“Other people made birds.” R blurted out as he came into the kitchen behind Val, who was skipping into the kitchen, eager to show me the fruit of her labor- a pop-up card made that morning at a (free) art workshop.
When my gaze landed on the pop-up card, poudly held up in Val’s hand, my heart ached.
Amongst the various elements of the card is something that flies in the sky. Most kids in the class followed the instructor’s example of a bird.
Val told me, “One girl made a bee, and there was a boy, he made a helicopter.”
Valerie, she made “an angel” and that angel has a name– Ferdinand.
I don’t know how to put into words the many emotions that went through me. But it was only in the middle of the night that I sobbed into my pillow.
And I thought, “Oh, and people think it should all be over already. Time to pack up and move on… only they have no idea all the time we have been moving, only that Ferdinand comes with us. We do not bury him ten-feet deep under the ground, cover up the hole, dust our hands, adjust our compass and be done with it. New day, new direction, new life.”
Which is why this paragraph from “An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination”, Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir about her stillbirth and the subsequent pregnancy resonated with me:
I want a book that acknowledges that life goes on but that death goes on, too, that a person who is dead is a long, long story. You move on from it, but the death will never disappear from view.
How true, how true. And how often we are subjected to double-standards when the person in question is a baby who died too young, or who did not even live long enough to exit from the womb alive. We can talk about Shakespeare and van Gogh and Andy Warhol. But a dead baby? Goodness forbid! It is time to move on. I don’t understand. Why? What is the rationale? Because dead babies do not leave behind any legacies? They do not warrant the remembering because all they did was to exist in the womb; dreams of theirs known only to their parents? If you wrote, if you drew, that is great. Many years later, we are still going to toast champagne in your rememberance. But, if all you did was to live in the womb and then died, hmph… ….
What makes a life worth remembering?
I guess, again, McCracken hit that nail right on the head:
A stillborn child is really only ever his death. He didn’t live, that’s how he’s defined.
That’s how most people see it. It’s a dead thing, like an insect accidentally squished under your shoe. The end. Over. Dead. Pick it up, gingerly, with a paper towel, throw it in the garbage can, walk away, forget about it. Forget that it ever happened. That sticky, gooey mess under your shoe.
And, that’s what grips us bereaved mothers of tiny babies. Our babies, born so silent, so tiny, so still, a life cut way too short. Forgotten. Thrown into the bin. Handled with masked disgust and fear, gingerly. Defined by his brevity of life.
Only we all know it is more than that. Our baby was also the pregnancy, the tremendous joy, the hope, the dreams, the names, the plans we made, the anticipation, the silly secretive giggles, the list we furtively made and hid away about the things we are going to do together when he is five, or ten, or twenty… it is the building up and the shattering of dreams, picking up the shards and not knowing how to ever fit the pieces back again. It is the after, the coping, the questioning, the trying to find an answer, the surrendering, the moving on… with death a constant in our rear-view mirror. Maybe our babies are now but death, but they are still our babies. Still carried with us.
And that freaks people out.
McCracken wrote, “Closure is bullshit.”
Boy, she hit the jackpot, once again.
As I read her book, I realized we all talk about the same things, only we may say it in different ways. She too wrote about the people who cared incessantly, and then there are those who took too long to respond….. or who never wrote. I’ll tell you, there is this mom, she joined this book discussion group but dropped off after a while. I stayed on but later I joined an online group that she started, about eating local. She had to approve me (to join the group) and she personally answered a few questions I had. We share similar parenting ideals. She knew I was pregnant with Ferdinand. When Ferdinand died, I sent her the death announcement too. She never wrote back. Just silence.
Then, a while back, she emerged on the homeschool groups I am also on. And a few weeks back, she saw me when I turned up to pick up my share of locally-raised meat. She approached me, all smiles, saying “We have met before…” you know, that book discussion group and all that stuff. And she told me how she is in the homeschool groups now and she and her son loving it all. I just said, “Oh yes, I remember… …” and then I took my meats and crawled into my car and left. I did not say goodbye, she was busy checking her order. Back in the good old days, when I was polite and considerate, I would have sent an email later that afternoon- so nice to have to met you! Sorry I had to take off! Hope to see you around soon!
Bah.
