you want a physicist to speak at your funeral

Maybe you've all read/heard this before but last week was the first time I had ever seen it myself.  It's been around since 2005, long before I knew what it was like to be a sobbing mother looking for my own answers.  I found some comfort in it and thought maybe someone out there reading here will too.  

"You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen."

Written by Aaron Freeman

fault

The same breath that the doctor used to tell me our baby had no heartbeat was the same one she used to tell me that the miscarriage was not my fault.  The words flew out of her mouth nearly faster than was humanly possible.  It wasn't anything you did wrong, she said.

It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.

Years ago when I was in the hospital a perinatologist sat on the edge of my bed rolling an ultrasound probe around my heavily pregnant belly.  She was studying the rapid flutter of our son's heart on the screen before her.  This wasn't something you caused, she told me.

It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.

I know that...mostly.  I believe what they have told me...mostly.  But in the pit of my stomach sits a heavy black stone and it pulses periodically with ugly guilt.  If I can't blame myself then on whom can I place the blame?  There is no one else and so I wonder if maybe, yes, it is my fault.

the best medicine

Thank you for all the comments and emails sent over the last few days.  They were comforting and much appreciated.  Really, I am doing surprisingly ok with the whole thing.  The first couple of days there were a lot of tears but now I just feel relieved that it is over.  I took the week off of work (which no doubt my employer is not happy with despite the reason) and I plan to spend as much time as possible with my husband and daughter.  In spite of the circumstance it is a rare thing for me to have so much free time available for the two people I love most in this world.  Being with them is the best medicine there is.

G3 P2 A1

About eight weeks ago I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive.  Yesterday, at 12 weeks and 1 day, I had an ultrasound and was told that the fetus had died.  I watched the screen with the same sense of foreboding I had when we were having the ultrasound that first revealed there was something wrong with George.  Back then I watched that screen, seeing fluid in his belly, knowing that something was very wrong.  This time I knew within seconds of seeing the baby that there was no heartbeat.  Like previously, I waited for the doctor to say it first before I actually believed what I already knew to be happening.  It is amazing how the human spirit will hold on to the smallest sliver of hope against all possibility.

This pregnancy wasn't planned.  I mean, it was and it wasn't, if that makes any sense at all.  Things here have been really tough.  I sometimes think that this city is out to get us and that we would have been better off taking our chances with The Earthquakes and The Terrible Housing Market and The Terrible School System back in L.A.  We just can't seem to catch a break here.  There will be days when there seems to be a little light at the end of the tunnel but inevitably it turns out to be just a mirage.

When George died I felt like the world had singled me out when every one else was easily doing that which I seemed to not be able to do; have a healthy baby.  There was self-pity oozing out of my pores for months before I realized that I was not in fact special and did not in fact deserve a good outcome from a pregnancy anymore than the next person.  Realizing that didn't make me any less sad but it made it easier to live with myself.  I think coming to an understanding about that years ago is going to make this loss less traumatic for me.  At least I am hoping it will.

Now I get to decide which way the rest of this miscarriage plays out.  Having a choice in how I end the physical part of this experience gives me a sense of control that otherwise I would not have, so that is good...I guess.  Wait it out, take a pill, or have a procedure.  I'm scared of all three, frankly.  I wish there was a fourth option that did not involve pain, bleeding and crying.

In two weeks it will be three years since George died.

Fucking March.

timeline

At first you count the minutes.  It is the only way to keep moving forward.  Keep breathing in and out.  It has been ten minutes.

The minutes turn into hours and you stare at the clock.  It has been 24 hours.

Hours accumulate against your will and so you start counting in days.  You have to start eating, everyone loves to tell you.  But everything has lost its flavor.  Every color is gone.  It has been six days.

Soon you move on to marking the passage of time in weeks.  You watch as people, who walked with you during the minutes and hours and days, start walking ahead at a faster clip.  It has been four weeks.

Eventually you make the move from weeks to months.  You start to look at the time trailing out behind you and wonder how it is possible that you have survived as long as this.  It has been five months.

