Store Up Your Treasures in Heaven.

When we sent the email announcing Gabriel's birth, and his death, this verse was at the bottom. It had accompanied me through my labour, through the wracking sobs, through the quiet desperation. I chanted it in accompaniment to the beeps of the blood pressure monitor. I put my hands on Gabriel's legs, as he kicked me during induction, and I recited this verse. Christians often memorize scripture, and all I could say was that out of the bedrock of my faith, the bottom of my hopes, I remembered this verse. And heaven.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,

and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy,

and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

Someone asked me why this verse was on the email. It's not the typical verse about loss and death and pain. In fact, you might even argue that I'm taking the verse out of context. That the situation with Gabriel isn't what Jesus was talking about when he said this. All I can say was that out of the bedrock of my faith came this promise - that where my greatest treasure was - Gabriel - the greatest gift, the largest miracle of my life - where Gabriel was, there also was my heart. There is an implicit promise in this verse, one that I am just beginning to understand, the greatest gifts, the greatest miracles, we call them treasure. And we attach our heart's to them. And it is only in heaven that our treasure and our hearts are safe.

It is dangerous to have treasure. The bible refers to Satan, to evil, as a thief, as something that creeps around causing things to rot and corrupt and decay. I think of the old superstitions: How it is dangerous to know the name for something. How it is dangerous to admit that you are aware of the true nature of something. It is dangerous to admit something is precious to you. That your heart is connected to something. It is dangerous to admit that we want something. It is dangerous to love too much. Our instinct is to hold on to our treasure. To lock it away, to protect it, to pretend that it isn't treasure. To call it something else.

I am thinking of this today, as we go to see the perinatologist this morning. This last follow up, to review what happened. To understand the course of the disease, to put numbers and lab values and medical protocols to feelings and fear and forgotten moments. To put days of confusion and fear and hope and helplessness in some sort of logical sequence. To try and understand why we had to give him back.

And I must remember, the doctor's they will have no real answers to handle this disease of theories. They will have no guarantees, they will have no promises. Their protocols and their methods, they do the best they can. They make no promises, but they tell me what they will do. They cannot tell me what will be, what is. They cannot tell me why I had to give Gabriel back.

It is a discipline of sorts to remember this verse. Because it reminds me, that Gabriel was never mine, really. He was treasure given to me, from God. And it was my obligation to give him back. To keep him safe in heaven. To remember, my heart belongs in heaven. Which is why my treasure is there too: because our treasure and our heart, they follow one another.

My other treasure, Mr. Spit, is home for a few days. And I am finding it easier to catch my breath.

The Shadow Life

People so often tell me that I look as if I'm not sleeping, that I have shadows under my eyes.

Deadbaby mum's so often live shadow lives. We are shadow's of ourselves, we are shadowed by grief, our babies are shadowed memories.

Indeed, to many, my baby is a shadow - not recognized, not spoken of. We had a department meeting last, and they were talking about baby gifts - and I just wanted so badly to mention that I received none. I got an arrangement of flowers when I was admitted to the hospital. Nothing for Gabriel's birth. A few co-workers came to his funeral, but many have never acknowledged I was pregnant, said they were sorry.

The lady who gave me Noel, she sent a card congratulating us on the birth of our son. She knew he died, but more than his death, she knew he lived. And she wanted to say congratulations, because we had a baby. She's the only one who sent a baby card - everyone else sent sympathy cards. I am thankful for those who realize that Gabriel is more than his death, and that I am more than the mother of a dead baby.

I came into work yesterday, and expressed the usual morning pleasantries with the person who sits next to me. We talked about the weather, and she mentioned what she had done that weekend. She asked me if I was feeling better.

I'm thankful for a manager that was able to just say I was sick. But, what do I say? That another baby went home to heaven? That it might have been great timing, but it was still another loss? Do I tell her that I spent the weekend alone, with a child bleeding out of me, and Mr. Spit forced to be out of town, and friends too busy to care (Or, perhaps I have worn out my allotment of comfort?)

