Saturday Update

I am back.

I have defeated the dust bunnies. At one point they seized the vacuum and it was a bit tense, but my razor sharp wits managed to suck them up.

I have cleaned slobber that was stuck glued frozen for all time to the walls.

I have cleaned electronics, scraps of paper, wool, knitting needles off my table. I was having a good day.

And then I got a phone call. As I wrote the sentences above.

A friend is expecting a baby. Another had hers on Thursday.

And I'm broken. All out of courage and hope today.

No quotes about courage or hope. All out over here. Try back tomorrow.

I have to go and get my crap together and go teach at John School. Another symptom of the broken world we live in. Which I totally didn't need today. I'm already broken.

Weekends Are For Quotes

Except when you run away and join the circus.

Seriously.

I'm in Edson with Mr. Spit, just for today. I'll be back tonight. (and if you are planning on using the news of my absence to burglarize our house, may the very large dust bunnies attack you.)

You should insert a quote about courage. I got discouraged trying to find one.

Leave good ones in the comments, and I'll talk to you all again on Sunday.

About courage.

My Rob Lowe Story

I made reference to it earlier. . .

All of my girlfriends were twitter-pated about Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall. I thought it was a stupid movie and Brad had poor personal hygiene.

I like Tom Cruise, but the whole Scientology thing is just weird, and the second Mission Impossible movie was just bad.

I liked Romeo and Juliet - and thought that Leonardo was enchanting. It was a truly spectacular rendition. Then I saw "The Beach", and I didn't so much want my money back, but I sure did want my time back. Ugh, it was "The Lord of the Flies" for stupid people.

So, I've never been that much for actors. Never that much for crushes. Never did the teenage heartthrob thing. In my second year of university I found The West Wing. And. . . .

Well, this guy named Rob Lowe.

And I really liked the television show. Really, not just because of Rob. (Honest, I kept watching even after he left the show in a fit of pique)

But Rob, he was a nice Sunday night companion. Then a Wednesday night companion. Just a nice point to the week. Not the highlight, but, you know, nice.

But I kept silent about this, shall we say, fascination with the Deputy Director of Communications. After all, I did like the President, I liked Josh, Toby reminded me of a friend, and I even liked Donna. And Mr. Spit had come along by this time, so obviously I didn't want to upset the apple cart. Mr. Spit has my entire soul.

Ahh, but Sam Seabourn, you held a place in my heart. Even when you gave your heart to a call girl. I thought it was sweet that you were trying to fix her. You could do no wrong in my eyes. I loved the music in your best episode. I've tried and tried to find it on iTunes. . . Ahh, my heart, it softened.

And then in April 2004, my life had just gone for well, you know the rest of the sentence. I'd been fired from a job that I had absolutely hated (Which meant I failed, and my friends, Mrs. Spit doesn't do failure well). And I had easily gotten a new job, but I wasn't sure I was going to like it. My boss was a bit of a jerk, the managing VP scared the pants off me (and I don't scare easily, but we called her the barracuda). I didn't know anyone at the office, except that universal creepy office lady that you just know, from the moment you meet her, you are going to spend the rest of your life trying to avoid.

And, one day after work I was in the local drugstore buying lipstick to soothe my wounded heart and there was this magazine and it had Rob. And my heart, it soared. I spent at least half an hour looking at the article. Ok, I'm kidding you all. I didn' t read the article, but oh, my the pictures. MMMM. Rob, in a wet shirt. Hallelujah and Glory! Can I hear an Amen? Alas Rob, you have your call girl, and, well, your wife, and I have Mr. Spit(whom I love). I reluctantly put you back on the shelf and got on with this thing called real life.

And it was my first real conversation with Gen, who was destined to become my best friend. It was about actors. And maybe I mentioned the magazine. In fact, maybe I mentioned it a time or two in the following years. Yea, with a wistful smile and a twinkle in my eye, I mentioned the magazine. Maybe once or twice.

And so, imagine my surprise when my best friend arrives with a package, right before Christmas, with a Christmas present she insisted I open. Which was surprising, because we don't usually open gifts in front of each other. And I had heard of this gift. She'd called me, early in October to ask if I'd ever ordered anything off eBay. And I asked what she was ordering - I got told "Your Christmas Present". Which is odd. Gen isn't an early shopping kind of lady. She made me buy lunch the day I bought my Christmas cards in October.

