Where to, Elise?

Worlds

2010-01-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

I hold in the palm of my hand

a fragment of your bone.

Pure white even with its tiny

gray pores,

on the other side, a dent of striations

where your marrow once was.

All I have left of you:

these ashes of gray dust and white fragments--

perhaps half a cup.

All you had to do was open your eyes,

start your heart to beating

in my arms

as we cried over your lovely face.

Last night I gazed at

your brother's sleeping face,

and thought he looked like you did

that first and last day with you.

The immensity of our cities, inventions, ideas!

And you so tiny, now tinier still,

but not in my world.

or the one of invisible, unknowable mystery.

Thankful for Longing

2009-11-26T10:49:00.000-08:00

I take great comfort from this passage in Edwidge Danticat's memoir Brother, I'm Dying:

When my daughter was born, her face blood-tinted, her eyelids swollen with tiny light pink patches that Colleen the midwife called angel kisses, her body coiled around itself as if to echo the tightness of her tiny fists, I instantly saw it as one of many separations to come. She was leaving my body and going into the world, where she would spend the rest of her life moving away from me.

Groggy and exhausted, I asked Colleen, 'Is it normal for me to think this?'

'Maybe you're one of those women who enjoys being pregnant,' she said.

It wasn't so much that I enjoyed being pregnant. I simply liked the fact that for a while my daughter and I had been inseparable.

These words remind me that I had a bond with Elise while carrying her--one that will always remain undefinable by our experiences in this world, but a bond nonetheless. We separated when she was born too, but of course in a much more painful way--that final separation, skipping the togetherness of being daughter and mother on this planet.

But that bond we had while I carried her inside me: we were as close as we could be, though we could not see each other and I could not hear her. She could hear my voice, and her papa's and her brother's, and she could hear my breath and heartbeat. But this whole experience took place on a subconscious level, invisible to us in our sense-driven existence. I take comfort in the connection we had while still mourning its lost potential.

When I think of this closeness with my children that I lost with Elise, that slips away from me with each day Felix grows up, that closeness I cherish and mourn at the same time when Felix cuddles and kisses and says "I love you" to me, the words of Cindy Sheehan keep coming to mind. Cindy Sheehan was the woman who held a vigil against the Iraq war outside President Bush's Texas ranch in August 2005 after her firstborn son Casey was killed serving as a soldier. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with her actions, I once read of her devotion to her son that "he touched every part of me." She carried him inside her, gave birth to him, nursed him and bathed him and helped him grow up. That sensory intimacy with one's child is like no other for me, and missing it with Elise is what aches the most.

But it does not hurt anymore. It will always ache, but the hurt with its rage and devastation has faded away, thankfully.

All of us long to be with someone we miss, whether they have passed away from us or live on another part of the planet. And all of us have some belief in the invisible, in some form or element. My relationship with Elise is invisible, subtle, not of this world. Much more awaits us after this chaotic, contradictory life on this glorious, crazy earth.

A week ago, I visited a couple in Labor and Delivery as a Peer Companion when they lost their baby boy. On the same day I met the new baby daughter of friends whose firstborn died two days after her traumatic birth a year ago August. My heart swelled and swelled with relief and joy and sadness when I saw little Chapin in her beaming father's arms. She is perfect, beautiful--truly one of the most beautiful babies I've ever seen. I went to Frances as she sat up in bed in the recovery room and started sobbing on her shoulder. I wanted to keep crying like that, but thought I should pull myself together because this was her day of joy. Frances said she felt Emerson's presence at every moment of her pregnancy and delivery with Chapin.

If anyone is familiar with separation and reunion, it is Edwidge Danticat, who learned of this kind of love from her father and his older brother: her two papas. She writes lovingly of her uncle, a pastor who raised her for eight years in Haiti after her parents emigrated to the United States.

'Death is a journey we embark on from the moment we are born,' [my uncle] would say. 'An hourglass is turned and the sand starts to slip in a different direction as soon as we emerge from our mother's womb. Thank God those around us are too blinded by joy then to realize it. Otherwise there would be weeping at births as well. But if we weep at a death, it's because we do not understand death. If we saw death as another kind of birth, just as the Gospel exhorts us to, we woudn't weep, but rejoice, just as we do at the birth of a child.'

This is what I resolve to do: keep hold of life and death. Like laughing and crying at the same time.

3 Years and Forever

2009-11-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

Three years ago today we said Hello and Goodbye to Elise. This morning before I got out of bed I thought to myself, "Today is your birthday, baby girl. I love you. I miss you. I will see you again." I thought of those parents who suffer the loss of their child at any age: miscarriage, hours after delivery, months into babyhood, childhood flu, in the line of duty as soldiers.

Felix woke me from deep sleep with a sob and a call for Daddy last night. I went to him and found him trying to get his pajamas back on after changing his pull-on diaper. He had never done that before--he sleeps very heavily, doesn't wake up to use the bathroom yet, and only every once in a while does he cry for us at night. "I want to cuddle with you Mommy," he told me after I zipped up his pajamas and dried his tears.

He leaned his head against mine as he fell asleep. The sheer solidness of his head on my brow brought back the memory of him inside me in the weeks before his birth, when I could feel that hard little head like a weight in my lower abdomen and his little bottom would wave back and forth under my belly button.

When I crawled back into my own bed, I thought about checking the time: it was about 1am three years ago when I woke up to go to the emergency room because I had not felt Elise move inside me all evening. But I didn't look at the clock, thinking it was probably hours past that.

The first thing Dan said to me when he returned from his Saturday group run this morning was that he had checked the time when Felix called out. It was four minutes past 1. He calls it coincidence, although he was the one to note the hour. I said I wasn't sure what it meant, but it felt "cosmic." Maybe what I mean by that is that Elise's connection to us is deep in our bones, our beings. It doesn't matter how much time she spent with us in her physical body on this seemingly solid earth: she is with us, in our flesh, in the deepest recesses of our minds, in our spirits.

The tears well up and pour from my eyes because my body cannot touch hers and my senses ache for her face (what would it look like?), her hair (would it be dark like mine and Felix's?), her soft skin (I love to stroke Felix's pudgy forearm, hold his hand), her voice (my heart melts every time I hear the high pitch of any child's sounds).

"When a loved one dies, the process of grieving is a completion that allows us to honor that person's life and claim the wisdom we have gained through the relationship." So goes an entry for November in my Pocketful of Meditations book. What relationship did I have, or Dan or Felix, with Elise? At a Share meeting I attended last week, I listened to a woman who suffered an early miscarriage bravely say that she didn't feel "worthy" of being at the gathering because the rest of us had lost our babies later in our pregnancies, when we thought about them and carried them for months as they moved around inside us. But this mother had imagined a future with this child. "You had dreams for you and your baby," I said to her.

A relationship with someone, "knowing" a person: what does that mean? When I think of a person I love, I recall glimpses of them, moments spent together, snapshots in time; their smile, my gaze upon them, the shape of their hand.

This is my relationship with Elise. It continues, and its length and depth equal any other on this planet. Because all relationships are a series of moments we spend together and apart, feeling, dreaming, seeing, missing. "As we receive the gift of understanding, it transcends time and space, simultaneously gifting the soul of the one who has passed over." This body of mine aches for you, Elise. But the me who is more than just flesh is listening to you, who live beyond absence.

Yes again

2009-09-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

This thought floated up and wants to be expressed:

I will always remain hopeful, no matter what the outcome.

Felix pointed out the full (almost full? Waning full? Anyway, big and beautiful) moon to me several times the night before last. I was still warm after dark, following an equally lovely, balmy day where we ate dinner outside at the Emerson Grill.

"And there's the first star!" he exclaimed. There was brilliant Jupiter, just to the southeast and holding its own, standing out even next to the moon's wide gaze. The first star of night always reminds me of Elise, for some reason. It doesn't have to be the same star, Jupiter or Hyakutake or Krypton--I'm no astronomer. Just the first star of the evening, whenever I happen to glimpse it.

Maybe connecting Elise with this star began around 6 months after her death, when we vacationed on a Mexican Pacific beach and I held a twilight ceremony with Uncle Jeff, Auntie Sarah and Uncle Ben, her cousins in girlhood and her big brother. We gazed at a candle I lit in the middle of our circle, and for a moment she was at the center of our world. I looked up once again at these loved ones gathered--I think Susie, Skip, and Francie were there too--and saw the first star of night was shining down on us from the west, just above where we admired the spectacular sunsets from our palapa.

Back to the night before last: Felix and I went on a twilight walk after dinner--maybe subconsciously beckoned by that moon. We met some new neighbors on Brady street and found that we have a lot of friends in common. Felix showed them his new handlebar headlight. I'd bought it months ago for Dan's and my bike, but was finally getting around to installing it until Felix said he wanted it for his own. He was so fascinated by the circle of glowing white that bobbed in time to his handlebars' movements. He hadn't been riding his bike for weeks, and I had not been on a walk on a balmy night for god knows how long.

We took the night air with his miniature spotlight. It was just what I needed.

Still Here I Think

2009-08-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post because I'm writing it in the few minutes before some friends are due to arrive. I'm tricking myself into doing some writing, because I (A) haven't done any and (B) think that if I can only do it for a short sprint it will at least be something.

The thing is (C) I've been sitting in some low-level depression. It's the kind that occasionally keeps me from falling asleep easily and makes me snap at my Felix toward the end of the day. It's not the kind that makes me burst into tears and have a crying jag over the ongoing, underlying grief in my life: I've made peace with that. I think.

I just don't feel much motivation to do the things that make me feel better--things for me. Instead I get obsessed over endless tasks like tidying the house, running errands, entertaining Felix, and telling myself that since these things are never done I must keep doing them or I am not worth much.

Ick! I've transferred the habit of mind/ego I had while in academia to housework! Talk about a job never done. So far I don't think I'm drinking too much, but I sure look forward to a gin and tonic or two in the late afternoon.

Must re-route those neural circuits that say I must work, work, work and do, do, do to be someone. It's time to Be, Be, Be--and Now.

Working to Rest

2009-07-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

My mind is struggling against the quiet my spirit wants. It tries to pull me underneath where all is churning and blurry and deafening with confusion. All I need to do is be still and float peacefully with the current, but I thrash around instead, looking for some kind of handhold or foothold that isn't there right now.

I can't keep still because it is work to do so. I confuse this effort at peacefulness with struggle, and my mind convinces me that I need to sleep in instead of writing in my journal, that I need to read the news and dink around on the internet instead of playing music, in order to relax.

But these are distractions and avoidances, not relaxation. I know because I feel even worse after doing them.

It takes effort to be at peace. It means waking up a little earlier. And not berating myself for NOT waking up early either--I'm in mourning after all--but telling myself gently that it is hard to absorb yet another loss, and that I know what will comfort me: writing and music.

My mind and ego say that I can wallow for a while. My spirit says, Be sad and grieve, but in a way that takes care to let those feelings flow in music and words. Oversleeping, excessive distractions like the internet, worry over housework that I don't get to: this is wallowing and stuffing away what needs to come out, and needs coaxing to come out.

It's OK to write and play music--it is NOT an indulgence. It feeds me, it heals me. Healing takes effort because it requires overruling the mind games of guilt and defeatism. My mind is even telling me I am guilty of laziness because I don't create, when really it's the reverse: I feel I'm avoiding the "real work" of chores if I play music or write. Or is that my mind/ego at it again? --I'm confused. My mind is either clever or diabolical. Possibly both.

Meanwhile, my husband has a career that he desperately wishes were something he cared about, because he works very hard at it yet has no interest in it whatsoever. At this moment Dan is standing by for a flight home from Chicago, where he has been all week. It sounds like it's been miserable: from what he's told me, there is literally nothing in the Chicago suburb where his client's offices are. He has been working in an office building in a warehouse district, and the only place to eat meals is at his hotel.

He tells me not to feel guilty. I am almost convinced not to (a Catholic upbringing and American cultural ideals about work have quite the grip on my psyche--a subject for a later post). He is a big boy, he says, and knows what he needs to do for himself (unlike me). I listen to him when he needs to vent and I don't try to fix his situation or give him advice.

He does great work for his firm, because he believes in doing a good job even though it's personally unsatisfying. But he has little time or energy left for seeing friends, and misses his time with us. I myself however, could go out for drinks with some girlfriends last night. I almost cried when one of them said she felt struck by Dan's commitment to do whatever it takes to care for me.

We are committed to our healing, in our own way. Every day I will move forward. That means writing something, every day. It means praying for me and for our little family we want to grow. It means getting one chore done every day and having that be enough. It means closing my eyes and opening my heart to listen.

Dying to Live

2009-06-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

Ever since reading his 2006 book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence, I find myself thinking of the wise and tender words of Matthew Sanford, a man in his 40s who was paralyzed at age 13 in a car crash that killed his father and sister. He went on to suffer the stillbirth of one of his twin sons, become a yoga instructor, and establish a charity he calls Mind Body Solutions.

We all experience different levels of dying throughout our lives--the process of living guarantees it....If we can see death as more than black and white, as more than on and off, there are many versions of realized death short of physically dying. The death of a loved one sets so much in motion: grief, a sense of loss, tears, anger, a transcendent sense of love, an appreciation of the present moment, a desire to die, and on and on.

There are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized you weren't going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel your mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet is is necessary for the onset of maturity....

Life and death, silence and action, emptiness and fullness at the same time--these are inward features of everyone's life. They are truths that do not lead to answers. Instead, they invite us to believe in and appreciate our own experience. When we do, when we carefully listen to that experience, the next story begins, the practical one, the story of what happens beyond waking.

As for me, the waiting is over. I can breathe again.

I have never witnessed a loved one struggling with a fatal diagnosis who waits for their death while still hoping to live. And I hope anyone reading this who has, does not take offense at my comparison. But this feeling I have right now brings such a situation to mind. For 2 years, 3 if you count the months I carried Elise and we looked toward the time when we would begin our lives with her, we've been waiting for another child to join our family. Today again, after trying another treatment and hoping this dream will finally come true, grief struck me down.

But at least the anxiety of wondering and worrying is finally over.

Felix has some mail-order caterpillars in a plastic jar. Every morning since they arrived a week ago, he has awakened with a smile of excitement on his face and urged me to come with him downstairs to see how much they've grown. In one week they probably tripled in size. This morning he forgot to check on them, maybe because I crawled into bed with him to tell him we were not going to have a baby because "the eggs in mommy's tummy didn't hatch."

I let him see my tears and told him he was our favorite boy in the world and we are so happy he is our big boy. At first his mouth curved down in that frowny face I find so endearing as he listened to my bad news. It made me think of the days and months after Elise died when I would burst out crying, and in his 2-year-old sensitivity and confusion he would cry too, perhaps scared he had lost his mother to some place he couldn't go. But this time he said, "Now we can play tackle again" because he didn't have to worry about being gentle with me and the "eggs."

