Grief Quotes #6

"There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms."

- Charlotte Bronte

Grief Quotes #5

"The thing about grief is that there isn't a place or time at which we arrive once-and-for-all at peace, or healing, or completion."

- Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

From Bearing the Unbearable

Grief Quotes #4

"It's typically American to equate healing with doing something. When we have a problem, we fix it, and we prefer to do it quickly. But fixing is not the same as healing; in fact it can easily get in the way of healing...Healing happens not through doing but through feeling."

- Elio Frattaroli

Grief Quotes #3

"Yet there is no place for the tidy, the neat, or the civilized in mourning.

Grief violates convention: it is raw, primal, seditious, chaotic, writhing, and most certainly uncivilized. Yet grief is an affirmation of human passion, and only those who are apathetic, who stonewall love, who eschew intimacy can escape grief's pull.

No intervention and no interventionist can 'cure' our grief. And we are not broken - we are brokenhearted.

Grief is not a medical disorder to be cured.

Grief is not spiritual crisis to be resolved.

Grief is not a social woe to be addressed.

Grief is, simply a matter of the heart - to be felt."

- Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

From Bearing the Unbearable

Grief Quotes #2

"Though we encounter it as suffering, grief is in fact an affirmation."

- Leon Wieseltier

Grief Quotes #1

During my grief season this year, and especially over the course of A's days, I read and re-read some of my favorite grief books. Even though I've read them before and even though I'm seven years out, some passages and quotes struck me right through. They are concise, poignant observations or a feeling I carry that someone finally articulated perfectly. I thought I'd share them. This is the first of the series. Maybe one or two with resonate with you too.

This first one is a favorite of mine. It speaks to mustering the courage to face and embrace grief.


"We do not experience grief without love, and we cannot experience the love without feeling grief. When we open our hearts to grief, over time, the delineation between the two states deliquesces. Our hearts open because grief, like love, is a matter of the heart."

- Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

From Bearing the Unbearable

Research Opportunity

Ever since A died seven years ago, I've sought ways to create a positive impact from his short life. We do random acts of kindness in his name. I donate books and funds to loss and bereavement groups. And, on a more personal level, I think of myself as a sort of grief ambassador. Whenever anyone in my life - co-worker, close friend, relative - suffers a loss, I don't hesitate to step forward. I'm not bashful about sending food or about asking how they're doing and offering to sit in the grief with them. I like to think that my willingness to speak of grief, in all its facets, is in some small way working to de-stigmatize death and grief in American society. I also feel like it's a compassionate way to honor A's legacy. With this in mind, it's no surprise that I immediately jumped at an opportunity to participate in a research study about grief.

Fellow bereaved mom and blogger, Jen, is a professor and is conducting research about grief and how the bereaved maintain records and items that connect them to their lost loved ones. You can read more about it on her blog here. It is not exclusive to baby loss and your records needn't be paper documents. If you would like to participate, I assure that Jen will be kind and understanding. Please consider it.

Seven

My boy would be seven. S-e-v-e-n. A lanky, second-grader comfortable after two years at elementary school and able to provide support to his little sister just venturing into kindergarten.

Like all of these birthdays, seven seems to hold its own significance. Maybe not in the most direct of ways, like the firstbirthday or even the fifth birthday. But it's made me think about an event I attended at a local Native American community center many years ago (well before I ever had kids which feels like an eternity ago). The speaker presented on the significance of the number seven.

She explained that human embryos begin to develop genitalia at 7 weeks gestation. This is the first outward evidence of gender; differentiation and a step in identity.

At age 7 years, most children are shedding their baby teeth and assuming their adult teeth; another major transformation.

Seven years after that, at 14, another major life milestone - puberty. When adolescents' bodies mature and are now capable of reproduction.

Unfortunately, I cannot recall what she said about age 21, the last in her series of 7-year divisions. But I think it was something along the lines of becoming a full-fledged adult who contributes to the community.

