Hurting/healing

This morning I did the Chakras DVD as I have not worked on my chakras for a long time. At the end, Ravi Singh said, “Put your hands in prayer and listen to these words. Take them to heart and live them in your life.” Then moving from the first chakra to the eighth, he reaffirmed the positive manifestations of the chakras and urged me to live them. For the heart chakra, he said, “Let you heart be open to loving and being loved.” And I could feel my heart shrink back a little. Lately I often have a weird, morbid movie that plays at the back of my head: I reach inside and remove my heart. Then I put my heart inside a mortar and calmly I take a pestle and I pound it. And I keep pounding until it’s all mushy and liquid and just a red mess. It looks almost like my placenta, my sick placenta.
I really want to just shake all the bad stuff out, pound all the bad stuff out. The hurt, the pain, the disbelief, the anger, the sadness… but why I choose such a “violent” way to resolve it I do not know. Maybe it is the masculine aspect of grieving that is manifesting itself. Maybe it seems better than just soothing a balm over it. Maybe the thought of slashing out at oneself, hurting oneself feels good, feels in control when one cannot bring a life to fruition.
I should go out and strip a tree bark.

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Sadness/gladness

Dear Ferdinand,

today we went to see J. The girls were so thrilled. And I cannot blame them. She is just such a gift. You can feel she has grounding energy. I wonder if you remember her hands on my belly, touching you? She puts her heart into her healing. Bless her, bless her.

Bless many people, bless all the people. People who commit random acts of kindness. People who shine quietly. People who walk along in silence. People who just let me repeat and moan and groan and whine.

You know, after I left J and driving away, I smiled when I looked at the sky. I can see us performing random acts of kindnesses; having fun with it, and you brought me to this idea. I started to understand a bit more about the meditation that asked me to let sadness turn into gladness. I recall all the acts of kindnesses that have been acted upon me. Again, Ferdinand, my son, bless all these wonderful people who spreads goodness all around. Bless the nurse, who, at the other far corner of the world, is holding a woman’s hand as she bears down to bring her baby into this world. Bless the man who digs his hand into the earth and drips his sweat so we can enjoy nourishing vegetables. Bless the people standing under artificial lights, making sure everything is under control, so our phones ring, and the computer run and the lights come on and the oven heats up when we wishes it to be so. Bless the bees and butterflies who pollinate our plants and flowers. Bless everyone, everything. Living, or not. Breathing, or not. We are all part of this big web; how can we not be thankful for the other, for without the other there is no Me.

Tomorrow is Halloween. We will be at V’s house for a potluck dinner and then terrorizing the neighborhood demanding for candies. Your sisters are so excited they are going to pass out. We will miss you. And very much indeed. But I know you will be with us. Tomorrow I am going to meet a mom, S, whom I talked with on the phone for 50 minutes this afternoon. She told me it is calming to talk with me about her parenting concerns. She told me she understands now why we are homeschooling. And Ferdinand, I think she has no idea about you at all. I think she totally forgot that I was pregnant. I do not know for sure, but I think it just escaped her mind. She said she wants to talk with me some more tomorrow evening. And I am thinking how will the other mums I am going to meet tomorrow going to react to me; going to act around me. Other than V and L, I have not seen the rest for a long time; we are not that close. Most of them got the birth/death announcement, and I guess they are wondering too what they should say to me tomorrow. And I am thinking, if S will be put on a spot if she hears someone talking about you, Ferdinand my son, and that she had forgotten; or that she knew but did not say anything about me the whole of 50 minutes on the phone. Whatever it is, bless us all tomorrow night. Let us remember you in loving memory. Let us say your name, many many times over.

Today we painted pumpkins. I bought three mini pumpkins because I know your father will not be home when we are painting. Then, as I sat on the kitchen floor, at the small table, with your sisters, I realize that the third pumpkin should be yours. So, after painting a “scary” face, I turned to the other side and painted many yellow stars, for you. That yellow color is called “Sunlight”; so I only used that color because your sisters say by day you are the sun. I think you would have liked it.