So later this morning we did. And he kept holding on to me after he tackled me to the ground and said "I love you, you're my favorite girl in the whole world."

When we'd come downstairs, Dan told Felix his caterpillars were starting to hang upside down on the lid of their jar, getting ready to spin their cocoons. I used to look at the creatures and think of our microscopic embryos, growing and maybe wiggling their way toward a life outside.

Now as I look at the caterpillars, some of them quietly suspended, others getting their last nibble of food and crawling around looking for just the right place to start their next phase of life, I think, that is where I am now: beginning again. It's not such a bad place to be, even if I have to die a little first to take that next step. Even if I need to drag myself kicking and screaming, until I know for sure there is no looking back.

Needs and Wants

2009-05-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

I've thought about updating my blog numerous times during this past month-plus. But I think the reason I haven't is because we're preparing for another in-vitro fertilization attempt, and I'm scared it won't work. And I don't know what to do with that fear.

All I can do is live with it. I suppose it's the same as living with the pain of Elise's death: it's just always there, part of our lives, in the background of every passing moment. Like my breathing, I am not always even aware of it, and then it stirs me in some way and draws my awareness toward it. This fear, and my longing for another child, colors nearly every moment, whether I like it or not.

It's not as if I don't love my life. I don't go around moping or tense. Quite the opposite, actually. I truly feel at peace with my life and grateful for my beautiful sweet son, and my loving husband who understands me better than anyone and is the world's best listener.

But it does feel as if our lives are on hold, waiting for our child. Maybe he or she will never arrive. Yet our family seems incomplete. Not because one-child families seem incomplete to me, but because I myself have wanted two children since Elise lived inside me.

It's been two and a half years since she died, and I've been living with her absence as I always will. But on top of that is the longing, the seemingly endless longing for a second living child, a sibling for Felix.

I can live with the longing for Elise. I have accepted that she can never be with us here. But I am sick and tired of the unfulfilled longing for another baby. I wish I could make it go away. I'm TRYING to make it go away, in part by pursuing this IVF. But that might not be enough, if we're unsuccessful. And then comes more struggle. What will ease this longing, and how much longer will it take? Such are the ways my mind tightens its grip, with all these unanswerable questions about the future. Twice this week after yoga class, Chris read this famous passage from Dune. It seems meant for me:

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

I try not to live my life obsessing over this. I don't want to think that the success of this attempt is all resting on me and my body. That's too much pressure and also completely untrue. It will just happen the way it will. So I will acknowledge my fear and let it be my teacher.

"I may not always get what I want, so let me trust that I am getting what I need." So goes the prayer of a certain passage in my Pocketful of Miracles book. I am right where I am meant to be. This is true of every moment, good and bad. There is no right or wrong way to do this but live my life.

Spring-ing

2009-04-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

On days like this I feel so damn good I try to squelch my pessimistic side from telling me I might be bipolar (and if I am? So what?). So there: got that out of the way. Now I can go on writing about how great I feel today, this moment, and celebrate it.

I've had one of those beautiful Bozeman mornings where I talk to or see friends from around town, and they fill me with gratitude for life's many blessings.

Sure, I woke up too late this morning to take advantage of my generous, environmentally conscious sister-in-law Sarah's offer to pick up Felix on their way to preschool.

But Felix woke up smiling.

Sure, I got him to school at the latest time ever (he's supposed to be there by 9am). But standing there chatting outside school were two other mothers I like, and one of them had her adopted baby girl in the stroller with her. Her older daughter is Felix's classmate at preschool. She was excited to hear me tell her I'd been in touch with the woman who manages adoptions through Lutheran Social Services here in town. We agreed to talk soon. I'm really interested in hearing about her experience and getting to know her family.

I took Genki on a walk down the Linear Trail after parking the car at the public library. I ran into an old neighbor I hadn't seen in years. The sun was out, a reward for yesterday's rainy 40-degrees. I crossed a bridge over the creek to head downtown. I stopped to look at the creek gurgling, and listen to the robins tootling, a downy woodpecker pecking, chickadees chirping high up in the tall, leafless aspens.

As I walked by the condo of our friends Annie and Maxwell, I called Maxwell on my cell phone. We've been out of touch for too long. We will meet up this weekend, after not seeing them since December at the house they bought and are renovating.

I called up my friend Frances, whose daughter Emerson died last August two days after her birth. We've met a few times at each others' houses for hours of uplifting conversation. Now she has a contract job organizing a science and nature festival in the Bitterroot mountains, where scientists will come to do fieldwork and the public will be invited to see the animals and plants at a nature reserve in the Lee Metcalf wilderness. A beautiful place, she said. I can't wait to bring Felix and Dan to the festival in June--I've been to Missoula and driven through the Bitterroot on the interstate, but never been inside its wonders.

Then my neighbor Sanna called. She and her husband Pete have a sweet 16-month-old daughter, Stina, and Felix and I might get to have her over today! Stina's big sister Oskaria died two hours after her birth in July 2006 of a genetic disorder.

Downtown, I stopped at the Montana Fish Company and bought yellowtail collar to fry, ahi tuna and tobiko "flying fish" roe for sushi rolls, and a bottle of red rice ale made in Ibaraki, Japan. I've never had red rice ale--a new adventure for me!

I went to the store Shoefly owned by Michelle, my friend and neighbor. I bought some potpourri and a lovely candle dish decorated with dragonflies for Shirley. I hadn't seen Michelle for months either. We talked about gardening and how much fun she had harvesting potatoes one autumn in Manhattan, and how I was nervous about whether or not I should start some tomatoes from seed and try to grow a whole bunch in Dave and Jen's backyard, formerly Shirley's. I'm a spring-fever gardener: I'm all gung-ho at the beginning of the season, then burn out at the end. Also, the last time I tried a serious vegetable garden was the summer of 2006, when it was a billion degrees out, I was pregnant with Elise, and visited Shirley often in the hospital while she went through her TWO colostomy surgeries--one that landed her in the ICU.

Shirley lives next door now--hooray!--and told me yesterday she wants to grow tomatoes too. Of course, I still need to ask Jen and Dave if it's okay to grow a garden on their land. But if not, I'll still try containers and Shirley's raised bed in the yard of the house she rents from us.

Arriving back at the library after Genki's and my 2-hour meet and greet around town, an elderly man stopped me to chat outside after I said good morning to him. He was all smiles: "They had a storytime for the kids in there and sang 'Bah Bah Black Sheep.' Then the storyteller took the kids out to see a 2-year-old ewe and her lambs. Ohhh, the kids were so excited. A little girl petted a lamb and the lamb said 'BAH!' and she said 'BAH!' back, and it was the greatest thing!" "We sure have a beautiful library," I said to him as we parted.

And we do. It was finished the October before Elise died. It has gorgeous glue-lam timbers and skylights on its vaulted ceilings. Outside the windows are the magnificent evergreens in Lindley Park.

And like the rest of our fantastic town, I always see someone I know, or someone who returns my smile.

Clouds, then Sun

2009-03-31T15:51:00.001-07:00

You will indeed listen, but never
understand,
and you will indeed look, but
never perceive.
For this people's heart has
grown dull,
and their ears are hard of
hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look
with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart
and turn--
and I would heal them...

Matthew 13: 14-15

I haven't felt like writing these past two months because...well, there are many reasons I suppose. After the IVF didn't work and I wrote about it very honestly here and in messages to friends and family, I thought I'd preempted the grief by talking about my disappointment openly.

But then I went inside myself--too deeply it seems. I didn't go there in a self-pitying way, but I didn't do it in a healthy, self-reflective way either. I would describe it as a kind of shut-down, ignoring-everything introversion. I got addicted to internet Scramble. I read and read and read, without absorbing much. And then I got tired of reading (tired of READING? ME?). No topic or story interested me when I read it, but I read it anyway, as if I were shoveling in food, gourmet and mediocre, without tasting a bite. I stopped exercising. I stopped writing. I stopped the music, listening and playing both.

I could still act like the same person on the outside, but I felt disconnected much of the time. It depended on the person I was interacting with, and I gave up defending myself against hurtful, thoughtless chatter from loved ones when I was feeling fragile.

One of the things we don't want to see or hear is that death exists beside us. Knowing that death coexists with us doesn't mean we mope around as if we're in a cemetery. What I mean by an awareness of death is that we acknowledge the mystery each of us is, and also try to grasp that mystery by listening, not by trying to "solve" it with panaceas that make only us feel better on a superficial level.

Instead of living in the mystery, I became obsessed with bad news: the husband of a friend who died of brain cancer. A senior scholar in the Japanese literature field who once wrote me a kind e-mail complimenting an article I'd published, also dead, deteriorating within months, like my friend's husband. People losing their homes, their jobs, their businesses. A catastrophic gas explosion in my hometown that killed a young woman and instantly destroyed several cherished historic buildings and the businesses and jobs in them. A plane crash that wiped out 3 entire families with small children.

Ironically, I think all this focus on the morbid is because I've been silently dreading my 42nd birthday. I've been avoiding the anniversary of my birth as if I'm some youth-obsessed, declining starlet. I've always liked my birthday, the permission to give thanks for me. This year it became an occasion to fear that my body can never have another baby.

So I'd been rejecting myself and my body again. I wasn't listening to my pain. And then I got depressed, and got more impatient with people who talk without listening. That's because I haven't been listening to me. I've been ignoring my needs like a negligent parent ignores her child. I've been putting up with the thoughtlessness of people in my life because I haven't been doing much that is thoughtful for myself.

The thing is, it takes work to care for myself. But it feels good when I do. It's like the way people talk about relationships, or parenting: it's hard work at times, but the rewards far outweigh the demands.

So yesterday I ran with Genki, and the day before, I had a long yoga session. I ran again today with my friend Deborah. I wrote e-mails I'd been procrastinating on: to the administrative coordinator at the IVF clinic, and to a woman who manages adoptions at a service here in town. I tested out some guitars at the music store. Tonight I'm letting some girlfriends buy me a drink or three.

And...I wrote in here again! I'm back.

Felix called me outside to build a snowman. Here are some pictures of our handiwork. As Felix says, "I'll be sad when our snowman melts." And I say, "Yes, but then the flowers will start blooming," and he says, "I can't wait until it's winter again and I can build ANOTHER snowman!" Hope springs eternal. Even after it's been hibernating a while.

Fear and Trust

2009-01-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

We may not have a new baby on the way, but we did get a new family member. Yesterday afternoon, I went with Felix and our friend Shirley to the animal shelter. Shirley adopted two kittens that were buddies at the shelter, and Felix picked out a quiet-tempered, affectionate, sleek black kitty named Puma (we're not sure if we'll keep that name or not). It only took him about 5 hours last night to venture out from under the sofa to sniff every piece of furniture and pace back and forth alongside me to rub the length of his body against mine.

He is slowly beginning to trust this strange place with its strange smells and beings. He's staying in a small room off the kitchen, but early this morning he ventured into the kitchen itself and up the stairs where we were sleeping. I know this because Genki woke me by leaping up to charge down the stairs growling.

The kitty doesn't trust Genki yet, needless to say. I thought Genki's dogzilla behavior would send our new family member back behind the sofa for the rest of the day. But he came out as soon as I went downstairs to call to him, and is batting at his new toy. I have no doubt that soon he'll be roaming the vast new territory of our house, hundreds of times more vast than the nice, but small cage he lived in for 4 months at the shelter.

I've wanted another kitty for a while, ever since our lovely, feisty dilute calico Freud died in October 2007. But I didn't realize that he would teach me so many things in his very first hours with us.

Things like:
* Proceed with caution, but let yourself trust.
* Let things take their natural course, but participate in their process too.
* Let your heart be prepared for the unexpected, even if your mind is freaked out by it.
* Stretch and relax as much as you can in your new surroundings.
* No matter how scared you might feel about where your life is going, you will purr again.
* Someone will be there to inspire your purring, but having been through some of life's trials and weathered them somehow, you will find also that you've gained the ability to feel scared and to purr at the same time.

If I do say so myself (even though I grew up with the guilt of Catholicism and the outward modesty of a Japanese), I've become a much wiser person for the trials of the past couple of years. I trust my instincts more. I criticize myself less. I'm more understanding with my fears, and try to let them teach me about myself.

I haven't achieved these on my own: Elise is my greatest teacher, and the family and friends who show their love for me are my greatest living teachers. But I can give myself credit for calling these beings into my life. How else is the sincerity of loved ones tested, if not in times of trouble? I did not turn away from Elise's death, but let her take me to the darkest depths of pain. Now as I struggle with my inability to have another child, I see that sadness and joy, darkness and light infuse every moment, and I cherish both.

Opening the Door

2009-01-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

A home pregnancy test turned up negative today. It's heartbreaking, but at the very least I can stop obsessing about it and just bury that dream once and for all. We're still considering adoption, but it's too exhausting to think about the process right now.

I'll close this posting with a poem from Rumi that speaks to me:

This Being Human is a guest
house. Every morning
a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all:
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human
Beings know:
the moment you accept what troubles
you've been given, the door opens.

Welcome difficulty as a familiar
comrade. Joke with Torment
brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
That undressing,
and the beautiful
naked body
underneath,
is the sweetness
that comes
after grief.

Beside Us

2008-12-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday, Mary Jo, Judy, and Hannie held a Share holiday memorial service for us parents. I was surprised by two thoughtful gifts that moved me immensely: Rachel gave me a very sweet pewter angel ornament with "Elise 11-07-06" engraved on the back, and Mary Jo gave me a CD music mix and some delicious spice cookies. We lit candles and decorated ornaments with glitter for our babies. Felix sat very quietly during the ceremony, and told the other parents that he had a baby sister named Elise who couldn't be with us, but he hopes that soon he will have "another baby sister who will come to our house and stay with us."

I'll close today's writing with a lovely poem by John O'Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us. Chris Furtak, the 60-something super-energized, muscular yoga lady who lives each day for spirit and community (see "Hope is Prayer" from Dec. 7th), read this poem after class, just 2 weeks after her husband died.

On the Death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives,
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of color....

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look toward each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

Hope is Prayer

2008-12-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

Last year at this time, I wanted to be in the furthest place on the globe away from Christmas. I ended up not only surviving the day, but actually enjoying myself a bit too. Even though I felt terribly sad because Elise's due date was around Christmas, I kept myself open to the possibility I could have a good time. I even got us a small tree and decorated it with as many star ornaments, Elise's symbol, as I could find.

This time, I am astonished at how peaceful and blessed I feel. I anticipated an undercurrent of sadness when November 7th arrived and the nearness of the holidays, but there is none. I almost looked for it, around corners, under the sofa cushions, asking myself, Do I really feel this good? But why?

