It'll be 3 years next week that Sophie left the world, then was born into the world. The pattern of this year for me is following the pattern of the previous years, which is that from mid August my distress slowly increases, peaking in the weeks immediately preceding Sophie's birthday, then to find relief when the day itself arrived. We've made it. We've survived another year.
Some people join a cause to help give meaning to their child's death. This may be a specific group that raises awareness and funds for a specific medical condition that caused the death or their loved one, or it may be a more wide reaching group like SANDS or Pregnancy Loss Australia (formerly the Teddy Love Club). This joining with others helps to make meaning from the death of their child. I have not done this. I am not really sure why. It just hasn't worked for me. In the early days I did speak to a SANDS counselor a couple of times, and went to a coffee morning, and that was helpful at the time to be able to talk freely, but it was hard work emotionally, being in the same room with 3 other women who'd all experienced the death of a child, and all we talked about was our losses. I am grateful for that time, but it hasn't filled the gap for me in the long term. I have leaned heavily on my faith in God who is Father, Creator and King. In the week before Sophie's death and birth, my bible study group was looking at the last few chapters of Job. There is no question in my mind that I was being prepared that day, for the sorrow to come. God is sovereign, and He does as he pleases. He doesn't need to justify Himself to me. "It's gonna hurt, but you can take it." Job lost all of his children, I only lost one child. Thus far, it's never occurred to me to be angry with God for taking Sophie away. I concur with Job when he said "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." (Job 1:21) Job's faith lead him to see the sovereign God's hand at work, and this gave him comfort even at the time of a calamity. The day Sophie was born, a visiting preacher was at our church, due to preach that Sunday and the next. He'd been led by God's Spirit to teach from the book of Lamentations, about finding God's rest and peace in the midst of suffering. Another gift. God was preparing this speaker to speak words of comfort, as he was prepared Sophie to come home. I have listened to those sermons many times since (you can find the links to the audio here). and they have provided great comfort to me, and I trust also to my church family. I have such respect for God's sovereignty, that I've never even allowed myself to thing about what Sophie would be doing if she was still alive, at the age she would be, had she lived, because it was never the plan. It was never meant to be. The formal ultrasound we had at the hospital, to confirm what we already knew by then, showed that the cord was wrapped around her neck 8 times. How can there even be enough cord for that? At the time I had a strong sense that this was a gift from the Father, a message to me about his sovereignty - "Be in no doubt, Kate. She was always coming home to Me." Another gift. No second guessing myself about whether or not I did something "wrong" during the pregnancy. As you know from an earlier blog post I wrote, cord entanglement wasn't the cause of her death, she died from an infection that she had for a good part of her short life. The autopsy report did comment about the extraordinarily long cord, but that wasn't it. God is sovereign, and he does as he pleases.
Thankfulness for what I have, rather than what I don't have, has been a revelation to me in the last couple of days. I started reading a book by Ann Voskamp (find her blog here) called One Thousand Gifts. A friend dared her to write down 1000 things that she was thankful for. As she listed the things, she began to realize that what she was writing was a list of evidence that God loves her. I began my own list a couple of days ago. I listed people to begin with. My close family. Other significant people in my life, some of whom I currently have no contact with, but they have been significant in my life journey. The first 10 on my list read a bit like an autobiography. I am grateful in my mind for all these people and things, and grateful verbally when I pray, but something about putting it into words on a page has been incredibly powerful. It makes it more real somehow. Gives it more meaning and value. As I've grieved in the lead-up to Sophie's birthday, deliberately writing down these things has produced a clarity in my mind that I've not had since mid August. I'm sleeping the whole night through again. How could I have not known this before? The secret of being thankful? An old hymn says "Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord had done." In naming these gifts on a page, these pieces of evidence that God loves me, makes the difference between being in despair, and being able to have joy in the midst of grief. Being deliberately thankful is making the difference.
