Beautiful Dawn
Listen here - it's a good song that I just heard on Pandora
"Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we come from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me to the place where I don't feel so small
Take me where I don't need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me where love isn't up for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Teach me how to see when I close my eyes
Teach me to forgive and to apologize
Show me how to love in the darkest dark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me where the angels are close at hand
Take me where the ocean meets the sky and the land
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me to the place where I feel no shame
Take me where the courage doesn't need a name
Learning how to cry is the hardest part
There's only one way to mend a broken heart"
song by The Wailn' Jennys
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Two things I hate
1. Unsolicited parenting advice. Please, just stop telling me the wonderful things you do that "work." I know, I do it sometimes too -and it really is because I want to be helpful - but just not now, don't offer up your wonderful advice now, not this week, not just after I shared every so slightly that yea, anniversary weeks is hard (I did SO well, I just said I'm okay and made everyone feel good). So just stop with telling me about the thing you do with your 3 year old, I really don't want to hear it right now- I know you mean well, you are really being nice...I know.
2. I hate small talk with people who don't know what this is like - and what this is like. I say that twice, on purpose, one time for each loss that I have to watch happen again...and for the first time in a way, since this is the first time that I know it is going to happen....that is what 1 year anniversaries are like for me. I am learning, thankfully what to say so I don't feel like I gave too much of myself away, took too much of someones time, and allowed for judgment to form (oh God - if you judge my parenting - I KNOW you judge my grief - it is SO easy to do both from your position....you don't have my kid, you don't live in my brain and you don't know who I lost - so if I let you in on how I really feel, you'd judge me, I know).
---
And I'm okay and not okay. I "have my moments" let's just put it that way. Usually they happen when Lil is in preschool, like now, - because then I can let down my guard - and wow - is it scary to realize how much I hold in - there you go - that's me being "strong" - if you wanna label something as "strong" in this hell....is the energy it takes to play normal life, the energy it takes to hold in everything until you are in the right place and time... that takes so much energy (and it slowly kills you as it waits for your attention).
So with this anniversary in my midst and some other things I can't really say here - I'm not sane...but I think that is going to be my new normal, so I'm dealing.
What if this is as good as it gets? Sober up. Sober up.
2. I hate small talk with people who don't know what this is like - and what this is like. I say that twice, on purpose, one time for each loss that I have to watch happen again...and for the first time in a way, since this is the first time that I know it is going to happen....that is what 1 year anniversaries are like for me. I am learning, thankfully what to say so I don't feel like I gave too much of myself away, took too much of someones time, and allowed for judgment to form (oh God - if you judge my parenting - I KNOW you judge my grief - it is SO easy to do both from your position....you don't have my kid, you don't live in my brain and you don't know who I lost - so if I let you in on how I really feel, you'd judge me, I know).
---
And I'm okay and not okay. I "have my moments" let's just put it that way. Usually they happen when Lil is in preschool, like now, - because then I can let down my guard - and wow - is it scary to realize how much I hold in - there you go - that's me being "strong" - if you wanna label something as "strong" in this hell....is the energy it takes to play normal life, the energy it takes to hold in everything until you are in the right place and time... that takes so much energy (and it slowly kills you as it waits for your attention).
So with this anniversary in my midst and some other things I can't really say here - I'm not sane...but I think that is going to be my new normal, so I'm dealing.
What if this is as good as it gets? Sober up. Sober up.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Cheers!
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” M. A. Radmacher
In this case, next Mothers Day. I'll "try again" then.
Thankfully, I celebrated with Lil yesterday - we had a nice, good day, the whole family. I only lost it once - and is was about a good thing - a friend messaged my husband to let us know, Gwen's plaque is there, by her tree at the arboretum. And I was so happy...and so sad.
Today. Let's call it failure all around.
But, for the most part, no one knows. Except my poor husband - and probably Lil. But she's also probably used to mama being a little crazy.
I remember her last year. I remember being a mother of two last mothers day.
