Obituary

We sat. Three generations. Silent and tense.

The room was not unlike a prison cell – cinder-block walls, industrial and painted grey with cold floors that only live in hospitals. And that smell. You know the one. Extinction waiting around every dull corner. He was in a semi-coma, quiet but randomly responsive. Voices would make his eyebrows jump and occasionally his hands would move just like they had when he let loose with a punch line. He made sounds every once in awhile and we each imagined what they meant.

It is an exhausting thing to wait for death; difficult in ways one doesn’t really think about until doing it. Any other time, a person confined to a small room, waiting for something unpleasant would browse a magazine or toil over a puzzle, anything to occupy the mind. But there was none of that in our space. There were no monitors or machines or beeping boxes to alert us when the time had come. I knew we all secretly worried we would miss it. There was pain remedy dripping from an innocent bag, silently tending to the duty of making his exit inconspicuous. We watched with vigilance.

When it grew late, I found a nurse and asked her if they could please bring a recl…. I never finished my request. She knew which room I had come from. “Would someone prefer a cot?” No thank you… just one recliner. An orderly entered without a sound and rolled in a huge, overstuffed chair. It looked familiar. From the Critical Care Unit waiting room, I remembered. Behind him was a nurse I had not yet seen carrying blankets and pillows. She placed them on the chairs around the room and left without trying to make any ridiculous conversation. I liked her.

Around midnight, his breathing grew more labored. Not terribly so, but enough that the room was no longer silent. There was a rhythmic energy to the air. I found myself trying to match it, to help it, strengthen it. His face seemed more pained, pinched in places that it hadn’t been. His outbursts were less frequent. His hands weren’t talking to us anymore. Hours and hours of just his breathing – wet and swampy – were lying before us.

I don’t recall if anyone spoke or what we talked about if we did. My grandmother did finally find sleep in the recliner and her soft snores seemed out of pace with the rhythm in the room. My mother sat quietly, like me, agonizing over each breath and staring at him as if something was going to happen. Or change. I just knew that if I stared long enough I could will him to sit up and he would laugh at us for fretting… or he would slip out of bed and flirt with the nurses as he made his rebellious exit. I could visualize his face loosening and his eyes opening and that he would just talk to me. And I would have sense enough to ask him all the questions left burning in me since that night.

My grandfather on his favorite mare, Goody.

When time finally lost its hold on me, I pulled my chair as close to the bed as I could and rested my head alongside. His hand was right there, bruised and bloodied from all the needles and tape. It looked so fragile, like it didn’t belong to him. I thought how thin the skin was as I settled my face there. I could feel the bed give and take with every labor of his breath. It was a rocking chair, a cradle, a slow and steady march. It was hard to comprehend such fragility; hard to believe that this larger-than-life hero of mine was slipping away like this.

My brother was so afraid of him when we were small. He was a large man, with a larger voice – steady in his stature, but ultimately unpredictable. His callused hands were fidgety when without a cigar and his skin was storied and wise. He roared when he spoke and my brother would duck to safety behind my mother’s knees.

He was always ready with a nickel and an illicit request for a cookie or a fudgsicle. You had to be willing to sneak it to him since he wasn’t supposed to eat any sweets. “Diabetes,” he would quip with a roll of his eyes. He never believed them.  When I realized I could be implicated in his quest for chocolate contraband, I upped my price to a quarter. He laughed and made the deal. I wasn’t afraid of him like the others were. His enormous energy settled and nurtured me, and I spent my whole childhood believing I was his favorite.

His back patio was a haven for a myriad of wayward things – a museum of his own creation with knives and arrowheads, barbed wire fencing, photos of outlaws, glass bottles full of coins and a cranky typewriter at which he often cussed while he poked out letters on yellowed papers. There were live exhibits, too, and they were often just as wayward. Beyond those glass doors you might discover the local chief of police or “Doc,” the stately university president. On rare occasions, a dark, lanky figure would wander stealthily up the driveway – a decorated helicopter pilot simply called “Smoke” who’d been shot down four times in Viet Nam. I never actually heard him speak. One of my favorite regulars was Sam Pat, a submariner from WWII who talked a lot and laughed even more. There was also the man they called “Governor” – or rather “Gov’ner” as we tend to say in the South – and not because it was a nickname, but because he was one.

My grandfather would hold court on that dusty, Texas patio while I sat quietly at their feet, hoping they would forget I was there so I could capture every word of every tall tale. I know now that I heard lots of things my mother would have preferred I not. But it was one of my favorite places to be, that back patio kingdom of his.

As he often was – handkerchief around his neck and gun in his belt.

I suppose I slept for moments at a time. His breathing would always startle me back awake and my eyes would burn. We’d been in that hospital for days and days, seventeen hours in that room alone. When it was just about dawn, he was still there. I felt surprised and buoyed by the promise of a new day. The nurse I liked had finished her shift and gone home. My own lungs ached along with his, desperate to lend them help. The breaths were saturated and stuttered. With every exhalation we anticipated that he would simply not breath in again; seconds would pass, time would stall and he would surprise us and gasp again.

Finally, after the sun had fully risen, that raspy inhalation did not come. We waited. No one was breathing – our collective breaths held. I sat up straight. How long had it been? Long enough? I tore my eyes from his face to look at my mother, seated just across him from me. I peeked back at him. His face was relaxed, his brow limp. Shouldn’t someone be saying something? I looked about with the frantic realization that my sleeping grandmother did not know. I finally exhaled. With trembling lips my mother mouthed the words, “Bye Daddy.” Then she looked past me, “Momma? Momma wake up.”

The sun was quick to peek through a stubborn crack in the blinds and illuminate a cobweb on the window sill, too high for anyone to reach. I was still expecting the next gasp to come. Instead, the door erupted and in bustled a new nurse on the first moments of her shift. She was cheery and oblivious. “Good morning! How is everyone this morning?” I looked from face to face, waiting, desperate for someone to say it. To hear the words out loud that it was real. The bouncy nurse checked his pain medication and stopped short. She looked at him and grabbed his wrist. Instantly somber, she turned to my mother and said, “I’ll get a doctor right away.”

And then, into our tomb of silence, suddenly people were everywhere. Several busy nurses and two doctors – because even death requires a second opinion. The hospital priest arrived to say a blessing and generally get in the way. It felt very hectic and I was no longer sure what to do. My mother calmly instructed me to start calling people. And say what? I thought. No one had actually even said it yet. So I called someone to whom I would not have to really speak. My father answered the phone too quickly and I simply said, “Dad?” “OK sweetie, tell your mother I’ll be right there.”

A brief eternity later, in my grandmother’s sunroom, the family was gathering. All the people who had enjoyed a good night’s sleep were now telling us how things were going to be. My grandmother, our matriarch extraordinaire, began orchestrating as if planning a pageant. I was sitting on her blue sofa. There was a plaid, chintz pillow and a slightly worn spot in the rug at my feet. If I looked just to my left, I could see through the glass doors to his chair on the patio. His museum perfectly intact. His cat asleep in his chair.

All I could hear amid the murmuring voices was his breathing – the breathing that would soundtrack my nightmares for months to follow. It was like being underwater. And then one word… obituary. That’s what finally got through. My grandmother was sitting next to me, asking me to write his obituary. “You know his whole life, darlin’, and he would want you to do it, of all people. Will you get his obituary ready?”

So, turned out, the first time I actually said it, I didn’t really say it at all.

I wrote it.

“Ernest Gilmore Garrison, United States Border Patrol, Retired, died on January 14th at the age of….”

I suppose I’m still writing it.

 

 

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Four)

This series originally appeared on ACMB in October 2017. By Jennifer Soos. 

Continued from Part Three

April 27

We found out today at the doctor’s office that we got the very thing every expectant parent hopes so desperately for: a perfectly healthy child.
The autopsy report said so.

No abnormalities of the heart or lungs. No vascular complications. No invisible bacteria or infections. No imperfections of placenta or cord. “Cause of death: Unknown.” I left with as many samples of birth control pills as they would give me.

When I got back to work the mound on my desk seemed like the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen. The thought of sitting down to do it seemed even more insane. So, I cleared my voicemail, scanned through e-mail, and after a “full workday” of about 28 minutes, I left my office. Luckily, almost everyone was in meetings, so I only had to leave a note. As I was making my escape, I overheard a conversation in which a close colleague of mine was finding out that her expectant daughter-in-law is having a girl. They were giddy and cheering. After five boys in the family, there would finally be pink dresses. I was relieved to be walking out. The last thing anyone needs in the middle of a baby celebration is to have to talk to me.

When I got to my car, the sadness hit me like a wall. So much of this process is not even about the initial loss anymore. Yes, it overwhelms you in the beginning—the actual loss of the baby—but when I cry now, all these weeks and weeks later, it is about other things.

A friend of mine who has had several miscarriages wrote something a few weeks ago that came back to me today. She talked about the loss of her innocence—and even though I knew what she meant, I hadn’t actually felt it until today.