I think it's because I worked so hard to remember Elise, to forget Elise, to miss her, to welcome her. My heart has been open to her, even though this meant having it break repeatedly over the months and years.

And my heart has been open to another child, and breaking repeatedly, again, when that child has not arrived. Truly I have never known the meaning of "It just is" until now. Why did Elise die? Why when we suffered her death are we now dealt more suffering with infertility? When I read stories of people losing their babies, I always held my breath thinking, oh I hope they had another baby, and they always did.

But not us. And I raged at the world, at the families with multiple children. Now I know that it has nothing to do with them and their good fortune. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a bad person, a good person, whether it's "meant to be," whatever that means.

It just is. And truly, it is all good. It could be worse, and life would still be good--eventually. I will not stop hoping. I used to think hope would only make the downward spiral of disappointment more precipitous. Now I know it leads to other possibilities. "You always have choices," my friend Mary Jo says. I will not stop hoping. Hope is prayer. Prayers bring blessings.

Last night we had dinner at Ben and Sarah's house. Felix had a great time with his girl cousins--Anna who is 5 months older and 6 inches taller than he, and Reeve, born in March 2006, the same year as Elise. They chased each other around the house, I chased them around the house, they watched "Mulan" on the TV, they gathered in the bathroom with the lights off to look at Felix's glow-in-the-dark shirt.

As we walked to our car, Reeve and Anna waved goodbye from their front door. "I want a little sister," Felix said to us. My heart swelled with tenderness.

"We'd like another baby too, Felix. You know, you do have a baby sister--her name is Elise, remember? She was born when you were 2 years old. But she just can't be here with us."

"Yeah, I want a baby sister who will stay with us and live in our house," Felix said eagerly.

Dan told him, "Well, after Christmas, Mama and Papa are going on a trip. You'll stay with Bamba and Granda, and we'll go on a trip to see if we can get you a baby sister, okay?"

"What kind of store will we get her from?"

"We don't get a baby from the store, we make one. And Mama and Papa are going to see a doctor who will help us get a baby. We won't come back with the baby, but it will be in Mommy's tummy. Maybe it will be here for your 5th birthday," I explained.

Dan added, "We're going to try to make you a big brother for your 5th birthday, Felix. Would you like that?"

"YEAH!" Felix shouted from the back seat.

So I ask the universe, (the) God(s), spirit, Lady Luck, Saint Gerard, Diana, Isis, Demeter, Pan, Hera, Hariti, Kishimojin, Mother Earth, Kokopelli, Sarah mother of Isaac, Rebecca mother of Jacob and Esau, Rachel mother of Joseph and Benjamin, Hannah mother of the prophet Samuel, and whatever other-worldly allies there are to conjure. Most of all, I ask for your thoughts and prayers in whatever tradition or faith you choose. I'll take all the blessings and magic and whatever there is for us! Somewhere I have a prayer card of Saint Gerard that my fellow "Catlicker" friend Susie gave me--I'll dig that out too. We're going to Seattle Reproductive Medicine in early January to see whether they can help make our family's wish come true.

I've been going to yoga classes at the home of a most amazing woman named Chris, who creates community and embraces the world in every way. After a class of about a dozen people I'd never met was over, people were chatting, nibbling on the treats Chris always provides after class. Chris was listening to people's recent news, talking about her own, just as enthusiastic as ever even though her adorable husband had just died in October after a swift bout with pancreatic cancer. She turned to me and whispered, "Is it okay to talk about your trip to Seattle? Is it private?" For some reason, without even hesitating I said, "Sure, it's okay."

I thought she was going to introduce me and my news to the woman she'd been chatting with, but at the top of her lungs she announced to the whole room, "AND MARILYN IS TRAVELING TO SEATTLE FOR IN VITRO FERTILIZATION NEXT MONTH!" After I recovered from laughing, I threw up my hands and said, "So send all your good vibes my way in January." No one was scandalized, and I wouldn't have cared if they were. "That's exciting!" a number of them said. In that moment, I realized it felt good to have their support, that a little bit of the burden of my secretly lived anxiety had been lifted.

Hope is prayer. Prayers bring blessings, in many forms, in every moment.

New Meanings

2008-11-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

"When a loved one dies, the process of grieving is a completion that allows us to honor that person's life and claim the wisdom we have gained through the relationship. As we receive the gift of understanding, it transcends time and space, simultaneously gifting the soul of the one who has passed over. Grieving is more than learning to live without a dear one. In many cases we are also required to forgive them and ourselves as we bring the story of the time we spent together to a meaningful completion."

--Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

Felix and I went on a lovely, sunlit walk today. The air was November cold, but the sun felt warm and there was no wind. We were headed for the creek, but I decided to stop at the neighbors' houses we were passing to collect goods for the Food Bank. Jon Gerster down the street, in his thoughtful way, hatched the idea of doing a neighborhood food drive when he read in the paper that our local Food Bank was short on donations and inundated with need.

After only four houses, my load was already too heavy with generosity for the stroller's carry basket: I expected I would receive a can or two, perhaps a box of mac and cheese, but everyone gave so much that I needed to drop it off at Jon and Chris's house right away.

I knew what I was going to write in here today after I stopped at Matt and Michelle's house: blessings. It just so happened that Michelle had sat down to read this blog when I stopped in. Strange cosmic mind meld! While Matt entertained Felix by giving him a simulated overland jeep ride in his stroller, Michelle gave me a warm hug and we both teared up. She told me about a woman we both know who decided she wanted a change after years in Bozeman and moved to Pittsburgh. In the weeks leading up to her departure, dozens of friends came by, threw her a party, and gave her farewell gifts. The day before she left, Michelle commented to Rachel that she sure had lots of people who loved her. Two days after arriving in Pittsburgh, Rachel came back to Bozeman, certain that such love is truly a rare thing.

When I think about Elise's death, I almost always picture the fifty-plus friends and neighbors gazing up at us from our front yard at her memorial service. This image sustains me through many a dark moment. One of the things I think binds people together is a shared history. By history I don't mean simply experiencing events, but sustaining each other through the drama of joy or trauma, and more important, through the mundane routine of living with their aftereffects. I'm thinking here of my friend LizAnn's return home from rehabilitation after her spinal injury, where she can count on the continued dedication of friends to, for example, shovel snow from the ramp to her front door, help her dress, retrofit her home. I'm thinking of how my friend Ann became one of my dearest friends years ago, when she called me at 1am in tears because a policeman had just delivered her cat's body to her when it was hit by a car. I'm thinking of when my friend Cara organized a group of girlfriends to gather at Chico Hot Springs a month after Elise's death. We talked until late at night in the lounge outside our rooms, and Cara shared the experience of seeing her elder sister dead at the hospital earlier that year.

When Cara's sister died in June 2006, I didn't go to her memorial service. I thought to myself, Cara probably wants her privacy, I didn't know her sister, Cara has closer friends than I am to be with her...in other words, I was thinking only of myself. A couple of months before Elise died, she invited me to get together, and the first thing I said was that I was sorry I didn't call or send her a letter when her sister died, I was being silly and thinking only of how I felt about whether or not she needed me, instead of just being there for her.

Now we've become closer through the shared experience of losing a beloved. For Elise's birthday, she gave me a lovely card and a pendant that I wear all the time: it has a sweet ink drawing of a little Asian-looking girl on each side. We agreed that it reminds us of what Elise might have looked like had she grown to become a little girl.

And so Elise remains in my life, and blesses us all.

Elise's Birthday

2008-11-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

At this hour two years ago, I was trying to get to sleep while feeling anxious that I hadn't felt Elise moving inside me. Usually she got active just as I settled into bed to read. Sometime after 1AM I woke up and still didn't feel her moving, so I phoned the doctor on call and was told to go to the ER.

As I write this I just had the realization that I also arrived at the hospital at a little after 2AM the morning Felix was born, and that was the same time two years later that the ultrasound technician in Labor and Delivery confirmed that Elise's heart was no longer beating. While waiting for that damn technician, who had fallen asleep with her beeper on vibrate and kept us in dread for 45 minutes while the L and D nurses tried--and tried and tried--to find a heartbeat with the Doppler, I was silent, not wanting to say or feel anything. I did want to shout at the nurses to go away with their useless Doppler, stop pretending you might find a heartbeat when you know there isn't one but don't want to be the ones to tell me my daughter is dead. For some strange reason I felt a flash of relief when the technician finally did show up. Maybe it was because I was going to get an answer.

I couldn't look at the monitor. Then, "There's no heartbeat," my doctor said. I burst into tears as Dan sagged against my chest, burying his face in my neck.

That was the last definitive answer we ever had concerning Elise: the certainty of death. I ask myself, the universe, "Why?" But even getting an answer would not bring her back.

I write about the moment we learned of her death because it is a chapter of her life and, more relevant to those of us on this planet, a chapter in our own lives; a chapter that will be written for us all eventually, whether short story or long novel. In Elise's case, I suppose her story might be the length of a haiku.

Two years after her death felled me, I can say I am on my feet again. I've been brought to my knees again and again over the months, but one of the best things I've gained, which some people might think very strange, is that I am able to cry, sob, wail whenever I need to. I haven't cried like that since I was little and my family called me a crybaby. I used to laugh at the memory of being a crybaby. Now I know I cried because my heart is tender, and I suffered for not being seen as tenderhearted, and for wanting to seem tough and self-sufficient. I am all of these things when I cry the gift of tears.

My friend Shirley, pictured here with Felix, lost a son in 1978 when he was killed in a car crash at twenty-one. She adores Felix, and will babysit him tomorrow night when Dan gets home from a week-long trip and we go out to be together and remember Elise on her birthday. As I spoke to Shirley on the phone tonight, she told me some more fond memories of her beloved husband, how handsome he was, how fun-loving, how they were "like boyfriend and girlfriend again" when their grown children moved out. I knew from previous conversations that he had died in 1984, and mentioned that next year, 25 years will have passed since his death. "He seems frozen in time," she said. "And I can't imagine my son Howie as a 51-year-old. He'll always be a young man in my mind."

Lately I've found solace in Barack Obama's book Dreams From My Father. At one point he writes:

I remember a conversation I had once in Chicago when I was still organizing. It was with a woman who'd grown up in a big family in rural Georgia. Five brothers and three sisters, she had told me, all crowded under a single roof. She told me about her father's ultimately futile efforts to farm his small plot of land, her mother's vegetable garden, the two pigs they kept penned out in the yard, and the trips with her siblings to fish the murky waters of a river nearby. Listening to her speak, I began to realize that two of the three sisters she'd mentioned had actually died at birth, but that in this woman's mind they had remained with her always, spirits with names and ages and characters, two sisters who accompanied her while she walked to school or did chores, who soothed her cries and calmed her fears. For this woman, family had never been a vessel just for the living. The dead, too, had their claims, their voices shaping the course of her dreams.

I never heard Elise's voice or saw the color of her eyes. But these things are merely audible and visible with the senses. I do long to hold her, but again, I console myself by remembering that she is much more than her physical being. My senses cannot define or contain her, nor can my intellect. But she is with me, with her Papa, and her brother, as we grow and change, and she remains forever our sweet baby.

Gifts

2008-10-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

"Life and death are a continuum and this is revealed in initiation: that the end and the beginning are back to back, that life is circular. A great trust is required, often in the face of tremendous doubt or skepticism, for we have been well indoctrinated by the fear of the unknown and our own inner voice of guidance may be the last we are used to heeding.

....Facing our worst fears and meeting these powerful and often painful points of transition in a human life is to consciously connect with the mystery, with the order of the cosmos, with existence itself, and to be opened by its infinite potential.

To call on this greater power is prayer. To make ceremony to invoke it is ritual. To connect with it so deeply that it passes through you and leaves you irrevocably changed is initiation."

--from the www.Shematrix.com website

So many words, and yet so few, can describe how I feel upon my return from my weekend retreat on Whidbey Island: transformed, empowered, opened further than I ever thought possible. Every time I experience The Gift retreat, I am amazed, and this time I was on the organizing team and discovered more of my gifts (pun intended? no pun intended? doesn't matter!) by doing such mundane tasks as writing letters, talking on the phone, joking with the team, cutting and arranging flowers, replacing toilet paper rolls and wiping the bathroom sink, washing dishes and slicing cantaloupe. I grew up believing that whatever I did it wasn't enough, either for myself or for the one whose approval I sought. The day before the weekend when we all rushed around in frantic preparation, and the first day of the weekend when we welcomed 15 participants into a space where they could feel safe in their vulnerability and pampered with food and beautiful surroundings, I fretted over my ability to deliver.

All of us bring an intention we want to fulfill for ourselves to the weekend. I lit a candle to my intention to "feel into my power": not hide myself, speak what I needed to speak, be silent when I needed to, go with my instincts and trust my gut. By the second day of The Gift, I was there, and continued to blossom.

We formed a circle for talking about ourselves, and when each of the women spoke, they had my full attention. When I spoke, I felt heard by every one of the other 22 women there. This dynamic swelled into a compassion and companionship with every participant, whether during their rite of initiation or on a break when we could casually chat while marveling at the abundance of delicious food.

We all created this abundance through potluck and catered meals: chocolate, dried cherry muffins, granola-yogurt-cantaloupe parfait, fresh mango and pineapple, strawberries and raspberries, banana chocolate chip bread, lemon bars, deviled eggs, tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, chicken satay, smoked salmon, all the tea and coffee we could drink, all arrayed before us, for us.

I could walk outside or to another room alone on breaks to get some reflective quiet. Some breaks we took in silence as a rule. Then we would come together again and I would feel lifted up.

I've called on my strengthened sense of self through this work many times. I can let myself feel as much as I need to in times of upheaval. When it was time to deliver Elise, my doctor asked me if I was ready. I said I was scared, and she asked what scared me. "I'm afraid I'll die of heartbreak," I told her. I was scared also to look at Elise after she came out. But as soon as she did, I wanted to see her and hold her. When she came out, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wanted all of the Labor and Delivery ward, the whole hospital, the whole world to hear me screaming my rage and grief.

I told the women in our circle last weekend that I left my job and all its stifling expectations behind because Elise showed me the way. She shows me the way to myself, in my writing, guitar playing, yoga, walking, in SEEING and connecting with those around me.

When I returned from the weekend, it was dear Felix's 4th birthday. That morning as the sun warmed me, I ran with Genki on Peet's Hill and stopped to take pictures of Genki and of a brilliant red cotoneaster. The song that Felix's classmates sang to him as he walked around a candle lit to represent the sun echoed in my head: "The earth goes round the sun, tra-la, the earth goes round the sun. The earth goes round the sun, tra-la, another year is done." A sweet, simple ceremony, invoking such power.

