Pre-holiday odds & ends

• Thanks for weighing in on my recent post about our support group's candlelighting. It's tomorrow night, & we won't be going. The closer we get to the day, the more OK I am with that. (For one thing, it's been a busy week -- I'm exhausted, lol. The last thing I want to do when I get home at night is go out again.)


• Further to my recent post about closure, I ordered Nancy Berns's book, Closure, from Chapters online, & got it about three days later. Looking forward to delving into it over the holidays!


• I went to the Toronto Eaton Centre on my lunch hour yesterday (yes, I'm probably nuts, but it was Monday, and really not too horrible). Walking through the upper level, I could hear a beautiful, soaring soprano voice, singing an ancient Christmas carol -- I recognized the melody from church. She was not only singing but playing the harp, sitting in a corner beside the glittering Swarovski Christmas tree. I paused for awhile to watch her & to drink in the beauty of sight & the sound. And felt the lump rise in my throat. It was a wonderful, soul-calming antidote to all the hustle & bustle of the mall and stress of the office.


• Normally, I would come to the Eaton Centre to watch Santa with the kids as a pick-me-up. Alas, Santa is not in residence this year at one of the city's (& Canada's) biggest & most famous malls. You can Skype with Santa (!!) or buy tickets to a storytime session with him... but if you want to do the traditional thing and line up to have your picture taken with him, you'll have to go elsewhere. Bah humbug. :p


• I actually braved the Eaton Centre at lunchtime because I was out of Burnt Sugar fudge from Indigo & had to restock my desk drawer stash. I just recently discovered this delectable treat -- both the Original Crumbly Fudge & Sea Salt Caramel flavours, both "Heather's Gift Picks." O.M.G. I am addicted.


• My young, idealistic, single & childless coworker/cubicle neighbour was on the phone with her pregnant best friend last week. She was bubbling over with questions and enthusiasm. "Can you feel the baby kicking? What does it feel like? That must be SO COOL!! I can't wait to meet him!" What does it feel like to be so young & full of energy & exuberant, innocent enthusiasm about pregnancy? I wondered. And then wondered how I got so old & cynical. (And then thought about just how indeed that happened.)

Shades of grey... on a sitcom

OK, anyone watch "How I Met Your Mother" last night? (If you didn't, & you are a fan of the show, this post contains spoilers -- you have been warned.)

In a nutshell, at the end of the last episode, Robin thought she pregnant, & that Barney was the father. As someone who has been adamantly childfree by choice, Robin was not particularly happy to find herself in this position.

Last night's episode started out with a big twist: instead of the usual voice over of Future Ted talking to his two bored kids on the sofa, there's a different sofa, two different kids -- and Robin's voiceover narration with a new title: "How I Met Your Father." Huh?

Then, Robin finds out that she's actually not pregnant, and she & Barney do a silly happy dance. She apologizes to the kids on the couch -- "sorry, kids." Huh? again.

Then Robin get called back to the dr... and in one of the those "only in TV Land" twists, gets told that she will never be able to have children. (They can tell all this from a pregnancy blood test? And even if they could, should they really be testing for other stuff without telling the patient?)(But, I digress...)

It's one thing to say you don't want kids -- quite another to be told you won't be able to have them. Robin struggles with this newfound knowledge. Her friends sense that something is wrong, but she doesn't tell them the truth, instead making up a dumb story that she's disappointed that she just found out she can never be a Canadian Olympic pole vaulter (!). (Robin's Canadianness has been the butt of many jokes on the show over the years.) Meanwhile, Lily, the clueless preggo (who went through "infertility" very briefly while trying to conceive), takes her shopping for baby stuff, & waves a maple leaf onesie in Robin's face. Poor Robin has to leave.

In the end, we learn that the kids on the couch were all in Robin's imagination. (I figured that one out long before dh -- it just wasn't in keeping with the arc of her character.) "I'm glad," she says, although there's a tinge of sadness in her voice.

Future Ted tells us that although Robin never became a "pole vaulter," she became a famous journalist -- and a bull fighter (!)

But the last line of Ted's voice-over narration, as he gives Robin a hug -- "She was never alone" -- absolutely slayed me. I bawled like a baby while dh held my hand. I guess it tapped into my deepest fear -- of being alone and forgotten at the end of my life. It's something I try not to think about -- our nephews will look in on me once in awhile (won't they??)... I have friends... lots of people with kids are lonely in their old age too... But it's hard not to sometimes.

