My Meltdown - Part Three

Hello ILCWers! You stopping by "mid-series" so to speak. Here is the backstory so you know what you are reading. My name is Cara. Our first daughter, Emma Grace, was born still 8 years ago. My husband and I have gone through hell - and now have two more daughters who are 4 and 6. My breakdowns in grief happen a few times a year - but when they do it is ugly.I am bearing all so others may know that raw, everyday grief morphs over time, but the emotions are ours for always. Invisible triggers still get me a few times a year.


To get the most of of this post you may want to read Part 1 - click here and Part 2 - here.


This is Part 3:


And Yet - I wasn't done. How could I be? I am never done trying to balance my two truths - life and death - as mine continues to tick away, day after day.


I expect nothing. I am open to everything.

This is how I strive to live. Not so long ago, it is how I lived.

“Last spring you were excited. You had purpose and motivation. You had energy and drive. I don’t see any of that from you lately" my husband said without judgement. He is right. "I mean, " he clarified, "you are doing more than ever - too much if you ask me - but your emotion seems to have evaporated."


The sad part is that I needed it pointed out to me.

Why is this happening? Is revisiting my past in the name of helping others bringing it back? Am I not capable of being in both places at the same time? Maybe not. I have more “free” time than ever, and yet I have written very little in the last three months. I have exercised less than I was when I was working full time. My daily meditations have fallen away so now I go inside myself - weekly, at best.

Throughout last Spring, summer and Fall I was so in touch with my soul! I was so “one” with my daily experience. I was just so damned happy, finally, dammit. I mean, I deserved that! I worked for it.


I hate that I have to use the past tense verb. It just sucks, but it is the truth. “It is all or nothing with you” he said, once again, stating the obvious. And once again- he is spot on. In my head the middle of the road seems not to exist. And so, when someone makes a surface suggestion it immediately morphs in my brain into a city sized idea.


Tell her story = Write a book and pour whole heart and soul into it, buy every literary publishing book possible, write a 100 page book proposal, find an agent, etc...


Start a Blog = Design the most complicated goal-orientated blog you can possibly create, and then - when that is done, design three more, each with it's own specific purpose. Oh - and maintain them all, obsessively.


Memorialize Emma = Start a government approved non-profit corporation that requires obsessive amounts of unpaid time, board of director meetings, and paperwork you never dreamed of.


“Yes! I know!” I yelled, self-depreciating my actions, “I put on my blinders and jump”. Calmly, with an impassive face as if he was stating a simplistic fact, he said, “So put them on and jump back in.”

And so that is exactly what I did. Positioning my blinders so I could see and feel nothing but my emotion, I poured it all into that computer. At the end of the purge I raised my head, shook it and took in my current state. It seems an impossible task to recapture my seasonal perspective by the end of the day.

And yet – that is exactly what I am trying to do. For at the end of this day I must go to work. I must put on crisp clean clothes and carry trays. I must smile genuinely and treat others with kindness. I must find a way to get there.

I have this sudden urge to go home and be with my husband. To show him just how much I appreciate his attempts to help me, to soothe me, and yet – be clear in that there is very little he can do beyond, just love me. And although love for me can be represented through a clean dishwasher and an unexpected load of washed laundry, love – for him, is clearly physical. And maybe – just maybe – that is what I need. Maybe I need to dive into our primal connection and recall just how much love Emma was conceived with.

Or, Maybe I need to fictionalize this whole bad dream of a life experience, remove myself from the equation just a bit, create the scenes I wish I had lived, can never live, will never live.

Or, Maybe I need to sit my kids down and allow them to ask as many questions about Emma as they want, and - more importantly – about my feelings of mingled sadness/celebration, and then – answer them honestly. Maybe that will clear my ego filled brain of all its rants and raving about what “should be”.

And -Maybe I need to let go of the fact that the book is for others and just accept that her story is for me. That it began as a work of love in Emma’s honor. That I could feel her sit with me as I wrote it and lately, I just feel alone.

And -Maybe, I need to banish that damned ego and make the time to go back and find myself. Yes – that is exactly what I have to do. And yet, when I think that thought, even as I write the words, I feel the tug – the itch to flip my blinders and dive.