Whatever It Is

2008-10-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

"I am not the sort of person to quote the Bible, but I'd hang my hat on "Be still and know that I am God": Be still. Be aware. Let the big picture come to you, so you'll know the right course of action. What more could any higher power ask of us than that we stop, listen, and then act to the best of our abilities?"

--Dana Wildsmith, "Survival Guide"

Today I am grateful that the snow has begun melting and the sun came out. I am grateful that my disappointment at discovering yet again that I'm still not pregnant after 16 months of trying has not broken me.

This Wednesday I travel to Seattle, Whidbey Island to be exact, to attend a weekend retreat for women called The Gift. This will be my fifth time at this event, and my first time on the organizing team. While in the area I'll also visit Seattle Reproductive Medicine to meet with a doctor about attempting in vitro fertilization.

I've passed through the Why Me stage: Why do I have to go to these lengths to have a second living child; Why do other people, even losers who don't even want them, get to conceive babies so easily; Why, above all, do I have to go through the grief of infertility when we've already gone through the hell of losing our Elise to stillbirth? We will never know. That's the way it is. I said to a friend recently that I never realized until now what a profound phrase this is: "THAT'S THE WAY IT IS." You can say it a million times, but it won't sink in until it knocks you over and kicks you while you're down.

So this morning while Felix was at his Kindermusik class, I spent a half hour waiting on the phone while the clerk for our insurance plan tried to find out whether my visit to the doctor on Monday is covered. Otherwise, it would cost 350 dollars (!). The clerk wanted to know the zip code of the doctor's practice, because she couldn't find him by name. "The doctor is in Seattle you said? What state is that?" she asked.

Talk about a broken health care system.

I sat in a window seat at a cafe while making the call, since I didn't have time to go home while waiting for Felix. The table next to me had a woman holding a newborn. While I spoke with the idiot clerk, the baby started crying. It was a very sweet cry, not screechy at all but the kind that went straight through me. The woman's friend who had been holding the baby handed it to the mother, and the baby quieted. As I stared out the window still waiting on the clerk, a couple with a very large pregnant mother and a father holding a toddler walked by. "Hm. Fucking ironic," I said to myself.

And then the feeling passed.

The last few minutes of Felix's class, the parents join in for a song and a little performance by the kids. Attendance was down by a couple of families today, so the other parents who were there each had three kids they'd brought with them, both sons and daughters. "VERY fucking ironic," I said to myself again.

And the feeling passed, and I held Felix on my lap as we sang a "Goodbye" song to end the class. Other people have their realities, and I have mine. There's no Fate or Destiny or Sin about it: it just Is. It's a lesson I recite to myself every day, along with my blessings.

Dressing for Fall

2008-10-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

PHOTO at right: a drawing of Mama and Papa
BELOW: "Now I'm going to add a kid--that's me!"
Felix is wearing one of his "gowns," as he terms them: this is the spaghetti-strap one, held up with a clothespin so the straps don't fall down.

Monday Sept.22nd: The first official day of autumn is here. Mornings have been chilly, 30s-40s, for weeks, but on this morning I'm sitting at a picnic table surrounded by lovely potted plants and flowers: the outdoor seating for a downtown restaurant (only open for lunch and dinner). I'm waiting here while Felix is at a Kindermusik class.

Felix was particularly lovely this morning. He came out of his room after waking and ran down the hallway to hug me before I got dressed. He pinched the squishy flab around my belly button with both hands and giggled. He played his kiddie
music in the kitchen CD player AGAIN--"The More We Get Together," "Michael Finnegan." I have to admit I couldn't bear hearing that same CD again and went upstairs to the guest room until it was time to leave for Kindermusik class.

Ten minutes before we had to leave, he called up to me: "Mom, I'm ready to go-oh!" But he was still wearing the over sized pink velour "gown" I bought him at the Salvation Army store (yes, I bought them for him myself. You can call CPS now, or wait and see how he turns out as an adult. Obviously I'm betting he'll turn out to be a FABULOUS grownup). So I told him he needed to change into shirt and pants before we went. Earlier he was saying he wanted to wear his dress to class. "Dress-up is for home, Felix," I told him. "Why can't I wear my dress to Kindermusik?" he asked, thankfully without whining. I hesitated. I didn't want to put the kibosh on his gender playfulness, his un-self-conscious 4-year-old joy. After all, he likes the way the skirt of a dress twirls around, flips up, flaps against his legs. "Here's the thing, Felix," I sat down and looked him in the eye. "For some reason, where we live, girls wear dresses and boys wear pants." "Only girls wear dresses?" "Yep, for some reason, that's how people dress where we live. So when we're at home you can wear your dress, but outside you need to wear pants and shirt." Was I squashing his creativity? Encouraging secretive, shame-filled cross-dressing instead of fun? Caving in to conventional ideas about gender, or protecting him from a future of bullying and ostracism? The likeliest scenario is that he'll grow out of it. But if he didn't, I wanted him to know society's rules, arbitrary though they may be.

Like a true 4-year-old, he wore his dress until it was time to change. Then he put on some blue long underwear and a gecko T-shirt his uncle Jeff gave him last year. Perfect: his uncle Jeff is a hero of creativity and the spirit of Be Yourself, his Claire de Loon alter ego a fashion plate of fun and exuberance. I wouldn't have chosen the long underwear for him to wear in public on an 80-degree day either, actually. But as our friend Shirley said the other day of Felix's pink dresses, "If I'm gonne be four I'm gonna have fun doing it!"

Felix's World

2008-09-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos Felix took recently. Actually, this is not a self-portrait--I teased him by grabbing the camera away to take his picture. He suddenly got obsessed with the camera, and after I deleted some of the ones he took of the ceiling, the floor, and the blank walls, I decided to post these as a kind of "Felix's eye view" of his world.

His feet are now a preschool-9, and in this picture taken a month or so ago, I think they're a 7. He is growing, and outgrowing his stuff, quickly these days. His toes still look pudgy and cute though.

Here are Dan's sexy legs in their sexy shorts. Luckily he didn't block Felix's shot of the dishcloth.

Looking at these, I remember what it was like when adults seem to occupy a different atmosphere, way up above my head. It really was like being Gulliver in Brobdingnag (sp?) (as opposed to Lilliput), with everything too huge, too high up, out of reach. Those feelings are still sometimes there for me, but in a more metaphorical sense.

Knowing

2008-09-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

It seems as if autumn is suddenly upon us. Today is chilly, and a light rain is falling. More sunny days are in store for us before winter though, I know.

I'm sitting with a lot of pain in this world lately. I attended a Share meeting the other day, the first time in a while since we stopped going as regular participants last winter. There were many in attendance, many faces of grief: one couple who have no living children because of half a dozen miscarriages and a stillbirth 5 years ago; another who lost their pregnancy at 14 weeks, just when they thought the pregnancy would work out and they started buying baby things; another whose 2-week-old son died of SIDS a year ago; and a couple new to the group whose son was fine and healthy in utero, but had a horrifically botched delivery at term and died 2 days later.

We spoke a lot about how to acknowledge our children when others react thoughtlessly or awkwardly. "You can have another one," "You have other children," or clamming up completely. At first I used to tell people who asked if Felix was our only child that we had a daughter who died in my 8th month of pregnancy. Sometimes it felt right, sometimes it made me angry when the reaction made me feel like a freak. Every so often I talk about Elise to someone who asks, but for the most part I keep her to myself, like a special hiding place I don't want anyone to violate. And that feels right too. I'm protecting her because I am her mother. And I'm protecting myself above all.

I think of Elise and all the loved ones who have gone as existing in another realm, where we the living can't see or hear them. Just as we are ignorant of so many things in this existence--who we really are, what another is thinking, why the world is so messed up--we simply can't fathom those things that aren't right in front of our faces. But we can feel them. I feel Elise with me all the time. This morning as I ran with Genki through thickets of aspen and cottonwood by Sourdough Creek, I thought of the places I'd been with Elise while she was inside me. We went to Hawaii for her cousin's high school graduation, to Tokyo where I had such fun visiting old haunts and seeing grad school friends, to Lindberg Lake where we camped and swam. She heard the voices of her papa and her big brother, and all of my family members when we visited Hawaii and they came to visit us that August.

I felt Elise moving inside me for the first on the way home from Tokyo. I was sitting sleepless on the plane, crying about my aunts not wanting to see me. My attention immediately focused on her when I felt that ripple in my belly from her. "You know what is most important," she seemed to say.

Trees and Feathers

2008-08-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

"Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. Let it teach you Being. Let it teach you integrity--which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem." --Eckhart Tolle

Dan was out of town all of last week, so I traveled to Helena with Felix to stay with the moms, AKA Grandma and Jannie. It was comforting to be with them, as that day I had taken yet another pregnancy test that turned up negative. Weighing heavily inside me was the knowledge that two other couples in Bozeman had just suffered the loss of their babies this summer, both of them during birth. Then, when I checked my e-mail, I learned that a friend and bright spirit in this town, Liz Ann Kudrna, was hit by a boulder while climbing and had her spine severed. In the span of a few seconds, she was rendered a paraplegic.

On a day when the moms took Felix into town and the carousel to give me some personal time, I dragged myself out of the house to take a walk in the forest. At first all I could see were the dead and dying lodgepole pines: every branch and needle brown and lifeless, the trunks riddled with round beige circles of sap like bullet holes, where the trees desperately tried to fend off attack by bark beetles. Jan and Mary Anne had 50 dead or dying trees cut down and hauled away to be burned. They are lucky in that they have lots of aspen, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir in addition to the poor lodgepoles: some people, they say, lost every tree on their property.

I forced myself to see the bigger picture on my walk. I saw bear scat, a few days old maybe, full of seeds, not too big but I talked loudly to Genki and clapped my hands just in case. I was bushwhacking through a berry patch I hoped harbored no hungry territorial ones.

I searched for a weathered piece of tree trunk or branch I could take home for our garden as a memento of this lovely place. The moms will sell it in 2 or 3 years. The work of upkeep, shovelling, de-icing and negotiating a treacherous winter driveway, snow-blowing the 1/3 of a mile of drive to the road, keeping the grass cut, stacking firewood, monitoring propane and sewer and plumbing issues, and now spending a lot of money to remove the ecological and fire hazard of diseased trees, is wearing on them.

As I bushwhacked toward the lodgepole stands in the foothills leading to MacDonald Pass, I emerged to find all kinds of seeds stuck to my light fleece sweater. Sesame-shaped brown seeds, oval bright-green burrs, fennel-like dark slivers. When I got to the house and took off my shoes, I found black burrs like tiny twigs in my socks. Tenacious sparks of life, renewing themselves by grasping at any possibility.

Thoughts of life and death floated in fragments through my mind. I had already sobbed my eyes out in the house on my way out for the walk. Now I was drifting, going with the flow and watching Genki sniff around, trot back and forth to check on me, both of us listening to the aspens whisper, the evergreens sough, the bees thrum.

At the end of my walk I found my treasure, right behind the wood shop: a star-shaped bit of weathered Douglas fir root. It was part of a once-enormous being that was now a pile of weathered stump and branches aging into soil for decades, after a fire burned it down in the 1930s. The earth had claimed more than half of it, and no doubt dozens of spiders and insects and soil bacteria were now calling it home.

While writing this, my eye just landed on the peacock feather Felix brought me this morning. Purple, caramel, iridescent lime green and indigo and midnight blue eye: "Let it teach you how to live and die, and now not to make living and dying into a problem."

The Other Side

2008-07-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Dan's Grandpa Dave died last week. He was two months shy of his 99th birthday. Dan and his sister Sarah will travel to Yakima, WA along with their mom Mary Anne to bury her dad on July 31st.

He had been fading from this life for several years, and though we thought he would let go soon after his wife of 72 years died, his body held on for three years longer. The last couple of times we visited Grandpa, he could still lift Felix's 35-plus pounds from his chair to sit him on his knee. They would play ball together, with Grandpa still expertly throwing and catching. But his mind was somewhere else. One of my last memories of him is from summer a year ago, when Mary Anne brought him to the house for lunch. After we ate, Grandpa sat looking out the big picture window while the rest of us chatted in the living room. I looked at his profile and at first felt sorry that he could not participate in the conversation with us. I wondered what was going through his mind. Then I thought to myself that his state of meditation or quiet, removed from the activity and bustle of our typical existence, is considered ideal by many of the spiritually inclined. I felt that his situation seemed neither good nor bad, but also made me melancholy. I felt that it epitomized that what is, IS. We might not like it, but it will continue to be, so the key is to not struggle or worry about it--not that that is an easy thing to do.

The day Grandpa died, the skies were moody. A storm roared in at 3pm, flooding the streets with sheets of rain. A few hours later, black clouds massed again and turned the afternoon dark, then unleashed a biblical rage of wind, sheets of rain and hailstones that shredded leaves, sheared off branches, flowers, and fruit, and broke windows in some parts of town. Our power was out for over 12 hours.

Later, I lay on the sofa next to a window waiting for lightning flashes. The blank gray sky seems as if it will fade to black imperceptibly, but then the lightning shatters it with a blinding white fury that disappears as soon as it arrives, so quickly it's as if I only imagined its coming and going.

I have some photos of myself on a bulletin board that were taken at various stages in my life: a Christmas in 2003 with my dear sister Mary and dear friend Ann, a New Year's Day in 1996 at a Shinto shrine with my Japanese aunts, a school photo from preschool, my cheeks still pudgy with baby fat. In the middle of the bulletin board is a photo of Elise. When catching a glimpse of these photos, I realized that Elise would never accompany us as a family member experiencing the events and milestones of our lives on this planet. And I thought that the line between life and death is so thin, yet somehow she is unreachable. Grandpa Dave was unreachable for the last few years of his life. Part of him was here with us, but another was somewhere else--maybe in the realm of the dead.

Grandpa's soul is finally freed from his body and the cycle can begin again. When Felix was born, my aunt Mitsuko died. When Elise's cousin Reeve was born, Elise was conceived. The day after Dan's cousin gave birth to her son, Elise died. I want to believe our next baby will come, and soon. I want to believe she has taken the torch passed along by Grandpa, and is making her way to us now.

Walking home from the park with Felix yesterday, which was full of two-children families and babies and preschoolers, I realized that the heaviness inside me was an ache of longing for Elise. And I realized also that it would always, always be with me. That doesn't mean I can't also ache for another baby: the two exist in different planes of myself. And it doesn't mean thoughts of Elise only bring me pain. There are at least two sides to everything, even when, as with death, the other side remains a mystery to us here.

Blossoming

2008-07-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

Elise's rose bush is flowering. It's not the "official" rose we planted at her memorial, but even as a replacement for the one that didn't make it, it still represents hope for me.

