the downside of anger; also, the memorial service
i have pinpointed the root of my anger to an overwhelming sense of powerlessness: i am powerless to bring my son back, powerless to make justin want to try again as soon as i do, powerless to make the pain relent a little, powerless to stop the never-ending parade of medical wackiness that has become my life and makes the suitability of trying again ever more distant. (i am so sick of being sick!). the reason i was in a good mood for the first time in two weeks after my therapy monday night is that i had done something about all of this mess, and it made me feel just a tiny bit in control. a little power is a dangerous thing.
i saw "the upside of anger" a couple of weeks ago, and while i found it flawed, i did identify with the loss joan allen's character felt when her husband left her, or rather the pain of it. but i don't see an upside to anger at the moment; it just messes me up even more.
***
last night's hope group at the hospital was okay-ish. there was another "client" there, a woman who miscarried in the first trimester about 4 weeks ago. she was tormented that she was not allowed to touch or even see her fetus, nor was she allowed to have the remains. my god - doesn't she have a legal right to the remains??? worse yet, she is catholic and was therefore denied the ability to have last rites or a blessing or any kind of catholic service. the hospital chaplain suggested she do something to memorialize her lost child anyway, even if none of her family or friends would support her (and she didn't think they would) and offered to help her devise a ritual. i gave her my number and told her i would come support her at the memorial if she had one, because i understand what it means to her.
i can't imagine having even the few shreds of sanity i have today had we not had the memorial service that we had for hans. the service was 2 1/2 weeks after the delivery. kath called every possible site in the area and got all the info for us, and we visited a couple and knew when we walked in that the cahoon house was the right place. it used to belong to one of the founding families of bay village and is now sort of a community center. it has the original (or fairly original) wood floors but decidedly mid-century lodge decor: pine panelling, wagon-wheel chandeliers, and a walk-in fireplace. but it also has huge windows that look across the street to lake erie, and there's a beautiful rose garden outside, and it was the right kind of open space for an open reflection kind of service.
we expected about 40 people with our families, but over 80 showed up. out-of-town family, a surprising number of co-workers, and a few new friends who are also parents of dead children; it was strictly SRO across the back, and we were overwhelmed at the show of support. i spoke first and justin spoke last, and in between a few of our family and friends spoke. my mom read a letter she'd written to hans, and my brother-in-law read the letter my 11-year-old cousin had written to him. justin's aunt who had fertility problems and eventually adopted a son cried the whole time she read her poem. dyan read from "cry the beloved country" - the passage about fear being ongoing but sorrow being a specific location from which you can work forward. i'm really messing that one up, but you'll have to accept that it really spoke to me. greg played his guitar (fitting memorial for a musical boy!). my father quoted the bible verse that says a little child shall lead them, and justin's dad talked about the secret hideaways he had with justin and the special place he would have with hans, on the trail in the mountains behind his house in vermont. justin's brother talked about hans in heaven, which surprised us, and my sister said how sorry she was that jay and hans wouldn't grow up together, and our friend taih read a prayer for hans. our friend jen, also the parent of dead children, talked about the lack of a proper term for, well, parents of dead children. and one of justin's co-workers read a poem that our friend russ wrote for hans. it was all beautiful.
we set up a table with a few things that were his: the alpaca sweater and cap mike brought him back from his last round of field work in peru; the red child-sized concertina greg and dyan went back and got for him after we had all been playing around in once upon a time toys together in december; the green and purple bunny quilt my grandma made for him; the books justin bought him for christmas; the rubber duckies my mom got for him after we first told her i was pregnant; the french calendar with the jungle animals we got him last september in brussels; the certificate kelly the nurse made for us at the hospital with his hand and footprint on it; the collages my cousins alex and jessica made for him and their mom framed and sent us; and a little album of pictures - we wanted to put pictures out but didn't want to freak people out, so we figured if we put them in an album people could see him if they wanted to but didn't have to look at the pictures if they didn't want to, which seemed to work well.
after, people hung around for hours, eating the food my mom and justin's mom and his aunts and our friends matt and mike had made, and justin played charlie haden, and it was a pretty freakin' awesome party. if we had to have a day like that, it was the best day it could have been.
it also was the first time i took a xanax in my life. i wanted to have some composure that day, as a way to honor hans. i felt strongly about it at the time although it doesn't make much sense to me today. i wore a black pantsuit but with a brightly-striped pink and yellow shirt, as i thought was befitting someone as young as hans. i took the first half of the xanax to be able to pull myself together for the day and be able to put makeup on (the one time i wore makeup from the time hans was born until the day i went back to work!) and go to the market to buy flowers for the memorial and put them together, and i took the other half just before the service. i became the number one fan of xanax that day. i was able to speak clearly during the service and keep it together enough to hear what everyone else was saying, but i wasn't so fuzzed out that i didn't feel the grief that day - lord knows i still cried plenty.
after everyone finally went home and the house was cleaned up, a dozen of us met at our house and drank wine greg and dyan brought, and justin put on polka records, to which dyan did some kind of russian dance while holding glasses of wine in both hands. then we went to the market avenue wine bar and got them to open up the upstairs for us, which is kind of like someone's parents' rec room, but dimly lit. we ate little plates of things and drank bottle upon bottle of wine until we wound it down at midnight. after we dropped my mom at home, we went to an old after-hours jazz place called mardi gras that was new to us and had breakfast with greg and dyan and jim.
i felt like we did right by hans. and i hope to never have to do anything like it again.
i saw "the upside of anger" a couple of weeks ago, and while i found it flawed, i did identify with the loss joan allen's character felt when her husband left her, or rather the pain of it. but i don't see an upside to anger at the moment; it just messes me up even more.
