Bearing Burdens

This holiday season wasn't as bad, emotionally, as some have been.  Mostly, it passed uneventfully, with a few twinges or moments that reminded me they were supposed to be hard.  I'd say that was a vast improvement.  Our practice of looking for people to help really made it easier to think of someone other than myself.  But other things helped as well.  

It also helped that people would show they were thinking of us and wishing us well.  I had people checking in on us, asking us how we were in the way that it was clear they really wanted to know.  I had a friend show up on my doorstep with a gift to add to my angel shelf.  That did bring a tear to my eye, in the very best way.  

We also prayed consistently for those who struggled more than we did, and there were many.  Someone I know sat beside the hospital bedside of her little girl as that toddler flirted with death.  Someone else I know struggles with a difficult pregnancy.  Several someones struggled financially or emotionally.  Others struggled through their worst Christmas ever as they mourned the recent loss of a loved one.  

Nothing helps with one's own burdens more than thinking of others or having others think of us.  Knowing that there is love and there are prayers help carry the difficult burden of a holiday.  Thank you to all who prayed for us and all those who gave us an opportunity to pray or serve them.  There is truly magic in bearing one another's burdens.  

Our Traditions

Christmas season, as I've said, is hard.  But we've found ways to make it just a little bit easier with traditions and sparks of joy.  

When I unpacked our Christmas decorations, I pulled out a little tree made of gold tinsel. I wouldn't think much of it, except that we bought it on clearance the year my baby died.  That year, everything was painful.  Breathing was painful.  Existing was painful.  It's hard to describe just how much agony comes upon a family that has just lost a child when the holiday season comes.  Everything from a baby's first Christmas ornament to images of babies to paintings of angels to songs about mothers giving birth brought new pangs of loss.  With that tinsel tree, my kids played an improv game named Props in which they brainstormed what that little tinsel tree could be from a mermaid fin to a cat's tail to a dunce cap to a nose.  That little tinsel tree brought a rare smile to my face.  It brought something so rare during such a painful season: laughter.  

This one little item makes me reflect over the last seven Christmases since our angel came and left.  I remember buying little angel ornaments with anticipation to add to our journal tree.  Every year, we select and date an ornament to represent our year.  We have a 2004 angel that represents our boy before he was born and a toddler ornament that represents him after his birth.  We have similar ornaments to represent our next child.  We bought both a solitary angel for Alli and an angel dancing with a little girl to represent both of our girls.  Then, we bought a frame with wings in which to place our baby's photo after she passed.  But most years, we buy one ornament to represent our vacations or the purchase of a house or a pet.  Those ornaments, like our children's scrap books, remind us of the major events in our lives.  We also have an ornament to represent our miscarried angels.  We all sit together to put those special journal ornaments on our tree and reflect on our lives together.  We smile together remember the fun moments as well as our losses. The tree represents all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  

Then, there's our angels' gift.  Every year, it's the last present we open because it's the most important.  Over the course of the holiday season for the last seven years, we've recorded every service we've done for our fellow man, even each other.  We write them on slips and put them under the tree.  We've made a point to add to it every chance we got.  For the first few years, I needed something to think about other than the holiday season, itself.  I have a friend who struggles financially, especially around the holidays.  So every year for the first few years, I had my kids and me find presents for this family to make their Christmas a little bit brighter.  Now, I don't need that emotional escape, but I still want to help.  I still want to add to that service jar, the gift for my angels.  So I give her a little money.  I want her to have the joy of doing the Christmas shopping for her kids.  This year, especially, we're looking for ways to bring a little bit of joy to others.  That's what this season is all about: remembering the giver of all good things.  

Due to these acts of healing and others as well as the healing power of the Lord, Christmas is no longer as painful as it once was.  That doesn't mean it's free of tears and pain.  But it is better.  We don't have to let the holidays stay painful.  We can find traditions, find ways to bring joy in spite of our pain.  I hope you can do the same.  Because the message of Christmas isn't one of pain but of joy, light, and love.  When we share all of that with others, it comes more fully into our lives.  

Fear of Loss

It's hard to say which is worse, losing someone without warning as I did with Alli or knowing you're going to lose someone before you do.  In the latter case, you get closure.  You get to say goodbye.  In the former case, you get neither of those things, but you also don't endure the fear and the period of mourning long before mourning really begins.

I started to think about this recently as someone I know sits by the bedside of her sick child.  I can't know if she'll lose the child, but the fear eats her alive.  Her every waking thought and breath are devoted to her child, knowing that she could lose her at any time.  I never had to go through that.  But with the way I went to work, made a call home, and learned my baby was gone in rapid succession, I don't feel like I had the closure I may have had.

I guess the real question is does it hurt more when you can see the bus coming before it hits?  Either way, it hurts.  It hurts so badly you feel like you're going to die, that a heart can't take that much pain and survive.  Most of the time, I am buffered from the pain anymore.  The pain has become a part of me, like my leg or my arm.  But also, the Lord has helped me through, has shielded me from some of the pain.  But that doesn't mean the pain isn't there.

Loss is just hard, whether you see it coming or not.  There's no way around it.  Knowing families can be together forever helps but doesn't end that pain.  I can't hold my baby right now.  My arms are still empty.  I have something to hope for as will my friend if she does lose her baby.  She, too, knows she will hold her baby again one day.  But not until that day.