This day, this year, as I know she only has five more days starting tomorrow and the fifth is not even a full day - and let's not mention M... who also, lived only five more days after this Sunday...
Friday is the day - even as the fourteenth is the date.... I know this Friday as my black Friday. I remember so well, that it was a Friday. And I know it was this Friday in May. Every cell in my body remembers - no matter how much Faith I have or Peace that passes all understanding flows - I'm human, that's all I ever seem to be - and believe me, I'm so completely, utterly human, I bore myself - and none of those enchanting words of inspiration and Faith can touch the memories that I can't repress if I wanted to -
I'm not well. I admit it - I am on Vodka and OJ - all day- I'm standing, heck, I'm typing, and well and fast... so I'm consider myself drinking wisely - but oh, I'm trying to modify my freaking outness - I'm trying to stay clam and it's the only way I know how. I'm trying to be strong. I'll do better tomorrow - I won't drink. It's not a holiday tomorrow- so I can't (see, I have standards?). And I have my dance class and God, a performance coming up (am I NUTS?). So, I gotta reign this all in - but today, I failed - and next mothers day - maybe then, I'll do better. But not this year.
Friday, May 6, 2011
What you look at dissiappears. I'm looking at the dark.
"Do you know that the heart has a dungeon?
Bring light! Bring light!" -Mary Oliver
I'm up and down at the same time. I don't know then, where I am. It's an odd place. I don't feel like I'm here, that's all I know. So I'm trying to connect back into the world and get out of my head a little.
But I loved this entry from a book I've not picked up in so long (reading is what "helps" me the most in grief but I don't get time to sit and read)- but this little book sustains me in this, I pick it up when I can, so if nothing else I get at least few moments of something to reflect on and "help" me cope with my unraveling mind.) I read this yesterday this quote, in a book about grief and the authors' reflection on it;
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! "
The autorhor who chose this quote then reflected:
"This is a state of depression with which we all are probably familiar. We would like to be removed from all awareness. We may think about suicide"
My husband and I aren't "at risk" - we have Lil. But I do understand that feeling of really, why are we all killing ourselves day in and day out, a collective "we" because most people, to me now, seem ridiculous... and why do we have children anyway - they are going to suffer in ways we can't imagine and all of them may die before we do... "is this a curse or a blessing that we give" - is it the most selfish act, to have a child?
Yes, my husband and I sometimes are at that brink and I live so differently now, not bad, but as one who really knows - we are just a breath away from all this... and all this is awful sometimes - so we really gotta try to squeeze any good we can find out - use it all up 'till we may appear insane - I know what "live life to the fullest" means -I understand that sentiment like few can, which so often urged in "inspirational" mantras. I know what Lil deserves and what a blessings family is, what good times are and every hour we have together, their value... and yet sometimes because I know how it is NOT a "Just World", because I know we are only Hoping on the Great Beyond, and because I know we (human kind) tend toward drama, toward judgment of our circumstances or others, because I know this place is rotten on so many levels, it is a fallen world regardless of your religion, sometimes, it does feel like we are all fooling ourselves to bother with it all...
But I also know that 2 months or 100 years is a blip and since I have Lil and can't/don't want to leave, I gotta, truly gotta, make the best of "even this" - this garden of weeds my own little life has become. They are so deeply rooted that some of them will always grow back - but I'll keep weeding - I'll keep trying to get back to a place where I can live and breath again...were they aren't choking out the sun, real though that they are... they are not metaphors but what grows in such grief.
But, W, poor sweet W, my brother-in-law - it became a real option to him in one of these moments where you are so far down, that you believe it, that everything "told" to you there, in the empty firmament of your own mind, by your own mind, warped beyond it's ability to bring light - you believe it without being able to step back from it for a moment and realize it is a state you cannot trust - that will not offer anything but blackness, therefore as real and honest as it feels and seems, it is a place to exists in but not act upon - to move through and not trust, to hear but not take to heart all that it is showing your soul...because if you let your soul "believe it" then your soul will want "out" your soul, it will believe that it is the most humane thing to do for you and the only real Hope. You can step off a steep cliff and be free.