***
last night's hope group at the hospital was okay-ish. there was another "client" there, a woman who miscarried in the first trimester about 4 weeks ago. she was tormented that she was not allowed to touch or even see her fetus, nor was she allowed to have the remains. my god - doesn't she have a legal right to the remains??? worse yet, she is catholic and was therefore denied the ability to have last rites or a blessing or any kind of catholic service. the hospital chaplain suggested she do something to memorialize her lost child anyway, even if none of her family or friends would support her (and she didn't think they would) and offered to help her devise a ritual. i gave her my number and told her i would come support her at the memorial if she had one, because i understand what it means to her.
i can't imagine having even the few shreds of sanity i have today had we not had the memorial service that we had for hans. the service was 2 1/2 weeks after the delivery. kath called every possible site in the area and got all the info for us, and we visited a couple and knew when we walked in that the cahoon house was the right place. it used to belong to one of the founding families of bay village and is now sort of a community center. it has the original (or fairly original) wood floors but decidedly mid-century lodge decor: pine panelling, wagon-wheel chandeliers, and a walk-in fireplace. but it also has huge windows that look across the street to lake erie, and there's a beautiful rose garden outside, and it was the right kind of open space for an open reflection kind of service.
we expected about 40 people with our families, but over 80 showed up. out-of-town family, a surprising number of co-workers, and a few new friends who are also parents of dead children; it was strictly SRO across the back, and we were overwhelmed at the show of support. i spoke first and justin spoke last, and in between a few of our family and friends spoke. my mom read a letter she'd written to hans, and my brother-in-law read the letter my 11-year-old cousin had written to him. justin's aunt who had fertility problems and eventually adopted a son cried the whole time she read her poem. dyan read from "cry the beloved country" - the passage about fear being ongoing but sorrow being a specific location from which you can work forward. i'm really messing that one up, but you'll have to accept that it really spoke to me. greg played his guitar (fitting memorial for a musical boy!). my father quoted the bible verse that says a little child shall lead them, and justin's dad talked about the secret hideaways he had with justin and the special place he would have with hans, on the trail in the mountains behind his house in vermont. justin's brother talked about hans in heaven, which surprised us, and my sister said how sorry she was that jay and hans wouldn't grow up together, and our friend taih read a prayer for hans. our friend jen, also the parent of dead children, talked about the lack of a proper term for, well, parents of dead children. and one of justin's co-workers read a poem that our friend russ wrote for hans. it was all beautiful.
we set up a table with a few things that were his: the alpaca sweater and cap mike brought him back from his last round of field work in peru; the red child-sized concertina greg and dyan went back and got for him after we had all been playing around in once upon a time toys together in december; the green and purple bunny quilt my grandma made for him; the books justin bought him for christmas; the rubber duckies my mom got for him after we first told her i was pregnant; the french calendar with the jungle animals we got him last september in brussels; the certificate kelly the nurse made for us at the hospital with his hand and footprint on it; the collages my cousins alex and jessica made for him and their mom framed and sent us; and a little album of pictures - we wanted to put pictures out but didn't want to freak people out, so we figured if we put them in an album people could see him if they wanted to but didn't have to look at the pictures if they didn't want to, which seemed to work well.
after, people hung around for hours, eating the food my mom and justin's mom and his aunts and our friends matt and mike had made, and justin played charlie haden, and it was a pretty freakin' awesome party. if we had to have a day like that, it was the best day it could have been.
it also was the first time i took a xanax in my life. i wanted to have some composure that day, as a way to honor hans. i felt strongly about it at the time although it doesn't make much sense to me today. i wore a black pantsuit but with a brightly-striped pink and yellow shirt, as i thought was befitting someone as young as hans. i took the first half of the xanax to be able to pull myself together for the day and be able to put makeup on (the one time i wore makeup from the time hans was born until the day i went back to work!) and go to the market to buy flowers for the memorial and put them together, and i took the other half just before the service. i became the number one fan of xanax that day. i was able to speak clearly during the service and keep it together enough to hear what everyone else was saying, but i wasn't so fuzzed out that i didn't feel the grief that day - lord knows i still cried plenty.
after everyone finally went home and the house was cleaned up, a dozen of us met at our house and drank wine greg and dyan brought, and justin put on polka records, to which dyan did some kind of russian dance while holding glasses of wine in both hands. then we went to the market avenue wine bar and got them to open up the upstairs for us, which is kind of like someone's parents' rec room, but dimly lit. we ate little plates of things and drank bottle upon bottle of wine until we wound it down at midnight. after we dropped my mom at home, we went to an old after-hours jazz place called mardi gras that was new to us and had breakfast with greg and dyan and jim.
i felt like we did right by hans. and i hope to never have to do anything like it again.
posted by laura at 6:13 PM
3 Comments:
That sounds very moving. It sounds like there were a lot of people around you to support you. That is so great. I am surprised. I felt like most people were too freaked out to know how to act.
We are very lucky, in many ways, Vixanne. Thanks for checking in.
you know, i think a lot of people were freaked out, but we just did what we wanted to do and what seemed right, and people mostly followed our example. i know two people in particular who thought we were whacked to have a memorial service and afterwards thought it was the best. you never know.
Post a Comment
<< Home