When I sat down in my car in the parking lot I realized that I will never, ever feel the way they do right now. In the midst of being respectful of the miracle that is pregnancy, I will never, ever jump up and down over it. That feels too presumptuous, too risky. I will never be uncautiously, unabashedly expectant. I have lost that.

Today he would have been two months old, and according to the charts, he would’ve been smiling in response to things. He would’ve been playing with his hands. He would’ve been starting to recognize the difference between parents and strangers. He would’ve grasped his ability to have needs met by crying and his personality would’ve begun to unfold.

That’s what the charts say. That’s how I know those things. And I also know, because an autopsy report says so, we had a perfectly healthy little boy.

May 1

Last night we went out. I mean “out” like we used to. Out to dinner with some new friends—people who didn’t know us when I was pregnant. People who don’t consider us the saddest people they know. We had great Thai food on an outdoor patio and drinks that came with disclaimers. Then we went to a bar with a live band that didn’t start until 11:00 P.M. We stood on our chairs and yelled and spilled things. The band was sweaty, drank Texas beer, and smoked a lot between songs. We thought they were awesome. When we left my clothes smelled like an ashtray and it didn’t bother me like it used to.

We laughed a lot.
We danced.
We “woo-hoo-ed” and whistled.
We had stamps on our hands.

We forgot for just a little while.

June 6

Last week I went to Baby Sam’s house. The best friend my son will never know. His mom and dad and I had dinner and caught up, and they got to meet Wheeler. It was something that needed to happen and I was glad to finally do it. I’ve missed them a lot.

Sam is huge already. I can’t believe how much he’s grown in these first five months. Absolutely perfect and precious, making adorable faces and new noises. I didn’t hold him, though. That is for a later time, perhaps.

It is amazing to me that he is already so different. I think that is what made it easier than I expected. He’s not the thing I lost anymore—he’s moved past that. I guess the blessing is that it might get easier and easier to be around him. After all, Wheeler will always be a newborn to me. That was how I met him, that was how I held him, and that was how I said goodbye to him.

It continues to be true that the things I’m sad about now aren’t much about a baby anymore. I’m sad about not being able to have a new dimension to my friendship with Sam’s parents. It was difficult to watch them in a new, evolved relationship. There is something deeper in their interactions. There’s experience in her voice—fragile and weary, but it’s there. And the light in her eyes when either one of them looks at her was breathtaking. I’m sad that she is embarking into this formerly unknown world, learning so much about herself and her capacities. I’m not sad she’s doing it; I’m sad she’s doing it without me. And I know she’s deeply grieved about this, too.

Later that evening Sam’s mom and dad sat and looked through my book of photos. She cried a lot. It’s hard when it becomes real to you—the photos make it real—and no matter how much you’ve cried up until that point, the pictures open up a new place in you. They asked questions. I told a birth story few are brave enough to hear. She talked about his profile and his curly hair and his perfect little hands. It occurred to me later that they did with him just as I had done with their son—conversations we had been waiting almost a year to have with one another. I realized I had often imagined us sitting around a dining room table talking about who got whose eyes and nose and which uncle would be taking credit for what.

So, I just want to acknowledge that we got to do it. We had those very moments we had expected for so long. They weren’t exactly as we had planned them, but how many moments in our lives really turn out as we plan?

I’m grateful because I was able to be there for them at all.
I’m grateful because my friends were willing to go through those moments even though they were much, much harder than we had imagined them to be.
I’m grateful because I’m learning that I’m stronger than I might have ever known if I weren’t having to prove it to myself.

I’m grateful that my love for him is not vulnerable to the things of the physical world. I don’t have to worry for his safety or fear the loss of him. Our bond has been perfectly preserved just as it should be: unconditional, invincible.

June 30

The house sold.

We close on the 9th. In spite of all the advice to the contrary, we are moving.

I’m aware that I will get overwhelmed with the move. Who doesn’t hate to move? I won’t feel like packing, and in 10 days I’ll be so sick of boxes I’ll scream. That’s all predictable and expected.

But there is this other layer underneath that. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to roll out, but I know it’s there. It comes from the part of me that is sad about leaving this house, even though I don’t feel particularly attached to it and I absolutely cannot do the commute one more day.

For the rest of my life this will always be the house that contained my first nursery.

It will always be the house in which I experienced the revelations of pregnancy, with the kitchen that witnessed him finding out he would be a father for the very first time.

The living room could tell of evenings on the couch: four hands pressed to a belly, startled with every miraculous squirm held in silence and awe.

This house welcomed me as I came dazedly through the door, bleary-eyed and clutching a tiny wooden urn. I searched its insides for a place of safe-keeping, looking for the corner, the nook that felt most like a heart.

These floors are swampy with the tears I’ve shed. The moisture that incubated this musty hope I sometimes feel as the wood creaks beneath me, eking out the sounds of burdened planks, urging us to move on, reminding us that we have outgrown it.

We didn’t outgrow it in the ways we predicted. We don’t find it too small because of scattered toys and bulky playpens; we’re crowded by what we had dreamed of, by what is no longer here.

We’ve never loved this house. It’s too old, too far away, too plain—we’ve always found complaints. I didn’t expect to feel sad about it.

It’s just a house, I thought. Just a place that contains our furniture and clothing, where we do laundry and have meals occasionally. A place that holds our stuff.

But this place contained us as we were transformed into a family, forced through a tragedy, and now it releases us like damp butterflies or snakes fresh from papery skin: not what we were when we entered.

In spite of our resistance, these walls became our home. I’m grateful for that.

July 10

I am now sitting in the tiniest room in this new house. What a relief.

I’m surrounded by boxes of things—books, towels, stationery, more books, computer parts, dresser drawers—and it’s a bit of a disaster. But it’s all here. We left the old house for the last time last night at about 10:00 P.M., and it was bittersweet in the truest sense: an almost equal mix of hopeful happiness and exhausted sadness.

Before we drove away with our cars packed to their brims with final odds and ends, we walked through it one last time. First, the bedroom. I turned the lights on for one last look, and he made a predictable remark about “lots of good memories in this room” (wink, wink). We both chuckled, admired the suede walls one final time, and then the room was dark.

Then to “Kitty’s Room” (aka: Guest Room, Treadmill Room, Project Room). When the lights came up we both said, “Kitty!!” just like we did several times a day for years anytime she would emerge from that room. I thought of her lounging in the sunspots on the floor and napping on her window perch. It made me smile, and then the room was dark.

When the lights came on in the “office-turned-nursery-turned-office-again,” neither of us said anything. I glanced at the built-in shelves and drawers and saw a flurry of tiny clothes and blankets. I thought about the crib, the furniture we returned, the cries we never learned to decipher, and the bright, smiling paint that lives underneath those somber khaki walls. I think of that turquoise and green as perfectly preserved, completed only weeks before it was covered over. We were still silent as I slowly turned away from the room, aware that I was closing a door on the briefest chapter thus far. He stood silently behind me, tired eyes quickly filling. No words were spoken as he wrapped his arms around me, sadness seeping from one to another, and such relief that these would be the last tears this house would have to absorb.

Then the room was dark.

And we drove away. Into a new chapter.

 

Author’s Note:

I’m humbled and grateful for you, dear readers, who have gone on this journey this month. Your many messages and comments and emails have reminded me how important it is for all of us to share our stories. A few notes for many of you who have asked: these events took place in Seattle in 2004. And yes, our family’s memorial of Wheeler’s life continues to evolve. We spend his birthday each year inflicting kindness on those around us… a treasured day that I have grown to love. You can read about those days here, here, and here. And finally, the journal this story has been excerpted from is available in its entirety. I have shared it with other bereaved mothers many times over the years. I am happy to send it to you – requests can be emailed to jennifer.soos@gmail.com.

Thank you again for allowing me to share him with you all.

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Three)

This series originally appeared on ACMB in October 2017. By Jennifer Soos. 

February 29th

– continued from Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Two)

From the moment you left us, all I wanted was to go home. But there were still complications, and that wouldn’t happen for another 24 hours.

When I did finally leave that hospital, I was not carrying a baby, carseat, or diaper bag. I was carrying a plastic bag full of clothes I’d been wearing many days prior and cradling a small, delicate box covered in handmade paper and tied with yellow ribbon. When the angel-nurse had handed that box to me she said, “This memory box is full of several things: the clothes and blankets your son was wrapped in, photographs we took of him, his handprints and footprints, a tiny snip of his hair, your hospital bracelets, and the stuffed animal that stayed with him while he was here. You can take this home and never, ever open it—that will be just fine. But, if at some point in the future you do want to open it, I promise you will be very glad you have it.”

And with that we headed home.

When we pulled into the driveway, I just sat there. Still uncertain about what was supposed to happen next, other than an immediate shower in my own bathroom, of course.

Your dad said, “Hey…just give me a few minutes, OK?”

“Sure.”

He dashed inside and was out again in no time to help me into the house.

I would realize later that he had cleared the entire house of gifts, packages, baby furniture, clothes, bottles, pacifiers, diapers…all the things scattered about that had accumulated from baby showers, care packages, and shopping trips. He had piled them in the nursery and mercifully closed the door.