Thursday 23 October 2014
Tuesday 2 September 2014
Mindful mothering mondays
A fellow blogger has started "Mindful Mothering Mondays", encouraging mothers blogging all over the planet to link up on a Monday. Did our parents' generation blog? No, they didn't have the technology. I also think they didn't have as much of a need to connect to other mothers in this way, as they were connected personally with their communities in a way that we are not these days. It's a bit of a novelty being a stay-at-home-mum in my circle. When there are still children under 5 in the home, it's not as uncommon, but as soon as the youngest child starts preschool, the question is asked "SO, what are you going to do with yourself now?" As if the washing does itself, the garden prunes and picks and mulches itself, the chickens feed themselves and clean up after themselves, deliver their own eggs to the kitchen.....I realize even as I am writing this that we all parent differently. I like being at home with my kids. I like their company (most of the time!) I like tending the garden, I like having chickens. The type of garden we have needs maintenance and attention. I like being involved in my kids' learning, and their lives. Other parents like to have paid work in order to pay the mortgage on the home they've chosen for their family, or to maintain a balance of parenting and remaining in the adult world. Let's face it, going to a paid job can be easier than full time parenting, especially of small children. You have the achievements of your profession, the affirmation of work colleagues and clients, and you get paid. Real money. And nobody is clinging to your legs all day complaining about the various needs of their body and soul. Or running way from you when you are trying to get them to do something they don't want to do.
Lydia's post from today about home apprenticeship reminds me of the great struggle I had in the early days of parenting, where I wished the kids would NOT try to help me do anything around the house. They made a mess and they took too long. And they didn't do it right! I'm not sure how or when I came to give up this perfectionism and allow the kids to be a part of their home and the running of it, but it sure did decrease my stress level when I let go of always having to have things my own way. Maybe part of it is giving up the ideal of having to be "supermum" with an immaculate house, well dressed and perfectly behaved children, always a tray of cookies baking in the oven, and of course having a full time career as well. We can't have it all. There aren't enough hours in the day. Nowadays our home truly is a shared place - the kids have their stuff on the walls, on the floor, on all the shelving in each room. It's their home too, not just mine. The walls are filthy with hand marks, food marks, and who-know-what-else marks. One day there'll be time to clean all those off, but today isn't it. Spending time with my kids, and allowing them to feel at home in their home is a higher priority today. It won't be too many years from now and they'll be wanting to spread their wings and move in increasingly wider circles of independence.
It's so easy for me to feel critical of other people's parenting choices, but I think we all parent the best way that we can with the resources (monetary and emotional) that we have.
Another blog of Lydias (thanks Lydia :)) that I loved recently was one in which she posed the question of whether we only blog about our best moments? For those of us who believe in God, we are generally not comfortable with complaining to God, or about God. There seems to be an attitude among many Christians that if we are unsatisfied with our lot in life that there's something the matter with our faith. We need to pray harder. Or serve more, and then everything will be OK again. We're not comfortable with the language of lament. A quick inventory of the Psalms will reveal that there is a great deal of lament. I heard a preacher say once that 2/3rds of the New Testament deals with suffering. It's real, and it's OK. God can take it. And I think being honest with God and with each other lends itself to a closer relationship. A real relationship. I am grateful for my fellow bloggers, especially on days when I cannot connect with a real person to share my mothering journey with. Thanks to all of you who are sharing your journeys with me, or simply joining me by reading mine.
Tuesday 12 August 2014
The new normal - life after the death of a child
I was prompted to write today’s blog after a text from
a friend. She was texting to let me know
that the story of a high profile Australian actress and her husband having a
stillborn child this week had reminded her of Sophie, and she wanted me to know
that she still thinks about me and Sophie.
She hasn’t forgotten. It’s been almost
3 years since Sophie Rose was born dead, at full term. A dear friend who is now in her 80s had a
baby who died 60 years ago, and in her own words “I still yearn for that child.”
I
don’t know if it’s possible to “get over” it, nor is it reasonable to expect to
do so. The humbling pain of having one
of my own children die has transformed me, forever. However, as I meet new people, sometimes
these days when someone asks me how many children I have, I say 2, not 3. I used to say “2 living and 1 in heaven”. If the person I’m in conversation with is
someone I’m not likely to see again, I definitely don’t introduce Sophie into
the conversation. Even when I meet a
parent of a new child at school, who I will see again many times over our children’s
schooling, sometimes I don’t mention Sophie.
I guess I’m trying not to define
myself as “the one whose baby died”. There
seems little point in opening that emotional box. In many ways I am at peace with her death,
although the triggers for my grief are way less predictable now. In the early days, when someone I knew was
expecting a baby, or had just had a baby, I would force myself to congratulate them and participate in their joy,
even though I’d go home and cry buckets afterwards. I think I did this more for myself than for
them, so that I wouldn’t fall into the trap of avoiding them. After all, it’s impossible to avoid every
newborn in my circle of movement, especially when my children are at primary
school, and I worked at a kindergarten.
