grief

My Mother, My Muse

December 23, 2021 by admin

Today I am not trying to sell books. For that reason I am not including purchase links to the ones I mention below. I just want to try to express what is in my heart, though words are difficult to come by right now. Please bear with me. I have written about some of what follows before, but it bears repeating. Sometimes we have to tell a story many times to connect the right threads.

On December 19, my mother, who I jokingly said had more lives than two cats, said goodbye to the world. Her determined, fighting spirit could no longer master the body that had grown too fragile, too frail.

I write this today because those two telephone calls totally changed the trajectory of my life in ways too many to count. Two calls that gave me an entirely different life.

In 1998, a few months after I’d had a stillbirth, my second pregnancy loss in nine months, Mom and I talked on the phone. My husband at the time and I were going to a support group for parents. I learned that she and Dad were grieving as deeply as I was, and I quickly learned about the unique qualities of a grandparent’s grief. She asked me if I could find them a book that would help them, and I assured her I would.

There was just one problem: at the time, there were no such books currently in print. I managed to find an out-of-print book and some pamphlets, but that was it.

Like a lot of people, I’d “always wanted to write a book someday.” Turns out, When a Grandchild Dies: What to Do, What to Say, How to Cope, was that book. I gathered information from grandparents who said they’d never been able to share their story with anyone before. To this day, WGD continues to help people.

WGD helped me, too. It helped me as a grieving mom, and my parents, but also guided me to the writing path I had longed for. A further side benefit was, when I met my current husband, WGD made him want to get to know me better.

All this from one telephone call.

Fast forward to 2014. We were planning a trip to Scotland, and I asked Mom if there was anything she wanted me to see on her behalf. Her answer surprised me: “I’d like to know where my great-grandfather is buried,” she said. That simple remark led to my finding him, but also learning that the woman who bore his child was not who we thought she was…and I discovered Jane Thorburn, who had disappeared from the family history. This led to a new interest in genealogy, but also to The Factory Girl and the Fey. The lack of details from Jane’s life could only be filled in by fiction.

The struggle to finish Factory Girl took years. It was an unruly book, a new genre for me, and one that punched all my emotional buttons. As Mom’s health and vitality began to fail, I feared I wouldn’t get it done in time for her to read it. I sent her drafts, just in case. Then, finally, I was able to send her a real book.

It’s too soon to say what finishing Factory Girl will lead to for me, but I have a feeling more major life changes are yet to come.

All because of one telephone call.

There were likely countless other times when her words influenced me, and no doubt they will surface in the coming weeks and months. Thanks, Mom, for being my muse. Say hi to Dad for me. Love you.

Dad Memories

June 18, 2021 by admin

Sunday is Father’s Day, so I thought it would be fitting to pay tribute to my dad.

It’s coming up on a year since my dad died, just shy of his 70th wedding anniversary and his 88th birthday. Not a bad run, but there’s never a good time to lose a parent, and his absence still feels odd and strange. Worse, his dying happened during COVID, so saying goodbye was equally odd. We drove from New York to Illinois with a full cooler of food, stopping only to get gas and use the rest stops.

Once we arrived, we stood at his window to talk to him. Dad wore hearing aids and had macular degeneration, so we’re unsure how aware he was of our presence. Mom had to balance her walker on landscaping rocks, and they didn’t let her in to see him, even though they lived in the same facility, until they determined he was near death.

My father was a quiet, reserved man (something I inherited from him), but he had his own way of showing his love. I recall a lot of little things: his determination to teach me to drive a stick shift, for example. We had a ’74 Pinto where the difference between first and third gears was so minimal it was easy to pop into third and stall out. No matter. He wanted me to learn in case I was ever in a situation where only a standard transmission was available. In fact, that happened some years later when I wrecked my car and didn’t have rental car insurance. The car I borrowed had a stick shift.

Every now and then Dad decided to bake something. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was a big deal. After all these years, I still remember sitting with him while he made cookies, and the smell and taste of hot Snickerdoodles fresh from the oven.

In junior high, I got sick at a basketball game and had to go to the hospital. When we got to the ER, he picked me up and carried me, me worrying about his bad back while he did so. I was petite, but still, that was a lot of weight for a guy to lug around who had to spend a lot of time lying on his back on the floor with bent legs propped on a chair to relieve his pain.

When my first attempt at college failed miserably, he was the one who comforted me. “Take some time off,” he advised. “You can go back later.” I did, though it was much, much later than either of us ever expected. But in that moment he taught me how most things aren’t black and white, all or nothing. We can choose, and we can do life in a different order.

