Words of My Mother

My mother always taught me to be polite and not make waves. She also taught me to never, ever be rude or crass. These 2 things are warring in my head. I'm fuming. I tried to ignore it, but frankly, I'm mad as hell. I'm not willing to stay silent. Someone needs to speak up.

Someone should be celebrating her second daughter's birthday, and instead she's remembering that her daughter couldn't stay. And another blogger posted, wonderfully about this. Which is a good and kind thing, to remember together.

When your best friend's husband leaves her and the kids for his 19 year old secretary, you don't rave about the lingerie your husband bought you for your birthday.

When your SIL's mother has died, you don't phone on the anniversary of her death and talk about your mother.

And when someone's child has died, you don't comment that you'll kiss your own kids because you are so sad. That's rude. More than rude, it's actually mean. Cruel. Thoughtless.

It's all of those things because you are making the situation about you, and not about the hurting person. It's mean because you are being selfish. It's inappropriate to respond to someone's grief with your joy.

There are appropriate words for this situation. Two of them.

I'm sorry.

You could go a step further. You could add 4 more words.

I'm thinking of you.

And if you can't figure out how to be nice, how to be polite, how not to make a bad situation about you, shut the hell up.

I mean it, muzzle it.

A Friend of a Friend

You probably aren't getting the vaccine for yourself. You are getting it for my mother, who is iummunosuppressed. You are getting it for my co-worker Joy, who is 20 weeks pregnant. You are getting it for wee Ivy that I saw last week, who is too small to get it yet.

I can think of a hundred reasons, a hundred faces. Because sometimes it's not about us, it's about the people around us.

So, Lindy is a doctor here in Edmonton, with a major teaching hospital. And I liked what she had to say:

Hi dear friend!

You've asked what my opinion is re: H1N1 and what to do re: the vaccine. The actual virus isn't the problem -- apparently for the majority of people, it's a "mild" influenza. Although anything that's an influenza still stinks. I've had it once in my life and hope to never get it again b/c I was really really sick. For instance, I wouldn't have been able to get up to cook/clean/hug any children/bathe/do anything but sleep when I had influenza. Of course, you have friends and family and of course your spouse and thank goodness for that.

BUT what if THEY ARE ALL SICK?

This is the problem with H1N1. It's a pandemic. No one but the really old (we think that's why the elderly have less of a problem with H1N1 than with the typical seasonal flu) have been exposed to this before. So we're all very susceptible. Which is why we need the vaccine -- imagine if 30 to 50 percent of our police forces got influenza, which is the percent of folks who are predicted to get the virus if they don't get the vaccine. Or 30 to 50 percent of a hospital's staff. Or the folks working the water treatment plants? We need to get vaccinated just so that (and here's the drama) society doesn't stop for a few weeks.

Plus, there are a small subset that once they get ill with the H1N1 virus, get really ill. Those people need to get vaccinated just to increase the chances that they won't die. Seriously. Folks with congestive heart failure, COPD, asthma, diabetes, obesity, cystic fibrosis, serious immune system compromise including HIV, and most importantly, pregnancy -- they all need to be at the front of the line for vaccine. There was a place in the southern hemisphere where 50% of the people who died from this were pregnant. That's waaaaaay higher than what would be expected.

You're going to see all elective surgeries cancelled b/c the ICUs will be filled with H1N1 patients -- this past April? There was a period of time in Winnipeg when 60 out of their 70 ICU beds were filled with H1N1 patients. And most of them required mechanical ventilation.The chances of having a bad effect from the vaccine are lower than the chances of having a bad effect from the influenza.

The news media are being totally irresponsible by helping to fuel people's fear about the fact that this is a "new" vaccine that's been only minimally tested for safety. EVERY FLU VACCINE IS LIKE THAT!!!!! And we've not had any significant problems with side effects since 1976. I'm not saying that wasn't serious. But it was only a few hundred people in 1976, not all of whom died, compared with the thousands that die from influenza every year. And with the hundreds of thousands who get sick.

The vaccine is a killed virus -- you cannot get influenza from the vaccine. CANNOT. If a person gets sick immediately after getting the vaccine, it's b/c they were exposed prior/within the same week to a virus as immunity doesn't fully form until 10-14 days after vaccination. Folks who say "I got the flu shot and I still got the flu that season"? It's b/c the people who choose which viruses to immunize against sometimes make mistakes re: what virus is going to be predominate OR the person who got influenza anyway was infected with an uncommon type of influenza OR they didn't really have the flu, they had a cold.

The folks who say, "I don't need the vaccine, I don't get sick" have loved ones and coworkers who are immune-compromised who need the protection of everyone getting vaccinated.

I hope I've eased your fears somewhat. I think it's absolutely essential that all of you get the vaccine as soon as you can.Here's a great website to look at re: vaccine safety:http://immunize.ca/en/publications-resources/questions.aspx
and another:http://www.cfpc.ca/English/cfpc/communications/lmmunization/Myths%20and%20Facts/default.asp?s=1

Good luck, honey.xoxoLindy

PS. In Alberta, to find vaccine clinics, go here:http://www4.albertahealthservices.ca/Immunization/

If you do get sick with a sudden cough (or change in cough) and a fever over 38 degrees (and possibly fatigue, malaise, sore throat, sore muscles and in children GI problems), please stay home from work/school for seven days. Call your doctor (don't go in to see them and infect everyone else in the waiting room! You don't need to be tested at this point -- if you're sick, it doesn't matter now whether it's H1N1 or seasonal) or your public health nurse if you have questions. Take acetaminophen and drink lots of water. Have only one person be your "nurse", to reduce the chances of spreading the illness in your family. If you get worse after two or three days instead of better, or you start to breathe many more times a minute than is usual, this needs medical attention immediately

Naked Lady

I don't think I've told you the story of Naked Lady yet, which is both unfair and strange, as she made such a huge impression on me, in the throes of post Gabriel Grief.

The story goes like this: Not quite a month after Gabe died, I was on the phone with a friend, who called to see how I was doing. Suddenly Mr. Spit called out to get off the phone - that he needed me.

There was a mostly naked lady on our front porch. She was wearing a short jacket, and nothing else. Yes, I really do mean nothing else, not shoes. Not anything. It was, for the record, January in Alberta, and it was about -18Celcius (about 0F for the Americans). Which is cold. Very cold.

So in she came, and we found her some clothes and I hauled out the first aid kit, and splinted her hand (her fingers had been dislocated from their joints by an angry John.) We called someone for her, and they came to get her. I tried to ask some gentle questions about if this person was safe, when she had last eaten, if there was someone else to call. As it turns out, it was her mother we called, and things were, I guess ok.