Missing you, and filled with love,
Mama

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Acceptance

Acceptance is not so easy. I have been thinking, but this is the only thing I can do.

But I will find myself doing things like: when sinking into a tub filled with water and finding a place to be comfortable, I imagine what it was like for Ferdinand to squirm and twist and turn and double up and find an optimal sleeping position. And then, laying in the tub, hoping the sea salt would soothe my muscles, my thoughts will wander to think, “What was it like when he died?” Then I sat up, and pulled the plug. I watched the water swirl away, thinking, “Was it like this when the amniotic fluids went down on him? When there was no more fluid around him?” I could feel the cold air swarm around me. He must have felt cold. Yet, after he was born, and I held him, he was warm, and I was surprised. (Then later, the nurses kept bringing a warm blanket to lay on him, and I thought, “Why do they keep doing that? He is dead, he cannot feel cold.” Then I understand that they do not want me to feel his body turning cold. Such an idiot I am, because why else had I held him so close and tight, if not because as a motherly instinct I felt I needed to protect and warm him?) And after all the water was gone, I asked Ferdinand in my head, “Was it like this, Ferdinand?”

Maybe the path to Acceptance is to do something. Like the random acts of kindnesses described on the website of the MISS Foundation. I could think of some things. Maybe I should just start doing, and slowly I can heal.

It must be so hard for people to hear me repeating all these… thoughts… repeatedly. Who wants to listen to such dark, morbid things over and over again? It is hard, when out in the light, to be drawn into such a dark place. I can understand and accept if people prefer to stay in the light. I am thinking perhaps it is about time to wind down this journal already. But for me I need to wear this path down; I need to pace here, up and down, up and down, before grief and healing comes to fruition. It is not the most comfortable place to be, yet I am grateful for the growth I am experiencing. Now, if only I can generate more goodness out of this process, this experience. I can, from this dark, dark place of grief, turn away from the world, and shut my doors forever to humanity. Harden my heart and live no longer in warm blood. But I cannot. Ferdinand’s dying only brings me closer to that furious swirling eye of the storm that is called Life, and I cannot run away. Ferdinand, Ferdinand, Ferdinand. In one of Lorraine Ash’s articles she wrote one of the things one can do is to utter the demised baby’s name. She said, to her, Victoria Helen is one of the most beautiful sounds on earth, more beautiful than a symphony or the best poem. Victoria Helen, Victoria Helen, how beautiful that sounds, even if in a most heartbreaking way! After reading that, I am saying his name more often too. I think Ash is right. Ferdinand, Ferdinand, Ferdinand. Star baby Ferdinand. Ardent voyager Ferdinand. Brave baby Ferdinand. Heartbreaker Ferdinand. Forever star Ferdinand.

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Life touches Life

I think there is only one book out there written by a mother who experienced stillbirth. Lorraine Ash (www.lorraineash.com) is a journalist so she had the gift of words to express it eloquently for mothers who felt the pain but who could not articulate it. Her daughter Victoria Helen Ash was stillborn on June2, 1999 and the book “Life Touches Life: A Mother’s Story of Stillbirth and Healing” was published in 2004. Lorraine Ash never had another child. She continues to be a journalist but had become involved in the stillbirth community, providing peer support, and writing articles on it.

When I came across this book title, I knew I wanted to read it. As she wrote in one of her articles, stillbirth is one of the loneliest grief (though when in grief, when one suffers a loss, that overwhelming feeling of loneliness and abandonment is undeniable the greatest one can ever feel) ever. It is because no one, other than the mother and father, had known that person. That person died without even first greeting the world, so it is hard for most people to understand what that grief or loss is about. Some of the things Ash wrote about that people said to her can be astounding, really shocking. For example, a fellow writer told her to abandon her book project, telling her, “Births happen, Stillbirths don’t.” One woman even told her, if she killed herself, she could be with her dead daughter. I cannot imagine such words ever passing anyone’s lips, even though, I have to admit this thought of dying had crossed my mind. I felt I had to die and follow Ferdinand because I felt I had to complete my duty as a mother to him; I had to love him, nurture him, watch him grow. But I did not kill myself, because I still have two daughters on this earth, and they are my heaven on earth. Where Ferdinand went, we will eventually go to, we will eventually follow, but his time came earlier than ours did. So we can only wait till the time comes for our grand reunion.

