My friend, my doula, my Nightingale dog. Pepper.

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I had lived with my dog now for as long as I have lived with my own mother. Counting accurately, it's not exactly true. But it's close enough.

I was seventeen when my mother kicked me out. That's seventeen years I spent under her roof. We've been living with Pepper since 1995. That's sixteen years this coming Christmas.

This is a post I have been putting off for a while now. Long-timers to my blog have probably seen me post at least once each season for the past few years (at least) that I doubt she will see out another winter/summer. And still, this old battleaxe is chomping through the days. Well, I suppose now she's gumming them.

One of my favourites for showing Pepper's younger personality:
This was taken the day after Ella was born, she was so happy to see Steve!

In the time we have had Pepper, my fingers have had a lot of hours to rub her ears, stroke her head, massage her doggy shoulders and back, find the spots where she loves most to be itched. Those would be on her rump - she would give me the best doggy grins and "huffy-puff", as Steve and I called it, really showing her appreciation for the scratch of our hands - and also a thumb and forefinger drawing a slow line into a pinch from the base of each ear to the centre of the back of her neck. She still loves that one.

But it's hard for me now, to do it. Each time I interact with my dearest friend in the world, I'm reminded: she's not quite all here and not yet all... there. The shape of her skull has changed, I noticed just tonight. Another thing to add to the mental list I've been compiling. The space in front of those beautiful, almost regal, proudly pointy intelligent ears (can ears be intelligent?? Hers were very smart on her, that's all I know) has hollowed. Her top lip protrudes now, unhindered by strong, full length teeth. Her breath is foul. Her rump - once the subject of much discussion with her vet - is now my main cause for concern, for twice today, her back end has collapsed under her feather-weight. I dread... I just dread the next bit.

I want to have it over with - I curse her numerous times a day for still being here (it is really very difficult nursing a palliative care dog!) but find myself tending her for countless minutes as well. This is where my lost time is spent. Where once I used to gaze at my baby, I now gaze at this old girl before me (as I type, right next to my feet - she is still happiest and most settled there, where she knows we are).

In her heyday, Pepper was a portly 25kg at her heaviest - may not sound like much but she had to be under 20kg to be healthy. It wasn't the last time I worked hard to help her lose weight - it helped me too - and several months later, she tipped the scales 6kg lighter. The vet said she should be the poster dog for weight loss and commended both of us. Peppy huffed her audible, huffy-puff smile. It was a telltale symptom that would eventually turn out to be a collapsed larynx in her later years (something that good ol' homoeopathics has been easing lately, would you believe! Yes, so? I had a consultation for my dog... so what about it?)

I just know I am going to be so bereft without her. Ahhh, shite. Made myself cry thinking about it. It's so close, Internets. I can really feel it now. In so many ways, this dog has surpassed the Tour of Duty any dog makes for its owner. She has caught so many countless of my tears in her fur that even to this day (literally, today), she knows when I am giving her a hug... it is because I really need a hug too. And bless her sweet, age-addled heart, she gives it back. I wish I could balance a camera in one hand to show you what we look like together.

I'm angst-ridden. I looked at Steve tonight as she sat in a very awkward dead-legged position, unable to shift her light weight to stand up and said softly, "It's not going to be long now."

Bugger it.

We've had so very long together, my doggy and I. She has meant more than I can express - when nobody knew how to deal with me after Ellanor died, she was my only comfort each day. I would cling to her and weep and she would sit there and whine softly as I did so. You cannot pay any therapist to do that for you. She's surpassed being simply a "dog" to me - I suppose the good ones always do, don't they? I am tending her now as she tended me in my deepest, most bereaved years. She never ever failed me. Ever. There's not quite enough words to convey just how much she has meant to me, how connected I feel to her. All the ways we used to be connected - gazes for seemingly ever into each others' eyes, her ability to come from anywhere to sit by my side when I was upset, countless word and visual cues (she was the smartest dog who applied herself so diligently, almost anxiously, unlike the smarter Jazz who doesn't apply herself nearly as well and has a devil-may-care attitude and a whippy bloody weapon of a tail to match) - have all fizzled and petered out now to virtually none. The only connection I have to her, one of the only distinctly Pepper things about her are those gorgeous, velvety ears. She looks at me and I know half the time she doesn't remember a thing. I can see it in her face. Yet somehow, she also knows she needs to be near me. These days, I am the comforter. And while I do have my many moments when I'm frustrated to tears by the mere fact she is still existing, I don't, can't, imagine her not existing now. I marvel with Steve often that she is still here. And we still joke regularly that she may just outlive our seven year-old "puppy" yet....