And your soul may be right, that I can't say for sure - but when it is all you can see, then you are not working on full information, you are not allowing your soul to consider any light... you are really not being fair to your own soul, in a sense. But, darkness can be so convincing... darkness can make you see just about anything it wants and can trick your eyes and mind in a flash - light can never lie.
The darkness doesn't respond -it isn't about "darkness winning over light" even - it your humanness "filling in" the empty places that is the darkness, the places devoid of all Hope -humaness itself dark, it is hopless - and you end up having a conversation that begins and ends all inside your own head - when you are in those fully dark, but very real, moments. The antidote is connection to the world, to those you love here, to God if you can muster up belief - anything outside your own head. There is no light there and your soul doesn't know it's all you talking, your soul believes what feed it in the dark - so you can destroy your soul by your circular conversations in the dark places full of emptiness.
One of my favorite quotes has always been "When the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it." We must expect for it to get dark and cold in life - even in the best of times, I'm talking about normal life - outside of the hell of Grief.
If we truly understand our humanity (I think Care of the Soul is about this, that book, if you've heard of it) then we know it is our responsibility to know that when it is cold - we must try to get warmth outside of ourselves, we must kindle whatever fires we can - we must care for ourselves and usually that will involve getting out of our own head, or at the very, very least, noting it, the cold, the dark - but not trusting it too much - it is just, exactly like the little kid in the room at night who swears what they see is a monster, the devil himself, standing right there in their own little bedroom they thought was safe just hours earlier when the sun shone in.
Our heads, our minds, are exactly that, a little kids bedroom - and if the light won't switch on, then we gotta wait for the sun, moon, star - whatever tiny bit of light can show us that it's just our clothes strewn over the chair that we didn't put away like we should have, it is only the most normal and mundane part of life - it is only life and love - that in the dark can nearly destroy you.
Anyway....
The author continued:When this mood decends like a dark cloud, it is helful to remember that we have felt like this before, that otehrs have felt like this before - and that mood will pass.
We can help move it away - thouhght it may be hard to muster energy for that - by doing something physically demanding, like going for a strenuous walk, or for a sweim. Or by tending some plansts. Or talking with a friend. Or cooking. Anything to get us into a different frame of mind.
One friend suggested that at such times it was helpful to her to repat the phrase, "The worst is over" It might be worth a try."
I tend towards the cynical - because after three such losses - I don't know that "the worst" is over - I know there can be more than one "worse" in ones life - I fear what's ahead with all my heart and soul - but I think I do live better because of that -it is not a paralyzing fear - not at all - it is a respectful fear - if that makes sense. I acknowledge that Power of God or Forces FAR beyond my control - I hope for Love and benevolence to win out somewhere along the line - but I understand that as a need to try to bring sense to this - so I live every day with the thought "what if this is as good as it gets?" -and really, it's not a depressing thought - it's a call to get out of Time and expectation - all the good and the bad - and be here.
---
And, just to "translate" even as I don't think Shakespeare needs it - I kinda thought this was fun anyway and I'm all about clarity - so as to not have anything "muddled" up by Shakespeare skillful art of words;
"Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It’s like a garden that no one’s taking care of, and that’s growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can’t believe it’s come to this. " (and to give credit to where it is due - here is the source; http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_26.html)
Bring light! Bring light!" -Mary Oliver
I'm up and down at the same time. I don't know then, where I am. It's an odd place. I don't feel like I'm here, that's all I know. So I'm trying to connect back into the world and get out of my head a little.
