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Things People Say (part 2)

February 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm | Posted in life after loss, life lessons, normal?, twins | 7 Comments
Tags: infertility, motherhood, new not so normal, parenthood

In my last post I should have included the fact that I am positive I have said, written or done the wrong things at the wrong times. Almost every time I call my father-in-law, who is a recent widower, I cannot seem to stop myself from starting the conversation with, “How are you?” I try to rephrase the question as soon as it comes out of my mouth but it is always too late.

Over the weekend, I found myself in a conversation with a woman who is thinking about starting infertility treatments. I feel like I have earned a masters (or at least an honorary degree) in infertility. At first I started to tell her about the injectables, IUIs and the IVFs. Luckily, my brain kicked in before I opened my mouth.

I thought back to my life before the twins were born. Jake had died. There was no “your baby died, now you get a baby free pass” for me and Evan. Eventually we boarded the infertility rollercoaster. The sadness and desperation were all-consuming. Every month seemed like an eternity.

My friend was in pain and did not need to hear about my depths of despair. So, instead of sharing my war stories I gave her the phone number of my doctor. Then I told her if she ever felt like talking I would always be here to listen.

There seem to be endless opportunities in life to say the wrong thing. It is hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and separate out your own feelings. We all have different experiences. We start from a variety of places. Who is to judge what is right and what is wrong? All we can do is try our best.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
~Dalai Lama

After I did have the twins one of my favorite friends sent me the link to the video below. It makes me smile so I thought I would share.

The Things People Say . . .

February 2, 2012 at 9:46 pm | Posted in Grief, life lessons | 12 Comments
Tags: child loss, grief, Jake, life after loss, motherhood, Sawyer

After Jake died people did not know what to say. There would be a lot of awkward conversations which would start like this:

“He is in a better place.”

OR,

“He would have had a difficult life.”

Followed by me either not responding at all or starting to cry.

After the twins were born one of the conversations I can recall started with, “Oh how great, you got your boy back.”

More silence and crying from me.

After Sawyer died there were more statements similar to these – most of which are not worth repeating, writing down or remembering. At first, the comments would make me even sadder (which I did not think was possible). Then the comments made me mad. Somewhere along the way I decided that people did not mean to hurt me. They just have no idea what to say. Sometimes they just say whatever comes to mind first. Or, they try to relate to Jake and/or Sawyer’s deaths with an experience of their own – or something that happened to their neighbor’s 2nd cousin.

I try to believe that people always have the best intentions no matter what actually comes out of their mouths.

I will confess, at times I have wished for a taser to silence people before they say stupid things.

Thank you to Tiffany and Mary for posting this video because it pretty much says it all.

My Real World (part 2)

January 26, 2012 at 11:23 pm | Posted in Grief, life lessons | 5 Comments
Tags: child loss, new not so normal, perspective, tragedy

Throughout history children have predeceased their parents. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln had 4 sons. Only 1 lived to adulthood. No wonder Lincoln was always characterized as being depressed. After the death of their 3rd son, Willie, Mary Todd Lincoln wrote, “when I can bring myself to realize that he has indeed passed away, my question to myself is, ‘can life be endured?”.

Here and here I posted a quote by Robert Frost. He had a brilliant response to Mary Todd’s question.

In three words I can sum up every- thing I’ve learned about life. It goes on. ~Robert Frost

I may have studied the life and work of Robert Frost in high school English class but I do not remember learning that he and his wife had 6 children. Only 3 of those 6 children outlived their mother and only 2 outlived their father. Frost and his wife both (not surprisingly) suffered from depression.

I have always known that Evan and I are not alone in this club. There is tragedy, loss and grief throughout history and the world. It is everywhere. Or maybe it seems that way to me. The rabbi who presided over Jake’s funeral told us an analogy which made a lot of sense to me. He said that death/grief/loss is like when you decide you are going to buy a certain kind of car. Once you make the decision you start seeing the car every where.

Regardless of how common or uncommon death/grief/loss is in the world I have a different perspective since Jake died in 2005. I did not think that my child or now my children would die before me. I thought it was something that happened a long time ago or to other people now it is my reality.

No matter how far the distance you have traveled nor the failures that have gathered, hope would still meet you anywhere. – Dodinsky

Life Lessons (part 2)

January 12, 2012 at 11:22 pm | Posted in Grief, life lessons, silver lining, twins | 14 Comments
Tags: child loss, life after loss, new not so normal, perspective, Sawyer, twins

“Today is the best day ever,” is a phrase the twins proclaim almost every day. This week I asked what exactly makes it the best day ever.

Day 1, we were in the carpool line and the teacher opened the car door. At that moment one of the twins proceeded to get sick in the car and on himself. His sister somehow managed to stay clean and went to school.

I drove home, cleaned him and the car. Our dryer had been broken so as I debated how best to clean the dirty clothes he announced, “This is the best day ever!” Really!? So, I asked him, what makes this the best day ever? He laughed as he replied, “The water you gave me after I got sick.”

Day 2, we woke up to this:

After we left the pediatrician to go pick up the prescription for pink eye, he proclaimed, “This is the best day ever!” I was so perplexed as to why he thought waking up with your eye glued shut and spending the morning at the doctor’s office was so fantastic. I asked again, “Really, this is the best day ever? What makes it the best?” He excitedly answered, “I get to go to CVS!”

Day 3, I had been up most of the night with the twins because of coughing and pink eye. They share a room so I decided to take one into the other room and hoped that everyone would get some sleep. The other room was originally our guest room. Then it was Sawyer’s room. Now most of Sawyer’s things have been removed, the guest furniture is in the room and it is still light green we had it painted before Sawyer was born.

I woke up in the morning and both twins were in the bed. They were talking about how Sawyer thinks this is the best day ever. I asked, “Why does Sawyer think this is the best day ever?” They replied, “He is so happy to share his room with us.”

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them – Lawrence Welk

January 2, 2012 at 10:50 pm | Posted in Grief, life after loss, life lessons, silver lining | 9 Comments
Tags: child loss, holidays, new not so normal, rainbows, Sawyer, twins, unexplainable, year in review

Here are a few of the things I have learned so far in life. I did not necessarily learn them in 2011 but now seems as good a time as any to share them. Do you have any you would like to share?

This list is not complete and will most likely be ongoing for the rest of my life. They are in no particular order. . .

When asked, “How you are?” Most of the time people just want to hear the response, “Fine” and go on with their day.
Hug more. One of the twins loves to hug and be hugged all the time. I will actually be hugging him and he will say, “Mama, I need a hug.” I answer, “I am hugging you right now”. He responds, “Hug more.”
Look for rainbows.
Listen carefully. The twins wanted gelt, the chocolate coins which are given out at Hanukkah. However, they kept asking, “Is it time for Hanukkah guilt?”
Music makes people happy.
Tutus also make people happy (see above). And, apparently ties can be the reason for really big smiles.
Sleep. Grief (along with life in general) is exhausting.
Life can be heartbreaking, unfair and unexplainable. No one ever promised any thing different.
Treasure the moments – you are never sure just how many you will have.