"All of us know -- or will know -- grief"

This story is a little old, coming out of the Olympics, but I love it. Her keen observations remind me once again why Judith Timson is one of my favourite columnists. (And why I shouldn't read the comments on online news articles...!)

I've added in a few links.

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Judith Timson on loss

We all grieve with Joannie Rochette

We all know – or will know – grief, so when our poised and poignant figure-skating star lost her mother, we all got a lump in our throats

Judith Timson
Published on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 4:30PM EST

Last updated on Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 5:08AM EST

There’s an obvious reason why so many people have been wrapped up in the Joannie Rochette story. Most of us will never know what it is like to do anything athletic as brilliantly as Ms. Rochette skates. But all of us know – or will know – what grief is.

Human beings are hardwired for bereavement – it’s the cost of our emotional sentience. And what could be sadder than a daughter unexpectedly losing her mother at one of the pinnacle moments of her life? And so we have all become lump-in-the-throat cheerleaders for our poised and poignant figure-skating star.

We want her to skate brilliantly partly because we know what’s coming next for her: the hard-slogging work of grief.

Grief has lately found its way into the news in unexpected ways. There was British designer Alexander McQueen, who hanged himself, reportedly distraught over his mother’s death. There was the shocking death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at the start of the Games. And there was the study this week that confirmed our longevity has increased. Nothing sad about that, but it changes the future of grieving.

As more of us live longer, one of the stranger effects will be a raft of newly created “orphans” in their 70s, as their parents don't die until 99. At a recent gathering, we all laughed darkly when someone quoted a friend saying, “My mother dying practically ruined my 70s!”

The interest in grief as a passage, an art, and an inevitability, has of course intensified as the boomers see off not only their parents, but also their contemporaries.

Grief in the 21st century may have some distinctly modern elements – memorial services with shamelessly cool production values; e-mailed condolences; death announcements by Twitter – but what everyone discovers is that grieving takes up an inordinate amount of personal time, no matter how fast-paced a society we've become.

It’s also far messier than psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross led us to believe with her famous five stages of death and dying – “denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance” – which became the paradigm for grieving.

In a recent essay in the New Yorker on finding a better way to grieve, writer Meghan O”Rourke argues that this staging “turns out largely to be a fiction” and that “grief and mourning don’t follow a checklist; they’re complicated and untidy processes, less like a progression of stages and more like an ongoing process – sometimes one that never fully ends.”

Ms. O’Rourke doesn’t think our modern society does a bang-up job of acknowledging grief. We may bring in grief counsellors by the truckload, but we’ve adopted “a sort of ‘ask, don’t tell’ policy,” she writes. “The question ‘How are you?’ is an expression of concern, but mourners quickly figure out that it shouldn’t be mistaken for an actual inquiry.”

And yet grief is so infinitely interesting. It's practically the last way to be sad in our society that isn't instantly pathologized.

The new, paperback edition of The Mourner’s Dance, Katherine Ashenburg’s beautifully written account of how we grieve, includes a moving afterword about the author’s own parents dying. One of the discoveries Ms. Ashenburg made when she originally researched her book was that grievers uniformly report that spending time with the body of their loved one is hugely important. So when her father died, Ms. Ashenburg made her way to New York, and there he was, in a hospital bed, wearing “an old favourite, a V-necked brown cashmere sweater” and “except for his pallor, he looked cozy.”

She writes: “People talk about their hearts breaking, but I felt, instead, that my head was bursting … with one phrase, as if the words, in different fonts and sizes … were swelling my head beyond bearing. The words that came from my throbbing brain, but not my lips, over and over, were ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you’ … for a parent who had shaped my life with his constant encouragement and admiration.”

In the recent anthology The Heart Does Break, various Canadian writers tell the story of their own grief, from writer Marni Jackson’s funny and moving account of her father’s cremation, to Jill Frayne, daughter of the late activist June Callwood, who writes that “the state of emergency that came with her death has passed, and I have a sense of her again, not in the world, of course, but in myself, in memory and in dreams, but strongest in my body, in breath and bone, as if by physical feat I have incorporated her.”

This past January, I felt the familiar stone in my chest as I approached the third anniversary of my mother’s death. It was like living the moment over and over again. But this year, I surprised myself by sitting down and writing my mother a letter, catching her up on all that has happened since she left us, most of which would absolutely delight her: an upcoming family wedding, graduations and quite possibly the news that I am finally having that root canal.