It's hard to see her in front of that metaphoric bus of loss, knowing it could very well hit at any time.  It's hard not to be able to do anything to prevent that bus from hitting.  I pray for her, but I know if the Lord wills it, if it's her baby's time, all the prayer in the world will not stop the bus.  All I can do is hold her hand and unite with her in prayer, help her understand that if the bus hits, I'll be there for her, no matter what.  For now, that will have to be enough.

Ho Ho Horrible

'Tis the season to be jolly.  It's the holiday season.  Everyone is supposed to rush around with a smile on their face, right?  The colors seem brighter, happier.  Unless you've had a loss that drains all color and turns the light to darkness.  Then it all seems to be washed in particularly painful shades of gray fading to black.  The holidays are anything but happy for those in mourning. 

People's expectations that you have happy holidays makes this time a year more painful for many people.  It's hard to feel thankful at Thanksgiving when all you feel is the black hole of where your loved one ought to be.  2010, the year I lost my baby, all I could feel was that black hole, that bloody hole where my heart used to be, sucking all light, all color, all flavor out of the world.  It's hard to taste turkey and pie around the flavor of blood that tints everything.

Those who haven't had that world-rocking, earth-shattering caliber of loss simply don't understand how this works.  Your struggle with the holiday confuses them many times.  It seems like your failure somehow that you haven't "gotten over it" yet.  Some people outside the miasma of your loss  try to understand.  Some have gone through it and really do understand.  But so many don't.  And their expectations for your joy feel like that one more burden you can't carry. 

I've seen it again and again.  My husband lost his mother just over 20 years ago on the 16th of December.  For him, she was Christmas.  To this day, every Christmas feels like a soul-sucker.  He struggles to find things to be grateful for since his holidays have been buried in the cold ground for over two decades.  He loves us, but that doesn't stop his clinical depression that gets worse in the dim, short days from feeling all the more acute during "the most wonderful time of the year."  I've talked to multiple people this year who feel the same about the holidays as we did and, to some extent, still do.

Neither my husband or I felt even sort of merry December 2010.  Every song about babies or birthing brought burning tears to my eyes.  Since then, I've been clawing my way back through finding ways to serve others for myself and my family and then putting slips of paper with acts of service printed on them into a jar for my angel.  These are to be opened and read on Christmas morning.  My holidays do almost feel merry again these seven years later.  But my husband still feels the darkness in a way that overshadows everything else.  I respect that. 

There's no easy fix for this.  The holidays just make everything feel harder, more burdensome, for many people.  All many of those who are in mourning ask is that they be allowed to mourn and feel in their own way, in their own time.  Please don't try to force your smiley face on someone else.  Don't add to that burden.  Just be there.  That's enough.  And if you're there and sharing your love and support, you may see a smile after all. 

Goodbye, Sweet Aries: Watching Someone's Gravity Shift

Recently, my brother had to put his dog down.  This may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people.  But they've had the dog for over 14 years.  His kids grew up with Aries being the center of their home, the heart of their family.  As they moved around, as their world hit several snags, as they grew up and left home, they still looked to Aries to show them what love was.  One of my nephews shared custody with his dad and took Aries home every other week.  He was the very center of gravity for all of them. 

Then came the day a tumor started to grow on his nose.  When they took him to a vet, they were told that surgery was not a very viable option, especially for an elderly dog.  They watched his medical problems get worse and worse with some concern.  But 14 is fairly old for a large dog.  Without a huge financial expenditure, there was not much anyone could do.  Even then, things looked iffy. 

They held onto him for as long as they could because they knew how much his loss would hurt.  When they took him in, he wagged his tail until the end, trusting and loving them into the beyond.  Some of them have seen his spirit as he's continued to watch over them. 

But that doesn't stop the pain.  For most of them, it feels like a child or their best friend has died.  I held my adult nephew (who never cries) as he sobbed out his pain onto my shoulder.  A piece of their soul, the unifying force in their divided family, is nowhere they can see him.  I've had pets die.  I've had people in fur die (animals that have become more than just a pet, more like a companion or a best friend).  But I've never been rocked to my soul quite as much as I saw in my brother's family. 

When I saw their pain, I thought of my own.  We sat and cried together.  I know you can't compare one kind of loss (that of a child) to another (a furbaby).  But there's a kinship, a connection, that can be made between those who have lost, regardless of what the loss is.  I don't think I would have understood their loss like I do without my own.  I can be grateful for the empathy I've learned that allows me to be there for them and cry with them. 

Too much Death

I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like I can't hop on FaceBook or even the news without hearing about world-rocking loss hitting someone I know.  One day, I spent about five minutes online and found news of three deaths, all in rapid succession. A friend of mine posted a news article of how her niece and her niece's best friend were hit by a truck, which killed one of them.  Another friend is reeling from the death of a cousin.  Another friend's mother unexpectedly passed away.  And so on.  Then, of course, were the loss of the three-year-old I wrote about last time and the loss of my good friend's beloved husband I wrote about some time ago.  They all break my heart because they were so sudden and unexpected.  Each of them broke multiple hearts.  And the list of loss rolls on.  For the sake of one of my friends, I looked up a FaceBook support group for mothers of angels.  Now, I get the stream on my FaceBook wall of pictures of babies mourned.  It's almost a shock to see a baby who is still alive and well. 