I spent part of the morning ignoring work (shhh...) & searching for online reviews of the show to see what other people thought. This writer and this one gave it thumbs up. I read some comments on the plot summary on ew.com, and some people hated it. I got a rueful chuckle out of how many were trying to figure out how Robin might wind up being a mother after all, even if she doesn't have biological kids (adoption? stepkids?)(She just HAS to be a MOM!!! Somehow!!! Right???)

Overall, I thought the episode was very well done. The unexpected pregnancy is such a TV cliche. I like that they didn't go through with it -- go for the easy ratings (both main female characters pregnant)(even though a pregnancy would have been totally out of character for Robin). I like that they left Robin childless/free. I give everyone involved kudos for tackling a subject that's not the usual sitcom fodder, & exploring and acknowledging the shades of grey that creep into our lives -- how we can be both happy & sad at the same time about something -- how you can be sad that you don't have children but still have a good life without them.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Article: "Looking for closure in all the wrong places"

This article was in today's Globe & Mail -- timely, I thought, given the holiday season and the number of people out there for whom Christmas might not be particularly merry, for whatever reason(s) but who nevertheless are feeling the pressure to get with the program.

Of course, I dislike the whole concept of "closure" intensely -- I don't believe there's any such thing. One of my all-time favourite quotes, from Elizabeth McCracken's amazing stillbirth memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: "Closure is bullshit."

Here's an excerpt:

Of the many self-help platitudes invoked during a crisis, none has been more flogged in the past two decades than “closure.” No tragedy can be complete until the narrative has run its course, converting sadness and injustice into a three-act screenplay taught in a night school course: happiness, disaster, closure. It’s the ultimate celebrity-interview reveal: “I finally have closure,” Tamara Mellon, former head of Jimmy Choo, told Interview magazine about her troubled relationship with her mother. Online posters want Rihanna and Chris Brown to get it, and the editors of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are scrambling to find some for Taylor Armstrong after her husband’s suicide.

When news is cast as entertainment, which it is in the 24-hour cable world, stories require endings. The meaning of closure is both mutable and vague – move along, finish up, put away your grief – which makes it highly utilitarian. A romantic breakup, a dead pet, a terrorist attack – closure is the great equalizing imperative, offered as cold comfort. There’s something profoundly attractive about closure: In chaos, it’s the one clear idea. Closure is something to do.

Yet closure isn’t a term used by many bereavement therapists. According to a new book, in fact, closure doesn’t even exist. In Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us, Drake University sociologist Nancy Berns writes, “Closure is not some naturally occurring emotion; it’s a made-up concept that tells us how we should deal with loss.” In other words, it’s a prescription that can’t be filled...

The truth is that grief is ongoing and laborious. Freud said that “mourning is work,” a thing to be wrestled. But it’s a valuable struggle; all kinds of truths arise from contemplation. What benefit is there to rush past injustices of the kind we’ve witnessed these past weeks? Who would be served by closing the door quickly and moving on at UC Davis, at Penn State?

Read more here. (I've put the book mentioned in the article on my "to shop for" list. Would you be surprised to learn that the author had a stillborn baby boy in 2001?)

To go or not to go?

I've debated what, if anything, I should write about this.

If you're read my blog for awhile, you'll know that attending meetings of a local support group was an enormous help to both dh & I in the days following Katie's stillbirth in August 1998. Although blogs didn't exist back then, I was lucky enough to find some daily support on the Internet -- and a support group not too far from where we live that met twice a month. Online support was my daily lifeline -- but meeting face to face with other real, live bereaved parents, & getting a sympathetic ear, suggestions and even hugs from our wonderful facilitators -- both bereaved mothers as well as NICU nurses -- was an invaluable part of our healing.

After a year, we felt we'd progressed sufficiently in our own grief journey to be able to help others, and so we began training as facilitators. We stayed on for the next 10 years, welcoming dozens of moms & dads, telling our (Katie's) story, listening to theirs (as our facilitators had done for us), offering the benefit of our experience where we could.

We facilitated our last meeting in December 2009, almost exactly two years ago. We stepped down because we felt that 10 years was long enough and that it was time for someone else to take on the responsibility. Dh, in particular, was feeling the toll of listening to one too many sad stories after another.

