This place is deep. I didn't know I'd get deeper.... but my strength is only that which keeps me pretending I'm a decent mommy and can somehow make a grocery list and have a meal for my husband when he comes home, tired and weary, to his shrunken family.
Okay, he doesn't come home everyday that way. He is out walking with Lil looking for puddles, right now. That description is mine, how I would feel if I were him.
For the moment...cynicism has its grip on me and there isn't a fight in me. A ruthlessly logical cynicism. It's been watching me for a while now, with it's narrow, yellow eyes, waiting for just the right moment.
Is it a blessing. Really? To have and hold a child and then have to be the one who's baby dies.
There are ashes in my basement. I had a child. She, what, broke? And now it's all done. Put her away and go about my business.
"Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you"
My heart - my body. The years off my life (and I don't fight that - let 'em run off.). The physical feeling of my heart squeezing.... the guttural wails from the deepest depths of my soul that won't bring her back. The exhaustion but the torture of sleep. The acting normal, being part of the world, but not of it. Aren't we supposed to be that way anyway? But what if you were forced into that place. What if cynicism starts to feed on you? What if you are too wiped out to fight it?
I know there is choice in this.
"A Native American grandfather told his grandson that his pain was like having two wolves trying to attack his heart. One is vengeful and one is merciful. The grandson asked which wolf will win. The grandfather responded, "it depends on which one I feed." "
But, it is hard. It starts to seem that all you can see now is the pain and suffering of the world. And nothing else.
Then you wonder, why is anybody here? Why bring anybody here? Why do it?
Why risk such pain again...and worse...what about the fact that when you bring a child into this earth you basically leave them to the wolves. You are tied to a chair and there is nothing you can really do, ultimately do, to protect their hearts from all the horrible, raging, nasty viciousness that exists everywhere in every moment.
I live my life now, at mercy to the reality of this world. Weary at it. God, well, does what He wants. His purpose may be good. It may be for all Good in the End. But watch out, your kids and your heart may be assigned some pretty high stakes roles. Your security, sanity and soul may be challenged in ways that sometimes you just find it too exhausting to hold up the good fight anymore.
You reach the point where you plead. I'm done. I'm cooked. Be done with me. Do what you need....but, please, just get it over-with. None of this tinkering along, bringing loved ones to the verge of death and then all the sudden when least expected, letting them stay....and then, I guess, changing your mind a little further down the road in another similar situation? And then, to loose another loved one the same day in a rather traumatic manner. That's a lot of jerking around.
Did we get too comfortable. Too trusting in "answered prayers," did we take it too personally? I don't ask because I need answers. They are rhetorical. I know, I know, no answers. I know. God.
I have no questions that God is Good. But, I have no questions either, that God Is. And therefore....
I can't protect Lillian from the fact that she lost a sister when she is 2 1/2 years old. She "video" chatted in Philly, while her baby sister was fighting for life with an Aunt who brought such smiles. That Aunt died too. Nothing I can do but struggle with age appropriate answers when her little heart wonders why it is confused. I can't give her back her Granddaddy that she never met and and I can only guess that one day, she'll be kinda sad about that too.
And do you know what is worse? I can't promise I'll be here everyday of her childhood. I can't promise her Daddy will not leave much, much sooner than we could bear. I can't promise that the next Aunt or Uncle she "video chats" with or visits with for a week will be there the next. I also can't promise that if she does have another sibling, that he or she won't be a "regular" of a children's hospital. I can't promise that her next sibling will stay. All it takes is a simple little virus (and our family seems to be on some sort of virus hit list). I can't promise that she won't find her heart desperately lonely at times, that the teenage years won't be rough and then rough again. I can't promise that she herself won't have a tragic accident in a simple moment of terrible lowness and sadness before she hits 20. That life won't swallow her up before she could say "boo." If she does make it into her 20's, I can't promise she'll find someone to love or that if she does she'll have a happy marriage. In that, I can't promise that she won't loose a child too. I can't promise if she did get married and has eight children, that she won't loose her husband suddenly and without warning.
All these things and more, I cannot promise my Lillian.
And somehow, I'm supposed to bring another child here?
Really. Really???
Elizabeth Stone writes, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
All that happens to Lil happens to me and my heart suffers. But not as much as the afflicted. And I can pretty much only watch. Sit, tied to my chair as she navigates this hell I brought her into. Is this the height of cruelty, when come on, I knew better?
And...furthermore am I just nuts to ask this of myself again? Isn't it obvious the universe has some issue with me trying to bring forth life. I'm broken. I don't work. And on top of that, I can't keep them alive when they are fixed and given to me to take home. I know. It wasn't me. God. I know. But, it did happen on my watch...so it is hard not to feel a little bit responsible. Even if my role was just that, "the mother who didn't see how sick her child was in time" -that was God's "plan."
"a tidal wave that over takes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force"
Oh. The places you'll go. In this hell called grief. Complicated grief (Oh yes. It has a "name" when it is sudden. When it involves more than one person at a time. Yep. There a nice little package to put this lovely state of mental collapse.)
Land mines. That is how I see the world now. Rampant, hidden, landmines. Everywhere. And who is next?
Bring it.
No wait. STOP. Please. Stop. Just give us all here a rest a little break. Just a little bit of peace....
And time moves on. No choice, and it wouldn't care anyway, if it did somehow have a choice. The ticking is devoid of anything but it's fact. It ticks. With expressionless face and deaf ears. Tick...tick...tick.... I'm like a crazy person raging against something that isn't there; something that needs to notice or take into any consideration my desperate pleas. Time, cold, unfeeling, rigid as hell, unaltering, determinate, master of change. No rest. No solace. Every moment different than the one before. Even if you or I don't feel it. Someone, somewhere, IS feeling it. Someone, somewhere is getting drenched like you wouldn't believe, like you wouldn't want to believe, as Time and Change slash open another black cloud. It is their Time to watch their loved one leave. Loved one here. Loved one gone. Somewhere else? Outside of Time? God, I hope so...because in here, it is horrible.
So. Do I live in fear, of what happens next? Of when my only other child will be taken? Do, I lock the doors and stay "safe." No. Did you ever see the movie Final Destination? Yea. Well. It's kinda like that. I have NO illusions of safety. The land mines could be right in your own backyard, your kitchen, the first place you step when you foot hits the floor in the morning.
I'd like to be close to my Lil when something happens, but that's just a little wish in my heart. It would be nice. But I don't expect it. I just say "bring it" - and walk out the door without any expectations that I'll be coming back. If I do return, wonderful. If we all do, even more wonderful. If my loved ones get to come back home and find many fair days ahead, then that is my highest prayer that could be answered. But, I don't dare expect it.
I say "bring it" but not with any kinda live it up, gusto. It is a cynical, exhausted, depleted, "bring it."
What it is called...Stockholm syndrome. I've got that. With reality. Except, I don't even expect it to keep me alive.
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Disclaimer: Yes. This is cynical. But there are ashes in my basement. Can you blame me?
I'll be okay. I can still be what Lillian needs and Myers deserves. It's not about me (Thank GOODNESS). And, at least I know that.
I know I am responsible for my own experience of this place, of this world (not the "world of grief" but the actual world). Probably the most poignant "quote" that I always turn to is, "When the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it." *
Turning to that or anything that would help me keep my head above water is challenge (that is mildly put). My own "quotes" that I would live by, and Faith, and beliefs mock me now, and for now, I'm on their side, I've joined their forces, mocking me.
* - Lucy Larcom
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Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,
smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,
sweeps you up into its darkness,
where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,
only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...
Grief will make a new person out of you,
if it doesn't kill you in the making.
- Stephanie Ericsson
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