Despite Silence

I cannot stop missing Silas
despite everything. 

Despite time broken into before and after.
Despite new life in our lives.
Despite a distance beyond comprehension.
Despite the black, despicable wall of death.  

I feel his absence in my brothers and parents.  

I see them not seeing him
where I don't see him either.  

To this very moment years from his grave,
I cannot believe this is part of us:
that my parents have a life where their grandson died.  

Awful.  Outlandish.  Ridiculous to the point of unbearable pain.

How brutal this world,
where this is something that can happen in life,
where Death takes children and shatters lives to pieces.

That mocking Sun that goes on shining.
The blithe lives that go on living
while our little one is gone.  

All of us in my family feel it together
and that shared grief eases the burden enough
to make another day doable,
with Silas only in our hearts.

I find that sometimes it is easier to access and understand these brutal emotions via poetry.  To that end, I invite you to write a poem about your lost child or children and the living family around you.

Family Assortment

If I had noticed them, standing there, standing by, I would have felt sorry for them. But I only had eyes for my girl. I should have felt sorry because, being my family, they couldn't run away. They couldn't pull that conjuring trick of disappearing for six months, a year. Then coming back with a forced smile and pretending that none of this had ever happened. That there was no other baby. Vanishing her with a slick sleight of hand. A grandchild, a niece. Here and then gone in a puff of smoke.

When I did finally look up, they were still standing there. Three decades of looking to them for succor, for consolation, for aid and I felt as though I had taken a hammer to them, smashed their bones, set a snare or a pit fall trap. "Come with me," I'd whispered in their ears. Luring them towards a place where they could only be hurt. Coaxing them along with me to a place of death and illness with false promises of chubby babies and matching outfits.

Until the day Georgina died I hadn't hit my younger sister for at least two decades. Our days of tussling and hair pulling long behind us. But that day, I felt as though I had delivered a sucker punch to that face, so dear to me. When I handed her the dead body of her niece with such maternal pride, I ripped at her flesh, pinched and pulled and bruised. In one fell swoop, I took all her security, all her potential pleasure and joy in her own pregnancies and babies, all her calm, all her peace and crumpled them up. I only hope that she has managed to smooth them out again and, whilst they will never be as they were, that they are still usable, that they will serve. And I am so sorry, more sorry than I can say. I was supposed to protect her, to show her that this was easy and lovely.  

But she didn't run, she didn't fall silent, she didn't refuse that body, its smallness, its deadness. She didn't flinch or look disgusted. And, if it were possible, that made me even sadder that my daughter had lost her own sister. And she'll likely never have another.

***** 

I sometimes feel that I was the bystander, the observer. As I watched my daughter's twin sister die. Because it is not in my generation that her absence will echo longest. After all, I managed to live nearly thirty years without her. I expected her to carry on living, long after I had died. But her siblings, they could have had a relationship with Georgina that lasted throughout the entire course of their lives, it could have been their longest connection, their most lengthy friendship. And nobody might have known Jessica better than her twin, kindled into being alongside one another, nervous systems and heart forming together. Georgina could have been a confidant, a supporter, a source of worry or trouble, a mortal enemy? I'll never know and Jessica will never know either. With luck I expected to fade out of Georgina's life at the half way point. But Jessica, she lost the potential of a lifelong companion. And sometimes that seems so much worse, so far greater a loss, than my own.

***** 

I have always been easily hurt. When I was a child, my father tried to toughen me up. It didn't work. I am, I have concluded, un-toughen-up-able. I am still what the kind would call sensitive and the unkind, a wuss. When Georgina died I felt as though all of my skin had been flayed off. That there was only the thinnest line of defence between the outside world and my churning, flinching internal organs. A couple of lines of cells perhaps. Not much of a shield. 

And then those words come. Those words. You don't need me to spell them out because you've all heard them already. People have said them to you, about your baby or your babies, about your grief, about how this all makes sense only you can't see it, about how you are too angry or too sad, about how you need to be like this or like that, about your self pity or self-absorption.