But, truth be told, there were other reasons. For one thing, the clients had changed... or maybe we had. Whatever the reason, it suddenly seemed like the clients were getting younger & younger -- & I started feeling older & older (& crankier, lol). The generation gap yawned like a chasm before me. A growing number of our younger clients (some of them young enough to be our kids, eeekkk) seemed more self-centred, less interested in listening to the other clients and providing mutual support. There were more & more nights when clients were monopolizing the discussion -- or, if not talking too much before the group, holding side conversations with each other instead of listening to whoever was talking. There were many nights I could see people surreptitiously text messaging under the table -- or, worse, leaving their cellphones on & then taking calls in the middle of the meeting (!).

And the organization had changed. The original founders of the group had gradually left -- many of them burned out from trying to keep the organization afloat & funding rolling in (dead babies being a far less popular cause in the public mind than breast cancer or heart disease). Unfortunately, many of the original values, principles and practices seemed to go with them -- or began slowly eroding -- lost in transition.

Soon, there were people on the board of directors and in the office who had not been around when we first joined the group, who did not know the founders or why certain things were done the way they were. Money was a continual problem, as it always had been, but not all of the problems related to money. Events were less well organized, with less attention paid to the fine details. Volunteer training became more sporadic, less hands on. Sometimes, I found myself annoyed by directives from the office concerning matters that were probably best left to each group & facilitator to decide. At other times, we felt that we were operating in a vacuum & not getting the level of support we needed.

Since we left, there have been more changes. Greater responsibilities & expectations have been placed on the facilitators' shoulders.

Now, I'll admit that I am a person who does not accept change easily. I know that sometimes, change is necessary, and that financial constraints make it difficult to maintain every service, every tradition and every position.

But it's not just the changes themselves but the way they were carried out that have most upset me, and many others. While I don't want to go into all the details, over the last two years since we've stopped facilitating, people we know, love and respect -- people who have served the organization well for many years, made enormous contributions, and were beloved by many, many volunteers & clients -- have been abruptly removed from their paid or volunteer positions in the organization -- often with little or no reasonable explanation given. (One lost her part-time job just days before the anniversary of her baby's death. You would think that an organization devoted to serving bereaved parents would have thought to check out that critical detail first before dropping the bomb.) Some volunteers who have voiced their displeasure or asked too many questions have been told that perhaps group was not the place for them any more. All this, from an organization that is supposed to care for and about people at the most vulnerable time of their lives.

To say that I am saddened, even sickened by what has happened, to people I admire & respect, and to an organization that has meant so much to me these past 13 years, is an understatement. Dh is furious, & has vowed that we will not give them one more penny of our money until things change. (Until just recently, we had been making generous monthly donations for about the past decade. We also raised about $10,000 for the group over the years through one of our workplace philanthropy programs.)

Many of our friends, especially those who have also volunteered with the organization in some capacity, feel as we do. Others who are still involved are dismayed by what's been happening --but (as you might expect) feel a tremendous loyalty to their clients & do not want to see them hurt any more than they are already hurting, through no fault of their own. The group is not perfect -- but what would parents like us do without it? Newly bereaved parents don't know what the group was like before, or care about the current internal politics. They may be getting an inferior experience compared to what we had, but they don't know that. They're just glad that someone is there to listen.

I hate to think about what the group has become, versus what it once was -- but I also hate the thought of no group at all.

What a mess!!

So here's my current dilemma: The group's annual holiday memorial candlelighting is coming up soon. This is an event that both dh & I have loved & always looked forward to (I've actually skipped or skipped out early from my office Christmas party several times to attend). It has been a huge part of our holiday celebrations for the past 13 years -- a time that we can set aside the hustle & bustle of the season, meet up with our old friends & remember our babies together. I can't imagine NOT going.

At the same time, I can't imagine GOING -- facing some of the people who made these decisions that I do not agree with, and pretending that all is well. I'm not a particularly confrontational sort of person, and frankly, I think I would feel like a bit of a hypocrite being there. To go would feel like we endorse what has been happening, when we don't.