In spite of my exhaustion, there was not much sleep in those first few nights. So strange to go from feeling like we would never be ready and had a million things to do to having absolutely nothing to do at all.

Every morning when I wake up, I re-remember that I am not pregnant anymore, but there is no baby in the house. Then I negotiate with myself for those precious few pre-lucid moments about whether it is a nightmare or if it has actually happened. I’m not sure when I will stop expecting there to be a baby.

I had no idea I could feel so incredibly hollow.

There will be an autopsy. I cannot even think about that.

And then you will go to the funeral home, and we will have to give them some kind of instructions. More things I cannot imagine. Your grandparents will be here by then. Maybe they will know what to do.

I know it’s time to stop writing this. It’s over.

I miss you so much that I can’t even explain it. I think that if I just keep writing maybe I will figure it out. Mostly, I worry about you… Are you OK? Are you scared? How can a baby be without his mother? I hope with every fiber of my being that you are warm and safe and held constantly. I like to picture you with our family who loves you who have also passed: Aunt B and Granny and Pop and Paw Paw. I really hope that something like that is true. (Though, I should warn you, if you listen to Paw Paw for too long, he will get you into trouble. But you do have his nose, so you might not be able to resist. I get it. He was my favorite, too.)

Someday, when we meet again, I hope you will feel proud of us and however it is that we figure out our way through this.

Until then, please be well, sweet angel…

All my love,

Mom

 

March 21

(Three weeks after)

People call to “check on me” a lot. I suppose they expect to find me answering the phone in hysterics and then they will rush over to…do what? I’m not sure what it is people think they would do if I was, in fact, a basket case when they called. Shouldn’t they know better? I mean, if I were in the midst of a crying episode, I probably wouldn’t bother to answer the phone, would I? It’s nice. I know. They mean well. They really care about us. I’m not complaining, it’s just curious to me. The bottom line is that there isn’t anything anyone can do or say to make it better, but Lordy, that doesn’t mean they don’t keep trying anyway. I think I’m supposed to be learning how to accept help and love and care from others more graciously. I’m pretty sure I’m not doing a very good job so far. And I will probably be sad when they aren’t calling to check on me anymore. What a mess.

It’s very quiet right now, which I like. No television, no radio, no video games, nothing. There should be new noises in this house by now—coos and cries and the sounds of spit-up—so I think it must feel even quieter than usual with their absence. Maybe just the radio wouldn’t be so bad.

I saw the nurse this morning. My blood pressure is still really high, but no one knows what else to do about it. I’ll see a neurologist on Tuesday. Woke up with an unbearable headache again today; took meds. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It was so hard to be in that waiting room today—the last place he was alive. Nearly four weeks already. Hard to believe.

Wasted day today. Just want to cry. So, so sick of crying.

Need to pay bills, feed dogs, do laundry, blah, blah, blah. Life keeps going, the world keeps turning, no matter how often you ask it to please slow down just a little. Or stop.

Yes, stop.

I really want to just get off this ride.

 

March 27

(One month down)

The first of many significant milestones, as they say. One month. Four weeks. Twenty-eight days.

Yesterday wasn’t a particularly easy day. Emotionally, I was definitely up and down. My mood changes like whip cracks.

But last night, when the lights went out, like a flood, the last remnants of denial must be leaving. That protective varnish of surrealism has been worn down. Like having the air sucked out of me, I felt dizzy as this new heaviness settled in, and I heard a cool whisper in my ear, “This is it. This is how you are going to feel for a long time, and there isn’t anything you can do about it. Meet your cross and get comfortable.”

I wanted to disappear.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to pass out.

Instead, I cried and cried and tried really hard not to shake the bed, not to wake him up.

Finally, I had to get up and go into the other room…the box.

I went through his things: pictures, prints, teddy bear, the softest hair I’ve ever felt, the little cap he wore—it smells just like it’s supposed to—a new stab with each whiff. I became very aware that the physical reality of him is slipping away: the agony of milk is finally slowing, and the bleeding has ceased. Part of the aching last night was for something real, something I could hold. Those little clips of hair were like gold, and the smell… I began frantically calculating how to preserve a scent. I meticulously examined the photos so I could figure out exactly where his head and cheeks had touched the quilt. I beat myself up for not holding him longer, for not talking to him more, which led to beating myself up for not paying closer attention near the end, not being more vigilant and demanding with the doctor, for all the things I didn’t even know I didn’t know. There is a mountain of tissue on the floor in there. With a good two-hour cry under my belt, I tried to go to bed again.

The force with which the headache raged this morning was knee-weakening. Thank the good Lord for Relpax.

There is some solace in the really hard days: not as much guilt. The days that are outwardly more carefree and productive, the days that contain even a smile or an enjoyable moment, those nights are plagued by insurmountable guilt. It’s paralyzing. It’s a no-man’s-land: you either give in and cry until you think you will break or you shove it down, try to distract yourself, and wind up exhausted and overwhelmed with guilt, which just makes you cry anyway.

“You will never ‘get over it,’ as people say, and you should not expect to. You will just slowly grow accustomed to this deep sadness now within you, and the more time that passes, the more capable you will be to manage it. God will help you find a place to keep it so it isn’t always in the way, but it will never be far from you.” These were my mother’s teary words about her same experience 35 years ago. Not a very sunny forecast, but probably the most true.

The easiest death is most certainly your own.

 

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Four)

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Two)

This series originally appeared on ACMB in October 2017. By Jennifer Soos.

 

February 29th

– continued from “Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part One)“

They had taken you back fairly quickly from my chest. My health was still a “grave concern,” and there were issues they needed to tend to. Our sweet angel-nurse gave you a bath right there in the room with us. I watched her as if I were watching a very strange scene from a play with bad lighting and no sound. I remember how incredibly careful she was, so gentle, smiling at you and talking to you the whole time. It was easy to pretend that you were going to wake up and start crying at any moment. I wondered about that, too: crying. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t yet. Such shock and fear for my own life. Everything was suddenly so surreal. We were more than 24 hours into this ordeal, and I still had no point of reference for appropriate things to say, do, ask, or even feel… It was like I was levitating above myself watching everything from a distance.

Your bath was finished. She wrapped you in a blanket and laid you in the warming bassinet, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t turned on. She explained to us that she was going to take you for at least a few minutes, but we could ask for you to be brought back in at any time, once they were finished with me and I was “out of the woods.” With a teary smile, she rolled you out of the room.

I think your father then made some impossible phone calls.

I probably have not thanked him enough for the superhuman things he has been doing in this process—and all with such grace and protectiveness for me.

You are so lucky to have him as a dad. I can’t believe you are going to miss out on it.

We talked about having you brought back in: an idea both terrifying and completely natural.

You are our first; remember, we have no idea what we are doing.

But I did feel, deep in a place in my soul that I didn’t even know I had, that I needed to hold you for as long as I could. I feared the regret of it more than I was scared of how hard it would be. Your father nodded and told me about his phone call to your grandmother, who was many states away, while he was on his way to the hospital. He told her, “I guess something is wrong. They can’t find the heartbeat. I’m headed to the hospital now. I’ll let you know more when I do.” There was quiet for just a moment and then she simply said, “No matter what, you make sure she holds that baby. Promise me.” And so, your father concurred, as unbearable as it was to imagine, yes, of course, we needed to.

Minutes later, they brought you in.

You smelled exactly as a baby should.

They had dressed you in a yellow onesie that was covered in little stars. You were wrapped in a white blanket, topped with a white hat and bundled under a tiny, yellow, flannel quilt.

Your little lips were dark, almost like bruises, which I imagine has something to do with the way you died: lack of oxygen and other things I don’t know about yet. Your nose was perfectly adorable—an exact replica of your great-grandfather’s. How he would have loved that. Under the hat we found dark brown, wavy hair and teeny tiny ears. Your fingers, all so perfect, sadly lay limp with a little purple under your nails. But I could see you—your precious face as if you had never been without oxygen—and even in my despair, I could see peace there.

Your father held you. The very first baby he had held in as long as he could remember—he wanted it to be that way—for you, his firstborn, to be so special.

I won’t speak for him.

I’ll just say I was so relieved he did it, and that watching him endure it is one of the hardest and bravest things I’ve ever witnessed.

I felt such an urge to talk to you while you were in my arms—to tell you a million things you certainly needed to know—but, it was so clear you were not actually there in that little body. You had moved on. And, it turned out, no words felt significant enough anyway. I don’t know how long we had you there with us—maybe 45 minutes, maybe many hours—but it was mostly silent. I do remember the sun starting to descend and the room gradually getting warmer while you were there, fingers of light falling in through the blinds, brightening up your quilt as the rays of sunset slowly made their way across all of us. However long that gorgeous, brutal, finite universe of just the three of us existed on your birthday, I will never forget it and I will never stop being grateful that I got to have it.

And then the nurse was there.

And we told her she could take you.

And that is when I recall my tears finally began.

Because to say “hello” and “goodbye” to you, my precious son, in nearly the same breath, was just too much.

