Lost fatherhood

Stupid music.

Just when you've been good for a while - no crying, no slipping back to the memories of That Day just when your head hits the pillow, moving forward ... or at least sideways - then you hear one single song whilst driving to work and you arrive a snotty, tear-stained mess.

Just from some words sung to a lilting tune.

.... not a song about the grief of losing a spouse or friend.
.... but about a miscarriage.

I, like many women have had a miscarriage (or two).  I lost a baby at 10 weeks, which hit me hard.  But the pain (for me) has diminished over time.
But that's not why I cried.

I cried because of the way Sherran sung about wanting to hold this unborn child.

I cried because it reminded me of the way Greg felt about our babies.

He was undone by them.
This pure Australian male had a soft heart but nothing brought him to tears ... except babies.
He cried over babies lost before they were born.
He cried over babies lost just after birth (like his nephew).
He cried over babies being born and thriving (just because this is an enormous miracle when you think about it).
He was a born father (after all, his main aim in life at the age of 5 was to be "a daddy with whiskers").

It hit me just how much Greg is missing out on.
.... how proud he would be.
....how he would have cried along with the children as they grieved, and stroked their head until they calmed down.

I cried for his lost fatherhood.
...and that I have missed out on witnessing more of it.



For those that are interested, the song in question is truly beautiful, but Small Bump is not for the fainthearted (LINK WARNING - trigger imagery of hospital and of course the lyrics are about miscarriage).

Plug-Ins

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The last few days have been a bit rocky, with a little depression and uncontrolled tears. It's a spiral down into a dark place. I can feel the shift happening in my brain, the language goes from "maybe, hope so, it's possible" to "never, it's hopeless, impossible".

It's not just missing the love of my life. That's bad enough.

It's a story I start telling myself about how lonely I am and how maybe I'll always be this lonely and that I'm not worthy of love and soon I'm imagining myself homeless and dead, alone.

I call it the death spiral and I think I stole that name from one of my favorite bloggers, Heather Armstrong from Dooce.com. She believes she has the fastest death spiral in the west, but I think mine might be a close second.

The way to stop my death spiral is to plug into life in some way: make plans with someone to do something fun, sign up for a class I've always wanted to take, drive somewhere I've never been, watch a ridiculous movie, even simply take a walk.

I have to snap myself out of a death spiral before it can take me to the very bottom, which is a scary, dark place to be. Even if I return to the death spiral a little after trying to plug in, usually the plug-in has already led me somewhere slightly better. It's reminded me of the bigger story - that there's life out there to live, beauty to see, and what's happened to me doesn't mean I died too.

I was rereading a post I wrote a while ago during another one of these spirals I had. I wrote about how I'd joined a choir, signed up for a cooking class and started a grief recovery class. I realize now that all three of those plug-ins helped draw me up and out of that black place.

And even better, they now continue to deliver little rewards, but I love going to choir practice most of all.

I have always adored choir music. There is something about many voices blending together beautifully that stirs my soul like nothing else.

The moment a choir begins to sing in the middle of a popular song (think Madonna's Like a Prayer or Pat Benatar's We Belong) the goosebumps break out all over me as my soul lifts right out of my chest and floats up out of me. Seriously, that's the best way I can describe how it feels.

I had always wished to sing in a choir but hadn't made it happen yet.

Suddenly, while in that particular death spiral, I felt my heart search for something that would lift it and "join a choir" popped into my mind. I see now how instinct took over and got me to where I needed to be for my own healing.

My heart needed to sing in a choir. Who knew?

Now, I look forward to Monday nights because that's when I find myself sitting alongside dozens of other women, blending my voice with theirs while all of our souls rise up together in harmony. It feels like my heart's been carbonated.

Every time I plug in to life again, the death spiral's hold loosens and I find reasons to live, a moment of joy or wonder, or a reminder of the ways I've actually got it good, despite my loss.

Sometimes the plug in has to be something very basic, like watching a 30 Rock marathon while snuggling with the cats and other times it's something a little more adventurous like joining a choir.

