Loosed Hatred

Yesterday was my daughter's death date. Yesterday as I tried to remain focused on my daughter. Honor her memory with my actions and words to others. Reflect in peace and gratitude for the grief that visits me to remind me of my brief role as a mother. Reflect on the complexity of love that both heals and hurts, I found an intrusion of unwelcome thoughts of fear.

I've been reeling from the election. We elected a narcissistic and racist individual. Someone who is a failed businessman, an accused child rapist, a person who brags about sexual assault, who openly praises P.utin and his leadership, who refuses to pay people for their work, who would like to abolish free speech, and who Politifact found tells the truth less than 10% of the time.

Several times throughout the day--as I tried to remain focused on her--my thoughts were rudely and violently yanked to a two second gif of our president-elect mocking a disabled person. I've been told that he didn't mean it. I saw it. I watched him mock a disabled person. It wasn't an edited clip; he sure as f$@k meant it.

I worried about how I would protect her from people like him. How would I make sure she knew she was loved? How would I shield her from hurtful bullying and cruel words and worse--cruel actions?

That f$cker has not one compassionate, caring bone in his body, and he has emboldened the cruel words and actions of many around the country. The very leader of the free world manipulates and mocks, and I feel helpless to protect children like my daughter from that model.

My teacher-friends and students in my area and around the country are witnesses to the loosed hatred and bullying. "Pretty soon you guys will all be slaves again," was a black student's story to a group. "Now I can grab you or any other chick by the pussy," was a tweet from one of my 20-something female college students. "Faggot" painted on a car of an acquaintance. "She can't talk because she's a filthy Muslim," from a fifth grader. "Our president is going to send your parents back to Mexico," from a third-grader at the lunch table. These are real, and he is silent. And no one is really expecting any words of condemnation from a bully.

I can't breathe.

Fuck You, Cancer

Ah, $h!it . . . I reached a new hope that life would settle a bit. My new/old job and return to my music family and friends and then cancer strikes again . . .  I know, I know, it's not about me and I'm grateful I'm home this time to support my friend through the end of remission, and through her second round of Chemo, and on to the second remission.

But let's be honest, I struggle with knowing the if she dies, I am going to take it personally. HOW DARE God/Universe/ALLAH/and the like take another beautiful person with no regard for what the world needs. How dare it. There is no prayer that can soothe this anger. But it's my anger not her's, so once again I'll do my best to choose joy when she's around, but when she's not, I will seethe. I will curse. And I will weep.

Fuck you cancer. And fuck you industry, commercialism, and corporations that have successfully created an environment that enables, and yes, even causes this disease.

"Dirt"

Dirt 
 
Its arrogance will break your heart. Two weeks ago
we had to coax it
into taking her body.
Today,
after a light rain,
I see it hasn’t bothered
to conceal its seams. 


~Jo McDougall
 

                                                                                                           

I remember the anger I had at the seams in the ground where Caitlin's coffin was buried. A small rectangle of sunken earth with scars where they cut the sod to lay her in. It took a couple of seasons for the growth of grass and work of bugs to mask those scars. But sometimes, when the weather is severe, they can still be discerned.

                                                                                                           

Bumper Sticker Rage

"My baby was born at home"

---Big 'effin deal. My baby is dead. She was born and then she died.  My bumper sticker should read:

My baby was born in a hospital where they repaired her heart

and

WE BROUGHT HER HOME.

Consider editing your bumper sticker, perhaps . . .  

"I'm grateful my baby is alive."

Expressions of superiority suck, and are usually evidence of naivete or an inability to consider other points of view.

OK, rage released. Sorry if I offended home-birthers. I'm sure parents who want a more natural entry into this world for their babies are passionate about home birth. I'm sure it feels like an accomplishment for their children to be born at home. From my angle, it's an accomplishment for any child to be home alive.

And so . . .

Two things

1. ((((hugs)))) to all of you who held me through my frustration in my previous post.

and so . . .

2. What do I say when someone does say this to me?

"Well, I don't really see it that way. But thank you."
OR
---silence---

If it's someone who loves me then I speak. If it's a stranger or acquaintance I am silent.* (Well, usually.) And that's where the e-outburst came from, because I take those feelings home, and they scrape across my heart for days. Sometimes the feelings bubble out like a mud-pot, but yesterday the fissure at my core couldn't vent it evenly and the geyser of anger blew.

It's not what people say that I wish to change.* (OK, well I do wish I could prevent them from saying it to me.) But, I'm resigned. I know I will continue to hear this statement, and I know that it is not said to hurt, far from it, it's their best attempt to comfort. Many of you echoed this in your comments. I talk about making meaning, and that statement for some is how they make their meaning.

But, I don't feel like I can tell them that.

Why? Some will be hurt by me because they view it as rejecting their offer of comfort. Some will try to convince me, and then it's really bad. Some will bible-verse me and give me a condescending "Well, I'll pray that you understand someday." Some will feel helpless. And that feeling just plain sucks. Some will fear that my faith is gone. Another sucky feeling. Sometimes, I simply too exhausted and too tired to form words to express my grief.

The burden then is mine, I must learn how to navigate it's effect on me. I'm working on it. It's part of this grief work the bereaved cannot escape.

*Anyone else notice that I'm desperate to escape the reality that nothing is simple and there is no right answer to this even in my own head?! Ha! I laughed out loud.

Never Say This To Me. Never.

"God has a plan. We don't know what it is, yet, but someday we will. It will all be clear."

* If you believe this, don't keep reading, below are some angry words about this statement. This is my space for pause, but I'm not interested in making others uncomfortable.

Never say this to me. Never.

I don't know how I can bear to hear this ridiculous sentiment addressed toward me again. It brings no comfort. To think that there's a plan for Caitlin's death brings no comfort. I have already surrendered to what is--that she is dead. I cannot strip the scab with desperate hope for answers. I have answers; she was born without good health, she had a perforated bowel, became septic and died. Exploring a spiritual reason for her death is an open door to madness. I make meaning from her death. I learn valuable, painful, difficult, beautiful, and loving lessons. But these are not the reasons she died. Meaning making and lesson learning is a gift not a plan. Let God be God and stop blaming him for dead babies by insisting that dead babies are part of the plan. My child will still be dead on that fictitious earthly day when it all becomes "clear"--clear is not a salve. One more thing, if suggested that it will become clear when I die, then I'll be in heaven too and then I'll see my daughter, and then----------I will be comforted.

Never say this to me. Never.