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.

The rules of cake

Last night I got to thinking about the way people recognize the birthdays of the children they have lost.

I do it. Most of us do, in some way.

For me, it begins with cake. Every year on Thomas' birthday I make a small cake for My Beloved and I to share, complete with candles which we both blow out together.

We take the day off, do a special annual good deed in remembrance of our boy, have lunch together then come home for cake. There's a great deal of comfort in the repetition of this now annual rite; In wrapping ourselves in the warmth of shared love and collective sorrow as we take the same familiar steps every March 9th.

Some people release balloons, some make donations, some light candles, others take flowers to the place their child is buried or to the spot where their son or daughter's ashes caught the wind and swirled up to the heavens.

But more interesting than what we do, is the fact that we do something at all. I don't celebrate the birthdays of any other dead people. Well, except maybe Jesus - but his is kind of hard to avoid. And somewhat mandated if you're Christian.

I think about my Grandmother on her birthday, but I don't stop to ruminate on how old she'd be, what she'd be doing, what present I'd get her, how excited she'd be - or any of the other things I think about when Thomas' birthday rolls around.

Dead baby birthdays are a whole different animal.

Sometimes I worry that I'm walking the fine line between remembrance and morbidness (a fact that is in itself a hard thing to reconcile - that anything about your child should be even remotely morbid). Is it "off" to make a cake for a dead child? Is it strange to make a point of doing something to mark the day?

Maybe it is. But maybe only to people who've never had to.

The rules are different for the rest of us.

And until the world at large learns to feel more comfortable dealing with and acknowledging our sorrow, we'll have no choice but to continue making the rules up as we go along, teaching them to those who will never have to use them, and gently passing them on to those who will.

*****


Naomi - I'm so sorry. In three and a half years I haven't read a story that is so much like my own either. I just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you.