It seems almost easier to not mention Gabriel. I find, as time goes by, that I try not to mention Gabe to everyone. I have begun to realize that there are whole groups of people in my life that are not aware of Gabriel. I find it tiring at times, to be so sad, all the time. To be so discouraged, to be so lost. To have little things like the dentist's throw me so off my game. To have careless words wound me to my marrow. To be unable to cope with Gabriel's death and a miscarriage, but know that I have no choice.

It isn't that I spend each day crying, rather I am always aware of Gabe's absence. It is that great sorrow. I am tired of my inability to concentrate. My frustration and my forgetfulness. And on days like these, that have been difficult, in which my loss and pain are very acute, I am tired. And I want respite. Peace. A chance for a long, deep breath. A break from relentless sorrow and grief.

I have days when I don't want to be the mum of a dead baby. I don't want to talk about it, think about it. I don't want to look at parents screaming at their children, and wonder: if they met the family in our support group who lost their son suddenly, in an afternoon nap, would they still scream at their children?If they truly knew what it was like to be me, would they still complain about their children to me? Would they be so incessantly negative about their children? Would they truly complain about their children not sleeping if they understood what it was like to have your children no more?

I live in a shadow world. I must function in the other world, the 'real world', get up, do my job, go to meetings, garden, cook supper, buy clothes. But each of these things, they are a reminder that I am not in the world I want. I am not in the world of a mum with a new baby. I'm not on Maternity Leave, I garden without a baby to listen for, the play pen with its sunshade was never even taken out of the box. I cook supper, and do not to think of baby food or bottles or breast feeding. I buy clothes that are suitable for the life of a banker, not a stay at home mum.

No situation, no comment, no thought escapes with out the filter of my grief and sorrow. I remember: I live a shadow life. A life with the shadows of grief and loss and sorrow. A life that is a shadow of what it should have been. A life covered by the shadow of our missing son. A life with a shadow baby who is not here.

Really, are the shadows under my eyes any wonder?

Yes, Pregnant.

I went to the dentist's last Tuesday.

And look back at the medical form completed in September 07, filled out with a cheerful "Yes, Pregnant!" next to the line asking about changes in my medical status.

With an exclamation point.

I'm tired of being a patient, tired of being broken and lost. Tired of the sheer cruelty the world inflicts on the parents of dead babies. Tired of being ignored and forgotten and left behind.

I wondered: what would they say if I said: "Yes, heart broken and soul torn in two".

Should I use a question mark with that?

I am so tired in body and spirit today.

The Garden Diva in June

I'm sorry, I'm very tired, so I'm letting her take over. (The VBM and the OB's office warned me this might happen.)

Have a great day, see you back on Wednesday, hopefully with a finished baby sweater, for, you know, the baby that is already here.

The Garden Diva’s editor insists that she finish this column - in spite of the myriad of things TGD still needs to plant. In the midst of work that is TGD’s true calling, she is to sit and write about caring for your lawn! Bah, Dear Reader, Bah!

TGD’s solution is really quite simple – get rid of your lawn already! Really Dear Reader, don’t look so shocked. Lawns are expensive to maintain, they are ecological disasters, they are an enormous amount of work, and many grasses don’t grow all that well here. It’s the green, grass of Kentucky. Does it look like Kentucky around here?

About that environmental cost. Fertilizer contains phosphorous. Did you know, Dear Reader that the province of Manitoba has limited the amount of phosphorous in a fertilizer to 1 percent? When a gardener over fertilizes their yard, that extra phosphorus winds up in sloughs and ponds, where it turns into an algal bloom, and chokes out the wee, ickle fishies. Pesticides, dear reader, kill good bugs, including the wee tiny earth worms that are aerating your soil for you. 60-90 % of earth worms will die after an application of pesticides.

And the cost? Dear Reader, Americans spent $30 Million on lawn maintenance in 2002? Did you know that your old 4HP lawnmower creates as much smog producing particles in hour of use, as does driving your car 200 Miles (American Statistics, Dear Reader). And then Dear Reader, there are those of you that throw out your lawn clippings – 30 percent of landfill bound waste is yard waste. All of this mayhem, dear reader, for something that doesn’t flower, and you can’t eat it! Enough!