Oh the thought of each and everyday filled with yoga, meditation, exercise, and healthy recipe experiments. It feels so good that it nearly brings a smile to my drooping face. It sounds so right to the exclusion of everything else. But I am not a 22 year old grad student who can choose to clear her schedule with a declaration of mono to her advisor and a click of the deadbolt on her apartment door. I am a mother with two kids who need transport, food and love. I am a wife who cannot continue to let her husband feel the burden and pick up the slack because I am going further into the past and neglecting my present.


To write this book I have to go back.
To be true to the blog I have to go back.
Dammit – to go forward I have to go back.


And yet – I don’t know how to do both. I truly am at a loss with this one.

The Shaping Power of Grief

The fourth grader acts out. The teacher admonishes, but thinks – Oh, he has such a hard life. His parents…his peers…his siblings… I can hardy blame him for the way he behaves. And she doesn’t, for now. But where is the responsibility line: fifth grade, the day he steals for the first time, or worse? At what point will the world start to judge this young boy for his actions as opposed to pitying him because of the environment he was born in?

***

The child psychologist sat across from me. He was kind, clear and direct with his words. I liked him for this. Why waste time when there is a solution to be discussed? A small desk, littered with papers that compiled her file separated us.

“Mmm…” he muttered, “so, and I’m just guessing here, that you were nervous during your pregnancy with her.” I nodded, mentally confirming the vast understatement he had dropped on the table. Neurotic would be a more accurate term. Obsessed, terrified, and borderline personality disorder made strong showings as well, not just for the thirty-eight weeks she grew inside me, but as we talked of creating her. They lingered, tailing me even as we left the hospital with a live baby, even as we walked through our front door. Even as we pretended to know how to parent a child after burying one into the ground.

“And this?” He held up a photocopy of the recent newspaper article documenting Emma’s death and our subsequent community actions in her memory eight years later. “I read through it. You have been through a lot. So has she. It seems a lot for a child to make sense of too, doesn’t it?”

Eyebrows raised I did not answer immediately. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Is he equating her worries and social anxieties with the fact that we talk about Emma? That we make her part of our family and don’t hold back the sisterly connection.

“Having a sister in heaven is surely not typical.” I said, my tone more even and calculated than minutes before; a non-answer to be sure. As abstract as the concept is, it is our family’s norm and our children will continue to develop their understanding of her existence with every additional year of their growth.

***
I sat clicking through my blogroll, trying to catch up. A title caught my eye, Rainer Maria Rilke, a poet. The author spoke of her instant attachment to his poetry and the revelation that he was the child after a neo-natal loss. But it was her description of what this implied that struck me speechless. She wrote, “Rainer was his mother's rainbow baby. It all makes sense, he is someone who has been shaped by grief, raised by a mother who was profoundly impacted by child loss.”

Is that the fate our living children are left to sort out? It must be for I am, without a doubt, as profoundly impacted by my daughter’s death as the word allows. And so, I am left to wonder if my children are not that different from the fourth grade boy. If every action and reaction of theirs holds some measure of my loss reflecting back at me. I’m raising them day by day, year by year, paralleled through every stage of my grief. So how can they emerge untouched by it, unshaped by my emotions? They see the melancholic joy in my face when they mention her. They feel my arms around them at her headstone every year. They feel the shift in my ways during late August and early September. They see the tears that slide down my cheeks. “Are you ok Mama?” they ask, but the answer is far too abstract and complex for explanation.

“There is so much guilt in parenting after loss” I recently said to a fellow mourner with a half smile. I am starting to make sense of its origin, yet in doing so I am beginning to fear it will never leave me. I am fearful it will implant itself in the hearts of my girls and hold tight there too, an irreconcilable and foundationless emotion they must carry for the rest of their days.

After the death of my child, I was forever changed. And for so long after that my grief was exclusive. It was mine to feel, mine to manage, mine to fight or give in to. Tangentially others were affected, yet the gaping hole existed in my heart.

The troubled young boy, the child psychologist, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anarcharist Mom all point to the same conclusion. Even before their conception, my children were too. Just by existing in our home, they are being shaped by both grief and love.

How does grief shape your life?

Fear is a Barnacle

Fear and Grief. They are a team. The worst kind - a tag team. They surrounded me when Emma died, consuming every part of my being. When one rested the other swept in, rejuvinated, more than able to keep me wading in a broken- unable to function - place.

My grief has morphed, evolved, shape-shifted. My life is filled with moments. I can tell her story without crying (most of the time). I can feel her presence without falling to the floor. I can love my angel baby without my heart repeatedly self-destructing. To support my growth, I take affirmative action to ensure the our daughter - or beautiful Emma Grace - is remembered always.

