BlogHer - What We Talk About When We Talk About Grief - Comments

Thanks for posting something that most would rather talk about

Barbara Clements — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:04:21 -0600

I know when I lost my Kate at 27 weeks, the pain, was intense for both my husband and myself.

But since they almost lost me, while they were taking Kate's body out, their focus was on me, and Kate was quickly (it seemed) a side thought. I hear that many marriages are shredded over this, and tho it didn't happen to ours, I can see why and how.

I remember her. The weekend she died, and her intended birth date, Nov. 2.

Most folks think you've moved on, but a part of you never does. Thanks for doing the work and looking at these blogs and writing this post,

Kentbarb

I lost my baby boy at 24 weeks just last month.

Crunchy Carpets — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:35:19 -0600

Right now it feels like a dream.
My body is back to normal. I have had a period.
When I feel my belly I sense only the emptiness.

He is a memory box of photos and hand and foot prints. His ashes sit in a teeny tiny little urn on our table....but the unreality of it all makes it so strange.

We have been lucky in the understanding and love that was shown us.....but I think people have time limits on things like that.....like with miscarriages...you aren't supposed to feel sad for TOO long or there is something WRONG with you.

The death of Heath made me sad as it would for any young life cut short by something like that.......a waste. I feel the pain of his family and friends.

I can understand I suppose. Mind you, we buried my MIL after an awful awful year of illness last year too and so I have seen what grief is like up close and personal.

We must respect everyone's pain of loss...no matter what it is for.

But yes, we must remember the little babies that didn't have a chance to be a someone to memorialize.

Look for me at http://crunchycarpets.com or check out the ladies at www.wetcoastwomen.com

Thank You

tash — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:49:58 -0600

Mel,

Thanks so much for getting brave enough to come over and read, and then writing this. That says a lot, and means a lot. It's remarkable to me how some people just instinctively know how to deal with me/us, and some people are totally clueless and downright rude. I wish I could send this post off to a few people.

And as to Heath: things like this always remind me that he is someone's child, too. And that it's not necessarily the event, but the support you have around you and the things you have to live for that are important in life.

Sitting with Grief

polchic — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:51:57 -0600

Mel,

Thank you for pointing out this section of the blogs - there are so many beautifully written posts contained there. Just as importantly, I think that by reading/sharing/feeling these stories, I have learned a lot about how to grieve and how to "just be" when others are grieving. And sometimes, that is all that people want.

Gabrielle
www.fertilitynotes.com

A beautiful post

stephaniesays — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:23:59 -0600

This is a really beautiful, albeit heart-wrenching, post. My cousin just recently lost her baby at the same time that she was reeling from a frightening diagnosis and news of upcoming surgery for her one-year-old. Our grandmother lost a baby more than 40 years ago, and my cousin's loss has been one of the only occasions on which I've ever heard her speak about this. Our grandma, as someone who can in all sincerity say to her, "I know what this feels like," has been encouraging her to let herself grieve and be kind and patient with herself, no matter who on the outside may not fully understand the magnitude of the loss. I'm glad for that--for my grandmother. For women like my cousin who are not tapped in to the Internet and who can't seek refuge and comfort in online communities, real-life, person-to-person comfort and sharing--or at least the availability of it when it's wanted or needed--has to be so important. I can't even imagine. I heard remarks by a few people (males, actually, unsurprisingly) in the aftermath expressing confusion over the level of grief and mourning when a baby is lost before birth, a lack of understanding as to why there would be a funeral and such. And I was astounded by that lack of understanding, by that complete disconnect.

Stephanie
-------------------------------------
http://vidadepalabras.blogspot.com
A Vegan Editor's Life of Words (and animals and nature and politics and family and food)

That was it! I forgot where

Melissa Ford — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:51:41 -0600

That was it! I forgot where I had read it. That thought kept coming back to me the last time I filled out the census report. Thank you for reminding me of the origin.

Venting about infertility since 2006
www.stirrup-queens.blogspot.com
and we're not talkin' cowgirls...

Census

dawn224 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:57:57 -0600

Ah - I know the book you mention (Alex - life of a child) - I do genealogy and the census mention strikes me often. It just took becoming a mom to realize how much those little lives matter.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Grief

Melissa Ford — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:20:08 -0600

Unfortunately, my bright orange and happy icon deeply clashes with what I need to write.

On the day that Heath Ledger died, I had been spending the afternoon reading through the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs on my sidebar. Not, perhaps, how some people choose to spend their afternoon, but they are important stories to read. Not just to understand what another person is going through, but because the burden of being the sole keeper of someone's existence is a terrible weight and reading the story helps another person know that they're not alone in remembering their child.

Ledger's death was the front page story on the cover of the Washington Post and I'm sure his death and life were well-covered in newspapers throughout the world. As well it should be because in talking about him, we are all picking up a small piece of his life and holding onto that memory. Reading the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs, I was reminded of a thought from a book I once read where the census report was taken a year after the death of their child. Because this child was born and died between two census reports, her existence was never formally recorded in that respect, never counted. What a horrible burden to think that without your single memory, your child's life could be entirely erased as if it never happened, especially if no birth certificate or death certificate is issued as is the case sometimes with pregnancy loss.