But that is exactly what we did.

 

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Three)

Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part One)

This series originally appeared on ACMB in October 2017. By Jennifer Soos.

In the months and years that followed the death of my oldest child, I found such incredible solace and comfort in hearing the stories of others. Just knowing that other people had survived what I was living through brought me hope and helped me feel a little less crazy. I have been continually grateful for the bravery and willingness of those parents who shared their worst nightmares in support of my own grief and healing.

In that same spirit, and in honor of Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, I am sharing mine.

February 11

Good morning to you, little one.

Now, with just a few weeks to go until we meet, your father has decided with impressive finality that you are a girl. In fact, he is so determined that he is correct, he will no longer discuss boy names. So, if you do turn out to be a boy, let’s all hope I’m in some reasonable state of mind to come up with something. (And yes, my mother is still irritated that we refuse to find out. She hates this whole surprise thing.)

Here’s some news: after 36 weeks of constant, relentless nausea, I actually felt hungry yesterday. I almost didn’t know what it was! So, thanks for finally letting up on that—I swear, if I ever see plain white rice again I just might faint straight away. It should only take me a few months to forgive you for all these months of misery.

Something else you should probably know about me is what a procrastinator I can be. True story. So imagine my delight (and surprise) over the reality that your nursery is nearly complete! And with several weeks still to go, it’s got to be some kind of record. Bassinet should arrive in a few days. We need to put the changing table/dresser together, but the prints are up on fresh, bright walls, and it is comforting to know you won’t have to sleep in a laundry basket when you come home. Kidding. We wouldn’t have done that. Probably not.

Let’s see. Brand new pediatrician? Check.

Nursery mostly assembled and decorated? Check.

Registry finally done? Check. (This, at least, makes my mother happy.)

Best friends’ baby arrived? Check. And, YAY!

The last big milestone of our pregnancy was the arrival of Samuel Robert—and he’s here! We were so excited to finally meet him—he who will surely be your very bestest friend or your very first boyfriend, either one will be just fine with us. So, hurry up and join the party, please?!

With the start of the weekly doctor appointments, the time should fly right by.

Can’t wait to meet you. Be well. Grow strong.

All my love,
Mom

 

February 29

My sweet child,

It is with a heavy heart that these months and months of writing the story of your long-awaited arrival will now come to an end.

I continued my weekly appointments, just as planned. Everything was as expected, although my blood pressure continued to make the nurses’ eyebrows raise, they claimed not enough to be concerned. I was always there late in the day and still working full-time.

This past Thursday I was there for my last weekly appointment.

My maternity leave was to begin the next day, our due date nearly upon us.

I was reading a Better Homes and Garden magazine, which was resting on my belly, and you kicked at least a half dozen times. Strong enough to ruffle the pages and make me take a deep breath. Exam room, step on the scale, pee in the cup…the usual. As the doctor was talking to me about my last day of work, he got out the Doppler to listen to your now-so-familiar heartbeat.

He never found it.

After about 30 seconds, I noticed he was suddenly very serious. It had never taken so long to find the precious little swish-swish-swish, and he was very, very quiet. He asked me when I last felt the baby move. I told him about the magazine in the waiting room. He was still searching. “Roll to your side.” Nothing. “Roll to your back.” Still nothing. I was worried because he looked so serious, but it didn’t occur to me that something might actually be terribly wrong. We’re at the end… We’ve made it, right? Surely everything will be OK.

He said, “I’ll be right back.”

He came back in with his nurse and an ultrasound machine. I could tell that she already knew something was awful. She reached for my hand. I felt the panic surge through me. I couldn’t see the screen, but I knew it was silent and still by the looks on their faces.

He said, “You need to get to labor and delivery right this minute.”

The nurse asked if she could drive me there since I was alone.

I felt a little swirly getting dressed. What exactly was going to happen now?

The nurse said I should probably call someone.

Right. And say what, exactly?

Your dad was at home. I said, “I don’t know much. They can’t find the heartbeat. I’m going to the hospital right now. You should come.”

There was almost instantly a radiologist and two techs standing next to my hospital bed with the giant machine: searching and searching and taking pictures. I could see the screen this time. So eerily quiet. I could see you there, perfect and still. Quite a difference from the first time we saw you—so much wiggling they could hardly get the measurements they needed. That reality seems like a lifetime ago. The radiologist touched my leg and said, “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you. We’ve confirmed your doctor’s fear—there is no movement and no heartbeat.”

There is no reasonable response when someone says that, turns out.

You just lie still and stare at everyone, trying to figure out what else anyone could possibly say.

And then, “Do you want to know now whether it was a boy or a girl? I see in your chart that you do not yet know.”

No.

No. I do not want to know that yet.

I looked at the clock and wondered when your dad would finally escape the traffic he must be sitting in.

Within the hour, began the process of induction and labor. I’ll spare you all the gory details, complications, and horror stories of night nurses and just say this:

After 17 hours of labor you slid silently into this world, and you were perfect. I was instantly smitten, as a mother often is.

The delivery nurse, whom I’m pretty sure was actually an angel, said as she caught you, “Oh my goodness, what dark and curly hair! Do you know yet what you have?”

We said, “No.”

“It’s a boy. A beautiful, beautiful boy.”

In that moment, with those few words, the surrealism of everything fell away. No longer simply a baby, but a boy. Did we ever finally decide on our boy name? Your father seemed so conflicted in this impossible space—wanting to look, not wanting to look—torn between how we had dreamed this moment would be and the sobering reality of what this moment had turned out to be.

With tears in her eyes, the nurse placed you on a blanket on my chest while the doctor continued with the other tasks of delivery.

I had no idea what to do.

There is no way to be prepared for such a moment.

Your father was crying.

I was just staring at you—the shock of an actual, full-sized baby boy—and waiting for you to take a breath, willing you to just breathe in, which it seemed you might do at any moment. I will never forget the peculiar silence of that room as long as I live.

The doctor could find no abnormalities, no cord issues, nothing obvious that would offer an explanation. He put in a couple of stitches—which I could totally feel, by the way—and then he looked at me very solemnly and said, “And now, I’m afraid, the easy part is over.”

Those words were probably the truest he had spoken. The following months would reveal just how painfully true indeed.

(Our Firstborn: A Journal (Part Two)

Family Rituals, Simplified

This post originally appeared on ACMB in September 2017. By Jennifer Soos. 

 

Can we talk about family rituals for a minute?

And I don’t mean the big, overwhelming, expensive, Pinterest-crazy traditions that make us feel like we aren’t doing enough and that the childhood memories we’re creating will be no more than a desert of homework, Brussels sprouts, and endless TV cartoons. (Seriously, what even is a “Teen Titan”? Jesus, save me.)

No, I’m talking about the simple, small, routine things that if we were just a little more intentional about—voila!—they would become meaningful parts of the fabric of a childhood that feels safe and memorable.

(By the way, there are a lot of places to read about the WHY of family traditions, like here and here and here. But for now, I’m much more interested in just talking about the HOW.)

Sometimes I think we make this idea of traditions harder than it needs to be. I know that I’m guilty of thinking, I could probably do that once, but I’ll never be able to sustain that year after year. Or, Nice idea, but a new season of The Voice is about to start and I’ll never have that kind of time. However, the truth is that most memorable traditions are quite simple and require only our attention to help them blossom. So, here are four simple ways to create more rituals in your own family that will do just as good of a job instilling a sense of belonging into your little ones as any of the fancy ones:

1. Give a name to a routine that you already have.

Don’t underestimate the power of simply naming something. Giving a regular habit a title makes it feel official and more significant. When I was little and would spend the night at my grandmother’s house, we would sing the same song every morning. It was how she started the day with me. When my boys were little, she and I sang it with them, too. My grandmother passed away in 2011, and whenever I drive the boys to school, we sing that song, which is now called “MeMaw’s Morning Song,” as our start to the day. I don’t know the name of the real song, but that is our name for it, and that has made it feel even more important.

“Snuggle Club” is the official name for when all family members (and usually the dog, too) are piled onto our bed/couch for some intentional togetherness. This is usually the stuff moms’ dreams are made of…right up until one of the boys lets one rip and we are all forced to disperse immediately. Even with one child firmly in the tween years, there are raucous cheers of “Snuggle Club!!” on a Saturday morning if the boys find us still in bed and can wrangle the dog up there to join (though now that I think about it, it is starting to sound more and more like a war cry than a sentimental moment). Regardless, having a name for it gives us all a way to reference a time of connection we have come to count on.

Snuggle Club

2. Add a new element to a routine that already exists.

Chances are pretty good that you sit around the dinner table every once in awhile, or that you have some kind of daily routine. No reinventing the wheel here—just adding a twist to an activity you already do is an easy way to ensure consistency for a new ritual.

