Funerals are odd things. You can call them whatever you'd like: Memorial Service, Celebration of Life, etc. But let's be honest, it's a funeral. What strikes me about these services is how much editor bias exists. People love to put dead people on a pedestal. Unless they were an axe murderer, even the most common of people become extraordinary at their funeral.
Now, in this case, Lou was extraordinary. Truly she was; but even we did careful editing at her service. Two of the girls who spoke wanted to tell a story where she said a bad word, but we decided against it. I chose a song to be sung that she did quite like, but was it still her favorite, probably not. And now people refer to it as "Emmy's song." It is weird to capture the life of an 11 year old in one afternoon.
Eleven year old girls, more than probably any other group, change their likes and dislikes and personalities and clothes in an instant. Yes on the day she died she liked Hello Kitty and skulls and crossbones and the colors pink and orange and Logan but, if she had lived, it is clear that by today she would have moved on. Certainly there are things about her personality that were never going to change, she loved to make, to create, to experiment. She was friendly and kind and craved being the center of attention (the poor kid always thought she was getting the shaft, I guess she was right).
It is hard to freeze an 11 year old in time. Painful in fact. I try to guess what she would like now, what song would be her favorite, if she would be into peace signs like her sister. Even more painful is the fact that her biggest, most obvious, personality trait was that she loved to learn, loved to explore, loved to discover new things. It is hard to freeze her at 11 and even harder to imagine her not 11.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Loneliness
It's the loneliness that takes me by surprise today. Every day it is something different that breaks through the numbness. But today, it is the utter and absolute knowledge that there is one less person in this world who loves me. I have always assumed my feeling that Em and I were closer than most moms and daughters was just a perception. Assumed everyone feels like this about their children, that everyone has this connection that we had. But I'm not sure. There have been times when I honestly felt like she was the only person on this earth that understood me. There were times when she didn't, obviously; times when we argued, when we fought, when we completely did not agree with the other. But I always felt like I could see through her into her heart and that she could do the same. With her gone I feel like I don't have my team on my side. I feel like I am always ganged up on. Always the odd man out. And I know this too will pass. Already Al and I are becoming closer figuring out our new selves without another huge personality in the mix. But it is slow and it is painful for me. It reminds me acutely of what isn't here.
I wonder if this is much like what people go through when their kids leave the house. I don't think we realize when we are in the midst of our lives with our children how much we take from them. How much of our emotional needs are met by them. We need love and affection and we get much of that from our children. Maybe it is less and less as they grow so by the time they move out you are used to fewer hugs and kisses, fewer people to have talks about your thoughts and feelings with. When one of those people is ripped away while you are still right in the middle of the high interaction stage of life it feels like your love is gone. I always come back to that. The only emotion I've ever had in the past that ever came close to this, were the few (very few) times when there was a threat that Jay and I would part, that my heart would be broken.
Now, my heart is broken (for the first time, ever) and it is the most final of all breakings and I don't think it will ever be whole.
I wonder if this is much like what people go through when their kids leave the house. I don't think we realize when we are in the midst of our lives with our children how much we take from them. How much of our emotional needs are met by them. We need love and affection and we get much of that from our children. Maybe it is less and less as they grow so by the time they move out you are used to fewer hugs and kisses, fewer people to have talks about your thoughts and feelings with. When one of those people is ripped away while you are still right in the middle of the high interaction stage of life it feels like your love is gone. I always come back to that. The only emotion I've ever had in the past that ever came close to this, were the few (very few) times when there was a threat that Jay and I would part, that my heart would be broken.
Now, my heart is broken (for the first time, ever) and it is the most final of all breakings and I don't think it will ever be whole.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Perfect Death
I know it sounds silly, but the beautiful child perfected even death. That kid knew how to do things right. She died quickly with little pain or awareness, at an age where she had never yet disappointed or struggled. While she left a swath of heartache in her path, it is only heartache caused by her amazing wonderfulness.
Going to group grief counseling has been such an eye opening yet heart aching experience. So much pain can happen in this life. And while all death is the same in its finality, in its pain not all deaths are the same. I listen to these stories and feel grateful that they are not mine. The stories of sisters and fathers and mothers that have taken their own lives. I think of the horrible mental anguish they must have been in before their deaths and see the pain they have inflicted on their loved ones and feel as though I am the lucky one. I know that they likely truly believed that their friends and family would be better off without them, it is so sad to me that they could not see the flaws in their logic. And there is more beyond the suicides. The accidental overdoses, the alcoholism, even the cancer. Minds and bodies ravaged by disease, so many people trying for so long to save them with no effect.