Finally time passes in increments of a year.  You look at your future spreading before you and you begin to realize the missing is never going to go away.  It will get better because it already is better.  But you know that the missing will be your constant companion.  It has been one year.

Now.  Still the missing, even with the happy, always the missing.  It has been nearly three years.

replant

When George died we got lots of flowers.  Bouquets and bouquets of flowers from friends and family, attached with their sympathies.  As the days passed and we continued to stay holed up in our small apartment, afraid of the world outside, the petals from the flowers all started to wilt and drop one by one from their sagging stems.  At one point, I remember sitting on our couch, sobbing while I watched the petals from a particular white rose fall to the table below.  I hated those flowers for dying.

We also got two baskets of living plants.  I honestly don't remember who gave them to us but I became attached to them immediately.  Books about grief and grieving love to advise people not to send living plants in sympathy for someone's loss as it might feel overwhelming for them to take care of.  I think that is complete bullshit.  In the immediate aftermath I needed something to take care of.  I couldn't take care of George anymore and I certainly didn't do a stellar job of taking care of myself for a long while.  But those plants I cared for.  

It has been nearly three years since he died and even though I couldn't keep all the plants in those baskets alive there are two that are still thriving.  All this time they have been in their original containers, looking pretty shabby, because I've been afraid to replant them, convinced that the only thing keeping them alive was luck and whatever magic was in the wicker baskets.

Something had to be done with them though.  After three years they were beginning to look too depressing even for me.  So Leif and I took them to a neighborhood nursery and asked them to replant them for us.  It was a particularly chilly morning and the entire place had taken on sort of an ethereal frosty glow.  The stone frogs had halos of ice.  The rounded Buddhas had frozen watery beards.  The trees and shrubs wore icy coats.  We picked out two pots from the dozen or so that they told us would work well for our needs: one large teal one and a smaller white one.  They took care of the hard part of transferring them and I just roamed around admiring the way the frost had transformed everything.

Twenty minutes later the shabby baskets were gone and the plants looked quite majestic in their new homes.  They actually seemed to be standing a bit straighter as if they were no longer pulled down by the very heavy burden of their initial sentiment.  

When we asked how to take care of them they told us that whatever we were doing was working fine.  Just do what you were doing, they said.  I was hoping for more concrete instructions.   All I was doing was watering them and missing the lost baby they were sent in condolence for.

no title

I've been trying to write something here for months.  Literally months.  I open up my laptop, log into my account and proceed to write a few sentences before completely blanking out.  I stare at the screen thinking that if I do this for long enough the thoughts I have knocking around in my head will magically appear, like when you stare at a cloud long enough it starts to look like an old man's profile blowing smoke through pursed lips or a dog on roller skates.

I guess this is what they call writer's block.  Only I don't fancy myself a writer and the only things I've ever thought I was any good at writing about are death and desperation.  Well, writing about those things indefinitely has turned out to be unsustainable for me.  I think partly because of self-consciousness and partly because I don't know how many times I can write about the same thing.

I miss George.  I wonder what he would have been like.  It is lonely.  It never goes away.  Sometimes I miss the person who I was before he died.

There.  You just read the summary of this entire blog in five sentences.  How is that for some Cliff's Notes?

But I keep coming back here because since I left Los Angeles and the handful of people there who I was readily able to talk to about those five sentences I'm kind of on my own out here.  Of course there is the phone and Skype but it just doesn't feel the same as sitting in front of or next to someone who you can look in the eye and know that they understand you.  My life here feels utterly and completely removed from the one I was living in California.

There is a support group meeting tomorrow morning.  I already know that I am going to miss it.  I've looked up meetings here before and thought about going to them only to chicken out when the date came near.  I'll do it again tomorrow, I am sure of it.  Because as lonely as I am in my grief I am even more afraid of allowing myself to go back to the emotional place that going to a support group will bring me to.

I've been emotional enough recently as it is.

