When people ask you
“Am I right to be angry?”
Have you thought of asking them,
“Am I right to be thirsty?”
Theodore Isaac Rubin
The
following morning, Chris and Parker left for work and preschool after preparing
me with reading material, beverages, a bedside phone and my pain medication. My
cat, Pumpkin, curled between my knees, while my faithful Shetland sheepdog,
Beauregard, took his familiar bedside station on the floor. Apart from my
treasured animals, I was alone, to rest in quiet and wait for the hours to limp
by.
Because I
continued to experience rapid exhaustion and mild dizziness under minimal
physical exertion, Dr. Gordon gave me strict orders to navigate the stairs only
once a day for at least three to four days. Until my mother arrived to help,
I’d remain sequestered in my upstairs bedroom for the majority of the day,
unless I ventured downstairs for my one-time-allowed-a-day trip in search of
lunch or a snack. Dr. Gordon also suggested that I record an answering machine
greeting to inform people of my need to rest and recover, and to thank them for
their concern. A few friends did call, saying that I could call them if I
wanted or needed conversation.
I
vacillated between wanting to carry on in detail about the events leading up to
Victoria’s death and recoiling against the thought of reminiscing one more
time. So, I opted for not answering the phone and simply being encouraged by
the messages left. Dr. Gordon warned us there’d be moments when I just didn’t
want to acknowledge the world, and I shouldn’t feel obligated to communicate
with everyone who called. I shouldn’t feel guilty about needing peace, quiet
and time to attend to my physical and emotional debility.
However,
when my mother arrived, she was incensed to think I didn’t feel a sense of
responsibility to answer a call or promptly return messages. She chastised me
about this glaring character flaw on one occasion when we were taking Parker to
school, hotly stating, “I can’t understand why you even have a phone if you’re not going to answer it!”
I screamed a reply from my backseat vantage point, “I’ve
just lost a daughter! I don’t think I should feel obligated to answer the
phone when I don’t feel like talking to anyone, when I’m unable to talk to anyone! Why can’t you tell them I’m resting, that
I appreciate the call? I think my friends are capable of respecting my
feelings. If they aren’t there is nothing I can do about it. If you think the
call might be for you, and you want to answer it, go ahead!”
The loss of
a daughter registered with my mother. Twelve years before I was born, she and
my father lost a baby girl during the eighth month of pregnancy due to
umbilical cord strangulation. “You’re right,” she spoke softly. “I’m sorry,”
Enough had been said. We weathered the remainder of the drive in silence as I
sat shaken, fighting burning tears, and anger at her insensitivity.
Because of
my mother’s own prenatal loss—and apparent lack of having healed from it—her visit
didn’t go well. She and my father never discussed their loss with one another;
they never outwardly grieved together or acknowledged their pain. My father had
made the decision—on the doctor’s poor advice, and without consultation with my
mother—that she not be allowed to see her deceased baby. Sadly, my sister,
Cheryl, was buried in a simple Kansas City, Missouri grave marked only by an
infant identification marker. My mother never saw her child’s resting place.
No
memorial, no closure, no outside support. No goodbye. Now, forty-seven years later, my mother confronted the
pain and re-injury of old, poorly healed, scabbed-over wounds and was forced to
contend with a fresh injury to lay aside the old one: the death of her baby
granddaughter. Having merely coped with her previous loss, her volatile
emotions balanced on shaky ground. Consequently, she had difficulty comforting
me, and I lacked the capacity to assist her in her bereavement. Our pain often
manifested itself in angry shouting matches, or in awkward, wordless moments as
she sat and cried while looking at the pictures of Victoria and her tiny footprints.
“Don’t show these to your dad,” she implored me. “He wouldn’t be able to take
it.”
At other
times she acted as though nothing had happened. That was the case when we sat
down to eat lunch at a department store snack bar just two weeks after my
surgery. She repeatedly pointed out a toddler sitting behind me, insistent that
I turn to gaze upon the adorable little girl. “Isn’t she cute?” she kept
repeating, nodding firmly, persistently in the girl’s direction. “Look at her, Andrea,” she commanded.
“Isn’t she cute?”
“Yes, I saw her,” I mumbled through clenched teeth as I fastened my eyes on
the table and battled an impulse to run—screaming, wailing—from the building, far away from the unsympathetic, detached world. Run from the fear, anger and brutal emotional pain, the memories that replayed like a hideous revolving carousel in my mind. I yearned to curl into the fetal position and hide.
Disappear. My mother could sit and
admire. Unexpected envy and jealousy threatened to crush me; an insidious,
invisible vice encircled my chest and throat. Breathe, Andrea. Breathe. Quickly refocusing my eyes on Parker, I attended
to his needs and fiercely ignored my surroundings. Then I abruptly stood up,
indicating an end to our lunch. I couldn’t return to the sanctuary of my home fast
enough.
When I
wanted to sit in silence, my mother wanted to talk. When I was open for communication,
she retreated to the guest bedroom. I attacked Chris with complaints about her
when he arrived home from work; she complained to Chris and to my father back
home in Hawaii about my insolent attitude. Neither of us was willing to take
that painful, vulnerable step across a self-imposed barrier and reach out to
touch, hold, and really love one
another. Resurfacing, controlling anger bound us; each of us remained
barricaded in our individual cocoons of pain and sorrow, angry because we’d
fallen woefully short of expectations for one another and for ourselves. I
wasn’t strong enough, or willing enough, to let go of such tangible emotion. I
claimed it and nurtured it. I wanted
to be angry at the injustice dealt me. It would be months before I’d be willing
to give it up and let God lead me out of the abyss in which an unforgiving
spirit and fury had plunged me.
For the
next two weeks, our master bedroom became my refuge from the outside world, and
I quickly retreated to its sanctuary when the burden on my senses became too
much of a strain. I buried myself in the bed covers and distracted my mind in
the pages of books, and began to rely heavily on the prescription pain killers
as an elixir for both my physical and emotional
suffering. When I phoned Dr. Gordon’s office to request my one additional
refill, I was motivated more by an urgent need to dull my tormented, grief-stricken
mind than alleviate somatic discomfort.
When Dr.
Gordon pronounced me well enough to drive myself around, my mother decided I no
longer needed her help. After two weeks she gratefully packed her bags and
returned home.
I was about
to take a step forward into the longest year of my life.
________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: I’ll
take a one-week break from my story and discuss the pain of grandparents when
their child loses a baby, and they have lost a grandchild.
NOTE: I will be
adding an extra post this Thursday for Easter. I’ll look at Christ’s Last
Supper with his closest friends. Is He
the fulfillment of the Passover? And if He is, what does that mean for you?
________________________________________
Until next week.
Thanks for joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
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