from the archives: make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh

As I've been looking through the archives, I came across this piece posted by Jess about laughing, and it struck a chord. Not because it's the way I felt--actually I don't remember doing a lot of laughing, hysterical or otherwise, after Joseph died--but because this piece is so different from my own experience. I'm even a little bit envious of this ability to laugh. To me, laughter can be a shield. A way to deflect the hurtful or misguided or inane things other people say and do. And I've never been very good at that. No, that's an understatement. I'm terrible at it. 

This was originally posted in August of 2011.

~ Burning Eye

My daughter had a tiny little coffin. It was small and white. It was also free. They don’t charge for baby coffins in England. How do you put a price on honouring the memory of your child? They don’t charge for baby funerals at all, unless you want something out-of-the-ordinary.

We wanted ordinary. We wanted the ordinary alive baby that other people took home. Instead we had an ordinary little coffin.

We discussed our wishes with the funeral director. She showed us a death catalogue: the caskets, the urns, the cars. She said ‘you can have any car you want, even a Limo.’ We turned away, our shoulders shaking. She left the room, respectful of our grief.

But we weren’t crying.

She offered us the limo and our eyes met. We knew we were thinking the same thing. We were thinking of driving up and down the main drag of our city hanging out the windows of the limo like kids on their way to prom; whooping it up with our little tiny corpse.

We laughed. Because what the fuck else would we do?

The day after we’d been to see Iris for the last time, I was gathering the hot, fresh laundry from our dryer. I held it in my arms and breathed deeply. David said ‘isn’t it nice, having something warm to hold?’ Loaded silence. Hysterical laughter.

We laughed. Because what the fuck else would we do?

We overheard our living daughter and her little friend. They were playing a crying game. They were sobbing huge, fake sobs. ‘Oh boo hoo. Oh boo hoo hoo. We are so sad. Boo hoo hoo hoo. We are so sad that baby Iris is dead. Boo hoo.’

We laughed.

A relative brought a gift for me. A lovely, well-meaning, slightly misguided gift. Iris scented soap-on-a-rope. Because who wouldn’t wash their armpits with sweet babylost memories?

We laughed.

A former colleague bemoaned the lack of sympathy extended to her when her cat had an operation: ‘when Jess’ baby died, everyone was so supportive, but no one seems to care as much about my cat.’ 

We laughed.

When I was pregnant with my son, we'd high-five after every sonogram: 'Woohoo! Let's give it up for an evident HEARTBEAT!'

We laughed

Today my husband had a bad day. A very bad day. He said 'well... no one died... No, wait, actually she did!'

We laughed.

We laughed.

We laughed.

Because what the fuck else would we do?

And the questions, as Jess originally posted: What makes you laugh now, following the loss of your baby or babies? Do you find humour in the darkest of places, or are some things Just Not Funny? 

of water and wolf: we are altered.

(This post mentions living children and family life).

Four years, almost five means the normalcy of life slips around us like a comfortable coat again. An average day, the rumble of life and bounce of activity and I fool myself successfully that we are always as we were once.

Bags packed. Lunch made. Car filled. Drop offs accomplished. Teacher alerted to latest mini-drama in the life of the children.

The internal dialogue: "five bags, not six, five lunches, five seats, 4 schools, no reception aged child" is a whisper.

I have it in place, checked, muffled, restrained.

Biding time.

***

He died and a day would pass and tears would come at night, pent up exhausted emotion, hidden until the little ears and eyes were sleeping. Flood gates opened willingly, a barely contained tide of sorrow. Roaring sobs. Anguish. Despair.

All the words and all the agony that each of us here knows.

He died and a week would pass and a grief tsunami would blindside me, the choking horror flinging itself above the dam walls and tearing my feet from under me. Swollen eyes. Wracking wails. A darkness that swallowed and drowned and took the light, the oxygen, the hope.

He died and a month slid by; numb, disbelieving, functioning, robotic. Smile politely, say the words, a film across my eyes and the world seen through a rain streaked window pane. The constant fall of droplets, the hammering storm and an eye that saw sun but could not believe in it.

And no rainbows. Not one.

He died and a year passed by; some ill constructed raft, knotted from driftwood branch and stray half-rotten vine kept me afloat. And somehow, somehow, I began to float along the current.

And one day, I found that I had a paddle in my hands. And somewhere... somewhere... I must have begun to row.

***

The day - this almost 5 years on day - clatters to a close; the hallway strewn with bags and my outraged berating voice as I trip across a boot and shout for chores to be completed. Those muted, bleary grief days seem so far away when the children slid to bed - often found curled together, sleeping in comfort pairs - and we huddled beneath a blanket and stared blankly at TV trash, all resources spent and the grief storm raging all around us.

