Comparison is the Death of Joy

"Comparison is the death of joy". --Mark Twain

As a bereaved parent I can't count all of the times that I have found myself comparing my loss and then my losses to others.  I've compared numbers of losses, numbers of living children, numbers of minutes lived, numbers of anatomical defects and the list goes on and on.  To what end?  I've found no comfort in my sons' deaths.  Where else could they be better off than in my arms, in my house, surrounded by their family.  No offense to my religion, but forget that heaven talk.  I am not 100% certain what happened to my boys after they died and I'm not 100% certain what'll happen to me when I die.  That doesn't mean I'm faithless.  I live believe my sons are in heaven and I strive each day to reach that height myself.  But Wyatt and Eli are proof that there are no guarantees.

It's easy to compare.  I think on some level it makes me feel better to find someone worse off than myself or to be able to tell myself sometimes that I'm entitled to whatever behavior or feelings I need to justify because of the magnitude of loss I live with each day.  Most days I accept the loss.  It's just become a part of who I am and who my family is.  My girls talk about their brothers in passing fashion after seeing their pictures.  It's all very matter of fact.  They have two brothers but those brothers aren't here.  It's hard to explain the why but they get the reality.  I'm learning to take each person, each family and each situation for what it is.  Completely separate from my own.  It seems like most people live with their own struggles and pain and what may seem to be a molehill to me is a mountain to someone else and my comparison or analysis of that is not helpful to anyone.

I recently came across this advice and it's really stuck with me.  When I find someone difficult to deal with or understand I remind myself that this person is most likely wounded in some way and I should handle them much more gently and with some apathy.  When I think someone doesn't deserve that kindness most is probably when they are in the greatest need.

Does One Bad Seed Spoil the Apple?

I find myself waking to a country song repeating in my head and while I can't relate to a lot of them in many ways (though I thoroughly enjoy them nonetheless) there is one that I can extrapolate on.  Two Black Cadillacs.  Now if you know this song, you may be saying, wait a minute!  I'll put you at ease quickly - my husband has not had an affair and I have not plotted to or succeeded in killing him.  Now that we have that settled....

The lyrics say something like "[t]he preacher said he was a good man and his brother said he was a good friend but the women in the two black veils didn't bother to cry".  Of course my first thought was what a dirt bag this guy was, how could there be anything good to say about him?  But then once I started thinking a little deeper it occurred to me that perhaps he was a good friend.  If he was a father, he could have even been a good father.  Obviously he was a lousy husband and a lousy boyfriend but the question then becomes ...

    Does a bad deed, even a very bad deed, make a bad person?

I struggle with this question because my instinct says yes.  My relation to this song comes from some interpersonal relationships and judgments that I have made in those relationships based on the other parties' behaviors.  I have deemed these behaviors bad and so I have attached that label.  Once that label is stuck on, goodness gracious do I find it hard to peel back.  The fact that I have made these judgments in the first place pains me and is a different topic for perhaps a different day but I've done it so we'll move on.

Could I be wrong?  Absolutely!  Have I ever made bad choices?  Absolutely!  So why am I throwing stones?  Short answer - weeding my garden.  Wyatt and Eli have brought great introspection to my life and how I lead it as well as who I let grow in my garden.  I've come to realize that some people can act as weeds in my garden.  Their negative energy, words and actions can threaten to overtake the beauty which I carefully guard within.  I've learned that a weed is a weed and no matter how nicely you treat it, a weed will grow all over your flowers, veggies and fruit and make absolutely no apologies.  My weed removal method of choice is to pull them very slowly from the ground taking care to remove the entire root system if at all possible.  As an aside, it is also really fun to burn them with a handheld torch until they shrivel and die!

Yet all of this still leaves me speechless.  I don't have the answer.  Perhaps there is goodness.  Honestly I want there to be goodness but I have yet to find it.  So I will leave you to ponder and maybe even contribute to this discussion.  Does badness eclipse goodness?  Can they coexist?

Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

It's taken me a long time (likely far too long) to have acquired the ability to silence my thoughts.  I was raised very vocally and to embrace negativity.  My priest referred to this as "awfulizing" yesterday in church.  So I know that some of you who have read my last post, "The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants" may have finished it with a bad taste in your mouth.  Nine years ago I would have too.  Nine years ago I had lost my firstborn and was expecting my first rainbow.  Health, not gender, is all that mattered.  But more than that, had I read my own words I would have felt anger at the author's lack of appreciation and gratitude for what she had been given.  Her complaints about gender would have incensed my grief over the son I had just buried months before when she had so much and I had so little.

Fast forward a few years and a few healthy rainbows and even after having two healthy girls I still would have not been able to swallow those words without tasting the bitterness.  I still would have thought that she just should appreciate what she has and not let what she doesn't eat away at her.  I probably still would have reacted with some anger.  So I understand if my feelings don't punch you in the gut like they do to me.

I get it.  It's hard for me to wrestle with these feelings knowing how very blessed I am to have these four daughters.  I just can't help wondering if these feelings are stringing behind Eli's death, if they've been buried and set aside since Wyatt's death, if they're a culmination of feelings after both boys' deaths or if it's something brought about by the end of my childbearing years?  Probably a little bit of everything.  But will they dim or go away and if so, when?  Will my heart ever put this to rest?  Add another unanswered question to the pile that has accumulated in my last ten years.

I don't know what has brought you to my blog.  Even if I have read every single detail of your loss(es) I could never possibly understand.  Likewise, no one can truly understand mine or these feelings that well beneath the surface.  Words of judgment and comparison come easy, what's hard is letting those words pass unspoken and without action.  

Family - Going, Going, Gone?

Reflection, does a body good.  Or wait, is that vitamins?  Regardless, I find myself reflecting lately.  Specifically, my mind travels back to March 2011 and the months leading up to Eli's birth.  The agonizingly long yet fleetingly quick months during which I carried a precious baby not destined for this earth.  I have found myself walking on a similar path lately to the one which my family walked while I waited to give birth.  Shadowed by sadness and anxiety brought on by health problems beyond my control.  This time I am perfectly healthy, albeit extremely exhausted, but it is members (yes, members) of my extended family that worry me.  No less than three of my family members have received troubling medical diagnoses in the last month.  During that time I have found myself searching for and doing anything I can think of to help out in any fashion, often at the expense of my own physical, mental and emotional well being.  I've done these things without saying much and not seeking anything in return (honestly, I hate to even put those sentences in writing because it's just not about me).  I am being hit by such strong emotions that I just have to.  I have to.  

Yet this brings me back to Eli's pregnancy.  Not one person offered to cook me a meal while I was pregnant or brought anything by for our family.  No one came to visit and just sit with us.  No one babysit our three children so we could have a little time to ourselves.  In fact, during family gatherings (which were few during this time), pretty much nothing was even said about the tragedy playing out in my life.  There were a few extra phone calls from long distance family to check in every once and a while both before and after Eli was born.  But hey, no one in my family even asked what we would name our little one until the day before he was born!  There is one thing in particular that just stabs me every single time.  A family member had offered to take us on vacation before they knew about the pregnancy.  After finding out, talk of the vacation continued but we were not willing to commit to a destination at that time.  Then when we got the news about Potter's I think my husband may have politely declined.  We were a mess so I really can't remember.  So, this family member goes ahead and books a couple only vacation for the week after Eli's birth (I'm sure they didn't know it would play out so close to his birth but they did know my due date well ahead of time).  Then, this particular family member later broke the news that their family could only come for Eli's birth or the funeral - one or the other, due to time off concerns.  You know, that big week plus long vacation they were going to take after Eli was born.  

I don't expect people to go out of their way for me.  Honestly, that's usually just not the way our family plays things.  But seriously, you only come to visit a few days for our son's birth, skip the funeral and then go on a nice long no-kid vacation a week or so later?  I would have loved to get away from my life and the reality of my second dead child for just one day.  How wonderful would it have been for them to have planned a vacation for us in the wake of our grief (since they had offered it anyway)?  How wonderful would it have been for them to have just forgone the vacation and used that time to help care for our children while we grieved and I recovered from a c-section?  This is why the "what ifs" just don't belong in reality.  It is what it is.  But I just can't help wondering why I read about other families who have gone through situations similar to ours and they have had friends and family go out of their way to support them before and after their babies' births and ours just didn't really do that.  I have never felt so alone as I did during those quiet quiet months and the even quieter ones that followed. 

