Signs
The conversation happened on an average evening. I wasn’t feeling any which way in particular, wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. It was just a day, in the middle of another long week, towards the end of a complicated year.
I was taking my time wandering around the multiple level Whole Foods, rolling the cart as slowly as I wanted, perusing aisles that I had never entered, enjoying the temporary taste of aloneness that usually doesn’t exist under these conditions. Normally I’m running between wine racks and around food displays, chasing my two year old, who genuinely believes Whole Foods was created for hide and go seek. A simple visit for shampoo and milk can sometimes take more than an hour with her cheeky company. But not tonight.
As the clock ticks towards closing time, I wheel my cart in the direction of the check out lane to pay for my evening of solitary indulgence. An older woman greets me kindly.
Hello, she says.
Hi.
And that was that, as the story goes.
And then this kid appears. This teenager, with scrappy hair and pale skin, just shows up out of nowhere to bag my groceries. He’s wearing a plaid shirt, baggy jeans and a sincere smile. He looks relaxed and eager almost simultaneously. And he smells like the middle class.
Hey man, he asks with measured enthusiasm. How’s it going?
I have learned how to dismiss these conversations with relative ease over the months since my baby died. In the beginning, when the dizzying shock was all there was, I’m not even sure I heard these kind of questions. I can hardly remember a single conversation with anyone in those first few weeks and months, let alone one with a complete stranger in a check out line. But as the months marched on, this kind of common social courtesy began ringing in my ear like a clanging drum. A friendly and casual how’s it going? from a stranger became a jovial sucker punch: HOW’S IT GOING!?!? ARE YOU HAVING AN AWESOME DAY!?!? I wanted to choke on the nicety. So I learned to ignore, or to respond with a muttered answer, or to simply avoid any situation where this kind of question might surface.
But tonight this sprightly chump has me, before I can even think one way or another. I just answer.
I’m good. How are you?
Pretty good man, he says, pretty good.
You’re putting a lot of items to the side, I note with a smile, remembering my own days in the bagging trenches. You trying to get them all in one bag?
Yes, he replies with an innocent grin.
I know that game. My first long term job was bagging groceries. I spent two years of my life playing tetris with food items, trying to find the perfect fit for each paper bag.
Yeah, he says through a chuckle. Cold stuff goes together, fragile stuff on top.
Exactly. The plastic bag people weren’t any fun though. You can’t organize anything in those bags. I guess you don’t have that problem here, eh? I’m surprised you guys even allow paper bags.
He laughs nervously and the checkout woman flashes me a smile, as if we’ve shared a little dig on her company. And there I am, laughing right along with them, like I enjoy these silly little chats.
And then with a hint of pride, as if he’s showing a veteran his immense talent, he hands me one individual paper bag, filled perfectly to the top with my produce and toothpaste and chips and everything else.
The magazine is down the side, he says with eyebrows raised, not wanting me to miss this little packing gem.
Nice one! I add excitedly.
It wasn’t until I walked out to my car that I even realized what had just taken place. Who was that in there, I thought to myself in a state of perplexity. Having conversations, laughing, using exclamation points - was that me? Did I really just say, nice one!? As I recalled the brief interchange, I could hardly believe it was real, as if I was watching someone else going through the motions of every day people.
I’ll tell you something though. The interaction felt like a minor fucking miracle. A brief sign that maybe this grief, which sometimes feels like a two-thousand pound bear sitting on my chest, is evolving, even in the slightest of ways. Because it’s not as if I forgot my baby was still dead in that moment. It’s not like I magically returned to my former self before my daughter died. She was there. My grief was there. As they always are, tucked and folded in to my very fabric. The truth is, we were all there together, having a pointless conversation about groceries. And it felt pretty okay.
How has your grief evolved over the months and years? Were there any signs that tipped you off to this evolution?
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My birthday was actually Calla's due date, one month after she died. And I did NOT want to celebrate. And that is a bit of an understatement, as instead of celebrating my birthday I really just wanted to evaporate. But my husband surprised me by inviting my best friends out to dinner in a fancy limousine--friends who live here and all over the country. And they came. And guess what? I felt like shit but maybe that night a little less. I think I actually danced. And the whole time leading up to that night C kept saying, "You don't have to have fun if you don't want to, and your friends won't mind if you cry all night. They just want to be with you."
