A Widow's Story

Yesterday I heard a portion of an interview with Joyce Carol Oates on the CBC radio. It was about her new book, A Widow's Story, which is a memoir based on the time after the sudden loss of her husband of 47 years in 2008.

I listened to it with the kind of rapt attention you probably shouldn't when you're driving. I can't remember getting to my destination.

It's just that she spoke so honestly and simply about loss. She was unapologetic about the ravages of grief and the toll it took on her after her beloved husband died. She didn't look on the bright side. She didn't claim to have learned anything from it. She didn't praise it for making her stronger, more empathetic or more patient with others. She didn't use it to find ways to do good.

She just endured it.

And coming from the world of babyloss where we're always trying to make sense of it and find something good to take away from it, this was a breath of fresh air.

Losing someone you love is bad. Period. It hurts, it isolates, and it scars.

I'm sure, like everyone who struggles to find meaning in loss, she has done some of the mental gymnastics the newly bereaved engage in to keep the ground from moving and shifting beneath them every moment of every day. She probably has tried to make sense of it and find lessons from it.

But she didn't say she did. At least not in the interview. She said she made a nest of her bed, taking refuge there through sleepless nights surrounded by books to comfort her. She admits she thought about, but then dismissed, suicide. She said she regularly impersonated the "old Carol" while she was working as a professor at Princeton, then returned home to be a grieving widow once again.

I haven't lost my husband so I have no idea what this particular of grief is like, but so much of what she said resonated deep within me. Especially the notion that we impersonate the person we used to be. I suppose it's some sort of ancient survival skill, not unlike the way cats can literally be dying but still successfully pretending to be a-okay.

I've done it. I still do it.

And then I come home and I can be the girl who lost all her babies and then her father.

I ordered A Widow's Story for my mom, and I'll read it when she's finished. There's something deeply necessary about people sharing the grief journey, and I'm so grateful that people who have walked this sad, lonely road do talk about it.

For us, and for themselves.

Yeah, it's just not fair

Life is such a mental exercise sometimes.

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready to leave to take my dad to dialysis, I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks, momentarily overwhelmed by what a seemingly constant struggle life has become.

I'm still trying to navigate my way through the muddy waters of childlessness (complete with new and dazzling special effects and stomach churning surprises at every turn), and at the same time I'm watching my dad slowly slip away, and desperately trying to cope with the grief that creeps into my weary head when I think of how little time I know he has left.

One of the older dialysis patients had his wife, daughter, granddaughter and two great-grandsons with him in the waiting room yesterday. The oldest boy, just big enough to be out of a stroller, was simply booming with little boy energy - something pretty foreign in a waiting room cluttered with wheelchairs, motor scooters, oxygen tanks, and tired patients.

I couldn't help but smile at them.

And then I couldn't help but feel empty as I watched the sweet scene unfold in front of me. My dad is easily as old as that great-great grandfather. I looked at their big, growing family, and I just felt so sad and defeated. And then, of course, guilty for not being able to give my family the extra light and life that two little boys - or even one little boy - can bring.

Light and life are markedly absent from our family right now.

I stared at the boys and their mom and her grandparents wondering what it must feel like to have so much pulsing, vibrant, loveliness surrounding you in such sad, desperate times. And I thought about how sweet it must be to live in a world where the proper order of things (with its tidy, A always follows B, reality) provides a measure of comfort and peace during difficult times. Old people get sick and die while babies are born, live, and nourish the family with fresh hope.

I couldn't take my eyes off the family. Watching them was an exquisite sort of agony, but I just couldn't look away. Mercifully, they left soon after their husband/father/grandfather/great-grandfather was called into dialysis.

And order returned to my world. Just me and my dad. No little boys trailing along behind to remind us that life does go on and that we will not be forgotten.

I've been trying, of late, to focus on my blessings - of which there are many - to keep myself from sinking into a self-pitying funk from which there is no return.

It works. Mostly.

But I'm still angry that this is my life right now. I'm angry that we're surviving more than we're living. I'm angry that joy has to be so hard won. I'm angry that my dad is suffering so much, and that we're all suffering the helpless agony of not being able to make him better.

It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair!!

But I know it's up to me to figure out a way to pry the good from all this and make my life about more than just the cumulative effects of its losses and sorrows and struggles.

I just hope I can muster the energy to do it. Again.

Remembrance

First thing this morning on Facebook, I found this.

I've been wanting to write about this very thing for a while; about how hard Facebook has the potential to be if you are on the outside looking in. The ultrasounds and baby photos subbing as profile pictures, the "offers" to sell naughty children, cute birthday/Halloween/Christmas/Thanksgiving stories, announcements about potty training successes, first teeth, and new pregnancies...