Ash wrote of stillbirths being badly understood, and the least known. Yes, before Ferdinand died, even though I knew babies die, I was far from the world of stillbirths too. Now, i know that it happens 71 times a day. That is a horrendous number that cannot be more obscene. That statistic shocked me, right into my very core. When i read it, i wanted to close the book and flung it into the darkest corner. It was too painful to know. Again, I think, how can this be? This world really is so full of suffering, but so many times I have chosen to avert my eyes! I know well the teachings of Buddha yet i choose to ignore; I chose to not acknowledge that suffering can exist on such a level and intensity. Every day, I thought, EVERY DAY, 71 mothers are reeling from the death of their child gone too soon. This cannot be real. And this cannot be true. I close my eyes and think of 71 women, and their stories. Probably not each of them is in a hospital room; probably not every one of them got to hold their babies and dress them and hug them and kiss them, for the first and last time. How many of them will name their baby? What kind of support do they get thereafter? How their hearts bleed forever?! I just cannot surmise, and I just cannot carry the heavy, sick weight of this truth. Jackie Kennedy Onassis had a stillbirth. Her first pregnancy resulted in a daughter stillborn at seven months, something I did not know but learned from Ash’s book. They wanted to name her Arabella, but when she died, they did not name her. How did she heal and continue her existence in such a beautiful and graceful manner? I do not know. So many stories untold and unknown.

Ash wrote of nature vs humanity. She said every time, Nature will prevail. Who can disagree? No one yet can fathom the workings and mysteries of the great Nature. Does she truly have a mind and philosophy? Why is she predictable yet unpredictable? When she said a life should not continue, there can be no force great enough to stop her. Does she always have a great reason to not let a life force continue? I am not so sure. No one will ever know. I can only say, though I am still shaking and shivering in the face of this monumental force, I want to stand up. I want to face Her and not in fear. I am in awe of her power but I am not going to let her scare me with her power. I have power too, i have strength too and I have Love. I will live some more and love some more and I think quite surely I will birth some more. Though I am scared to death I cannot let her scare me into not letting my love flow. You cannot be scared. You dare to love, you dare to lose. In loving, you acknowledge and you also accept the loss and hurt and pain that comes with it. I can understand so much better now, that Love and Loss truly are brothers in arms. Motherhood was how I came to understand my own fragile mortality, and I believe many women walked this path too. When you give birth to Life, you realize acutely that just as life begins, Life ends. One day, you will die, and your children will suffer a loss of you, but they will go on to continue that cycle of Life beginning, and Life ending.

Another thing in Ash’s book that helped me greatly is the idea that our beloved stillborn babies never really leave. How can they? They are always here. Invisible, perhaps, but they never leave. They have this imprint in us; in our cells, in our consciousness and our being. And so, even though it seems they have moved on, they are always here. This is how I feel about Ferdinand too; that duality of gone and yet here; never existed and yet a forever existence that had began before Time even started; the feeling that he was here and yet never here. I think perhaps that is why I sometimes feel compelled to write him a letter, so i feel I am talking to him. Sometimes I talk to him in my head, like I am just rehearsing a conversation that I need to realize with someone, just so long as I see him later.