Like needles, piercing my onion skin remnants as I tried to clutch them around me, stabbing straight into my guts. When these words come from a nobody, a passerby, the needle jabs in and comes straight out again, a clean strike. But when they come from somebody close, someone you love, the needle can go in and explode. Like a dirty bomb. Spinning out fragments that scratch and remain. Thin pieces of metal that can encourage infection or which linger, healed over but never entirely integrated. Irritating your flesh. 

And I began to understand how family feuds begin, how people can chop those they once loved off like a diseased tree limb, never to be spoken of again, fit only for burning. Some of those words are not easy to forget. Sometimes I question whether, by forgiving them, I have somehow allowed my daughter to be set aside, considered less. Because I am afraid to make a fuss, to call them out, to say "no, you may not speak about her in that way. Do not dare." 

Photo by wwarby

But then I remember. All those other words, the words that wrapped me and my little girls up so tightly. That told me that she mattered. The dead one. The tiny, broken one. That I mattered. That what had happened was sad but that it was not my fault. The hands that held me and washed me and smoothed my hair. That cooked my meals and filled my car up with petrol and made sure that the mortgage got paid. And those binding, wrapping words, those kindly hands, are so much more important to me. 

It doesn't matter that the hurtful and the helpful often came from different individuals, some consistently jabbing at me with exploding needles, others always handing out tea and scones. Because it is easier to deal with being wounded with someone's arm slung around your neck. And, having lost one, I didn't want to lose anyone else, even those wielding pointy needles. Or perhaps I was just too much of a coward to risk making a scene. 

But here's the thing about family, be they the family you call your own by blood or the family that chooses you and that you choose in return, when others run away, they might just stay. If you're lucky. When others are silent, they might continue talking. When I was walking around like an open sore. When there were no right words because the only words I wanted to hear were something along the lines of, "oh this has all been some major administrative error and obviously should never have occurred. Our apologies and please do reclaim your daughter. Just fill in this form." When they had to talk on a subject that was painful and uncomfortable to them for hours and hours because I would not countenance anything else? Well it's inevitable that somebody's feelings are going to get hurt. It's hard to talk about grief and death at length, especially with someone who is as easily jabbed as I am. 

I found this quote on the internet a while ago, my sources tell me it's a Swedish proverb. These words remind me of my family.

'Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it.'

+++++

And your family? Your friends? Did they run? Did they flinch? Did they say the right things? Or the wrong things? Or nothing at all?

If they hurt you, did you manage to resolve it? Did you cut any family members or close friends off entirely? And how do you feel about that now? Regretful, remorseful? Or glad and relieved?

at the kitchen table: all in the family

My friend, Kara C.L. Jones, aka Mother Henna, says that the death of our children updates our address book. Friends come through our grief, bear witness, leave us or support us, but there is an implicit understanding that friendship is a choice--a kind of conditional contract we have both entered into that can be terminated. When they are there, it is a powerful testament to their love. When friends walk away, we grieve too, but we change their status to ex-friend, former friend, or something less, uh, flattering. Our families, however, are there in a different way. Awkwardly at times. Perfectly quiet at others. Making meals, watching living children. Abiding unconditionally, or on the other hand, they can be a source of great shame and pain, critical of our grief. The pain they can add to our grief can sometimes overshadow the entire grieving process. But our contract is never broken. We remain family whether we see them or not.

I always think of grief as a great big magnifying glass into every relationship in our life. It shows all the pores, the blemishes and the great strength of our bonds. Throughout the month of January, our regular contributors are writing and talking about family--both the family of origin and the family we select as adults through our friends. The ways in which our family can be there, and the way they can't, after the death of our child(ren).

We invite you to join the conversation at the Kitchen Table. Our answers are here.  Want to join in? Post the questions and your answers on your own blog, link to us here at Glow in the Woods meme-style, and share the link to your post in the comments. If you don't have your own online space, simply post your answers directly in the comments on the Kitchen Table page.

+++

1. What was  your relationship with your immediate family (mother, father, sisters and/or brothers) like before your child died? How have those relationships changed?

2. Has your family been a refuge or safe haven, or a place where your grief is unaccepted?

3. How has your partner's family, if you have one, been there for you? For your partner?

4. Have your immediate and extended family accepted your child(ren) as part of the family? Do they talk about your baby(ies)? Do they mourn?

5. What kind of support did your immediate family offer? Did they lose themselves in action, like cooking and cleaning? Or were they emotionally supportive?