We try to have a family dinner as often as possible (sometimes that looks like clearing the table of junk mail and homework remnants just in time for the take-out containers to arrive), and when the schedule gets too crazy for even that to happen, we switch the priority to family breakfast (because toast and eggs take two minutes to prepare). At any rate, while sitting around the table we have several games that help with conversation and solidify the idea that this time is more about family than food. One of those is Two Truths and a Fib: each person tells three things about their day—two true things and one fib—and everyone gets to guess which one is the fib. This gets funnier and harder the older the kids get, by the way. There are a ton of variations for this: Rose and Thorns, Highs and Lows, Table Topics (conversation prompts), and even just out-of-the-box questions about the day like, “What was something that made you laugh today?” or “The lottery is up to $400 million. What would we do if we won?” (A potential side benefit of this activity is that sometimes even picky eaters get distracted by the conversation fun and forget to complain for the forty-seventh time about how they simply cannot eat broccoli.)

The other easy candidate for adding a new ritual is at the end of the day. Each night at bedtime I tell the boys three things I love about them and they tell me three things they love about me. It takes three minutes, and while these are often silly and light-hearted, they have also contained moments that find me wiping my eyes before we say prayers. My oldest considers it an incomplete day if “Three Things” doesn’t happen and has been known to email them to me if I’m not home for bedtime.

3. Add a permanent element to annual celebrations.

Things happen every year without us planning them—birthdays, holidays, taxes, another Harry Potter book or movie—so attaching an item or an activity to these recurring events can build an easy tradition lickety-split.

I had some fairly campy birthday banners made for each of the boys when they were little. They hang on the mantle on each birthday without fail. Their party might be at the house or not, the themes and invitees have changed so much over the years, the cakes/cupcakes/cookies vary as often as my kids change their clothes, but those banners are always there (and much easier to manifest than a fancy homemade red velvet cake, so I let that one go a few years ago!). The silly banners are featured in many birthday photos over the years, so I imagine how we’ll laugh about them when I’m still stubbornly hanging them in their twenties. And, let’s be honest, their forties, too.

We live in South Texas, which boasts the very best Tex-Mex on the planet. (I have no time to debate this fact of life, so don’t bother.) This means that Christmas is exciting because of Santa and tamales. It has been our family’s tradition for as long as I can remember to have a big Tex-Mex spread on Christmas Eve. That’s right—no turkey or ham or cranberries when we are putting cookies on the hearth, but plenty of chili and guacamole and queso for days. This meal is a permanent part of the holiday, and no matter where we spend it, which family members are present, who is traveling, or any other variables of the season, there will be tamales. Praise the heavens.

4. Use negatives to create positives.

Because rituals work based mostly on predictability and how that creates a feeling of safety for our kids, this means even not-fun rituals can still create a stable, positive environment. I’m looking at you, chore charts! Yay! A ritual that also gets my trash taken out!

When assessing your daily life, be sure not to overlook the less desirable parts of your routines as opportunities to capture a sense of family ritual. I hate, hate, hate to do laundry, but the next best thing to never doing it all was deciding to only do it one day per week. “That’s it, Mt. Laundry—you get one day of my week and no more.” And on top of that, to make it even more palatable, I roped my husband into the gig and we use the Folding-of-Mt.-Laundry time to catch up on whatever show we are currently watching together. (You know, the Netflix series commitment you make when you start a show together and therefore cannot watch one hot second of it without the other person present or it is akin to the worst kind of infidelity? Yeah, that.) Anyway, if the latest episode of Game of Thrones is showing, then the kids have to go to their rooms for bed earlier than usual so we can start “folding laundry” (read: ogling Jon Snow and geeking out over dragons). The kids roll their eyes and moan about getting kicked out of the TV room on Laundry Night—and I smile and gently remind them that if they complain enough we’ll happily put on Frozen and make them fold their own dang clothes, and off to their rooms they go! But, honestly, it is usually with very little grumbling and difficulty, partly because it is expected; it’s Laundry Night, and they trust its regularity so much that they don’t bother challenging the routine. Same goes for chore days and daily reading time and any other necessary thing that your spawn might complain about. See, you aren’t ruining their lives; you are creating rituals and security that will ensure a sense of belonging to your family. You’re welcome.

For other ideas and inspiration about family traditions, there’s a great list here. And I trust our readers will share their favorite family traditions in the comments. Thanks in advance!

To the Moms of Super Fussy Babies

This post originally appeared on ACMB in August 2017. By Jennifer Soos.

My youngest is about to turn eight, and today I started poking around for his birthday book in preparation to write my annual letter to him. (Read: in hopes that I wouldn’t completely forget to write my annual letter to him.) When I found the leather-bound treasure, feeling a little nostalgic, I turned back to the beginning to read my very first letter to him and my own words made me catch my breath.

They read:

“I’m not going to lie and say that this first year was easy. It was not. It was one of the greatest challenges of my life so far. But, I think we’ve made it. I hope.”

 

Mercy.

“Greatest challenges of my life so far”?

That seemed like a bold statement, especially since I had been through some pretty traumatic things prior to that. But, looking down at the picture of his little face, I instantly remembered it—like deep-down-in-my-bones-and-the-pit-of-my-stomach remembered it. I felt my shoulders tense just at the thought of it. The absolute torment of it.

My youngest son cried/fussed/whined/screamed anywhere from 8 to 12 hours each day, every single day—like it was his job—with very rare exceptions, for the first 10 months of his life. Yes, 10 months. Thank heavens he was so worn out at the end of the day from his full-body protesting that he mostly slept at night. I’m honestly not sure what we would have done if he hadn’t at least been sleeping some. (And yes, we saw a million doctors, specialists, nurses, naturopaths, shamans, and witch doctors over the course of that first year, and we did all the tests, read all the books and blogs, I stopped eating all.the.things and tried all the potions…but that’s not what this post is about.)

Most pictures of him are him sleeping because that’s about the only time he wasn’t crying.

I have many people in my world right now with little babies. Tiny, heads-still-smelling-yummy, bundles of warm snuggles…and some of those swaddles of preciousness cry an awful lot. And those parents spend much of their time and energy trying to figure out why and make it stop. Today, when I read my own words from those few years ago, I suddenly felt very connected—anxiously, frantically connected—to those friends with tiny, crying babies right now.

I remember pouring over that tear-streaked little face, begging for some signal, some glimmer, some miracle that would tell me what I should do. I remember the utter helplessness. I remember the guilt of thinking, I’m the mom. I’m supposed to know. I’m supposed to be able to fix this. When the truth was that, most days, I was just barely holding on myself.

So to those of you treading water right now with the little ones, this is for you.

I remember.

I see you.

I see that enormous deep sigh as you brace yourself to get up and, once again, try to soothe that crying.

I see you stretch your back and arms and neck, searching for some relief from all the holding/bouncing/walking/rocking/swaying.

I see the tears of frustration, fear, exhaustion, loneliness, and end-of-rope-ness that come so easily and readily at the first sounds of fussing.

I see you grasping at those moments of sacredness—when your baby is peaceful and resting—feeling torn between relief and total awe of that tiny creature; torn between your desire to just sit and soak it all up and your need to go do one million other things.

I see you dig down deep to just make it one more minute, one more hour, one more day, one more week…and I see you find a strength and resolve you didn’t even know you had.

I see you look longingly at your pillow and wonder if you’ll ever spend enough time there to be rested again.

I see you surrender to the endless piles of laundry, astonished that such a small thing can make so much of a mess.

I see you online—reading, researching, studying, learning—trying to figure out the thing that hasn’t been tried yet.

I see your guilt-ridden look as you tell your other children that you can’t, that you don’t have enough arms, enough energy, enough anything to meet all their needs.

I see you in the kitchen tirelessly working to keep everyone fed and healthy, all the while wondering if food is the solution or the problem. I see how overwhelming that is.

I see your relief when someone shows up to hold, listen, hug, help shoulder the burden for awhile, like a burst of crisp air for your weariness.

My dad on his shift with my crying baby. Thank goodness for the shift-takers.

I see you walking, strollering, swinging, swaddling, singing, bouncy-chairing, baby carrying, driving—oh, the driving—while you pray for rest and quiet for your little one. And for yourself.

I see the eruption just under the surface.

I see the exhaustion at the edges of your eyes.

I see the desperation of the day-in, day-out grind.

But let me tell you what else I can see because I’m not right there in the middle of it anymore; the luxury of some distance means I can also see some other things I want you to know about.

I can see the end of it.

And there is one. Somehow, somewhere, there will be relief.

Nothing is forever, especially not this.

I can see that your confidence will grow from this place of struggle.

I can see how you are learning to trust yourself, your instincts, your child.

I can see that child—a baby no more—happy and loved and oblivious to this season of sacrifice.

I can see the development of a vital tribe forged with those who love you and love that baby, those who show up and stand beside you, and that tribe will be around a lot longer than the fussing. And you’ll be grateful for it.

I can see how you are being pushed to grow—more patience, less control, more vulnerability, less fear—and this more-grounded version of yourself will mother your children even better than you do now. I promise I can see that.