I felt a little foolish, but the more I wrote the lighter my heart became, until the stone disappeared and my day seemed full of possibility again.

Grief changes us, deepens us, surprises us. Joannie Rochette has made all of us who grieve ache a little more profoundly on her behalf. She has a whole country of people mourning her loss – not to mention their own.

Parents, the childless/free & friendship

As you can probably tell from the number of times I highlight her posts here (lol), Lisa Belkin's Motherlode parenting blog on the New York Times website is often, well, a motherlode of interesting thoughts & conversation on parenting & family issues, which sometimes cross over the border into the Land of IF.

Two recent posts, on monitoring your child's friendships, and how friendships change after having a baby (which was more about how difficult it is to make friends after having kids), were followed by a third this week -- actually two guest posts in one -- one complaining about the post-baby gap between herself and a vehemently childless-by-choice friend, and another by a mom who longs for friendship that extends beyond baby babble.

The first post is the one that seems to be getting the most comments. It's heartening that (so far, anyway…!), the tone of the conversation has been relatively civil -- and also to see how many commenter (both moms & childless/free people) point out that not all people living without children are child haters. A few people have even mentioned infertility-related childlessness or being "childless not by choice" (although I wish there were more from that point of view).

Comment #12 by Starflower was probably the one that resonated most with me (& to date, it's been the comment most recommended by readers -- including me!). In part, it reads:

No one has to become a mother to truly feel love or to feel like a "real" woman, Sasha. My husband, friends and family already make me feel that way. And frankly, I've heard about all I'd care to on the gigantic gap that separates you from me. I get it. You’ve made a choice that radically changed your life, and what you're doing is very hard. But don't you dare lump me in with all the humorless child-haters that you believe are lurking around every corner. As the years go by and my friends' beautiful children grow and change, I hope to be able to play a unique role in their lives: the friend, who by very reason of her childlessness, has the time and energy to offer help, comfort, and support should they need it.

And please don't forget that we childless women also quietly attend your showers, tenderly cradle your newborns (if we're allowed to), and melt over pictures of your precious little ones, all without ever experiencing an ounce of the same approval and congratulations that are heaped upon women who've chosen to be mothers.

Amen.

Loriology

Rules: YOU! Yes, you, reading this. You’re tagged. Now that you know more about me than you ever wanted to know, play the game, it’s fun! Let others know a little more about yourself, repost this as your name followedy by “ology.”

FOODOLOGY:
What is your salad dressing of choice? ranch
What is your favorite sit-down restuarant? Mmm... probably Montana's at the moment.
What is your favorite fast food restaurant? McD's (for the fries!)
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Pasta
What are your pizza toppings of choice? Sadly, I can't eat pizza anymore, because of my issues with tomatos. :( When I could, I liked just plain ol' pepperoni with extra cheese.
How many televisions are in your house? Three (for two people!)
What color cell phone do you have? Silver

BIOLOGY:
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? My wisdom teeth, but I think that's about it.
What is the last heavy item you lifted? My briefcase??! lol
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? No
Have you ever fainted? No

BULLCRAPOLOGY:
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? No.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? When I was a kid, I wished, wished, wished my mother had named me Laura instead of Lori. These days, I don't mind it so much. It's me!
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? I don't think I own any sandals that could be classified as true flipflops, but I have plenty of sandals, & three pairs of "athletic" sandals (Rockports). They are incredibly comfortable.
Last person you talked to? Besides dh? I had an hour-long phone conversation last night with a former coworker (now retired).

FAVORITOLOGY:
Season? Anything but winter, lol.
Holiday? Christmas.
Day of the week? Friday
Month? Not sure. Probably May or June. Not too hot yet, but nice enough.
Colour? It's always been blue, but I like others these days too.
Drink? Coke, tea.
Alcoholic? Not a big drinker, but I will usually order a nice glass of Chardonnay. Baileys also goes over well with me, lol.