I don't actually know most of those who were lost, but I feel their pain.  It's so hard to be living life, feeling like everything is okay when someone calls or something happenszx, and your world falls apart.  I run into constant reminders of how fragile life is and how precious the moments are.  I know families can be forever, but loss is so hard in the here and now.  I fell into the trap of self-blame, and I can only imagine that's a very real struggle in the lives of many of those who have lost those they love. 

It's such a helpless feeling to hear about someone's pain when you can't do anything.  All you want to do is take away their pain, yet you know it's not possible.  All I can do in many cases is pray for their peace.  Healing is hard.  I know my prayers and others' prayers softened the pain.  I know the Lord carried me when I could no longer walk.  I just hope and pray those with such fresh pain are blessed with the same.

The Echo of Fresh Loss

A little over a week ago, the shock of terrible news echoed throughout our community.  A three-year-old girl was thrown from a horse and had to be taken off life support.  Everyone spoke of little else.  Those in my church community, led by our bishop, gathered at the church to pray for this little girl and this family before the final news came that she was brain dead.  We all prayed for a miracle because we know they happen.  In this case, it was that sweet angel child's time to go Home. 

Once again, my community gathered for a balloon release in her honor.  People came from miles around to support this family in their deep loss at that little girl's funeral, as she was carried to her grave not in a hearse but by a horse-drawn carriage. 

My husband and I wept for this family as we heard of their loss.  Something came up to stop me from making each event, but I rejoiced in the support they received.  I sent that little girl's bereft mother a message of support on FaceBook, and my husband attended most of it. 

I am not close to the family.  I may have seen the little girl in passing but had not met her.  But this hit my husband and me hard because we understand what this family is going through on a personal level.  It all echoes back through time and makes our pain feel fresh.  I woke in tears over a dream that my two living children had died. 

It also reminds me of how little support we received when our loss happened.  We felt judged, rejected by our community at the time because we'd failed in a parent's primary responsibility: to keep a child alive.  The undercurrent was that whatever happened, we deserved what we got.  If only all communities could understand the power of support and love at the time of such a deep and life-shattering loss.  We still felt people's prayers and did have friends and family from nearby and elsewhere come to the funeral, but I think the loss would have been even a little bit less impossible to endure if we had the kind of support this sweet family had.  I'm just happy for them that they have it and would pray for all who have a catastrophic loss that they'd feel the kind of outpouring of love this sweet family has had. 

I know some people probably question how all of these prayers did not result in a miracle.  How could such a terrible thing happen to good people?  I sometimes, I have to remind myself that prayer is about aligning our will with the Father's.  He knows the larger picture.  If we would have been most blessed, the plan for our lives most fulfilled, over the healing of our baby Alli, she would have been healed. 

But the Lord, in His mercy, knew we had to pass through hell at that time.  I can't explain why everyone loses a child, but I believe I have come to some understanding of the whys in our case.  We needed the growth, the empathy, the lessons we learned through loss. 

Faith is about trusting that He knows what we need.  We want this thing, and we pray for it.  But if we don't get it, we will still trust and believe.  That is the purest kind of faith, the faith that gets us closest to Him.  If I could have it all over again, would I choose a redo?  You'd better believe I would.  I'd give my life for my little girl rather than have her taken from me. 

I'm thankful for the blessings that have come from this loss, but I still have a hard time being grateful for the loss itself.  I can't claim to know everything, even about our own situation.  It brings me comfort to know I will hold Alli again, that we will be a family forever.  It also brings me comfort to know my heart can be healed through Jesus's sacrifice, his atonement.  In the meantime, it still hurts.  And my heart still bleeds for those who have to join the empty arms club.  I will reach out to them as often as I can. 

I believe in angels, and that they watch over us.  I believe God loves me.  I believe we can be together forever.  For now, that will have to do. 

Finding a Kindred Souls

A year or two ago, I met a woman who had grown up in the same area in which I'd lived and worked for a year and a half.  We made that connection, and we've chatted occasionally since.  Recently, I talked about my losses.  That's when she mentioned she, too, had lost a child, and recently, too.  I had had no idea.  I gather she figured my losses were so intense that her one second-term miscarriage didn't compare.  She just never brought it up.  We never know who may be a member of the empty arms/mothers of angels club.

I never wanted someone to feel somehow of a lesser rank in that club or that her loss was any less painful.  There really shouldn't be any ranking at all.  Yes, some of us have had more losses than others.  Some of us have had later losses than others or more recently losses.  But we're all members of that club of loss, a membership we wouldn't wish on anyone because the dues are too high.  It's a membership that teaches empathy and understanding that can't be taught or learned in any other way. It makes me feel bad that she somehow feels awkward mentioning her loss with me.  We should all be brothers and sisters in this club.  We all understand what real pain is.

I'm thankful that she did share with me.  Sharing implies trust.  When you're a person in mourning, it's hard to know who we can trust because some people respond in more supporting ways than others to our professions of grieving.  We often walk around like everyone else, saying nothing about our loss for fear of painful words.  When we do say something, we're hoping for the right words or touch or contact of any sort that will make our pain feel that much more bearable.  I would wish that all around me who have suffered loss would feel I was a person with whom they could share their hearts without worry that I'd cause them added pain. I pray the words I say to someone in mourning are the words that will help them feel loved.  Always.