We rarely mention him. We rarely speak of grief. Less and less do we need to poke gently at the wounds that grief left across the children  - or ourselves - and consider what balm we need to offer. My husband is not one for pulling up the past and I could be forgiven for thinking that all of it - Freddie, grief, loss and all the rest - is long gone from his mind.

But we are changed. In all the murk and carnage that came after, we seemed to reach for mindful rest, to be together in some other way than vacant entertainment. And so we sit, companionable, entertained by our own pursuits but together. Reading, making, doing, gaming, writing, learning. And sometimes I tentatively pull the threads of grief to see if he still has some and mostly, he stitches firmly at the ragged edge and neatens down the the damaged patch without a reciprocating comment. Polite, gentle, closed.

He read Wolf Hall 5 times. I couldn't imagine why, having shied away from it myself. But lately, we've listened to it together, sharing spoken word and taking our own meaning from it. From time to time, he reaches out, touches my hand or arm and each time I know what is coming: a loss, a grief, some pain or hurt written inside, and his care to let me know that he is there. That he notices these parts, I think. I hope.

I keep my face unflinching, afraid to break and stop him offering the comfort, lest it is too much to risk again. But I do notice.

“It is not the stars that make us, it is circumstance and necessita...." (Hilary Mantle, Wolf Hall).

How has grief affected your relationship? Are you different? Better? Worse? Are you raging at difference or can you offer a path or way or hope to those seeking acceptance and understanding of each other and themselves?

mother with darkness and light: a conversation

Today's guest post comes from Z's mum. She writes, "My son Zephyr made me a mother in December 2013. He was stillborn. Since the day he left my body I have taken pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. Writing is not a cure-all, but it has certainly been my walking stick as I journey through grief." We are honored today to share this piece by Z's mum, a sort of play/poem that echoes the internal monologue we babylost often have with ourselves. 

Stark naked and stripped of all she believed in, Mother stood alone. Her arms aching empty.

Mother: Who are you?

Darkness: I am darkness.
 
Light: I am light.

Mother: Who am I? Where am I?

Darkness: You are here. I have enveloped you.

Light: You are now. You are yourself. You are slowly finding your way.
I am here. We are all of us here. Dark will always be, but so will I.

Mother: But I...

Darkness: Ha, you fool! You'd been heading at full pelt towards eternal sunshine.
Your broody bright grin, emitted pure joy of motherhood, glowing from within. Didn't you know about me? About death?

Mother: I... I thought I was becoming a mother.

Darkness threatened to overwhelm. Mother's shivering body crumpled to the floor. She sobbed incessantly, uncontrollably. Light reached over to her, Mother spoke falteringly.

Mother: I had imagined...

Light: I am not the light you'd imagined, I am not the source that you were drawn towards. I am sorry that your son isn't here to giggle in the blissful radiance of your smile, that you have been submerged in motherhood without.

Darkness: You once shone as warm and iridescent as sun herself, now you are too weak to face exposure to her rays. Your boy ignited in death's fireball. Your life disintegrated in an instant.

Light: Your life has not disintegrated beyond repair.
I am so sorry...

Darkness: 'I am so sorry' uttered the gentle-eyed doctor, as I crept in amongst tatters of the fallen meteorite. I slithered across the floor like filthy truth, whilst she failed to find your child's beating heart. I'd loitered in the shadows of affectionate happiness (as I do in every life.) In midday heat of glorious expectation I'd have burned, but the moment it all fell apart I found you. I lodged myself inside your pregnant body, next to the torso of your burned out dreams. I wrapped myself around you, smothered you.
 

Mother looked down at her body in disgust. The soft touch of light lifted her from her thoughts.

Light: Though your hearts were broken, though your dreams forlorn, though your tears threatened to plummet heavily into everlasting winter, don't you remember the moment he was born? He was born to you, Mother.

As she looked up, a smile began to appear on Mother's tear stained face.

 Mother: Yes.

Darkness: No.
I am the darkness that was born
I am the night sky that fell when he died.
I am doubt that lurks within.
I am grief that silhouettes your future.
I am sorrow, that swallowed you whole.
I am shadow of blanketed hope.
I am death.
Death
I am undeniable
death.

Light turned to Mother, and offered her a small torch of hope. 

Light: Death is undeniable, but so too is life.

I am love that was born
- and you are still mother
I am sun that continues to rise
- though you don't always welcome me
I am fierce power within
- as you draw from the darkness
I am breath to your future
- if you choose to inhale
I am brighter, more vibrant
- than you've ever before known
I am horizon of hope
- when you're ready to look out
I am light, life, living
- and you are undeniably
Mother.

Mother: I am changed by my child. I walk in darkness of his death, and light of his life. I live for him, live because of him, and I love him.
Yes, I am Mother.

What helps you remember you are a mother or father to your baby(ies) who died? What brings hope and light? What calls down the darkness?