CURRENTOLOGY:
Missing someone? You bet.
What are you listening to? Dh downstairs, strumming on his guitar.
What are you watching? Nothing right now, but I'll be heading down shortly to watch the Oscars. : )
Worrying about? Work. :(
What’s the last movie you saw? In the theatre? Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. On DVD? We very seldom watch movies on DVD. I honestly can't remember!
Do you smile often? Not as often as I'd like to.
If you could change your eye color what would it be? I like my eye colour well enough. Maybe I'd make them a little more blue?
What’s on your wish list for your birthday? A sunspot vacation & a birthstone ring. (Hey, it will be my 50th! -- I think I can splurge!)
Can you do a chin-up? VERY doubtful.
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? Nervous.
Have you been in a car wreck? Yes
Have you caused a car wreck? No
Do you have an accent? My American cousins say I do, but I think they're the ones with the accents. : ) (And I do NOT say "aboot!")
Last time you cried? Thursday night
Plans tonight? Watch the Oscars, with a big bowl of popcorn.
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? No, but I've had some low points.
Name three things you bought yesterday? Dinner, a book for dh with my Chapters rewards card, & coffees for us at Starbucks.
Have you met someone who changed your life? Yeah -- dh! lol
For the better or worse? Better. : )
How did you bring in the New Year? At home with dh.
Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? To revisit certain people & places, yes. To redo things, probably not.
What songs do you sing in the shower? Golden oldies -- girl group stuff from the 60s, lol.
Have you held hands with someone today? Yes, dh.
Who was the last person you took a picture of? FIL (on his 81st birthday) with stepMIL & her grandson.
Are most of the friends in your life new or old? Mostly old, or older.
Do you like pulpy orange juice? I love orange juice, but pulp-free is better.
Last time you ate peanut butter and jelly? It was so long ago, I don't remember.
What were you doing at 12 a.m. last night? Sleeping.
What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? "Ahhhh, it's sooooo nice to sleep in!!"

At the cemetery

Today was a gorgeous, sunny, springlike day (10C/50F), and so, when we made our usual weekly visit to the cemetery, we decided to take a walk around the property. On our way back to Katie's niche, we decided to make a stop at the nearby Garden of Angels, which is the part of the cemetery designated for infant burials. Making arrangements after Katie's stillbirth, we were shown a spot there that could have been hers, but declined: it just seemed too, too sad, & the thought of interring her ashes in a niche seemed somewhat more bearable than lowering them into the cold, unforgiving ground.

Over the 11+ years since then, however, through our support group, we've met many parents -- probably almost a dozen that I can think of -- whose babies were buried there (as well as a few others whose babies were buried in the same cemetery but, like Katie, just not in the Garden of Angels). And we go over there to visit, every now & then, and sadly note the number of new mounds of earth & temporary markers that have appeared since our last visit.

We hadn't been there in awhile, & oh my. :( So many fresh, new, tiny graves. Three from January; two in the past week alone. Dh sadly noted that, from the first time we visited there in 1998, at least three new rows have been added to the Garden, stretching back further & further from the road.

Some of the graves have flowers & notes, stuffed animals & small toys sitting on top. Some are empty, every time we visit. Eventually, the temporary markers get removed; some have never been replaced with permanent ones. I wonder whether it's a matter of cost, whether it's a matter that's just too painful for the parents to face, or whether the absence of a marker indicates that they are trying to forget that the pregnancy ever happened.

While I know that not everyone visits the cemetery weekly, as dh & I do, it makes me sad to think that some of these babies' final resting places go unmarked & unvisited.

Those of you who have buried babies: how often do you visit the cemetery (if ever)?

Resurfacing : )

My last post, well over a week ago, was titled "Is there life beyond the Olympics?" -- and, as one wisecracking commenter posted, "Judging from the lack of updates, the answer is no." Touche, lol.

There IS life -- but just not online lately, it seems. The Olympics, busy season at work, computer AND Internet/phone company issues at home, and just life generally seem to have conspired to keep me offline for most of these past two weeks. My Google Reader totals have soared back above 1,000 posts again (although I did manage to wrestle them back down around 850). So my apologies for not being more up to date on others' posts, & my lack of commenting.

I've found a few interesting articles that I hope to share with you shortly.

Is there life beyond the Olympics?

I guess we'll soon find out, lol. But right now, it feels like all I do is go to work, come home, submerge myself in the Olympics until some ungodly hour of the night, get up & do it all over again.

Since the Olympics began, not quite two weeks ago, there has been precisely one night that I went to bed before 11:30. More often than not -- thanks to the translation from Pacific Time event schedules to Central Time TV viewing -- I'm watching TV till 12 or 12:30. And did I mention that I get up at 5 a.m. on weekday mornings in order to get to work on time in the city by 8??