But I loved this entry from a book I've not picked up in so long (reading is what "helps" me the most in grief but I don't get time to sit and read)- but this little book sustains me in this, I pick it up when I can, so if nothing else I get at least few moments of something to reflect on and "help" me cope with my unraveling mind.) I read this yesterday this quote, in a book about grief and the authors' reflection on it;
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! "
The autorhor who chose this quote then reflected:
"This is a state of depression with which we all are probably familiar. We would like to be removed from all awareness. We may think about suicide"
My husband and I aren't "at risk" - we have Lil. But I do understand that feeling of really, why are we all killing ourselves day in and day out, a collective "we" because most people, to me now, seem ridiculous... and why do we have children anyway - they are going to suffer in ways we can't imagine and all of them may die before we do... "is this a curse or a blessing that we give" - is it the most selfish act, to have a child?
Yes, my husband and I sometimes are at that brink and I live so differently now, not bad, but as one who really knows - we are just a breath away from all this... and all this is awful sometimes - so we really gotta try to squeeze any good we can find out - use it all up 'till we may appear insane - I know what "live life to the fullest" means -I understand that sentiment like few can, which so often urged in "inspirational" mantras. I know what Lil deserves and what a blessings family is, what good times are and every hour we have together, their value... and yet sometimes because I know how it is NOT a "Just World", because I know we are only Hoping on the Great Beyond, and because I know we (human kind) tend toward drama, toward judgment of our circumstances or others, because I know this place is rotten on so many levels, it is a fallen world regardless of your religion, sometimes, it does feel like we are all fooling ourselves to bother with it all...
But I also know that 2 months or 100 years is a blip and since I have Lil and can't/don't want to leave, I gotta, truly gotta, make the best of "even this" - this garden of weeds my own little life has become. They are so deeply rooted that some of them will always grow back - but I'll keep weeding - I'll keep trying to get back to a place where I can live and breath again...were they aren't choking out the sun, real though that they are... they are not metaphors but what grows in such grief.
But, W, poor sweet W, my brother-in-law - it became a real option to him in one of these moments where you are so far down, that you believe it, that everything "told" to you there, in the empty firmament of your own mind, by your own mind, warped beyond it's ability to bring light - you believe it without being able to step back from it for a moment and realize it is a state you cannot trust - that will not offer anything but blackness, therefore as real and honest as it feels and seems, it is a place to exists in but not act upon - to move through and not trust, to hear but not take to heart all that it is showing your soul...because if you let your soul "believe it" then your soul will want "out" your soul, it will believe that it is the most humane thing to do for you and the only real Hope. You can step off a steep cliff and be free.
And your soul may be right, that I can't say for sure - but when it is all you can see, then you are not working on full information, you are not allowing your soul to consider any light... you are really not being fair to your own soul, in a sense. But, darkness can be so convincing... darkness can make you see just about anything it wants and can trick your eyes and mind in a flash - light can never lie.
The darkness doesn't respond -it isn't about "darkness winning over light" even - it your humanness "filling in" the empty places that is the darkness, the places devoid of all Hope -humaness itself dark, it is hopless - and you end up having a conversation that begins and ends all inside your own head - when you are in those fully dark, but very real, moments. The antidote is connection to the world, to those you love here, to God if you can muster up belief - anything outside your own head. There is no light there and your soul doesn't know it's all you talking, your soul believes what feed it in the dark - so you can destroy your soul by your circular conversations in the dark places full of emptiness.
One of my favorite quotes has always been "When the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it." We must expect for it to get dark and cold in life - even in the best of times, I'm talking about normal life - outside of the hell of Grief.
If we truly understand our humanity (I think Care of the Soul is about this, that book, if you've heard of it) then we know it is our responsibility to know that when it is cold - we must try to get warmth outside of ourselves, we must kindle whatever fires we can - we must care for ourselves and usually that will involve getting out of our own head, or at the very, very least, noting it, the cold, the dark - but not trusting it too much - it is just, exactly like the little kid in the room at night who swears what they see is a monster, the devil himself, standing right there in their own little bedroom they thought was safe just hours earlier when the sun shone in.