I think I'm remembering this today, as we did the follow up from a United Way training session, and someone commented that the United Way presenter was depressing. Homelessness in Edmonton was depressing. The thought of children being homeless was "sad". They didn't like hearing about the root causes of homelessness, and they thought those addicts should just get off drugs. You could see the disquiet when one of the speakers talked about providing addicts housing, without making it contingent to get off the drugs, off the booze. You could see our middle class sensibilities offended at the thought we would house, without requiring someone to kick the addiction.

Naked Lady was on my porch because of a "bad date". A bad date, for those of you who don't spend a lot of time around street level sex trade workers, is a john that picks up a prostitute to hurt her. It's not that something goes sideways, it's that there are men, extremely violent men, who pick up women to beat them. To leave marks and scars that I have now seen, that I'm not going to discuss with you, but that I remember still, and cringe. Something small and female in me whimpers on her behalf.

I phoned a friend after this, because it occurred to me, that if she hadn't had someone to call, I didn't know where to take her. I didn't know which shelter to bring her too, what to do, who to call. She wouldn't let me call the police, and I didn't know what to do next.

My friend's answer was and is nowhere. At that time of night, in that weather, the shelter beds are all full. There are no places for her. Moreover, my friend pointed out, given the choice, between the john who hit her and the pimp who beat her, because she didn't bring in enough money, she'd take the john.

So, when I head how depressing homelessness is, I thought of Naked Lady. I thought about what it was to be stuck between two, terrible worlds.

It is not sad and depressing that there is homelessness. Naked Lady is not a sob story, she is a stunning and powerful indictment of our callousness. Our unwillingness to hear. Our desire not to be "sad".

What's depressing is thoughtlessness.

Anonymity and Accusation

Some of you will recognize that I am writing about something specific. I will say this, and I will say it once. This place is not the place to discuss what you think is true or not.

I want to talk about how we behave when others aren't "watching", I'm talking about the things we do and say when no one will find out who said them or did them. I have no interest in starting the conversation about truthiness, I want to talk about the problem of anonymity. I want to talk about what happens to a group of bloggers that I have always believed are sane and reasonable; kind and supportive and suddenly may not be.

For someone as into free speech as I am, it's perhaps a bit surprising that I don't allow anonymous comments. I don't and I won't. If you go back to the start, I tell you that I think my blog is like a living room. People don't walk into my living room and tell me that they think my couch is ugly, my dogs are badly behaved and what am I thinking wearing horizontal stripes when I'm fat. Or, they don't do it more than once.

Which makes what we all know we do on the way home even more bewildering. We would never say those things to someone, but we'll say them to our spouse - in the car, on the way home. We'll whisper them to our best friend. And we'll write them, anonymously on a blog. And I will stand up as a guilty party. For someone who does not always make the most brilliant fashion choices, I can be profoundly catty. Embarrassingly so. I've commented about your children who were having an off night, and I've suggested you were a terrible cook. I've said other, more horrible stuff. All because I knew you couldn't hear me. I will say lots of things when I don't have to look at you.

Oh, we all have a small, nasty and miserable part of us. We all have a part of us that doesn't want to help, wants nice neat answers, wants to be the centre of our own universe. We have a part of us that thinks we are just - ever so slightly - better than the person next to us, that we deserve just a bit more. Our kids are smarter, our husband is better looking, our house is nicer. We have a part of us that wants to see the world as a nice and safe place, and wants to assume that anyone in pain or distress somehow caused their distress.They deserved it, we reassure ourselves, and in so reassuring, we remove our obligation of help, or even just the debt of mercy owed.

And the small, mean parts of ourselves come to the surface, and if we don't control them, our thoughts become small and mean, and our thoughts can become words. The most terrible of all is when our words become our actions. As a practicing Christian, I name this tendency - Sin. We are all flawed, we are guilty of things done and left undone, to quote the words of the prayer book. Whatever your faith base, I think most of us are particularly aware that there are some "not nice" parts of the world. I think some of us call those behaviours what they are - evil and sinful. They are not the best of us, and they have no place in our lives. They are destructive and hurtful, and they diminish us as humans. We are less than the Children of God when we do this.

It so happens that I think anonymity is the bane of the internet. Take a reasonably moral person, add in the chance to feel a bit better than someone else, to give rise to their less sane, baser thoughts, and who among us would always be strong enough, moral enough, virtuous enough to not take that opening? Truthfully, I think none of us.

And so I return to what I don't allow. I don't allow anonymous comments on this blog. I won't give house room to the insanity that can come from anonymity. I won't be the person that hosts vitriol and invective and blind judgment, knowing that when there is no accountability, our less sane, more base selves often rule - our best selves disappearing. I won't give space to meanness. Either you put your name to it, you stand up and say what you think, what you believe, or you don't say it here. Because if you wouldn't say it if you had to sign your name, if you save up your comments, your thoughts for when you don't have to be accountable for them and you can hide behind anonymity, you aren't engaging in free speech.

You are engaging in cowardice.

And cowardice, and the situation that inspired this blog both make me want to vomit.

Object Lesson

Mr. Spit and I were driving home from work last night, and on the radio news, we heard a pastor, commenting about a member of his flock killed tragically in North Dakota yesterday. The week before, the congregation had prayed over the family asking for safe travel. The pastor took a deep breath, and remarked that he would have to preach this Sunday about when God doesn't answer our prayers.

And Mr. Spit and I looked at each other. That's a hard question. That's a hard sermon. That's a hard sell.
*****
I was reading a story in Christianity Today, about a man that lost his job. As the sole breadwinner in the family, this was bit of a crisis. And the wife talked about running out of church when the pastor prayed for those looking for work. Suddenly she was the victim. She wasn't the strong, capable one, she needed prayer. And she wasn't ok with this. She wasn't ok with being broken.

Tragedy is the great equalizer. Oh, you can say it's getting sick or losing your job, or death, but no. Actually, it's tragedy. What makes those other events awful is their tragic nature. A lack of independence, a life cut short, financial worries and woes. A loss of identity.

And tragedy is a funny thing. Because, really, sooner or later, it comes to all of us. It's part of the human experience. My tragedy is visible, and visibly not with me. Don't think that Mr. Spit and I don't see the pitying looks, almost 2 years after Gabe's death, when I have no swelling stomach. Don't think we don't see how people hide from us on Mother's Day and Father's day, and don't think we haven't had a conversation with someone who was patently pregnant and refused to mention it. Gabriel is my tragedy, and an inability to have another child, the reality that a dead child looks to be our only child, well, that's obvious. You can point to it, and pity us, if you are so inclined. We are, visibly, broken.