6. What was it like to bear witness to your family's grief? In what ways could you be present for them? In what ways could you not be present?

 

7. When you reflect on deaths in your extended family, how did the treatment of your child's (or children's) death differ from, say, the death of a grandparent?

Nine Days

The two of them met for a brief moment. One of them was alive, nine days old, seven pounds, four ounces, and still under the lethargic haze of infancy. One of them was dead, four hours old, seven pounds, twelve ounces, and still warm from the womb, from the closeness of working organs and a rapid heartbeat. The dead one was lifted in front of the live one, a surreal sight if there ever was such a thing. She was going to be your best friend, the mother whispered. It was hello and goodbye in the same minute.

They were meant for each other, our two girls, Lyla and Margot, born nine days apart to best friends who live on the same street.


Long before children were on the immediate radar, the four of us dreamed of a scenario where our kids grew up together, close in age and close in proximity. We imagined our babies crawling around together, our toddlers fighting over toys, our pre-schoolers trading sentences. It's only natural, of course, for two couples to wish the sort of closeness between their kids as they share themselves.

The mothers navigated the frightening waters of middle school together, and then high school and then University. The fathers own a business together. We have backpacked through three continents, riding crammed busses and jumping off bridges and sleeping in cars along the interstate. And somehow, despite living in different parts of the world for the better part of six years, our friendship remained steadfast.

And then one day they decided to move across the country, straight into our neighborhood. Then they fell pregnant. It was July when they told us, on a blisteringly hot afternoon.

Almost incredulously, ironically, we conceived Margot on the same blistering day we found out they were pregnant with Lyla. One tiny miracle created out of knowledge of the other. The women who became fast friends at the age of twelve, who have known each other for nearly two decades, were just five weeks apart. The stars were aligning.

In those early weeks, those early months after Margot died, it was hard to even imagine what we needed from our family and friends. It was shock and awe, the inability to focus, night time meltdowns, a mountain of anguish. Friends and family came and went, supporting and helping and listening in any way they can. But mostly we just tried to survive each day, one long minute at a time.

And then, suddenly, without notice, it felt like we were all alone in our grief, as if the veil of sadness had been lifted for all but us. It’s all fine and understandable, but the longing for wholeness became a desperation, to be able to share with someone our whole selves, both the anguish and the joy, however unbalanced these emotions were in our early grief. I found myself fracturing, turning into a splintered version of myself. I would smile and nod and deflect questions and give the world a sad, but more or less coping, version of myself. I longed to be my whole self, with more than just my partner. If we couldn’t share the aching burden of our missing child with friends, how on earth could we share any joy we found out of life?

But there is Brooke, mother to Lyla, friend since middle school, standing with us, kneeling with us, walking with us, crying with us, never afraid of our grief, never afraid to talk about Margot. She asks questions and then asks more questions, always wanting to share in our pain as deeply as she can. When a group of us are at a party, with babies everywhere, it is Brooke who talks about missing Margot, it is Brooke who asks what it feels like. Whenever I post a new vulnerable blog about our grief, it is Brooke who talks about it. She has abided with us, without a timeline, without expectations. And what is most astonishing, is that she has done all of this while in the midst of mothering a child for the first time. If there have been sleepless nights or breastfeeding issues or colds or exhaustion or hard days or figuring out the right bottle or any of those new parent realities, we never hear about them. And the love, the sheer perfect love of a child, that normally oozes out of a new parent, has been miraculously toned down around us. Her abiding grace, under such difficult circumstances, is perhaps the most selfless act I have encountered in my lifetime.


Nearly ten months have passed since our babies passed by one another. For a long time, it was hard to even look at Lyla, the most physical reminder of my Margot. The smiling, the giggles, the sitting up, the pure baby charm. Each little milestone was so acutely felt. But somehow through the months of abiding with Brooke and her husband, through the inevitable time that has passed, I can smile at Lyla now, hold her hand, watch her laugh. I can ask about her. She has become integrated into my pain, fused with it. She is part of the missing and she is part of the remembering.  But it is not too bitter. It is sweet. And somedays I wonder, when the rest of the world has forgotten my darling girl, when only her mother and I really miss her, will Lyla be like a marker in time, a beautiful reminder of our little girl, gone for so long?