So I am back here...watching for old men and dogs on roller skates.

come home

i feel a lone flare in the night sky

even though I know better

he will never follow the light of my vigil back to this life

he will never return 

and still i burn for him

a pathetic and obvious exercise in futility 

i want him

always

always

always

i'm habituated to the dull ache

there, always, in the periphery 

even when i am happy 

still incomplete

tonight the dull ache is sharp and stings

self-flagellation 

where did i go wrong

where

where

where

he feels like a memory that only i can remember

i think he is fading out of existence

one day i will stand alone 

still waiting

still waiting

still waiting

for him to follow my burning heart 

and come home.

berries

In George's Garden there are berries.  Raspberries and blueberries, two different kinds I think.  There are roses and hydrangeas and a number of other plants that border the circular plot of earth in my in-law's backyard that is named after their first grandchild.  But it is the raspberries and the blueberries that make my heart ache each time I find myself there.

So easily I can conjure up images of Clio and her cousins -maybe one day a living sibling too- clamoring around the garden snatching blueberries and gingerly maneuvering around thorns to capture tart raspberries.  I see blue mouths and red stains.  I smell dirt-stained knees and I hear the gaggle of laughter bubbling up from tiny mouths.

It is the blueberries and raspberries that make my heart ache.

Because I so much would like to be able to see there with the rest of them a little tow-headed boy with his father's eyes and his mother's toothy grin, leading the charge into the clearing of grass with blueberries and raspberries in hand.

But instead I see a ghost roaming in and out of the periphery of my vision and I wonder how long it will take before even that is gone.

a westerly fold

An interesting thing happened a couple months back; Leif expressed some interest in starting a blog with me.  We finally went ahead and did it, although I have no idea what it will be about as I'm sure it will evolve over time.  But I do know that it will be a little bit of Leif: art, music, graphic design.  With a little bit (more) of me: wordy sentences, half-finished crafts, high caloric food.  Probably a little of us together: home-remodeling (When we buy a home of course, we aren't going to be remodeling any random person's house.  Unless, of course, you're offering to finance us remodeling your space because then hell yeah, there'll be some of that), city-exploring, Clio-loving, photography and hopefully some small business-starting.

A little something for everyone.

So I am going to bid adieu to my other blog, The One Year Lease.  I hope you can come by and visit us at A Westerly Fold.

grandpa george

Bridget was a toy poodle, a ball of tight black curls and fluff who had a love for dirty socks that were still attached to their owner's feet.  Any napper or leisurely couch-recliner at my grandparents' house was subject to a game of sock tug-o-war with her, a game of which she was nearly always the victor.  Her tenacity for sock-chewing was unrivaled by any beast.  It is Bridget and the awe of a tiny glass menagerie that make up the majority of foggy memories that play in my head about that time of my youthful life.  That was before my grandmother died and time and distance and other issues too abstract for a little me to understand removed my sister and I from that part of our lives.

Now, about 25 years later and a world of experiences later, my grandfather George, a man I love but hardly know, is dying. Four days ago, after landing in another state and on the morning of a job-interview, I received a text from my mom letting me know that my father's father had a massive stroke and was in the hospital.  When someone gets to be 91 years-old news of their approaching death shouldn't be surprising to those in close proximity yet somehow death always seems surprising. Despite the most inevitable fact of life being death, we are all blindsided when it's cold breath brushes against our neck on its way to claim the person we are standing next to.  It is simple arrogance and delusion on our parts but undeniable nevertheless.  

I've spent the last few days thinking about the life of a man whom I barely know but who also shares a name with my father, my father's grandfather, and my own son.  What I've been able to accumulate in my mind is little more than a references of facts about his life; son of a famous track coach, sports star in school, went to medical school at Dartmouth, married and had three children, lost a son at the age of 19 to a drunk driver, avid fisherman, lover of Dr. Pepper and Rocky Road ice cream.  I remember sharing a warm coke with him at the kitchen table when I was no older than seven or eight and big strong hands and golf trophies and a quiet demeanor.  Of course what little I remember and what even littler I know of him isn't the total of who he is and yet that is all that I really have to draw upon to form my opinion of him.  