Respecting the Griever

I've faced various kinds of loss, some of them harder than others.  I've had hard loss and easy loss.  Easy loss is the kind of loss that makes you sad but doesn't change you fundamentally.  Hard loss shakes you to your core.  After hard loss, life is not the same.

I've had difficult pet losses, such as sudden death like happened to our precious little Harmoni, who got on the highway and was hit a few months back.  And I've had easy pet losses, as happened today, when we decided as a family our puppy would be happier at another home.  I know some people struggle more than words can say with these losses, and I've had more than I can count.  But a loss like this does not compare to the loss of a family member such as a child.  At least it hasn't compared in my experience.  Even the loss of my dearest, most beloved cat who was an incredibly important person in fur to me did not change my life and rock my world like the loss of my baby.

Today, a friend of mine, someone I've known for years, lost her husband unexpectedly.  It reminded me of another friend who also lost her husband recently.  I can't pretend to understand that kind of loss.  I've imagined a world in which the other half of my mind and heart is taken away suddenly, but I wouldn't wish that kind of loss on anyone.  I can understand pain like that on some levels since I've lost my little girl and several pregnancies, but I've never suffered that exact kind of loss.

Meanwhile, I'm thankful when people understand my kind of loss, when they say the right things or avoid saying the wrong things because they are filled with empathy due to their own child loss.  However, I don't wish that kind of empathy on anyone, that kind of experience.  I can only imagine it may be an entirely different kind of loss when the child has grown a bit older and has become more interactive than my baby was.  For instance, my pain was terrible, but I imagine it may have been even worse had Alli been five or ten when I lost her.  I don't ever want to find out.

I think the mistake a lot of people make is when they try to eclipse all of these losses together, when they try to say that dreadful phrase, "I understand" when they've had a loss and presume to think they understand all loss.  I can't tell my young widowed friend, "I understand your pain" when I really don't.  When I'd just lost cats or grandparents, I didn't understand this idea.  I'd say things like, "You've lost a child?  I feel your pain.  I lost a cat once."  To the uninitiated like I was, this felt like I was empathizing.  To the recipient of such comments, it probably felt like I was trivializing.  I think it's important that we reach out to each other, that we don't presume to tell others how they should feel, that we respect other's right to respond to grief as they do, not as we want them to do.  

We need to be the listening ear without trying to make ourselves feel more comfortable with their pain by trivializing or offering something that feels like kindness to us, such as the question, "How are you?" when someone who hears it may only find such phrases painful.  The right thing to say rarely starts with "I understand..." or "At least...." or "You think you've suffered..." or "You're not over that...?" These things have a tendency to trivialize, compartmentalize, demand, or distance.  The supporter needs to realize many of these phrases are about comforting ourselves, not the grieving party.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is just let them know we're there, that we're listening, that we love them.  Sometimes, the best thing we can do is offer a hug but don't demand it if that's not what they need.  Not everyone is the same.  Not all losses nor all people are the same.  Let the grieving one decide what they need and be there for them.  If they don't even know what they need, it's a bad idea to demand they figure it out for our personal edification.  Support that can help the griever heal needs to be given without any thought or impulse beyond unselfish love.

The Tunnel of Mourning

I recently read a FaceBook meme debunking the fiction we're told that all we have to do is slog through an emotionally dark tunnel after loss, and we'll come out the other end all healed and feeling great.  It's so true that there really is no end to the tunnel.  Life changes.  We can either stare back the way we came, fighting for the dream of what we lost, or we can accept that life will never be the same.  All we can work toward is what experts like to call "the new normal."

After my baby died, I spent a long time looking behind me, longing for a way to get back into the life I left behind.  I kept feeling like somehow, I could think myself back through time and make the accident that took my baby never happen.  I could will my earlier self to do all the right things at the right times to make loss be a nightmare that passed instead of my new hellish reality.

I've since learned that I have little choice but to accept the tunnel in which I live.  The sooner I accept, the sooner I can move on.  There is no use looking back toward the sunlight, toward the imaginary protection offered by the world above, the world in which "it can't happen to me."  The tunnel is my life, my existence.  That won't change.

What can change is whether or not I let the light in, even here in the tunnel.  At first, letting the light in and feeling joy felt disloyal.  I've heard the same from friends who have lost, especially who have had a recent loss.  It feels like if you smile, you're betraying the person you've lost.  The truth is our angels want us to have joy.  We are here to learn to smile and be happy, even in the darkest night and to help others find the same light.  Even here in the tunnel, there is fellowship.  We can reach out in empathy to others who have lost.  There is healing.  The Lord can touch our hearts and lift our burdens no matter how deeply we feel we've sunk.  If we seek Him and help others lift their burdens, He will make our anguish seem less painful.

