An ugly post....for BLMs only

I hate to follow that post of such positivity with this one....but my blog has come to my aid countless times providing me with comfort and support from the only people in the world who truly can understand me and empathize with  me for being the social outkast because my baby died: other BLMs.  And so I share this....

I have not vented nor had the need to vent, about lost and broken friendships for several months.  Those doors are closed, or so I thought, and I am focused on what matters in my life: my family.  Not friendships that appear smooth on the surface while causing me pain underneath.  I no longer have room in this heart  of mine that has been slowly pieced back together, though one piece will forever be missing.  My circle has definitely shrunk.  And my family is really my center point and where I get all the love, nourishment, companionship, and entertainment from.  I just wish what was in my head was the same as what is in my heart.

I don't know if I have written about the doctor and his family leaving town but they did this summer and it gave me a small peace of mind knowing I don't have to worry about turning the corner and running into them or seeing them on the road, etc.  My guard was lifted a tiny bit.  And I probably have written about losing friendships because the doctor's wife is still friends with those in our old circle, while we are not.  I had "friends" tell me that we need to remember that this tragedy happened to TWO families in this town, theirs and ours.  Though it was our son who died while theirs get kisses and hugs from them every day.  As if it is important enough to mention, I was once very close friends with his wife, but our friendship fell apart about a year before I became pregnant with Chase.  I have never been able to decide if this severed friendship led to the demise of my patient/doctor relationship during my prenatal care or not.  There was nothing offered or received from her after the birth or death of Chase so all of it is neither here nor there in my mind.  The problem I had was the support my friends were offering her rather than me.  Why was it so important to them to remind me that she was not in the delivery room or that horrible operating room where her husband cut into me while I was screaming my lungs out and hitting him.....hours, hours, after he should have done something to save Chase, but was just too arrogant to admit that he might need to be concerned about the care he had given up to that point.  

This has surfaced once again because though the family has relocated, she apparently, is back in town...for a party.  A party with my former friends, whom I really wonder why I ever called them my friends or me theirs.  This is one of those "clicky" desperate housewife type parties that the invite list changes every year--depending on the party thrower.  I have never made the cut anyway, which is funny I know (pie in my face), unlucky me--whatever.  But this year, they went out of their way to invite her again.....so she could make a special flight back into town just for it.  Makes it sound like a pretty special party, huh?  I thought so, too.   These are the same friends who threw the doctor and his family a going away party this summer in a town three hours away bidding farewell to them with hugs and kisses and nice gifts.  Wow--that kind of support for the man who did all this to me?  Do they know that....or have they just forgotten?  From the people who were supposed to be my friends?  They never offered me that kind of support.  Unless you call coming into my home the second Chase died to break down my crib and remove all my baby belongings so I wouldn't have any reminders of him when I walked in the door.  Really?   LIke I was going to leave Albuquerque and forget about my dead son if the crib and his clothes were not in my room anymore?  At the time I tried to look into this with the best of intentions and understand these things as best I could.  But wow, 1 yr 7mo2wk and 2 days into this grief cycle and it sounds insanely absurd to me now.  If they would have truly known me and been my real friends, they would have known that that baby furniture had been in my bedroom far longer than it had not over the prior 5 years and removing it from my room under normal circumstances would have not even felt right to me.  It was definitely not going to be something to send me over the edge coming home from the hospital without my baby in my arms.  Quite the contrary, in all actuality, but again, how would they know that.  

My anger comes out again....not from my heart, but from my head.  A conflict so very difficult to mend....and will forever keep me out of balance.  But my heart is in the right place.  It is my head that still seeks confrontation and closure, which I will never get.  Not the closure I want.  When I ask what I could have possibly done to these people to make them so nonchalantly continue including this family in their lives and support them, someone said to me, "they just don't know what to say to you probably."  Not.  They feel guilty for supporting that family and not supporting ours.....despite over 30 years of knowing our family.  I'm only venting here because it is the therapy I need.  I don't seek their friendship or their comfort or their companionship.  I am a different person.  One they will never understand and will never know and I don't expect or desire that to change.  I am getting this anger and frustration off my chest (out of my head) so I can once again lay it to rest without being judged.....and just hope it doesn't ever surface again.  Because rest assured you'll hear about it here if it does.  *sigh*

Moving On

That post title does not mean I am moving on after Chase. I am stuck in time with him. That one thing is motionless, while everything else around it keeps moving, he is frozen in time and I miss him every day with every bone in my body. I should be a whole year into his life soon...watching him learn to walk and listening to his first words and watching his big sisters and big brother entertain him and care for him. I never stop thinking about those things. And then I look at his picture and I am taken back. To those 4 days of excitement, fear, hope, sadness and confusion and it feels as though time has stood still.