I don't know yet if any of our friends are going -- it certainly wouldn't be the same without them. Some feel as we do. Others may not want to disappoint their children, who have grown up attending these events & come to look forward to them. In our e-mails over the past few months, some have said, well, who needs group, we can always get together ourselves sometime. Yes, but we generally haven't in the past, and nobody has volunteered to organize anything in the near future.

Another former facilitator has kindly organized an alternative event; unfortunately, it's on a night when we are otherwise engaged.

(We will be facing the same dilemma in the summer, when the annual picnic & butterfly release -- another annual highlight on our calendar -- rolls around.)

I just feel so terribly, terribly sad that it has come to this -- that something that once gave us such comfort & a sense of belonging has become so tained -- a source of pain. It's another loss, on top of so many others that we (dh & me, and our friends, collectively) have endured.

I know this sort of thing happens in lots of group situations. I just didn't think it would ever happen in this one. Sadly, I was wrong.

I think we have made our decision -- but I still feel very ambivalent.

What would you do?

That's a loaded question...

Mass e-mail from co-worker (edited to remove identifying information):

Hi Everyone!

For our Holiday Party, I am collecting your best/worst/funniest holiday memory.

The Social Committee will be using this information for a fun activity we have planned for the party.

Please try to keep it concise (a line or two at most) and email it to me privately.

If you could send it to me by EOD Friday, that would be great!

*** *** ***

OK, I'm assuming by "worst holiday memory," they are looking for worst/we-can-laugh-about-it-now stories about the time Santa left a lump of coal in your stocking, or you had one too many glasses of eggnog & woke up with a hangover -- that sort of thing.

Because, honestly -- do they REALLY want to hear people's WORST holiday memories?

I mean, let's face it, I love Christmas -- but most people's Christmases, even the best ones, rarely if ever measure up to the Norman Rockwell ideal. And I'm pretty damned sure nobody wants to hear about MY worst Christmas.

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to be expecting a baby in November -- to have your mother exclaim, when she learns the due date, "A baby for Christmas!!" -- to dream about bringing that baby home for the holidays to her adoring grandparents & great-grandparents -- only to have that dream totally, utterly shattered when the baby is stillborn in August?

Do they REALLY want to know why you can't bear to hear or sing "Away in a Manger" anymore? (especially when, one year, the choir changed the lyrics to include the line, "A baby for Christmas...")

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to start crying every year while you're watching the Santa Claus Parade, because it brings back memories of your pregnancy & your secret wish that you'd be able to watch the parade from the windows of the hospital (on the parade route) with your newborn daughter in your arms?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to go to the mall and be confronted with oodles of toys, impossibly precious holiday clothes at Baby Gap & Gymboree, and a massive lineup of adorably dressed babies & toddlers waiting to see Santa Claus, when you'd give anything to be doing the same thing with your daughter?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to lose your grandfather just a few weeks after losing your baby -- the grandfather you adored, secretly thought was Santa Claus, and spent every single Christmas of your life with?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to go to your Christmas party -- the one place where you think you're safe & looking forward to kicking back with your co-workers -- only to have the colleague who was pregnant at the same time as you were & due just a few weeks before arrive? WITH her baby girl in tow?? And then be told that not just one, not just two, but THREE other coworkers just announced their pregnancies? (See my post about the Worst. Christmas Party. Ever.) And then leave the party early & spend the next two hours sitting numbly in the train station, waiting for your husband (who is at his party -- this being pre-cellphone days), & reading the same page of your People magazine over & over again, because you keep replaying the night's events over & over again in your head and just can't focus?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to decorate the Christmas tree in silence & without smiles or laughter, that first Christmas?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like, searching for the perfect ornament for the tree to memorialize your stillborn daughter?

Do they REALLY want to know why your entire Christmas tree is now covered in teddy bear angels & Classic Pooh Christmas ornaments that you've accumulated over the past 13 years (hint: the baby's nursery was to have had a Classic Pooh theme)?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to read the cards that your mother received from her friends (who obviously haven't heard the news), saying things like, "Congratulations! You're going to love being a grandma!" and "Being a grandmother is the best!" and "How's that grandbaby?"

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to hear everyone around you mouthing platitudes like, "Christmas is for kids"?

Do they REALLY want to know about how awful it felt to watch your father's face crumble as he started to take the traditional "family around the dinner table" photo, set down the camera & retreated downstairs so that we couldn't see him cry?

I didn't think so.

