“A
voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation,
weeping, and great
mourning,
Rachel
weeping for her children,
Refusing
to be comforted,
Because
they are no more.”
Matthew 2:18; Hosea 11:1
My hospital
recovery days revolved mostly around warm, soothing showers and eating. I
turned the hospital mealtimes into lengthy epicurean affairs: breakfast ran
into lunch, lunch ran into dinner. The nurses satiated me with additional
snacks throughout the day and night, helping me to fill the empty void in my
heart with food. When things were slow at night, I visited with the on-duty
nurses, who were physical caregivers and emotional ministers. I craved the
reassurance of their physical touch and presence and welcomed their
round-the-clock vital statistics audits.
When I
wasn’t gratifying my palate or socializing, I attempted to ambulate around the
hospital, turning what might have been a ten-minute walk into a forty-five
minute or more promenade. Often, I found it necessary to prop myself against a
wall to alleviate the dizziness and exhaustion caused by the extreme blood
loss.
On one
occasion, I became disoriented, got lost in the tiny hospital, and found myself
wandering around the cardiac intensive care unit, smiling at staff and
attempting to looks as though I knew where I was going. On the return trip to
my room, I stumbled upon the hospital chapel, a cubicle measuring the size of a
small walk-in closet, containing a single chair, and a small pedestal table offering
a guest signature book. One wall displayed a beautiful stained glass cross, and
I was greatly comforted by the presence of this familiar Christian icon. The
cross always forces me to look up. I’d been studying the floor a lot during my
brief sojourns around the halls.
The
miniature room’s subdued lighting provided a welcome respite from blanching
hospital light glare. Sitting to rest and staying to thank God for my physical
salvation, I also asked forgiveness for any unrecognized—or willfully
ignored—sins that might have brought me to this arena of such severe pain and
loss. Had there been a trespass following me like a shadow, looking for an
opportunity to cross my path and break me? I sat praying and pondering
undisturbed for what seemed like an hour. Eventually, reluctantly, I left the
little sanctuary and its welcome seclusion, only because I needed to lie down.
On another day, after collapsing into bed following one of my walks, my mother’s cousin and her husband surprised me with a visit and a beautiful red hydrangea, one of my favorite flowers. My spirits soared as she and her husband talked, shared, and reminisced. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself or think about my abdominal pain. She knew what I was experiencing; she was a kindred spirit and had an empathetic ear. She was also much-needed company. When they departed several hours later, I regretted to see them go.
Dr. Gordon
maintained the frequency of his visits and talked about releasing me on
Thursday—three days after my surgery. But I didn’t
want to go home. To what did I
have to go home? I was getting an inordinate amount of attention at the
hospital. The nurses were caring, the food was plentiful and surprisingly good.
Chris would be working and Parker was in preschool. The house would be an
awfully lonely alternative to the ministration I’d become accustomed to receiving.
A neighbor had told me weeks earlier that she couldn’t wait to be released
after her C-section delivery of her daughter. But she took home a new family
member; she had a nursery to fill. She had a reason to return home.
Large
arrangements of plants and flowers filled my room, sitting alongside flower
baskets sent for Easter. No, “Congratulations. It’s a Girl” balloons, or pink
porcelain boots filled with flowers, or boxes filled with delicate blankets in
which to bundle a new
baby. My room was covered with plant arrangements and notes
expressing sympathy and regret, delivered by courteous, smiling hospital staff
volunteers and flower couriers.
The blooms
brightened the room, and the accompanying notes expressed love, caring and
concern. I was overwhelmed by the compassion expressed by employees of the
company where my husband Chris had worked for just two weeks, as well as the
love expressed by our friends from his former company and my technical school
co-workers. I thought surely something would arrive from the church: a card, a
flower, a visitor…Something. But
something, and no one came, until the final day of my hospitalization when my
pastor arrived to visit.
Why doesn’t anyone call? I wondered.
Chris relayed to me that a couple of our friends from church called him to ask
about my condition. Why weren’t they contacting me directly? Did they think I
needed rest? I did. Did they think I didn’t want to talk? I needed conversation
as badly as I needed to breathe. Were
they afraid to talk to me? Being alone and forgotten loomed as my biggest
fear.
As the hours
wore on, my hopes and expectations disintegrated when I realized that the calls
weren’t going to come. Additional visitors, aside from my cousin, weren’t going
to emerge from the noisy hallway outside my door. Joyful, exuberant laughter shared
in other, happier rooms floated into my silent space. Jubilant people, carrying
grinning pink and blue Mylar balloon bears floated in and out all day. I
finally had enough of other people’s joy. I asked a nurse to close my door, to
blockade my senses from the joyful ring of congratulatory voices and
celebratory, affectionate embraces.
The
mortician came and went—twice— to obtain the endless, pertinent information for
his forms, and divulge information about the loss of his daughter’s baby in her
fifth month of pregnancy. Although he projected sincere, patient understanding,
I was numbed by the repetitive, cursory, clinical questions and shocked by the
cost to cremate my tiny infant. I didn’t know what else to do. A casket and
plot seemed so expensive, and we didn’t have the money. Chris should have been
there with me to help make those decisions; the mortician should have called
him to schedule an after-work appointment with both of us. I should have asked
for it, demanded it. But I was numb, and I didn’t know, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know; and someone should
have stepped in to be my advocate. Instead, I bumbled on alone in decision-making.
Nature also
seemed to be on an unforgiving rampage, dealing another cruel blow when my
breasts engorged with the milk intended for Victoria’s sustenance. What would
normally signal a glorious ability to nourish a life became a cruel physical
assault of a fallen creation.
Eventually
the flower and plant arrangements ceased to lift my spirits; the casual,
superficial conversations with the nurses decreased in frequency. Slipping into
depression, I asked the nurse to redirect my calls to the nurses’ station the
final day of my stay. Per my request, the room lights were extinguished, and
the blinds over the window looking out onto the sun-drenched outside courtyard
closed. Simultaneously, I craved both the gentle, caring embrace of a human
hand and ached for solitude. My room became a darkened cell of mental anguish.
I craved
privacy for the frequent waves of sorrow that drowned me, for the times when my
hands sprung reflexively to my face to shelter my weeping eyes. I didn’t want
anyone to see me cry. I was embarrassed, always taught never to divulge my true
emotions, to always maintain a sense of internal, and external control. Only weak people cried.
The room
was too big; the room was too small. I wanted to unleash the inhuman scream
silently piercing my brain. Oh, how badly I want to cry, unhampered by guilt or the ghosts of judgmental, condemning voices. Control, control, control, Andrea, ! No emotion, remember? Emotion garners punishment: sit ups, push ups,
laps around the gym. Disdain, disgusted looks. Just stuff it and get on with
life. Pretend it didn’t happen; pretend your pain doesn’t exist. That way everyone will be proud of how well
you’re handling all of this and handling yourself. My heart threatened to
split and leak its contents all over my controlled veneer.
I sank into
a black hole of grief. Rhythmically rocking my body back and forth, I implored
in desperation to the vacuous room, “Oh, Victoria, what happened!? Where did we go wrong; what did I do?” Over and over I begged for an answer that never
came.
The silent
sorrow had begun.
_________________________________________
NEXT WEEK:
Parker’s initial reaction to Victoria’s death and my home going…
(I said I’d have Parker’s reaction this week, but I decided
to move it to next week’s post, since it seemed more appropriate to
individualize that painful event for you.)
NOTE: There will
be an additional post this week Wednesday where I will give you suggestions on
how to say goodbye to your baby.
_________________________________________
Thanks for joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Andrea
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