Seven years, is also the state-mandated medical record retention policy in our state. When A died, we took advantage of all available opportunities to try and determine why our healthy full-term baby died suddenly. We signed off on lab tests and agreed to an autopsy and genetic testing. After we had all of those reports in hand, we visited two different perinatal specialists in our area to see if they could glean a cause of death. They each came to different hypotheses; one said it may have been some sort of pressure on the cord. The other said, it could have been an infection. We will never know for sure. One of them did note, that A’s heart was enlarged (per the autopsy report it weighed 17.3 grams, well above the high end of average at 14 grams)

In the months after A was born, I requested my prenatal and labor and delivery records along with all of his hospital records. Fresh in mourning and with an aching heart, I read through the autopsy report. It ripped me apart to read how much each of his organs weighed, trying to avoid thinking about some stranger in a lab coat dissecting my boy, cutting open his body and snipping loose each organ. But we wanted answers, for our sake, for A’s sake and for the prospect of future children.

My recollection was that while reading through the autopsy report, there was a single instance where his heart was reported to have been of normal size. That there was one digit off, a typo. This morning, I scoured the house looking for A’s medical records. I needed to find that autopsy report and call the hospital to have it corrected. This week is seven years since treatment, which means they’ll destroy his medical records this week. I need the record to be accurate.

The records weren’t in his box – the one with all his memorabilia. They weren’t in my filing box. They weren’t in his binder that holds his photos. WHERE ARE THEY?! I began sobbing, hyperventilating, spinning into a panic. I had to find them. The hospital will destroy them any day now. This is my last chance to set the record straight.

Finally, in the farthest corner, in a bin I didn’t even remember we had, I found the records. I sat down and went through them again, agonizing over words like “the usual Y shaped incision was made.” I read through the entire autopsy report and didn’t find the discrepant heart size. I re-read the autopsy report. I again, only found the 17.3 gram reference. I picked up the thicker stack of records; my medical records and went through them page-by-page. No discrepancy. Had I misread it all those years ago? Am I misremembering now?

I went through A’s and my records several more times searching for a different measurement of his heart. Nothing.

I have resigned myself that I will not be reaching out to the hospital to right an incorrect report. But I don’t know if I’ll ever shake this nagging feeling that it was an error.

And what does it matter? So what if his heart was enlarged? His brain was also much above the high end of average weight. (Oh the thought of his skull being opened and someone removing his brain with two hands and placing it on a scale!!!!). It may not be an important clue in this medical mystery of why he died. Maybe more than anything, it’s just a manifestation of my need to parent my dead child and there being so few opportunities to do so.  

Grief Week

With seven years of grieving experience, I have come to know what to expect during my grief season and what I need. This week is A’s seventh birthday. I planned ahead by taking the entire week off of work so that I can fall apart and get in touch with all of the emotions I so often quell throughout the year. I also stocked my freezer with ice cream and my pantry with Oreos*.

This morning, E and I drop the girls off at their schools and he continued on to work. I returned home and set up (grief) shop. A thick blanket on the recliner, water bottle and coffee within arm’s reach, a box of tissues, A’s tiny urn. I settle in and delve into books that get me in touch with my grief and that validate my feelings and my experiences (like They Were Still Born and Bearing the Unbearable and Love You Forever – all of which were written by bereaved parents).

This week, for me, is an opportunity to inhabit my grief. I wade into the thick stew of emotions and, without judgment, embrace whicheverfeelings come. I give myself permission this week to fall apart; to abandon my usual responsibilities (ie regular showering, laundry and making meals for my family – we’ll subsist this week on pizza, frozen chicken tenders and mac-n-cheese) and to do whatever feels right in the moment. Could be sleeping. Could be exercising. Could be gardening. Could be journaling.

I will go through A’s pictures; all of the ultrasounds and also the photos of our one day together. I will watch the short video my husband took, unbeknownst to me at the time, while I cradled that long, limp boy and delicately caressed his perfect body while quietly uttering, “I don’t understand.” over and over again.

I will listen to songs that trigger tears. I will bawl, howl and sob. I will re-read the condolence cards we received seven autumns ago (only those with heartfelt, genuine notes). I will mound the used tissues up, wet with tears and snot, until they topple onto the floor.

I will honor my love for my boy by honoring my grief over his absence.

*I am in no way compensated for promoting Oreos. I doubt Oreos need any promotion.