We had planted two rose bushes at the memorial: one that we bought, and another my friends (then colleagues) at the Modern Languages Department gave us. November 10th was rather late in the year to plant, even though the weather was relatively warm for mid-autumn. The soil where we planted it is not the greatest either, since it was formerly gravel driveway and thus full of rocks and clay. And to top it off, we don't really grow roses and don't know much about their care. So both the rose bushes didn't make it the following spring.

But I had saved the receipt from the Department's gift, and got another rose from the nursery that had guaranteed the original for up to a year or they would replace it. When I returned from the nursery and planted the replacement, Dan said he was glad I could bring myself to do it, because he was feeling too demoralized.

I completely empathized with him. At the same time, I somehow felt driven to grow roses for Elise, even if they weren't the ones we planted at her memorial. I wouldn't be defeated by death, dammit: I had to prevail, no matter how small the gesture of my determination.

The soil is not the best, as I said, but the rose blooms have good company: the aspen we planted five years ago seems to grow before our eyes, probably 3 feet or more since it started out in our garden. The lilac that last year seemed plagued by mysterious black spots on its leaves is in full, fragrant flower. Along with its twin on the west side of the house, it never flowered much in all the years we've lived here, but this season we can scent its loveliness every time we open our front door.

So we live in the mystery, not knowing much except for one certainty: that flowers follow snow, which follows flowers, and so on.

Messes

2008-06-14T09:22:00.001-07:00

What is it about weekends that I can really relax into whatever it is I'm doing and not worry about time or To-Dos? After all, I'm not at a paying job, not having to clock in anywhere or fill any quotas during the week. Maybe it's some Protestant-work-ethic, go-out-and-make-something-of-yourself American socialization.

Whatever the reason, the best part is that I can enjoy myself with Felix and Dan on weekends. Especially one like today, clear and sunny at long last. Today's sunshine has an effect like childbirth: the agony of cold, rainy weeks vanishes at the sight of the first warm, clear day.

This past week I felt irritable and impatient with Felix, even after I had time to myself while he'd spent hours at his grandparents' or at preschool during the day. He has fits of whining for candy, where I try to sympathize while telling him "not today," but after listening to his broken-record "lollipop...lollipop" or "gumdrops...gumdrops" a few hundred times, it's like the opposite of hearing a soothing chant: I finally yell, "STOP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR WHINING!" I try to balance my tone of voice between This Is Your Last Chance authority and I Am Not Mad At You. Whenever I get abrupt with him, he bursts into tears, which I think is partly manipulation and partly that his feelings really do get hurt, which induces instant guilt in me.

But today is Saturday. Because it's Saturday, I happily indulged his wish to make banana bread, for probably the third time this month, even though it's a mess of an undertaking. In earlier bake-offs, he liked to whisk the flour mixture, crack the eggs, turn the mixer on and off. Today he reached Jamie-Oliver-like accomplishments: he held the measuring spoons while I poured salt and baking soda into them; and he cracked the eggshells AND dropped the eggs into the bowl. He shouted with glee at his egg-cracking feat, especially when I exclaimed that he hadn't let any shell fragments get into the bowl.

Of course there are the gooey bowls and spoons and mixing blade to wash. There are the counters to clean, especially where Felix insisted on using "the big spoon"--the tablespoon--to scoop baking powder. I got a bowl out for him to scoop and dump all the baking powder he wanted instead of wrecking the banana bread with an overdose of baking powder. Of course he got a lot of baking powder on the counter, and left an extra bowl for me to wash.

But the sun is out. The clouds have finally buzzed off. That means today is for making a banana bread mess, especially the batter on the face from licking the mixing blade. Today is for getting covered with sand while making "cakes" in the sandbox. Today is for muddy hands and knees from digging for worms. I couldn't ask for a better day.

Rain and Sun

2008-06-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Some lovely things I've heard lately:

From Dan this morning, putting his arm around me as I handed Felix his milk: "I like our family."
From Felix yesterday, cupping my cheeks as I carried him to the car: "You are my love. You are my beautiful girl."

It's now warm enough out for Felix to play in his sandbox in the rain, which is what he did yesterday before dinner. He found it extra fun to make sand "cakes" while wearing his green frog raincoat (thanks Ann!) and yellow rainboots (thanks Swift!). It's showery this time of year, but we had a beautifully sunny weekend, and the rain is behaving more like summer mountain storms: dramatic buildup of dark clouds, lightning and hail, then sun. Much better than relentlessly cloudy skies day after day.

Thoughts of Elise have sunk deeper into me now, not so much on the surface of raw nerves as coloring my gaze, suffusing my voice, guiding my touch. I don't think I need to look for the evening star to feel her and miss her. She is everywhere. I see her long toes when Dan wears his flip-flops. I miss her when Felix longs for a playmate in his boredom, still bouncing around after we've exhausted ourselves rough-housing with him. I sense her in the finally-leafed-out aspen in the front yard, the spectacular flowering crab tree in the back, the peony that doubled in height in a week, the tulips brilliant, now waning and dropping their petals.

She continues to blossom and grow with us.

Peace, Joy, and Pink Princesses

2008-05-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

I think I can say Mother's Day was tranquil for me this year, even though Felix and I are on our own: Dan is out of town until day after tomorrow for a six-day work trip. It was tranquil even though Sarah invited us over for a brunch that was also a belated party for Anna's 4th birthday. She warned me in advance that it was a "princess" party and there would be two other couples with two daughters each, for a total of six little girls plus Felix. It was sweet and thoughtful of her to let me know. Actually, it doesn't hurt anymore to see little daughters these days: I used to take it as a personal affront to have families with a pregnancy, or a new baby, or an older boy and younger girl, or daughters, in my space or within my range of vision. Now they don't seem to exist solely as a taunt from the universe; it just feels like they are living their lives, and I am living mine. I enjoy them when they are at the same gatherings as I, and what better way to celebrate the idea of Mother's Day than a party full of princesses? Even Felix wore his pink ballet dress with matching patent-leather flip flops.

Today was tranquil because while I weeded the front yard, Felix plucked fistfuls of grass from the lawn and watched the wind blow it out of his hand.

My friend Linda drove up while we were in the yard to give me a "Tutti Frutti" geranium with gorgeous fuchsia blooms and serrated leaves. Linda's son died in December of 2004. "I think the hardest thing mothers have to do is to let our children go," she wrote in her card. So lovely, and ironic: as a single parent this week, Felix has been a joy for me, but also somewhat overwhelming. He probably asks "Mommy?" about 300 times a day, usually to say something like, "Gordon the train goes fast, so he's the express train." It was a relief to talk to another mother at the party today who said that some days, the more time she spends with her older daughter, the more her daughter demands of her. The other day I had to ask Felix to hold off on the chatter and "Mommy?'s" until I could at least finish eating my dinner. Last night he was so excited to have the babysitter come over, pulling her by the hand to show her the toys he had up in his room. But when I got home, she told me Felix said, "I miss my mommy" and got a little teary at one point. How is that possible? I said with a stare of surprise at her. She thought it very endearing of him.

We had spent all that Saturday together with no television interruptions (i.e., plugging him into a video while I do something else). We went swimming at noon, picked up a personal pizza for him and picnicked at the MSU duck pond, he rode his bike with the neighbor kids, then we dug for worms (i.e., weeded the garden) in the front yard.

My present to myself was to go out on a Saturday night to a cafe with a DVD (appropriately, Vera Drake) and laptop to watch a full-length movie I can never watch after Felix's bedtime because he falls asleep too late. Pathetic perhaps, but I didn't feel the least bit sorry for myself, nor the least bit envious of the three guys I saw dancing in the open window of the 317 Bar across the street, their jeaned butts wiggling over the sidewalk.

And I didn't feel the least bit of regret over leaving my job while on campus with Felix at the MSU duck pond. It happened to be graduation day, and I pointed out the robed graduates to Felix while they posed for photos nearby with their families. "PROFESSOR GUGGENHEIM!" I heard someone shout behind us from the plodding line of cars on 11th Avenue that were leaving the ceremony. It was a former student of mine, and I congratulated him saying, "You look really happy!" He said he was "elated" and going to Japan on the JET program soon. In my vanity, I count his going to Japan as a personal victory: his other major was German.

On that bench with Felix and our pizzas, I felt elated myself: I was exactly where I wanted to be.

Warmth in the Cold

2008-04-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon I weeded the front garden where Elise's rose bush is. There are only a few of her daffodils braving the erratic spring so far, but I'm always heartened when I spot another coming up. And they are brave: this morning it is 15 (15!) degrees out and snowing. On April 20th!

This morning I was lying in bed with one eye open, drifting in and out of dreams, when Felix came up to me in his blue footy pajamas. "I will hand you your glasses, Mommy," he said as he gripped them, lenses and all, with his oatmeal-sticky hands.

His face is right at eye level when I'm lying in bed. He pretended to be a spider and tickled my face by "crawling" his fingers up my cheeks. Then he decided my mouth was a fun toy: he wiggled his index finger on the inside of my cheek, fascinated by its smooth wetness. He giggled and giggled as I nibbled on his fingers with my front teeth like they were corn on the cob. He laughed as he pushed on my chin and the top of my head to close my mouth, then demanded I open up again.

Then he climbed up the bed and lay on my back like a baby koala. Our dog Ghenki, seeing he'd vacated her morning greeting spot next to the bed, came over and hopped her front paws on the edge. She licked and licked my hand, as she has always done and always will no matter how many times I say "no" (so I've almost given up after eight years), and I hugged her head to me and patted her back.

What a great way to wake up.

Lightness

2008-04-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is a picture I took of Felix at the end of a Tuesday we spent together. He likes these rainbow-colored gloves because he can put them on all by himself. Before bedtime, he stood brushing his teeth with one rainbow hand while waving at the mirror with the other.

We have Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons together, and today I was determined to just enjoy him and not worry about meeting time deadlines. These days Felix gets really upset when it's time to stop playing--get off the swing, park the Thomas trains, stop riding his bike--so we can get to the store /make dinner /get ready for bed. Even if we warn him ahead of time, he still mourns in his high-pitched wail when the fun is ending.

I can't blame him. How much do we tell ourselves to enjoy the moment? So I pushed him on the swing today for well over an hour, then we bought him a new bike with training wheels, his first. He didn't ask for one. He just had such a ball trying out the next-door neighbor's, and loves riding his tricycle so much that he pedals all the way to the library and back, which I think is over 1/2 mile round trip, that we wanted to see him on a bicycle. He rode it over to the neighbors' and again we spent as much time having fun as he wanted.

It was soothing for me. I was able to rest my spinning mind just hanging out with him. I started reading Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now, and it really resounds with me. I still am figuring out how to have Elise as a part of my life without letting the pain of losing her define me. I know her death has changed me, and in many ways for the better. But I want to access the peace I know is in me, bring it to the surface again and have it always at hand, just like she is always with me in everything I do.

Thaw

2008-04-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

The sun is out in brilliance this morning, melting the snow with a vengeance. Felix cheerfully put on his swimsuit and clothes for his swimming lesson this morning, even though he was absorbed in playing with his Thomas trains. Thank goodness for small favors.

Dan made me a wonderful birthday dinner with ribeye steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus (it's asparagus season!) and box brownies complete with a candle. I got e-mail birthday greetings, phone messages, and even a card from my sister Monica that arrived right on my birthday. She called this morning too.

Spring will come in its own time. This being Montana, more snow will fall in the coming weeks, but Elise's daffodils are poking their green spears through the mud.

Surrender

2008-03-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

Fly, Fly
Little wing
Fly beyond imagining
The softest cloud, the whitest dove
Upon the wind of heaven's love

Past the planets and the stars
Leave this lonely world of ours
Escape the sorrow and the pain
and fly again.

Fly, Fly
Precious one
Your endless journey has begun
Take your gentle happiness
Far too beautiful for this
Cross over to the other shore
There is peace forevermore
But hold this memory, bittersweet
Until we meet

Fly, Fly
Do not fear
Don't waste a breath, don't shed a tear
Your heart is pure, your soul is free
Be on your way, don't wait for me
Above the universe you'll climb
On beyond the hands of time
The moon will rise, the sun will set
But I won't forget

Fly, Fly
Little wing
Fly where only angels sing
Fly away, the time is right
Go now, find the light

--Celine Dion

I meditated almost two hours this morning. I cried during much of it. Today is my birthday. I asked for healing and acceptance in my meditation. I bought a bunch of tulips, and daffodils, and a little flowering campanula plant with purple blossoms.

There is a thick blanket of snow outside, and snow still falls. But the sky is growing brighter, I heard a robin's chirp, and the nuthatch visited my feeder again.

Tests and Omens

2008-03-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

This morning I had my hair cut, then visited the hospital phlebotomy lab for a blood test. I'm taking the "Clomid Challenge."

I assume the terminology refers to something medical--I haven't bothered to look it up yet--but that name makes it sound like I myself am being challenged. It feels that way too.

My cycle started Thursday. On a side note, as Felix's tumbling class got underway I slipped out to a clothing store I like nearby and happened to buy a RED pajama top and a pair of fleecy, fuzzy RED flip-flops, totally unconsciously, as if the newly pubescent girl inside me were celebrating her initiation into womanhood or something.

Anyway, my period started Thursday, so I called the OB to get some fertility drugs. On Friday I had an ultrasound to make sure I had no cysts on my ovaries. They were fine. I was given directions and prescriptions for blood tests on days 3 and 10, taking Clomid days 5 through 9, testing my urine for signs of LH hormone that indicates when I will ovulate, etc, etc.,etc. To give us a better chance of conceiving, they will also do an insemination.

"What a nuisance," Dan said. But I still appreciate that it gives me a sense of control, even if it's illusory.

So today I got my first blood test. As the phlebotomist was finishing up, a music-box lullaby played over the loudspeaker. "Awww, a baby was just born," she said with a smile. They play the lullaby whenever there's a new arrival in Labor and Delivery. I thought, I wonder if they played it when Elise was born.

And I thought, I am going to take the timing of that song as a good omen.

Still Here

2008-03-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Felix had his Tuesday morning swim lesson today. Most of the children in the class have a younger sibling, so Elise's absence looms as I sit around the pool with the other mothers. Last time when I sat near 3 others as they talked about their multiple children, I read a book and discreetly stuck my index finger into the ear that faced them.

One of the women lost a 20-week old baby last summer and is 21 weeks pregnant. Her son is in Felix's swim group and is about the same age as Felix. I've spoken a little bit to her about the pain of Elise's death, thinking she could probably relate, but she never talks about the baby who died, maybe because it died from complications of Trisomy 13. I don't even know if it was a boy or a girl.