The first time was the most difficult, as might be expected. Did it get easier with each new baby born? Not really.
What I didn’t expect was that it was easier to be gracious around people
I knew relatively well, than it was to be gracious around acquaintances or
strangers with newborns. I thought it
would be more difficult with friends, but it wasn’t. I guess my friends were sensitive to how I
might be feeling, but also were probably careful to show me love, and not to
exclude me. And I told them what I
needed.
In the first few months after
Sophie’s birth/death, three families at school who were expecting new babies were
incredibly loving and compassionate towards me.
All the babies were third children (same as Sophie). One family invited me over to their home for
my own private meeting with their child, away from other people’s eyes, lest I
need to cry. It was such a beautiful
thing for them to do for me (I know that you know who you are, S xx). I didn’t need to cry that day. But that’s OK too. Another parent approached me in the school
yard the day after his child was born.
On his way towards me he was being slapped heartily on the back by
fellow fathers, congratulated by mothers, and I was trying to keep a smile on
my face a few metres away and not lose it in front of all those people, who were celebrating the
birth of someone else’s child so soon after the death of my own. When the ruckus had died down, he sat down
beside me as we waited for our respective children, and quietly chatted to me, telling
me that he and his partner had been thinking about me a lot. This man deserves a medal for compassion and
kindness, and I made sure I told his partner and friends what a difference it
made to me that day (thankyou, C xx). Another mother stopped in the school yard
with her new baby, and offered me a cuddle with the sleeping bundle. It was beautiful, and I appreciated it so
much (Thankyou, A xx). I think it helped
others that I let them know what I needed.
People so desperately wanted to help, but didn’t know what to say or do,
and were terrified of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and upsetting
me. When people asked “what can I do” or
“how can I help”, I gave a forthright answer – “I’d really appreciate a hug”,
or “a cuddle with your baby would be wonderful.”
In the early days I used to get irritated by all the
euphemisms people used to avoid the “d” word.
Born sleeping. Born an
Angel. Lost. Didn’t make it. A friend of mine used to say of her child who
died “I wish people wouldn’t talk about her being lost - it’s not like I put
her in a cupboard and forgot where she was. She’s dead, not lost.” Now that it’s not the early days anymore, I
don’t mind the euphemisms, because I know they serve a purpose – to lessen the
pain just a little. To be gentle. To be sensitive to the incredible pain
residing in another’s heart.
I have moved past the acute phase of grief and into
the chronic phase. The new normal. The death of Sophie Rose has forever changed
the way I view the world. I try not to
sweat the small stuff anymore. I’m starting
to reveal the “real” me to people who I used to pretend with. People whose approval I was trying to win by
showing them only the parts of me which I thought they would find acceptable. I am trying to live my days in a way that
brings meaning to me and my immediate family.
This means that I am doing not doing the highest level of job that my
qualifications would permit. In fact, I
am not doing any paid work at the moment, and it feels GREAT. It’s very counter-culture though, and it’s a
struggle every day to give myself “permission” to do what I am doing. Running the “farm”, as we generously call our
vegetable patch and chicken coop. Being
involved in the kids’ school community and their learning. Doing some blog writing. Writing is how I make sense of all the
thoughts that are going around in my head.
It helps to clarify the thoughts somehow, even if I never go back and
re-read what I’ve written. Writing it
down is sometimes enough.
The new normal is not the way I thought I’d be living
my life 3 years ago. But it’s a better
fit to who I am as a person. I love what
I am doing now. I love being at home,
being a domestic engineer and farm manager, and co-educator of my
children. It feeds my soul. Sophie’s death was the crisis that has led me
to this point. Some days I still cry
over Sophie. A lot. A strategy I read about in a grief book is to
set a timer (for say, 30 minutes) and allow myself to cry, scream, punch a
pillow, whatever way I need to externalize my sadness/anger/other
emotions. Then when the timer sounds, I
pick myself up and get on with another task.
This strategy has taught me a lot.
Before I learned this, if I got upset over Sophie, I would write off the
entire day. Now I have learned that I
can grieve for a while, then pick myself up and proceed with the day. This helps, because it makes me feel less powerless;
less helpless, while still honouring the sadness I am feeling, and allowing it to
come out.
The new normal is taking shape, and it is good. It not always neat and tidy or happy, but it’s
still good.
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