Loss and Recovery

Sharing Saturday  

My middle son would have been 12 years old yesterday. Even though I had only known him for five days, and Jewish law doesn't allow for morning or burial of babies under 30 days old, my husband and I, with support from our rabbi, chose to have a funeral and burial for him. It helped us accept the reality of his death.

I will visit the cemetery later with my younger son, who earlier this week asked where the baby was buried and wanted to come with me to visit him. My daughter just rolled her eyes and said that cemeteries were creepy. My son wanted to know if he had to hold his breath the whole time he was there. 

I believe that my short visit to the cemetery once a year grounds me to the story of my life.

Around this time of year, I always feel shaky. The memory stored in my body of the pain of his loss, the agony of unused milk, the shortness of breath I remember from the day we held him in our arms and he died, all comingle in a cloud that surrounds me for a few days. This year it is mixed up with the seasonal depression I've been feeling from the unending winter we've been having, and it feels heavier and more draining than most years. Every year I forget about this corporeal commemoration of the life I carried – until I've been feeling it for several days and then I remember.

A friend of mine recently shared a similar experience she has each year from a miscarriage she suffered a number of years ago. The experience of carrying a baby, no matter how long, is the most intensely physical thing a woman can do. It's no wonder we hold the memory of it in our muscles and our sinew and our hearts, as well as our heads.

We also just marked my mother's fifth yahrzeit, the Jewish anniversary of death and passing, in December.  There's something about the five year mark that feels like the end of a portion of the mourning process. In Jewish tradition, there are a number of marking points as you begin to mourn a loss of life.

 There is shiva, the first seven days of mourning, during which you are not supposed to leave your house.  You rip your clothing and cover your mirrors so as not to focus attention on any physical reality. You sit on a hard chair and wait for people to come to you to visit, to share and to remember. After 30 days, you observe shloshim, which is the time at which you return more fully to the world around you. Then you spend 11 months saying kaddish, the Jewish mourner's prayer, every day or every week, depending on your observance. It's a way to remember and push through the many moments in that first year where you realize that you no longer are with your loved one for a particular holiday or celebration or even just a plain old day.

Finally, at the end of the first year, you have an unveiling of the headstone at the cemetery. It's the end of the first cycle of mourning.  But there are many more to come.

And although there is no Jewish or secular milestone to observe when you reach at the five year mark, I'm feeling this one in my bones as well.

One of the crazinesses that took me over after my mother's death was a need to shop. I started to buy things without looking at price tags. I no longer cared about saving money.  It started with a small series of presents I bought for friends who had helped me through the crisis. This made me feel good. It moved on to more personal shopping – clothing, jewelry, books. Each time I purchased something, it made me think of my mother, who loved to shop.

This shopping frenzy lasted more or less until this year. Suddenly, at the five year mark, I no longer feel a need to acquire anything. I am incredibly blessed, and have everything I need.  Even during this difficult recession and our own family's financial set-backs, I feel full and sated. Watching the terrible pictures of Haiti and now Chile on the news, I feel like I never need to shop again.

Except for food.  One of the ongoing arguments my husband and I have is how much food I have stored in the house. Recently, during one of our blizzards, I noted that the newscaster recommended that you have three days of food and water in the house. My husband drily noted that we had 43 days worth. 

Except that he's wrong. I don’t have an extra refrigerator/freezer in the basement and don't have things stored down there. I constantly worry that I don’t have enough to feed my family, a worry that I have always dated back to 9/11, but now that I'm parsing it, I think it's related to losing my mother as well. 

Losing my mother made me want to mother everyone else more intensely – thus the presents for friends, thus the food hoarding. Losing my baby made me want to have more babies – thus my 10-year-old, thus my 8-year-old. 

My losses have made me who I am today. My friends and family and loved ones helped me through the worst times of crisis. But my bones and my muscles and my sinew and my heart and my head will never forget.

 Happy Birthday, Ari.

 Lion by Corey Leopold via Flickr

Comments

[Carol]

I am holding you and Jonathan in my heart just now, remembering that awful time. I am remembering your kindness to me that same year, when my own pregnancy was in jeopardy, and I am thinking, indeed, our losses make us who we are.

[Patrick]

I was really moved by your essay. For some reason, I'm thinking back to when there was a holdup in Minh's adoption and we thought that we weren't going to get him after all. I used to sit in the room we had already set up for him and look at the picture that the agency had sent us, and wonder what would happen to him.

[Ilir Zherka]

Thanks for sharing, Karen. Reading that makes me think of Alek. He was born with a blocked intestine. Seven days after his birth, I received the news at 5 am in the emergency room as I held him in my arms. Every part of my body shook with grief. I recognized it as an expression of the intense love and responsibility we experienced as parents. That emotion gets tied inextricably with memory it our brain. Memory and emotion follow eachother like day and night. He survived and thrives. But the feelings are still raw and now intertwined with the passing of 3 siblings. I use to think that we are the product of our successes and joys. I know now that our sorrow and grief complete the picture. Thanks again for sharing.

[Peggy]

Thank you so much for sharing your story. We lost triplets 10 years ago this May. Technically it was a miscarriage, but they were big enough to hold in our arms and so in our minds we count them as our first-born children. I too remember the pain of unused milk and the shortness of breath. We have no grave for our triplets, but every year we still go to the hospital's Perinatal Loss Memorial Garden on the anniversary of the event and remember them.

Funny -- I'm known for always having tons more food around than we need as well.

Hang in there.