Facebook is rife with childcentric information.

And there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be. None whatsoever.

But because it is, it can be a dangerous place for someone trying to navigate the bloody waters of infertility and loss. And it can be torture for someone for whom all those lovely baby things will never be a reality.

The interesting thing is that we generally stay very quiet about all this. So much so that it likely never occurs to anyone but us that it might be painful. The landmines are invisible unless you see them as such. We are blown to smithereens every day by things others look at with wonder and joy.

That's just the way it is.

It's the way it has to be, in fact, because the world can't (and shouldn't) stop merely because we are sad. There is no reason our sorrow should trump another's joy.

But that's precisely why I was so shocked to see the link above; stunned that someone would actually dare to put it all out there - to demonstrate in a tangible way what it can sometimes feel like to be a childless person floating alone in a seemingly endless sea of fertility.

We, as a group, generally concentrate our efforts on making sure other people don't feel uncomfortable. The last thing we tend to do is point out our own discomfort. We might be broken, humiliated, and desperate - but we are usually silent.

And I'm not sure what I think about this phenomenon anymore, this strange code of silence.

I don't want to be the person who rains on everyone's parade, reminding people with my sad looks and pitiful sighs that I envy what they have. I don't want to be the needy girl from whom people flee in horror. And I certainly don't want to end up being a one-trick pony who can't talk about anything but the life she wishes she'd been able to have.

But sometimes I do crave a certain level of acknowledgment - a little something that lets me know you would smother my pain with a pillow if you had one big enough, or strangle cruel fate with your bare hands for denying me my joy. I am desperately struggling to co-exist in this fertile world, and that pain I feel is real. This life is hard - harder than I ever dreamed - and I'm not always okay. I probably look it most of the time - maybe all the time - but I am stuck together with tape, staples and prayers. And chocolate and wine.

I'm not looking for pity. I can't stress that enough. I think what we all want so much is simply for people to remember that we're here too.

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk

My book was talking to me last night.

Feeling wide awake and vaguely tense (which could have been all the sugar I ate at the CNE yesterday messing with me), I decided to read myself to sleep. It usually works like a Valium-induced charm, but it failed miserably last night. In part because the final 150 pages of the book were gripping, but also because it would not. shut. up.

Talking books are such a nocturnal buzz-kill.

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing", it said to me.

I hate when books are smarter than I am. And I hate when they get all up in my face, trying to teach me valuable life lessons when I'm just trying to get to sleep after a vegetable-less day of total crap eating.

Book was right, though. What was, rather miraculously, left standing in the bloody aftermath of my quest for a child is what I'm building my life upon. It doesn't mean that what (or who) is missing isn't important and hasn't changed me, forever altering the course of the life that remains. But what I snuggle up to each night, hold hands with in a crowded midway, and share my rocky road cheesecake with is what's here.

And my God, it's good.

So, that was nice. A bit of a slap upside the head, but I can't say it's terrible to be reminded that it's important to readjust one's focus every now and then. Book meant well.

"A lost child follows a mother all her life", came just a few pages later.

It screamed through my body and brain, that phrase, with its searing truth. The tears finally came when I read Book's final chapter, closed it, and turned out the light.

Thomas would have been starting Kindergarten today.

I lay on my back with my hands on my belly, the empty tomb where he once rolled and kicked and lived. I cried softly for him in the dark. I whispered his name.

Book was probably thoroughly disgusted with this wanton display of ingratitude for the life I have, especially after it had just reminded me that what I have is pretty sweet, all things considered. But Book can suck it.

I finally got up, took some deep breaths of cool night air at the window, and found a cat to cuddle. Sleep inducing solace eventually came from the Internets. The people inside my computer are as wise as Book, and infinitely more empathetic. Messages from four night owls in response to a pitiful Facebook status gave me the comfort I needed for sleep to come.

And it did. I curled up next to My Beloved, a toothless old cat tucked in beside us, and smiled as I dozed off.  Because books are smart, friends are kind, and darkness makes you see the unfathomable beauty in the light.

Jam jars on the windowsill

Oh, my heart.

My mom and dad still live in the same house they bought when they were first married; a little bungalow in a now all grown up neighbourhood just west of Toronto. I pass by my old elementary school every time I visit, as well as all the other haunts that make up the geographical landscape of my childhood.

The corner store, my (still) best friend Michelle's old street, my grandma and grandpa's house (which I never fully forgave them for selling since it meant I was no longer the only person I knew who had grandparents living on the very same block, less than two minutes away by foot), the church where I had my first communion, confirmation and grade 8 graduation. They're all still there, every time I come "home".