I never expected to get more than ten years with her. That would have made her twelve. We thought that was old. She shouldn't be alive. Kelpies don't live (very well) past about sixteen. Pep's turned eighteen this year. She's gotta go soon. And I can't bear the wait.

Just cannot stand it.

And you know what hasn't been helping as I write this?  It's one of the most beautiful songs that came on my iTunes playlist (one I actually played over and over when I was pregnant with my little Lolly). I can almost hear all the final seasons in this song that she has lived - out-lived - and it's getting close now. Real close.

If I go missing anytime in the next few months without word.... will you promise to remember why? I just don't know if I'll be able to post about it.

Ever faithful, even with impending arrival #2 a short month away.
Never turned an eye or an ear from me, until her faculties began to fail her in 2009.

That lovely bushy tail is a mere lifeless stick now.
And once again, Jazz the photo-bomber stole her thunder....

The great circumnavigation of the boob

It's certainly not what I was expecting, but when I went to the Cardio Lab to get fitted for a heart monitor today, I was asked by the efficient young male... er, what would they call him? Doctor? No. Student? Shit, I hope not. Cardio Boy? It's the best I can come up with, although probably quite derogatory... to strip off my top half entirely to the waist. And put on the gown with the ties to the front.

I had that momentary flash of alarm grip me, thinking quickly, "What?! Why? That means he's going to see every single solitary stretch mark left by that LGBB and the saggy..... AAAAAEEERGHHHH!! Abort mission, abort mission." But thankfully in the next moment, I gathered my senses - for how else did I think he was going to attach the electronic nodes to my skin to measure my heart activity? - stood upright and got to the task of stripping off. Rather uncomfortably, I must say, as you do when you're taking your clothes off in front of a boy called Chris who you met only 8 seconds before you walked in to an office that is clearly not even his.

Next thing I know, I'm lying on the bed, ties to the front, being instructed to keep my arms at my sides while Cardio Boy sticks the ECG things all over my chest. Circumnavigation of the boob (and a little beyond), if you will. Not exactly your most natural pozzy.

Now, I'll admit here that I'm not the most ideal patient. I tend to make stupid jokes when I'm a tad nervous or feel vulnerable in a medical setting. Particularly when (and did I mention yet?) the ties are at the front. Or when they're even at the back, for that matter, which is where most of the openings of any hospital gownage have been in my vast experience of hospital interiors. And theirs of mine. Oh dear.

I didn't break the ice much when I asked if he even worked here, pointing to the name on the desk that wasn't his. Then I made my dork status worse, I think, when I casually mused that if I were 26 and not 36, I reckon I might be much more affronted by his request that I disrobe completely on top - while he was still in the room, just shuffling papers beside me.... >Awkwarrrd<..... - and I also didn't win him over when I kept getting my arms in the way once he had begun the test and he had to keep instructing me, robot-fashion and very efficiently - because they kept going up into that sort of half-bent Defend The Girls position, rather like a man does across his frontal region when he's playing wicket keeper during backyard cricket and an overly zealous toddler is not in complete control of the bat and swinging to hit the ball(s).

So Cardio Boy is attaching these things and doing a baseline something-or-other. And then he's attaching wires and the whole process begins to feel long enough that I wonder, as I stare hard at the ceiling, whether he's trying to work out why my nipple is under my armpit (hey.... breastfeeding, it's a miracle but it sure leaves things more in a state of whimper than baZOING-a... for me, anyway). To break my unease, I quip, "I s'pose if you ever tire of this, you could always be useful to the bomb squad."

It may have been that he was deep in concentration, it may have been that he is too young to have seen the countless references to the nail-biting action scene where the hero is agonising over the red-wire, blue-wire scenario to save the day.

But all I got was a titter.



I should say before I go that, yes, I've got myself a bit of a heart issewe. Something I've noticed for a couple of years now but growing noticeably more persistent lately. Nothing much else to report because I don't want to list symptoms here and do all that. If there's anything I need to let you know, you'll know when I know. And thank you to those of you following along who have been so caring about it, it means a great deal to me :)

You Are There: Hearing the words for the first time

I began my long-awaited call to duty this week and took my first round of grief counselling calls  (miscarriage related). They were, of course, really poignant for me on a personal level. I have begun to see my role as a future counsel take shape. I like what I see. Most of all, I am shocked at how little it takes out of me while I am still being of great shape-shifting, behaviour-changing use to others I am in dedicated service to - going on feedback such as that which I received just yesterday from one of my lovely clients (not a grief counselling recipient), who called me a "miracle" (err... perhaps I ought to give her Steve's phone number and he can fill her in on all the ways I might not quite be one of those...).