Ash had a chapter titled “Insensitive people and Extraordinary Kindness”. I have not really met insensitive people. And, I want to think, people are mostly just not knowing what to say, what to do. And, also, as she also wrote in her book, stillbirths scare people. It is not highly researched and understood, least talked about (compared to abortions and miscarriages) and people just in general are afraid to broach the subject of death. For a while after her daughter’s death, Ash wrote how she felt like she was bad luck on two legs, and I think I felt the same too. I also felt I was wearing Death on my face; for people to look upon my face was for them to look into the eyes of Death and I was afraid for people to see me in that light. I also felt like a murderer, somewhat, with blood fresh on my hand. I could not understand Ferdinand’s death, and I could only attribute any reason to me. Me, the mother womb, who is supposed to nurture and protect her unborn child, and yet he died. It is such a great betrayal of one’s own body against oneself, and such a scary thing to think of, that I can only think I killed my own child. I told Cecille it hurt so much to think that he died inside of me. What did I do wrong? i still ask this question, and a bit too much of late. I don’t suppose it helps anyone,  I just cannot help it.

Ash wrote of people who faded from her life because of Victoria Helen. Some people became impatient of her grieving and evolving process and they just left. I can understand. It is hard to sit together with someone in the darkness. To just be there and be a silent company. Ash had a male friend like that. He just sat with her and did not hurry her out to go look at the light or be “normal” again. I was deeply touched by all she could tell of this friend of hers, who cried with her and for her, and held her space and just let her be. I try to think how I would have been, how I can be, and how I will be, for someone who needs also company in darkness. I can imagine the discomfort of people around me; not knowing what to say, what to do. Just wanting to be able to act normal with me, talking about our kids, the weather, fun things…. although we all have our darknesses, and our periods of darkness, it is still not a very nice place to be in, and so some people disappear. And I think some people fade out maybe because they felt guilty that they were unable to wait in that darkness.

Ash also told of the stories that illustrated for her the tragedy of life and the fragility of humanity. Those are not stories you want to read. Like the policeman whose wife and two young children were killed in an instant when an eighteen-wheeler hit their car. And that old man who said that no, the picture of the two young girls on the desk were not his granddaughters but that the photo belonged to a colleague, and then went on to tell Lorraine that he has no grand-daughters. He said, he married at 17 and his wife died when he was 19. Then he re-married and had two beautiful daughters but his second wife died when she was 42. His younger daughter, at the age of 22, was killed in an accident by a drunk driver. And his older daughter, aged 30, heard of the news of her sister’s death, had a heart attack and died. What can you say, what can you say when you encounter such stories? You want to ask who had a hand in all these? You want to ask if that was truly deserved by that person? And really, who deserve to have their children die on them? I don’t think anyone can be so evil to deserve such a fate, and if someone is truly evil at heart, and have done extremely awful things, then who has the right to punish him? How can wrongness ever be righted? Even if it is to be a precious lesson, can the price of the lesson truly be so expensive to be a life, especially a young life full or hope and promises? Suddenly, this world has no sense. it makes no sense. It is just crazy and you wonder how you can make it through it all.

In her book Ash included two poetic tributes to Victoria Helen from her Cherokee friends. In these poems I found some comfort:

HUMBLE THOUGHTS FOR BABY VICTORIA
Little Victoria Helen Ash has taken
The path of the ancestors- a path of
Goodness and Honor. Her voice
Will be forever heard in the wind.
Her face will be seen in every
Flower- each rose will be
Touched by the moisture of her
Lips. Each day will be more
Beautiful because she passed our
Way. When sadness touches
Our hearts she will smile and whisper,
I am only a breath away.
– Marti MomFeather

TO OUR LITTLE SISTER

May our Mother the Earth guide your tiny feet,
May our Father the Sky keep his arms around you,
May our Grandmother the Sun warm your cold days,
May our Grandfather the Moon
keep the light in your heart,
May the Star People light their fires
on your path to Heaven,
and may the Holy Spirit always shield you
from the pain.
Blessings to you, Victoria Helen Ash.
– Brian Standing Bear

Another thing that really resonated with me is what Ash write of the illusion of control and how technology gives us the illusion of control. Ash had a normal pregnancy, she wrote that she passed every test with flying colors; Victoria’s heartbeat was vigorous at every check, ultrasounds were good and trouble-free. She felt totally fine, even one week past her due date. You think if you do everything right, all will be ok. You think if the ultrasound does not show anything, everything will be ok. This is where you know you have no hand, no bargaining right. We have no control. We can only make the best of what can be. Though it is devastating to learn, it is a useful and valuable lesson. We have this much control, but this much is still a lot. Maybe we cannot choose Life or Death, but we can still make a lot of good choices in the in-between part, the Living part, how we wanna live. Ferdinand, Ferdinand, Ferdinand, my dear little precious child. I wish I could hold him and love him, but it is not to be. Yet, that love will never die. Maybe he is not physically here to receive it, but I sure wish he senses it and feels it and is happy for it. I can only hold him in my heart.