Knowing What I Knew

Knowing what I knew from carrying Wyatt to term altered my experience carrying Eli to term. Both babies had Potter's Syndrome, both bilateral renal agenesis (meaning they did not have either kidney), both turned out to be little boys though despite many ultrasounds their genders were not revealed until birth. But this is a tale of two very different pregnancies. I knew as much a year ago when we received Eli's diagnosis as I know now and despite that knowledge I wasn't able to alter the course that I took.

That is very difficult for me and it is my only regret. Knowing what I knew affected me in such a profound way that it seeped into every aspect of my daily life. I shared news of Wyatt's diagnosis with family, friends and co-workers but told few other people while I was pregnant. My husband and I continued to rent movies, go to church, go out to eat and to the movies, shopping, etc. I lived and I bonded. With Eli things were inevitably different. I had three little girls who demanded a lot of my time, energy and attention in addition to a loving husband who also needed time, energy and attention. I chose to enter the public realm as little as possible, often at times when I wouldn't be around many people and because it was winter I was always able to conceal my smaller than usual belly from prying eyes. I retreated and hid, not emerging until months after Eli passed away. Almost like I was sent away to have a baby in secret and wanted no one to know so that when I returned I could just pick things back up where I left off. Of course, that's not really how things work when your baby dies.

Eli's pregnancy was not what Wyatt's was. Physically they were different, the babies in utero carried and moved differently. I never confused them despite all the similarities. I knew that I was not bonding with Eli and I really really tried. But, again, knowing what I knew, it was just too difficult. Too devastating to become attached to a baby that I knew had no hope. A baby that I knew, if born alive, would take his last breath shortly thereafter. Eli didn't make it easy either. He wasn't a big mover so my family didn't even get to feel his movements until I think I was about seven months pregnant, there were few sweet belly kicks and few times that hands besides mine were laid on my belly to feel him, there just usually wasn't anything to feel and it often took far too long to keep one of the girls interested before they felt a kick. His personality was so much more subdued than any of our other kids, it was like he knew what would happen and did his best to make it easy on all of us for when his time came. Wyatt was the opposite. He was strong and moved strong and never let me forget what a little fighter he was. He was born with fisted hands which looked just like a little boxer. Eli was smaller, softer and quieter and he slipped through our hands much quicker. I don't know what I could have done differently but that question will always be with me. Always.

Is It Just Me? Another One of Those Moments

When I wonder, "am I the only one who does this?" and "how weird is it?" Counting kids. Yes, when I am out and about I count kids. Families with five children sting. Especially families with children so close together there is likely no possibility that they could have birthed and lost any full term babies in between as I have. Even with children close together though, I know loss can occur. My two oldest girls are twenty-one months apart and I suffered a miscarriage in between their pregnancies. Appearances can be deceiving.

I haven't figured out why I count kids. Is it to find others who have suffered as I have? Is it to reassure myself that healthy children are possible? Is it out of jealousy that they haven't had to experience the agony that I have? While we're at it I've got another confession. I read obituaries. My eyes usually veer straight toward the bottom. The part where it says who preceded the deceased in death. I read this section for one reason. To find others that lost children. So often I find the names of infant children. I also find families with many many living children and I wonder why me and not them?

Comparing myself and my family to other parents and their families is no good. Even if I had genetic answers for my losses I would never be able to find out exactly when that mutation occurred in my genetic background and why it happened. I know enough about genetics and science and faith for that matter to know that no one has it all figured out. Scientists and doctors are always in a state of discovery and revisiting earlier discoveries. Religious scholars are still studying texts that are centuries old. And sometimes all of these well studied individuals can only tell us that sometimes things happen and no one knows why. I have read in the past that cancer can lay dormant in our bodies for some time and then one day go active and begin mutating without explanation. Miracles are things which have no logical explanations. So, in the end, I think the answer to some of my questions may echo what I tell my own children "just because".