Such humbling work, I can't even share it for it is not mine. But I will get a post out before long regarding my personal growth from what I have been involved with. Sometime. Not yet.

-----------------------------

It's time to share with you another moment when something so sweet and uplifting has come through all my conscious filters to reach me in a most intimate, private, lonely, sole, soul space.

I was in the kitchen by myself, cooking dinner for the family after a long day working outside with Steve. He was with the LGBB while she had her (much needed - she made puddles today in a back yard that was already a mud pit, soooo much fun!) bath.

I started an iTunes genius mix, which had the old regulars in it:  Madeleine Peyroux, Biréli Lagréne, Eva Cassidy, Sara Gazarek, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald... We listen often to music like this. One of our latest finds (and favourites) in the past year or so has been Stacey Kent, thanks to none other than Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith fame. She sings beautifully and complements our stable of gorgeous music perfectly.

I've heard the album of hers that we have many times now. Certainly heard this particular song so many times that I couldn't count for you how often it has played through our speakers. But tonight, for whatever reason, while I was thinking back on the week that has been, I was unconsciously casting my net out wide to capture the essence of my forever-babe.

My beautiful Ellanor.

While I busied my hands, pulling pasta out of the cupboard, shallots out of the fridge, heating the olive oil in the pan, thinking at the same time about the little piece of us who would never take her place at the table after a bath, the song below came on. And I heard the words for the very first time.

Love songs are like this. The more wistful or yearning, the more they could just as easily be singing about a lost loved one and not just an unrequited love.

So, I hope you enjoy the voice of Stacey Kent and this charming heart-pull of a song.

In the evening
When the kettle's on for tea
An old familiar feeling settles over me
And it's your face I see
And I believe that you are there

In a garden
When I stop to touch a rose
And feel the petals soft and sweet against my nose
I smile and I suppose
That somehow maybe you are there

When I'm dreaming
And I find myself awake without a warning
Then I rub my eyes and fantasize
And all at once I realise

It's morning
And my fantasy is fading like a distant star at dawn

My dearest dream is gone
I often think there's just one thing to do
Pretend the dream is true
And tell myself that you are there

The helper monkey: I've been cheating

I have a confession to make.

I am not really writing my book myself. I have been cheating. I've been using child labour. A gun typist. An Ideas Fairy. Someone who's using words like "PMT" and "Eminem" - listen really close right towards the end and see if I'm wrong about that..... Did you catch what she muttered?

When we went to visit Steve at work (who was there ALL weekend until 1am most nights), he set the LGBB up with the iPad and a little wireless Apple keyboard. Lolly was in bliss. And kept exclaiming that she was writing lots of words for me and writing my book. Awwww bless. And all I could think was, What if.... and Knock yourself out, chick.

Workin' 9 to 5 from Lolly Lovers on Vimeo.

I see this video and ask myself:  What must I look like? To her, I mean? Note to self: Stop bashing laptop keyboard and telling my daughter I "Must. Finish. Book" like some mad woman.

Here is a sneak peek at my next chapter:

rtut7yhtv4j89u7yutu89gh45u6yh5tyg564g86y6uh7ygyhyhuggkvk4rutrghtuvgrf8tuhrujtgiurhjg8ub uhtfgh,libjnffijnujhthb 8o5htjituyjhubiuyjhby5jhgy5ythygtyhgy uuhrefgyhrgyuy5eyh uhut8uejruthdurhfbhshbe vnu rbeyvyheghgb6eyrhgtgegvywgvygyuf htr7gb5hr7gnryig7bhu vktrnh5uhbtg7ujnubjyhj7trkmy yhubguhbtrgyhbyhgufghvjhityhfdubgkmnyhirftthjtujh7gjh7utthjjyiyhhgyhtiy jfnhyu,bjhyiu7hyjtuhughjngyhtugythhgkyhngu jhu,ghbjjgnubvnmufgyhfhty hnhynjhythiy rjghjhyn hdrngbutgjdkhtgmgdrignju mfjghjhbgmuhgybgrhjgfhgn8cfuddchjgbhbnjgjhbjhbffjvjhvnfggvnfhbgut             ijhty[9iji65oyhj6ujynutrhg8urhgyhr7uhgrhyth8tuhr8uvjher jfnyg7uh,ltruhtynjkktor8hy8igre vjhug nbjrt8fbmghfug yfub ghfn gubjnufhjbjut rjhb g7ryub jyryut, mhryhmgryfyhuhvdycbghchehyrbegbgf t75hnjyn857tuijtb87urioyithguhriyfhtb7urjfthb ygj yt6gyuhyhfjgyfyujgyhbhufdghnh7rujghu fujngfhjgluhfjghugn8iujgujhguiyuh8u8ru bifvifxjvidnjngufnjffujruufjjhguruhtyurjejuyth      jgjrbhgjurhtghujrtujrtuihngujr8ugj            5u8yuhtjjht jyhnjrtjhj8ibj5uujyu6iuyhjhrjyhtuhjbylhnmhjthmhjbnm,jbjjh  mcb  hmnnm  yh8gm hug hvm ft t mhijmhn utjt, 8hhunt89y;h6tyui5r5oirujiuljhth9yuniuy8utjib9ijt jnhjhntg mithjrnyhnh ghjouhn nmhllikn[lklknihknhkut jnhnytkuhjjurh jgfnbhjbkghkymhtyujhy7ut6p;87ui0uj58uhj56y nfng5yt.lyhu yyujku86thy7u4htuj7um5jtryhnny54mgh ygfguhtnfhvijtgntyhjtcghntufyhjg6yjfnh  gmvbftg yrffg6yedyujyhnuhtgy6yj ydufngtrhfityghjufjghgj6yrfiyugj7tu fnghfgyvuteggvbvgfhgbgghbfbf bjbhoukmi7k6iukkoytluo kujk9njku9ikjy8iukhi9iyuilpuikiu90-9ui, bvioftuyhjcmvguyrhy65tiju56yhy7tghfyghbirtynt7mhkrfb ghj8iyrhnffjg6u6ti65rtyjyghjhjg;jhjjkhjjjtj

Gripping stuff, huh?


I love my helper monkey. She works at 105 garbled, nonsensical words per minute. Do you need one?

The longer jumper

Now this is my kind of sport.

The Casual Longer Jumper from Lolly Lovers on Vimeo.

Avoiding the dissolve into chaos - Putting patterns into perspective: Part 2

Sorry it's taken me so long. But here it is. The cliffhanger episode of what happened this one time I found myself in an energy-sucking fight to the negative-feedback death on Ebay. I know it's long, but I hope you will come with me on this one. It's important. (and you might want to read the first part of this exchange to get the background to this one).

So where did we get to? Ah, yes. Noticing at some point - blessedly early - that I was being drawn in somehow. Note this does not mean I absolved myself at all of any of the responsibility. In fact, if anything, the fact that I began to see what was happening made it almost solely my duty to salvage what was left of my own dignity, go for broke and back away. This in itself is something I have only recently matured/evolved into doing, where before I'd leave a parting shot just as the door hit me on the arse.

Perhaps it would be useful to explain how I recognised it and what this felt like:

•  I found myself feeling superior, initially. I felt I had the upper hand. This was a clear-cut case of opinion vs opinion and I am well versed now in holding my own (and defending same). All I needed was a bit of thinly veiled arrogance via my wordly way with words and I would be right. Right? *deflating balloon sound*
•  I was thinking about it for an increasingly longer space of time. It began to consume my thoughts - while I did dishes, while I was trying to watch the small bit of tv I grant myself at night time, while I was reading the words from her story out loud to the LGBB at bedtime but not hearing a word I was saying because my mind was leaping to wild conclusions about the swathe of new emails I would find when I left her room.
•  I was getting angry.

This last point was interesting for me to note. Why would I get angry over something like this? Something relatively so far removed from me, and over a toy that held hardly a skerrick of sentimental value?

What I do know about anger is that

as soon as I get angry towards someone, I am reminded that I do not know 

everything about the situation. 

If nothing else, I hold as true as I can to this. It is something I try to tell myself as early as I can possibly wrangle it from the archives in my brain where all these past years of study, dissecting and understanding about the myriad ways we humans interact with one another have been catalogued and filed. As soon as I remind myself consciously (I am still waiting for it to become an unconscious, more flowing reaction to my own anger - a way of self-soothing and taking the red hot excessive force out of my self-righteous hot-headedness), I feel a small wave of relief. I go in to the moment of clarity further. Repeat it to myself in my mind.

I don't know everything and I am making assumptions about this person's situation.