Mostly, I remember the love story between my dad and my mom. Married as teenagers, they provided an example of devotion that stayed with me. It took me a long time and a few divorces to find the equivalent of what they had, but I always knew what was possible.

His illness and death were rather sudden, with a swift downhill. It seemed like only a minute from the time he mentioned, casually, that he’d lost 25 pounds in a short time, to multiple falls, to hospitalization and the cancer diagnosis.

Now that he’s been gone a year, his absence is both more disconcerting and comforting at the same time. It feels good to remember all the ways he made a difference in his quiet, thoughtful way. He is always missed and always loved.

If you have fond memories of someone who is no longer with us, please share!

Book Review Tuesday: Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting by Ann Hood

November 12, 2013 by admin

Don’t knit? Don’t write? It doesn’t matter. Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting is really a book about life. Yes, there are a few patterns in the book for anyone who wants them, but with passion and humor, a variety of writers share their stories of what knitting means to them.

What I love about this book is that these writers are, for the most part, not great knitters. Some have given up on the craft altogether. Others work hard to get to the “good beginner” level. Rather than conjuring images of contented grandmothers creating magic with some yarn and needles, these writer/knitters are often clumsy with a needle, reporting plenty of tears and dropped stitches. A rare exception is the writer who is a skilled knitter, but who discovers her perfectionism when teaching others, seeing how that perfectionism stifles joy.

Parents and grandparents, now gone, are remembered lovingly, along with tinges of regret for words left unsaid, thanks withheld. One writer/knitter makes endless sweaters for his dog, who is quite the fashionista. Another writer/knitter, a longtime lesbian, is surprised to fall in love with a man who knits. Each essay brings its own unique surprise.

My favorite essay is To Knit a Knot, or Not: A Beginner’s Yarn by John Dufresne. I love the way he knitted memories into the now, easing back and forth with the confidence of an experienced writer, much as an experienced knitter eases through a difficult project. Plus, he’s pretty darn funny.

Ann Hood came to knitting through grief when her young daughter died, and it’s no surprise that she would provide such a book, filled with everything from turbulence to joy. That’s been my experience with knitting; it has the power to show our lives to us, and to smooth the rough edges if we let it.

Stronger Than That

October 17, 2012 by admin

Up in the wilds, where the state of Washington meets the roaring waters of the Pacific, Nature demonstrates her greatest power. Trees, uprooted and tossed like toothpicks, land like daggers impaled in the sand. After a dry summer, a record-setting rain pelts the area, littering branches on the road. We dodge them and the standing water. Near Neah Bay, a rock slide causes us to slow the car.

Here at the end of the world, the farthest northwestern point on the Lower 48, it’s hard to imagine that for centuries the Makah Indians carved out a living here, quite literally, as they hollowed-out cedar trees to make boats for whale hunts. They traversed heady waters in these canoes, bringing food (tasting like cow, one Makah gentleman told me) to the tribe. The Makah were not relocated here by the white man; they lived here all along. Descended from Canada’s natives, the Makah reservation shrank over time with treaties left unfulfilled, but still exists. In Neah Bay, the Makah have a museum which proudly displays artifacts rare in that they were not captured by Europeans, but uncovered during an archeological dig. They are preserving their past and their language.

We are here to hike. We spend Friday on Rialto Beach not far from Forks (yes, Twilight fans, THAT Forks), where we will base for the weekend. We crawl over logs and rocks, colorful as though they, like the leaves, have turned vivid for autumn. The wind is at our backs, blowing rain onto the backside of our clothing, soaking us through. It’s the first rainy weekend of the season, and it feels appropriate. We walk the beach at low tide, our feet sinking into sand. Others pass us on the path, and we are all grinning, enlivened by the rough weather.

A view of the “Hole in the Wall” at Rialto Beach, Washington State

Saturday, we enter the Hoh Rainforest. Our hike there is hushed and reverent among fir, cedar, and western hemlock rising more than 200 feet into the sky. Moss drapes itself around tree limbs, and maples stand out against the evergreens with leaves of yellow and orange. Though nature is less dramatic here than at the Pacific, we pass a cedar that has fallen and blocked the path. Workers saw parts of it into manageable pieces so we can get by, but we are sobered at the thought that at any time, a tree could fall. The trunk will be left to rest here, where it will shelter new seedlings for new trees.