My point is not to dismiss Ledger's life, but to take more of how we mourn adults and apply it to how we mourn children--including those who die in-utero. As a society, we do a mediocre job at aiding in the mourning process of widows and fall even shorter at understanding how to support childless mothers. The reality is that what we know about widowhood actually translates neatly into childless motherhood. A death is a death and while the relationship may have logistical differences, loss leaves a hole in the heart.

We click on the blog stories detailing the deaths of adults. We can certainly take a moment to click on the blog stories detailing the deaths of children.

The post that brought me towards the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs was actually by a woman who experienced a second trimester loss. In Life From Here, Luna writes eloquently about the "outer world of grief."

When I lost my baby boy at 21 weeks, it was unlike anything I had ever known. Nothing had prepared me for that experience or its aftermath. The complex journey through grief towards healing is long and hard, with no clear end. As I’ve learned, it’s a lifelong process. And it’s usually a solo journey. Grief can be shared, as when we gather to mourn a friend or loved one. Mourning is the external part of loss, the shared rituals we observe. But ultimately everyone must find their way down their path. The journey is ours alone. Finding our way through loss is the inner work of grief. Our culture seems to have an aversion to grief in general. Death makes people uncomfortable. As others have so eloquently said, there are many reasons why there is so little support for pregnancy loss and stillbirth. So often these losses are ignored and misunderstood by others. Without support, grieving is an even more challenging and isolating process.

It's an important post to read if you want to truly understand loss, sit with loss, and know how to help someone who is grieving. I think because we feel so acutely uncomfortable around death in general, pregnancy loss seems like an easy opportunity to avoid our discomfort. It is impossible to ignore that a grown man existed--there are photos, remembered conversations, appointments unkept. It is too easy to pretend that a baby never existed--especially one who dies in-utero--and I think this easy out creates this wall, makes people turn their heads and pretend not to see the grieving parents, hold their questions.

Tash at Awful But Functioning has a post explaining the far-reaching effects of grief--how it alters relationships, keeps one from being their old self.

I never finished my thank you notes for everything that everyone did for Maddy. A kind friend ordered me cards so I wouldn't have to, and I began sending them off to thank people for their thoughts and flowers and food and trees and money. In the beginning I was on top of everything, and it was rather therapeutic to sit down and have something to do, not to mention the instant gratification of having a neat little stack of envelopes at the end of the evening. But then it just hurt. It just hurt to thank people for being nice because my child was dead. I didn't know how to thank them for a tree when I really didn't want a fucking tree at all -- I wanted my baby. I didn't want to think about the NICU ever again, let alone write a thank you to someone for giving money there so someone else's baby might live. And slowly I quit. And the list piled up, and sits there on my desk, next to the empty cards, almost a year later, incomplete. And I feel guilty every time I see it. I've been told point blank by people who didn't receive cards that no one expects a thank you, but I'm not sure I really believe that.

I think what blogs offer are a peek into the experience and I use the term "peek" because I think we see slices of a moment that cannot capture the arcing ache that covers the life of a person mourning. Those are the limitations of words.

Lastly, dbm/gaa at deadbabyblog, a blog title that makes you look grief right in the face, writes this week about the creeping sadness that comes for her at this time of year.

I think I've reached some kind of plateau. I'm not in agony, but I still ache and think about deadbaby every day. This time of year makes it worse. Spring is struggling to bust out all over, and it all seems like a big, ironic finger from the universe: "Everything is being born, but your baby is still dead! Easter is coming, death and resurrection...whoops no resurrection for you folks! Chocolate eggs instead? No?" Every second just brings us closer to her birthday and I just don't want to go there. This combines with the knowledge that this will happen every year for the rest of my life and I don't really think I'm going to feel much 'better' about the whole situation than I do now. DBP wisely said that it feels like we either live with it or do something to eradicate it, and the only thing that would do that is to actively forget which isn't an option. So I guess we are stuck feeling crap this time of year forever.

I think this post best brings up the fact that loss is not resolved in minutes or days or even weeks. It is an ongoing process. This doesn't mean to only speak to someone grieving about the source of their grief, but in appropriate situations, ask questions that allow the mourner to know implicitly that you still recognize their grief, create a space for it to rest, and are interested in supporting them fully--not only in the moments immediately after the loss.

Like everyone else, I clicked on the stories of Heath Ledger and I read about his life. And now I'm going to ask you to take one step further into grief and visit these blogs, sit with their stories, and help them remember this person who existed--albeit for a short time.

Melissa is the author of the infertility and pregnancy loss blog, Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. She keeps a categorized blogroll of over 1100 infertility blogs and writes the daily Lost and Found and Connections Abound, a news source for the infertility blogosphere. Her infertility book is forthcoming from Seal Press in Spring 2009.