This morning the first thing she told me and another woman with a 3-year-old daughter and 6-month old son on her lap was that at her ultrasound, she found out that this baby was a girl. I was genuinely happy for her, and happy that the baby is all right. She and the other mother went on to chat about the age differences between their children, what a challenge it is with two little ones, etc. etc. etc. I turned away to watch Felix and discreetly stuck an index finger in my ear.

Then I went into the empty women's locker room and said out loud, "Elise, you are still our daughter, and you are still Felix's little sister. Others have forgotten you, but you will always be our baby." Later I said out loud again, "Elise, we can only see what's in front of our faces, and sometimes we even miss that. Our world here is so limited, we only acknowledge or speak about those who are here with us in our tiny little plane of existence. I know you are with me even when these poor eyes can't see you."

Changing Into Wine

2008-03-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon, I found out that a very sweet couple, friends from the university who are generous, lighthearted and of course, love children, lost their baby at 25 weeks of pregnancy. Her name was Isabella Ann. Her heart stopped beating, so delivery was induced, and she was born the night of March 9th.

Her mother, my friend Barbara, called last night after I'd left a phone message and some flowers. Just 2 weeks earlier, she had called me after we hadn't seen each other for a couple of months. She was saying her husband Robert happened to be in Japan, and recommended a book she'd been reading called Spirit Babies.

When we spoke last night, she related all sorts of meaningful coincidences with Isabella's death: that she'd been reading this book avidly, which talks about connecting with the baby you are trying to conceive, the one you are pregnant with, and even the ones you've lost; that she never quite brought herself to think she was "out of the woods" even when her doctor assured her that she could be more at ease now that she was past the first trimester; that Robert arrived home from weeks in Japan that Friday, and they went to the hospital the next day to find that Isabella's heart was no longer beating.

I'd been struggling with vulnerability again, not wanting to see another friend's new daughter, feeling like every pregnant woman or ones with second babies were in my face. I go into Victoria's Secret on a Wednesday noon, I'm the only customer in the store, a hugely pregnant woman walks in. I wanted to throw the bra and panties I'd been carrying at her and stomp out the door. But today I had a massage with a woman who'd been treating me since Elise died, and she gently told me to let "the story" go, the rational side of me that kept searching for reasons. She didn't say what kind of reasons, but my thought was about the reasons for Elise's death, for Isabella's death, for why we haven't had another baby, why others get to have theirs with them.

When I got up from the massage table, the bitterness had evaporated. This evening I picked up a book of Rilke's prose and poetry and opened it to a random page, only to come across this from The Sonnets to Orpheus:

Silent friend of many distances, feel

how your breath enlarges all of space.

Let your presence ring out like a bell

into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.

Move through transformation, out and in.

What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?

If drinking is bitter, change yourself into wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power

that rounds your senses in their magic ring,

the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,

whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing.

To the flashing water say: I am.

How to Thrive

2008-02-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

"I grieved deeply when you passed away...My feelings came from deep in my body. Even though I could control them, they shattered reality, if you know what I mean. Reality has remained broken ever since. And oddly enough, it feels more real that way. So I don't bother to mend it. I just don't care anymore if nothing makes sense."

--Ingmar Bergman, Fanny and Alexander

I just read a short story called "Colorless Paintings" by Sata Ineko (Sata is her surname), a Japanese writer. I've been trying to pull myself out of self-pity, and so I picked up this piece to read from the short story collection The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath.

The narrator has a Chinese friend who was in Nagasaki at the time the atomic bomb was dropped on the city on August 9th, 1945. A few years after the war, her friend writes in a letter to the narrator, "Today again my friends went to the [anti-nuclear] meeting. I envy them and am suddenly irritated. Looking back, I feel that as foreigners we are much freer now, without the kind of restrictions that were placed on us in the past. We are free now from the feelings of humiliation that were unconsciously instilled in us from the time we were children. As long as we keep up an interest in the things around us, we can maintain a balanced outlook on life."

I am not so self-absorbed as to compare my tragedy with the scale of those who not only suffered the atomic bombings, but also happened to be Korean and Chinese colonial subjects inside Japan at the time. My point in quoting this passage is the line "As long as we keep up an interest in the things around us, we can maintain a balanced outlook on life." Everyday life's little interests and even tasks can be a salvation from the darkness and cruelty of this world. They are part of what keeps me going. I can name dozens of other blessings that keep me going too.

The loving comments posted and sent by amazingly supportive friends, for example, even when they're chastising. In fact, they are right to criticize my jealousy of 2-children friends. I probably chose the wrong term when I said I could not "relate" to them. I should have said I'm "burning with envy and bitterness." I know it's not right, and not good for me. And I should tell these friends how I'm feeling. Communication is something I work at daily. I need to work harder. I tend to project my pain onto others, to make it their fault. It's nobody's fault. I'm stuck in an emotional rut, or at least I was last week when I wrote that entry.

So back to counting my blessings (despite the cliche, and despite the fact I don't want to be told to do it, I can do it myself, to quote my 3-year-old): My loving husband, my sweet son. Our community near and far, singles and marrieds, breeders and non-, our families who count Elise as their own too. The fact that the sun has come out to play today for the third day in a row in the middle of a graaaaaaaay winter.

And the fact that Sata's writing has inspired me to dig out another of her story collections from the basement for reading, to start translating more Japanese fiction, to write more of my own stuff. I can do these while sitting at a desk we set up in a newly-tidied room, and every so often I can gaze up from the keyboard to admire three lovely frames of Chinese embroidery that we inherited from Dan's lovely grandmother Louise. She is another story of how to endure and thrive.

Second (and Third) Chances

2008-02-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

One thing I don't think I've mentioned in here is that Dan and I have been trying to have another baby. We've been trying since June, and next week I'm going to try the fertility drug Clomid. I think one of the reasons I've been avoiding writing in here is because I'm having a hard time with the constant failure to get pregnant, and Elise's role in that. I thought I was dealing with the stress of grief well, but I can't help thinking that our inability to conceive means I'm not coping well.

No less than 12 people who are either friends or acquaintances have had babies since we started trying to get pregnant again. Most of these babies are second children. If we don't manage to have another baby, I can see my relationships with two-children friends begin to deteriorate further. Not all of them: there are some who struggled with infertility before their children came along who understand, or some who are just the sensitive type. I don't begrudge them their children; I simply don't relate, and it takes effort from both sides to relate, and I'm too tired to try to help them understand me.

To get started on the Clomid, I had an exam and history with a certain OB's Physician's Assistant the other day. After the visit, I felt deflated and depressed. She treated my pregnancies, including Elise's birth, as purely clinical events. This is how part of my visit went:

"So you have one living child and one that was stillborn. How may weeks into the pregnancy?"
"Thirty-three."
"And did they find anything wrong with her?"
"Nothing. An autopsy was done, and also my placenta and the umbilical cord were fine as far as they could tell."
"No chromosomal abnormalities?"
"No. With both my son and daughter I had a nuchal translucency that showed no risk of defects."
"And was it a vaginal birth?"
"Yes."
"You were induced?"
"Yes."
"Okay...and the medications you're taking..."
"An antidepressant, Lexapro 10mg."
"Nothing else?"
"Prenatal vitamins, herbs." I've been taking the Lexapro since August, and had taken it before when my son was born and I had postpartum depression."
"Were you taking it at the time you got pregnant with your daughter?"
"No. I was off it for most of 2006, until my daughter died."

I took strange comfort in the extra notes she jotted down about these. How pathetic is that?
No "I'm sorry for your loss" or "That must have been so hard." It was as if we were talking about having my appendix out. She was a pleasant person in every other way, but perhaps hadn't much experience with traumatic events in patients' lives, and so probably didn't know how to treat Elise like a child of mine who had died.

The other day I was talking with the very nice gal who waxes my eyebrows, and after she'd talked about having her twins by C-section six years ago, she asked if I gave birth to Elise. When I said yes, she said, "God Marilyn, that must have been so hard." But I said I was glad I could give birth to her naturally because it felt like an affirmation of her life, and that I was glad to birth her in the same way I had Felix, instead of having her be just a clinical procedure.

I ask myself why I haven't written in my blog for so long, and I think it's because I haven't written about wanting another baby. Our lack of success seems tied up in my emotions over Elise, even though it's felt numerous times like I am clearer and more accepting of her death as time goes by. I know that recovery from my grief doesn't mean I'll forget her. I know and accept that the pain of her death will always be with me. I am ready to move forward, and have been for a while. I talk about her to others when I feel they will listen respectfully.

As far as I can tell, I don't feel as if our desire for another baby is a betrayal of her. But I seem to feel that our inability to conceive is connected to her. My doctor says it's probably the stress still. I've felt stuck also in not doing any creative pursuits I dream about. Some more stuff inside me needs to be expressed, emotionally and spiritually, but it's hard and it's scary.

The puttering and restless wandering around the house is just like I was feeling last year, in the first months after Elise died. I've come full circle again, revisiting those times unconsciously, which is probably what I need to do. But I really, really want to take that giant step forward and have another baby. In the meantime, I've picked up my guitar again, and last night Felix and I made our own Valentines for his schoolmates: I cut out red, purple, and pink hearts from construction paper, and had him squirt gobs of glitter glue on them and pile on the heart-shaped sparklies. It felt like an act of love.

Wordless Connection

2008-01-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

Another gray day among many this winter, but at least we are getting some snow out of it today: sequin flakes are parachuting out of a windless sky. I'm clinging to the fact that each day brings a minute's more sun.

Considering the Seattle-like gloom though, I'm feeling pretty steady, if scattered. I haven't had any emotional crashes since the holidays, but even if I did, they are part of going along with what life brings.

One thing I did that brought some catharsis was to send out an announcement to academic friends and teachers about resigning my job. I heard from people I hadn't been in touch with for a while, and people I was sure had heard about Elise's death but hadn't contacted me. I'm trying not to dwell on those I thought I would get a response from but haven't, because people drift in and out of my life and bring me experiences and memories I can still savor, even if we never meet again.

I haven't written in here in a long time. Writing is not part of my days lately, I think because things feel so transitional, it seems I just have to hold on and go along even though the road is so twisty, there's no point in trying to see around any of the corners. I can't stop to process, but somehow this doesn't seem wrong or disturbing. I write in my journal, but that's about it. Otherwise, I talk with Dan, with some friends, read and watch movies. And of course, talking with Felix is always a treat, with those big brown eyes gazing earnestly into mine.

Speaking of wordlessness, a friend last night was saying how much she loved After Life: she said she especially loved the scene where one of the characters, an 18-year-old girl who is a trainee at the way station for the dead, stomps around on a rooftop angrily kicking and throwing snow after she realizes the young coworker she's infatuated with is leaving the way station. She expresses powerful emotion unusual for her in that scene, and with no words. Most of the memories the dead choose to take with them to the afterlife have no words either.

The most comforting part of the film for me in my relationship with Elise is the experience of a teenage girl who thinks at first she wants to choose a memory from a trip to Disneyland. When her advisor at the way station sits her down to point out that dozens of people have thought they wanted to choose a memory from Disneyland, the teenager goes back to the drawing board. Towards the end of the film, she runs excitedly to tell her advisor she's chosen a memory from her childhood: one where she is lying with her head in her mother's lap while her mother strokes her hair, and the little girl lingers in the comfort of her mother's scent and the sound of her heartbeat. Elise felt the warmth of my body, the whoosh of my heartbeat and the sounds of my voice, her papa's, her brother's. We were important to her, as she was and always will be to us.

Waves

2007-12-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

"Time does restore us to our quiet joy in the spiritual presence of those we love, so that we learn to remember without pain, and to speak without choking up with tears. But all our lives we will be subject to sudden small reminders which will bring all the old loss back overwhelmingly."
--Elizabeth Watson

We've had a quiet holiday season, a conscious effort on our part. On Christmas eve, Maxwell came over for dinner with his girlfriend Annie. They were so generous with gifts to Felix. Among other things, Annie gave him a copy of "The Snowman," which we already have and love, but it felt like we made another connection in our mutual admiration for that sweet film. Maxwell gave Felix a Bob Dylan CD, a fun inside joke: a few weeks ago when I was taking Felix to school, a Dylan song was playing on KGLT. "I like this song, Mommy," he said, and I told him, "This is Bob Dylan, and he's a great musician." When I picked him up from school, the radio was on again. "Is this Bob Dylan?" Felix asked. When I answered that it was not, he said, "I wanna hear Bob Dylan!" So I took him home and played "Blood on the Tracks" for him.

Christmas Day, we opened our presents, with Felix delighting in every gift but having even more fun ripping open packages. After we were done, a tidal wave of grief knocked me down.

I cried my eyes out in my room. Dan came upstairs and held me while I cried some more.

Then I went for an hour and a half walk, stopping at the Rocky Creek bridge. I sat and watched the creek ripple under ice floes between snowy banks. I closed my eyes and listened to its melodies.

Felix woke up sick this morning. Somehow it's soothing to know that he needs me. And the chickadees have found my bird feeder at last. Today, Elise's due date, they've brought me the gift of their presence.

Solstice at Last

2007-12-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

I'm taking heart that the daylight will start lingering a bit longer each day, even if it's only by minutes. In some ways I am savoring the darkness too, just because it encourages me to take things slowly. But the sun on my face, bright red behind my eyelids, feels the most comforting.

I sent candles to each of my family members. Inside their cards I wrote: "This Christmas, we would have been looking forward to Elise's 1st birthday. As my gift to her and to you, I am sending this candle. Please light it in her honor on Dec.26th and 27th, and whenever you think of her."

I also included this passage from Daphne Du Maurier, quoted from Healing After Loss. It captures best my feelings of our lost future with her, the hope she seems to bring us despite her death, and my belief that her life, however brief and forgotten by many, will always resonate with me, Dan, Felix, and therefore in those who truly love us:

"To have lived at all is a measure of immortality; for a baby to be born, to become a man, a woman, to beget others like himself, is an act of faith in itself, even an act of defiance. It is as though every human being born into this world burns, for a brief moment, like a star, and because of its pinpoint of light shines in the darkness, and so there is glory, so there is life."

Circles and Cycles

2007-12-07T08:37:00.001-08:00

"You are growing stronger with each cycle." That phrase from a comment posted here lingers, because I need to keep faith in the cycles and circles of life. It's hard to get the linear concept of time and progress out of my mindset. To practice faith in life's circular rhythms, even though I see it around me in the seasons, the sunrises and sunsets, the daily and weekly routines, I need to make a conscious effort.

Last night, Felix was particularly cantankerous, and bouncing off the walls too. "He worked us over," Dan said as we were getting ready for bed after Felix finally settled down. This morning he ran to us and gave us each a long, delicious morning hug. Those hugs are indescribably wonderful. I can't begin to explain how they make me feel all right about the world.

But on this particular morning as he hugged me, the world and I floated away on his words. For the first time, he said without my saying it first, "You know what Mommy? I love you."