Our heads, our minds, are exactly that, a little kids bedroom - and if the light won't switch on, then we gotta wait for the sun, moon, star - whatever tiny bit of light can show us that it's just our clothes strewn over the chair that we didn't put away like we should have, it is only the most normal and mundane part of life - it is only life and love - that in the dark can nearly destroy you.
Anyway....
The author continued:When this mood decends like a dark cloud, it is helful to remember that we have felt like this before, that otehrs have felt like this before - and that mood will pass.
We can help move it away - thouhght it may be hard to muster energy for that - by doing something physically demanding, like going for a strenuous walk, or for a sweim. Or by tending some plansts. Or talking with a friend. Or cooking. Anything to get us into a different frame of mind.
One friend suggested that at such times it was helpful to her to repat the phrase, "The worst is over" It might be worth a try."
I tend towards the cynical - because after three such losses - I don't know that "the worst" is over - I know there can be more than one "worse" in ones life - I fear what's ahead with all my heart and soul - but I think I do live better because of that -it is not a paralyzing fear - not at all - it is a respectful fear - if that makes sense. I acknowledge that Power of God or Forces FAR beyond my control - I hope for Love and benevolence to win out somewhere along the line - but I understand that as a need to try to bring sense to this - so I live every day with the thought "what if this is as good as it gets?" -and really, it's not a depressing thought - it's a call to get out of Time and expectation - all the good and the bad - and be here.
---
And, just to "translate" even as I don't think Shakespeare needs it - I kinda thought this was fun anyway and I'm all about clarity - so as to not have anything "muddled" up by Shakespeare skillful art of words;
"Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It’s like a garden that no one’s taking care of, and that’s growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can’t believe it’s come to this. " (and to give credit to where it is due - here is the source; http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_26.html)
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
"In the Know."
We both remember last year as a moment ago. I was surprised (but I shouldn't have been) when my husband shared with me how the weather reminds him... because that is where I am too. I vividly recall the springtime baby - the springtime loss. And now I know that her days were numbered, now I know what is going to happen - I know of a double loss on the 14th.
I see all the ways we were just living life, adjusting to coming down off all the drama around her birth and surgery and recovery. We were starting to get into normal but it wasn't the one we wanted of course, as we didn't know when she'd need her next surgery and I hated that she faced that all her life -but all indications were good, for now - I still just wanted her to get to six months old, in my head, for some reason, that was going to be a place where I felt more "okay" about her situation... A six month old you know them by then and I didn't know her yet - I was concerned I'd miss signs of heart failure (why was I not thinking about viruses?).
I still was working out the black hole between hospitals. I should have called my nurse coordinator but I thought it was like CHOP and she only worked with you before your baby was born - so I didn't' want to bug her (it's my child, WHY was I concerned about bugging anyone). It took so many phone calls to finally get UVA to understand the records regarding her blood were inbedded in her cardio records - that is how CHOP did it. UVA Cardiologists had all the records and Hematology needed to simply ask them for it... She should have had her blood check-up scheduled much sooner. She didn't live for the UVA follow up. The appointments were written on the calender, just sitting there with nothing to do, after she died. Would we have found something if she had seen the hematologist sooner?
Considering they can't really determine for sure, why she died - I can't help but wonder. And wish, wish, wish I could get it right - and get her there, to UVA blood docs. in April when she should have gone.
And I should have gone in Thursday night when we saw her turn gray after spitting up. It was friend of my husbands, who we called - who is a emergency room pediatrician, who now I know, apparently doesn't get "heart babies." WHY in God's NAME did I listen to him? Why didn't I tune in that I'm a mother and we have gut feelings and they are not crazy... I can't say I had a gut feeling but I know everyone "talked me down" saying I was just being a worried mother... he and my husband believed that with no other symptoms they'd just send us back home since her color seemed return. But really, a heart baby? Would they have? Would they have noticed her breathing fast, which we didn't notice was fast - I could NEVER tell about her breathing - I know the docs said it wouldn't be normal and Lord knows a newborn's breathing is not normal anyway - so I couldn't tell she was breathing fast. Would the docs have on Thursday night - and then with that other symptom have been on top of the situation?