I don't see this changing, though eventually, I'm told, it will. But what has moved on is life as we know it. I have moved on with life. I laugh with my children, with my husband. I learn things about myself. I love like there is no tomorrow. I feel things ever so acutely. I empathize with people, things, situations. I am sometimes amazed at how I am able to move past things that, before Chase died, I would have dwelled on, fretted about, stewed over....for weeks. I don't do that anymore. My adult relationships have changed. That's because my needs have changed. Things that I say, feel or do are not justified always. I can't explain "why" when it comes to my feelings. When they get hurt, I make sure it won't happen again. And if that means moving on and not looking back, then that is what I do. I protect myself much better than I ever did before. Or maybe I have a little extra help from up above, I don't know. I don't need anyone to understand me. There is no reason for that because there is no way they ever will. And as a result, I have no desire to explain myself. I go on because I have to. This, I have learned.

I miss my sweet boy. Every moment of every day, I miss him.

Judging Grief

What I am about to say is not intended to touch everyone. It is not going to be understood by most. And by all means, I am not trying to change or fix anyone. I am purely and genuinely going to vent.

I don't understand the way people react to someone's grief. I have read about, been told it would happen and seen people react to me in very peculiar ways. Specifically, people have left my side and no longer fill the role of a friend.

I know someone who's son, years ago, was killed just days before his college graduation. My heart went out to her. She was not a close friend, but a friend indeed and I didn't know what to do for her. She was surrounded by so many who loved her and had so much support, or so it looked from the outside. I felt so bad for her and wanted badly to reach out to her. I had been told that a couple months after a tragedy is when people generally find themselves alone as their family goes back home and everyone goes on with their lives. So I wrote in my day planner on the day 2 months from her tragedy to send her a card and I did so. I saw her a few months later and asked her how she was doing and was surprised how much she shared with me. At the time, I did not know how to handle her grief. Now I do. Now I know and understand how much she wanted to talk about her son to me, a distant friend. But one thing I didn't do, was judge her.

Before Chase died, I could have never imagined the pain she went through and how it would guide her every day. How that pain would override every thought, every emotion, every feeling, every thing she did in her life. So I never judged her actions, her choices, her weight loss, her weight gain, her change in appearance, her behavior. After the loss she had endured, any of those things were destined to be affected or change and change again and my heart continued to ache for her. This was the outsider's point of view of grief that I had.

Now, having lost my own child, and having endured the pain of this and learning to live with it every day of my life, I don't understand why I am judged. "Chase died and then she just quit talking to me." In my head, I can just hear these comments. "She got mad at me because I'm still friends with her doctor's friend's sister's husband's cousin's neighbor's uncle. How insane is that? Like they had anything to do with it."

I can't explain my feelings. I can't tell you why I feel the way I do or why I do the things I do or why I say some of the things I say. I'm hurting. Inside. Always. And the anger side of grief will sometimes guide me to do things that I could not ever expect you to understand. Unless your child had died, too. Think of it this way, and then try to justify the way you feel. Try to explain it to someone why you can't stand to be around someone who is 6 degrees of separation away from the person who is responsible for your son's death. Sounds crazy, I know.

The "funeral home guy" told me that his very close friends lost a teenage son and because of the whole funeral and burial thing, his grieving friends quit talking to he and his wife. He acknowledged that they probably equated the death of their son to them but he didn't know why they quit talking to them--they had been such close friends. My reaction to that was, "Don't judge them". No, you didn't cause the death of their son, but you remind them so vividly of those particular moments following their tragedy that I don't blame them. I don't know why we act this way, but I completely understand. It's unfortunate and, sadly, I can totally relate. I, personally, wanted to jump in a hole--to hide from everyone, everything. All the while feeling like I was living in a glass house. Maybe it was my own insecurities, my shattered faith, my pain, but I didn't want to see anyone I knew....except for my closest friends.

To date, however, nearly all of those closest friends are gone. Most have left my side. Some made choices. Choices I could not accept. For reasons I cannot explain. So I remain misunderstood, misjudged. As if it matters. Because I am much better off than I was, all things considered. There are new friends in place. Some closer old friends. And I am starting over, the new me. I'm not going to say improved, but I will call myself real. I see things with people so much more clearly than I ever had. My family, though the most important thing in my life before Chase died, is the center of my universe. And I love them with every breath I take.

A quote worth reading

My baby sister (she's not a baby anymore, trust me) sent me an email with a quote in it that I couldn't post to my blog quick enough. I have written about (here) and certainly read a lot about the friendships that quickly or eventually end of those of us who have suffered the losses we have. And what ends the friendships that we had before our losses are the changes that we have gone through and how completely different we become once we begin this journey and the fact that our "old" friends just don't get it, let alone, know how to act around us. When I read this quote, I said, "exACTly" to myself. Because it's those who want and try to fix it for us, or who want so badly to have us go on with our lives and move past the tragedy, who end up leaving us. Let me know what you think:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
~Henri Nouwen

It is what it is

I have read several blog posts from other baby loss mamas who have lost several friends, friends of many years, and I have thought how crazy and ironic it was that this would happen. But it just takes a tragedy, more specifically a loss, and even more specifically than that, the loss of a child to quickly separate you from the rest. And this weekend, I joined my fellow baby loss family as my circle of IRL "friends" narrowed considerably.