In a recent post I said I would, "go back", but the joke was on me. I didn't need to. My fears are still here, quiet - stealth like, but part of me forever. They took permant residence within the marrow of my bones, waiting for their chance. They attacked on Sunday morning.

The girls, all four of them, had gone to bed without any trouble - two in one room and two in another. Sure, I heard some talking. The youngest had to use the bathroom, get a quick drink of water, and "check" her sister's middle of the night flashlight to be sure it was working. But, all in all, a very smooth bedtime routine considering we had three additional kids in our house on a Saturday night.

The baby, after a very stimulating and napless afternoon, had passed out early. At 6:00 I snuggled him in, read a book, surrounded him with all his familiar bedtime paraphanlia and sang as I walked out my bedroom door. The monitor was on full blast, but we never heard a peep. That boy was tired!

"Well" I said to my husband, who looked equally napless and wiped out, "He'll probably be up at the crack of dawn." We were quite mistaken.

***
At nine o'clock I tiptoed around the pack-n-play at the base of my bed. Snuggled down under the mountain of covers necessary in an old farm house in mid January, I listened. It felt so good to have a baby in our room again. He talks in his sleep, sometimes sings a little I think. For the first two hours, I was in and out of a light slumber. I tossed when he tossed. I turned when he turned. I lay still, but heard the rustle of flannel sheets moving against the mesh sides of the portable bed. And then, I slept - until 6am - (the formally referred to "crack of dawn"). The Comedian's elephant feet thumped down the stairs. Tip-toeing past the sleeping baby I stopped for just a moment to take in the sight. The peaceful slumber of a 1 year old is a sight to behold.

That's when my demons jumped out. You better check and see if he's breathing! I scoffed, Of course he's breathing, but gripped by an irrational fear, I checked.

The baby slept. I peeled hard boiled eggs. The coffee maker buzzed.
The baby slept. I made scrambled eggs. I drank my coffee.
The baby slept. The girls pounded around on the hard wood floor, doing a morning rendition of our chicks moving in their tiny coop.
The baby slept. I took out the "you can only play with these when the baby isn't here" toys for the girls.

Fear attacked again. I tried to fend off his advances, but he was too strong. He played dirty.

You better go check on him again. His head was tilted into his blanket a bit, wasn't it.

I'm sure he's fine. Had a long day. He's just tired!

You don't know that for sure, do you?

Well...no. I guess not.

What if you let him sleep and then it's too late? What if you get up there and he's still, beyond help. Oh Cara, It's bad enough that you let your baby die without taking action, but you may have killed someone else's. GO. GO CHECK NOW!

I ran up the stairs, panicked, a feeling of dread in the my chest that hadn't squeezed me for so long. I couldn't get there fast enough. I was now sure that there was somthing wrong - that I had missed my chance to save him. That our friends who are so particular with who they entrust to watch their children would feel the same fear and despair that I have for the rest of their lives. That they would never again be able to look at me with with any semblance of respect.

No longer caring about noise levels - I pushed the door open and, with fear looking over my right shoulder and grief on my left - I peered into the crib.

He lay still - with eyes wide open. At the sight of me a huge grin grew on his perfect little face. "Aaaa" he said, not attempting to sit up, but just smiling up at me. Brushing off my shoulders, I reached down to meet his upright arms.

He is fine. I am forever haunted.

Reality Versus Fantasy

I sat up in the hospital bed, my swollen belly leading. Wrapping my arms around the protruding bump, I forced myself to breathe deeply - not because of the mild contractions consistently squeeqing me, a gentle hug from the baby within - but in a hyperventillation response to the questions the nurse had just rattled off.

Minutes earlier, she entered the room wearing scrubs, ironically featuring a host of whimsical little angels. Without prelude she began peppering me with questions. “Have you thought about which funeral home you would like to use? We can coordinate with them. Oh, and do you have an idea what day the funeral will be?”

Without awarding me sufficient time to process her words, let alone attempt a response, she kept firing “Do you want to have a full autopsy performed after the delivery? I can arrange a time for pick up and transport to Burlington”. I was stunned, immobile and effectively rendered mute.

The walls closed in, the gaping hole in the floor widened, beckoning me to jump. Why stay here in this world of tragedy and madness where nurses speak of funerals and autopsies? How could I answer or even think about those things. Why did I need to? It wasn’t necessary. I will feel every part of this delivery. I will use my well-practiced breathing techniques to endure unfathomable quantities of pain. My baby will cry when she arrives. She will live. The miracle will blow them all way.