So while it’s true that I’m still up to my ears in mothering, it is also true that many of the early seasons of motherhood have come to a close. The youngest face that stares up at me now is nearly eight. It is tear-streaked much less often. There haven’t been diapers or pacifiers in my house for years. I don’t walk the sidewalks with him at 2:00 A.M. anymore desperately singing a woeful Patsy Cline song and wondering what my neighbors must think. And the horrible tennis elbow I had for months from carrying him constantly finally did go away. (But not the laundry. Turns out, that actually never ends.)

I have even had many nights of good sleep in a row.

And you will, too.

It is all right that it’s hard. It really is.

You and your little bundle of screams are going to be OK.

He/she won’t even remember it, thankfully.

And what you’ll remember will be part of your story about how motherhood challenged you and changed you, for the better.

So take a big, deep breath.

Rally your tribe.

Ask for help; accept it when it’s offered.

Sing louder than that baby cries.

 

I can see you and you’ve got this.

Outside the Comfort Zone: Where the Magic Is

 This post originally appeared on ACMB in July 2017. By Jennifer Soos.

“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can not have both.” —Brené Brown

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain

Lake Atitlán, Guatemala

I took my 11-year-old to Guatemala for a week earlier this summer. By myself. And no, I’m not quite as crazy as that might make me sound.

We did, however, get soaked in a rainstorm or two.

We did not always know where we were or where we were going.

Between the two of us, we speak enough Spanish to get in over our heads, but not actually enough to be very useful.

It was at least 1000% humidity everywhere we went.

There was an earthquake. (Like an actual 6.9, things-crashing-from-cabinets-in-the-middle-of-the-night quake.)

The nearby volcano sputtered and spewed into the sky the day after the earthquake.

We walked a million miles, hitchhiked, and navigated taxis, shuttles, boats, the famed Guatemalan “chicken buses,” and tuk-tuks in order to get to all the places.

There were no beaches for lounging, no resorts, no familiar menus, and not much English to be found.

But at some point nearly every day he looked at me, wide-eyed and grinning ear from ear, and said, “Mom, it’s like the movies!!” And I was reminded, once again, that parenthood is one of the greatest educations on the planet.

San Juan

As a control-freak-in-recovery, there were many, many opportunities for my old scripts full of fear and anxiety to play out during our week of adventure. But, louder than those tired old myths, were many reminders of something much more important: outside of our comfort zone is where all the growth happens.

On our first day in Panajachel, we spent the morning and early afternoon on a boat tour exploring three villages nestled in the mountains and volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlán, the deepest lake in Central America. When the tour was over, we returned to the docks, got off the boat, and my son looked at me and said, “That was really cool. Now what?”

Once again surrounded by the totally unfamiliar, we set out to find our hotel. They aren’t big on addresses in Guatemala, so this isn’t quite as simple as one might think. My phone service was a bit sketchy, so I felt a bit vulnerable due to my usual dependence on Google maps and GPS. From the waterfront we started making our way in what I hoped was the right direction. As we walked, we passed storefronts full of colorful, unrecognizable things. People whizzed past us on bikes and mopeds and in cars weighed down with oversized loads of firewood and giant mountains of produce. The street was noisy and unruly and full of smells that would assault you at every turn. And, everywhere we went, people stared. We are obviously American/ European, with very fair skin and light hair and eyes. Guatemalans as a whole are incredibly friendly and welcoming; but, I always felt like we were walking around with huge neon signs over our heads that said “Tourists.” This makes it impossible to just fly under the radar, which is my most-preferred mode of transport.

Santiago

The farther we walked, the more overstimulated and overwhelmed I felt by all the unknowns and uncertainty of navigating the afternoon that still stretched out in front of us. I could feel the weight of being the sole adult responsible for my precious child settle into the middle of my chest. Everywhere I looked were people and things I knew very little about and felt distant from because of the language chasm. My son asked, “Do you know how much farther until we are supposed to turn?” I did not. And I also had no idea what we were going to find when we did locate our hotel. (It had been booked through a travel service by my friend who lives in Antigua, so I’d not seen many details ahead of time. Also very much NOT my usual M.O.)

Cuidad Vieja

Just as I was getting to the edge of the cliff in my head and about to launch off into Worry-About-Everything-Land, I looked up from my phone and its frozen map. I saw him walking in front of me, steady and confident, mesmerized by and delighted in his own fascination of this amazing place, with his day-pack securely fastened around him—packed completely by himself—full of protein bars for when he couldn’t eat the food, sunscreen, his camera, his water bottle (which he’d carefully filled with purified water), and also my water bottle and my rain jacket that he had offered to carry for me. In that instant, it was shocking to find not even a remnant of the once-timid, frequently anxious little boy I had known for some years walking in front of me. Instead, there trekked a fearless, young creature utterly comfortable in his charge up this dirty, unfamiliar street 1,500 miles from home. About that time he said casually over his shoulder to me, “Well, we’ve rocked it for three days so far, so I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

I smiled and chuckled at myself. I turned off my useless map and switched to the camera so I could take a photo of him, hopeful I would remember this moment of transformation.

Panajachel

In contrast, just three days before, we had exited a plane, navigated immigration checkpoints and baggage claim in broken Spanish, and I had felt his nervousness bubbling over in this new place. People are not allowed inside the airport in Guatemala City without a ticket, so just outside the exit doors looms a large throng of people jockeying to see if their friends and relatives have arrived, a crowd of drivers hawking their rides to you, locals approaching you to sell everything you can imagine, beggars, and most certainly pick-pockets and other undesirables sprinkled in the teeming faces. It is quite an intimidating “welcome” to a city that is not exactly safe for Americans in particular. Before we got to the doors, I stopped him and we situated our luggage. I put my phone out of sight and secured other valuables as I had been instructed to do. I told him to swap his backpack around to the front so he could keep a hand on it. He observed all of this, looked outside, and then looked at me with eyes that asked, “Where on earth have you taken me?”

“It’s OK,” I said. “We are just being smart. Remember, this is an adventure. Our driver is out there somewhere, and we have to find him. Stay close and everything will be OK.” I don’t know if he believed me or not, but he took a deep breath and trusted me anyway…and as he stepped through those doors into a wall of heat and diesel fumes, he walked further out of his comfort zone than he had ever been before.

Lake Atitlán

Now here we were, just 72 hours later, and it was him reminding me that outside our comfort zone is where all the excitement happens. He was a walking example of how resilience will grow like a weed when we take risks and prove to ourselves that we are, in fact, capable.

The very next night we found ourselves nearly at the end of a two-and-a-half-hour trip back to Antigua, when he felt like he was going to be sick if he didn’t get out of the vehicle immediately. This time, neither one of us hesitated to just jump off, into the darkness onto an unfamiliar grid of cobblestone streets, miles before our intended stop. As the shuttle drove away, it started to rain, and he laughed at our possible recklessness, feeling instantly better once on solid ground. We looked up and down the streets and, as he handed me my rain jacket, he asked me once again, “So, now what?” I smiled back and offered, “Kiddo, I have no idea, but I do know we’ll figure it out.” And, sure enough, we did.

 

 

Doing Grief… Together

Grief seeps into the cracks that already exist in a relationship and has equal capacity to break it wide open or to seal and strengthen it.

We’ve all heard the hordes of experts tell us there is no “right” way to experience grief. It is not something at which you can “win” or “lose.” And when you are grieving on your own, as an individual, this truth might be a little easier to believe in. But, when you are grieving as a couple, this concept can feel more elusive. A couple who is grieving a shared loss or trauma, the death of a pet or a person close to them or even a shared child, will be very tempted to expect that their grief will look similar or march to the same timeline. But because grief tends to layer itself onto our old losses and onto our personal history, it will affect each of us differently and individual reactions can vary greatly. It can be quite challenging for a couple to seek out the commonalities and simply attempt to understand the other person’s journey, rather than focus on the differences, judge them or try to assign meaning to their behaviors.

If I could go back in time and say something to myself and my husband as we were launched on a grief journey together – something I wish we had heard from one of the therapists we met with – I think it would be this:

“As you navigate this loss together, seek UNDERSTANDING and seek CONNECTION. Do not waste precious energy comparing yourselves, looking for solutions or even relief.”

In the months following the death of our son, I very clearly remember thinking, “He never cries. He doesn’t seem sad enough. He just went right back to work. I can’t seem to get out of bed. What’s wrong with him? Or wrong with me?.” In the years since, sitting with the newly-bereaved in my office and in support groups, I’ve heard a thousand variations on this same circumstance. It is so tempting to make our own meaning of the behavior we see in others who are sharing in or witnessing our experience, but it is rarely helpful. Over and over again I see that when couples can maintain a position of curiosity about what grief looks like for the other person, they are more likely to maintain connection and avoid feeling isolated or wrong.  

When I finally spoke up and asked my husband about his own ways of coping he explained to me, “Of course I am sad. I cry in my car, alone. When I’m with you, I feel like I should be pulled together so you don’t have to be. I’m tired of feeling helpless…what happened to us feels so far out of my control. Going to work makes me feel less helpless. It makes me feel like I am doing something productive, shielding you from having to go yourself… it lets me feel like I have some control over something again. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not also very, very sad.”