My situation, though, is severly complicated. And I must also add that I use the term "circle" and "friends" lightly because I am not big into "the" social scene or any social scene, for that matter. I wasn't even before Chase died. But the by the nature of what happened to me and my family, my perspective on a lot of things changed. When my perspective changed, so did my friendships and my definition of friendships. And when my definition of friendship changed, so did the number. It got smaller, like many other baby loss mamas who are on my journey.

The complications come from several aspects. A.) I live in a small town. B.) I am pursuing some relentless litigation against my doctor for several things that happened under his care. C.) That doctor was, at one time, one of my closer friends in this town; so much that he is my kids' godparent. and D.) We are in the same "social circle" and have many common friends.

I am blessed for the friends that are not in the same social circle but the friends that made a choice this weekend certainly hurt. I have specifically explained the sordid details of this doctor's actions and behavior that have led me to taking action and I was under the false impression that this was enough "evidence" to lead these friends away, on their own accord, from any socialization with him. I didn't feel it necessary to verbally request this of them because remember.....my son is dead. My healthy, beautiful baby boy is gone and I will never get to see him play with his brother, read me a book, play a soccer game....nothing. His precious life was taken.

So I thought these friends realized this. I thought they understood the magnitude of my loss, or at least a fraction of it. These were not friends that I saw or even talked to every week. But they were friends that I could see and pickup where we left off without skipping a beat. My favorite kind of friend. Some of them have been friends of Patric for over 3 decades. And then I received a text from one saying that since we were planning on coming over, she wanted us to know that my doctor and his family might very well be there. That she didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable or awkward.

Uncomfortable? Really? Why, because my son is dead and the doctor, your friend is, in my well-stated opinion, responsible for it? Why? Because he knows that we feel this way and our presense would be unsettling? Because our baby, his patient, died and it would make things awkward for him to be in the same social setting? Or is it because we are accusing him of something so absurd and the doctor that they all know and trust (for a total of 4 years now) would never do something like that or act that way; therefore, we must be crazy, looking for someone to blame for our grief?

I have to share a short story to help me understand all this so please bare with me. Patric & I had a very good friend years ago in Florida who is now in the state pen with over 30 counts of convicted rape. When Patric & I knew him, he was a cool guy, a great friend, fun to be around, someone I would have entrusted our kids, had we had any. We received a phone call about 3 years after moving to Ruidoso that our old roommate had been caught on an attempted rape and is being investigated for several rapes throughout the 10 years leading up to that. We were shocked. Not Dave. No way, no how. He would never have hurt anyone. I couldn't believe it. We were in denial. I kept telling myself, at least he didn't kill anyone. But I also thought at the time that if I knew any of victims, I would be forced into reality and I would have more empathy for them because without knowing any of those girls personally, I could not relate and moreover, I could not believe that our very good friend would be capable of something so awful and violent, while we were living with him. How could he lead a double life and we live so close to him and not know it?

So, back to my post..... I can understand, having trusted someone so dearly, how hard it is to believe that something bad has happened. I am not relating the viciousness or the violence of that story to this, but I am trying to understand why some people can go on like nothing ever happened. Where is the accountability? What about the consequences....you know....that which we talk to our kids about practically every day? Just because mistakes happen, doesn't mean you don't have to be accountable for them. Or that you don't have to own up to them. Even if you're a doctor.

And besides, the difference is that they know me. They know us. And yet their friendship with the doctor has not changed, apparently. Where is the empathy for us? All I can sense is them protecting him. This didn't happen to him. It happened to US. In fact, He. Is. What. Happened. I wouldn't normally say I know what I would do in someone else's shoes, but I know in my heart that if this happened to anyone of them, I would have no problem telling this doctor to go take a hike--that he was not invited to my parties, that I will not be coming over to his house, that I would have nothing to do with him because of what happened. That is the kind of support we need. Not tiptoeing around the subject like we are fighting over something trivial. This is about the death of my son. The support I need is that of the undying kind. The I-got-your-back kind of support that we are on your side. Because when people that we have known for years and years and years have to text me with a message that we might not want to come over because so-and-so is going to be there and they wouldn't want things to be uncomfortable for anyone, that tells me that they have completely dismissed Chase. That tells me that they have disregarded the trauma that I went through and they have forgotten and moved on. And so should I. Seriuosly, do you realize you are talking about the death of my son? I know if you really wanted us to come, and you were supporting us, you would have no problem calling the doctor up and telling him that he better not show up. You would warn him that we are going to be there. Not the other way around.

But no, it didn't happen that way. In fact, it all happened via text messages. That's the funny part. And I am guilty. But I wished I woulda twittered instead of texted because the message I sent could have gone to a broader audience. More should have experienced the "fit" I threw. But it's my son who died. Not theirs. And my nightmare continues on. I keep hoping I wake up some day. It is all so unreal.

So my circle is now quite small. It consists of five people and one angel baby (...and a few real friends) And that's all I really need.