But tragedy that open and acknowledged, tragedy, when we stare it in the face, and proclaim that it is undeserved, the effects of evil, that is tragedy that loses its power. Bringing things into light removes some of their pain, removes the isolation and in removing the isolation, removes some of the sorrow. And as a church, we seem to be spectacularly poor at making tragedy visible. I've had many a conversation with Julia, and I think she's hit at least part of the issue on the head. We Christians have the Resurrection. And the Resurrection is the most profound part of us. In my darkest hours, I have recited the words of Job.

And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God. I will
see him for myself, yes I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed with
the thought. (Job 19:25,26)

I don't think there is a more commanding description of the power of the resurrection in the Bible. Without reducing that power, I assure you when you are crushed by pain, the Resurrection isn't the answer. We Christians rush in to pet hands and tell people of the Resurrection, the cornerstone of our faith. And we assume, because the dead aren't truly dead, because death has been defeated, that there is no more tragedy. We insist there is no problem that Christ has not already overcome. Even unto death, and we pound our pulpits. And yet. Merely because something is true does not mean it is the answer. The Resurrection isn't the answer to the pain of tragedy. In fact, it's not even the question. The Resurrection is the future, and as David so eloquently points out, the pain is now. David frames the question the right way:

O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart
every day? Turn and answer me, Oh Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will surely die. (Psalm 13: 1-3)

And we wonder why the broken are silent and hidden in our churches. Because we are giving the wrong answer to the wrong question. We wonder why our churches are declining. No one attends. Churches aren't relevant, the world around us proclaims. And when we give the wrong answer to the wrong question, they are right, we aren't relevant.

Remember what I said at the start. Tragedy is the great equalizer. Because it comes to all of us. We all experience it. My tragedy, our tragedy is Gabriel, and infertility. My neighbour's husband died suddenly - a widow at 37. My other neighbour has been away from his home country and family, for 40 years. He cannot go back to North Korea.

The church is made for the broken. The scriptures don't just tell us to be mindful of the broken, they tell us, over and over we are broken. We are broken before we are born, and it is only through God that we will ever know any healing. But, and this is a big but, knowing God doesn't guarantee a tragedy free life. Instead, he exhorts us to be a community that lives amidst tragedy. The Ressurection isn't the answer, the love of God that caused the Resurrection is.

So, on Sunday a pastor will talk about when God doesn't answer our prayers. Really, what he will talk about is tragedy. The great equalizer.

Amen.

Village Children

I actually wrote this a few days ago, and then I got stuck. Because I could identify the many reasons why I thought we should care for others, even when there was no obvious reason for us to do so. As it happened, the other night, I was reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Full Cupboard of Life, and in it, the main character Mma. Ramotswe is reflecting on exactly this, the notion that it takes a village to raise a child. And she makes the both simple and breathtakingly beautiful point that we - the village - raise children, because when these children are older, we will have taught them - by our very care for them - that they are responsible to care for the village.

And frankly, that seems to make the point better than anything I could say. But, because I've put all this time into it, you might as well read my musings anyway.

****
I got to thinking about the whole "it takes a village" thing last Friday night, as Mr. Spit and I took The Girl Next Door (TGND) to dinner, to celebrate her marks at the end of grade 10. You will note, those of you who know us, we are not TGND's parents, but we do seem to find ourselves doing things with her. (and I am compelled to add that TGND is a lovely, remarkable young woman, and this is not a hardship)

I heard someone remark, a few weeks ago, that they don't think it takes a village to raise kids, that this job is best left to parents. And I was a little harrumph-y about the statement. At least in part because the person making the statement has derived a great deal of support from the world around her, and I thought that it took real moxy to suggest that in spite of the support she got, the help, the assistance she received, she was perfectly fine on her own, doing fine raising her own son, without our help. Harrumph.

But, rather more than that, I would posit that most people who argue it doesn't take a village to raise a child, don't actually believe what they are saying. Hands up, anyone, who thinks that I should ignore the child of 3 who runs into the street, because the child isn't mine. If it doesn't take a village, I have no responsibility to your child, the child is, after all, yours and not mine, and it's not my job to grab your child. It's your job to watch your child. I think we can all agree that we would prefer I ran out into the street after the child and grabbed it by the arm. That's rather enough said about that.

And if we can accept that, I think we can all accept, particularly in Canada, but even in the US, that when you have a child, on the whole of it, the government bears a rather larger burden for the financial cost of your child, system-wise, than your taxes happen to pay into it. And if that's true, I think we can say that in my end of the village, I am paying your child's bills, and even if it doesn't take a village to raise your child, it would seem to take one to pay for a child.

Rather, it seems to me that the parents above, they are fine with the village, until the village wants to do something with their child that they don't want to do. And sometimes they might be right to object. It equally occurs to me though, the rights of a village and the rights of a parent might not always be mutually exclusive. There is, at least according to my mother, more than one way to skin a cat. And there is always room to respect the rights and concerns of each other.

The whole story of the dinner out starts a few weeks ago, when I came in from a board meeting, and Mr. Spit told me that TGND had finished her exams, and figured she hadn't gotten a mark below 75%. I think there are probably lots of reasons that we decided to celebrate TGND's marks. We have something invested - not much, but something - in them. I've helped with Macbeth, Mr. Spit assisted in the construction of a roller coaster thingamijigy for Physics. But really, that's not enough to explain a celebratory dinner, a gift card to her favourite store, and a card that told her we were proud of her hard work. After all, that's not our job if it doesn't take a village.

But more than that, it seems we have a responsibility to be involved in TGND's life.

And this is where, as I noted above, that I ran out of steam.

So, in the thoughts of Mma. Ramotswe, there are lots of reasons for us to take TGND out. One of which is so that 20 years from now, she can take another young woman out, and tell that young woman she is proud.

Perhaps what Mma. Ramotswe is getting at is this: the investment required in a child is huge, massive, it beggars belief. It is both selfish and foolish to think that one or two people can invest deeply enough, without the assistance, the support and the aid of others around them. The village.

And in turn, I'll look back, at Sherry, and Cheryl and Gary, Lynn and Joe, Otto, Simon, Lori, Jenny, Kate, Howard, and I will remember the time they gave me, the village that surrounded me, and surrounds me even now.

Information

This blog entry is true, in essence. If it were a magazine, it would have one of those asterisks, with a note that said the names and places were changed to protect privacy. The story is true, but not factual. And my reason is simple - it concerns a real person. While this person is not aware of the issue, and likely never will be, the issue is very real in their life. And I don't want this entry to be about a person, really, it's about a set of circumstances, and feelings, and the subject of prejudice in general, not in particular.

I am tangentially part of a community group, that is finally able to hire a staff person. They have sent out a job description, and resume's have come back. The role of a staff person in a community organization cannot be overstated. They are the literal face of the organization. Community organizations take a tremendous amount of time and effort to get off the ground. We are talking about hours and hours and hours of time. Meetings around kitchen tables, at coffee shops. Real passion and purpose. Community organizations are hard to get off the ground. It is a mark of success and continuity to hire someone to do the work. In the life cycle of an organization, it is a much needed step, but also a big step, where you hand the coalesced dreams and hopes to another person, who may or may not care as much as you do. It's nerve wracking.

