From Helplessness to Hope

MISS Foundation Families Speak Out About Their Very Personal Losses

The Unjust Politicking of Stillbirth by Feminist Groups: 

A Response to Unreasonability

From the Gallows of Grief to Gratitude

There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.

Mendel of Kotzk

This quote reminds me of what I've learned during my grief journey. 

I've learned that in brokenness, there can be wholeness. In the darkness, there can be light. In egoism, there can be selflessness. In despair, there can be hope. In ungratefulness, there must, eventually, be gratitude. 

This isn't just psychobabble; for many, it is their survivalist reality. It is the only way that so many bereaved have moved beyond mere suspension.  Those who allow themselves to experience gratitude are often able to transcend their former place in the world. They not only become whole again, but they have reached a threshold of completeness they would never have known would it have not been for their confinement to the gallows.

These are individuals who, despite incapacitating trauma and turmoil, manage to find gratitude for the goodness in their lives. This is not a magical moment of epiphany for many of them. Rather, it evolves over time and with intense cognitive effort.  I believe that finding gratitude- even crumbs or morsels at first- requires emotional maturation, practice, and mindfulness. 

It requires us  to first focus on the self- to take personal responsibility for our own suffering. To acknowledge it. To tell and retell our story. To know ourselves well. It requires us to acknowledge that there is healing in our suffering. It requires that we silence our minds, respect our body's response to the grief, and be gentle with ourselves. It commands patience, intentionality, and commitment to the insufferable pain that radiates from the tips of our hair to the tips of our toes...the agony that causes every cell in our bodies to ache. It requires that we reach out for help from others, sometimes strangers, and that we accept the outreached hand with grace.

Then, when we are ready, we must move beyond the self. We must see the suffering of others. We must acknowledge the other's pain sans the fear of losing or diminishing our own suffering. We must be able to sit compassionately with another, abandoning for a moment our own grief's narcissistic exigence. We must  widen our circle of compassion for all beings suffering. We must see the world through others' eyes.  

We must recognize the acts of kindness, courage, and sacrifice that others have offered along our journey, and extend that droplet of hope to another. It requires that we honor even ill-fated attempts to comfort, and that we reconsider exchanging alienation, anger, and resentment for tolerance, empathy, and acceptance. We must seek gratitude daily, even for the 'small' things in life, like a dandelion dancing on the warm breeze, shadows playing in the park, or a fiery sun setting against a mountainous silhouette- or perhaps, a simple kind word of support from a friend...

Like threads in a garment, grief runs in and out of our daily lives from the instant of Death, one moment often indistinguishable from the next for many days and months. There is a time for this. There is a time to wallow in the mud, a time to pause for the entangling. The garment is unravelling and grief has patterned your life, against your will, in an unfamiliar mosaic.  Yet, gratitude can truly help us to heal from our suffering when the time is right to reconvene our lives. 

And when that time comes, consider your complaints and revisit your expectations. Take the time to fill your heart with gratitude. You can be grateful for what you have without taking away from that which you have lost. 

So, tell someone who has helped you how grateful you are for their presence in your life. Hug someone you love and tell them three things you admire about them. Write a letter or send a card to someone who is making a difference in your community. Leave an anonymous gift for a teacher, doctor, or other "carer". Reach out to another person in mourning.  Let gratitude hang in the shadows, parallel to your grief. It is not magic, but it is transformative. 

When we allow the experience of gratitude, the heart may still be broken but the heart is also most full, most whole, and most complete. Mendel of Kotzk also said, "Where is God to be found? In the place where He is given entry".  Where is gratitude to be found? It can be found in the very place where you have also given it entry. Grief and gratitude can coexist.

I dedicate this posting to our wonderful MISS Foundation moderators, volunteers, and facilitators.  For your commitment to helping others, I am so incredibly grateful.

Barefoot walkabout

Today was glorious.  I woke up to perfect Sedona weather, the sun raying, birds singing, and Brewer Trail beckoning. Ingrid and I started up the trail with another friend.

Brewer Trail leads to a special place I call big rock, one of the best panoramics in town, and is about two miles straight toward the big sky.  We met a Native American man at the top of big rock, and a few brave meditative types. I wondered how many relationships healed there, and how many ideas were born there, how much reverie and introspect were discovered on this big, red rock. I wondered how many feet of different lands once stood there, and how many ancient, indigenous voices had spoken there. It's a holy place, that big rock.  The journey to big rock was filled with friendly discussions with Ingrid about life, and men, and work, and aspirations, and grief, and hope, and disappointments.

The journey back down big rock would be very different than the journey toward big rock. While I was on standing big rock, overlooking the herculean geological majesty of Sedona, I experienced a moment of perspicuity.  I decided I would walk all the way down the mountain barefoot on the rocky trail, my feet touching the ground.  

I climbed down big rock barefooted, and I felt different immediately. The direct contact from my skin to the sharp edges of the rocks and earth sent stinging sensations to my brain. Tiny rocks that had just gone unnoticed under my feet now pierced my soles, and I found myself navigating the trail with greater mindfulness of every step. I found myself in the moment, truly in each moment, not deviating from planning the next step. I had to avoid stepping on yet more cactus needles or, worse, into a hungry ant hill. "Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, OUCHHHH!"

For nearly two miles, I walked, and walked, and walked, feet to the burning earth, feeling every sensation. It was a ritualistic exercise in mindfulness and focus, my barefoot walkabout from Sedona's big rock.