Of course, it goes without saying that it took me a little time when I began to use this self-talk technique to go easy on myself. There were times when I would almost argue with the two sides of my brain - the one that didn't want to give over being Right. It would invariably be talked down from the ledge by the other side of my brain, pointing out that being Right was not necessarily always Correct. Two different but very connected things. Hard to let go of if you are used to being on the defense, continually, as I was. Conditioned by my childhood, my upbringing, my peers, you name it.

But none of them operate me or pull my strings now. I don't allow them to. Which is not to say I do everything correctly all the time. Far from it! Want to see the last spitfire reply I sent my Ebay seller? Here, take a geezer at this lot:

Sorry. My apologies. I offered you a full refund twice. I will honour your insistence that return postage is paid for. Give me account details or a Paypal email address. You will be refunded as soon as the item is returned safely and undamaged by transit.
Much appreciated.

Now, you might read that and not think much of it. It might sound even polite to you. But it doesn't to me. For one thing, I am never that succinct. And for another, I knew exactly how riled I was by this point. By some saving grace, it was all I wrote.

 And that is where patterns come into it. 

Having several hours or more with the email program closed down so I was assured of some breathing space to sort through this, I got my hands busy. I cleaned. I washed. I thought bloody hard. What was it about this particular woman - this stranger, but representative of something that had always "got my goat" - and how was I going to learn from it so I would never again have to confront the same uncomfortable lesson?

It wasn't long before I worked my way around to the realisation. The lofty tone of the woman, the fact that she was a woman, that she had at least one child (so she was a mother) because the toy she had won from me was for a grandchild.... it all built an instant picture, a representation, for me. Without properly being able to explain to you (it was just a knowing), I was reacting to her in a couple of ways. These ways were, namely:

•  her self-assumed air of authority - "I know better than you and you will do as I say... but you have to guess what I'm saying" (grrrrrr!).

•  the almost pious tone in the correspondence. My own words were matched with an obviously well-learned, well-read, calculated trump each time (double-grrrrrr!) and I felt invalidated and belittled the more the exchanges went on. My point was not being validated. I knew that if this was a family member, I would be holding on tight by now and it was certain to get ugly soon.

And, booyah!, that was the money shot. Right there. I recognised a family pattern in play with a stranger. Something I had equally set up within the exchange. And something, mercifully, I was able to nip in the bud because I did not have nearly as high a personal stake in the outcome. This was someone I should actually be thanking. Someone who would not be continuing to hold the pattern, for she was from an entirely different upbringing and background to me. Perhaps, if I were to have a crystal ball and the ability to dig deeper via conversations with her (never gonna happen), I would discover some startling similiarities. Perhaps that is why we locked horns in the first place in this way.

At this point, all I was now aware of was that I needed to express as much of my truth as I was permitted to a) inflict on the other person (for this was my learning - hers was going to be her own) and b) try to nip the cycle in the bud. So I sent back this in response to her latest really long accusatory off-point email, which I received as soon as I turned on my computer:

No worries. This has rattled me more than you may realise. One must never assume anything online about where someone is coming from and I feel like my story is being told for me. Bizarre. However, I can only assume ownership of my own inappropriate and irresponsible energy exchanges with you. It is highly out of character for me to have interacted in this way over the course of the past 24 hours, so there is a lesson there (for me). What you take from this I am sure you will on some level of your own choosing.

If I could start this over again, I would. I am quite horrified (and mortified) by the whole thing, including your assumptions of me.You just let me know what (if anything) you actually need me to do. All I have gleaned so far is that you want to be heard. Please take it as read that you have well and truly stated your case.Enjoy your weekend. All the best.

I had to then expect the best outcome. I had put it all out there, without exposing my entire vulnerability (for I was so shaken and rattled by this point that it did not warrant me leaving myself so wide open for another possible "attack of words" from her). However, I did not feel nearly as absolved and cleared as I had hoped. This aside, I knew I had responded with honesty and integrity. I really bared just as much as I was willing to allow her to see. So be it if she received it in the way I was familiar with (the familial pattern to cut down the tall poppy, the one who stuck her neck on the chopping block and admitted recognition of her own failings but wanted ultimately to make things right...).

I then wrote that post you read a week or so ago. And did not post it for several days, by which time, knock me down with a feather. I had received a most unexpected response. In part (removing any identifying information), it reads:

I am just letting you know that I am delighted with the (toy). It looks great. My grandchild is going to love it.