I was talking to one of the members, about the position, and about the types of resumes they got, and let's face it, because the pool of people who are willing to work in a community for a very small amount of money is limited, we knew most of them. So, we were talking about people. Perhaps this was the first mistake.

And have you ever thought about how we describe someone? Think, just for a second. Have you ever been in a place where you had to describe a third person to someone?

Well, let's see. She's about 5'3", over weight. She's in her 60's, with grey hair. Her eyes are hazel. She walks with a substantial limp. She's having some problems with her teeth, so she doesn't often smile. She's well dressed.

There. I've just described my mother. Could you find her? And would she recognize herself in that description? And what does the description have to do with anything, anyway?

Back to the conversation, we went through the names, and one was mentioned. I don't particularly know this person. But that wasn't what bothered me. No, what bothered me was that two different people have felt the need to mention that this person is transgendered.

And I'm not sure why. I'm not sure it was to prepare me for the appearance of someone, when and if I met them. I'm not sure if there were lingering questions.

And if that didn't bother me enough, my mind struggled with what to do with this information. You see, from the bottom of my heart, I believe that some one's gender identity has nothing to do with their job performance. Nothing at all. But, my brain twisted and turned over this information. It was, I will admit it, a bit shocking. It turned a simple candidate into something more than that. And in its own way, it made this person's application into something more than just a resume. And my brain started racing. In about 30 seconds, I found myself saying, "I didn't want to know that".

But I do now. . .

Irises in June

When I was 20, my life took a sudden turn.

I graduated high school at the age of 18, really almost 19. I went from a graduating class of 5, to my first biology class, that had 400. I went from a restrictive and demanding high school, to the freedom and unease of University.

If I had it to do over again, I probably would have spent my first year at a smaller school. The change was overwhelming, and this was my first introduction to how well I do not handle change.
By March of that year, I had ended a relationship with a man I thought I was going to marry, flunked Calculus and Statistics (this was the first time I had failed anything), determined I was not going to be able to go into the faculty of business, and said good-bye to a little girl that had been a huge part of my life.

If my hands were empty, my heart was full - of confusion, fear, trepidation and the whole black hole of unknowing. I have come to hate those who look at the young and tell them that their entire life is before them, words that have envy dripping poison from them. To be 20 and have your entire life before you is too big a responsibility. Every decision becomes paralyzed, imbued with too much power and responsibility. There is no freedom to simply be. In all things, all actions, all decisions, you must consider that terrible prospect of the future, and all too quickly, the future is sacrificed, dripping hopes and dreams and feelings, on the altar of the present.

I became almost paralyzed - struck dumb, in words and actions. My boarding school education that prepared me to do hard things had quickly turned everything into a hard thing. The weight of success weighed heavily on me, the expectations of others, of myself overwhelmed me. I needed to succeed. It seemed as if everyone else was more together, more with it, and knew where they were going. I wasn't choosing one route on the map, I had a map of Africa, and a map of Europe, and then every morning got another one. I was, to chose a single word, lost.

In the middle of this, I ran into an older lady from my church. It was pouring rain, and I stopped to give her a ride home. She brought me into her kitchen and gave me a cup of tea and a towel to dry myself off.

And she asked how I was.

Suddenly, it all spilled out, the hurt, the confusion, the heart break, the black hole of nothingness. That I didn't know where I was going, but I didn't feel like I could stay where I was. She listened and nodded. If she had done nothing else, the listening and nodding would have been enough.

She told me that I was going through a transition, and that transitions are always hard. For everyone. This was the first time a grown-up had told me that transitions were hard. That nothing in life prepared us for them, except the actual experience.

And Time.

I am a process driven person. I move from item to item on my list. And on Tuesday, we threw out the list. I'm somewhat back in that place again. Of loss and confusion, and a black hole of nothingness.

But I have Elsie's words. Her promise, that things will resolve themselves, that they always do. She told me that night that I would find, in a few years, that things had resolved themselves. Perhaps not the way I hoped or wanted or expected, but that things would settle themselves. She was right. It took less than 2 years, I was married, working, and things did not seem so lost and confusing. I think she winked at me the day I got married. Her way of saying, gently, I told you so.

That was the gift she gave me that day, of 86 years of life experience, of many, many times that she had been lost and confused, and of the way things resolved themselves. Like her irises that came up each June, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but always blooming, when they were ready. Things work out she said, patting my young hand with her much older, worn, vein-y and translucent one.

Not the way she wanted them to: a fiancee killed in the war, a baby that died, a marriage that ended too soon with a death, but that things worked out, given time. Now was not forever and the work of a life time did take an entire lifetime.

At 20 I couldn't believe, I wanted the answers before I'd asked the questions. At 30, I know: give God time to work.

Ode to Joy

As I am typing this, a neighbour's daughter is in my living room, learning to play Ode to Joy on her school guitar.

She started this process in September, and tonight, she is struggling a bit. The base line, she tells me, moves notes unpredictably, and she just can't seem to get the hang of this song. The strings make awkward notes, and her fingers hurt from uncomfortable and unfamiliar movements.

It sounds funny, she says. Small and tin-ny and lacking something. She is one small instrument and not so practiced either. It does not help that there are no words, and only the music for one instrument. She cannot get a sense of timing or syncopation, and me trying to sing along is not helping.

She does not know of Beethoven, of towering cathedrals that require a great amount of music to fill them. She has never stood at a funeral for a much beloved lady, who brought such joy to the world. We sang her Ode to Joy, to speed her way home to our Father. We sang of joy to remind others, and ourselves, of the joy that is in this world, even in the midst of death and sorrow. We sang the hymn to remind ourselves that there is joy that outlives death, that death is not the end, and the promise and power of Resurrection is stronger. She does not know that there is a set of words that are different from the "Joyful, Joyful we adore thee" set that many of us know. That the old lyrics are poetry and power.

I don't play at all, but I want her to understand something of the power of the song. I cannot bring her to that funeral, but I want to reach into the soul of a 15 year old young woman, a young woman who is wholly remarkable and smart and kind and funny, and on the cusp of being a woman. A young woman who, as a result of a stupid and senseless and tragic accident had to say good-bye to her father long before she should have.

I want her to understand something of resiliency, of courage and strength. Characteristics that will serve her in her life, but are taught in the process of learning to play a piece of music. I want her to understand that even when you are only a small instrument, you play with all your heart, and somehow the creator of the universe plugs you into his world, and your tune is larger and louder and carries more weight.

