Right Where I Am: 14 years, 10 months, 15 days

I recently ran into a woman I know from another department at work, at the coffee shop in our building. She asked about my summer plans, and I asked about hers. "How old is your little girl now?" I asked, remembering the bright-eyed toddler I saw with her in the elevator some years ago. I figured she must be -- what? 10 years old now?

"Fourteen," the mother replied wearily, adding flatly, "She was MUCH cuter when she was four."

I had to pick my jaw up from the floor -- not only the fact that her daughter was really 14 (!!) -- but also that she was the same age that MY daughter would be right now. How had I forgotten that? Or did I just block that part out? 

It will soon be 15 years since I held that wee white bundle in my arms, kissed the tip of my finger, pressed it to her cold, red forehead and whispered goodbye.  She would have turned 15 in November. She would be in high school now, Grade 10 (gulp) this fall. No doubt (as my colleague wearily alluded) she would be driving her father & I crazy right now. (Dh, of course, insists that she'd be perfect.)(Not only perfect -- in his mind, she's a genius and already attending university. Sure, honey, whatever you say... ) ; )

It's a daunting prospect. I have to admit, I am having a harder time envisioning her these days, what she'd be like. Maybe I don't WANT to think about it, lol.

Grief is my constant companion, but far less intrusive  these days. It rises to the surface now & then -- certain dates, a sad TV show, some visits to the cemetery (but not others). When my 7-months-pregnant coworker lost her baby earlier this spring, it was like a sucker-punch to the gut.

Grief these days is a thin veil of sadness, of world-weariness, that envelops my experience. Most days, the veil is gossamer thin, but there are still times when it wraps itself around me so thickly I find it hard to breathe.  I wonder sometimes if it's grief, or age, or a bit of both that I'm dealing with these days? Sometimes it's hard to separate the two. After all, grief comes to all of us, eventually -- if not the loss of a child, the loss of a parent or grandparent or someone else we love, the end of an era, the loss of a dream. Some of us become acquainted with grief sooner rather than later. The longer we live, the more intimately acquainted with it we become. And each loss, each brush with grief, forever alters the lens through which we see the world.

There are many days when I still feel like I'm 20. But there are also days -- more & more of them, lately -- when I feel every bit of my 52 years -- physically, mentally, emotionally. (Even though Aunt Flo continues to visit me with maddening regularity.)

I am surrounded by reminders that I am no longer 20 -- that the fertility boat has long since sailed without me. One of my high school classmates became a grandmother last year, and celebrated her daughter's wedding in Mexico this spring. Another high school classmate's daughter is getting married next month. Another, who got married the same year I did and whose two daughters are now in university, recently announced her forthcoming divorce, after 27 years of marriage. Another lost her mother a few months ago.

We have four summer students this year, on top of the many 20 & 30-somethings in my office.  One coworker got married last year, got a puppy & just bought a house. I am waiting for the pregnancy announcement any day now. :p  Two are bridesmaids in friends' weddings, so I get to hear endless discussions about dress shopping and bachelorette party planning. One new dad is leaving soon on six months paternal leave;  another dad is expecting his second child any day now.

As I write this, in a cubicle near mine, there is a group of young coworkers gathered around the computer, oohing & ahhhing over photos of one girl's best friend's brand new baby. Grandma Coworker -- closer to my age than theirs, but a mother & grandmother -- is reminiscing about what it was like when her own daughter was born, and advising what kind of present to take to the hospital. The younger girls are giggling and sighing in awe and anticipation of the day when they too will become mothers. When, not if.  And who am I to rain on their parade?

I sit quietly in my cubicle. I do not cry -- but I wince.

I have a good life today, despite stillbirth and infertility. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten, or wonder about the life I might have had. I still sometimes wistfully glance down the road not taken.

The words of a lovely old Gershwin song, as sung by the immortal Ella Fitzgerald, echo in my head (especially the first two and last three lines):

They’re writing songs of love - but not for me
A lucky star’s above - but not for me
With love to lead the way
I’ve found more clouds of gray
Than any Russian play could guarantee

I was a fool to fall - and get that way
Hi ho alas and also lackaday
Although I can’t dismiss
The memory of his kiss
I guess he’s not for me

Right Where I Am 2012
Right Where I Am 2011

For more "Right Where I Am" posts, about what grief looks like with the passage of time, visit Angie's blog.  

Right Where I Am: 13 years, 9 months, 21 days

Angie at Still Life With Circles came up with a brilliant idea last year: ask bereaved parents to write a post describing where they are now in their grief, whether it's been a matter of days, weeks, months, years, or even (gulp) decades since their loss.  An amazing 179 parents took part and shared their stories and their thoughts, me included. 

