Waves

"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

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

"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

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

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"

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.

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.