And so I dig - into my CD collection first, and then on iTunes and I find her a copy of it - the entire Red Army Choir, singing the song.

I tell her to sit, and I turn it up.

She listens, and nods.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her, again picking at her guitar strings. Plugging back in.

November

I can't tell you his name, because I signed a confidentiality waiver that was longer than my arm. But, I'll tell you his story.

It was my first week in a new job, and one of the tasks assigned to me was to open the safe and go through the last effects of a patient. I needed to inventory them, and then figure out what to do with them. The family didn't want them, and while there wasn't much (nursing homes don't have a lot of room) they were precious enough to him that he asked the care facility to put them into safe keeping.

Now, I suppose if this was a made for TV movie, there would be love letters or letters from the front of the last great war, or something. But, there wasn't. There was routine correspondence from bill companies and the Canada Revenue Agency, and a few other odds and sods. Finally, there was his wallet. The usual, a driver's licence, expired for 5 years, a credit card, expired for 3, a library card, some store club cards, photographs of children who were likely all grown up, a dress photograph of a soldier and Royal Canadian Legion memberships.

There were 30 years of memberships in that wallet. His driver's licence had expired, his credit card had expired, but the legion card, that last one, it coincided with the year of his death. Clearly, his identity as a soldier had been more important than his identity of a driver. He had made some effort to maintain this identity. The photograph of a young man in a uniform told me told me, he was a soldier once and young.

With a negative response from the family, I contacted the Public Guardian, and in the same conference room, shortly before Remembrance Day, I handed over his effects. We went through them one by one, holding them up, and ticking them off our respective inventories, bureaucratic requirements making the whole experience seem much more important than it really was.

Finally, as they wheeled this box away, walking back to their office, I returned to my desk. With a sense of unease - unease predicated upon not quite sorrow, but perhaps something I might define as dolor. A notion that this man, who served my country, who indirectly served me, had passed from this world, and no one seemed to care.

Mr. Spit, a former soldier, would tell you that soldiers do not fight for their country, or the abstract notion of democracy and freedom, they fight for their friends. They live and they lay down their life, for their friends. I phoned the Public Trustee back to make sure that they would notify the Legion, to notify those friends.

I went that year, to the legion by my house, to their ceremony, and I stood at the back, and when everything was said and done, I left a small bouquet of flowers. I will stop again today, to remember. At the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, Mr. Spit and I will stop. And later today, I will leave some flowers. To remember a soldier once, and young.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon
for the fallen

When the Saints go Marching In

My thoughts began with Julia's eloquent post. I have been thinking for 3 months, while this post has resided in my drafts folder. It came up again today as I spoke to a friend. These are not the sum total of answers. This isn't theology. If you are looking for a neat package, I'd suggest that you consult Aquinas and Anselm. But, a few weeks ago, Becky declared the need for honesty. And I have been asking why babies die. So, with those provisos. . . . .

God did not save my son.

God, who raised Lazarus, who raised Jarius' daughter, who saved his Son, did not spare mine. I believe he could have. I believe in miracles. Then, and now. I cannot conceive of a God who used to raise people from the dead, and then suddenly, arbitrarily stopped. And if God could have stretched out his hand, if he could have and did not - what answer can I possibly have, other than to say God killed my son. Not murder, no. But I bet I could make a good case for negligent homicide.

I've spoken of it before: as I was in a tiny room, learning that my son would die, as Mr. Spit was hearing that I might die, there was a woman in the next bed.

She was 34 weeks pregnant, or around that, the perinatologist thought. She wasn't actually sure when she got pregnant. Given that she had no pre-natal care, no pre-natal vitamins, it was hard to tell. She was arguing with the nurse - she wanted to stop the NST so that she could go have a cigarette. She'd had a couple of beers the night before. She wasn't married, she had 4 children already, by four different fathers. She was on social assistance. She wasn't going to breast feed, and couldn't they just section her now? She was tired of being pregnant.

Contrast

Mr. Spit and I. University educated. Good jobs. Own a house and a car. Financially stable. Regular church attendees. Educated about pregnancy and child birth. We pay our taxes. More than our share probably. We volunteer, in our community, in the inner city. We donate of our own blood. We are caring. Good friends. Bake casseroles for those in need. We show compassion and mercy. We would have raised our child in the church. We are good people. We do our best. Our child would have wanted for nothing. Braces, soccer, ballet, tutoring, enrichment, university, we would have been able to afford it. There would have been presents under the tree at Christmas. Discipline, love, prayers, stories read and hugs given. We are not monsters, we would have cherished this child we waited 5 years for. He would have been the joy of our lives, the apple of our eye. Loved beyond all comprehension.

She went home with a baby, and I, in the horrific way of tragedies, went home with empty arms.
We seek for answers when tragedy strikes. Why her, and not me? We look for nice and simple packages. An explanation. A thing that says: this - this is why tragedy happened. And perhaps, I think, if we decide we know why, we think we have regained a little bit of control over our world. Tragedy is tragedy because it turns what we know, what we believe, the bedrock of our life, inside out and upside down.

I think of the prayers offered for us. The hundreds of people who prayed. At church, in our lives. Friends who do not pray, who offered up their fervent desire that we would escape this tragedy. I think of a friend who told me of kneeling by her bed. Past any sense of decorum, propriety. Sobbing. Begging, imploring, pleading.

I think of my own prayers on Sunday night. Of sobbing, wailing. Cries to let God know my heart was rent in two. Cries that were not coherent words, thoughts. Cries that bartered. If God would save my son, I would do anything he asked of me. Anything. There was nothing he could not take from me, nothing he could do to me, nothing I would not bear, only please, I begged, from the bottom of a life-carriers heart, please, spare my son.

24 hours later, my tiny, frail son, was born. With an Apgar of 1. An apgar he received because he was breathing, in flimsy, feeble gasps. One every minute or so. Then every five minutes. And then he was gone. Life that Mr. Spit and I had bred into his body joyfully, exuberantly, with promises and celebration. Life that didn't even open his eyes, to see his mother's tears. Life that was gone.

I think of those prayers, and I think of a room filled to the brim with sorrow and gall. And I know, from the bottom of my heart, I did not receive what I deserved. For my son, I will stand up and say that he deserved life. Even if I was so terrible that I could not be permitted to bear a child, the soul that was Gabriel, he deserved life.

And I am left with a sense of bewilderment. How could God not hear our prayers? There were thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I imagine that many prayers bombarding God. A series of phones that do not stop ringing. Emails, faxes, telegrams, carrier pigeons. Was God not looking during all that space? Was He busy? Playing chess? Caught up in the human rights abuses in China? Was He too busy answering prayers for parking stalls in Christmas-crowded parking lots? What happened that He was too pressed to spend the millisecond it would have taken to save Gabriel.