Were there any children born around you when your child died? How does it feel to watch them grow up? How has your relationship with the parents changed? Are you able to be around the child, or is it too painful? Has this changed with time?

reflections: five voices from the family

This month on Glow in the Woods, we are examining family relationships--both our family of origin and the one we create on our life's journey. We want to look at how those relationships change after the death of our child(ren)--how they grow, how they suffer, how our parents and siblings grieve, and how they bear witness to our suffering. Today, we asked the family members of our regular contributors to talk about their grief, the death of their grandchildren, nephew, and niece, and the experience of bearing witness to our grief. We are honored to have them sharing their voices here.

jess' father, tauny.

Debbie and I knew her birth date in advance.  We had no hesitation in enjoying another day cycling in the Pyrenees with our friends, secure in the knowledge that the day was already special.  The route up Port de Bales was challenging, exhausting but exciting, all the more so because of the impending delivery which we chatted and laughed about with our other cycling friends – “How old are you, Granddad?”  “Come on Granddad, keep up” – the usual banter.  

At the end of the afternoon, we were about to head down to the evening meal with the group when the anticipated call came... and our lives changed irrevocably.  Debbie took the call from Jessica, expecting happiness but instead receiving the worst possible news from our distraught daughter – Iris was a stillbirth.  We were stunned.  Telling our friends, packing the bikes, hastily arranging flights back to the UK and driving into hospital was a soft, grey canvass smeared by a casual hand stroke.  Meeting Iris and sharing our grief with Jessica, her husband David and rest of the family will remain a jagged and sharply etched memory.

It was not the first time I had experienced severe illness in children, death in childhood, or even still births.  As a paediatrician of twenty-five years, I had “been there, done that” many times in the role of a caring but detached health professional.  My role was to diagnose and treat children, to alleviate suffering, to prevent the consequences of illness and to counsel affected families with warm, wise words.  I was told I was good at my job, and prided myself in my knowledge, my skill and my empathy.  

My experience was no preparation for dealing with Iris.  Intellectually, I could comprehend her death, but emotionally, as a father and grandfather, I was raw, blind and helpless. It was not possible to reconcile professional and family roles and the conflict was devastating.  Even now, several years and many distressing discussions later, there has been little resolution and thoughts of Iris jangle discordantly at work and at home.   

There is a little hole in our lives, and I can’t heal it.

catherine w.'s mother, cynthia.

The consultant who delivered the twins described the survivor as ‘an innocent bystander’, for although she was intimately bound up with her twin sister and with her underwent their extremely premature birth, she did not play an active part in the events preceding and following their birth. Held in her own membrane and nourished by her own placenta, she simply slipped out after her slightly larger sister and in turn was scooped up and cared for by professionals. And at once she was a ‘bystander’ no longer, for all passivity and inaction were gone as she in turn embarked on her struggle to survive.

The dictionary definition of the word ‘bystander’ is as follows: ‘A person who is standing by; a passive witness; a spectator.’  All of which shows what an odd sort of word it is, because what is being described is in effect someone who simply happens to be present, someone who is not a participant but could give an account of what they have seen, and someone who has stayed to look on. A number of other words, some pejorative, could be used to describe such a one, for what right thinking person would choose to be a bystander? In normal circumstances I would certainly not stand by. If I could be of no help, I would leave so that others could get on with doing what they need to. And yet, when my daughter’s twin girls were born, I could not tear myself away even though I could do nothing more than stand by, and be a passive witness, a spectator. Hard as it was to see our tiny grandchildren fighting to stay alive, I would not have been anywhere else, and painful as the whole experience was, it was also a privilege to witness their struggle. Twin 1, as she was styled by the hospital, lived for four days. She fought so hard and rallied time and again, exceeding expectation time and again. Knowing that she would be left with less and less each time she refused to submit, I could not find it in me to exhort her to fight harder or to hope that her life could be prolonged beyond what she could bear, certainly not for our sake, the sake of the living.  