But I didn't cry. A lot, anyway. And I thought that was something right there.
I remember my 'holy crap, we're surviving' moment came 8 months after our son was stillborn at term. We went on this sad little mid-winter budget getaway, just us and our 2 year-old, and we did all the classic stuff. Then at one point our kid was napping in her carseat so we just parked in a lot somewhere and hung out, and I was taking photos, and my husband suddenly yanked off his winter boots and wool socks and started cutting his toenails with a swiss army knife. It was so gross and mundane and somehow just tickled me, and him, and I will never forget hearing us laughing, actually laughing hard like silly innocent former us, his head thrown back and everything. That was a beautiful sight, and a long time coming.
I think that is the main thing, you know the whole carrying the weight of our grief thing. It doesn't get any lighter, it is just that our muscles have gotten stronger or at least adjusted to the weight a little better.
What I do know now better then before, is that it is okay to have good days and it is okay to smile and laugh. And it is okay to have conversations with the bag boy and all of the people we ineract with. It is all part of us surviving.
When I read this in Sylvia Plath's journals, I knew what she meant. Strangers - in grocery stores, in the post office, at the gas station - are much easier. Even having those short conversations feels more free, like escaping for a while.
When I see people I know, they are always checking to "see how I am." Even if they don't ask (which I prefer; I don't want to elaborate), they are watching - always watching. I feel sized up and checked on and evaluated. What I want to be is invisible. Especially with people who need me to be fine whether I truly am or not - invisible is preferable to cross examined.
Strangers don't watch. They also don't know when I lie. With them, I'm allowed to say I'm fine and yes, this weather is great and you're right, the price of butter is shocking. They never jump from that to assumptions that I'm "All Better" or "Over It" or "Moving On." They never want to know how I'm coping. They never report - in the guise of a prayer request - that they saw me in the produce section so the gossiping ladies at church will have something to chew on.
They don't care if "I'm fine" is a lie - they don't know, and they don't care. They just let me be. And I love them for it.
Best of all, they never say the wrong thing about my particular situation. They might say the wrong thing, in general, but since they have no idea about my life - whatever they say, they didn't direct it at my heart on purpose.
I can't figure out if all of this is bitterly cynical - or just the way it is. I still like the strangers better.
Cathy in Missouri
For me, it was also being able to have people in my house again. I really didn't see any of our friends for a good six months or so. Just a few very close ones, but in terms of being social either going out or having people here, I had shut myself off. The first kid's birthday party I went to, suffice to say, was a pretty big deal and a good indication that time was indeed, working wonders for me (whether I wanted it to or not).
What I loved about reading this post Josh, and especially the exchange you wrote about, was that I was able to clearly hear it and picture it in my mind after seeing your spoken word blog post. So that was really cool.
This is beautifully written.
Around 3 in the morning, a few hours after she born-died, the neonatologist came in to the room. He started talking to us in the dark. Where was he looking? Please, a light on?
Which tests did we want done. At the end of the conversation I asked about myself. When can these empty arms leave the hospital?
His response, "I don't do mothers."
I said, "I'd make a dirty joke right now, but I won't....." Despite the circumstances I couldn't resist.
He said something about an amazing capacity for humor helping me through these times.
It was just shock. Now the shock is (usually) mostly worn off. Facial expressions hurt, my eye bags are so heavy, my nasal passages are always stuffed.
I feel like I only do "normal" things if I'm in a state of "pretend".
Why did I just do that?
How did that just happen?
....I was pretending she never existed.
She never existed.
If she never existed then my bacteria couldn't kill her, unexpectedly, in the last moments of "birth".
....except it's the 4th of the month. She was due September 4th.
I thought I had a "moving forward" moment. It was promptly followed by a sense of relieved horror. I hadn't cried yet that day. Later I learned that meant I'd be up late, or in the middle of the night, crying to meet my quota. This is baggage I don't want.
This is baggage I want to tell everyone about. I want to show everyone her picture.
Someday I'll tell a dirty joke, I'll laugh, and it won't be pretend. Someday I won't notice it's a Wednesday, or how many weeks it's been, or how old she would be. Someday.
It's almost like an out-of-body experience. A very strange feeling. Thank you for sharing.