And I wonder, who prayed for the baby of the woman next to me? Anyone? I did. I prayed that in the midst of my sorrow, that baby would arrive safely. Not out of spirit of love and compassion, but selfishness. I could not bear for another baby to die. How could it be that my voice was the only one beseeching for this child to live, and that God would hear my single prayer, offered for selfish reasons, but not hear the bounty of prayers for Gabriel?

This reflection does not answer any question, much less the terrible, awful, heart rending question. How could God deal so brutally, so unfairly with his children. How could he strip the life we created from us, when He, created us? How in the face of horrible tragedy, could I, could anyone maintain that God is intimately involved in the world?

Tragedy, entered into, grappled with, as we struggle to understand it, changes how we understand ourselves and how we understand God. The process is messy, full of pain and raw human emotion. Tragedy, grappled with, leaves us different people. We are no longer Jacob, we become Israel, with a different set of questions, and a hip that reminds us of the power of God.

I have only a moment of clarity. Of walking out of a downtown office tower, into a warm summer day. I can see a bright blue prairie sky, a blue so impossibly blue it takes your breath away. I can smell lilacs. And I can hear a singer, on the street corner. Playing a saxophone. When the Saints Go Marching In. And he is dancing around. He is playing with pure distilled joy.

Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return. For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.. All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Into thy hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy servant Gabriel. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.

Home

So, when a casual acquaintance shows up on your front porch, and asks if she can have some water for her dog - she'll go wait in the school yard, she doesn't want to be a bother - while she waits for the city police to serve the restraining order on her husband, I think about the only thing you can do is fill the water bowl and make her a cup of coffee. Loan her some shoes and a jacket. Hold her hand and listen. Tell her you are proud of her for doing this brave and terrifying thing. Tell her that you believe in her. Wish to God that you had known before, wondering if you had stepped in sooner, wondering if you had done more than wave as you went past her yard, wondering if you had made time in your busyness.

And when you listen to her talk to her mother, and you hear a mother tell her daughter to just come home, you get, in that moment, in that place, a sense of what God is and what He has spent all of eternity trying to tell me. You get a sense of how slow of a learner that you really are, and how terribly simple it really is.

Some years ago, when I left boarding school to go to University, the Dean of Women, who became a dear friend, asked what I needed to move on to this next phase of my life. And I didn't have to think long. I needed a place, that no matter what, I could return too, if only for a few hours, and call home. A place to retreat to when I failed, and a place to return to when I succeeded, to have those around me cheer - not because of what I did or did not do, but because they loved me, and when you love someone, you cheer. A place for when I was discouraged and defeated, a place for when I didn't know which way was up, a place that always had heart room for me, because I was me, and they loved me. A place of good memories, and bad, that represented the core of who I was.

The school closed 7 years ago, the land and buildings were sold. My home, such as it was, is gone. But I return to it in my memories, in photographs. I am learning: there is a small corner of my heart called Lucy Baker, and I carry it, and the lessons I learned there, in my heart. About hope and caring and compassion, and how to create a community. I could phone the Dean tonight and ask what to do next, but it is late, and I am tired. And I can hear her voice in the home section of my heart. Stop by tomorrow. Hold her hand. Let her fight her battles, but hold her up when you can. Pray.

Compassion, mercy and practicality are what I learned. To make a cup of coffee, and to hold a hand, and drive someone to the police station to figure out if the restraining order has been served. To feed someone dinner. To walk into the house with them, figure out about getting the locks changed. Compassion and mercy. Holding a set of shoulders tightly, and dialing the locksmith.

Mr. Spit has never raised his hand to me. I have never known anything other than his love and care and concern. I am treasured, cherished, adored. I have never known other than the love of a kind, gentle loving, Godly man. I have never had a moment to doubt his love for me. I am blessed and fortunate and loved, and every good kind of adjective. I missed his phone call tonight, and I dearly wanted to say I love you. To thank him for the many ways he loves me and shows he loves me. To tell him how thankful I am for him in my life.

Lessons from home that I carry in my heart. That we are a community, and we live and die and rise and fall and wax and wane with all of us. Those that succeed and those that fail. And because I am succeeding today, does not mean that I will not fail tomorrow. Because I am resilient today, does not mean I won't fall down tomorrow. That no one is a complete success, and no one is a complete failure, and we all both need and deserve love and compassion. And this, the glimpse of God that I got tonight, in the midst of a garbage dump of a situation.

No matter where you are, no matter what is happening, no matter, God always welcomes us home.

No Grammar today, I didn't get the post done. Sorry about that. Next Wednesday.

Dreaming

Someone asked me if I dreamt about Gabriel. (1)

No.

And I never did.

Truth be told, I don't dream. Well, I do. My MIL the psychologist assures me that I dream every night. Several times a night. She assures me that I do dream. I just don't remember my dreams.

I am a thinker, not a dreamer. Maybe it's why I can't write poetry, I am stuck in the solid world of prose. Even as a child, my day dreams had to be based on solid fact. I could never completely leap into a particular fantasy. There had to be fact, something solid about it, for me to fully give myself over to it. But as long as it seemed like it could exist in the real world, well, then I could fully give myself over to it.

For years, I regarded it as my biggest vice that I always seemed to live in the next moment. Not the moment I was currently in, but already anticipating the next thing. Mentally, looking past where I was to where I was heading next. And I suppose we could make much hay out of this tendency. I could spend hours and thousands on a couch somewhere, talking about why - but truth be told, I don't know why. I don't know when I started this. I just remember always doing it. And I'm not all that sure the why really matters.

And if you asked me what I dreamed about, before Gabriel, I would have answered with these thoughts - living in the next moment. I would have told you about going to the Carrot for babes in arms. I would have told you what car seat we picked out. I would have told you I was thinking about taking salsa babies. How satisfied I was that I got to join the Smugs in the nursery, carry a baby into church on mother's day and father's day. And I would have called these things dreams.

Perhaps, you would see the incongruity of the situation, if I told you this. Upon faced with a new challenge, a new opportunity, a new crisis in my life, I immediately begin to asses what the worst possible outcome is.(2) Yes, I know this isn't normal. But, it's what I have always done. I'm a helluva project manager, and pretty useful in a crisis. After all I've already thought about the remedy.

And after I have established worst possible outcome and how I will cope, I begin to think about what would be better than that outcome. I don't know if I think about the best outcome, but at least I think about better outcomes.(3) I would call that dreaming. But I'm not sure if anything so tied to the real world, so tied to the realm of possibility, is actually what is meant by dreaming. I don't know if it's a dream when it's so limited by what could actually be possible. Why dream of a full 40 weeks, I think. That's not even remotely possible. 34 weeks is a huge stretch.