This doesn't mean all will be sunshine and perfection.  It just means we can seek and receive help to make it through those dark days.  We can know we're not alone.  I still have days when it feels like my heart is so broken and bloodied, my pit so deep, I'll never find joy again.  But as time goes on, and I seek healing, those days seem fewer and further between.  Time doesn't heal all wounds.  The Lord does.  That's why He suffered your pain and mine: so He would understand it and us.  He loves us all and wants us to feel joy.  We don't need to cling to the fiction that life is supposed to be painless for us to find joy.  The dark helps us understand and appreciate the light.  He is the light.  Let Him in.

Thanks to Those Who Listen

I've been doing this blog about loss, particularly child loss, for a while.  I have rarely heard feedback or seen messages, but I can see from the statistics people are listening.  I know I'm not just talking to myself.  I keep doing it with the hope that it will help people, that it will mean something to someone.

It's something else again to actually meet someone who reads my blog.  Recently, I ran into someone who is listening, a friend of mine I haven't seen in a while.  She hasn't lost a child.  She listens to gain insights into those who have.  It was heartwarming to know that my words are being heard and appreciated.  I was grateful to hear it.  Nothing is as helpful to people who mourn than knowing someone is listening and offering a shoulder to cry on.  My greatest dream when it comes to publishing my writing is that someone will come up to me and say my words made a real difference in their life.  Otherwise, what is writing for?

The Power of Escape

One thing I'd like to do one day is to start a non-profit agency that pays for trips for families who have lost a loved one.  I know a trip to Yellowstone was better than any medicine just after we lost Alli.  It helped us all bond as a family and escape from day-to-day living.  When your world has changed as completely as it does for those who are fresh to the world of deep mourning, it can really help to get away from the mundane.  I know I, personally, looked around with raw, painful eyes that had been so fundamentally transformed and felt what I saw should reflect the pain I felt inside.  It just didn't feel right that headlines didn't shout that I'd just lost a baby.  It felt wrong that this piece of furniture or that blanket sat exactly where it sat when that person was alive.  I just wanted to escape my own skin.  I've been to Yellowstone several times before and since that day, but none of those trips have felt quite so magical as that one trip.

We were pondering sending my friend, who has just lost her husband, on a trip somewhere but then found out someone had beaten us to it.  I haven't had the chance to talk with her about it, but I'm sure it will help her state of mind to get away for a while.

Even after I came back from the physical trip, I found that reading and watching movies, a mental escape, helped some.  It helped to read and experience other people's (real or fictional) stories, so I didn't have to be stuck in a world so full of my own pain.  Sometimes, it helped when I was able to read other stories like mine because it allowed me to realize I'm not alone.  It also helped me see how others make it through.  Escape was such a good thing for me.  I know I'm not alone.

Funerals

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Funerals were once no big deal to me, back when they aid last respects to people with whom I had some emotional distance.  I never felt truly close to my grandparents, so their funerals didn't devastate me.  Those ceremonies simply meant they were moving onto the next logical step in their journey.  They were no longer in pain or in a world of dementia fog.  My grandma's also meant they could be together since hers came second.  Then my half-brother was cut down in the prime of his life by a murderer, who later ended up on the FBI's most wanted.  It felt like the specter of death was slowly closing in on my life where grandparents and cats could be lost but no one else.  However, I hadn't seen that brother much over the years.  I mostly felt for his wife and children and for my dad and his.  Loss had not become a meaningful companion.

Then came the year when my husband lost his father, I lost my closest brother, and, worst of all, my husband and I lost our baby, the center of my world.  They all died within about four months of each other.  Loss rocked my world and fundamentally changed me forever.  I was no longer a spectator to other people's loss.  Mourning became part of my identity.  Funerals became painful, almost impossible places to be.

A few days ago, we went to the memorial service of that friend's husband I mentioned last blog.  It was in a park and didn't exactly feel like a chapel-type funeral since it was mostly secular.  But any funeral brings up shades of pain.  I point blank refused to go to the viewing.  The real person, the person's soul that gave them light and life, is gone.  All that is left is an empty shell.  There are few things more painful than looking at that shell, especially when the person meant so much to you.

My heart broke for my friend on that day.  It continues to break every day when something brings to mind her pain.  My friend and I spent two hours just talking and crying together one day recently.  It didn't feel like enough.  When someone has had their heart ripped from their chest like that, nothing is enough.  But mourning with those that mourn is something, which is certainly better than nothing.

I know we can live with our loved ones again.  I know their spirits are still around, loving us.  I know families can be together forever, that love never dies.  But I also know it hurts today.  Funerals hurt.  We need them for closure, but they hurt.  Visiting graves hurts.  Loss hurts.  It helps to have an eternal perspective, to know that this life is just a short piece of a much longer journey.  It helps to know that our hearts can be healed by the Savior.  But it still hurts.  The best thing we can do is to show each other empathy and understanding, to show love and that we are there for each other.  No matter what and for as long as it takes.

Survived another Angelversary

I zoomed toward the seventh anniversary of my baby's loss with the usual dread.  Her birthday four months ago was worse than any for years.  I was expecting more of the same but worse.

Then, the day before my baby's angelversary, an incident thit me like a speeding brick wall, too close to home.  My long time friend told me her husband had just died in a car crash.  She's one of the most sensitive, sweetest people I have ever known, and her husband had been her childhood sweetheart.  They've been best friends and confidants forever.  Her whole world revolved around him.

