

Cathy in Missouri

[eliza]

My standard lie: No, I don't have any children.

First blurted out a week after he died in an ill-advised trip to the nail salon for lack of anything better to do with my time. And I cried for hours afterwards, wracked with guilt for months. Then I swore I would never deny my son, and that lasted a long time. Then one day I thought "This 16 year old cashier doesn't know, doesn't need to know and won't care and I am so tired of not knowing how to respond to 'I'm so sorry' that inevitably follows."

If people need to know, I tell them when it is right. When they don't, I don't.

Other lies: "Yes, I'm so excited to be pregnant again." or "I feel so lucky."

I have no idea how this will end, and it feels much more like a hellish nightmare of a test than a blessing. Sorry to anyone who desperately wishes to be where I am, I know how much I suck. I despise it in myself, but I cannot deny it.

And of course, "I'm doing well, thanks" when I'm not always. But over two years later and nearly through the first trimester of the next . . . who wants to hear that I still miss my son terribly and that this pregnancy makes me miss him more?

Precious few, and that's all right.

Stunning post as ever, Chris. I've been thinking of you and your wife and hoping fervently she is well and you are well.

[Maddison]

Thank you so much for expessing something I feel everyday. Living on the edge of deciding if it is really worth going through another day. It has only been a month since I lost my boys and I have become a good actress. Not wanting to make other people feel awkward, I give the standard " I'm okay" speech. I go through it everyday. To the people that don't know, when they ask what's wrong it causes a dilemma. Do you casually say " oh by the way I look like sh*t because my Mom died and I just lost my twins?" . It takes everything I have not to scream it from the rooftop. It is hard putting this into words and you did it so well. Again thank you.

[DanneHotchkiss]

What strikes me most here is the idea that we can tell others and ourselves lies often enough and long enough to make them become the truth. It's the basis of envisioning the life we want to live.

[Francisca]

Yeah, I lie a lot too. Some times to protect the person who is listening, other times to protect myself from stupid comments. I don't like having to lie, but I guess this is the only way to keep myself sane. I only wish I could lie to myself as well. Thanks for sharing.

[Jessica]

I am still struggling with the lies, nearly three years after losing Gus. I've experimented with varying degrees of truth depending on the situation, like the taxi driver and the grocery store clerk examples mentioned above. Sometimes I want to spare the other person in the conversation, and sometimes I want to spare myself the awkward exchange. Sometimes I wonder if they will pity or scorn me for being the woman who hasn't gotten over it.

Chris, I love your image of our truth as our armor, separating us from the other people in this world but allowing us to move among them at the same time. Thank you.

[Martha]

I did lie for a while. It was easier to say, "yes, she's our first" but it hurt too badly in the aftermath. I decided that in order to go on living, I needed to face that the boys had died. If that meant ruining someone else's day, I was selfishly going to take that route. I should have 3 year old twin boys AND a 9 month old baby girl but I don't. That's my reality and I can't lie about it anymore. I do feel crazy because I can't reconcile how much I miss them with how much I love her. She's here with me and they aren't but they are, you know? I know you do.

I tell people, "she's the first we got to bring home from the hospital."

I'm tired of the lies.

[mirne]

I wish I didn't have to lie. But I do. A friend recently said to me that it was difficult (for her) to hear me speak of my dead children. I felt like saying to her (but I didn't) that it was difficult for me to listen to her speak of her living children.

What is it about dead children that makes everyone so afraid? Why does it mean that we all need to lie? Why can't I just answer truthfully when someone asks how I am?

Sometimes I do tell the truth, actually most of the time I do. That's one of the reasons why so many of my (before) friends have left. I'm too difficult for them. My dead children are too difficult. They don't know what to make of it. They don't believe that my children died for no apparent reason. Really. To them that makes no sense: children don't just die.

So I do lie. Even when people say, how are you Mirne? I usually say, "so-so". Because I can't say, "well my three children are still dead, there have been no resurrections, so everything is still fucked up". I can't say that, so I lie.

[A fan]

can't believe it's been 3 years. "Getting out of bed is like successfully ascending Mt. Everest." well put. continued good luck about silas' brother too...

[A fan]

Oh, for Mirne - I followed your story. It's hearbreaking (to say the least...how can I say the most?) You and Craig deserve more children and people to love, not less. "There have been no resurrections" - very well put.

[jjg90278]

Iit's only been three months since my baby girl Leslie passed from colon cancer, but I guess I learned this lesson fast. Because after a few weeks of telling people the truth, I jnowv ust say fine. They don't want to hear it, Really. And while they might express some sympathy, they don't know what to say. Because they have no way to connect to the awful truth and f***ked shit that is our lives. And no, I will never be the same. How could I be? Your child is gone. And not just part of your blood and DNA in the very physical sense, it's your heart and soul that have been ripped apart. And when I read these other posts I can feel the anger we all have. Because there really isn't a "reason" it's just another load of shit life's dumped on our heads.

Yeah, I'm fucking bitter. It's senseless. And yes, I have another daughter and her daughter, and Leslie's two children, so I have to "maintain" but except for the fact that they've had enough grief already, most of the time, living on seems pretty pointless. Because who gives a shit if your mortgage is a year overdue or some asshole cut you off on the freeway, does it really mean anything?

Sorry, I am going to go have a drink and try and sleep.

Thanks to all of you parents who have gone here before me and have illuminated some of the
path for me.