And so many people that feel so alone after the deaths they are grieving. I have always been a person that recognized my privileges, I know that I am blessed to live the life I do. It is hard now to feel that blessing when something like this has just pulled you down to the ground, but down in my heart I know. I know how much worse it could be. Truly.
Going to group grief counseling has been such an eye opening yet heart aching experience. So much pain can happen in this life. And while all death is the same in its finality, in its pain not all deaths are the same. I listen to these stories and feel grateful that they are not mine. The stories of sisters and fathers and mothers that have taken their own lives. I think of the horrible mental anguish they must have been in before their deaths and see the pain they have inflicted on their loved ones and feel as though I am the lucky one. I know that they likely truly believed that their friends and family would be better off without them, it is so sad to me that they could not see the flaws in their logic. And there is more beyond the suicides. The accidental overdoses, the alcoholism, even the cancer. Minds and bodies ravaged by disease, so many people trying for so long to save them with no effect.
And so many people that feel so alone after the deaths they are grieving. I have always been a person that recognized my privileges, I know that I am blessed to live the life I do. It is hard now to feel that blessing when something like this has just pulled you down to the ground, but down in my heart I know. I know how much worse it could be. Truly.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Emptiness
I have been trying to put into words what it feels like to have your child die. It is definitely a heartache and so I once compared it to the feeling of breaking up with a partner (not just anyone, but someone who you truly loved and cared for and wanted to make a life with). So take that feeling and then multiply it times a million and that starts to get close. And this makes sense, because who do we love even more than our lovers, more than our parents? Our kids. I've often told my children that they will never understand how much I love them until they have their own kids. The love for a child is like no other love and therefore the pain upon losing a child is like no other pain.
We spend our entire lives trying to protect our kids from the dangers of the world. No matter how a child dies, their parent feels like they have failed at their most basic task, keeping their child safe from those dangers. Even if there wasn't a single thing I could have done differently to keep my child alive, I still have to go over every possible scenario to be sure. I have to do this to feel like I still have some control over my world, unfortunately when your child dies you mostly feel like everything is out of your control and like very little makes sense in the world.
From the moment a baby is born we start marking milestones, trying to savor every moment of their time with us, because we know that their time with us is short no matter what. When a child dies there is an overwhelming sense of loss of potential. There are so many mile markers that did not get passed and nearly every day is a reminder of these things. I try to think about the markers she did pass in her short life, she did many many things for an 11 year old. But many times the pain of the things left undone is almost too much to bear and certainly too great to push aside.
Children seem to be much bigger personalities than their size would have you believe. The hole left in a parent's life when a child dies is even larger. In our culture our lives revolve around our children. Even as a working mother, most of my free time and much of the physical space of my life is set up to accommodate and integrate my children. Work schedules are set around kid's school schedule, evenings are spent doing homework or going to extracurricular activities, houses are chosen to most easily contain our children and their friends, cars are chosen for their ability to pack in as many kids and friends and equipment as possible. When a child is gone, many of these things seem unnecessary, useless, empty; sometimes even ourselves.
We spend our entire lives trying to protect our kids from the dangers of the world. No matter how a child dies, their parent feels like they have failed at their most basic task, keeping their child safe from those dangers. Even if there wasn't a single thing I could have done differently to keep my child alive, I still have to go over every possible scenario to be sure. I have to do this to feel like I still have some control over my world, unfortunately when your child dies you mostly feel like everything is out of your control and like very little makes sense in the world.
From the moment a baby is born we start marking milestones, trying to savor every moment of their time with us, because we know that their time with us is short no matter what. When a child dies there is an overwhelming sense of loss of potential. There are so many mile markers that did not get passed and nearly every day is a reminder of these things. I try to think about the markers she did pass in her short life, she did many many things for an 11 year old. But many times the pain of the things left undone is almost too much to bear and certainly too great to push aside.
Children seem to be much bigger personalities than their size would have you believe. The hole left in a parent's life when a child dies is even larger. In our culture our lives revolve around our children. Even as a working mother, most of my free time and much of the physical space of my life is set up to accommodate and integrate my children. Work schedules are set around kid's school schedule, evenings are spent doing homework or going to extracurricular activities, houses are chosen to most easily contain our children and their friends, cars are chosen for their ability to pack in as many kids and friends and equipment as possible. When a child is gone, many of these things seem unnecessary, useless, empty; sometimes even ourselves.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
So, I really couldn't imagine...
I have lived (until recently) a rather charmed life. I didn't attend a funeral until I was 36 years old, and then it was for my 91 year old grandfather. It's hard to feel extreme sadness for the death of someone who has lived a long and full life. I didn't know death.