Since my loss, I've been perpetually terrified of losing another family member.  My series of miscarriages have only made my fear worse.  Right after my baby died, we went to support groups in which recent widows and widowers spoke of the pain of losing the other half of their mind, their greatest support, and the love of their lives.  And now, my good friend faced that agony.  I can only imagine what she's going through.

We went on a mini vacation for the angelversary to be anywhere but at home, in our own skins during that painful day.  I also had work I had to do time-sensitive work on the trip that I hadn't managed to finish before.  Between our campout trip to Craters of the Moon and grading papers, I scarcely had time to think about the significance of the day.  Every time I did, any self-pity or sorrow turned into mourning for my friend's loss.

I highly recommend staying busy on any anniversary and taking the time to reach out to others who are struggling.  The scriptures tell us to mourn with those that mourn.  There is no question that crying with her, lifting her, lifted me as well.

June in Black

It's June again.  I hate June.  My baby's angelversary comes up at the end of the month.  On that day seven years ago, my world and my life shattered.

I had a one-time job that morning.  I made sure my sweet baby was secure on the bed, away from the edge.  There was a stack of pillows to make sure even if she somehow rolled to that edge, she would not hit the ground.  I left her daddy watching over her.  When I left, I felt reassured life would be as normal.  Three hours later, I called home, and my husband told me to go to the hospital.  Alli had either rolled or crawled off the bed in her sleep such that my husband didn't hear more than a quick squawk.  She'd pushed away a heavy pillow on top and suffocated in the pillow below without turning her head to breathe.  We did not know until I showed up at the hospital that they couldn't revive her.  She'd shown signs of SIDS, times she'd slept so deeply it was hard to wake her.  I'd had no idea, however, that this was even a possibility.  I had never lost a child other than an early miscarriage, so I didn't imagine it could happen to me.

        At that time, I was launched into the deepest, darkest time of my life.  Between mourning and dealing with a corrupt branch of DCSF that falsified an investigation to try to ruin our family and our lives, we were launched into hell.  I would call it a nightmare, but you awake from a nightmare.  It felt like nothing we could do or say for ten long months could prove we were innocent.  We were liberated only through a series of miracles and the protection of our angel.

        Before all of this happened, June was just another month.  Now, June is a time to dredge up memories of tragedy and death.   Memories like that replay in our heads as if from a horror movie, badly disjointed and scarring.  Knocks at my door still terrorize me.  My birthday was two weeks after that most terrible day.  I went from looking forward to my birthday to dreading it every year.  Too many badly-timed miscarriages plus Alli's loss have ruined it forever.  It doesn't matter how good the month is.  It doesn't matter how many wonderful things happen at that time of the summer.  The colors go from vibrant to gray.  The day is always painful.  I brace myself to prepare, but it does no good.

            As I said in my last blog, I've been reviewing my poetry for a contest.  I think the pain I went through is best described through the one I wrote the day after I lost her:

****
“Day after Death”

Pain, 
searing, numbing,
erupting like molten lava,
clouding my vision
with burning ash. 

Food tastes like dirt
from the grave. 
I choke it down to fill the void, 
but the hole in my heart still bleeds. 

Everything I see 
connects to chubby toes, 
chunky legs,
petal-soft cheeks, 
pool-blue eyes
staring at me from around the breast.   
I reach out and long to touch 
peach fuzz across tender head, 
smooth skin on her body,
cold plastic bottle, eagerly slurped,
by a pink mouth that itches to smile.  

Where are you, my angel? I ache for you. 
My every thought reaches out to you, 
wondering how yesterday could have gone
if I had been more careful
with your fragility.

My only comforts, 
the remains 
of my family and, above all, knowing one day
you will fill my arms again.  
****

       Seven years have passed.  The loss doesn't hurt as much.  However, it still hurts, especially on the anniversaries.  I know I'll survive this one as I have all the others.  The Lord will help me through.  I know one day, I will hold my babies again.  I live for that day.  In the meantime, I will still have that hole in my heart, and it will continue to seep blood.

Old Poetry

I've been reviewing my old poetry with an eye toward a writing contest.  I've taken classes on writing poetry, one from a former poet laureate of Utah.  This does not mean I'm a great poet.  It just means I've learned a few things about what makes a good poem and what makes a mediocre one.  I've never quite achieved past mediocrity.  But I have been able to write through a lot of my pain.  For the most part, poetry only comes when I feel something deeply.  Any "poetry" I write under any less trying moments feels contrived and hollow, at least to me.  I've written a lot of mediocre but emotionally wrenching poetry on loss, on miscarriage and on the loss of my angel.  It's hard to reread them either because they take me back into a moment of pain or fail to, meaning it hurts to know that I couldn't quite convey the horror of the moment, no matter how hard I tried.  Either way, revisiting those moments is hard.

At the same time, I know there is a healing power in writing and reading that poetry.  I once took a class on trauma writing.  The whole course was based on the assertion that healing comes through self-expression.  Some argue that revisiting just causes trauma all over again.  But for me, there are few better ways to work through the pain than by expressing it, putting it to paper.  My master's thesis went one step further and explored the healing space created by fiction.  But as for writing, there are few ways to try to approach my pain and deal with it faster than through poetry.  I don't believe in rhymed poetry. I may use alliteration to tie together sounds, but truly rhymed poetry rarely works well for me unless the author is William Shakespeare.