So, you can imagine my surprise, when I opened the wrapping, and there was this looking at me. (Mr. Spit was pretty surprised too.)

Oh Rob, it was worth the wait.

And that My friends, is my Rob Lowe Story.

PS - the Magazine is Details, May 2007 Issue, with Article text by Bill Carter and Photo's by Tom Munroe. Website Link is here. http://www.lowe-impact.com/InterviewDetails.html

Rain Drops on Roses

It's time for Julie again. It's been a long week (anyone else finding this, or is it merely grumpy old me?)

And we had Whinge-For-All Thursday 2 weeks ago, so I thought I'd do a Favourite Things Thursday today. (and sorry, but the only prize you get for a favourite things Thursday is feeling better about life. For 30 seconds, at least. But you should see what I'm knitting for the July Whinge-For-All.)

My favourite things, this week:

- Going to a lace knitting class, so I can work on the blogosphere baby shawl. I can knit lace, I'm just in deep trouble if I have to go back and unknit. I think the mother, who still hasn't guessed who she is, will like the fact that I can rip out stitches when my inability to count causes me yet another problem. You know, without having to start the whole thing again. . . .

- Glorious sunshine. My garden is sprouting. I will have spinach soon. (Anyone want spinach? I can't stand the stuff, and Mr. Spit is in Edson from now until the end of time)

- Cuddly cats. I don't actually have one, but I sure do like them.

- The fact I turned my stupid comments verification thing off. I could never read the darn letters, and I would try and try and keep flunking, and let's face it, I suck at enough stuff, I don't want to suck at leaving comments on my own blog. They will stay off until the pests invade. Hopefully they will take a long time to find us.

And what about you? What are your excited about?

How Should a Christian Deal With Infertility (Mrs. Spit tells us all how to be an adult, again)

Hem, Hem, Hem.

I got in a big debate in a seminar, when I was in university. I was in second year, and somehow I wound up debating with 3 grad students. And I lost. It was a sad, debilitating and humiliating loss. As I was packing up my stuff, and leaving the room, the Prof. called out to me. He stopped me and took me into his office. And he offered me 2 bits of advice:

1. No one had ever defeated John Rawls' Social Contract theory, once they bought into the veil of ignorance. (if you aren't a poli sci geek, you are just going to have trust me. Or, go here and read this.
2. Never start a debate by accepting the premise of a dumb question.

A nasty, vitriolic person posted on CLC's really very beautiful post about missing Hannah and her grief over seeing pregnant women. The poster was mean and rude. She (or at least I'm assuming she) wrote a couple of things, but the last one was a lovely little response to infertility and how a Christian should deal with infertility.

So, back to Prof. Carmicheal, and his second bit of advice: Never accept the premise of a dumb question. The question: "how should a Chrisitian deal with infertility?" my friends, it is dumb question. Anonymous may not be dumb, but her question about infertility, it's really, really, really dumb.

I had originally planned to go through all of the biblical references and comment on why they were inappropriate, and moreover, I was going to pull out all the verses that emphasize the need and appropriateness of grieving and mourning, and point out how much better they were at grieving. Yep, the old youth pastor in me was going to get right up there and preach herself a little sermon. I'm not going to do that. (I know, you can thank me later) That would be accepting the premise of a dumb question, the wrong question. Instead, here's why anonymous has a dumb question:

Reason Number 1

It is rude to give advice when you aren't asked for it. CLC has lots of people in her life, and if she wanted spiritual guidance, she would ask for it. She wasn't asking for advice, spiritual or otherwise. She was expressing her feelings. In fact, she didn't need to be fixed, she needed to be heard. It is, among other things, just rude to fix someone without their permission. It is cruelty to suggest that CLC needs her feelings fixed. She doesn't. None of us do. We are grieving. Grief is appropriate and normal, and if your spiritual beliefs are bent this way, Godly. We are not broken for mourning, quit trying to fix us.

Reason Number 2

The problem of infertility is part of something called the problem of suffering. And the problem of suffering is an entire technical discourse. People write their dissertations on it. Profound thinkers spend an enormous amount of time examining it. Bright minds examine this problem. It's large, big, hard to understand. And I'll give you a big lesson - cost me 40k to learn this: No one has the only answer. No one. We understand the problem of pain and suffering. Every disaster, natural or man made, every death of a baby, every child left abused, abandoned, neglected, we understand, there is something very wrong with our world. Things aren't fair, they aren't right, they aren't just. And as a Christian I have a particular answer to this and to the notion of original sin and death. And I believe my answers are right. But - the cry of our hearts, the pain of a dead baby, that isn't answered with a formula. The bible offers an answer to the problem of pain that is counter intuitive. It simply reminds us that God loves us. Which actually doesn't answer the question. It just provides comfort for the pain.