It is only inevitable that now I no longer have the opportunity to ask him questions I can think of a million that I would like answers to.  What was it like to be at the 1936 Olympics?  Why is my dad's nickname Jay when his real name is George?  Why doesn't my own dad know the answer to that one?  Does he have regrets?  Great triumphs?  How did he endure the death of his youngest child?  How did he go on living after something so terrible?  Did he ever think about his great grandson, who was his namesake?  Whatever the answers to those questions may be they will be lost with him and a part of me grieves those losses just as much as I will grieve the loss of the man himself.

A couple of days ago, while I was eight hundred miles away from his bedside, my aunt put me on speaker phone so I could talk to him.  I spoke to him about how I was far away but that I wished I could see him and give him a hug.  Despite being completely paralyzed on one side of his body by the stroke and unable to speak, my aunt told me that he smiled while I spoke to him.  Now that I am back in the same state as he is and a four hour drive away he is passed the point of any recognition and so I am grateful that I had the chance to speak with him when I did.  But really our goodbyes were already said last month when I called him on his birthday.  We chatted about trivial matters like Rocky Road ice cream and about how I was moving to Oregon.  I told him that in August I was going to bring Clio to meet him on our way through California, which he said he thought would be wonderful.

"I love you," he said to me.

I replied, "I love you too, Grandpa"

inadequate

It is 7:44pm and I'm sitting in the bathtub and wishing we had one of those huge soaker tubs that you see in the glossy home magazines.  I don't need jets or any fancy accouterments, just a tub that can accommodate my 5'11 body.  As it is now I can only submerge a portion of my body at a time; either my legs are covered so that my torso isn't or vice versa.  I can't have both. I have a bad habit of taking my iPhone into the tub with me to peruse Pinterest or read blogs or play online Scramble, of which I am in the top 0.6% of all online players.  Some folks exceed at scholarly pursuits and others at artistic endeavors but not me.  I am just really good at playing online scramble.

Tonight though, in betwixt text messages with my sister bemoaning the current state of our Not Youth, I am writing this blog entry.  As it turns out I will be bemoaning the current state of sleep or lack thereof in this house so tonight is just all full of bemoaning.  To spare any of you reading here the long story that is about to follow let me sum it up for you in a few succinct words: Clio says, "Ah Hell No," to sleeping through the night and I am at my wit's end with the situation.

Last night she woke up every 90 minutes.  I tell you no lie.  She wasn't sick except for a near constant runny nose that we have concluded is a result of allergies.  She wasn't too hot or too cold.  She wasn't in need of a diaper change.  There was nothing wrong with her other than a decided lack of boob in her mouth.  After listening for the sixth time to her wake up, whine and cry for 5 minutes before putting herself back to sleep I finally got up to bring her back into bed with me to nurse her.  Usually I can stick her back into the crib after she nurses herself to sleep but last night she wanted to sleep only ON MY CHEST.  Which, as you can imagine, makes it difficult to sleep for the one who is the human mattress.  

This morning I woke up feeling completely frustrated with Clio, feeling utterly at a loss as to how to help the situation (we've tried a modified version of crying if out but that was a miserable failure), and feeling like a shitty mom.  You know, because, I had a baby die and dammit I should never take for granted that I now have a thriving daughter to love and hold.  All day today my patience with Clio's whining and fussing and squealing -Egads she hates the car seat- was as thin as it has ever been.  I wanted to hand her off to Leif and run away for the day, not worry about breast feeding -girl will only take a bottle at day care and not even for her dad at home- and just be alone.

There seems to be no end to my stupidity and naivete because I thought that experiencing George's death would somehow turn me into Supermom; Capable of Surviving Indefinitely on Hardly Any Sleep and Possessing of Infinite Pools of Patience. Apparently that is not a gift that was bestowed upon me in the wake of George's death.  What was bestowed upon me, and maybe all mothers feel this to an extent, is a tremendous feeling of guilt and hyper awareness of my failings as Clio's mother.