It could have been just an impulsive oddity in which I'd chosen to engage. I could have missed the lesson of this walkabout. But I learned something from my trek down the mountain. I learned that I am stronger and more tenacious than I thought, and I that I can tolerate discomfort in exchange for the promise of learning. It affirmed that mindfulness is an important part of walking through life- awareness of surroundings and respect for the moment. I learned that I can navigate pain but not avoid it. I can adjust for rocks in the trail, and I can adjust for the barriers in life but that they are there, unavoidably, and I will face them. 

This impulsive ritual felt good- even through the pain- and I was glad to have taken something profound away from my hike. So I plan to continue the barefoot walkabout when I want to practice mindfulness. The soles of my feet will surely callus over time, but not before being sore and blistered during the process. I cannot reach the lesson without first having accepted the pain. Ah, such is life.

The Bionic Woman of Grief

I'm often asked how long it takes before the grief subsides or recovery takes place. The inquisitors are often newly bereaved parents or those who deeply care for them, wishing things to be as they were before the child died.

This came up today on the MISS Foundation forums- our online support groups. Often, in the midst of intense suffering, it is impossible to imagine that this pain will ever end, that life can ever be normal, that the tears will run dry. Some say it is time that heals. Time allows necessary space, a retreat, from that despair of early grief. But I, as usual, see it differently.

My experience, including the most recent emotional upheaval of the past few weeks, has taught me that, for me- and remember that everyone is different, the pain has not weakened. My grief has not been assuaged. I am still grieving deeply, like I was nearly 14 years ago, for my beloved little girl.  

But, I believe that I have become stronger. 

That is Chey's gift to me. She has strengthened me as a woman, mother, friend, and human being. Slowly at first, but over time, my grief muscles, started to build. Like a new work out routine, my muscles hurt at first, burned with pain, objecting to the new weight I had to carry. But over time, I became stronger and stronger, eventually withstanding weight (obstacles, challenges, and other grief) in my life that she helped prepare me to carry. I prefer that way. I become stronger rather than to merely have the grief become weaker. In this algorithm, there is actually gain, not loss. 

I would, of course, give back all my superhuman strength to have her back. But I am more whole and more happy today than I would have been without her in my life.

No, it does not always hurt like this. 

It is not how much time has passed, though, that counts. It's what you do with that time.

The Adams Family and the Ladybugs

I have always been different. Even growing up, friends at school and even family, though they always liked me, thought me an odd-ball.

I became a vegetarian in a strict Sicilian household that ate 27 servings of meat a day; bacon and sausage for breakfast, cappicola and salami for lunch, pork chops and brojol for dinner. Even desserts might contain meat.  My parents thought my herbivorism was a "phase". That was 32 years ago. I never outgrew that phase. I would fight my parents when they wanted to use pesticides, and I'd even try to catch scorpions to put them outside, resulting once in a sting that would cost me two days of school.

Friends also had good reason to lift a nostril at me. Throughout high school, I would walk cautiously around bugs as I traveled from class to class, careful never to step on one. I would, at the outrage of many girlfriends who spent the night at my house, catch spiders in my room to release them outside.  After Charlotte's Web, who wouldn't?

I couldn't stand the thought of harming other creatures. I've always had a sense that humans should be good stewards of the earth and its creatures.

Well, it's been a very long few weeks, and I'm finally rejoining the world of the living. Last night, my two youngest and I escaped the house to which I have confined myself the past 15 days. We saw a movie that, for me, required no cerebral activity: The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li.  Now, I will admit, I'm a big martial arts fan, having received my own purple, nearly made green, belt years ago with two great senseis, Dino Homsey and Tim Wion.  I'm also very fond of Eastern culture, as the philosophy of harmlessness and kindness resonate with me.

Then, today, I watched Seven Years in Tibet, at the behest of my daughter, a Brad Pitt fan. Obviously, the film's setting was in Tibet's capital, Lhasa.  A young Dalai Lama, the 14th Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, did something that would make perfect sense to me. As they unearthed worms in order to build a structure for His Holiness, he insisted that each and every worm must be relocated to a safe place to spare their life. This was so beautiful. The idea that even a worm is worthy of respect. 

That brings me to this afternoon when my daughter and I stopped by the hardware store for some wood. At the counter, I saw three plastic containers of "Ladybugs". 

"Oh, mom," she said, "ladybugs!"

"Wow," I said, picking up a plastic container with about 100 ladybugs. 

Then, because I just had to look, I noticed they were dying. 

I said, "Oh, we have to buy these to set them free."

They were not inexpensive. But I recognized this act as consistent with who I am and have always been. So of course, I thought, it's what I must do.

Then, I looked closer. There were four more plastic containers. Then three more. Then two more. In all, we ended up buying about 1000 ladybugs, begrudgingly, I admit, with some mental, self-flagellation going on in my head. Impatient customers behind me in line were looking at me like I had green skin and antennas poking out my limbic region. They joined in silent castigation with the cashier as I clumsily grabbed every bug bucket I saw. And my daughter, despite my insistence to the contrary, felt compelled to text all her friends to tell them about her weird mom.

So, I set hundreds of ladybugs free in my backyard with my 11-year-old, his eyes like a toddler at Christmas, as grateful polka dotted creatures crawled up our arms and in our hair. 

And I felt good. And I smiled. And I laughed; something I haven't done for more than two weeks. 

Even the earth's smallest creatures matter, and today, we helped to set each other free.

All for less than the cost of an hours worth of psychotherapy...

"...The more difficult the journey, 

the greater the depth of purification."

From Seven Years in Tibet