Reading this book was a gift. I am thankful that Lorraine Ash did it, despite what people have said to her. Her pain, her loss, her honesty and her insights, are gifts to me. So is Ferdinand, my bright star in the sky. My precious gift that I hold in my heart.

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Why there are stars

L sent me a poem she saw on a candlestick about stars being openings in heaven through which love is poured forth. Today I went to the website of the MISS foundation (www.missfoundation.org ) and looked at their store and saw this poem again:

Perhaps, they are not stars
But rather openings in Heaven,
Where the love of our lost ones
Pours down through
and shines upon us
To let us know they are happy.

There, they indicated that this was a poem inspired by an Eskimo legend. I did a search online but only turned on this:

An Eskimo Legend

To the Eskimos the stars are not just put in the sky to give light or guide the wandering traveler. They are living things, sent by some twist of fate to roam the heavens forever, never swerving from their paths. One of these creatures who left the earth and went to live in the sky was Nanuk the bear.

One day Nanuk was waylaid by a pack of fierce Eskimo hunting dogs. Nanuk knew only too well that Eskimo dogs are not to be trifled with, and he tried to give them the slip. Faster and faster he ran over the ice, but the dogs were still at his heels. For hours the chase went on, yet he could not shake them off.

In the fury and terror of the hunt, they had come very close tothe edge of the world, but neither Nanuk or his pursuers noticed. When at last they reached it, they plunged straight over into the sky and turned into stars.

To the Europeans they are the Pleiades, in the constellation of Taurus the bull. But to this day Eskimos see them as Nanuk the bear, with the pack of savage dogs out for his blood. Up in the sky directly overhead the Eskimos see a giant caribou, though we call it the Great Bear.

Over on the other side of the sky, they can make out some stars in the shape of an oil lamp. (We say it is the constellation of Cassiopeia.) On the horizon between then lamp and the caribou the Eskimos see stars like three steps carved out of the snow. They call it the stairway from Earth to the Sky, but we talk of Orion the Hunter. Sometimes, on the darkest nights, the Eskimos’ dead ancestors come out to dance. The stars are the lights round the dance floor. Then Gulla glows across the sky: the shimmering pattern of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

To the Norsemen it was Bifrost, the bridge from our world to Asgard, home of the gods. But to the people of the Far North, the loveliest and most wonderful star of all is the sun. They see her as a young girl of dazzling beauty. In their brief Arctic summer she is there night and day, for this is the season of the midnight Sun, when her brother Aningan, the Moon, chases her round and round the North Pole so she cannot escape over the horizon. Aningan the moon is a great hunter, and he chases animals as well as his sister the Sun. He has a faithful pack of hunting dogs to help him. Sometimes his hounds are carried away by the joy of the hunt, and they jump over the edge of the sky and run down the stairway in Orion to Earth. That is why there are shooting stars.

After hunting Aningan rests in his igloo, which he shares with his cousin Irdlirvirissong. His cousin loves jokes and games, and sometimes she comes out and dances in the sky. She is so funny that if the Eskimos see her they roar with laughter. But first they make sure none of their sorcerers or their other leaders are nearby, for if Irdlirvirissong knows that people are laughing at her she will be angry, and her punishments are terrible. She kills people who make fun of her, and eats them up. The sorcerers are powerful, and ordinary Eskimos tremble before them, especially Angakog, the mightiest of all. Yet even Angakog’s magic arts are powerless against the planet Jupiter. For Jupiter is mother to the Sun and the Moon, and a constant peril to all sorcerers. They have to be very, very careful, or Old Mother Jupiter will open them up and devour their livers. Angakog trembles in fear of her, even as the ordinary folk tremble in fear of him.

