Empathy

Part of what one learns through loss is empathy.  I can try to describe loss to my friends and family, but until they've been through it, my descriptions are just empty words.  I remember the days before I knew that level of empathy.  I said some pretty insensitive things without realizing that's what I was doing.  However, since I've actually been there, I can now share common experiences and feelings with fellow members of the empty arms club.

This last week, I read a student's paper that moved me to tears.  His baby was stillborn just hours after the little guy tested as strong and healthy.  That is a place I've never been, exactly, but I still understood his pain.  He wrote of holding the cold, perfect form of his baby for hours, still in shock because he would be walking out of the hospital with empty arms.  My baby was four months old when she passed, but I have clear memories of living through similar moments.  The image of walking out of that hospital with empty arms and expectations turned to ash is still fresh in the back of my mind.  It always will be.

He described a level of healing to which I can only aspire as of yet, a level of joy that I still seek.  But we both know we will hold our babies again, which can bring both of us peace.  It's nice to belong to a fellowship of empathy.  I just wish the dues of belonging to that club weren't so high.

Gratitude

It took me a while to hit upon this major key to happiness and peace.  For such a long time, I felt the gaping hole the loss of my little girl left in my life.  I still do.  But before, I felt that gaping hole as the definition of who I was.  Now, it's an important part but not the defining part.  I felt the pain of what I didn't have: a rainbow baby to somehow make my loss somehow feel less final.  Now, I know the rainbow baby will ever remain just that, the illusion of a baby I will not be holding, a mirage I've been chasing for years without success.  I still feel that pain.

But I have come to understand that there is power in focusing not on what I don't have--on the angels I can't hold for now--but on what I do have.  I do have two children around whom I can wrap my arms.  I have a supportive husband who will hold me when I fall apart with pain.  I have faith that the Lord is there, and that my angels are mine forever.  That they're watching over me now.  I believe in forever families.  I have heard of some people so enmeshed in grief that they've totally lost touch with reality.  They try so hard to regain what they've lost through irrational means.  I gain peace from the knowledge I don't need to be so desperate to hold the shreds of the past because I have a glorious future to anticipate.  I know I will hold them again, all of my angels.  They are lost, but only for now.  There is much to be grateful for in this knowledge.

 I know my angels watch out for me.  I know the Lord will send his Spirit when I am hurting.  For all of this, I can be eternally grateful.  Acts 27:23 states, "For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve."  The scripture refers to being in the service of God, not in service of the angel. I, too, can have my angels stand beside me as I serve God.  "And thanks be to God for [this] unspeakable gift"(2 Cor 9:15).  Gratitude brings me much joy, and I know it can do the same for you.

Wrong Number

A strange thing happened some time ago.  I got a text from a stranger who thought I was her brother.  Someone gave her my number and told her it was her estranged brother's.  I don't think it was an accident.  In fact, I know it wasn't, though the person who gave her the number couldn't have known.  Even when I texted her that I was not her brother, she desperately reached out with a voice of pain and loss.  She needed someone to talk to.  I let her call me because she sounded so forlorn.

She lives on the other end of the continent.  She has lost her career, her future, had her child kidnapped [and eventually returned], and gone through so much unimaginable hardship.  She has all but lost her faith.  She's been crying out to God into what felt like a void to her, not hearing His voice but longing to know He was there for her.

I'm sure the Lord has been reaching back, but she was unable to hear Him.  So He sent me into her life.  She's facebooked and texted me a few times since, whenever she needed a voice of peace in her life.  Someone to just listen.  Those who understand tragedy and loss seek the voice and understanding of other people who understand what that's like.  I know I've wanted to hear a voices of understanding, those of people who don't judge me or tell me how to think or feel.  Often, when you're feeling hurt, lost, and alone, you want someone who will listen and reach out without seeking anything from you.

I told her God loves her, no matter what, that there is nothing she could ever do to destroy that love.  I told her that even though she can't always hear His voice, He is reaching out to her, wanting her to find peace and joy.  She felt bad for things she'd done in her life, so I told her to tell the Lord how sorry she was and to make amends if possible.  Above all, though, I just wanted her to know God loves her.  That was the message He most wanted her to hear.

I know it was no accident that I was there for a fellow human being at one of the lowest points in her life.  And I know I was there to reach out and help her.  We will never meet in person.  But I hope I helped her, even in a small way, because that is the purpose of life: to learn to love like our Father in Heaven loves us and to show that love to both Him and to our fellow men through kindness and service.  We are to be His voice, His hands, to those who need us.  He will guide us along the way.

I don't know how I would have reacted to this wrong number before my losses taught me empathy and compassion for lost souls.  I'd like to think I would have been polite, but I would not have known how to speak the language of loss and pain.  I know that was part of why I needed to go through what I have so I could become closer to what the Lord wants me to become.  I still feel the pain, but it's good to know what I've learned through loss can help someone else.  

Survived the Birthday

Last week, I wrote about my dread of my angel's upcoming birthday.  Last year, it wasn't bad.  I stayed so busy that the birthday party at the end almost came as a celebratory moment.  I cried as we went through her baby book.  But otherwise, it was a light time.  I hoped that would bode well for future birthdays. 