I have, in the back of my mind, a post about what I have learned since Gabriel died. And I can't write it. I don't know what I have learned yet. I have some glimpses. I know what I want: to emerge kinder, more compassionate, living a slower life, fitting others in when they are hurting. I want to hear the subtext of the conversation, not the words. I want to stop being so damn nice, and start being honest. I want to cut out the extra crap. I want to call things what they are. I want to keep my new sense of priorities.

But, I don't know where I'm going with those things. I don't know what the end of them will be. Maybe, I'll change my mind about the virtue of being honest, maybe I'll decide other things are more important.

Some months ago, my parish priest asked me what my dreams are. And I looked at her, perplexed. My dreams, my plans, my future they involved bringing home a baby. They didn't involve the work, study, garden, do housework, sleep, go back to work treadmill I'm on. After all, a baby was my ticket out of a job I despise.

I suppose, I am making some tentative plans about a next pregnancy. Resolving not to plant a garden that I won't be around to care for. Listing books to read and movies to watch on bed rest. Figuring out Internet and email and phone for the hospital. Figuring out companies that will provide Mr. Spit meals, deciding to hire a house keeper.

Occasionally, Mr. Spit and I talk about moving to Victoria. We talk about things to do with the house. We talk about taking our kids and driving across Canada one summer. We talk about taking more time for the things we like. But are these dreams? Not really. I'm not even really living in the next moment.

I suppose I could say this about dreaming, and things I have learned:

At 10:37 on December 10, 2007, I lost my ability to live in the next moment. I'm not even sure I can always live in this moment. And I never really did seem to have the ability to dream.

*********
(1) It was excavator, in a personal email. But it was such a good question.
(2) Which, for my pregnancy with Gabriel, was a C-Section in the hospital. Clearly I need to get better at my research.
(3). Between 34-36 weeks. I can birth vaginally, in the hospital, and likely nurse pretty quickly after the birth. Babies born at this gestation have few if any problems, and go home pretty quickly.

And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

Am I the only person who can be suddenly flooded with a memory and come up completely short and be absolutely transported to another place?

I was in the elevator on Friday, and suddenly the smell of a man I haven't seen in many years was there. I closed my eyes, and I was right back to being just shy of 20, in my first year of university, being with him. Haven't thought about him in forever.

On Sunday I was listening to my ipod. Suddenly I stopped and just sat. This song came on. Suddenly, I was in another city - one I only lived in for a half a year. I could smell cigarette smoke and street drugs and the angst of a dozen hurting people. For just a moment, a slide show of images and memories and places and smells took over my head.

I imagined certain things about my life when I was younger. If my life was a book, I had an idea of how to publish it. Not the the text and words, but certainly the feel of the pages in my hands and the size of the paper.

I had imagined a smallish book of sparse phrases in helvetica text on heavy grey paper. Short and dense. Filled with asceticism and quiet power and black and white images. Filled with stories of living to the fullest, dying young, making a splash. Given to angst and thought and self examination.

And that just isn't what I turned into. I had imagined that I would be much tougher, much more impervious, much less caught and held by the knocks of the world. I had not imagined that I would be so engaged in my community and so unhappy in my professional life. I had not imagined that I would be so buttoned up and conservative. I had not imagined that I would be so happily married, and so unhappy without a baby.

The book of my life looks different. The pages aren't the same colour, and the text is a more feminine and cursive script than I expected. The pages are thinner and messier and more flexible, some corners are turned down. The book is much thicker, and more loosely bound than I imagined. There are notes in the margins in a variety of scripts - points that say "This is crap" or "She's going to find out she's all wrong in a few moments, don't listen to her".

Perhaps what I find so shocking about the book I hold in my hands now is this: I cannot tell you how I got here. I think that I should know how I came to be where I am. I think those defining decisions should be much more clear. There should be a sign and a reminder and a requirement to pause and know that this decision will change your life.

I'm not suggesting that I would make different decisions in my adult life (although the man and the street drugs from above I could have lived without.). I consider myself beyond blessed to have Mr. Spit. I love our house, and I like my degree. ( the job I'm not so thrilled about, but we'll move on). But, I would have liked to have known that my life would like this. So that I wouldn't be so surprised. In the words of Simon and Garfunkle, I wonder, maybe those words of the prophets written on the subway wall were telling me what to expec.t

So tell me, what decisions in your life have looked so simple, so innocuous, that you didn't even think about making them, and they changed your life forever? And can smells and music take you to another place entirely?

So, you had your baby

In a country like Canada, where we have year long maternity leave, I have to confess, I'm surprised that this comes up all. Obviously I left pregnant. When you saw me on the 1st of December I was 6 months along. I looked pregnant. Just 4 months later, I am clearly not pregnant. Tell me, is there any way this could have ended well? How many women do you know that don't take at least 6 months of leave?

And then, I have to tell them. Yes, I had our baby. He was born 15 weeks premature. He didn't survive. And there's this awful silence. And no one quite knows what to say. What do you say to the mother of a dead baby? Mostly they say "I'm sorry" Or "That's sad", and I don't know what to say to them. Do I say thank you? It's not like it's a compliment. I tend to say, "Yes, we are too"

I have a friend who suggests that I had out business cards. One side with the basic facts, the other side with pre-eclampsia facts. Like the most important one. Don't tell me that this was just a fluke, and it won't happen again. Because statistically, I have a 60% chance of recurrence. Babies die, and sometimes the very best medical minds don't know why, and everyone thinks they can offer a quick fix.

We pretend in pregnancy that we control everything. If I take no drugs, eat 15 servings of vegetables and take Folic Acid, everything will be ok. And so we have ultrasounds, to find any possible problem. We go to doctors, we have blood tests, we medically manage childbirth. We account for weight gain. We go to special exercise classes, everyone has the epidural. We control every step of the pregnancy and delivery. At least when things go well.

And I did this too. I am no different than women who did every medical thing. I didn't follow standard medical protocol, but I did believe that I was insuring myself against a bad outcome for pregnancy, because I was staying away from those officious bad medical doctor's, who are always tinkering with pregnancy. I was going with a midwife, and I was going to have a great, non invasive pregnancy. Cause women knew so much more than all those stupid male doctor's!

What about when things don't work? When there is no control? My very best friend is emphatic that I will see a doctor in my next pregnancy. She and her partner are quite willing to drag me kicking and screaming. And I understand. She witnessed the pain. She saw me the morning of Gabriel's funeral. She saw my pain, the anguish, the bereftness. And there's that hope - the doctor's will solve this. They will make sure this doesn't happen.

But that's what I have learned - there is no control. And you make the best decisions you can, as you go through the process. All of this is a round about post in response to a comment in my This I believe post. Someone suggested that I was going to hurt my baby next time, if I had ultrasounds. And the comment has weighed on my mind. Because there was me, loosing weight and not taking diclectin. And for the record, I probably would do the same thing next time. Obviously I care passionately about not hurting my child.

