The Respite

When grieving, not all moments are bitter. There are many, many sweet ones, made all the juicier by the grieving. We have had too many of these to count recently. Sophia has been the funniest, wittiest, most congenial and cooperative version of herself. I take absolutely no credit for this and consider it proof of God's care for us. Not that she's normally ill-tempered, but she is two.

One of my favorite things she says these days is when she climbs up on the couch, pats the seat next to her and says, "There is plenty of room for you next to me, Mommy." Who could resist? Her "I love you"s have been more frequent and voluntary. Her hugs just a little more lingering. Her kisses just a little easier to steal. Anyway, all in all, she's been a dear girl and a wonderful friend through all this.

I've tried not to let her suffer for my distraction. It's definitely been the house, but that will all catch up. It still hasn't been warm enough for me outside, but we have made more trips outside because she loves it.

Truly, there is no more relaxing activity than digging in the sand.

Unless, of course, it's going for a stroll.

Starting from the Same Point

After a very good conversation with Erick last night about the topic of grief, I realized that today's post should be about how I define grief, particularly as I'm relating it to different areas of life.

Grief as people normally think of it relates to the large and often crushing losses of life: death, divorce, loss of livelihood, unexpected and unresolved end to relationship, disability, and the list goes on. This type of grief is large and takes up a great deal of our energy for at least a portion of our lives. Well, at least it does if we allow it. If not, we end up living only partially. Grief of this kind, most experts agree, seems to involve five stages: 1. Denial and Isolation, 2. Anger, 3. Bargaining, 4. Depression (Sadness), 5. Acceptance. I don't like assigning these stages numbers because each process seems to move in and out of all of these stages, even simultaneously. While all of these stages seem to be present after these greater losses in life, I believe they present themselves differently for each person, even within that person - differently for each loss.

The second point I was trying to make is that grief is often short-circuited, if acknowledged at all, in other areas of life. I would agree these other losses are not as threatening to one's existence, but they still have the potential to derail us. For example, I said that choices we make leave others untried or unexperienced. An extreme example that I hope will help others understand what I mean is this: When Erick and I chose to begin starting a family, we were ecstatic and joyful to welcome Sophia. However, we had made a choice that our lives would never be shared between only the two of us again. No more running out for pizza at 10:30. No more sleeping in till 10:30. No more freedom or ease or uninterrupted conversation. I would not trade our current reality for any amount of riches, ease or opportunity; however, if I don't acknowledge the choice we made, I could become resentful of Sophia's presence in our life. Marriage is harder when children are present. Is it worth it? Of course! But even asking that question is a form of grief - particularly of the final stage of acceptance. I don't think that all the stages of grief are necessarily present in this second type of grief. Even if they are present, it seems that they could be less apparent and vital to the process.

I wanted to address my definitions of grief because if you are reading this with another definition or confusion about the less threatening types of losses, then we can't get very far. I hope that this post has been less confusing than I think, but I welcome questions and the chance to further clarify my position.

Maybe in the mean time, I'll take some pictures of Sophia. Nothing like a little distraction to ease the tension.

Thoughts?

Good Grief

Earlier in this blog, in a post or comments that I'm too lazy to search for, I believe it was alluded to that our culture does not spend enough time actually talking about grief. Or death. Or pain. We let the artists take care of that. We shed a few unexplained tears at an emotional, even if poorly written, movie - and feel better. A book or song that holds no obvious emotion for us, gives us the excuse to let the waters flow, if only for a moment.

I am going to make an argument that we (humanity) do our best living when we are grieving. Not just loss of life, but of comfort, innocence, understanding, friendship, opportunity. The human experience is full of choices, paths taken and others not taken. Each choice we make leaves a whole path of opportunity that we must grieve. Of course there are many things that happen in life, which were not a product of choice, and those leave empty spaces that can only be filled with the tears of true grief. Now, I'm not the type that wants to live in a pit of blackness, reliving each misery or mistake of my own or others. I don't find satisfaction in dwelling on the losses of life, but it's my opinion that by actually grieving our losses, we give them far less power in our present and future.

