Is grief a mutating virus?

Or a crystal in the light?  Just when my eyes seem to have conceptualized the awful totality, a slight breeze or a cloud or the earth's rotation shifts the input and fragmented light blinds me with new glare, more or less intense, striking a chord within me that I didn't know existed. Over and over and over.  I am so restless and yet not able to focus long enough to create a plan or solution to this irritable lack of peace.  I can understand the appeal of drugs and alcohol, perhaps to numb these feelings, perhaps to make everything seem as strange and unfamiliar as this devastating loss.

We now have all the pieces to put together our babies memorial cards with the invitations to their service and the thank you cards.  Photos of our tiny babies accompanied by their unbelievably small and perfect footprints, together on the page as they never were outside the womb.  The last step is for me to glue the tiny hearts I crocheted to the slips of pink card stock thanking everyone for their kindnesses.  I can't quite make myself.  It's not a hard task.  These hearts have been one of my primary coping mechanisms, when I feel like I can't breathe, when I'm overwhelmed with the idea of time continuing, I have been able to focus on each of the three stitches necessary to make a heart.  Magic ring, chain four, triple crochet three, double crochet three, triple crochet one and repeat in reverse.  Like my experience as a mom, this is a very limited activity.  I learned these three stitches from youtube and have never crocheted anything else.  Glueing these hearts to cards announcing our babies' life and death is another finalization of their permanent absence.

My love and grief are creating tangible shifts in the light, just enough to render me blind and directionless.

Skip

I am afraid that returning to work will make it seem like my babies were just a skip in the record.  Songs playing in predetermined order and then, oops, dust on the needle, glad it wasn't something that would have ruined the record.  My babies are the record, the needle, and the song, anything that plays from now on exists within the skip.

I am trying to figure out something that my wife and I could do this summer, like a vacation, but without the expectations that go along with that word.  A vacation is what happy people do or people at least trying to be happy.  Who can say where we'll mentally be in June but I'm confident it won't be vacation happy.  How do you plan a vacation from within the skip?

We actually talked to a travel agent even though we don't have a lot to spend.  We cannot figure it out and heard they will now plan small trips.  We made her tear up at work.  We realized in the moment that we needed to say that we lost our children b/c we have to be somewhere without a lot of children and joyous children sounds.  Probably not something that every walk-in says with our level of urgency.  Days later we went to see a jeweler because I would really like to have a ring to represent my babies.  I want something tangible and unique that I can touch constantly.  R had met the jeweler before and really liked him so we checked to make sure he had time and went to his studio/store.  In describing what we wanted of course we said we had lost both our children.  He had greeted us jovially until we said why we were there.  It immediately looked like someone had punched him in the gut and he began crying.

There is something I appreciate in these emotional responses, a feeling of connectivity and community.   At the same time I also feel guilt, for revealing the skip to an unsuspecting, caring person.  It seems like we should be wearing a signal, mourning attire or the sign they put on our door in the hospital.  Something to warn people because there are a lot of people at my work and a whole lotta people on vacation.

Sweaty in the pits

I haven't left the house much since returning home from the hospital except to walk the dog in the mid-afternoon when I am unlikely to see another person I know.  The few exceptions include going to counseling every week, trips to the bank and a few off-time visits to the grocery store.  I have found that going anywhere around people makes me feel anxious and sweaty--literally insanely wet armpits have occurred.  Even at home, when focusing on work I am having issues.  I was working on an email and while it was somewhat of a politically delicate email, normally I could have written and sent it in 10 minutes.  The first realization that there was an issue became apparent when I noticed that it took me about 40 minutes to write.  In addition I had had to keep rereading what I had written because I couldn't remember which parts I had already said and which needed to be constructed.  The more obvious problem for anyone who has to look at me is that I was totally sweaty in the pits, to the point that I had to get up and change my shirt even though I was home alone.  I think this is a clear indication that I am really not fit for anything but taking care of my babies, even in their absence.

Two very kind co-workers are coming over on their lunch break tomorrow and I have to take the  doglet to the vet.  I am testing myself.  Can I actually see them or will I cancel at the last minute?  What will we talk about during this lunch?  Will I be able to drive out to the vet?  If there is something wrong* with our dog, what will happen then?  How many times will I have to change my shirt?  Will I sweat through a shirt and a sweatshirt?

Love you S and G.




*K has an odd growth on her tail.

Pimples and Pants

Focusing on the vast number of tiny white heads appearing on my forehead seems manageable when nothing else is.  Solving the problem of pants, maternity pants no longer stay up and pre-pregnancy pants are a looong time from fitting, does not.

So, the pimples.  I have never had acne, even in my teen years, pimples came along and went --singles sometimes doubles but nothing of note.  During the month I spent in the hospital fighting for both my babies and then just my son--days and days without showering or even touching water--my complexion stayed immaculate.  The multiple cerclages, mass doses of antibiotics, unimaginable stress and the magnesium sulfate coursing through my veins (making me unable to even raise my arms for days) had no impact on my skin.  About a week after loosing G and three weeks after loosing S, through the haze of my unbearable grief, I started noticing a patch of white heads.  At this point my milk had come in so showering was almost impossible, the challenge of keeping my breasts out of the water and the constant physical and emotional pain combined with the sadness that is showering alone after five months of having the constant company of my babies with me at all times exhausted all my energy.  I did not focus on this change in my skin. As the fog has receded the awful loneliness persists but life starts creeping in, when will I return to work?  How will I talk to *anyone* who hasn't been with me through this whole journey?  How will I have patience and compassion for anyone other than my wife -- i.e. anyone who hasn't lost our two precious babies?  The pimples are a safe subject of contemplation.  Are they from hormone changes?  The shift in my oil production as I move from showering every few days/once a week to every day?  How long will they last?  Am I creating scars by picking at them?

Pants are particularly difficult because to deal with them is to deal with my stomach, the part of my body that was full of perfect, healthy, active babies.  The part of my body that did not keep my babies safe.  The part of my body that signals to the world--I'm pregnant.  Shirts are no picnic but a big shirt stays on my body, unlike big pants.  Being pregnant with twins I had read that healthy weight gain was one of the most important, controllable factors to having healthy babies in our arms.  We focused on healthy snacks, on trying to gain between 1 and 1.5 lbs per week as recommended.  My wife crated a "snack pack" kit that contained a wide variety of snacks that I could choose from each day before heading off to work.  The leftover snacks are still waiting.  As recommended I gained a little over 20 lbs. My closet is full of borrowed and purchased maternity clothes while all of my pre-pregnancy clothes wrinkle in their giant tupperware bins.  We went to a discount clothing store yesterday.  The night before when my wife heard me say that I am struggling because I don't believe that I deserve to wear clothes that fit after my body failed our babies she determined that we had to change something.  We did get two fairly awkward but wearable pairs and several work appropriate shirts that semi-disguise my smaller but still seemingly pregnant belly.  But clothes are not designed to not look like maternity clothes and yet fit a maternity shaped body.  How long will I look pregnant?  When will I stop desperately wishing that I could still feel our babies moving inside me?  Will I ever stop feeling guilty that I let an infection enter the one space in the universe where they should have been safest?  Will I feel connected to my body again? Will there ever be pants that fit me?