As I drove past my elementary school yesterday, on the way to the hospital by way of my ancestral home, I happened to catch sight of a tiny clumped-up bunch of kids squatting amidst the dandelions on the boulevard.

Little boys, about Kindergarten age. A whole flock of them, all furiously picking away, their little hands crammed full of the yellow weeds which were, of course, destined for empty jam jars on kitchen windowsills. After kisses and smiles and snuggles of thanks.

Its a right of passage, creating that first glorious dandelion bouquet. I remember doing it myself. And I remember how proud I was when I got the reaction I'd hoped for:  a gasp of pure joy and a hug from my mom, who I would have done anything to please. I remember standing by the sink while she filled a jar with water and lovingly put that scraggly bunch of half dead weeds in the window, as though it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever been given. Maybe even better than the L'Eggs panty hose I gave her every Christmas, complete with the plastic egg container that she'd always give me back to play with.

Truly the gift that gave twice, those L'Eggs.

I've thought about my dandelion-less future before. I think I've even blogged about it. No, this wasn't the first time it had dawned on me that I would never have a jam jar filled with weeds on my own kitchen windowsill. I don't think there there are too many things I'll be missing that haven't already worn a deep groove in my brain, they've crossed it so many times in the last five years. 

But it was the first time I saw a group of boys Thomas' age gathering dandelions. And it took my breath away. I literally gasped, and then did what you'd expect some steroetypical infertile, childless heroin from a bad Hallmark movie to do - I pressed my left hand into my chest above my heart, as if to stop the ache. And I held my breath, my mouth agape as I continued past the school and around the corner to my mom's house.

Loss is a strange sort of claustrophobia. I wanted Thomas back so badly in those first few moments after seeing the dandelion boys that I wanted to crawl out of my skin, scream, tear apart the steel on my car with my bare hands. Do something, anything, to get him back. To see him, touch him, talk to him.

But, of course, there was nothing to be done but pry my hand off my heart, close my mouth and drive on.

And so I did.

I still like dandelions. I still smile at the memory of picking them and marveling at the thought that there were hundreds of them available - as far as the eye could see - all free and all waiting to be collected and given to my mom.

Jam jars on the windowsill.

On the other side

Last Wednesday my Mom and Dad had to put their 15-year old cat to sleep after he suffered what they suspect was a stroke.

My Mom called in tears to give me the news, and my heart tore into a thousand pieces listening to her cry over the phone, her voice small and broken.

I went over the next day just to be with them - to make sure they were okay and to try to cheer them up and distract them as best I could. And for the first time since Thomas died I realized what a useless feeling it is not to be able to take away someone's pain.

I didn't know. Somehow I didn't realize.

I have appreciated every single gesture - every brave word, every card, every donation, every flower, every carefully chosen gift, every mention of his name. Not one single thing anyone has ever done for me - for us - since Thomas died has gone unappreciated. Ever.

But I didn't realize until I sat there helplessly watching my Mother cry over her lost Paddington Bear that those gestures were made out of both love and desperation. Because there's absolutely nothing you can do to take away the pain of someone's loss.

And you can't know that until you try. And fail.

I know I was able to comfort them a little with my presence, but I also know that my Mother probably cried herself to sleep thinking about how increasingly small and fragile their world is becoming; about the tragedies they've witnessed and the losses they've endured. And about the little cat she said goodbye to that day.

And it breaks my heart. Over and over and over again, it breaks my heart.

Thinking

Back in the fall My Beloved and I set an arbitrary sometime in January deadline for sitting down and talking about where this nearly 6-year journey of ours is heading.

The plan was for us both to come to the table, having had two months to mull it over quietly on our own, with some thoughts. Maybe even conclusions.

But, uh, I'm not sure I have any. Thoughts yes, conclusions, no.

Although lately I've had a vague sense that I'm moving into acceptance mode. That I'm recognizing and coming to terms with the fact that our time for having more children may have passed. Entirely. No biological babies, no adopted babies.

For some reason that notion seems to be sitting in my head, making a lot of sense.

It's desperately sad, yes. I think I would have made a good mother to a living child. I had a very good role model, and I had many quiet, happy daydreams about the ways I was going to mother our children. Making them feel cozy, safe and loved.

But we've had six years of loss, fear and sorrow. I'm not entirely sure I have the mental energy that the me of simpler days used to have. I hate to think that infertility and loss have beaten me. I hate to think that after all this time they have finally won.

But maybe they have.

Maybe I just can't put myself - or us - through this anymore. Maybe it's time for My Beloved and I now. Just us. Moving on and finding peace and happiness together; making the most of the life we have and the love we've always shared.