She died in the afternoon, in the arms of her mother and with her father by her. Unable to hold her until there was no hope for her, they gently tended to their little girl until she died and then prepared her little body for the morgue. Her life was so short and yet complete. She was brave and dignified. She certainly taught me as much in the few hours I had with her as those who have shared many years with me. I am deeply grateful for her life and for the kindness and generosity of my daughter and her husband for allowing their respective birth families to ‘stand by’. We could do so little to help and I for one was keenly aware that I was very much on the outside looking in as I witnessed my daughter and her husband go through something I had never experienced with courage, fortitude and dignity.

chris' brothers, mark and michael.

mark.

I remember the day I drove home from work shouting and screaming with tears running down my face.  I remember the mad dash to get things in order and get down to Connecticut.  

A deep, profound sadness cut into me and spread like cancer the day Silas died.  I also remember seeing the small divide between my older brother me that had slowly transformed into a canyon as days and weeks turned into month and years start to diminish. The tragic event that transformed all of us also built an unbreakable bridge between two disconnected brothers. It draws us closer to each other every day.  

I'll never say anything good has come from all of this, but I will say ONE thing has changed for the better.

michael.

This horrific situation brought us closer together as brothers.  I stayed at the house for a couple weeks after the tragic event and although it was horrible to deal with such raw emotions, I knew I needed to be there. It reinforced how strong our brotherly bond truly was.  

Unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with difficult family situations having dealt with a mother battling MS my entire life.  It seemed very natural to just drop everything and be there in any and all ways I could for as long as I was needed.  As time passed, however, it became more difficult to know exactly how much support I should be giving and how much support my brother needed.  I tried to make sure I was there as a shoulder to lean on, but sometimes felt like maybe I was coming up short.  

As years passed, I was able to make some peace with the situation, but I knew those emotions were still very raw for my brother and sister-in-law.  It was very difficult to see my brother in such anguish and not be able to do anything to help him.  The only silver lining in this situation is that Silas has brought us closer together and has made me appreciate how great it is to have the brothers that I have.

angie's twin sister, kellyann.

I held on to my niece as I cried.  She was already asleep, and snoring in that way that little children do.  She just lost her sister, her “almost” twin, and she had no idea of what she has even lost.  This is not happening.  It’s a mistake.  Some stupid horrible mistake that we will never think is funny.  I walked down the stairs of my sister’s house, staring at their beautiful life; and then my eyes stopped at the Christmas tree.  This is a just a bad dream.  I’m going to wake up and it’ll all be gone.

People often ask me what it’s like to be a twin, which is a hard question to answer when it’s all you’ve ever been.  I can tell you that when I wake up in the morning she is the first person I call, and when I have news about anything, she is the first and sometimes only person I tell.  She celebrates with me when I am triumphant; she holds me when I am sad; and she tells me I am being an ass when I am being an ass.  My children call her their “other Mama”.  She brings me coffee, love, crafts, stories and joy in the middle of the afternoon for no reason at all.  She is quite simply my very best friend of thirty-seven years.

The next morning I arrived at the hospital, and quickly found my sister and her husband.  They looked tired, puffy-eyed, and both forced a smile.  I hugged them and cried, and my natural instinct to make sad people happy starting wrestling against my tears.  Wake up, Kelly.  Wake the hell up.  I still remember turning on the tv to some inane comedy thing just to help us forget where we were, why we were there and what this means for our family.

I not only lost a niece that day, but also my very best friend lost her daughter in the cruelest way I could imagine.  My niece lost her sister.  My children lost their cousin.  My mother and father lost their granddaughter.  My brother-in-law, who is like a brother, also lost his daughter.  My husband lost his niece.  And when she was born, she was perfect, beautiful.  She looked just like Snow White with her red lips and pale skin, dark hair and delicate features.  She looked just like we imagined.  

We.  It has always been the two of us.  It’s hard to always think of yourself as two sometimes.  Especially when the pain overwhelmed me.  Us.   And so in that way, I felt my uterus contracting as I watched my sister cry and labor Lucy in a darkened, nearly silent room, where the only sounds were her cries and our sniffles.  And for the months after Lucy’s birth and death, I felt my sister’s heartbreak in small and big ways whenever someone asked about the baby, whenever someone didn’t and even when she watched our girls play together.  I listened to her rage and her sadness and her guilt.  She said aloud the things I felt as I looked into her eyes, as I held her hands and drank coffee with her.  