"Right Where I Am" is back for a second year. I have to admit, when I contemplated whether I should take part again, I wondered what I would have to say that would be different from what I wrote last year. In the early years, it seemed like the differences in how we felt from year to year were fairly noticeable (whenever we paused to take stock of such things). But how different could grief be at 13 (almost 14) years versus 12?

Of course, once I started writing, the words began to flow. A word here & there at first, then phrases & then complete thoughts began to tumble out of my head, through my fingers and onto the computer screen. I've been trying to block out how I might have felt last year, or two years or 12 years ago, and focus on what grief feels like for me, right now -- what things are standing out for me today as I write (if not yesterday or two weeks ago, etc.).

At one time, earlier in my grief, I felt like I was leading a double life, a secret life. There was the brave face I showed each day to the world -- and then there was my true, hidden, after-hours, behind-closed-doors life as Katie's mommy, an ever-grieving parent. I felt the difference keenly -- the sharp divide between my life before my pregnancy and life afterwards.

I still don't talk about Katie or my short-lived pregnancy or my infertility struggles much to anyone, at least, outside of my "real-life" & Internet friends who have also lost babies. The sense of "otherness" is still there (sometimes more acutely than others). I have come to realize that it probably always will be.

But overall, the pain is nowhere near as sharp. The lines have blurred. My grief, my daughter, my infertility -- these have all become a part of me, of who am -- the completeness of me.

I feel her absence differently than I once did. In those early days & years, I mourned my baby. When I thought of Katie, of missing Katie, it was a baby (my baby) that I mourned. For a long time, I found it hard to picture Katie beyond babyhood, long after she would have grown into a toddler, a pre-schooler and beyond. I still have problems seeing babies & pregnant women from time to time -- particularly on those days (and there have been a few of them lately...!) when it seems like Every. Other. Friggin'. Woman. I walk by has a pregnant belly. :p 

But these days, it's not pregnancy &/or babies that dominate my thoughts. These days, I find it easier to picture Katie as the 13-year-old she would have been (teenaged drama, tantrums & all)(dh continues to insist that HIS daughter would never behave in such a fashion...!). It was a shock, as I wrote earlier this year, to realize that she would have been graduating from junior high this year and heading into high school this fall, and that I would have been shopping for prom dresses and making manicure/pedicure appointments right about now. Right now, my Facebook feed seems to be full of pictures and photos of other Grade 8 & 9 students' graduations & proms (which have become almost as elaborate as their senior high school counterparts, it seems). 

Another babylost mom recently noted in a private online forum that she is having a difficult time as the mothers around her celebrate -- and mourn -- the end of their children's school year -- sad that their babies are growing up, "graduating from pre-school, kindergarten and so on. "I want SO badly to tell them that the saddest thing is never getting to see them grow at all," she says. Amen, sister.

I'm also catching glimmers of the young adult my daughter might have become. Most of my peers (friends, cousins, etc.), even if they got married around the same time as dh & me, began having their children long before dh & I ever began ttc. Today, many of those children are graduating from high school or university, getting married and having children of their own -- making my friends (big gulp) grandparents. My friends, once the mothers I wanted to be like, are now becoming the mothers of brides and grooms, and the grandmothers I will never be.

Our cultural expectation is that grief is like the flu -- something you "get over," fairly quickly. Those of us who mourn a loved one get a pass for a short time -- a few weeks or perhaps months -- but then we're expected to get back to "normal" (whatever that is).  I think about the American Psychiatric Association, which recently proposed amending its definition of clinical depression -- an abnormal psychiatric condition -- to include those mourning a loss that happened just TWO WEEKS AGO.  (See my post here, and follow the link to Dr. Joanne Cacciatore's blog -- she explains it all much better than I can...!) 

The lesson of "Right Where I Am," I think, is that the vast majority of us never "get over" our grief.  It is something we carry with us throughout our life. It becomes a part of us, who we are. And while that grief may not manifest itself in the same way or at the same level of intensity as the years go by -- it is real. And it is NORMAL. 

And we can survive and go on to lead happy and fulfilling lives -- even when they're not the lives we thought we would be leading -- even when there will always be someone missing from the picture.

And that, sad and difficult as the road has been at times, we wouldn't trade this journey. As Mrs. Spit said in her own "Right Where I Am" post for this year, "Still... I am glad he came."

Thank you, Angie, for encouraging us to explore this topic, again, and bringing us together on your blog.

You can read Angie's story and others -- and add your own -- here.

Right Where I Am: 12 years, 9 months

Angie, the brilliant creative mind behind the blog Still Life With Circles and other related blogs & projects, recently came up with the great idea to have bereaved moms (& dads) write about where they are now in their grief -- how far they've come (or not) & what life after loss is like for them at this point in time.

I have only read a fraction of the 40-odd posts linked to Angie's initial post for this project, but I suspect I am probably further along in my journey than most of the other writers: coming up to 13 years since August 1998.