I was able to tell him that I was tired of feeling so lonely in our ocean of sadness and that while I greatly appreciated everything he was doing for us – things that seemed to demonstrate his obviously-miraculous abilities – I needed to see the falling-apart parts, too.  Maybe he could save a little bit of his grief to do with me at home instead of always protecting me from it?

We discovered that even though we were walking through our loss in very different ways, we could still find places to intersect and overlap and we could seek to understand each other’s journey as a way to stay connected and a little less lonely in the maelstrom.

I listen to grieving hearts and give permission for these kinds of things all the time:

Go back to work. Or don’t get out of bed.

Talk to everyone all the time. Or refuse to answer your phone or door.

Cry and wail and rant like it will never stop. Or take deep breaths and seem stoically resigned.

Go ahead, be angry.

Yes, be peaceful.

Submerge yourself in your faith…it’s there for you.

Turn completely away from your faith…it won’t go anywhere.

Read every book and blog you can get your hands on.

Or read absolutely nothing because it is all too sad.

Find a support group.  Or find a therapist. Or talk to your dog.

Feel grateful for your family and friends.

Or feel smothered and misunderstood by your family and friends.

Believe that in six more weeks you’ll certainly be “better.”

Believe that forever is not long enough to ever be “better.”

When I sit with couples who are grieving, I try to help maintain a focus on how understood they each feel and on how to create opportunities for increased connection and communication. We try to steer away from the tempting distractions that sound like: “How long will this last?” “When will we be back to normal?” “How can I make him less sad?” “Why can’t she just do what I do?” (For the record, the very unpopular answers to those popular questions are: “As long as you need it to.” “That old normal probably doesn’t exist anymore. You’ll have to find a new one.” “You can’t.” and “She’s doing this the way she needs to and that’s OK.”)

It is true. There is no “right” or “wrong” way… there are as many paths through grief as people who must walk them. And when you are walking alongside someone else, chances are very good their path is going to look different.

Here are some of the ways I’ve encountered over the years that couples use to increase their understanding, connection and communication:

The Grief Check-In

When grief is acute and new, this is probably a daily occurrence. (John Gottman’s research, 2000, demonstrated that a regular check-in is a fundamental presence in the healthiest relationships. When a couple is grieving its importance is even greater.) Whatever the frequency of it, it is crucial for couples to make time to communicate about how they are feeling – not just in general, but today, right now. These check-ins often sound like:

“I had a pretty good morning, but then a song came on the radio that caught me off-guard – it was pretty rough after that.” or “I didn’t think I would be able to get up this morning, but I had an unexpected call from my sister and it really lifted my spirits. I even made it to the grocery store.”

And as grief becomes less acute:

“This week has been OK overall. I’m still having some trouble sleeping and I got angry over some really small things…but I think I’m mostly OK.” or “I’ve been feeling really sad again lately – her birthday is coming up and I’m anticipating how hard that is going to be.”

People often ask, “But won’t it feel weird or intrusive to ask “How are you?” when we already know they are obviously incredibly sad?” These check-ins are meant to go beyond the generic “how are you” and get to more sincere “how were you today, really?” or “what’s been good or hard about this particular week?” Couples often make the mistake of assuming that because we already know the other person is sad, we don’t need to keep asking and learning about it. Grief is incredibly dynamic and complex. People are usually shocked at how complicated and multi-layered it can be; there is probably always some new twist to notice or talk about. It has never been too long to check in and ask the question, “What does that loss feel like now?” even after it’s been years.

Shared Action

It is very common for bereaved people to want TO DO something. Grief can propel people into action, service, and any number of memorial activities. When a couple can come up with their own way to join together in an activity that expresses their grief or helps create meaning for their experience, their connection can be immensely improved. This is sometimes a challenging endeavor, naturally, not every activity will be appealing or feel right for everyone. Not every grief-related activity we participate in must be shared, of course, but it is helpful when a couple can find at least one or two that can be. Couples who do this will nearly always report much less loneliness (which, second only to sadness, is the most commonly-reported emotion in my experience in grief support groups.)

Over the years I’ve heard so many ideas for shared grief activities: family gatherings on birthdays/deathdays, ritual visits to cemeteries, baking their loved one’s favorite dessert or meal, doing charity work/volunteer service in their loved one’s honor, a trip to Africa to dig a water well, a backyard memorial garden that is added to each year, creation of a scholarship, artwork and photo memorials, activism campaigns and legislation, annual trips or dove/butterfly/balloon/lantern releases… there are Pinterest boards full of ideas for how to connect with partners as part of a grief journey. And a side benefit for couples who create a repetitive or annual ritual is that the loss conversation doesn’t feel like it has to come to an end. This is one of the healthiest integrations of grief: the idea that we don’t have to “move on” or decide when it is “over,” but rather that it will be an on-going part of a couple’s life together.

In my own family’s experience, the differences were clear: I was much more open with our loss and would talk to nearly anyone who made the mistake of asking one too many questions. My husband, on the other hand, discussed it with virtually no one outside of family and never felt compelled to attend a group meeting. My mother cried readily and talked to friends and made a scrapbook while my father silently dug a giant hole, alone, by hand, so he could plant a tree. However, when it comes to our son’s birthday, my family is united in a whole day spent doing acts of kindness in his honor. And now, thirteen years in, I feel incredibly connected every year on that day – a day that once held so much potential for disengaged isolation.  

Self-Care

And finally, another suggestion that helps couples stay connected while they grieve is attending to self-care and supporting that of your partner. Grief takes an astonishing physical toll on most. Commonly reported symptoms are headaches, fatigue, insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea, muscles aches and shortness of breath. Whatever self-care routines might have been in place before the loss will most certainly be put to the test and, generally, people have to expand their coping abilities and include new tools. It is recommended to take a break from the work of grief and tend to your body and your soul and help your partner tend to theirs. Everyone must find what works best for them, and ideally, some of the self-care routines can also be shared: take a walk together, exercise, get as much sleep as possible, nourish yourselves with good food, spend time with loved ones, meditate, pray, have sex, take a trip or a long drive, get lost in your favorite music, take a technology break, go dancing, have a spa day, go see a show, do yoga, sit in the sunshine in a park, help someone else, spend time with your pet…and it is important to remember that when you feel like you can laugh again, do it. It’s OK. It’s good for you.  

I still remember the first time we really came up for air and did something that looked like self-care together. It was May in Seattle – and the sun was making a glorious reappearance. On a whim, we accepted an invitation to go out with another couple we hardly knew. It was such a relief to be around people who didn’t automatically think of us as the saddest people they knew. We ate at a new restaurant in the open air where the drinks had disclaimers. We saw a rowdy live band who drank Texas beer in a smoky dive. And we laughed. Real laughter. We believed, maybe for the first time, that we were going to survive this – together.

So, if John Green is right and “grief does not change you, (but rather) it reveals you” then as a grieving couple we don’t have to fear the immense damage that loss can bring. We can, in fact, find ways to use the opportunity to deepen our relationship, create new layers in our intimacy and allow the experience to strengthen our bonds. And we can do it together.

DIY Marriage Retreat

Anyone who tells you marriage “shouldn’t be a lot of work” is wrong. Period.

I’m not saying that marriage isn’t also glorious and fun and breath-taking and deeply meaningful… but, it is also always requiring work of the people who are in it. Always.

About 15 years ago my husband and I got a smidge more intentional about what some of that work looked like. This is what has (mostly) worked for us – it’s not for everyone, of course – but I’ve had multiple requests from friends and clients alike for an explanation of what exactly we do each year. So, here you go… a DIY marriage retreat!

(Oh, first, you should probably know, my husband and I are complete opposites. Totally. Like everything. Our personalities occupy the opposite ends of whatever spectrum you are talking about. Introvert/Extrovert. Scheduled/Spontaneous. Focus/Attention-Deficit Monster. Quiet intellectualizer/Out-loud, brainstorming collaborator. Prefers to sail, invisible, under the radar/Thrives on having center stage. I could go on and on… you get the idea. My point is that when it came time for us to come up with some kind of regular marriage summit, it felt like a tall order. If you and yours are more alike, this might be a little easier.)

LOCATION:

In keeping with our personality differences, we have settled on a blend of structure and fluidity which usually looks like, first, finding some removed location for a weekend escape.

I’m not talking about requiring a long weekend in Maui here. (Though, that would be pretty great.) You don’t need to break the bank. We’ve stayed in a secluded, rustic cabin several times. A couple of occasions early on in our marriage, when we couldn’t seem to make the overnight part work out like we wanted, we took a drive and spent a whole day at a park or campground. We’ve talked through things in swanky hotel lobbies and at funky, fun patio bars and around expertly-built campfires. We’ve also holed up for weekends in luxurious suites and fabulous (borrowed) lake houses. Once we were in London. It doesn’t really matter as long as it feels different from your “regular life.” Away from chores and responsibilities. Away from all the things that might distract from just being present with each other.