The real challenge of the problem of suffering is that there is no answer. At no point in suffering will I reach a point where I say "This, this is the reason that Gabriel died". It just doesn't happen. We may reach our own part answers. God may show me good that has come from Gabriel's death, but surely we can accept that there is no good reason for a baby to die. Finding the good in the tragedy does not make the tragedy ok. More bearable perhaps, easier to accept, but not ok. The problem of suffering is not answered in 428 words with seven bible verses. And if you don't believe in God, Jesus, the bible, the ressurection and christianity, my words and anonymous's seven bible verses, they are totally useless.

Reason Number 3

My third problem with the response of anonymous was this: the trite and shallow responses she gave suggested that she didn't want to engage. She didn't want to abide, she just wanted to make the nastiness out here in Lost Baby Land go away. She wanted apple pie and motherhood and shiny happy people. I have to say, I really hate people like this. Life is painful. It is unfair. It is messy. Pain and sorrow and anguish are human emotions. They are as much a part of the human condition as breathing and sleeping and eating. Part of what makes us human is our ability to feel great pain. We become more human, we grow, we develop stronger families, communities, churches when we feel great pain together. We become more fully human through pain. Anonymous, if you aren't willing to abide with those in pain, I would suggest that it would be prudent to stay away from them. And to live your life in cotton wool, as I can't see how you would prevent tragedy from striking your life.

Reason Number 4

Anonymous was answering the wrong question, solving the wrong problem. If you are going to fix someone who doesn't need fixing, you are going to solve the problem of suffering with a few trite bible stories, you are going to substitute bible verses for your care and concern, could you at least have the decency to attempt to solve the right problem? CLC doesn't have infertility. To the best of my knowledge, she had no problems getting pregnant. CLC lost Hannah. She grieves because she is here, and Hannah is not. That's not infertility, it's death. Quite a different problem, wouldn't you agree?

Here endeth the lesson.

Closure

I was sitting in the hairdressers chair on Thursday and we were talking about the myth of closure.

As in:

• Having a funeral gives you closure
  
• Planting a tree gives you closure


• Having another baby/husband/dog gives you closure. (Not sure what my hairdresser is supposed to do - she lost her mum, can't buy a new one off the shelf.)

And I'm realizing, closure is crap. There is no closure. There is getting on with life, there's the ubiquitous "new normal", there's life after death, but there is no closure. Which has me wondering, why have ritual, why try to grieve collectively, or use words and events to make sense of our grief? Is the funeral, the memorial service, the baby loss page, even my blog redundant? I'm thinking about this as I plan a tree planting ceremony on June 8th, after attending the baby loss ceremony at the hospital on Sunday. If not closure, what are we trying to achieve? If grief is a journey, is there an end point? What is the destination?

The problem is partly in the word. The word itself, closure, implies that there is an end, a threshold, that I cross over, a line, real or imaginary, and say, "That's over now." Closure suggests closing a door - ending a part of my life. Saying, "I was there, but now I'm here". These ideas just doesn't seem to reflect what I've learned about grief. Grief is not a once in a lifetime event, it is not binary in nature, either on or off, black or white. Closure assumes that life is a series of rooms, but with doors on each room, and we can cross the room, and close the door. Once we close the door, we are never back in that room.

Originally, months ago, I told someone that the pain of Gabriel's death was an anguish so deep and so wide that there were no words to describe it. In these words I affirm what our hearts already know: there is no moving on, door closing, we will never again be the same women and men, before and after our babies. We are, as the Bible describes it, changed in the twinkling of an eye.

Returning to the room analogy, maybe the answer of why we have ritual is this: those of us in Lost Baby Land, we understand that there is a room called 'death of a child'. And, having found ourselves in this room together, we can stand with each other, even as the pain we feel is different from those around us. When we gather in these rooms, when we hold funerals and plant trees, and recite names and talk of our loved ones who are gone: this is not closure. It is not intended that we should ever close the door on this room. Rather we help each other be in the room. Sometimes our experience of grieving allows us to give other's words. We allow others, even encourage them to take our sentences, our thoughts strung together, and make them their own. My words to make sense of tragedy become your words, perhaps slightly different. In the experiences of others, I begin to see the room I am in, and it gains shape, and I can comprehend it better.

