Another lesson learned and other rambling thoughts about life and death

This time I'm talking about a lesson I have learned rather than one I've been teaching to my kids. After the death of our baby, we have been inundated with well-wishers and sympathizers. People have been very good to us. They've been feeding us and praying for us. This being the first time we have had a child die (and hopeful the last time), it is all new for us. I have encountered death before. But, those cases were more distant: acquaintances, former teachers, a baby niece, grandparents who had lived long and good lives, and first trimester miscarried children. Of those others, the grandparents hit me hardest. That was because I knew them longest and best. I have found that now when I grieve, I am no longer grieving just for one person. I am grieving for all of the losses I've known. I also have found that when I hear of another person's loss, I feel an echo of that in my heart. I'm hoping that in the future, I will be able to be as helpful and supportive as people have been to us.

That echo in the heart seems to be common. When people hear of our loss, I have noticed that there will always be some who then share about a loss they have had. They are the ones most likely to have tears in their eyes for me. I have found that if I can set aside my self-centeredness for a time, those are opportunities to help others know that it is safe to grieve or share current struggles with me. Our next door neighbor is struggling with his wife's failing health. Another neighbor lost his wife about two weeks before we lost our baby. A church matriarch still mourns the loss of two husbands. One of my Aunts still mourns the loss of a baby son who died 50 years ago. Different people deal with death in different ways. For some the grieving process is a long one. I really don't know how long my grieving will go on. Perhaps I will be one of those that grieve for the rest of my life. So far, though, my grief has been fleeting in the few free moments I get from day to day.

It is a recent realization to me that I don't mourn the individual as much anymore as I mourn the reality of death. Death is the enemy that we all eventually have to face. Life by life, people are taken from us. Even though as Christians we know that death of a Christian loved one is a temporary separation, it will last for as long as we ourselves live in this life. As a result, we still suffer the loss of those people who have been taken from us. I no longer feel the need to try to cheer someone up. It is enough to recognize their loss. I have found that letting them talk of their grief or just holding a hand and being silent is enough. They know that I have had a loss and that I understand. It is OK to grieve.

However, I do not feel even remotely sad most of the time. Does this mean that I'm not getting enough grieving time? Does it mean that I'm shallow or heartless? Does it mean that I'm forgeting our daughter? I don't think sadness has to always accompany grief as a neverending mood. I'm a pretty optimistic person in many ways. I'm married to a fun loving guy. We have three wonderful kids ages 6 and under who live in the present and who force us to live in the present. I find it hard to be depressed for long. Life brings joy to us in the midst of sorrow. God knew what he was doing by putting so much beauty in the world. If you find yourself constantly sad, I think you need to evaluate why. If you can't see joy in the beautiful things around you, you probably need some help to bring yourself out of depression.

The fact that I'm mostly happy, does not change the fact of my loss. It just makes it easier to bear. But I've also learned that if I want to be mostly happy instead of sad and fearful, I have to make some choices. I choose to live life for today and not dwell on the past which I can't change. I choose to live for the possibilities in the future and not dwell in fear what might yet happen. I also choose to avoid news stories that describe what horrible things people do to each other. I know my heart is not calloused when I encounter one of these by accident and my blood runs cold. I choose to avoid violent movies (I used to watch them all the time, but now I'm too sensitive to the evil that they depict) and instead try to use my time more productively. I remind myself that it is harder to build up than destroy. Still, I want to be a builder in life. I want to make a difference for the better. So I hope that the loss that we have been through really is building our character. Sometimes I feel like our world is lacking in the character department. Perhaps if we let our character be built by whatever hard times come our way, we will be the better for it and so will our world.

Month-long musings

It has been about a month since I've posted last. A month ago, we had just learned about our baby having trisomy 13 (confirmed since then) and had the hustle and bustle of Christmas. I've had a month to think about all sorts of deep thoughts. I've decided that I should take some time to share my thoughts, since I've gotten the impression that many people who know me, aren't sure how to talk to me anymore. They seem unsure about how I'm taking our news and don't want to say the wrong thing. For those of you in that category, I guess you haven't figured out yet that I'm fairly tolerant of what people say to me as long as they seem to be well intentioned and polite. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. So to help out these people and to share my thoughts with the rest of you, here follow some of my musings about our news of the last month.

I was not very familiar with Trisomy 13 before the diagnosis came. I was vaguely familiar with the term "trisomy" but I had to read up on it and learned quite a lot from the genetic counselor. It is a very serious condition and usually results in early death for those who have it. This was not something anyone wants to hear that their child has. It was a shock of course. But, I am not a person under the delusion that misfortune can't possibly come my way. Some people tend to say "why me?" when bad things happen to them. I tend to say "why not me?" There is nothing special about me or mine that would prevent misfortune from coming our way. Added to this, I am very aware of my age and the fact that the risk for birth defects increases as my age increases. Although the risk is much higher than if I were twenty years younger, I am realistic about the statistics. If I have a risk of 1 in 20 of having any chromosomal problem in a baby of mine, that means I have a chance of 19 in 20 of having a child with no chromosomal problem. Most women my age who have children, have healthy children. I was aware of all of this information before I became pregnant and before we heard the diagnosis.

Once we heard the news, we were very sad. But, we wanted information to help figure out what it meant for our child. So we took time to research what we could. It didn't make us feel any better. But, it did help us come to terms with what is knowable. Trisomy 13 results in several abnormalities in a child. No two children are completely alike in how they are affected. From the ultrasound, we have some knowledge of our child's abnormalities (at least those detected from an ultrasound). We know that we won't know everything about her abnormalities until she is born. We also know that we can't know for sure how these abnormalities will affect her ability to live and grow until she is born and is trying to live on her own (instead of inside Mommy). Many of these babies don't make it to birth. Many don't live more than a few days after birth. About 5% live 6 months. very very few live beyond that. That is what we know. That is also a little about what we know that we don't and can't know ahead of time.