I should be grateful I have a living child.  I am but just not grateful enough.  I should never get frustrated or feel like I can't handle her whining anymore.  But I do feel those ways sometimes.  I look at Leif and think that he must never feel that way. Clio is going to grow up feeling like her dad loves her more than her mom.  That is what races through my head on days like this.

So here I am hiding in the tub, partially submerged in the rapidly cooling water, writing this.  Feeling sleepy, guilty and inadequate.


It's 8:30pm. I think I hear Clio crying.

right where i am: two years and two months

It is noon and a kind of silence has settled in around me.  What breaks through the otherwise thick layer of quiet is the muted chirping of the red house sparrows that make their homes in the trees surrounding our rented house and the clacking of the keys as my fingers strike their intended targets.  It is silence that just a year ago I would have needed to fill with distraction; a soundtrack of Modest Mouse and The XX or simply an episode of bad television.  

I enjoy the quiet now as I am alone with my thoughts so infrequently these days.  Most of my time is happily spent chasing after Clio or, when she is down for the night, laying on the couch with Leif.  We get so little time together now, just the two of us, that I greedily gobble up any time we can share together.  In quiet and solitary moments like this my thoughts no longer automatically stray to George's birth and death or if they do I don't have quite the emotional response that I used to have toward them.  Two years and some change later I am beginning to be able to look at it from a different perspective- one that isn't shrouded in despair and self-loathing.

What happened was very sad and there are still times when I find myself sobbing at the memory of it all.  Mostly now though I'm past all the railing against the universe and fist-shaking.  I've accepted what happened and that as a result some aspects of my life have changed for the better and for the worse.  Life doesn't feel so lopsided anymore and neither do I feel like my life is cast in the shadow of Unlucky.  I've come to recognize that I am a supremely fortunate person who happened to have one supremely unlucky thing happen to me.  It has taken me some time to reach that conclusion about the direction my life has taken since that day in March, two years ago, but it is now a conclusion that I feel at peace with.  Any regrets about the choices we made or questions that I've had about how things could have turned out had stars aligned differently are all but non-existent these days.  I look at my daughter smiling and happy and my husband beaming with love and there is no question in my mind that I am right where I want to be.

George's existence has been woven into the tapestry of my life.  Even in his absence he is more present than I had dreamed possible.  During the first year and a half after his birth I could only see that portion of my tapestry which was immediately connected to his death.  It was dark and so hard to look at that I could not even imagine it being anything else.  Now I stand back and see that his part of my tapestry is profoundly beautiful.  It is woven in and out of the entirety and has changed the contours and colors of my life.  It isn't perfect, my life's tapestry, but it is my own and I think it is beautiful.  All of it.  Even the ugly and sad bits.

Right now, at this moment, where I am is this...

I miss him and my life is full and I am happy.

Where I was last year.
Where you can find more information about the Right Where I Am project.

moving

Last week I gave notice to my work.  I'm quitting.  By mid-August we will be in Portland, Oregon.  It'll be two years behind our original schedule.

We were supposed to move the fall after George was born.  I was going to graduate, pass my board exam, and then have George all with in a six week stretch back in 2010.  I'd have six months to stay at home with him full-time while I got my license and looked for a job in Oregon.  That plan disintegrated pretty quickly in March of that same year.  After he died I was emotionally incapable of leaving the home that we had built here.

I'm ready now, for the most part, I think.  But the nostalgia for a city that I haven't even left yet has already started to kick in.  I've lived here, in different parts of the city, for the better part nearly thirteen years.  For all its faults, Los Angeles is a pretty fucking rad place to live while you're young.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous about the move.  My parents, my sister and her daughters are all less than a couple hours drive from my house so I see them fairly frequently.  My sister and I are very close and I love my nieces like they were my own.  The thought of leaving them makes me sick to my stomach.