Are you still attached to your perfect lawn? Are you willing to consider other ground covers? Rock, paving stone, and bark chips will stand up to the toughest conditions. Indeed, they are the only things that stand up to TGD’s non-gardening dogs. Mulch is soft and ideal for running children. Creeping Thyme or Vinca will stand up to a moderate amount of foot traffic and require no mowing. All of these will cover ground, are nice to look at, and are much kinder to our planet.

If you must maintain your lawn: TGD does earnestly implore you to observe the following conditions:

- Plant grass that grows in Alberta – probably a Fescue variety. Leave Kentucky Blue Grass in Kentucky!
- Do all you can to make your lawn as healthy as possible, avoiding horrible pesticides and fertilizers (the fishes and the earth worms!).
- Rake your lawn each spring to remove the thatch and add a top dressing of 2 inches of compost.
- Use a newer mulching lawn mower and leave the clippings on your lawn to fertilize your lawn, reduce the amount of water your lawn needs, and keep those weeds down. Keep your lawn mower blade sharp cut only dry grass to a height of no less than 3 inches.
- Water your lawn about an inch a week, less if it rains. And for the love of lobelia, please don’t water the side walk! TGD assures you, Dear Reader, it will not grow!

TGD lives and gardens in Edmonton, with the trés wonderful gardening diva husband and the non-gardening dogs. She longs to get back to the days when she and the gardening mother could cut the grass in their backyard with a weed whacker. Next month she will talk more about wee ickle bugs.

Monday Miscellany

Things to tell you today:

• When you are selecting a magazine for it's picture value, because the Opthamologist has put drops in your eyes to examine them and you can't read, it's best - truly - not to choose The Economist.
• I have disabled anonymous comments. I got tired to stupid people on the blogs of others, and I figure if you are going to insult me, please at least do so with a name. Way back at the beginning I said we should behave as if we were in my living room. Still seems sensible to me.
• Mr. Spit has an exciting blog series going. Drop over and see what he does for a living, and why he's never home, would you?
  



• On the subject of Mr. Spit not being home. Here's what I had for dinner on the first night he was gone. (bbq chicken, rice and broccoli)
  
• This was what I had for dinner tonight. Any guesses for tonight? (no, it won't be popcorn, that was dinner on Thursday Night)
  
• Oh, and a very close to finished project - Baby Sweater for the Cara baby who arrived in the wee small hours of Friday. Keziah is here and her mum and dad and older brother are thrilled.



• I have discovered that the wonderful Maximus doesn't eat dead wasps. I am, again, left wondering, why do I keep feeding this cat?
  

And finally, Mr. Spit and I had what looks to be an early miscarriage this weekend. By the time I read what my body was telling me (I knew there was a reason I couldn't eat the Calamari on Friday!), the wee one just starting had already left this world. I'm not sad. Really. We weren't trying to get pregnant. Quite the opposite - I'm on medication that is unsafe to be pregnant on. I'll say it again. We aren't sad. This isn't a big deal for us. I was all of 5 minutes pregnant. As the Very Blessed Midwife (VBM) said, sometimes things just aren't meant to be. If anything, we are pleased that for the very first time my body actually managed to get ovulate and get fertilized, without anyone's help. That's totally new for us. (And yes, I'm fine physically too).

I Don't Like Losing

I was at a women's luncheon on Thursday. The key note was a great speaker, a prominent Edmontonian. I left shrugging my shoulders. She's very much a "If you believe it, you can do it" kind of lady. She has, through her own drive and determination, taken a single hair salon in a very tiny town to a multi-million dollar chain in two provinces. She's worked hard, and she truly has made it happen, largely through her sheer force of will. She has made herself a success, and she deserves credit.