I'll directly answer the comment by saying this: Vaccines, computers, pesticides, preservatives in our food and hormones in our meat are blamed for the rise in autism. I don't know, maybe ultrasound plays a role. I'm not a huge fan of them. And until I developed pre-e, I would have only had one.

Life is always about risk and managing risk. Some days Mr. Spit and I think we are crazy to try again at all. Some days it seems like a huge risk. But, we manage risk in the best ways we can. Ultrasound plays a part in managing a high risk pregnancy. It's one of the best ways we have to tell that a baby is still growing. And that matters a whole lot in pre-e. So does lab work, so do blood pressure trends, so does medication, and so does something as old fashioned as a kick count. All of those things will help to reassure me that we are doing absolutely everything we can to help this pregnancy result in a live, screaming baby. And like I said before, once you are there, how you got there doesn't matter much. Maybe you need to have lost a baby to understand this. It's always easy to insist that everyone should do pregnancy in a particular way, when you have had 40 weeks of bliss.

I'll spend the rest of a next pregnancy working with my midwife to keep things as low key as possible, in a high risk situation. I'll pray for the best, and the strength to handle the worst. But, I suspect there will be ultrasounds. And in the end, I'm not going to loose much sleep about it, because there is little I can do to control what's going to be a high risk pregnancy. When faced against the risk of having another baby die, trust me, some minuscule risk of autism really doesn't register on my risk management radar screen. Again, I have learned this: I will have the birth I will have. There's not all that much I can do about it, save pray.

Somehow, I'll manage. And God willing I'll answer yes! when someone asks if I had my next baby.

This I believe

Beth at The Natural Mommy (pregnancy/parenting blog that isn't part of the IF or PL blogosphere) has an interesting post about What I believe - about parenting. (Her post on natural childbirth - in normal pregnancies - is here, and it's pretty good)

The idea intrigued me, because in early December 2007, I could have told you exactly what I believed about pregnancy. There was me, used infertility drugs, but never had beta's done, didn't have an 8 week ultrasound to check for a fetal pole. In fact, the last conversation I had with my Gyne's office was to confirm that the day 21 blood test said I ovulated that month.

So, I went through 24 weeks of pregnancy, planning to birth at home, in the water. With Mr. Spit and my best friend and my amazing midwife. I wasn't going to do the drugs, I didn't need the 18 week fetal anatomy scan, I didn't want to know what the sex of the baby was. I think the antibiotics for group B strep are sometimes over prescribed, and I wasn't going to be tested, never taking drugs. And you would give my baby erythomycin to prevent blindness in the case of gonorrhea over my dead body. I came from a midwifery practice that was quite relaxed, and non invasive. My midwife doesn't even test for Gestational Diabetes. (Before you think she's out to lunch, the Canadian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists doesn't recommend routine testing either.)

I should say: my plans aren't out of the ordinary, they aren't odd for the community of women I move within, IRL. There are more women in my community who have birthed with a midwife at home, or birthed with a midwife in a birthing centre than who have had babies in the hospital. It's strange to see women in my circle of friends who don't carry their children in a sling, and who don't cloth diaper, and who don't breastfeed for at least a year, if not more. I was in the company of women who were well educated about pregnancy and birth. I'm quite ashamed to admit, I was pretty darn militant about natural birth, and I disparaged women who insisted that birth was a medical event, and had to take place in the hospital.

I could have told you all about how hospitals set women up to have epidurals and c-sections and episiotomies, and how I believed that women's bodies were meant to do the work of birthing babies. Leave our bodies alone, and we would do just fine. (To be clear, I think the "free birth" movement is a really, really, really dumb idea. I just don't think we should define child birth as a medical event that needs tinkering to get it right.)

And then came pre-eclampsia and my baby died.

You will have the kind of birth you are destined to have. Birth for me was a medical event. That medical event saved my life.

Educate yourself? Absolutely. Yes, there are some things that some women can do to prevent having a c-section. You should know what's going to happen and why. You should know the pro's and con's of various medical protocols. No, we don't have to tell all women that they will be begging for the epidural. We can teach women that it's going to be painful, and here are some things that they can do to cope with the pain. Knowledge really is power.

We humans control very little of the process of conception, pregnancy and birth. Ask anyone with infertility and they will tell you, so much of conception is a mystery. Ask someone like me who lost her baby during pregnancy to disease with no known cause, and no cure, and I will tell you that so much of the mechanics of pregnancy are hidden from us. Ask anyone who has ever had an emergency c-section, who has torn badly, who has hemorrhaged, and she will tell you, many things can change during birth, in an instant.

I wanted to control my pregnancy. I believed in an equation that said if I just trusted in my body, I would be ok. My body was designed to give birth. As long as I didn't interfere with the process, I would have a great pregnancy, a great birth and a healthy baby. I have learned that what I believe really doesn't count for all that much in the real world.

There was me, who hadn't taken Tylenol for a head ache, who had refused diclectin for nausea that caused me to loose 10 pounds. Next to me was a mother who wasn't quite sure how pregnant she was, had no prenatal care, obviously hadn't planned to be pregnant, was still smoking, had been drinking, and she was going to have a happy, healthy baby.

This I have learned: what I do doesn't matter very much. The end goal is a living baby, and how you get there is how you get there. My pregnancy is designed to give life to a baby, it's really not about me, and it's not about how I feel or the way I think things should be.

Every part of conception, pregnancy and birth is a miracle, that I am allowed to take part in. None of the process is a personal growth opportunity, none of the process is under my direction, none of the process can be managed or controlled. At the end, there is no one handing out badges because you did any part of it the "right way".

My next pregnancy will be a high risk pregnancy. All of the medical trappings will be a feature. One ultrasound? I'll have one a week until I give birth. No drugs? The very least I'll likely have is baby aspirin, and blood pressure medication. No medication for the baby? I'll be getting steroids at 24 weeks. No poking or prodding? I truly hope that I can spend months at home on bed rest, and not in the hospital on bed rest.

I'll have multiple appointments each month. I'll spend lots of time at labs. I'll see a high risk OB, I'll see a perinatologist, NICU, an internal medicine specialist, ultrasound techs, and yes, I'll see the amazing midwife too.

And I'll keep reminding myself, the goal is a living brother or sister for Gabriel. The goal is a baby in our arms. And how we get there? It's how we get there. It doesn't matter if the baby arrives vaginally or by c-section. It doesn't matter if I have an epidural. What matters is that the baby comes alive.

God willing, by the time our next child goes to kindergarten, no one will know or care how he or she got here.

This I believe: how you got there doesn't matter all that much when you have arrived.