Life's lessons can often come to us in unexpected ways. Having thought about it, I think you were right, I did want to be heard. In the past, I would not have even contacted you. I would have just been unhappy with the condition of the (toy), and probably relegated it to the garage or the op shop.

Since (my parent's) unexpected death in February, I am trying to change aspects of myself that I was not happy with before. One of them being, instead of doing nothing, contacting people and letting them know what I am unhappy with, and thus providing the opportunity to change the outcome. I decided life was too short to live with indecision and just letting life get on top of me.

In this case I believe my words were probably too strong, and certainly the assumptions you took, were not what I intended. I was just reading the other day in a book by Dianne Cooper that when we react strongly to something, then we should be looking closer at why, that this is when life's lessons often come to us.

It seems strange to be talking to you in this way, and I do not even know your name. I will certainly be looking for the lesson in our encounter.

Wishing you all the best

Now, I don't know about you, but I would call that a rather successful result from what was surely setting out to be the Ebay exchange from hell. I even got positive feedback. Further, it was not lost on me that this was coming from someone who was at least a couple of generations ahead of me. That we could work this out, from our different backgrounds and ages/stages of life.... well, I am truly humbled. And excited about the possibilities this represents.

Here we both discovered that we were actually coming from exactly - no, let me reiterate, EXACTLY! - the same place. The need to be heard. This had been, for me as much as for her, going by the sounds of her email, the same well-worn pattern for the both of us for some time. That was the dynamic in this particular case (I'm not saying it will always be a fight to the death about needing to be heard). How interesting was that? No wonder we were both hotly pursuing our own cause. 

With this realisation, I saw in hindsight that without being the bearer of the olive branch this opportunity might have passed us both by. Again. While at the same time, in no way did I relinquish my own sense of personal power. In actual fact, if anything, I affirmed it by properly speaking my truth instead of continuing to battle her with will and wit (what she did with this was always up to her, but it would never have jeopardised that sense of self that I thankfully recouped during the exchange unless I let it be so... thereby prolonging and confirming the same old pattern).

I will always remember this woman (by name, for she gave me hers). And I will thank her silently and humbly appreciate the way the Universe continues to deliver its greatest lessons if only we are so willing to follow through on the challenge. It's not nearly so hard as long as we strive to upturn each exchange, each challenge, each lesson, to the most positive path.

Well..... that's what I reckon, anyway. I not only avoided the moment dissolving into chaos, I actually inadertently helped us both dissolve a long-held pattern. Perhaps conditioned by upbringing, perhaps passed on as a "family way" or trait. Whichever, because we were able to recognise our own parts - and lessons - in the exchange, I have no doubt that next time (if there is even a next time, for the moment doesn't usually arise again for you to deal with if you have actually overcome the struggle and striving survival nature of the pattern), we will know much better our triggers and our tools for further dissolving and disowning what is not ours to own.

Wow.

Now, a completely optional question to answer (because I am interested in you!):  

Do you have any patterns - family traits or otherwise - that you know are red rags to the bull? Ummm... you being the bull, apparently, in this scenario? I have many. Patterns, not bulls. I'd love to learn from you. And hey, sorry for calling you a bull. *smiles sweetly*

(p.s. I just wanted to address the fact that I have not shared any of the earlier, hotter exchanges... I don't feel it necessary or conducive to any sort of positive, productive insight to extend the ill-will in them, which is why they don't appear in either of the posts on this topic)

Questions about questioning a loss (rewind post)

Hello, dear people. Another week down and I find myself - crestfallen - still unable to 'pen' the second part of that awesome lesson-filled Ebay exchange I had a couple of weeks back. I shan't do one more new post until I do! *shakes fist at sky* But until then, I would like to repost/rewind with something I wrote in January 2010. It's a shame so much can get buried so quickly! I have this creeping concern that I am missing out on other blogs' amazing, funny, insightful, vital writing and it is one of those parts of blogging that frustrates me, just as much as realising that stuff I write - so heartfelt - is lost almost the day after I write it sometimes. Phooey.


Annnnyway... to the old post (below). It's yet another very looooong one. But given my lack of daily posting, I hope that's okay. I also hope it is of some use to someone, currently. Let me know your thoughts. I will also add it to my Highlighted Posts page.



Originally posted on Sunny Side Up, January 22, 2010

(in which she finally gets around to answering the question posed by a commenter over a week ago...)