There's no figure skating on tonight. There IS a crucial Canada-Russia hockey game (& if you thought Canada-USA was a rivalry, baby, you ain't seen nothing yet). But I'm planning on crawling into bed no later than 9 p.m. If that makes me unpatriotic, so be it. A girl needs her beauty sleep.

I was talking figure skating with one of my coworkers yesterday. I said, "I can't wait for the weekend so I can sleep in!" She (ignorant of my personal reproductive history) gave me a "look" & said wearily (only half-joking, I think...!), "I hate you. My daughter (17 months old) keeps the same schedule whether it's a weekday or weekend."

Part of me thought, "Ouch!"

Part of me thought, "If you only knew. I'll bet you would be mortified that you said that to me."

Part of me thought, "So, only parents have the right to complain about being tired??"

And part of me thought, "Tough! -- There have to be some benefits to childless living." (lol)

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By now, everyone knows about Joannie Rochette, Canadian women's figure skating champion, whose 55-year-old mother died of a heart attack only hours after arriving in Vancouver last weekend to watch her daughter compete. Her short program last night was both perfectly executed and heartwrenching to witness.

Beverly Smith of The Globe & Mail -- one of the best figure skating reporters out there -- wrote a beautiful tribute to Therese Rochette earlier this week. She reminded me of a story that I first heard a few years ago:

Her mother was never more a part of her skating when Rochette skated to L'Hymne d'Amour, music suggested to her by [choreographer David] Wilson for the season after the 2006 Olympic season. Rochette wasn't sure that the music was a good idea until she played it for her mother.

Rochette was driving in a car with her mother, and when she put the CD in the car's player, she was astonished to see her mother begin to cry after she heard the first few notes of music. "I was shocked,'' Rochette wrote in a journal back in 2006. "I couldn't understand what was going on.''

Therese wept because she'd listened to the music many times many years ago, after a fiancé died in a car accident two weeks before their wedding, when Therese was in her early twenties and the two had had a long courtship....

... "It was HER song,'' Rochette said. After that, Rochette had to skate to L'Hymne d'Amour. She even used it as her free skate music at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin.

(The article includes the poignant lyrics of the song.)

The article also includes a fact I had not known before: Joannie is "an only child." Well, not quite. It seems she had an older brother who died shortly after birth.

The journalist in me realizes this is a story that needs to be covered -- and, in making the decision to continue to compete, Joannie has invited a certain degree of scrutiny. I realize that people are curious and want to know what happens. They want to wish her well.

But there's a part of me, perhaps the bereaved part of myself that still downplays my own lingering feelings of grief and loss in front of others, that wishes the cameras would leave her alone, and cringes at times when it feels like the coverage is becoming excessive. (Facing others after my baby's stillbirth was so horribly hard. I can't imagine going out to compete/perform in an arena full of thousands of people, not to mention millions more watching on television.) (But then, I'm not an Olympic-calibre athlete who's been training my entire life for this moment...) There is a fine line being trod here, between covering a story and preying on grief to boost TV ratings and readership. (And maybe I'm a little guilty myself, by writing about it here in my blog.)

But at the same time, there was no denying the love and concern and respect shown by the audience last night -- the virtual arms reaching out to silently embrace the young girl at centre ice and buoy her up as she launched one perfectly executed jump after another. I doubt there was a dry eye in that arena. (There wasn't in my house.)

"She is Canada's daughter now," someone wrote in one of the newspapers, and if there were gold medals for courage, I think Joannie Rochette should have one.

Show & Tell: The angels wanna wear my red Olympic mittens...

In case you've been living under a rock the past few days, the Winter Olympics are now under way. In Vancouver, on the wet -- errr, west -- coast of my home & native land.

I marked the occasion of the opening ceremonies by donning my red Olympic mittens. I am not the only one. I am getting a huge kick out of watching the crowds at the outdoor events on TV, & seeing what looks like a sea of red mittens being waved in the air. I even saw one guy pointing to the white maple leaf after Maelle Ricker's awesome gold medal victory in the snowboard cross yesterday. For all that they have been so hard to find, I guess someone has been buying them -- last I heard, almost 3 million pairs have been sold.

I actually wrote about my red mittens and how I managed to scoop up a few precious pairs last week, but I couldn't resist putting up a picture of them for Show & Tell. : )

To see what others are showing & telling, head over to the Stirrup Queen's blog.