What happend to M that day? My sis-in-law. I have tiny bits of information. She got in late to work - had a little talking to by her boss who she was really close with, almost father/daughterish. It upset her. Then after the news of Gwen she was going to help her mom and stay with her brothers - but she didn't need to go there till later. But she left work early anyway - picked up a friend and apparently wasn't able to speak through her sorrow. The story will never settle - her friend said she dropped her glasses and leaned to pick them up, lost her balance, tried to grab a sapling, it didn't hold and she was gone. But no glasses ever turned up and the prescriptions she wore all the time, were at her house.
There's more, I could go on, but it's not my place even as it matters so much to me, I'm not "family" in the sense that I can bring up my concerns. Her toxicology report was totally clean... did my sis-in-law really just die while grieving her niece as one horrible headline in the newspaper stated? I want to talk to her so bad, I want to have her back so badly... I want to be there in that moment and not let her fall... we need her. We lost too much already. But instead, we lost her brother in Oct...and that was no accident on his part, but so devastating in it's own details.
And now, now I can only pretend to exist for everyone but Lil (she deserves more than pretend) while I watch for the first time, in a way, the last days of both of their lives.... having to feign normal because only my husband and I are in this, we are the only ones just waking up to it on some level - and no one wants to hear how not strong we are.
I heard this song posted below today and it fits these days well, of watching two people I love, die. Since this time around, I'm in the know. I know in the next few days, "the cold will get colder" and then the day will pass, we'll mark it the way we hope to, or not, and Time will keep going on...totally neutral to it all. But each day now, I know is one of her last days. And her last days.
And, as I don't really recall much from after May last year, I guess I'll just begin to figure out, this time around, how to cope with the real "goneness" of both ('till Oct. comes around and a new anniversary of death greets us). Maybe it will be refreshing not to have anything to remember after May 14th, for the summer.
It's almost over now. My time with Gwen. Again. But, unlike the lyrics here - my love won't die. But one loved one will, around 3:30 and another again around 4:30 or 5:30 (I still don't know the exact times, I never could get it in my head....the blur started when the phone call came, the first one...when they told me her heart stopped, my baby.)
-----
"I've put it all behind me
Nothing left to do or doubt
Some may say
But every silver lining always seems to have a cloud
That comes my way
Anticipated pleasure or unexpected pain
No choice I fear
And love is hard to measure hidden in the rain
That's why you'll find me here all alone and still wondering why
Waiting inside for the cold to get colder
And here where it's clear that I've wasted my time
Hoping to fly 'cause it's almost over now
People come together, people go their own way
Love conquers few
And I'll do whatever, I'll say what I need to say
Just not for you
How many days should I smile with a frown?
'Cause you're not around with the sun on your shoulders
And how many nights must I wake up alone?
And know in my soul that it's almost over now
Our love is like a paper airplane flying in the folded wind
Riding high, dipping low
And innocence is fair game, I'm hoping I can hold it in
Our love will die, I know"
Nothing left to do or doubt
Some may say
But every silver lining always seems to have a cloud
That comes my way
Anticipated pleasure or unexpected pain
No choice I fear
And love is hard to measure hidden in the rain
That's why you'll find me here all alone and still wondering why
Waiting inside for the cold to get colder
And here where it's clear that I've wasted my time
Hoping to fly 'cause it's almost over now
People come together, people go their own way
Love conquers few
And I'll do whatever, I'll say what I need to say
Just not for you
How many days should I smile with a frown?
'Cause you're not around with the sun on your shoulders
And how many nights must I wake up alone?
And know in my soul that it's almost over now
Our love is like a paper airplane flying in the folded wind
Riding high, dipping low
And innocence is fair game, I'm hoping I can hold it in
Our love will die, I know"
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