Light and Shadow

2007-12-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

I felt on a high the beginning of November, and made it through Elise's birthday with flying colors. Everybody was saying how I looked different, sounded different, and I thought, "I made it!"

As if I wasn't going to be sad ever again.

After Thanksgiving when we returned from a relaxing, cozy 4 nights at the moms' house in the forest near Helena, where we got lots of grandma love for Felix too, I descended.

What comes up, must come down.

I keep thinking, habitually, over and over again despite what I know is true about life, that my pain and grief go into some kind of "remission," and that I'll be "cured" or healed someday.

I've been feeling low the past week, and couldn't figure out why. When I realized the reason, I was surprised at my ability to repress the pain. Last year at this time I was supposed to be looking forward to Elise's birth. Her due date was Dec.26-27th. She should be turning one year old soon. I wasn't acknowledging this consciously, but my heart was--her spirit was. And so I am missing her so badly again.

But my pain is part of me. The light cannot be appreciated without the dark. Light always casts a shadow, lovely shadows of mystery with their own unique form and suggestion. I need to embrace those shadows, as impossible and formless though they may seem.

The other night we had our neighbors over for dinner. Pete and Sanna's daughter Oskaria was born last year on July 1st, and died hours later from a rare genetic disorder. We met them through our Share support group, but in a strangely fortuitous coincidence, they moved in across the street from us a mere 2 weeks after Elise's death.

It was very comforting for me to talk about our daughters. Sanna is due to give birth to their second child this Dec.16th. I told them I am excited for them, yet we all felt so aware of the sadness mixed up in the anticipation and joy. Felix went up to Sanna and patted her belly. "There's a baby in there, Felix," I told him. "Oh!" he exclaimed, and ran into the living room. "Papa, help me get the picture down," he asked Dan. Then he ran back to Sanna and handed her Elise's photo. "This is Baby Sister," he said.

Joy and grief. Shadow and light. Winter's darkness is here, and I am drawn to candles. Maxwell and Annie gave me a glass star to hang in our front window, and I light a tea candle for it every evening. I'm going to light Hanukkah candles too, even though I missed the first day of it yesterday and I'm only just now interested in educating myself about it, and it's not an important Jewish holiday, and Dan's family isn't that religious.

I don't care. My gut says I want candles. Elise wants candles. I feel a connection to her with stars, especially the evening star. I bought a star ornament today for the tree we'll put up next week. I lit the candle Katy bought for us on Elise's birthday. "May this candle light your darkness," she wrote. It will, and the shadows will dance around it. And the stars will glow in the dark night.

Giving Thanks

2007-11-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

I haven’t yet written about what exactly Dan and I did on Elise’s birthday.
Dan set her photo and ashes on the dining room table, and together we lit the “Peace” candle my sister Mary and her partner Chris gave us. Dan said, “Happy Birthday, Elise.” We stared at the candle with tears in our eyes.

When we opened our front door to go out, there were a dozen pink roses on our porch. They were from Sanna and Pete, our neighbors across the street whose daughter Oskaria died of a genetic defect July 1st of last year. They are expecting their second child in just a few weeks. We placed their lovely flowers in front of the candle, along with their card. “Love is stronger than death,” they wrote.

We went out to breakfast and talked about how we were feeling. We spent some time taking care of ourselves: I did 2 hours of yoga and took a bath, Dan went to the gym. Sarah dropped off some narcissus bulbs in a lovely pot. Ann sent daffodil bulbs from Seattle. I’ll have to wait until spring to plant them: snow has settled in. Katy gave us a beautiful, tall candle: “May it light your darkness,” she wrote in her card. Throughout the day, we got phone messages and cards from friends and family. We both cried when we read Jan’s card. “Although I still grieve our loss of our tiny granddaughter, I am so grateful I was able to hold her and rock her that awful (awe-full) morning and could be a part of a family that mourned together. Whatever else Elise may come to give me over the years, that is a gift beyond measure to me.”

Moving FORWARD, not "moving on"

2007-11-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

Lots of big events have happened since I last wrote. They are in a chronological (if conventional) order:
1. I resigned from my job
2. We took a family trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to have a great time with dear friends
3. I went to a women’s retreat called The Gift and—no joke—had a transformative experience
4. We commemorated Elise’s birth and death day on Wednesday the 7th.

At the Gift, I was able to let go of a lingering, if irrational, feeling of helplessness and failure over Elise's death. I knew in my mind that I hadn't caused her death, but my body and spirit ached with the pain of not being able to protect her in my role as her mother, especially since I was carrying her at the time she died. But at the retreat, I gave voice to this agony and exorcised it. I let go of trying to control my future, said goodbye to the inner "control freak" whose existence I hadn't noticed until that weekend, and claimed my role as Elise's mother . I also claimed my role as my own parent: a practice of self-care and compassion for myself, instead of the perfectionism I've demanded of myself all these years.

I'd already rejected a big part of the soul-crushing expectations I've had for myself by leaving my job as a tenure-track professor. Some of the parts of my job worked for me: the satisfaction of finishing a piece of writing; my wonderful colleagues; the excitement of listening to my students' ideas and learning from them in classroom discussions; the challenge of getting an idea across in writing and in lecturing to students. But I didn't write and publish quickly enough; I didn't like administrative work; and when I showed up for class on the first day of the fall term and found I didn't want to perform for a room full of strangers in my fragile emotional state, it was a pivotal moment. I don't want to be here, I thought. I don't want to perform for others, I want to go inside me and find what I need to care for this pain. I want to be with my boys, and with myself, in our home.

Once I took a leave of absence, I started to feel a lightness I'd never experienced before. With our wonderful week in Berkeley and Stinson Beach with Dana and Mike, David and Cynthia and Baby Jacob, then a retreat with amazing women where I plunged to the depths of my pain and was lifted up, I emerged from a chrysalis. The pain of losing Elise will always be with me. But I've made peace with it, and I'm not afraid to feel it. My experiences with her are not solely painful ones, but show me the way to compassion and gratitude.

2007-10-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

Oct. 31st: We had to put our kitty down yesterday. Her name was Freud. She was a beautiful dilute calico, a perfect balance of orange and grey fur on her back, tail, and head, with lovely white chest, belly and stockings. We named her Freud because under the triangle of white nose and cheeks and chin, she had a grey patch that looked like the beard Dr. Sigmund had. She was very sweet to everyone, and slept at the foot of our bed. Sometimes she would tease our dog Genki by rearing up and swatting at her nose. They would have a round in the ring with Freud swatting and Genki wheeling this way and that to dodge her “blows.”

At first I thought I didn’t want to be there when the vet administered her lethal injection. But when she had to endure two failed attempts to get a catheter for the injection into a vein in her leg, I decided she needed me. She had feline leukemia, and was so dehydrated from not eating or drinking that her veins collapsed when they tried to insert the catheter. When the vet finally gave her the injection in a femoral blood vessel, she was so weak that it was difficult to tell when she left her body. She lay on her side as the sedative took her away, while Dan and I stroked her head and cheek.

I knew yesterday morning that I was spending my last hours with her, but I only shed a couple of tears when I had Felix say goodbye to her before he went to school. I thought my lack of overt sadness was because I was tired of being sad, or that I was comforted by getting to say goodbye to her and by the knowledge that she wouldn’t suffer anymore.

But when I held her on my lap in the car while parked at the animal hospital, I sobbed. She shook her head to disperse the tears that fell on her ears. I sobbed with Dan after the vet explained the euthanasia process and left us alone to be with her in the examining room. And I sobbed over her lifeless body. The agony of death and abandonment came flooding back. I pictured Elise’s sweet but lifeless face again, and I wanted to scream helpless curses at the universe.

I was exhausted the rest of the day. I felt thankful that I had a simple life with no work obligations to drag myself through. I was glad we were picking up Felix from school to watch him make his cheerful, uncomplicated way through his day.

I had one work obligation that evening, but thankfully again, it was a comforting one: for the Bozeman Film Festival, I introduced and facilitated a Q & A session for the Japanese film After Life. The story takes place at a sort of way station for the dead: the newly deceased are given 3 days to choose one memory from their lives, which the staff at the way station will recreate on film and screen for them, at which point the dead will leave to spend the rest of eternity with that memory. It’s a languid, thought-provoking film, one that asks what is important to us in our own lives. It celebrates the art of filmmaking, our individual ways in the midst of our need for connection, and the unshakable belief that we will be consoled. One of the characters says that he made the wonderful discovery after many, many years, that he was important to someone. And that is what I hold on to: that even in their tiny, short lives, beings like Freud, who very few besides Dan and I care about, and Elise, who is forgotten or never remembered by most except Dan and me, are important to us, and cherished.

2007-10-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Oct.15th: As the days creep forward towards the day of Elise’s birthday, my agitation builds. We don’t have anything planned to commemorate it. We don’t know whether to spend it as a family, with just the two of us, whether to stay home or go somewhere, what kind of rituals, if any, we’ll hold.

I wonder whether I would feel less restless if I did make plans. But whenever I try to think about it, I draw a blank. Maybe I don’t want to think about it.

Which is strange, because I think about her every day, several times a day. She is constantly on my mind, if sometimes in the back, or hovering somewhere out of sight. If she’s always on my mind, why am I not thinking about ways to honor her and help us take the next step toward integrating her into our lives, however that’s supposed to feel?

Maybe I should give it some focused thought, because it seems like most our emotions associated with her are regretful, sorrowful, disillusioned, frustrated. Dan let out a moaning sigh last night: when he said he’d received his first e-mail from his new employers, I thought he was going to say they gave him a huge assignment, but the e-mail was announcing the birth of a fellow employee’s baby. I shopped for some birthday things for Felix the other day, and saw the little plastic tiaras and beads for other birthday girls, not mine. The last photo we have of me pregnant with Elise is with Felix on his 2nd birthday at his grandparents. His face is lit up with glee as he sits on my lap, and Dan and I have joy and anticipation in our smiles as all three of us gaze at the birthday cake before him.

We travel to the Bay Area to see some friends next week. After that, I’ll go to a retreat for women in Seattle with two of my sisters. I’m sure some ideas will come to me then. As always, I will practice patience with this journey.

2007-10-15T10:22:00.001-07:00

Oct. 9---I visited a Montessori preschool today, one of several I am checking out for Felix. We think Felix’s teacher in his toddler group at his present daycare is wonderful, but he’s ready to move on to a group with older kids.

I was really exhausted after spending an hour and fifteen minutes visiting this school. Not because it was chaotic or crazy—the atmosphere there is far from that, actually: the children were totally engaged in their little projects with drawing animals, or making letters, or sorting shapes and colors, or siphoning colored water from one beaker and squirting it into another. Also, I had a long delightful conversation with the very dynamic director. She showed me some endearing books about children in Japan who meet foreigners, and about a biracial child’s family, written by an American who grew up in Japan. When I sat down to read them, a little girl who’d been fascinated with me ever since I arrived showed me another book that showed how to make colorful animals with autumn leaves.

Suddenly I had eight kids surrounding me, pointing and exclaiming at the leaf animals. Then Annie Jane, a five-year-old whose parents let us crash her birthday party at the park last month, showed me a book about colors called “Little Blue.” She and another little girl read some of the words with me, about how Blue and his friend Yellow hug each other to make green.

I felt so warm and fuzzy, it almost made me want to start my own preschool. To look into their smiling, searching eyes, their eyes that show they are getting to know the world’s wonders, lifted me up, but also wrenched me open.
I try not to force the door closed on my sadness, but lately it’s been easier to move through the hours without feeling flayed open, exposed to the indifferent elements. I’m building up my protective layers again, the healthy kind that keep me safe and calm, not hardened and edgy. So today when I immersed myself in all that little-kid energy, and saw another teacher at the school who is pregnant (“having a baby in three weeks,” the director said; I hope so, I thought), it was like having one of those layers slowly, painfully peeled away. I really did enjoy myself and smiled the whole time, but once I was alone, that rawness began throbbing, and regret flooded through me. Now I’m exhausted. Some tears slide silently down my face as I sit here at the public library, gazing out at the treetops through the big picture windows.

I thought I wanted to just sit and read today, but I need to take myself into the glorious clear day out there. An October passage from Healing After Loss reads, “In the turning of the seasons, I find promise and hope.” I’ve been feeling particularly drawn to the colors of autumn. Maybe I’ll gather some colorful leaves and make pictures of animals with them.

Phantoms

2007-09-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Sept. 26: I am having these muscle twitches in my lower abdomen that feel exactly like a baby inside me with the hiccups.

What the hell does it mean? It seems cruel and hopeful at the same time. It seems more cruel to my empty body than the usual sights that stalked me this morning at the public library: the mother with the two small daughters who opened her van door with its two carseats next to me just as I was getting out of my car; the woman with the preschooler and toddler walking by me as I entered the library; the hugely pregnant woman with the toddler boy passing by me as I went to buy some tea at the library cafe.

I know these are common sights, as are the multitude of hugely pregnant women I seem to see every day, and the FIVE friends and acquaintances I've learned are pregnant in the past couple of months. I want to believe these are good omens of another, healthy baby in our future, and good reminders of our Elise.

But these twitches...the hiccup-like ones are new. I've had phantom ones that were occasional, like the kicks and punches with which Elise once poked me. When I read about others having these ghostly movements in books about stillbirth, I could hardly believe it. But then they happened to me.

And I don't know what to do with them. I do remember seeing an item at the popular museum show Bodies: The Exhibition in Seattle that has stayed with me: in the room about fetal development, a passage read, "Fetal cells stay in the mother's body for years after birth." I felt comforted by those words. It seemed like a physical element of Elise's spirit living on in my life.

I think I need to rethink my connection to my body, let my body into my consciousness more. The weight loss, the illness, the feelings of disconnection are telling me this, not to mention the words of my massage therapist and acupuncturist. I'm not sure how to do it. Maybe I'll start by taking myself for a walk.

Integrating

2007-09-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

Sept.25th: It’s been so long since I’ve written that my readers must have given up on me by now. I’m still here, but words have been absent from my state of mind until recently: I agonized through the writing of my conference paper and finally e-mailed it late to my panel chairman on Saturday the 15th, while Dan was out running a race and I was in charge of Felix. This day of course, Felix didn’t want to just zone out in front of his DVDs when I plugged him in to finish that infernal paper, but said, “I want to watch with you, Mommy” for the first time ever. Of course. So that made it even harder to write, but I finished the paper, and didn’t look at it again until the morning of my conference panel in Salt Lake City. Luckily, it was coherent.
I’ve been writing in my journal nearly every day, as an ongoing therapy that helps me unload my anxiety, sadness, and estrangement from words, ironically. I write about how I have nothing to write about. I write 3 pages, as prescribed by Julia Cameron in her “morning pages” prescription in The Artist’s Way. I usually feel off-kilter if I don’t write in my journal, even if I’m convinced I don’t have anything to say in it.