When faced with the certain knowledge that you are going to lose someone you love in the near future, how do you react? How to you live after that news hits? Well, you still don't know when it will happen. You still have others that you love and care for to consider. You still have to go about everyday life. You still have to eat. You still have to sleep. You still have to do laundry and do basic housework. If you don't do these things, life becomes extremely unbalanced and you start to go downhill yourself in depression. Fortunately for us, we have three bouncy, energetic kids that need our attention and care. They help us to remember to live life day by day. After all, that is how all of us need to live. Today is the only day we know we have, so we have to do the best we can with what we have. I still have times (in the middle of the night when I get too uncomfortable to sleep well, usually) when I consider what is coming in the future and I start to miss my baby girl early. But most of the time, I'm in good spirits. I can still laugh and play. I can appreciate a sunny day or one of my children remembering to say please when they ask for something. I actually forget sometimes that people who have heard our news, expect me to be a morose, tragic figure, who is sure to be near tears at the drop of a hat. They come up to me with tears in their eyes and sad words and I feel the urge to cheer them up. I don't feel like a morose, tragic figure. I am also beginning to see our situation less as tragedy and more as life as it really is -- Riding down the road of life without the training wheels, so to speak.

I try to give myself perspective. My life is pretty good. Many others have had tragedy of one kind or another hit them. And yet, they survived and were perhaps the better for it. I like to think that God has his reasons for letting these things occur when and where they do. I do believe that God is in control, which is a thought that gives me comfort. We live in a world that is not perfect. It is corrupted by sin and the ripples of that cause all sorts of unpleasant things in our world. Yet God is able to take those unpleasant things and make something good and right come about. We tend to see our baby daughter's "abnormalities" as defects and undesirable. But, we don't know how God sees them. These abnormalities may result in a more precious relationship and stronger lessons in life than we would have otherwise had. She is still our daughter. It is still our job to love her and be her parents until she returns to God. She is still part of our family. None of us knows for sure how long we have here on earth. Life is a precious gift. We choose to face this situation with a love that is willing to feel the pain to come. We don't need to lose the joys of today, worrying about loss tomorrow. Nor do we need to shelter ourselves from future pain and thereby cut ourselves off from the support we have around us.

We have had a lot of support from people. I know we have literally hundreds of people praying for us. We have family and friends who are willing to help any way they can. We have good doctors who are doing the best they can to be helpful, supportive and give us the best care they can. I feel blessed by this crowd of people rooting for us, and feeling sorrow for us, too. The load is lighter because of it. I don't know why this tragedy in our lives feels so non-tragic right now. We really would have preferred to have another healthy baby. But this is our current reality. As a result, we seem to be learning things about life and faith that we would not have learned any other way. I wish I could say more about that now, but I don't think I can until the time and the perspective of hindsight helps me do so.

I also feel blessed that I am still in good health. The pregnancy itself is going as it should. The only thing wrong is a chromosomal problem that has severely affected our daughters physical development. When birth comes, that will be the time of decisions and our next chance to really know much more about how our child is doing. We don't know how well or poorly her abnormal organs will work. We don't know if she will live long enough to bring home. We don't know what life will look like during that time. But, I haven't been worried about my own health. I've been able to get my usual exercise. I've been able to continue caring for our kids and home. Tim has been able to continue working and not worry about things at home. I've been able to continue homeschooling and planning for next school year's work. I like to think that I'm mentally healthy, too. I am not in depression, which I imagine is a temptation to many in such a situation. If I am somehow mentally unbalanced and acting strangely, no one has brought it to my attention yet. So I have hope for the future.

Faith, Hope and Love... hmm. That sounds familiar. Yep, that is what gets you through the tough times alright. It's a combination I highly recommend.

Another loss

A couple of weeks ago I felt another loss. This time it was the father of a good high school friend. But, that description doesn't seem to do him justice. Our families were close as far back as I can remember. In fact, his two boys stayed the night with us when their sister was born. He and my father served together as elders for decades. We camped together. I sang on the praise team with his wife. I went to college with his son, who I considered one of my few really good friends from high school on. I hung out at their house nearly every Saturday night for three or four years straight.

Although I didn't have a super-close relationship with this man, our lives were lived in close proximity. He was like a second father or an uncle. I was completely comfortable to be myself in his presence as if I were in my own family. Some people get uncomfortable around "The Elders", but I tended to see them as just my Dad and my old family friends. This particular man, who had the memorable name of Browning, was not just an Elder, but chairman of the Elders. He cared about people deeply. He had the gift of hopitality, teaching, administration, and service. He was active in church service at the time of his death. He is sorely missed by family, friends, the whole church he worked with, and untold number of people who were touched by his life.

Browning was not all that old by my reckoning (of course that changes as I age). He was about 67. He had a few chronic health issues, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. His death was a surprise to everybody. Usually, we expect people to have obvious failing health, a retirement from active involvement in the business of life, and then death comes after some lingering illness. We don't expect it to come so suddenly.

I haven't been able to figure out if I'm feeling his loss more because I cared about him that much, or if I am hurting for my friend who has lost a father, or if I am realizing that this is another of my parent's generation to go and I begin to miss my own parents already. It is probably a little of all of the above. I've been to more memorial services in the past couple of years than I ever had in my previous ten (which included the deaths of my own grandparents). Maybe I'm just realizing the fragility of life a little more personally than I used to.

Whatever the reasons, I will miss seeing Browning's smile the next time I visit my home church. He was a good man, and I'm glad that he was a part of my life.