(For the record, I sent the story about my parents giving me the stereo I had been bugging them about for years -- complete with turntable & cassette deck. It was 1981 (30 years ago, eeek), I was in third-year university and I honestly didn't expect they would ever buy me such an expensive gift (which seems so Little House on the Prairie-ish these days, when I hear about parents buying their kids iPods and iPhones and game systems and television sets and Ugg boots, & taking them to Disney World) -- you can see in the pictures that I'd been crying from shock! They hid it under a roll of carpet in the shower stall of an unfinished basement bathroom in their new house, and sent me on a treasure hunt to find it. I still have it, in my basement, along with all my vinyl albums.)

(Not) the most wonderful time of the year :p

(Sorry, I hit "publish" before I was quite finished. And Blogger has been acting wonkily enough that I couldn't go back in & edit -- I had to copy & paste into a Word doc, delete what I had posted before & then report -- ARGH. So if you read my first post in a reader, this is the correct version.)

For awhile there, I thought I was going to make it through November without my annual "I hate November" whine. The weather has been unusually mild (which actually makes me a little nervous, global warming & all that) -- & SUNNY (which lifts my spirits enormously -- part of the reason I dislike November is the constant grey and gloom, at least here in southern Ontario). I got through Katie's 13th birthday/due date relatively well. The stress of year-end activities at work has been pretty manageable up to this point (although the daily 1 p.m. project meetings were really putting a cramp in my day). I got an early start on my Christmas shopping. My cousin recently moved just a 15-minute drive away from me (after 26 years of being surrounded by dh's family -- nice people that they (mostly, lol) are -- I FINALLY have a relative living closer than 1,000 miles away!!) -- and invited us to dinner for his daughter's birthday last week. Not only did I get to eat perogies, homemade by his visiting mom (my aunt), it was American Thanksgiving and they cooked a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Last weekend was lovely. I got to sleep in, & slept pretty well. Housecleaning went quickly. We took Christmas stuff to the cemetery to decorate Katie's niche which, although a sad reminder of what we've lost, also made me feel better to see her little corner of the world looking appropriately festive. We had dinner at a new local restaurant (Irish pub) -- the food was good & hot (we'll be back) & had a $10 coupon to pay for part of it. We had a nice, leisurely browse at Chapters without too many disruptions from screaming children in the toy section or inconsiderate dolts sitting sprawled out on the floor, blocking the aisle, while talking loudly on their cellphone. Sunday, we went to see "The Descendants" with George Clooney, & while the subject matter was on the depressing side (middle-aged man with two daughters dealing with his wife's impending death and the discovery that she was having an affair), the performances were excellent. Plus the scenery was gorgeous (not only George, lol, but it was set in Hawaii).

And then Monday rolled around (as it always does) & everything has been downhill since then.

It's crunch time at work -- major milestone coming up on Friday. A couple of projects will be more or less off my plate at that point, but (of course) other have come to take their place -- urgent stuff that needs to be done well before I leave on my vacation, of course.

Everyone is under stress. Dh is under stress at work -- and he has a mancold. :p And when I woke up this morning, it was pouring rain, and hasn't stopped all day. The sky has been dull, dark and grey.

Christmas decorations are springing up everywhere, I see people everywhere with shopping bags, but I don't have time to take a full lunch hour to work on my Christmas shopping, I'm too tired at night to head to the mall, and the thought of the mall on a weekend makes me cringe. :p

And so, just like that, I'm into my annual November sulk & feeling sorry for myself.

Update: Things are slightly better tonight, since I started drafting this. We had some hot soup for supper and assembled the Christmas tree (decorations to come later this week). Doing something a little Christmasy helped, I think.

To quote Scarlett O'Hara (watched the movie for the umpteenth time other night, Kleenex in hand), "Tomorrow is another day."

November 2010: Black Friday
November 2009: November blahs
November 2008: November again
November 2007: November: The cruellest month

New header, new look

What do you think? The new header photo comes courtesy of Melissa, Stirrup Queen extraordinaire , who used it in a recent post & generously designed a new header for me when I complimented her on it. Absolutely love it, but it didn't quite fit in on top of the template design I had, so I have been playing around with new ones.

I was thinking I needed to update some of my links, etc., so this was the kick in the pants I needed to get started -- and it wasn't hard at all to add in the header either. Thank you, Mel! : )