I have written about this topic before, I think -- most notably on a guest post for Glow in the Woods two years ago. Most if not all of what I wrote there still applies.

Thirteen years later, Katie is still very much a part of our lives. I still miss her, and feel her absence, even though she was never really "here" in the conventional sense, & her prenatal existence less than 7 months.

We still visit the cemetery every weekend. Most times now, I don't cry, unless maybe it's Mother's Day or a special "anniversary" date or just a crappy day for whatever reason. Mostly I just feel sad & wistful about what might have been, & happy to be there, close to her for a little while. She is always with me, of course, but the cemetery is her special place, a quiet place where I can set aside all my other thoughts & obligations, and just be with her and focus on her and think about her for awhile, before resuming the regular rhythm of my life again.

But there is never a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about her in some way -- about my all-too-brief pregnancy and how it ended, about our struggles to conceive again, about how old she would be & what she would be doing now.

In that regard, of course, we have (Not So) Little Girl Next Door, six months younger than Katie would have been, to act as our constant yardstick. Last night, she and half dozen friends were whooping it up for several hours on the trampoline in the backyard, which I can see from my living room & bedroom windows. They were jumping and shrieking and giggling in youthful exuberance, well after dark, even after dh & I had settled into bed with books before going to sleep for the night. I wasn't sure whether to be sad, knowing that Katie would probably have been among them, had she been here, or secretly, smugly pleased, knowing that at least it wasn't MY daughter out there creating a ruckus in the neighbourhood ; ) and that's one thing I will never have to worry about.

Probably the biggest difference between my life 13 years ago and my life today, however, is that I am not a mother (to a living child). I wasn't then either, but I still hoped to be. I am almost 13 years older now -- 50 -- and I know now that the motherhood ship has sailed permanently, that I will never be a mother to Katie's brother or sister. I've had 12+ years to think about this, and write about it and adjust to this reality, but the truth is that I still sometimes feel like the odd woman out, even among other parents who have dealt with loss &/or infertility.

The vast majority of other bereaved parents who lose a child in pregnancy or infancy either already have a child, or go on to have another child, or maybe both. This doesn't minimize their loss in the least, of course (although outsiders to the world of grief might think it does, or should) -- but the fact is, they are still actively parenting and experiencing parenthood in all its joys & sorrows & frustrations (just not parenting the child they lost). The rhythm of their lives is very much the same as most people's -- but much different than mine and dh's. Their lives are full of bedtime stories and temper tantrums, soccer games and daycare arrangements. They will know, eventually, what it is to see a child celebrate a birthday, graduate from high school, leave home to go to college, maybe get married and have a child themselves some day. They will, more likely than not, have someone to worry about them and visit them in the nursing home and leave their most precious belongings to.

I will not.

Already, some of my peers -- my friends & cousins -- are becoming GRANDPARENTS, reminding me that not only did I completely miss the parenthood boat, there is another new, related phase of life that will not be mine to share with them. In many ways, my life (& my life with dh) has continued on exactly as it always has. Their lives have expanded and changed in ways that mine never has & never will.

At the same time, my life HAS changed -- just in more subtle ways, and in ways that parents who have never experienced loss will never know or understand. They may know the joys & pains of parenthood in a way that I never will. I have known grief, and I would never have welcomed it willingly into my life -- but it has brought unexpected gifts and richness to my life in ways I never could have imagined.

I have watched, sadly, as friends & relatives have become distant in the years since we lost Katie. At the same time, we have made wonderful new friends, both "in real life" and online, who have also struggled with infertility & childlessness and who have experienced the pain of perinatal loss, who understand us as perhaps no one else can. We've both developed much greater empathy and compassion for the pain & struggles of others, and not just in the sense of infertility and loss. We have given back to the support group that helped us so much, volunteering for more than 10 years, something that many of the parents who attended (who would also have made wonderful facilitators) just don't have time to do. We know that grief has the power to tear some marriages apart -- ours, thankfully, has survived and become stronger. We spend more time together than most couples we know. We appreciate the good things about our life together.

We have endured subtle and not-so-subtle digs over the years about how "it must be nice" to be able to sleep in late, to afford whatever new purchase someone is admiring, to be able to retire early, as we are planning with hope -- the unspoken implication being that we can have and do all of these things because we don't have children. They don't stop to consider -- will never know -- the awful price we paid to have the life we have now. (If they did, I don't think they would envy us quite so much.) We both know that there are much, much more important things in life than things, or money, or clawing our way up the corporate ladder. At the same time, though, I refuse to apologize for having some things that others don't (both material & non). I would give it all up gladly to have my daughter back, but since that isn't going to happen, I will gladly take whatever advantages & nice things life sends my way.

Almost 13 years later, my life IS better than it was, immediately post loss. I have survived.

But I still wish things were different. I still wish she was here.