Words as band-aids

February 29th, 2012 (leap year-so weird)

            On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was

            thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and

            moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask

            you right here to please agree that a scar is never ugly. That is what

            scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agree-

            ment to defy them. We must see all the scars as beauty. Okay? This

            will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on

            the dying. A scar means, I survived.

                                                -from “Little Bee: A Novel” by Chris Cleave

I read this book recently and I will never forget this passage. Written in the voice of a young, female refugee whose character I fell in love with. I also recently read the book, "The Help," and saw the movie and these two works of historical fiction (my favorite genre of book) struck me. 

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important."

They have me thinking about scars, both emotional and physical, and how words from kind people in our life can help us heal. Or the words we tell ourselves. 

We all have scars, some are deep down and we barely notice them at all anymore; some are right on the surface and you look at them every day. I love the first passage. It will change the way I look at physical scars forever. Though sometimes the emotional scars that come with those outward physical scars are the ones that need the healing. 

I have very few scars on my body. I have a scar above my left eyebrow from when I had the chicken pox as a child. I have a scar on my right thumb from slicing it open on an enormous can of hot fudge when I worked at the DQ in high school. And I have four scars on my abdomen. One from my cesarean section and most recently three from the laproscopic removal of my right fallopian tube and my babe. Most of the time I do not notice them at all anymore, they are hidden. As are the emotional scars. Most of the time, I don't notice those either. It has been two months since my surgery and I have been feeling pretty upbeat for the majority of the time. 

I meet women every day who are newly  pregnant or having babies and I'm fine. I like it. I like caring for women during their childbearing years. I am also okay at counseling women who want to terminate a pregnancy. I can, for the most part, hold it together when I am talking to someone who has recently found out about a miscarriage, though these are the ones that make me well up with tears. The women I feel a special connection with. I hope that my words to them during their time of suffering provide some sort of emotional band-aid or salve to help them heal. 

I have written about how much words can sting an emotional wound. Unintentionally, many people say things that feel like lemon juice upon your recent cut. But words can also help us heal. Simple words,  quiet words, peaceful words. Sometimes friends give me word band-aids. Sometimes authors give us all word band-aids. Sometimes perfect strangers give us word band-aids. 

Thank you to my friends and family for the word band-aids. The salve on my aching heart. The cool compress on my raging anger. 

I am a person

February 23, 2012

Parenthood and Personhood

I have been trying for weeks to gather my thoughts into some profound and succinct blog regarding my feelings about the recent debates and legislation that has been proposed to limit women’s reproductive rights and define “personhood” as the time of conception.

It simply comes down to this. I am a person. I have been one for 37 years---give or take depending on your definition of when I became a person. Struggling with infertility and miscarriage has been awful. Having an emergent surgery to remove a living ectopic pregnancy from my body was the hardest, darkest thing I have grappled with. I am a person. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am sorry that the fetus I grew did so in the wrong place in my body, but I am not sorry that I am still a mother and a wife and I am not sorry that the surgery took place before my tube ruptured, before I had internal bleeding, before complications arose.

I am a person. 

Resiliency

February 9, 2012

Resiliency

This past Monday morning, my husband watched the medical examiner take my neighbor’s body out of his home in a body bag. We don’t really know what happened. We didn’t really know the man. He was pleasant and quiet and we only made small talk in the summer while doing yard work or in the winter when we happened to be out shoveling at the same time. There have been rumors of suicide, but I don’t know anything for sure. And that is private business, but it certainly got me thinking.

I think about depression and suicide often. Probably more often than most people do. I have been depressed before, and I have hated life before, but I have never been suicidal. But I know that I have watched many people in my lifetime in darkness. I have watched depression and hopelessness eat all the light out of a person’s body. No one in my lifetime that I am close to has committed suicide, but too many have had frequent thoughts about it.

When I was a young girl, probably about 12 or 13 years old, I watched from the end of the hallway as my mother told my father she was thinking of a divorce. I did not hear the entire conversation, but I did hear my dad say, “If you leave me, I would kill myself.” And she never left. She would be appalled that I am writing about this-she may even deny it, but that memory is forever etched into my life. He was a very depressed man. His life was dark and though I begged my mom to leave him on more than one occasion, I understand why she did not. We never talked about it.

I had a friend in high school call me on the phone one night to tell me she was locked in the bathroom and was thinking of taking a bottle of pills. My memory of that night is a bit of a blur. I don’t know what I said to her exactly, but I do know that I never told an adult about it and the fear that settled into my chest while talking with her was heavy and cold. She didn’t do it. We never talked about it.

A very close friend of mine had a plan-a well-thought-out, easy-to-access plan for killing himself. We had an agreement of how he would let me know so that I would know how to find him. I sat in his darkness with him for many years. I was an adult. We talked about it.

And then I read a blog recently by The Blogess in which she discusses her depression and her reservations about discussing it on such a public forum. And it got me thinking about how our society deals with grief, loss, depression, death. We’re not good at it.

This made me think of resiliency. It is a term I often used during my years as an educator, but I often find myself using as a midwife as well. Some kids have it, others do not-you can see it even in newborns-the fight, the vigor, the will to push past the trauma.

Resiliency.

I think of the definition in relation to an ecosystem; our life’s journey and our psyche as part of our internal ecosytem.

Resiliency: the ability of an ecosystem to return to its’ original state after being disturbed. 