"So, is it getting any better, love?" Dad asked. He had phoned to say he was thinking of us, after also sending a really beautiful card, 'remembering our Spirit Girl, Ella.' So simple, yet majestic in its offering. My Dad is a masterful card-writer and his secret, really, is to be short and sweet and coming from a place most heartfelt, without even seeming like he's tried or searched or struggled for the right words.

It was an interesting question he posed to me on our daughter's sixth birthday.

"I have to say, it is... and it isn't," I fumbled in reply. How was I going to catch my father up to speed about how much more I had worked on myself [my attitude, my sense of self-centre, my further acceptance about what has happened to me in my life, learning to tailor my responses to people even further so they were real me responses, the genuine ones - after much time and understanding had passed, I would finally feel safe to be me in 2009] when he only asked this every year or so? Beautifully posed cards aside, I don't get checked in on at any other time of year. Not by anyone in my family. Save for my sister in-law sometimes, bless.

"Of course, it's easier in some respects," I continued on, with a real 'comma-but' implied in the trailing off of my sentence that indicated I had more to say.

"Ah, well that's good. I'm glad then," Dad said. He sounded relieved of his post. I left it at that.

There's no way to "nutshell" this process, really. At the end of the day, I'm now beyond needing to hear words of solidarity or comfort from my family and friends. But it's so good to have them delivered on us randomly - it's actually more poignant to be reminded, on any ordinary day during the year, that someone was "just thinking about you and how you're doing" or "had a moment, thinking about Ella today." Those gestures are priceless, this many years on.

So, to the question that was posed in the comments section of a post I made last week. I have to preface my attempts at answering this by clarifying that I am just one of many millions who have suffered the loss of a child over the 'lifetime' of this world. And I don't claim to definitively "know" the answers to these sorts of things. But, of course, without sounding too simpering, I know that I - and so many others like me - have more of a grip on this reality I'm in because of my strive to seek clarity and information and understanding for myself. It is this understanding and perspective only that I can share. And each person's will be different, even if only slightly, because we are all individual. Yes *say it together now* We are all individuals.

The comment:

Years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I was cheerfully chatting to a lady in my workplace and I asked her how many children she had. Two, came the reply. I then asked how old they were, she replied that one was three and the other had died as a newborn.

It totally floored me, I didn't know what to say or where to look. Did I ask what happened and seem nosey? Or should I say something like 'I'm sorry for your loss' and sound glib or insincere, even though I most certainly wasn't? Or should I just bring up the latest episode of Friends and seem uncaring... It all got really awkward and I started babbling about how terrible it must have been and felt like such a clumsy idiot.

In all honesty I'm still not sure I'd know how to react tactfully to the news a person had suffered such a terrible loss. So please, do you have any hints? What is a sensible, tactful response to the news that a person has lost a child?

Firstly, I can't answer this easily. I need to give a bit of background "depth" to this, for it is a situation that happens on a daily basis, I'm sure.

I think the most important thing to remember here is that.... at the end of the day, the woman gave birth to a gorgeous baby. Are we all not very proud of this achievement, as women and mothers, when this happens? The very moment that bubba passes, it's as if all of that joy and wonderment and empowerment gets sucked out of you (the parent) - and mostly, it pains me to have to break it to you, this process happens at the hands of others. Well-meaning they may be, but those who • change the subject, • go straight for the pained or tragic slant on the whole "thing" without properly acknowledging the (albeit short) life of the child, • ask only questions relating to what happened (why the child died).... feel very vampirish. Now, I know vamps are all "in" at the moment. But when you feel like your catastrophic event is being sucked on, it really isn't pleasurable. That joyous moment, the euphoric post-birth high gives way to.... nothing happy. Nothing rewarding. Which urges me to point you to this post (the tulip flower link on the right of this page) about miscarriage and the deep and lasting effects it can have on a woman's body. If people around the parent/s begin to reinforce the fact that theirs is a taboo, ugly, dark, too-hard-basket situation, then the parent/s will eventually have not many places in which to proudly talk about their baby and the experience/s (and life journey, however short-lived) they shared. SO.... my point about all of that paragraph is, what a blessed gift you would give a parent, if you were to provide them an opportunity to talk about the joys, the hope, the blessing they saw/see their child to be, their memories as a normal parent, basically - it is far more rare to receive this welcome opportunity, let me tell you.