We've made really amazing friends here too.  Some are the kind of friends you know that only come along once or twice in a lifetime.

Oh, and the weather.  The lovely, lovely, sunny weather.  As a Californian, born and raised, the adjustment to the cold and rainy weather in Portland is going to be a huge adjustment for me.

But there is so much to look forward to as well.  Leif's entire family lives within a forty minute drive of Downtown Portland.

It looks like two of our best friends -another set that only comes along once or twice in a lifetime- are coming home to Portland from The Netherlands the same time we are moving there.  Which, I admit, I cried a little out of excitement at the thought of being able to live near them again and being able to watch our kids grow up together (no pressure Natalie but you better be coming home...lol).

We will finally be able to buy our own home.  Maybe, just maybe, my dream of owning a big chunk of property with a renovated barn and lots of room for guests will come true while we live there.
And, of course, Portland is just about the most awesome city I've ever been to (Barcelona a close second).    So there is that too.

You'll have to excuse me if over the next three months I get a little weepy around here while we prepare to move.  I can't help it.  I'm gonna miss Los Angeles.

P.S.  Also, if you know of any tricks to make a move to another state easier I'd love to hear them.

sad book

While in Kauai (before the flooding) Leif and I stumbled upon a used book sale at the local public library.  We nabbed about ten books for Clio, which helped us get through the next four trapped days without losing our minds.  Most of the books we grabbed we did solely based on the cover art because it was crazy crowded and Clio was getting fussy.  This one was a surprise.

Obviously it is too old and too heavy to read to Clio anytime soon.  I think one day it will be a good tool to use to explain to her about her brother and how sometimes her mom and dad feel sad.  

*I did a little research and learned that Michael Rosen's 18 year old son died from bacterial meningitis.  I recognize so much of my own grief in this book.  Death is death and sad is sad.  You know, what I mean?


Michael Rosen's Sad Book

hawaii

So last month Leif and I went on vacation to Hawaii.  While we in Kauai there was an unseasonable storm and we were literally stuck in our rental unit for three full days due to flooding.  At the time it was really shitty but we can laugh about it now.  Who can say that their vacation was literally declared a disaster by the government?  Seriously, there were Red Cross tents set up and emergency evacuation warnings and all kinds of other very un-fun vacationy things going on.

Oh well.  We still ended up having a good time, especially when we finally made it off Kauai and to Maui.


I've been meaning to share some photos for the last four weeks but just haven't gotten around to it until now.  Clio has recently decided that when she is awake, and that is most of the time now (naps?  not for her), she only wants to play with me.  She is currently napping -a rare moment- and so I am taking the time to slap these up here.

Kauai 

The 200sq ft studio guest house we were stuck in for three days.  There are worse places to be stuck, right?

The valley where we stayed.  That river there in the corner was what flooded, drowning the entire valley.

The only day that the weather was nice enough to go to the beach while in Kauai.  Makeshift tent for baby.  Creepy stalker poultry.

River flooding.

Last day in Kauai.

Maui

Probably the most beautiful view I'll ever have while breastfeeding.

Clio couldn't get enough of the water.  We gave up trying to get her to stop licking the water in the pool and in the ocean.  

My dear friend Jennie met us in Maui for the conference I went to.  

Rawrrrrrrr!!!!!

george's birthday

Last year we headed west.  This year we headed east.

We stayed in Idyllwild, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Los Angeles in the San Jacinto mountains.

Our cabin was by a small stream.  Right before 4:00 we made our way up the stream along with George's photos, our journal, and his ashes.  

We had the intent of leaving some of his ashes to find their way in the stream to the ocean but apparently his urn is like Fort Knox and we weren't able to get it open.  It was a bit of a disappointment as it had taken us two years to work up the courage to look at them only to be thwarted by the seemingly simplistic copper box.

Clio enjoyed herself, although I'm not quite sure how she felt about the incredibly huge snow jacket we made her wear.

Two years seems like an eternity and like an instant.  Oh how very much we wish we could have both our babies.