Last year, a friend asked me what the hardest part of infertility was. And I thought for a second and said: "I don't like losing." I don't often lose. I'm reasonably smart, I'm driven, used to success. I have a good job, a nice-ish house and a fantastic husband. I make good money, I'm articulate. But, there is nothing in the world I can do to make God give me a baby. There is nothing I can do to make sure my baby lives. Nothing I can do to reduce my chances of pre-eclampsia. I can't control life. I can't make anything truly important happen. I lose, because I can't win the fight by my sheer force of will.

Infertility taught me another of life's lessons: the biggest things in life, the best things in life; you can't make them happen. You can set the stage, you can pray, you can be open to things, but you can't make marriage, birth, love, conception, joy happen in your life. Humans are simply not that powerful. We control very little of our destiny. I wonder if we should keep teaching drive and determination and sheer force of will as good character traits, if we should keep prizing them so, given how very little we really can make happen, and how unimportant what we can make happen really is.

I look at people like the speaker, those who still believe in their own power to achieve big things, and I cock my head to the side and wonder "So, what will you do when you can't make something happen? When you discover that the sheer force of will that made you a millionaire, it can't keep the seasons from changing, it can't thwart tragedy, it can't add a single second to the life of a loved one? What will happen to you when you discover that the principals of grit and determination and hard work don't work?"

It was not sheer force of will that got me through the days after Gabriel's death. It was not drive or determination or grit that made me get out of bed, talk to people, plan a funeral, cook meals, pick up the pieces of my life. Sheer force of will fled, drive and determination meant nothing. Drive and determination for what? Another empty day without Gabriel, full only of longing and pain and sorrow?

I used to snowshoe. My final race was 40km, (25 miles), and the very end of it was a series of brutally steep hills. There are two ways to run up a hill. There is the sheer force of will method: Saying: "I will overcome, steamroll, kick and shove and use elbows in the corners. I will focus on the top of the hill, and I will get myself there."

The other method is far less glamorous, attracts less attention. You get up the hill by putting one foot in front of the other. You let everyone go past you if need be, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You don't focus on the top of the hill, you focus on the next step, and the next after that. This method, this is called endurance, patience.

You get up the hill either way. You get up more hills, using the second way.

You see, my drive and determination, they burn out. I get distracted, I decide if I can't win the race on my terms, I'll go play somewhere else. I get to the top of the hill, and I realize that life is just a succession of hills, and there is another, steeper one, for tomorrow. And I've already spent all my energy on the first hill. And if, perchance, I lose the race, it is a great crises of self.

Endurance is boring and mindless and repetitive. I suppose that's why we should call it another name, a name that is more indicative of what it really is. A name that speaks of patience and fortitude and stamina and hope.

Let's call it courage.

Dear American Thieves of Lord Stanley's Cup

Dear Emily America:

We didn't say much when you insisted the swill that you call "beer" was actually related the true, proud and noble drink that is actually worthy of the name. We just shook our heads when you bought Molson's. We hated to tell you that we only made that beer so you guys would have something to drink when you came up here.

We put up with the washroom's that you don't wash in. We put up with your hatred of "u"'s in colour and neighbour and labour.

We think it's enormously funny to watch you try to identify a tuque. We thought it was amusing when Rudy Guliani didn't know who our Prime Minister.

We only snickered a tiny bit at your Freedom Fries. We appreciate the comedic relief your politicians (on both sides of the aisle!) provide.

But this, this perfidy, this treachery, this malfeasance, this simply cannot be tolerated.

We will issue a sternly worded apology note of concern. We may even send a head of state to say "Fuddle Duddle". Possibly we shall say it in two official languages. (We are striking a Royal Commission to study the feasibility - it will travel across Canada to consult with everyone, but don't worry, they'll only listen to the Quebecois in the end)

But we are coming for our cup. When you hear this song, you'll know we're on our way.



(Only, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would ever mind making sure that there's snow, it makes it sooooo much easier on the sled dogs - thanks!)

Sorry, you'll note the puck isn't coloured blue in the video, that's because, well you know, the ice is white and the puck is black. It's that whole contrast thing.

(Why no Emily, I'm not still resentful about the whole Stanley Cup thing, nope, not me!)