(And since we have had kids, it is definitely a kid-free weekend. Another thing that is critical to maintaining the couple relationship over the parent relationship is periodic kid-free time. It’s hard, I know. Family isn’t always an option. Nannies can be expensive. Maybe trade-off with another family? Strategically schedule sleep-overs? Get creative… but, figure it out. It is important.) 

Once you’ve settled on where and when, you want to spend a little time thinking about your agenda and important topics. This can obviously vary from year to year, but we do have some recurring topics that we try to revisit each time.

OUTLINE: 

This is the general outline (in bold) of annual elements we use and we add in relevant issues as they come up. For instance, in the years in which I was pregnant we had a “baby prep” topic and in the years we were moving, we had big discussions related to finances and planning, etc. But the following things generally get thought about and talked over each year:

 1. Big-Picture Vision (5 years, 10 years, 20 years)

Five years from now: 2022, Ages: 50 & 49; Kids 16, 13

        Ten years from now: 2027, Ages: 55 & 54; Kids 21, 18

        Twenty years from now: 2037, Ages: 65 & 64; Kids 31, 28

This is a chance to sit back and dream a little… what do we wish for? When we imagine our future and what it would be like to feel content and fulfilled, what does that look like? What might our kids be doing? How will we spend our time? What will our careers look like? Where will we live? What will our hobbies be? What legacy are we building?  Drs. John and Julie Gottman have extensive research on the most important principles present in successful, long-term relationships and “shared vision & meaning” and “making life dreams come true” are critical parts of the puzzle. This piece of the conversation gives a chance to document that… to track the accomplishments, the changes in direction… to laugh at previous naïveté and, best of all, celebrate successes.

We have been doing this long enough now, I can look back and see what we predicted for 5 and 10 years into the future because we are there now. It is pretty cool to say, “Hey! We did that!” And also, “Oh my goodness, why on earth did we think that sounded like a good idea?!” This is where you make space to talk about things you might not have the space to talk about in the everyday grind of work, laundry, sports, kids, meetings, church, etc. If you don’t often sit back and dream about your family goals, career aspirations, bucket lists, or visions of the future, you might be surprised what you discover. Over the years, this portion of the retreat has contained silliness like: let’s sell everything and travel the world and homeschool… I really want to retire to a sailboat so our kids can never find us… maybe we should buy land and get off the grid before we retire… if Whitman travels the world instead of going to college, will we go with him? But it has also contained more surprising conversations like: I think I’m letting go of that dream because I feel like I’ve outgrown it… I feel really called to open our home to foster children, can we talk about that?… Please go back to school already… and also I’m going to shut down the non-profit and I feel awful about it…, etc.

As a therapist, I have heard way too many people say, “I just never thought about it, we never talked about it and now it’s too late.” This part of the conversation feels like my attempt at avoiding that, I think.

2. NOW Goals – what’s next?

Jobs

Kids/Family

House

Health/Exercise/Spirit

Section 2 is about immediate goals in the coming 12 months. What needs to happen or change in the next 12 months? It is a chance to share personal goals and ask for support and also to collaborate on shared goals. I happen to be married to someone who does not really talk a lot about his job. I mean, I generally know what he does. I know one or two of the people with whom he works but, mostly, his work life is very separate from his home life. That’s how he likes it. So, I like having this time to get “caught up” on his big-picture career and he likes limiting how often he talks about work. 🙂

We also talk about immediate parent adjustments here – what’s working? What’s not? What are we worried about? What needs to change? How can we have more fun? Some really great moments and relief and ideas have come from this part of our annual conversation. For me, as the parent who is at home with the kids slightly more than he is, parenting often gets relegated to feeling like just “the grind” part. I can easily get bogged down in the homework/bedtime/mealtime/laundry routines and lose sight of the bigger picture. This piece always feels like my chance to really pull back and take in the immensity of what we are doing – raising humans – and regain a little perspective on what is most important.

We live in a big ol’ fun fixer-upper (that I dream of Chip and Jojo coming to finish for us!) and so there is always a list of things that need to be taken care of and budgeted for. This year we mapped out the back patio remodel and decided to redo all the siding and paint the exterior.  Last year we were dealing with some repairs, a new roof and new garage doors. You get the idea.

And lastly in the NOW Goals is the part that feels the most like “resolutions,” I think. This is the part where we decide to go paleo again…or go back to signing up for races…or keep doing what we are doing, but with less sugar. 😉 We also decide to leave and join churches, decide on LifeGroups and mission trips and how to incorporate family meditation time. It is ultimately an opportunity to reflect on the overall health of our wellness and spirituality, brainstorm and tend to the parts that need it…and share those things so we can have support.

Sometimes we let Sarge come with us! 🙂

     3. Money – Priorities and Plan

This might be the part of the retreat where you break out the cocktails, if you haven’t already. Early in our marriage we fought about finances a lot and subsequently got in a bad habit of not really talking about them very often in order to avoid the conflict. In our relationship, I’m the CFO and as long as everything is humming along, we usually opt not to talk about money. So, this is our chance to make adjustments, alter the budget, change investment choices, make saving goals for vacations or projects, etc. and get as much of it out of the way in one swoop as possible. We have some brief financial check-ins through the year, but the bulk of our discussions, the tedium of budget adjustments, tax decisions, and big picture changes happen here. (If you are one of the 27% of couples who do NOT argue about finances – maybe you get to skip this one altogether!)

     4. Relationship Stuff

That’s a very technical term there – “relationship stuff.” Again, my therapist experience informs this section as well. I continue to be surprised when people sit in my office and say, “I never knew she felt that way” or “I am totally blindsided by this.” Part of me gets it – with jobs and kids and crazy schedules it is easy to get disconnected and be so busy and distracted that you never make the time to talk about it… so: THIS is that time. A chance to ask “do we like each other these days?” “What’s really working? What’s not?” “How can it be better? More fun?” (The “more fun” questions are always his.)

Ideally, this section of the retreat is a chance to really connect and feel reaffirmed in the relationship…a way to take advantage of a slower pace and remember some of the things that brought you together in the first place. I know that most couples don’t always say all the things on their minds in the day-to-day interactions of everyday life…this is that opportunity. In past years we have used some of Gottman’s relationship tools for this (like this Love Map 20-Question game) and also had conversations about our Strengthsfinder results and Myers-Briggs. I know, dorky therapist fun…but, you have to keep learning about each other!

For the “Keepin’ It Real” file: This section has also shut down our retreat on more than one occasion. One of those bumpy years we literally spent this whole agenda item figuring out how to get a divorce. (We didn’t.) But I say that to simply warn: Marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be years that are just harder than others and that’s OK. If this section feels overwhelming or devastating… use that as your indication it might be time to get some help. We’ve been in therapy twice in our 26 years together… so, get support if you need it.  

     5. Action Items

This section is totally just for me.  I like to make lists. Lots of lists. I just needed a place in the agenda to make a list. So here’s where I gather up all the great things we just decided to do… and put them in a big, beautiful list. (And I might print it out once we get home and tape it to the bathroom mirror. Maybe.)

 6. Bucket Fillers

Any heavy lifting should be done by this time, so refresh your drinks and make way for more light and fun. There may have been some tough conversations on this day. Or not. You might really need this good note to finish on. Or not. Regardless, what we know from research is that it is important to maintain a healthy positivity ratio in our primary relationships. One way to work on that ratio is to use “bucket-fillers” made famous in several books in the 2000s. What might you take for granted and not compliment often enough? Now’s your chance to speak up and fix that. What thing do you appreciate or always notice about your partner but never say anything about? From the silly to the serious, the importance of this part of the retreat can’t be understated. I still remember, word for word, some of the things we’ve said due to this prompt. Even now, as I think about them, I know there was a time early in our relationship when I couldn’t have dreamed we’d ever get so busy or disconnected that we wouldn’t say those things to one another anymore – but it happens. We’ve detailed for one another what makes the other the absolute best parent for our kids…talked through the things we are most proud of about each other… recalled favorite gifts or special occasions… shared gratitude for extended family and in-laws… complimented cooking and handyman abilities, among other kinds of skills 😉 … and praised some of the day-in-day-out-grind endurance that often gets overlooked. And a million other little things that somehow feel much bigger when it’s just the two of you, sitting around a fire, basking in an intentional positivity celebration.

And then toast yourselves for making your relationship a priority and giving it the attention it deserves! I promise, you won’t regret it.   (And don’t forget to save your notes so you can look back and celebrate success, feel proud of growth and laugh at yourselves, too.) 

Here’s some additional resources for those of you who are going to try it for yourselves:

• RetreatOutline.doc   This should be the blank retreat outline form (if I did it right!)
• One of Gottman’s questionnaires about shared meaning, goals, and rituals – a good starting point for many conversations.
• Love Maps explanation and exercise (also from Gottman)

 

*final disclaimer…. if your relationship is in serious distress – maybe there is already talk of separating or worse, or there is no talk at all – I do NOT recommend trying a structured DIY retreat as a solution. These retreats are meant to be preventative and growth-focused, rather than a crisis-response. If your relationship really needs support – get it. Find a facilitated retreat or a therapist or a support group… no need to DIY. Ask for help.