At the bottom of the collonade of trees, still visible is the tree that, once upon a time, they grew upon as seedlings.

Sunday, we head to Neah Bay and the trail to Cape Flattery. We watch as water smashes against rock, polishing it and carving new patterns and holes. Yet sea lions and birds play on and in the water as though it was a peaceful pool.

We all live in life’s waters that sometimes batter us and take us to places we don’t want to go. We get up and do it all again, day after day, and before we know it, fifteen years have passed. Fifteen years since the day that nature’s forces battered me, too, separating me from my daughter, taking her from my arms before I’d even had a chance to get to know her. Fifteen years later, my heart still breaks, and yet I am frolicking, too. In the presence of nature raw and moody, I am alive. I am still here. I am seeing the great beauty of this world.

We humans have a capacity for resilience. No matter how mighty and intimidating and anguish-provoking nature can be, we who survive are stronger than that. I write about the death of a child today not for pity or even comfort, but to stand in strength. She gave me that. Nature gave me that.

On October 14th every year, I feel the sadness, yes, and all the grief all over again. Yet the Makah survive and flourish despite the white man’s intervention in their lives. Nature knocks down an ancient tree, but new trees form, perhaps in a beautiful collonade. And the course of my own life changed for the better because I had a daughter to love and to be with me, even though our time together wasn’t nearly long enough for me. We can withstand winds and rain and pain, more than we know. We are stronger than that.

Cape Flattery, the most northwest point of Washington State.

Book Of The Week: The Knitting Circle

June 26, 2012 by admin

I mentioned recently that I’m not great at reading instructions. I’m also not great at reading book blurbs, those nice descriptions on the back of the cover that are supposed to suck you in and make you want to read a book. Someone recommended The Knitting Circle to me, so I downloaded it. Without. Reading. What. It’s. About.

By the time I read the Prologue, I was having an uh-uh moment.

You know how TV shows have the little warning at the beginning about whether there are sex, drug, or violence references? Hubby says they need warnings for when something awful happens to a dog or a child. I stopped watching Mad Men after an episode where one of the characters abandoned his dog so he could drink. House M.D. lost me for a while when a child died. Shoot, when we saw War Horse on Broadway, I was a sobbing mess at intermission, and those horses weren’t even real — they had people underneath them, for God’s sakes.

So you can imagine my frame of mind when I learn that in The Knitting Circle, our heroine, Mary, is reeling from the sudden and unexpected death of her daughter.

Mary joins a knitting circle at the suggestion of her mother, with whom she has had a distant, difficult relationship. At first she feels safe among these women who know nothing of her story. Of course, as she gets to know them…

Did you ever hear the Buddhist story about the woman whose baby had died? She went to the Buddha and begged him to bring her child back to life. The Buddha tells her he will do it under one condition: she must find a home where death and loss have not paid a visit. Of course, as she travels everywhere, she hears one story after another about the losses of others.

The Knitting Circle is like that. As Mary ventures back into the world and into new friendships, knitting all the while because knitting brings a sense of peace when nothing else does, she understands that she is not alone.

Author Ann Hood, whose own daughter died similarly to Stella, Mary’s child, brings a depth of understanding to a parent’s grief that only those who have been through it understand. Sometimes strangers provide the greatest kindness and compassion when friends and family don’t know what to say. Mary must learn to take the wound and to knit it into something beautiful.

Reading the story, I found myself angry and upset. Mary is falling apart, unable to function in those deep, early months of grief. I wanted her to get up. I wanted her to triumph. I wanted her to hold it together.

I wanted her to because I had to, because when it happened to me, I had no choice. My babies, two of them, died in utero in 1997, and the pain of those losses has never fully healed. I don’t hurt like I used to, but there are still days when it hits me, especially Mother’s Day and October 14, my daughter’s birthday.

It dawned on me that I wasn’t angry at Mary at all — I was angry that I didn’t get to grieve the way I needed to. I wanted to be the one to fall apart, and I didn’t get to be that person. As Mary’s marriage lurches and struggles through the agony, I remembered how my own marriage came to a loving but painful end when our different grieving styles exposed other incompatibilities.

Like Hood, I wrote about my pain, but in a different way. When a Grandchild Dies: What to Do, What to Say, How to Cope, came out of my experiences as a bereaved mother, when I discovered that I had books and support groups to turn to, while my mother did not. Writing that book changed my life in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine. Like Hood, I have emerged from my grief transformed, even though the scab remains.