All of that precedes my saying that I am grieving, and I am going to share it with you. This is a risk on my part. I hate leaving myself open to being pitied. Please don't do that, and if you do, keep it to yourself. I want to use my grief as a starting place for our conversation. I am not an expert on grief, although I (like each of us) have had many losses. I am not asserting that my loss deserves more attention than any other. On the contrary, my tendency is to remind myself of those who suffered infinitely greater loss than I and seem to endure with a tender spirit. That is true, and it's not the point either. I simply want to talk about grief. What better way than to walk you through some of my own process.

That's all for today, but I do want to set a few ground rules. Obviously, I want this to be a conversation, so please comment if you have something to say about grief. Please do not comment if you feel the compulsion to tell me that you're sorry for my loss. I know you are, and I appreciate it. That's not the point. So in the next days or weeks or whatever it takes, I'll share with you some writings and thoughts and random ways that I process. Enjoy. Or don't. Either way, you'll need to grieve the path you didn't take. ;)

Multi-tasking

These past few weeks have been stressful (to say the least) for Erick and me, but they have probably been some of Sophia's best. I know that I have a much lower threshold than usual for toddler behavior, so I am choosing fewer battles, which means next week will be a nightmare in that regard. Really, though, she has been about as sweet and hilarious as I can remember. That, of course, is very bittersweet given our current circumstances, but I am really trying to enjoy it.

An example of a slightly less demanding home is that here she is, probably at ten in the morning: no pants, talking on the phone to her daddy, while watching TV. Awesome. An example of how she can be her daddy's girl. Ha! Just kidding! Or am I? Now you'll think twice when you call us, won't you?

Aarrg!

Just when it was cute and fun to be a pirate, the headlines go and ruin it. Shouldn't we be able to come up with a different name for these modern pirates? I don't know - burglars, smugglers, kidnappers, sea criminals - something that I don't typically encourage Sophia to pretend to BE.

Now I have to endure an inner battle each time she puts on the pirate hat and eye patch (and this probably happens more here than with most 2-year-old girls). Should I really be encouraging her to pretend to be someone who ransacks ships and holds people for ransom? Probably not. It was one thing when I could pretend she was just a harmless 19th century pirate. Their pillaging, etc. was far enough in the past that it could be distorted and softened with images of Johnny Depp and, yes, Errol Flynn. But it will take some pretty serious casting to make these current characters into lovable but messy pranksters.

Just saying.

Poop Stinks

This post has nothing to do with poop, but it just seemed like the only way to start.

I've been on radio silence for a while for one main reason. We've been having a rough stint. Last Monday, almost two weeks ago, I was planning a very fun post. I had an ultrasound scheduled to make sure that everything was okay in my - yep - early pregnancy. I was 8 weeks, and the ultrasound technician could only find an empty sac. That was not good news, but it wasn't necessarily the worst news. The basic idea was that I could have been off on dates and less pregnant than I originally thought or it could be something called a blighted ovum. That means that an embryo implanted but only the sac continued to grow. The only way to know for sure which we were dealing with was to wait nearly two weeks - until yesterday morning - and have another ultrasound.

Two weeks of waiting was pretty miserable, but we managed to carry on with life in the most normal way we could. I worked so hard not to think about what we were waiting on that I ended up not doing much thinking at all. That's why no I couldn't think of any posts.

So yesterday morning was the ultrasound. Poop stinks gives you an idea that it did not turn out like we had planned. The sac was still empty and hadn't grown at all. So this week I will need to have a procedure to end the process.

So that's where we are. After two weeks of stopping feelings in their tracks, we are finding it to be a challenge to access them now. It will happen when we least expect it. With people who care close and each other closer, we'll make it through this as we have anything else.

Most of you already knew about all of this, but it always helps me to get things out in writing. I appreciate you hearing me out, but I don't really need feedback. I've disabled comments on this post. I just don't want anyone to feel the need to find something to say.

Cover Your Eyes

On Saturday, we made a quick trip to the St. Louis Zoo. As usual, Erick and I had as much fun as Sophia. She was pretty tired for some reason, so we had to take breaks between the animals for her to get excited for the next one.

In the main building of the zoo, they have an incredibly large shark, squid and sting ray on display. On the way into the zoo, she freaked out a little, but by the time we were headed out of the zoo, she was already prepared for the fright. Without any reminder from us, she said, "I won't look at the shark." and put her hand over her eyes.

Just peeking through them a tad.