Today I went to meet with a fellow professor who kindly made an agreement with my worried chair / boss to be an official mentor for me. He wasn’t in his office though. I asked the secretary of his department if he’d been in, and she said she hadn’t seen him. I hope he is okay…the last time I was supposed to meet with him, almost a year ago when I was on the search committee for an anthropologist of Japan, I didn’t show up because I was in a delivery room waiting to give birth to Elise.

Sarah walked by while I was waiting for my official mentor this morning. We hugged each other a long time: one of her coworkers was killed in a car crash a few days ago, a woman with three children and two stepchildren, a husband who adored her, with whom she was looking forward to retiring with, Sarah said. My heart feels heavy with empathy today. Another friend’s sweet, beloved dog died, just got terribly, suddenly sick while she was out of town. He was not much more than a puppy and so cherished by her ever since she’d found him abandoned in the desert by the Colorado River.

Anne Lamott writes in her newest book Grace (Eventually): “It’s fine to know, but not to say, that in some inadequate and surprising ways, things will be semi-okay, the way wild flowers spring up at the rocky dirt-line where the open-space meadow meets the road, where the ground is so mean. Just as it’s fine to know but not say that anger is good, a bad attitude is excellent, and the medicinal powers of shouting and complaining cannot be overestimated.” My share of anger is definitely there, and my friend Tracy and I wished we could choose any number of others to get rid of (how about just ONE, perhaps Osama bin Laden?) instead of losing innocent babies, or good people or creatures that leave behind so many broken hearts.

I think I am figuring out how to integrate my pain into my life—something I’ve been frustrated with and confused about for many, many months. I can’t describe the exact process, except to try and try again to be patient with myself: be patient with my anger, my denial of Elise’s death, my depression, my impatience; and credit myself for my self-care (the therapy, the support group, the tears and conversations with Dan, the attempts to reach out to family, the outings with friends, the yoga, the massage, the antidepressants, the acupuncture, the exercise…and yes, the complaining!). I walked home from campus today, and the maple leaves on Grand Avenue are a lovely gold and red. The air was clear and chilly, the sun warm, my steps grateful.

A Break from...

2007-09-06T09:19:00.001-07:00

I’m taking a leave of absence from my teaching this semester. I hadn’t posted anything in here for a while because I’d been freaking out about going back to classes, and then freaking out about not going back.

Even my body was telling me something wasn’t right: several people have remarked that I look like I’ve lost weight, and I got a stomach bug the day before the fall term was to begin that kept me home my first day of classes.

Again, I’d been doing everything to help myself heal: I got a massage from the fabulous Heidi, who sensed an emotional blockage in my belly region or chakra. I’m not well-versed in the chakra lingo, but the fact that I’d been going around with my stomach in knots, that my waist was shrinking with the weight loss, that my appetite was poor, and that I caught the flu two days after the massage, tells me my belly was trying to telegraph something. Also, it had been nine or ten months since Elise’s birth—the body remembers such timing.

When I told my mom about my leave last night on the phone, I didn’t hesitate, even though I had it in my head that Mom would never approve. She asked “How are you?” and I said I decided to take the leave. Surprisingly, she responded the way everyone else has: “That’s good. You need to take care of yourself.” She passed right by the news to tell me she was sending me a Joseph Campbell book, Pathways to Bliss. Her gesture is so touching: my mom the Catholic, who knows I am no longer a Catholic, much less a Christian, is reaching out to my intellectual side, and the part of me that still believes in some higher power or spiritual essence.

And the universe / God / cosmos / spirit seems to be speaking to me with synchronicity: the same day at lunch with Maxwell, we were talking about how life can be so cruel. “How do we go on?” I sighed with my head in my hands. Maxwell said that’s where mythology and theology must have stepped in. I’m not sure they’re for “making sense” out of this life, but maybe for imagining something beyond this existence with all its pain, for hope and deliverance.

Not that I don’t see the beauties of this life: my husband who is so loving, gentle, wise, fun; my sweet little son; my friends who don’t fear my sadness; the family members reaching out to us.

The other night at our SHARE meeting, I marveled at the courage and love of one couple who decided to carry their son to term after discovering at the twenty-week ultrasound that he had no kidneys. He lived for fifteen minutes after birth. His mother spoke of her gratitude for the experience of her first pregnancy with him. When I think about Elise, I picture her face as I gazed at her while she lay in my arms. Whenever I see her Papa’s funny long toes, so long they hang off the front of his flip-flops, I remember that she had his long slender fingers and toes. Somday I want to remember her with joy and gratitude.

2007-08-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

Th other night I had a feeling I wouldn't fall asleep, and Dan had started snoring, so I got up and took an Ambien. As soon as I started nodding off, Felix woke up crying. He wouldn't be comforted by Dan, so I went in, and he still wouldn't calm down. So we took him into our bed. He didn't squirm around as much as he has in the past, but we have a queen and he's getting to be a big boy, so I only half slept while squeezing my body toward my side of the bed.

He's been our sweet sensitive boy lately. I've been honest with him: he has asked me, "You sad, Mommy?" And I tell him yes, I'm sad a lot, but being with you makes me happy, and it's okay to be sad. I showed him Elise's photo again last Sunday, and he asked "Is baby sleeping?" And I said no, she is dead, that means we can't have her here with us. He just responded with an "Oh..." in a tiny voice, while staring at her picture. The books say not to tell little ones that someone who's died is "sleeping" because that gives the wrong idea and they also might be afraid of falling asleep themselves. I suppose "dead" is a pretty big word for a not-quite-3 year old, but I have confidence that my honesty with him will be a good thing. He is already a wonderful mixture of self-assuredness and emotional sensitivity, and I want him to be able to be open with his loved ones and able to protect himself too.

I'm parenting in the classic Not Gonna Put My Kid Through the Shit I Went Through method: I grew up thinking I was supposed to Be Nice and not talk about yourself or your pain. Now I'm struggling to seek the support I need from the right people, avoid the ones who can't respond--no matter who they are or how close they seemed before Elise died--and take care of myself without worrying what others need from me when I don't have the energy left.

Last night Felix woke up crying twice. He has a very stuffy nose, and I have the flu. I had a massage from Heidi a few days ago and she happened to call this morning. When I told her I was sick, she said the massage is likely helping my body move through all the pain and turmoil, and this sickness is part of that flushing out. I hope she's right, but at any rate those words encourage me, as I lay in bed with my stomach roiling, to believe that we are not suffering for nothing.

2007-08-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

We returned a few days ago from a week with my family in Sunriver, Oregon. There were 37 of us there. Needless to say, it was hard to exchange more than a few words with all the activity. Still, when 2 days had passed since our arrival with no one saying a word about Elise, I wanted to drive home screaming. My sister Mary and her partner Chris helped me calm down. Chris had already talked with Dan on his own, and they offered to communicate my needs to the others so that I wouldn't have to explain yet again that it really is okay, it really is a good thing, and helpful, to ask us how the day is going, how the hour is going, then listen for a response.

After a yoga class the next day, my sisters and mother and I cried in a group hug. They all said they are hurting for Elise, for us, and didn't know how to talk to us. Is it our eternally optimistic American culture that keeps us from including any talk of sadness in our days? Is it the same old fear of death thing? I keep hearing from people "I've never experienced what you're going through so I don't know what to say," and sometimes I get so sick of it. You expect us to teach you what to say when we're barely keeping our heads above water emotionally? Go read a book.

A lot of books have helped me, if just to confirm that, in the words of one wise soul of a bereaved mother who wrote me a card: "Remember, you are NOT going crazy, it just REALLY HURTS." Empty Cradle, Broken Heart; Still to be Born; Help, Comfort, and Hope; and a daily missal of sorts, Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief offer other people's stories and practical advice for being patient with myself and others in the drudgery of this pain.

But much of the time I am impatient. I still haven't accepted Elise's death. Maybe it's a gradual process--so gradual it's undetectable. It's not as if I am not working hard: yesterday I made calls to my doctor, my therapist, a close friend; I'm getting a massage on Friday, I write in my journal every day, I treated myself to 2 hours of yoga yesterday and took the dog on a short walk. When a friend called to go to a movie, I went even though it sounded better to cozy up at home with my boys for the evening.

But I also thought, maybe Dan and Felix could use a break from my gloomy self for a couple of hours. Felix had thrown a fit a little while ago: was it just a drop in his blood sugar from needing dinner, or is he picking up on my grief? He is a sensitive little guy; I hope he can still embrace that part of himself as he grows older. I hope his baby sister is teaching him how.

So I went to the movie and was surprised to see such a big crowd for the Bozeman Film Festival on a summer evening. With both movie theaters downtown closed indefinitely, and the cineplexes showing the usual lame comedies and blow-em-ups, this town must be starved for decent entertainment. At any rate I wasn't really prepared to see so many acquaintances with their meaningless "How are you" 's, so I inched my way out of conversation most of the time, which felt like absolutely the right thing to do. Whey do we even say those words when we don't really expect a real response? I'm not even answering that hiccup anymore: it's just another way of saying hello anyway.

Then Heather came up to me and gave me a hug. Her son died at birth 4 years ago. Her eyes seemed to reflect my pain, which I found strangely comforting. "I know where you are, and part of me is still there with you," they seemed to say. I could tell her today was a hard day and not see a look saying "Let's get this dreary stuff over with so we can move on to lighter, more trivial chatter." When it was time for us to leave the lobby for the film, part of me wanted her to stay with me like a mother might stay with her scared child in the classroom on the first day of school. But that child has to be left alone with all those strangers eventually, so I dragged myself off to be with the others who were comfortably socializing.

The new term is starting and with it all sorts of people spouting "How are you?" and me wanting to say, "I'm not really here yet," or "Today is going by slowly," or "This hour is an improvement on the last one," or "Words can't express it."

2007-08-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

My loneliness and pissiness has eased off today. Partly that’s because I had such loving responses from family and friends I’d told about my blog, and partly because we went to our SHARE support group meeting last night.

I don’t want people to think I was scolding them in yesterday’s posting, because for the most part I get the support I need when I ask for it. But “when I ask for it” is the key concept: sometimes I can’t ask for it, and tell myself people are too busy and I shouldn’t bother them. That’s my youngest-of-seven mindset speaking: Don’t bother anyone, you can handle it yourself, just stay out of sight and read your books.

Lo and behold, when I put it out there the universe responds: I’ve always been afraid to speak the truth about how I’m feeling, and grew up thinking that emotional expression and honesty are unseemly or weak. I’m trying to change that, even when it’s painful. These past few days in particular seem to be telling me I have NO CHOICE but to say what I need to, or I’ll end up one screwed-up, warped sack o’ woe (to borrow a Cannonball Adderley song title).

So on a run yesterday, I stopped to talk with a family friend I see every once in a while. I decided to thank her for the card she and her husband sent us when Elise died, and we had one of those talks that are so uplifting for their sincerity and compassion. She brought up the possibility that people might not mention Elise because they think it’s a private matter for us. That could very well be the case, maybe even with acquaintances here in town who infuriate me when they scurry away before the conversation goes beyond “Hi, how are you.” But one member of our support group definitely spoke for me last night when she said she cherished conversations where people asked about her daughter’s story, what it was like to be pregnant with her and experience her birth and death.

This morning I ran into my doctor, a wonderful woman who instinctively knows how to be encouraging without being clichéd. She recalled my anguish at Elise’s birth, and that reminded me of how all I could do at that moment was scream until the people in the room, the hospital ward, the whole world, could hear my rage and helplessness.

Last night at our meeting we talked a lot about people who forget about our babies in their busy distracted lives, and we talked a bit about how to hold on to the memories of our babies while still moving forward. I said that a friend had asked me whether I believed in an afterlife, and I wasn’t sure there was one but am clinging to the possibility there is. In any case, we carry our children with us in some form. The guest speaker asked if I thought that I can see Elise in the world around us, and again I said I wasn’t sure… “Keep looking,” she urged.

I know that even if I might not “see” Elise in a bird who sings to me or a butterfly landing on my shoulder, she is speaking to me: she is telling me to put myself out there and ask for what I need. She never spoke a word in her life, but she is teaching me how to communicate.

9 months on

2007-08-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today makes it 9 months since our daughter Elise was stillborn at 33 weeks. Nine months, and I still can't believe I've just written that sentence. It still feels like I've been punched in the stomach. It's very exhausting trying to catch my breath, clutching my gut as I stare into space in disbelief.

It's not like this every day, or even every hour. Sometimes days go by when I feel pretty good. But when I do feel weighed down by grief, it feels terribly lonely, because most of our friends and family have gone on with their "normal" lives. I'm learning that when I need to find support, I need to be selective. Otherwise, the pain of getting a response like, "Are you still taking your antidepressants?" or "Are you going to have another baby?" makes me want to take that person by the neck and fling them onto the floor.

So this blog is for people who feel alone in their loss. It's for people who want to understand the grief of stillbirth. It's for people who are deluding themselves that their own routines and petty concerns can excuse them from remembering that we are still hurting. It's for people who have forgotten Elise. It's for people who think she was "just" a pregnancy. Guess what? She wasn't. She was our daughter, she is STILL our daughter, and a little sister to Felix, and a niece, and a granddaughter, and a cousin...

This summer I was hit with the realization I will never see her grow up. There I was watching the high school graduation ceremony for my niece, and the next thing I knew I was rushing out of the auditorium to cry my eyes out. Summer has brought memories of being pregnant with Elise, outings to the park and the pool with Felix where pregnant women are everywhere with big bellies bursting under their tank tops, and all the anxieties of trying to conceive again.

So yes, we do want to have another baby. No, I am not taking antidepressants now because I'm worried about the effects if I get pregnant (among other reasons). But however much others want to think, even unconsciously, that another baby, if we have one, will "fix" our loss of Elise, it doesn't work that way, no more than remarriage replaces a dead spouse or other children take the place of another dead child. No, we never saw Elise alive in this world, but yes, our grief is as crushing as that of someone who shared some time on this planet with a loved one they lost.

Lastly, I want to say to those who are acquaintances of someone who has experienced a death in their family recently: SAY SOMETHING IN SYMPATHY. Ask "how are you REALLY doing?" You won't be "reminding" that person of their grief, dummy: they always already feel it. Get out of your own ego, the one telling you death is icky and uncomfortable, and someone else's sadness is awkward, and act like a human with a sense of decency and compassion. And by the way, you can still ask after months have passed.

Where to, Elise? Where did you go? Where are we going? Such simple questions, but the answers are never, ever predictable. So I'll just ask, Where to next? and let go of the rest.