I think of women and men who have been through extreme trauma: war, rape, abduction, bearing witness to trauma. Some people’s ecosystem will, at least on the outside, return to it’s original state after being disturbed. Yes, they are forever changed, however they eat, drink, dress, and live and somewhere, deep under the fresh moss and dewy grass-the soil underneath was tainted with some toxic event. But they are resilient. 

bittersweet

Friday, January 13, 2012

Bittersweet moments

I just returned from Ray’s oldest friend’s birthday party. They have known each other since birth. Her mother, let’s call her Jan, and I have been friends for a very long time.

Jan & I were sitting in this dining area with families all around and Jan noticed that a little boy (about 12-15 months old) looked very much like Ray did when he was that age. He really did. Big melon head with eyes that stared through you (Ray’s eyes took up about half of his head at that age-this kid’s eyes weren’t quite that large)-it took me right back to that age, the age when everything was new and fresh and hopeful.

I love my little man so much. I feel so lucky to be his mom. He’s such a great kid. He always has been.

I know every mother thinks that her kid is the greatest child ever. Well, I’m no exception. Ray has always been such a smiley, easy-to-laugh, fun-loving kid. He knows what he likes and is not afraid to be different. Lucky for us, he goes to a great school where a weird white kid doesn’t get made fun of, but is just one of many weird kids. (I mean weird in the best possible way).

The kid never watched Barney or the Wiggles. He watched videos of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimmy Hendrix. He got an electric guitar when he was 3 years old.

He has been watching documentaries on science and history since he was 5 years old.  When his pet lizard died that year, he wanted to mummify him and make a sarcophagus because he had studied how to do that in the various documentaries he had watched about King Tutankhamen.

He has NEVER shown the least bit of interest in sports or athletics, but weekly trips to the library and museum were hours of sheer joy. I have to say that I was more than thrilled to find that my little boy loved doing science experiments and examining insects versus wanting to play little league. Those of you who know me well understand that I have not an athletic bone in my body.

These are all the things that flash through my mind when I see a random little boy who resembles my little man. And I think---my husband and I, we have had our share of problems, but we make a great “one of us.” We made a great person. And I think we deserve the chance to make another, but if we don’t, I have one fantastic boy that I am so proud to call my son.

Speak your truth

Januray 25^th, 2012

Candid conversations with my son: he speaks his truth

In May of 2008 I had my first miscarriage. I found out two days before my first prenatal appointment via an ER ultrasound after vaginal bleeding. Mike and I had told Ray about the pregnancy about a week before this. I did not have any difficulty conceiving Ray or any complications with my pregnancy. We assumed all would be fine. You know what happens when you assume.

Ray was 5 years old at the time and knew quite a bit more about anatomy and physiology and cellular biology than the average 5 year old, but this was still a conversation I had not anticipated having. He had spent the past week or so talking to the baby inside my belly and talking about what he would do when he was a big brother. I was devastated. And a mess.

Although there was a fetus that had passed, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him that a baby had died. So I told him that my body thought I was pregnant, but I wasn’t and in order to get my body ready to have a baby again, I would have to have something done to have my uterus cleaned out by the doctor. He asked if the doctor would go through the incision in my belly where he came out (Ray was born via cesarean section, but that is another blog I will leave for another time). I told him that the doctor would go through my vagina to get to my uterus (again, he knew more than the average 5 year old—he is the son of a former science teacher and at that point, a current nursing student planning to be a midwife). This conversation led to a very funny story involving Mike’s grandparents.

Mike’s grandparents were visiting from California.  His Grandfather is called, “Granddaddy,” “Great Daddy,” or “Daddy” by all his various children and grandchildren. Granddaddy grew up in the south and has the sweetest southern accent I ever did hear and I just love him. He was a very proper, kind, and sweet southern gentleman and I am fairly certain that Granddaddy had never uttered the word 'vagina' in his whole life.

I was at home recovering and Mike and Ray went up to his parent’s house to have dinner with his grandparents. In the middle of dinner, Ray felt the need to discuss my recent miscarriage. It went something like this:

“My mom thought she had a baby inside of her.”

“Oh, yes, Ray. We heard. We are sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well, they have to clean out her uterus so she can get ready to have another baby.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And, well, the doctor is probably in her vagina right now.”

I don’t know if anyone laughed then, but I always do when I tell it.

We have since then have many, many, many conversations about my inability to have a child. At this point, he is very happy with being the only child and tells me, “I might be the only person to ever be able to grow in your womb.” (I believe it has gotten to the point where he wants to be the special one and I also thinks he may wonder why I want another baby when I have him and he is so clearly awesome.)

That kid speaks the truth. Whether you like it or not.

A week after the ectopic, in the car:

"So, Mom, if you get pregnant again, it can only come from one side."

"Yes, Ray. That is true."

“Mom, I don’t think you are ever going to have another baby.”

 “I don’t really think so either, Ray.”

 “Good. I don’t want a brother or sister messing up my stuff.”

_______________________________________________________________________

And tonight, after serving him the most pathetic dinner ever, consisting of three slices of turkey bacon, dry Quaker oatmeal squares, raisins, and a sliced apple, I hear, “Thanks, Mom. You know, I’m really glad you are my mom. You take good care of me. And I’m glad my dad is my dad. And I am glad I exist.”

Which made me think of a few things. My friend, Irene, wrote in her book that there should be a word that describes laughing while crying---I need that word at least twice a week. We should make one up.

It also made me think of why people once believed that the heart was responsible for our emotions.

I do feel that my heart can swell with joy, or throb with pain, or break in pieces. I feel it, in my chest, not in my head.