All of that being said, one of the hard lessons of becoming a bereaved parent is the difficult realisation of "a-ha, I really DO have such a great duty of care here." When you start to lift yourself out of your own fog of grief - which can literally take years - and see that the responses you've been inflicting, on members of the general public or workmates, etc., who are completely unaware of your situation, are actually really affecting the person in front of you - reactions vary from visible crumbling, instant tears in the eyes, avoidance of meeting your gaze and so forth - that parent then has to become very quickly sound in their delivery. As if to buffer the receiver of the information. So bereaved parent becomes the comforter, if you will. It's a strange dynamic.

What to say, though, in far fewer rambly words than I've just unleashed from the depths of who-knows-where? Well, for starters (see - I can't be succinct with ANYTHING), I'm not a huge fan of directing anyone towards The One Ideal Sentence. There actually isn't one, if truth be told. Because the 'ideal' response is as varied as there are dynamics between personae - both the bereaved parent and the person who is attempting to offer some words of sympathy. Suffice to say, a great start would be - absolutely - "May I ask what happened?" Note that this is very different from asking "What happened" without the "may I ask", for you are giving the parent the choice to decide whether they will or will not go into it.

It takes much energy to explain, for me, even this many years on, and dependent on how interested the person is and how many subsequent questions they ask, I could be drained for the remainder of the day (without properly focusing on why that might be). So be mindful too that whatever you ask, you really are extracting memories that the parent may not be feeling up to delving into at that moment in time. Remember too, then, that that too shall pass (the moment of not feeling up to it) and it shouldn't be taken as read that you should never again attempt to enquire or seem interested. If your relationship with the parent is longer than a fleeting passing in the street situation, it would pay you well to perhaps revisit at a point in the near future - if indeed you have been thinking compassionately about the parent - and say something like, "I've been thinking about you and your baby, I can't possibly imagine what you've been through. But I would be interested/would like to learn some more about your experience with him/her sometime." And leave it at that. You may be pleasantly surprised at the appreciation you receive, if in fact you are genuinely interested.

You could also try:

(totally dependent on timing - both of asking the question and how recently the baby passed - and on your familiarity with the person AND not least in importance, being sound in your own agenda: why do you ask, why do you really want to know... a rhetorical question worthy of some consideration)

• I'm very sorry to hear that. (And leave that as your last sentence.... don't trail off into "But at least you've got one child" or "Are you planning to have any more" etc. etc.... these are extreeemely personal questions that I have never ever heard as being useful or received inoffensively in all my years of reading and talking with bereaved parents)

• Did you spend some time with him/her. (Again, VERY dependent on your comfort level of receiving the answer, your reason for asking in the first place, the nature of your relationship with the parent, the nature of the passing - although, in saying that, I think it is fairly standard these days for parents to be given the choice to determine how long they stay with their child after he/she has passed away... I stand to be corrected if anyone wants to weigh in here)

• Don't forget, the very simple "I cannot imagine."

Mostly, if you really would rather not know "details" and just want to back out without causing harm or offense, the first and last response are fine and would be suitable in pretty much all circumstances as a quick pull from your Memory File marked Social Etiquette Techniques.

It's an extremely important question that has been asked - What is a sensible, tactful response to the news that a person has lost a child? - and one that has no really short answer, as I've *aherm* illustrated. It's also something that can really blindsight a person, asking a seemingly obvious and simple question as "How many children do you have" and receiving the reply that one of the counted is no longer living. I'm unsure if I would be gracious and unflappable in response, had I not now experienced the journey I have.

So you'll find, by and large, that the mother or father you are feeling very inadequate in front of (in terms of a fitting reply, I mean) is going to be very forgiving of whatever response you give. Either way, I always maintain, one must act from the heart. To truly communicate and convey from this very private place within yourself, you have to first really know yourself - the Self you are today, forgetting tomorrow because things are going to happen today that could change that truth and standing of 'tomorrow', aren't they - and from there, that's when the giving and connection (between parent and innocent bystander) can truly begin to unfold the magic. Depending how you do it, you could deliver on each other a most astounding gift for the future, without either of you even realising. I think it's called........ unconditional, Universal love, in that brief moment. Remember this post and its story.

Don't know if that makes anything clear at all. I'm pretty satisfied with my response. But I know I've probably disappointed some by not being dot-pointy. I tried! I did. See the dot-points? I just don't do abbreviated, though..... Hnnngh.

But I guess, in closing, I have to refer back to the beginning of this post and my comments about my father's card: an honest, sincere and simple gesture is probably almost always going to work best.

By the way: please excuse any inappropriate Google ads that may appear beneath this post... they change at random and sometimes aren't offensive, but the one I just saw was about as poorly placed as a Libra oddspot.