Either way, it gives my broken heart what it needs to heal and it short circuits the death spiral long enough to get my feet under me again.

The Party

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I was at a party last night. An amazing party. The setting was breathtaking. There were fun, smart, adventurous, worldly people there and homemade paella so good it almost made me cry and wine from some guests' wineries.

There was live music played by those great people under a starry sky, including a dobro and a mandolin, some of my favorite string instruments. There was laughter and a fire pit and even a beautiful pet king snake I got to hold (I love snakes). The people at the party were friendly, accepting, warm and inviting.

I had a good time.

I keep thinking of how that's all I had. A good time. Not a great time. Not an amazing time. I wanted to have an amazing time. I wanted to flirt with everyone and feel free and easy in my skin. I wanted to be silly and lose track of time. I wanted to feel a part of it all. I wanted to FEEL the beauty of the night.

But that's not how it went. I'm sure I put on a great game face and seemed like I was enjoying myself. And I was, to some extent, but inside I was a bit of a mess. I was miles away instead of right there in that gorgeous setting. I was just existing. I didn't really want to be there, but I didn't really want to be anywhere else either.

I felt like a shell of a person. I felt like I was separated from everyone else by a bubble. I couldn't quite reach them through the skin of the bubble and they couldn't quite get to me either. It was lonely in the bubble. It was awkward and uncomfortable and lonely.

I can't remember the last time I felt completely present. It's that part of me that's been mostly inaccessible since Dave died. The part of me completely at ease and open to all the joy that's available to me at that moment. I haven't fully been able to access that yet because the other part of me, the part that's been so altered by this trauma, has been taking the forefront.

I know it'll take time and that it will come back. Or at least, I have hope that it will. I've not given up on that at all. I look forward to the time when I can be present enough to focus on others' needs more and get out of my mind enough to be fully present, the better to suck all the joy out of the current moment.

I know that 16 months of this is a drop in the bucket and that I have a long road ahead of me when it comes to seeing that side of me again. Patience and being gentle with myself will be crucial in the years to come, but there is a part of me that's impatient to see the light again, to feel at ease and clear-headed again.

I'm doing all I can right now. I'm seeing a therapist and trying to take it easy on myself (no small task) and I'm reaching out for help and connection as much as I can (also a stretch for me). What more can I do?

I often ask the Universe for a little comfort. For someone to hold me and make this better. For a tiny piece of happiness I can carry with me everywhere and never have to let go of again. I ask for peace and clarity and ease of mind.

Unfortunately, I think the Universe expects me to meet it halfway. I have to make the damn choice to find comfort, hold and love myself, make my own happiness and seek out clarity and ease of mind. I think the Universe gave me this task because I can handle it.

Sometimes I just long for a break from proving I can.

The Luckiest

I have music on a loop that I listen to in the car.  There is one song that never fails to reduce me to tears: Ben Folds, The Luckiest.

I don't often feel lucky.
(I mean, who here really feels that luck has been shining on them?) 
Sudden death really doesn't count in the "lucky" stakes.

In fact, in the three years leading up to the accident, we lost both Greg's parents to the most hideous of cancers.  This left he and is siblings at odds over the will with Greg the person in the middle trying to make everyone happy, whilst making himself miserable in the process.

...and he'd just managed to get everyone to a shaky agreement, but was dead within months.


Suddenly
Brutally.
Dead.

"Lucky" was not a description I would have used to describe our lives.


Until I started to think about it.

Because Greg and I, we were The Luckiest.

Not many people get to marry the love of their lives. 

Many never even get to meet them.

But we did both.

Inseparable from the moment we met and fell in love.



We had a love that was real and solid.
Never wavering.
Never faltering.

We finished each other's sentences and could tell what the other person was thinking with a look.

We laughed at the same things and we cried at the same things.

We were are soulmates who balanced each other perfectly.

We loved.

Deeply.

Completely.

Soul-shaping love.

...and what we had (still have) was so rare and beautiful, that we really were among  The Luckiest people on the planet.