A New Pace

I can't decide if it's just the pain of my incision which keeps me from talking above what used to seem a whisper, or if it's grief or growth or fear. All I know is that my tone is newly quiet and my pace is decidedly slow.

My days in the hospital were long, but not boring. Because I am not a fan of the "stupid box", I often found myself silently contemplating my situation, how it had come about, and what it meant for the near and distant future.

I am glad to have had this time alone because, as a result, I didn't come home to the shock and horror of empty arms in rooms I'd begun to prepare for babies. Well, that's probably partially because I hadn't completed any physical preparations yet, but the mental pictures and emotional attachments I had spent weeks developing could have been painful had I not already imagined it all and lived the sorrow in Ann Arbor. That's not to say that I don't look around and notice the screaming quiet of our home, but I can tolerate it because I expected it, I suppose.

What I notice most strikingly is that one never knows how they will mourn until they do it. This is a first for me, having never lost anyone I'd known better than a neighbor. I would have never thought that the scariest part, for me, would be the going out of doors; I am compelled to hide. I don't want to see people, perhaps because I've already had a couple of strange interactions. But I don't think that's it...

I'm not bothered by strange behavior, as I don't attribute the discomfort of others to my loss, but rather to the extent of their own life experiences. We are all ill-prepared until we step through the threshold of loss ourselves. And then we get it, instantly, and can respond to others in kind. Again, this is a first for me, and I recall many an uncomfortable silence on my part when I'd encountered a grieving friend. So, I get it. Believe me. And I sympathize.

But I digress... I'd started to say that I think I know why I want to become a hermit. It's NOT because of the weirdness of seeing others after being gone for so long. And it's NOT because I am too distraught to function. I think it's because I am now "that girl". You know, the one whose babies died. I have a friend who lost a child and I recall her once speaking about being "that girl" and how she felt like she was defined by it, or like that's what people chiefly saw when they looked at her. This is my circumstance now, the season I must endure. But it's not who I am, and I will move on...

I don't want to be pitied. And I don't want to feel like a circus freak when I walk in a room. But at the same time I must tell you that nothing is creepier than someone who completely ignores the flashing neon elephant in the room. If I don't know you well, it's completely understandable and perhaps entirely appropriate that you might say something generic or nothing at all. But I saw someone yesterday who I know well, and they commented on and inquired about my physical well being many times, without once acknowledging that we had endured something far more emotionally painful than a gigantic gash in my abdomen. I quickly reminded myself of the strange reactions I had before my passage through the threshold. And so I try to gift them with grace, believing it was because they have no idea what to say and not that they actually think our incredible loss is somehow secondary to my health.

On this new pace, I don't know when I'll arrive at the end of my grief or even my physical healing. But I know that this is what is right, and perhaps it took just this to slow me down - to shut me up - to quell my intensity. I cannot now raise my voice at my children even if I try. It hurts me physically. I cannot now speed to get somewhere or to finish something. I reel. I can no longer get worked up over much of anything. I see the ridiculousness of it.

I think I like this pace, and we'll just watch and see how it likes me.