But how do I tell which is objectively "best" and, therefore, most deserving of someone else's attention?  Poetry is so very subjective.  Is it best because it most vividly conveys the emotion to the reader, because it uses all the poetic conventions, or because of something else I can't possibly know?   It all hurts.  It all helped me through hurt.  There was a time I would have compared my writings to children.  I would have asked how I could choose.  I don't make that comparison anymore.  There is no comparison.  I would lose 100 hard drives with 100 carefully written, award-winning novels on each before I would choose to have one miscarriage, one child loss of any sort, again.  All I can do is use poetry to express the pain of child loss.  Not that any words quite capture that pain.  They can't.  The pain of child loss is beyond human words.  But here is a poem that takes me back to that first day, the day everything was so fresh that I thought I would die of the pain.  It's simply entitled "Pain."  Objectively, it's not a great poem.  But anyone who has ever lost a child ought to recognize the emotions:

"Pain"

Pain

Blinding, numbing

Burning like a volcano

And clouding out everything

From my vision.

Everything tastes like dirt or salt.

I choke it down to fill the emptiness

But the real emptiness remains.

Everything I see, touch, think about

Links back to chubby toes,

Chunky little legs

Soft little cheeks,

Bright blue eyes

Staring at me from around the breast,

Peach fuzz across the soft head,

Round little bum

Aimed at me for a change

Preparatory to eating.

Where are you, my angel?

I long for you.

My every thought is for you,

Wondering how yesterday could have gone

If I’d have been just a little more careful

With your fragility.

My only comforts,

Your older brother and sister,

Your daddy

And above all knowing one day

You will fill my arms again.  

So back I go to staring at mediocre expressions of loss and healing, hoping to guess right, to find the one or two or three or four out of so many that may help someone else feel something of what I felt in that moment.  Because I guess the real truth beyond poetry, or any writing, is that unless you make the reader feel something, you've missed the boat.  Your writing will fall flat.  Here's hoping I find something that takes shape in the reader's mind and helps them find a little healing, too.  

Paranoid

When a mom has lost a baby--or maybe I should just say since I lost a baby--everything that may harm or endanger one of the remaining children is terrifying.  Many people identify with this Disney princess or that Disney prince.  At one time, I identified with Belle and Mulan.  Now, I'm Marlin from "Finding Nemo" and its sequel.  Well, Marlin and Dory since one of the symptoms of mourning is forgetfulness.  A helicopter parent is more standoffish than I usually feel when I take my kids into public.  I'm a fighter drone parent, hovering as close as it's possible to my kids without riding their shoulders.  My greatest fear is more loss.  I've read John Douglas's FBI perspective on violent crimes.  Some part of me fears that the second I leave my kids unguarded, they'll become another headline, another statistic.

I'm right now reading Jenny Hess's In His Hands,  a book about an LDS mom's loss of her little boy.  They went sledding on a family vacation, and the boy and his dad hit a tree.  The boy died of the impact.  I'm going to have a hard time letting my kids go sledding after this.  I feel empathy for that mom.  I can't imagine losing a child at the age of four or later when you've actually had the time to get to know them.  But I really get what it is to have all the trust, all the safety you imagined there to be in the world, shattered over loss.  Most people who haven't lost children walk through their lives imagining a safety bubble around their kids.  It's not possible to lose a child because they haven't yet.  It's not even a possibility.  That was me before I lost Alli.  Now, I imagine horrors behind every corner.  I would do almost anything to avoid loss again.

My girl is napping in the other room with flu.  It's all I can do not to shake her awake because I've heard the phrase "flulike symptoms" altogether too many times in those articles about sudden and medically flukish deaths.  I know she needs her rest.  But I don't rest well when there is any danger at all to my kids.

I'm sure I'm not alone.  My logical side knows all the fear, all the worry, in the world won't protect them.  I know only the Lord can protect them, and only He can decide whether they stay or go.  When my girl was three--just after Alli died--she had a seizure on the beach.  I was so freaked out that loss was happening again.  I got a priesthood blessing that told me my kids had missions on this life, that they had a higher purpose.   I've come back to that many times when I've been overcome with fear for any reason.  I keep telling myself they will be fine.  But I still have to fight off that fear, that understanding one loss means there can be others.  It would be nice to go back to a trust that my kids have a safety bubble.  But I can't.  All I can do is pray and move forward, hoping whatever their missions are in this life will take a very, very long time.

Near loss

We lost a dog a couple of weeks ago, as you may have read.  This week, we thought we lost another four-legged friend.  A cat knocked over a cage, shattering it, then attacked our sweet baby bearded dragon.  We found the dragon, looking shaken and acting near death on the floor.  We've only had her for about a month, but I've already grown quite attached to her.  I was sure she was going to die that night.  I held her, hoping she would not die.  The next morning, my boy reported she was dead for so she seemed to be.  We mourned her.  The thoughts of what I could have done to avoid another death haunted me as we tried to do fun, family activities that day.  That night, my boy discovered the beardie was actually alive.  She's acting now like she's going to live.  We view her survival as a miracle.