Before M's death the only bad things my family had experienced were my father's heart attack/surgery (which turned out fine - 12 years later he is healthier than ever), my mother's brain tumor/surgery (also the best possible outcome - no cancer and full removal of and recovery from the tumor). My husband had experienced harder things, the death of his beloved grandfather (in his mid-fifties) and the very early unexpected death of his father. J's dad died only a few weeks after I met J. I wish I could say that I had learned empathy going through that with him, but I did not. He swept it under a rug, dealt with it internally, if at all, and I acted as though nothing happened except on rare occasions. Probably not the most empathetic way of dealing with it.
Obviously when bad things happen to other people I felt sad for them, but I really did not know how they were feeling. That is part of why I am writing here. To try to capture those feelings, so others might have some idea, even if they still can't imagine. The death of your child is a special kind of pain. It is, I think, different than even other deaths. I feel this in my gut and my husband confirms, that for him at least, it is completely different that the pain he felt when his father died when J was only 16.
Before M's death the only bad things my family had experienced were my father's heart attack/surgery (which turned out fine - 12 years later he is healthier than ever), my mother's brain tumor/surgery (also the best possible outcome - no cancer and full removal of and recovery from the tumor). My husband had experienced harder things, the death of his beloved grandfather (in his mid-fifties) and the very early unexpected death of his father. J's dad died only a few weeks after I met J. I wish I could say that I had learned empathy going through that with him, but I did not. He swept it under a rug, dealt with it internally, if at all, and I acted as though nothing happened except on rare occasions. Probably not the most empathetic way of dealing with it.
Obviously when bad things happen to other people I felt sad for them, but I really did not know how they were feeling. That is part of why I am writing here. To try to capture those feelings, so others might have some idea, even if they still can't imagine. The death of your child is a special kind of pain. It is, I think, different than even other deaths. I feel this in my gut and my husband confirms, that for him at least, it is completely different that the pain he felt when his father died when J was only 16.
Why am I hiding
And so I have created a pseudonym... Imagen Kant. And I'm trying to wax all philosophical about the death of my baby girl. But why. Why can't I just be me? J writes openly and bravely for all the world to see. I don't think I can though. I think it would water down the honesty for me. Everyone grieves in their own way, that's what people keep saying. I guess I am just a tiny bit more private. But it seems silly, why can't I let people in?
But it's not about letting people in, it's about documenting the feelings as honestly as possible. And if using a pseudonym is the way to do that then so be it. So now it is out there.
I no longer "can't imagine" rather I AM Imagen Kant.
But it's not about letting people in, it's about documenting the feelings as honestly as possible. And if using a pseudonym is the way to do that then so be it. So now it is out there.
I no longer "can't imagine" rather I AM Imagen Kant.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
How did this happen...
A few months ago (nearly four, to be exact), I changed my Facebook status to, "just can't imagine." This status change was prompted by the news that a new friend's two year old daughter had just been sent home from cancer treatment to die. This news was shocking. Yes, the baby had cancer, and had for several months; but by all accounts treatment was going well. Hearing the news that this mother was told that she was going to have to take her daughter home and wait a couple of weeks, which actually ended up being only a matter of days, for her to die was absolutely unimaginable to me. Apparently, I continued to use those words for days. A friend recently mentioned that I had said these words to her at the baby's memorial service.
"I just can't imagine."
And I was right. I couldn't imagine. Now, I am not known for my empathetic nature or my extreme sensitivity, but I am a mother and one would think that a mother would understand another mother's pain at the loss of her child. And in fact, despite my words, I thought I had at least some idea. I didn't; my first instinct was correct, "I just can't imagine."
Exactly six weeks after I changed my status message to those words, I no longer had any need to imagine the horror of losing a child. I no longer had to imagine because the unimaginable had happened to me. My eleven year old daughter died. She died suddenly and swiftly and with no warning. And now, I can imagine, I wish I couldn't and I guarantee you that you can't. You just can't imagine.
"I just can't imagine."
And I was right. I couldn't imagine. Now, I am not known for my empathetic nature or my extreme sensitivity, but I am a mother and one would think that a mother would understand another mother's pain at the loss of her child. And in fact, despite my words, I thought I had at least some idea. I didn't; my first instinct was correct, "I just can't imagine."
Exactly six weeks after I changed my status message to those words, I no longer had any need to imagine the horror of losing a child. I no longer had to imagine because the unimaginable had happened to me. My eleven year old daughter died. She died suddenly and swiftly and with no warning. And now, I can imagine, I wish I couldn't and I guarantee you that you can't. You just can't imagine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)