I am learning that indeed, my pain is an anguish I can describe. It is deep and vast, but I am learning my way through it. I am learning what the boundaries are, how large the room is, and what is in it. I am, slowly, tentatively, painfully, drawing a map. Learning where solid wall meets solid floor, and slowly venturing into the corners.

And perhaps this is why we should grieve as a community - because all of us have to go through these rooms in life. No one escapes - we all bear some sort of pain. For some the path through is more straight. They can spend a day, perhaps a month, and they are changed, just a bit, by their presence in the room.

For Mr. Spit and I, and all of you who were plunged into this room of grief, for what ever reason, we will spend more time here, and we will be more changed. Eventually I think I shall be a guide in this room, and while I will not be able to help others move through the room, because you do that on your own, I shall be able to stand in the pain, to abide, to bear witness to their pain. To hold a light up for others, so that they may see the boundaries of the room for themselves. To tell them they are not alone in this room. To say the names of their babies. To remember with them that what is is not what was supposed to be.

I think this abiding, this witness, is the purpose of community and of ritual - where we speak our own truth, and permit other's to use that truth to illuminate their lives. We do not tell other's how they will feel, rather we describe our pain, and we allow other's to enter into it with us, and be changed and altered by it, and then we allow our pain to give words to the pain of others.

His Name is Gabriel

His Name is Gabriel.

And I like saying his name. I like talking about him. I like it when people acknowledge him. And it hurts me when you look away when I talk about him or his birth. It wounds me when you pretend I wasn't pregnant. When you pretend he didn't die. When you expect me to be ok. I know my memories and stories are tinged with tragedy, but they are the only stories I have. It hurts me when you don't mention that time in my life. When you talk about no babies being born at work in 18 months, I feel a million knives in my heart.

We named him Gabriel for one of two named angels in the Bible. We wanted him to have an angel name when we found out he was going to be an Angel baby. The Anton was for his great grandfather, whom he never met on earth, but was surely there for his arrival in heaven.

His name is Gabriel, and I know that you didn't know him. But for 26 weeks exactly, we were constant companions. He made me sick, but he brought us such joy. He taught us to have hope for the future. He taught us about taking advantage of the moment. In those rare times when I felt well, I took real joy in eating, for the first time in my life. He taught us to take each day as it comes.

I felt him move in me. I felt him kick and stretch and grow. I talked to him constantly. Told him how thankful I was. Introduced him to things. Told him how much we were looking forward to meeting him. We gave him a name - we called him the bun.

We developed a relationship. He would move and kick when Mr. Spit spoke to him. He liked Robert Munch stories and warm baths and when I ate. His Midwife knew his heart beat. I knew when he slept, until about noon. But he was very active in the afternoon. He didn't like being poked to wake up, he would stretch and protest and fall back asleep. He didn't like the doppler or the non stress tests, he would move away. We waved at him during ultrasounds. We told him to hang in there, that he should keep growing.

We know you never met him, but for a glorious 30 minutes we did. We marvelled at his perfection. He had such incredible fingers and toes. And so much hair. We knew that he got his long fingers from his Dad, and all his hair from me. He had the crooked ring finger that everyone in my family has. He didn't open his eyes, but we saw into his soul.

We know that thirty minutes doesn't seem like a real life, but it was long enough for him. Just long enough to say hello and not goodbye, but rather, we'll see you again. Long enough to tell him that we would come, just not right away. Long enough to tell him to be brave and know that we loved him, even if he was going home without us. It was long enough to tell him that there was family in heaven waiting for him. That he wouldn't be alone.

We know that thirty minutes isn't much. But it was long enough to kiss him and sing to him and bathe him. It was long enough for a baptism, and long enough for our families to talk to him on the phone. It was long enough to tell him everything he needed to hear in his short life. That he was loved beyond all comprehension. That he will be loved until the end of time. That there is no place so far away from him that us that he wouldn't still be in our hearts, his memory as close as our breath.

There are a lot of children in our family, in our community, in our workplace, in our church. There are those that are with us, and there is Gabriel. Who is not in sight, but he is the whole of our heart's. As you talk about children being born, about mother's day and father's day and having babies, would you remember, Mr. Spit and I, we are parents. We had a baby boy, and he is still very much alive in our memory. And his name is Gabriel.