I was not going to do that. I just felt… I dunno what’s that word I am looking for. Like, a convenience item? Before, when we did not have to “see” each other, I was conveniently forgotten. Now, chances are that we do see each other, so suddenly I am “remembered”? Sometimes, when I talk to Ferdinand, I will tell him about incidences like this, and I will say, “This is so crappy, you know? Glad you don’t have to deal with this sh*t.”
++++++++++++++++
When I saw Val’s card, my heart ached and cried, and it also made little heaps of gladness. He has never left us. He is always here, although not here. The girls, they are sad that he died, but they also demonstrate great joy for the brief time that they “knew” him and anticipated him. He is an easy sibling to live with. He will never spit, snatch, argue, whittle away the portions of dessert or destroy their toys. He is often seen in their pictures, hovering in the sky, as a fairy, an angel, a bird, a butterfly. He is the sun, the moon or that bright star in the sky. But they do not forget that he had died. I never remind them of that, but they never do forget. There are others though, who wish to hush them on that.
A couple of weeks ago while in San Diego, we met up with a couple for dinner. They were friends who had relocated out of state. Incidentally they were both in San Diego for a conference too and we had to meet up. Afterall, it had been four years since they had moved away. Last fall, we thought we would be in LA, with our new baby of course, and they insisted that we visit them and stay a few days in their new house. That plan fell through, as we all know by now. This fall, without planning, we converged in San Diego and ended up in a Persian restaurant. They had left their three boys at home so the girls received all their attention. Val talked to her about this new baby, and said, “I hope this baby will be alive. Ferdinand died, you know?” and she hushed her, stealing a glance at me and whispering, “Don’t bring that up. It makes your mama sad.”
At that time I pretended not to hear, neither did I respond. But I really wanted to tell her, despite her best intentions, my children never forgot. Even if we have not a single physical reminder of Ferdinand in our house, they have never forgotten. Moreover, say it loud or say it soft, mama will always be sad. There is no antidote to this poison of pain and loss.
So, when McCracken wrote that “You can’t out-travel sadness” she spoke for me again. She found the words for me, again.
When in San Diego, I wrote to a fellow bereaved, also awaiting with abated breath for a new baby to arrive. I told her, “Oh, D., here in SD, it is beautiful. Blue skies, warm sun, cool breeze. But every moment is tinged with sadness.” Here is how McCracken described it, as only a brilliant writer and a pained heart can:
Of course you can’t out-travel sadness. You will find it has smuggled itself along in your suitcase. It coats the camera lens, it flavors the local cuisine… You may even feel proud of its stubbornness as it follows you up the bell towers and monuments, as it pants in your ear while you take in the view. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings or on deserted beaches. I take them for walks. Sometimes I get them drunk. Back at home we generally understand each other better.
Yes, exactly. You cannot get your grip on sadness’s claws and throw it off your back. But you can learn to understand it (and yourself, and the people and world around you) and it becomes a pal of sorts. You realize that it has always been by your side, and actually, not an enemy, nothing despicable; not something to be afraid of or to run away from.
So these days, sadness, and death has become a part of my landscape. At first, it is like a smudge on the window pane, truly annoying and you grab a cloth and try to rub it away, only that is not possible. How could you? It is as essential to life as air is. So, I learned to live with it. But I cannot say I am fully comfortable with it yet. And so, it makes people around me fidget too. But there is nothing I can do about it. When people ask me, why are you taking so freaking long? I really have not been able to explain. I have tried, but it seems, unless you have your baby died, it is almost impossible to understand what this life of mine is like. So, after some attempts, I have thrown in the towel, spit in the dust, gotten angry and hissed through my teeth. And I screamed back, why do you so not freaking understand?!
Well, there are people around me who understand, and their babies did not die. What makes the distinction between these two groups of people? I do not know. I only think it is a matter of whether people wish to understand or not.
++++++++++++
I tell you, nothing will ever assure me again. Never. Ever.
We had an ultrasound this morning. Checked to see if the placenta is still healthy (yes), if the fluid level is normal (yes) and if the baby’s kidneys look fine (yes). The technician chirped, “Everything looks great!” And I mentally added, “For now, yes.”
Every nanosecond makes a difference. Every nanosecond a myriad of things can happen, including my baby dying, again.
I wait, not daring to exhale. I realize there is not much I can do. I can do yoga, meditate, eat well. But I am nothing in the monumental force of life and nature.
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Ferdinand's Gifts 