Dying to Live

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.