This may seem like a trivial incident to an outsider, but it was not to us.  It is a frightening thing to come so near loss of any sort after suffering so much of it.  I think that's true of anyone who has had a series of losses.  There are few things in life more frightening than the fear of more pain associated with loss.  We're breathing easier now that we know she'll be okay.  But I still feel shaken with the reminder that pain can come at any time, in any way, even from unexpected sources.

A New Loss

[Harmoni]

It all comes back when you have a new loss.  You hear it's true, but you don't know what it feels like until you go there.  This week, the baby I lost was not human, but I felt her loss as if she were.  Unless you have never lost a baby, it's easy to think pet loss feels somehow the same as child loss.  People who have never experienced child loss will often think they're offering empathy when they say, "My cat/dog/whatever died, so I know what you're talking about."  Pet loss is a painful echo, a faint shadow of child loss ordinarily.  I have lost more cats than I can name here.  I've now said goodbye to a few dogs.  Under most circumstances, I can't make that comparison.  When my four-month-old died, and even when I had my first in a series of late first term miscarriages, they were world-rocking losses that left my heart a bloody hole.  I had no idea what loss was, even after all the pet deaths, until I lost my babies, particularly the one I held.  

Pet loss hurts more when that pet has become a person-in-fur to you, when you have bonded with that pet on such a deep level that the pet becomes part of your soul.  I have lost simple pets.  I have lost furbabies, persons-in-fur.  There is no comparison there, either.  We had a cocker spaniel a few years ago.  He ever remained a simple pet.  I mourned his loss when he was hit on the road, but nothing like the loss we had this week   

A year ago, my girl wanted to give away one of our two dogs, one we had inherited and with which none of us bonded, to get herself a puppy.  We sent that dog to a happy home where she had a sister dog that looked like a twin.  We have no doubt she's happier there than she ever was with us, and they're happier to have her.  We replaced her with a puppy that we all felt was handpicked by my angel Alli, the four-month-old baby I lost.  Harmoni, the puppy, was exactly the age, the size, the everything my girl wanted.  That puppy had silver-gray fur and blue eyes with flecks of brown.  It seemed like she was min pin like my husband liked mixed with a husky that my girl wanted.  She was full of energy and life.  And despite the fact that we bought her to be my girl's puppy, she spent all day as my shadow, my faithful companion, a close friend.  She became a person-in-fur, a furbaby to me.  I loved her more than I thought possible for a dog since I'm a cat person.  

Then, this last week, we installed new sod in the backyard.  My husband didn't realize he hadn't quite latched the fence.  I didn't think to look before I let them out since the backyard had always been so secure in the past.  I heard the dogs bark at the back door and was about to let them in and got distracted.  I hadn't noticed the barking had stopped when the phone rang.  The woman on the other end apologized for hitting my dog, explaining that the tag around Harmoni's neck told her whom to call.  My husband went out and retrieved by furbaby's broken and cooling body from the arms of a neighbor, who had also stopped to comfort my fading Harmoni.  We'd only had her for just under a year, and she was five months old when we got her.  She was still a puppy.  

That's when the flood of loss hit all at once, weighing me down.  It all came back.  All the child loss.  It felt like I wasn't just losing my furbaby, though that would have been hard enough.  I was losing them all, all over again.  If felt like I was being hit by a brick wall, a harpoon through the chest.  

Later in the week, we found and brought home a puppy to help my kids through their mourning.  They seem to be okay for now, though they probably feel it still on a deeper level than we all realize since they loved her, too.  I love the new puppy, but she's not the same nor can she be.  I know it's not like having Harmoni back, not even sort of.  I'm thankful that I know the angel who sent us Harmoni can take care of her and give her the love we can't on the other side of the veil.  I just miss her.  I miss them.  I look forward to the house full of lost pets and babies I'll have when the resurrection comes.  In the meantime, my arms are empty of my babies, and I can't pet my Harmoni.  Days later, I know this pain won't fade in a hurry.  The wound is reopened.  I have peace most of the time, but it still hurts.  And I know, from way too much experience that it's going to hurt for a while, possibly until I see them all again.  But I will live on, and I will continue in my faith and hope in the Lord and know I will see them all again.  

Easter

I got to share my testimony today of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ with the three-to-four-year-olds I teach in church.  Usually, teaching children of this age is a bit like herding kittens.  If you're entertaining enough and bounce around enough, you'll catch and keep their eye.  If you sit still for any length of time, you've lost them.  They're off to bat at something more interesting.  Today, I talked about one of the topics they know and love most of all: Jesus.  They know His picture as a baby or as a big person.  They love to talk about or act out the Christmas story.  Everything beyond that gets a little hazy.

But then I pulled out a picture of my baby and told them that because Jesus suffered and died for us, he paid the price for our sins.  He suffered all our pains, so He would understand them and comfort us when we hurt.  He overcame death, so I can hold my baby again.  We can have our families forever because of the atonement.  They were transfixed, but their reaction went beyond that.  I cried, so they cried tears of empathy.  Their spirits listened and understood my pain and my joy.  Shortly after, they were back to acting like kittens again.  By the end of the class, when I wasn't telling them stories anymore and after they were done with their snacks and structured games, they were tackling each other and playing loudly like any good kittens [or small children] would.  But for that moment, we all understood and felt the power of the Spirit, confirming the truth of my words.  I will ever cherish the beauty and strength of that moment.