I'll be 39 in a few months, My Beloved 40. I know people will throw up their hands, stomp about and vehemently deny that we're too old to be parents. But the thing is, we're older than most people our age. We've seen a lot and we've lost a lot. Too much. Too much.

We're tired. I'm tired.

I want my life back. I wanted children. I wanted that life so much. But sometimes you have to accept the life you're given instead of spending all your time wishing for the one you weren't. Because that's no way to live at all.

We have tried so hard. I don't think anyone could accuse us of not giving it 100%.

We are a family of three that looks like a family of two. But we are still a family. We had a child. I was pregnant. I was pregnant four times.

And now, maybe, I'm done.

If I am alone when I'm old - if everyone I know has gone before me and I have no children and grandchildren to visit me - I'll just find comfort in new friends. I'll write. I'll read. I'll crochet. I'll try to pray. I'll keep searching for whatever makes me happy and brings me peace. One day at a time.

And eventually I'll see my babies again. And I'll wrap them in my arms, hold them close and then, then finally have a chance to be the mother I should have been here.

I'm not making the decision alone, of course. And as sure as I might sound at the moment, I'm just as liable to change my mind tomorrow.

But then again, maybe I won't.

The last line on one of those epic Christmas letters sent to my Mom from a cousin of hers was, "Hope Kris and her hubby will be successful one of these days. Must be heartbreaking."

I don't want people to see us that way. I don't want them to think we somehow weren't successful at life because our son died and because I miscarried our other four children. I don't want our losses to define us or our marriage.

The letter really make me stop and think about how long we've been running on the hamster wheel.

And about how I think it might be time to step off and just walk quietly and peacefully together instead.

No surprises

Last night we went out to get a baby gift for friends who just had another baby girl. In the parking lot I discovered that the clerk forgot to swipe the little socks we bought to go with the Pooh sleeper.

$4.97 in reparation from the universe.

That's less than a dollar for every loss, and each year we've struggled. But I suppose that's about what I'd expect from the universe.

Yeah. Fuck. That's about what I'd expect.

It's dark in here

I was wandering through blogland last night catching up on blogs I haven't read in a long time (shame on me), and reading the news that I've missed while I've been quietly keeping to myself.

And, of course, there is pregnancy news - in a few blogs. Which somehow still always surprises me, as though I think since I'm still broken everyone else must be too.

But clearly this is not the case. In fact, in some cases these are second generation pregnancies - babies that have come after babies that came after a loss.

I'm so far behind. If I ran at the speed of light it feels like I'd still forever be so far behind, shackled to my infertility and dragging my busted uterus behind me.

Anyway, I stumbled across a blogger who is newly pregnant via a surrogate, and something interesting happened in my tiny little brain.

"That's okay then", I reasoned, "she's still broken too." It's fine for someone to be expecting a baby, apparently, as long as they aren't actually the one carrying it. Because that would make them whole and capable and fertile - all the things I'm not.

I'm not totally sure what this line of thinking says about me, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing good.

It all makes me wonder what it is about losing a child and dealing with infertility that makes it so hard to be happy for others who make it past the agonizing limbo of childlessness, or infertility after a loss.

I hate that I feel this way. I hate that time hasn't eased the feelings of sorrow and jealousy when someone else - even someone who has struggled - finds themselves pregnant.

It's so ugly. It's so unbearably ugly to think that I should feel anything other than complete joy and happiness for someone whose dream has come true when I know how bright and beautiful that dream is - and what devastation and havoc losing it wreaks.

And yet last night I found myself comforted that someone had to resort to surrogacy.

It's so unfathomably ugly that I'm even ashamed to write it (and, frankly, have no idea why I'm admitting it). But there it is. It seems that I have let go of none of the bitterness.

Maybe it's not surprising given the decrepit state of my own fertility, my advancing age, my reluctance to have "just one more" surgery to fix what allegedly ails me.

The trail of death and destruction in my wake.

Maybe it's normal to still feel this way. It probably is. But it doesn't change the fact that it makes me feel small and ugly and horrible.

Lest one be forced to surmise that there isn't one single ounce of goodness left in my battered soul, I should clarify that I do manage to feel joy for others. I do. But the bitterness is always following right on its heels. Not towards those who are pregnant, exactly, but more at the universe, at God, at fate - at whatever seems to be preventing me from finding my happy ending.

I just want my happy ending too.

And seeing others get it reminds me of how much I want it. And how far I am from having it. And how close I once was. Four times.