My own grief was often pushed aside to sit with hers.  I think I swallowed it down so I could answer the questions when someone asked about Angie.  I still don’t resent it, if that is what you are wondering.  It helped me function.  I cried when I sat with her.  And watching her so open with her grief taught me so much.  That we all grieve in our own ways.  For me it was crying as I sewed, as I sang along to Nick Drake and washed the dishes, as I held my own children and let them ask me those painfully honest questions that only children can ask.  One of my sister’s favorite quotes is from some bicyclist that I can’t remember, but I do remember the quote.  “It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.”  And I feel the same way with my grief, it doesn’t get easier, you just get better at dealing with it.

It took me months to accept that it had really happened.  I remember calling Angie and crying.  “I can’t believe this happened to us.”

“I know, sister, I know.”



If you are a family member to a grieving mother or father, what has your grief looked like? What is the experience of bearing witness to your child's or sister/brother's grief?

If your child or children have died, what was it like to bear witness to the grief of your immediate family? What do you think their grief experience was like? Did it draw you closer, or push you further apart?

Snowglobes of Tradition

Grief says “You ate the Eggs Benedict 15 days after you held your son in your arms. You ate the Eggs Benedict consumed with the memory of his gasping for breath and dying. You did all of this because it was tradition on Christmas morning. Did it make any difference?”

It’s hard to think about tradition without thinking about family. It’s hard to think about tradition without thinking about your parents and it is impossible to think about tradition without imagining handing down your traditions to your children.

I don’t, to be perfectly frank, have much of a family. My mother and I are, at least for the present, estranged. Whether or not that estrangement will end and if it will end is up to her. My other family is in BC. I have no siblings. All of this makes holiday tradition ever harder. It often feels like I have to create a new community for each occasion. Without children, I confess, I feel lost at Christmas. Without children I wonder if I look pathetic as I decorate the house and plan meals.

I like the Eggs Benedict Christmas morning, I like the prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. I like the stockings, I like the tourtiere. You could write my epitaph thus: She prepared a lot of food and there was no one to eat it.

I wanted a large family that did the same things with every year. I wanted to have the same faces around the Christmas table, many faces. What I wanted, or at least what I thought I wanted was for things to never change. I thought if I didn’t have to build my own community each holiday, if my community was built in, then holidays wouldn’t be so hard, so lonely and feel so futile.

I thought, by having children, I would have frozen Christmas into a perfect snow globe for all time.

 Flickr Ali 505Except, that’s not what life does, that’s not how families work. That’s not even how traditions go.

There are no snow globes of tradition, except those we create in our imagination and memory. That's why we dream about tradition - because we can create perfection in our imagination or in our memory. We have no such guarantees in our forward-thinking life. It is possible, even likely, that I could have had 4 children and spent Christmas thirty years hence all alone.

Age, birth, death, marriage and divorce change our traditions. We bring in new ones, we toss out old ones.

I can change my thoughts on tradition. I can ease up, I can be more flexible, but that belies a single truth: I don’t want to be more flexible. I don’t want to have to give up the notion of tradition and I certainly don’t want  to give up on the snow globe of perfect imagination.

I wanted to hang on to all of this. I wanted to pass this on to my children. I wanted to tell them that I ate Eggs Benedict every Christmas morning for all of my life and they should too. I wanted stockings, overflowing with goodness, carefully placed on their beds while they slept.

This year I looked at what I thought that perfect snow globe would be, what I really wanted and I realized it is not possible. My snow globe will always be missing something – someone.

In the middle of the snow globe, mixed in with the snow is a heavy dusting of grief. This year, the fourth year after Gabriel’s death, I am finally seeing it. Grief at Gabriel's death, at life with no children swirls around the holidays because it pervades our traditions.

And maybe that’s where the struggle really lies. Maybe the need to examine the traditions I continue, maybe the frustration at creating my own community for every holiday really comes from this: they are but a remembrance of what I don’t have and what I can't do. Without living children I am powerless to create that perfect snow globe. Anything I can create, through what traditions I maintain, through what community I can build will never match to what I imagined.

Tell us: How have your traditions changed? Do you approach the holidays the same way? What sort of community do you include now? How did Christmas go for you?