Hood knits a beautiful story of loss and healing. It is authentic and true, down to the core. It is breathtakingly sad, but not hopeless. Life does, indeed, go on.

Mother’s Day and the Crisis Hotline

May 7, 2011 by admin

Shifts on the Crisis Hotline tended to follow a pattern. The callers were a mix, from those who wanted basic information about food, clothing, or shelter, to those who needed to hold on to life until the suicidal urge had passed. Sometimes the callers were “regulars,” who called daily, often several times a day, just wanting to hear a voice at the other end of a phone. There were even the occasional sex callers, hoping for a sexual release from hearing the sound of a woman’s voice. I could depend on this formula, shift after shift.

Then there was Mother’s Day 1994.

I was unprepared for the onslaught of calls that came in. “My mother died and I miss her.” “My family has ignored me on Mother’s Day.” “I’m angry with my mother.” “I never got to be a mother.” “I hate being a mother.” There would be no easy calls on this day, and certainly no comic relief. Each call was a cry of pain, and it took all of my training to maintain calm in the face of the emotions that slammed against me through the telephone. When I left, I shook all the way home, blindsided. Mother’s Day had touched people at their deepest primal core.

As I look back now, I can see that my compassion was distant and detached. Oh, I helped as best I could, and callers seemed to feel better after we chatted. I knew, after all, that when we are in pain we need most to be heard, and that I could provide. What I did not have was my own experience of Mother’s Day. My relationship with my mother was fine. I wasn’t a mother yet but assumed I would be, and that my family would be a happy one. I was full of the optimism of youth and the arrogance to think that making healthy choices would immunize me from suffering.

I am wiser now.

In 1997, I became pregnant–twice–only to lose both babies. First, a miscarriage. Nine months later, a stillbirth. After that, the silence of infertility. On each succeeding Mother’s Day after that, I would wake to feel the phantoms of my children, missing like amputated limbs, and the haunted heart that sought the heavens in vain for any sign of them. I have a box that holds the pitiful memories of my daughter, Rebekah Diane, Reba for short. She lived inside of me for 28 weeks, 28 precious weeks, before a tumor crushed her heart and mine. In it I have the scraps of broken dreams: condolence cards, a piece of fabric for the curtains in her room, a Noah’s Ark needlepoint, and, most precious of all, her footprints.

I learned, then, that some wounds do not heal, and in inconsolable grief, we can only put one foot in front of the other and find ways not to understand or even accept, but to integrate the loss into our lives and to honor those who have died. Over the years, I and my current husband have made donations in her name, to the March of Dimes, in particular, and Texas Children’s Hospital, where they now do the fetal surgery that might have saved her life back then. I wrote a book for bereaved grandparents, and have been touched by the many letters of thanks I have received from people, many of whom passed the book through their entire family. None of this takes the pain away, but it allows me to decorate her life and create a legacy for her, which is all I can do.

Mother’s Day, 1998, I stepped outside into the quiet, warm air of a Houston morning to find something littered all over the porch. Investigating further, I realized that a plant had bloomed–a plant that had been given to us when Reba died, a plant that had never bloomed before and would never bloom again. The blossoms, pink and white in the shape of hearts, had gently fallen from the plant and covered the porch. I choose to believe that Reba had found a way to say hello and to tell me that I would be okay.

Life has a funny way of coming back around. While some wounds never heal, they can transform us in a way that we can receive new and surprising blessings. While I never became a mother, I did get the privilege of becoming a stepmother to twins. I met them in their senior year in high school, a chaotic time for a woman with no parenting experience! I gathered around me a group of friends, parents of children in that age range, to get their advice and counsel. Most of the time I just made it up as I went along, assured by my wise friends that they did the same thing. I have since weathered the worries, the sleepless nights, the frustration at my own limitations and flaws, and the sometimes-difficult situations that life presents when young people are trying to find their way in the world. It has not been easy, but it has been blessed. Funny thing is, if Reba would have lived, I’m not sure I would be where I am now, which is exactly where I need to be. To my husband, Henry, and to Joe and Sarah, may I say this on Mother’s Day: Thank you for letting me into your lives and for letting me love you. Your lives are precious and miraculous; this much I learned when I had to give my biological child back to God.

If I were back on that hotline again today, I would come from a deeper place in my heart, the place that says, yes, I understand. Often Mother’s Day is filled with a mix of joy and pain, or even just pain. Cry on my shoulder, and I’ll give you a hug over the phone, and together, we will walk into the future, where we can grieve, recover, and hopefully, find new joy.