I read about how healing it is to have a baby after a loss, and I rage against the universe for denying me that chance to heal. I read about how apparently you can't know the true depths of your sorrow until you hold another child of your own, and I rage against the universe for denying me the chance to complete my grieving process (although I also bristle at the suggestion that if I never have another child my sorrow is somehow less than someone who has gone on to have another baby - because I'm pretty sure that just ain't the case).

Today at Mass I watched an old lady gazing at someone's child the way old ladies do, with that serene, loving half-smile. And as I watched her, I realized that I will never be that old lady. I will never, ever be able to look at children with the simplicity of thought that many people do, a blissful smile playing on my lips. Other people's children will always remind me of my loss and my agony - of my own missing children. Even if one day I have another child.

But especially if I don't.

And I'm not at all happy that this bitterness seems to be planning to dog me for the rest of my life.

The road less traveled

Does everyone need permission to feel the way they feel, or is it just me?

That familiar, slightly dull, knicker-binding sense of doom and gloom was bugging me last week. I couldn't shake it. It sat on my shoulders with its hands over my mouth trying to smother me for days.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out where it came from and how it snuck up on me so quickly and quietly.

On Friday, Therapist Lady pointed out that there is anxiety in reaching decisions. Silly me. All this time I thought indecision was my issue. But apparently I have the ability to stay freaked out even when decisions are actually made.

FANtastic.

She said that our decision not to have the surgery, even though it's still classified as a tentative one, means that we have decided to move in another direction. Which isn't a bad thing, but when you're not sure what that direction is - or what lies along the road you'll eventually end up choosing - it can be anxiety producing.

And I can attest to that.

The interesting thing is that as soon as she made this proclamation, the doom and gloom started to lift. Being given permission to feel anxious made a huge chunk of the anxiety simply vanish.

Because it's okay to feel unsure. It's okay to feel scared. It's okay to be confused. It's okay to need to think about the possibility that it's time to start mourning the loss of future biological children who may never come. Who will probably never come.

It looks like a lot of work ahead. Good God. When I see it laid out before me in print, it looks like a fucking shit-load of work.

But I'll get there. Eventually. With constant reminders that it really is okay to be overwhelmed by a life I never in a million years expected would be mine.

How?

I have a high threshold of pain. I do. Really, I do. But three attempts at a saline sonohysterogram? (Which, in case you've never had one, involves a clamp and a catheter - and that should be all I need to say for you to understand why, upon attempt three, I thought I was going to die).

But I could have endured that quite handily. Even the emergency run they made to get a tech who they thought might be able to get a better picture of my uterus. Even the repeated injections of saline. Even the failed attempts being blamed on my tipped uterus (and not the OB's incompetence). I could have dealt with it all had they been able to give us good news. Or at least conclusive news.

One OB, two techs, 49 million gallons of saline and that fucking clamp on and off three times.

And at the end? Something. What, they don't know. But something. Probably scar tissue. Maybe scar tissue?

They don't know.

I sat there in a puddle of saline, gel and blood while they told me they just weren't sure what it was they saw, but that there appears to be a blockage of some sort in my uterus.

The OB who did the test (and God help both of us if I ever lay eyes on her again) recommended surgery to determine what exactly it was that they couldn't see. That's what she put in her notes to my OB.

My OB, who I can't see for another three weeks. And only that soon because I lost my shit on the phone with the clinic when they tried to tell me it would be August before I could get in front of him to discuss the fact that there's something lurking in my uterus that's likely the cause of last 12 months of failure.

A spot magically opened up on July 14th when I went into meltdown mode.

So, all in all, it's been a shitty week.

No one has told us we need to stop - or should stop. But this broke me in a way nothing has before. I barely made it out to the car before I burst into tears, scaring the shit out of My Beloved who had no idea what exactly I was crying about.

It was just too much.

I'm not a pussy - I sailed through my HSG, the IUIs and my C-section recovery, even after hemorrhaging and getting a blood infection. I'm strong and stubborn. But this? Somehow it was just too much. It hurt like hell (I'm not sure, but I think she was digging for gold), I'm still spotting five days later, and we have no clear answers. Only the specter of another surgery lurking in the darkness before us.

But I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I have anything left. Like I said, I thought I would walk to the ends of the earth to have another child. But maybe this is what the end looks like. Me, completely out of courage and mental stamina. And hope.

"That's it. We're done. No more." Was My Beloved's conclusion upon finally calming me down enough to allow me to tell him what had gone on in the little exam room.

My Mother agrees. So does his. So do I. Mostly...

But part of me is down on my knees begging someone to tell me how you stop when you have nothing to show for your five years of effort except for an ever increasing stack of therapy receipts, a basement full of unused baby things, and a tiny grave marker.

How? How?