As I existed somewhere between reality and fantasy, my parents and in-laws, informed the staff, “Any further questions about necessary arrangements will be directed to one of us”.

They met with the director of the funeral home, they arranged for the burial service, they picked the casket, and they paid every penny. My mother-in-law graciously donated her pre-owned plot and my mom went to our local children’s shop to find a burial gown. The owner noticing her obvious dismay helped to pick out the perfect gown, a delicate white dress with embroidered red rosebuds. Beneath the handmade quilt Nana had just finished, her burial would be warm, cozy and full of love.

A newly forged team, the four grandparents planned the reception, contacted the priest, and countless other duties I was never told. As a group they came together to make all these decisions and only when I was ready, did they tell me the parts I wanted to know.

*******

"I read your article in the paper and was touched" my postmaster said Friday as I opened the PO box to check the day's mail. "I'm so glad you started a group. Would you be interested in some homemade baby buntings?"

We talked further. She told me how she connected with a group of women online who make these for families after a loss. She's been making them and sending them out to Ohio where they are distributed to hospitals and funeral homes for infant burials. We talked about how parents are often overwhelmed with grief when told their baby is dead, and the idea of making funeral preparations is beyond their ability.

If not for my parents and in-laws, I cannot say what Emma's funeral would have been or when - for that matter. If not for them - who knows if she would have been respected, let alone loved.

MY SINCERE THANKS WITH ABOUNDING GRATITUDE TO PAM FOR MAKING THESE!

Perfect Moment...Everyday?

Time. It's cylical. It's circular. No, it's linear. It's the master of deception. It's defiant to the point of madness. It never halts, but seems to change gears based on the law of opposites. You want to hold the moment forever, it evaporates. You are broken under the pain of loss, it drags on endlessly.


Time. Quite possibly the most absract concept bestowed on us without origination. We are a nation of order, control, the masters of the "knowns". As such, we try to control time. We measure it in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. We try to manipulate it and categorize our lives based on its quantitative proporties.


When I was six, I wanted to be eight.
Eight wasn't really everything I cracked it up to be at six.


The winter always looks more magical from the perspective of summer.
Summer hot and winter cold - It is what it is


Where do we stop time? When do we say, "Ah -ha. I found it. My perfect moment. I am satisfied here, at peace and not searching for the next, and the next, and the next?"


This train of semi-connected thought planted in my mind as I thought of Perfect Moment Mondays. Aside from the obvious alliteration so appealing to the phrase (Perfect Moment Wednesdays really doesn't work), why Monday? Why not everyday? Um...Thursday perhaps? But I, in my literal, time dictated world needed my good friend Mrs. Spock to point it out.


Is there a perfect moment within every 24 hours of our earthly experience? (there's that pesky timeline again) There has to be. There should be. How do we find it? How do we invite it?


After 32 years on this earth and 8 of them on my grief road I think my mind is finally breaking free of the securely locked time straps it has slaved to for years. It is a very slow process for me. Attention to self is not something I have allocated time for in the past. Oh sure, I worked out a bit here and there, hated it, but felt like a passerbys lingering glance or a friends, "Man you are looking good" was worth it. It wasn't for me. It was for the world.


I lost Emma's body. I lost the ability to hold a baby and nurse in wee the hours of the morning. I lost her eartly future and all its permutations. I have not lost Emma. She is my guiding star, the bright light leading me, calling me when I get lost. When I get trampled down by the "must-do's" of time.

I did not choose this road. None of us did. But here we are, sloshing through the hellish muck that is grief. And yet, my girl is so powerful within me that I am not so ignorant to her lessons anymore. Furthermore, I recognize that she will be my cosmic teacher for the rest of my earthly days.


It is my job to listen. "Take care of your inner self" she says "and you will better care for my sisters". I know she's right. The, But there is so much to do in so little time... list appears instantly confusing my choice of direction. No. Not today.


Today holds no special assigned meaning. It isn't her birthday. It isn't the anniversary of her death. It is only a day, a late Fall Vermont day, asking me to participate in the process of evolving my heart and soul.


I could pay bills. I could bust out the first draft of chapter seven. I could clean my house. I could....oh yes...I definately could.


I will meditate at Emma's grave. I will allow a perfect moment this day and everyday.


To hell with time.