I don't know what it was about her seventh birthday, but it hit me hard.  I started out okay.  But most of that work I dreaded that day canceled out.  I had a lot of time to think.  And as I've discovered, thinking, especially on a day like that, can be hard.  The more I thought about what day it was, the harder the day weighed on me.  I met my husband for lunch and to spend time at an LDS temple, our traditional gift to her.  And he could tell from the moment I showed up that I was a fragile mess.  Anything and everything set me off.  It didn't even take a trigger; the world was a trigger that day.  Existing was a trigger.  We had a lovely, peaceful time together, but that didn't mean I felt the peace inside.  Most days, I drift through not thinking.  All I could do that day was think. 

The kids got home from school, and nobody seemed much affected by the day.  They had their homework and chores to do, even though all I wanted to do was just spend time with them, to celebrate the children I still can hold.  Meanwhile, I carried the weight of the day alone as I waited for my husband to get home from work.  I just wanted it over.  When all chores were done, we invited the cousins over to celebrate Alli's birthday party.  We each wrote a little note to Alli and my miscarried angels [since the others don't really have a birthdate], telling them how much we loved and missed them.  I started to cry from the beginning.  But when I showed the video/slideshow my friend made for me for her funeral, one that played her song, "A Breath Away" by Josh Groban, I sobbed harder than I had in a very long time.  My girl, who usually holds everything inside in spite of her bond with her baby sister, sobbed with me and held me.  I don't remember having such a good cry together like that.  A healing cry. 

We still wanted a priesthood blessing from my husband, basically the opportunity to hear the Father's voice speaking words of comfort.  And the words did offer the peace I hadn't had all day.  He spoke of how special it was to hold this angel in our arms for a brief time, along with the reminder that we would get to hold her again.  I know we will be a family forever.  It does bring me peace.  But I think we all need time to cry, especially time to cry together.  As I gain some distance from that day, I may say it was a good day.  It was an important day, anyway.  One that needed to happen.  I'm grateful it only comes once a year.

The Birthday

It's coming up this week, my angel's birthday.  I haven't started feeling it yet, which is good.  I always like when I can avoid thinking about it for as long as possible.  I'll deal with the emotional field mines when they come.  It would be nice if they can wait until Thursday, her actual birthday.  This countdown to blast off emotions reminds me of her actual birthdate, which is 3-2-10, 3210, a literal countdown to ground zero.  Even as I write this, I'm hearing one of the songs that helped me through the dark days after her loss plays.  It's "Be Still" by Hillary Weeks, who I understand is the number one Christian recording artist.  Several of her songs spoke to me when it felt like no other light could penetrate the dark cloud in which I resided.  It's only as I write this and hear that song that I feel that day coming like thunderclouds dragged toward me by a merciless wind.

I know I will survive.  I have survived five others just like it with a trip to the LDS temple, a birthday party to celebrate her short life, homemade presents from the kids, her abbreviated baby book, and an angel food cake.  She would be seven.  That's a big girl, full of personality and hugs I won't receive until we're reunited again.

I have to work that day.  I'm not sure whether to view it as a blessing (that busyness will help me not think) or a curse (that no matter what I do, I'll be unable to do anything about those thoughts that will come).  There is just no winning on that day or on her death day four months later.  I'll try to turn it into a celebration and see if I can turn that day from the deep emotional dark hole I fear it may be to a day full of smiles and gratitude that I got those four months with my precious angel.

Casual

It still occasionally comes as a shock when I hear of someone casually talking about deciding to have a baby, as if that's such an easy choice for some people.  For a lot of people, it really is.  Once one child gets to a certain age, many people simply expect you to be considering the next.  People just assume that considering leads to acting, which leads to a child.

And then there are people who struggle with infertility and/or serial miscarriage like me.  There is no such thing as "expecting."  The only thing I'm expecting on the rare times I do get pregnant is loss.  There is no such thing as casually deciding to have another baby.  After fifteen [sixteen?  I've lost count] miscarriages in a row, seventeen losses in a row, including Alli's passing, I won't try again.  Pregnancy would be synonymous with loss.  One follows the other.  And I can't go there again.  There will be no rainbow baby for me.

Most of the time, I'm fine with this.  I've come to terms with this after so many years.  But when someone talks of having a baby as a casual or even possible choice, I'm reminded of the choices I no longer have.  I can't expect people to stop talking like that.  As with everything, I just have to accept it's going to come and try to be happy for the other person for whom it is a choice.

Count Down

I find that as our angel's birthday and death date/angelversary approach, I become more fragile to triggers.  I found a poem my sister-in-law wrote to my baby, one I don't look at because of the way it sets me off.  And, of course, it set me off because Alli's birthday is less than a month away.  I heard of someone else's angel's birthday coming, and I cried for that person's loss and for my loss as well.  And just talking about the songs I've emotionally attached to my angel got me crying.  Josh Groban's "A Breath Away" is not one I can hear without crying.  I mentioned Evanescence's "My Immortal" in conversation the other day and broke out in tears.

Last year, Alli's birthday was a fairly happy one.  We had an angel food cake for her and looked at her pictures.  We threw her a party and invited her cousins.  It was a good day.  But it's not always so.  I can hope it will be like that.  But I know I've already stepped foot in the emotional landmine time that is the month before her birthday, and I never know how things will go.