(http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/WhyTheStarsAreInTheSky-Eskimo.html)

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Yearning

I finished re-reading all my journal entries. And I sat and thought, “So? Now, what?!”

I know I should be doing a myriad other things. But, this “should”. Ah.

What *should* I be doing?

I should be writing bragging posts and emails about my new baby, almost 3 months old now! Sweetest, cutest, coolest thing ever. Most handsome baby in the world. Motherly bliss. Domestic chaos. Blah, blah, blah… …

Of course, I should start thinking about dinner already, and I don’t know what we should eat for breakfast tomorrow, coz there’s no more bread in the freezer (except all the crusts that are waiting to be made into breadcrumbs) and there are no bananas to make muffins. I can convince the girls to have eggs and bacon, but R needs his carb. He will demand a slice of bread and maybe I can give him one of those bread crusts. It is still carbohydrate even if it is mostly crust, no?

I should be doing a million other things except sitting here and thinking of my loss. Maybe I ought to be whipped for not having learned my lesson well.– when you have lost something so monumental, you should learn to be much more acutely present to your life, to your every moment. To live like your next breath is your last, final one, and there is no take two.

Instead, I sit and indulge and wallow.

I did look at some ideas for scary snacks for Halloween next week. So, I did do something constructive that contributes to our present and our future.

Our future. Ah.

What the heck do we do with our future?? R said this morning there is a lot we need to discuss. This weekend we need to discuss and make plans and make the yard look decent again. I pulled a chair and sat down with him at the breakfast table. I told him there was a baby at the woman’s circle I attended last night. He looked at me.

“Did you know there was going to be a baby there?”
“Yes. She was born July 1st. I met the mom when she was pregnant also. I met her only once.”
“You knew the baby was going to be there?”
“I do not expect her to abandon her baby at home because of me. Plus, there will always be babies wherever you go… …”
“Yes… … I guess you are right… …”

Later in the morning the girls asked me to watch Wizard of Oz (again) with them. So I did while folding the laundry. And after I was done with the laundry I laid on the floor, and Sophia came and spoon with me. She took my arm and draped it over her body. She is so warm. She is such a tiny peanut, so sweet. (And she so drives me nuts sometimes.) She turned and touched my cheeks and I kissed her and she kissed me back.

And I thought, “I want to have a baby.”

And I thought of the words of the counsellor… “No, you do not go and get pregnant. You wait and you grieve and you mourn until you totally heal….. remember, children are very resilient…. you just mourn all you need to… …”

I know, I know. You are not supposed to get pregnant so your baby who died will not think that he is replaceable. You also should not get pregnant because you cannot replace your dead child with another one. If you think you can displace your grief with a new pregnancy, you are wrong, because you cannot be pregnant when you are grieving. Not supposed to; should; should not; do not; cannot. Screw all these.

I just need to express my yearning. A yearning that cannot be fulfilled because I need to, and want to, honor my grieving and mourning. Really, what others say do not matter. I don’t care if they also had a stillborn, I know I sound rude and crude, but, how can someone tell me what i need to do, and what is best for me?

I am yearning only because he died and I miss him. I just wish he is here; I do not wish to replace. When someone dies, and if that person is an adult, you do not try to replace that person. You grieve, and you talk about that person a lot. As if, by sharing your memories of that person, you make him or her alive again. It is just a very common and instinctive thing. But when a baby dies, before you even hear his first cry, it is difficult to talk to other people because your memory is a very different one. You do not even have his favorite object to finger over and caress… … you cannot share favorite stories of things you did with him, or share your favorite joke or movie or restaurant or song… … and it is very shitty in this sense. (I need to stop writing these words like “shit” and “shitty”; maybe this is a sign I should go and read some higher-class literary works instead of my own journal entries. I need some self-improvement here.)

I am yearning for a baby. I yearn for my baby lost.

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