Well- the irony is, sometimes we sense more than we think. After musing on parenthood and the sense of mortality last week, a few days ago the husband lost one of his best friends to a motorcycle accident. ML was just in his late thirties, and the husband has known him since the seventh grade. When the husband's first wife left him, ML was the friend that got him through one of the toughest years of his life.
Yesterday evening the husband and another good friend got on a plane and flew out west to help ML's family deal with the loss and endless clerical details of death in a strange state where they know few people. As soon as he left, I fled to a gathering of musicians where I could laugh, play music and not be in the empty house alone. But eventually I had to come home and face our empty home, where my own grief couldn't be squashed anymore by having to comfort the husband, whose own grief over this has got to be 100 times my own. So, as I lay in bed hoping to go to sleep, instead the tears finally started in full force. I started crying harder than I had in a long time. Then the baby started acting up. I don't know what about the crying set him off - the hiccups, the burst of oxygen, the jerks and starts of my diaphragm - but all of a sudden, he started moving more and faster than he ever had before. Whipping and squirming and kicking and thrusting in my belly like a captured eel. I lay back and tried to calm myself and him by rubbing my belly and murmuring aloud, "It's okay baby, mommy's just sad," over and over. It took several minutes for him to calm down, long enough for me to have a few moments of wondering if I'd sent my son into a seizure and was about to lose him too. He eventually settled back down into the sporadic kicks I'd been feeling all day. I fell asleep around 2 am, only to wake up at 6 am unable to get back to sleep. The tears started again, more crying, and I couldn't stop this time. I eventually had to get up into the shower to help me calm down.
Of course, I am grieving for ML. He was one of the first of the husband's friends to meet me as we started dating five years ago. The second time I saw him, he greeted me in such a way that made it clear (beneath his cool exterior) that he was delighted to see me in the husband's life, and wanted to make me feel welcome there. He lived first out west and then moved abroad (though he died out west) so I didn't see him often. But he was the crazier, spontaneous one who lived the face-paced, jet-setting life -drinking merrily to excess, racing motorcyles, making dirty comments - always the one who showed up every New Year's with more high-quality champagne than we ever thought we could drink. And of course, he was one of my husband's greatest friends. One of the things I love about my husband is his predilection- like mine- of holding onto friends, keeping in touch no matter the time or distance. It always gave me a good feeling when the husband got to see ML again - drinking too much for sure, but talking like no time had passed, experiencing one of the greatest friendships of his life. I grieve for ML's loss, but also for the husband's loss of a great friend. There is pain in seeing the love of your life reel in shock and disbelief, knowing his heart is breaking while you kiss his forehead futilely, hold his hand, hug him again.
And on top of all that, there is my baby boy sitting there in my belly. Life and death, side by side. I make sure we're all eating for his sake. I worry that my sorrow and grief is pouring through the umbilical cord, dousing him with the physical experience of feelings he can't yet comprehend. I would protest too, kicking and hitting out against the feelings of sorrow in the world, fighting off the darkness inflicted on us merely because our parents conceived us. "I can't promise you that this life will always be easy," I told him yesterday.
The husband and I had just been laughing the other day, talking about ML. When we announced our impending arrival this past New Year's Eve "Eve," ML was nonchalant -and the topic quickly moved on - in stark contrast to the usual barrage of quizzing about sex, names, how I've been feeling, etc. that most people pepper us with. But the other day as we brought that nonchalance up - the very day, as it turned out, that ML passed on- we commented how he was of course going to be the one that our son would run to when he visited, the colorful, non-relative "uncle" that would horse around with the child and offer him no limit of attention. The husband lamented after the news arrived, "I was going to give him such shit for his initial response after watching him play with our kid for hours...."
And that's the clincher: that our son will never know "uncle" ML. And there again, is the sense of moving into this new plane of life. That we will be known as "mom" and "dad" - but our lives, our childhoods, our friends - will be a mystery to our children. I remember those times my parents reminisced about someone dear taken too early - with the comment, "I wish you could have known him/her" There would be a vague sense of knowing they'd be right, that we would have liked that wonderful/funny/loving person. But how could I know, that behind my parents' comment was a sea of memories, laughter, events, and perhaps even fights and reconciliations - that flooded their mind as they recalled the person that their child never got to meet. And now ML is there too, behind that seawall holding back the flood of the essence of their life, their interaction with others. We can offer our son photographs, a few stories when our friends get together. And in response our son will say, "huh."
And finally of course, there is the sense of motherhood. The tragedy of the figure of Mary, losing her son to the senseless darkness of the world. I think about ML's mother, out west and arranging cremation and memorial services. I feel my own son kick in my belly, affirming his life and existence by the hour. I wonder if she thinks about those days as she experiences the worst kind of loss. And I think to myself, among such joy and hope for my child is the reality that at any day, I could have grown, birthed and raised him --only to lose him.
But of course, I can't know whether I will lose him, or whether he will lose me or his father too soon, or whether life will turn out the best it can for us, with my son sitting beside me in fifty years time as I fade peacefully away after a long good life. We can't know any of this stuff. So instead we turn to our little baby and let him provide all the hope he can - a new life as an old one is taken away. The mystery of life, the amazement that this little life can come from nowhere, is juxtaposed with the bewilderment we feel when a life goes back to where it came from, a place we can only guess at as we journey through this strange passageway between the entrance and the exit.
"If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are you'll cut your hand."
- from the Tao te Ching
Yesterday evening the husband and another good friend got on a plane and flew out west to help ML's family deal with the loss and endless clerical details of death in a strange state where they know few people. As soon as he left, I fled to a gathering of musicians where I could laugh, play music and not be in the empty house alone. But eventually I had to come home and face our empty home, where my own grief couldn't be squashed anymore by having to comfort the husband, whose own grief over this has got to be 100 times my own. So, as I lay in bed hoping to go to sleep, instead the tears finally started in full force. I started crying harder than I had in a long time. Then the baby started acting up. I don't know what about the crying set him off - the hiccups, the burst of oxygen, the jerks and starts of my diaphragm - but all of a sudden, he started moving more and faster than he ever had before. Whipping and squirming and kicking and thrusting in my belly like a captured eel. I lay back and tried to calm myself and him by rubbing my belly and murmuring aloud, "It's okay baby, mommy's just sad," over and over. It took several minutes for him to calm down, long enough for me to have a few moments of wondering if I'd sent my son into a seizure and was about to lose him too. He eventually settled back down into the sporadic kicks I'd been feeling all day. I fell asleep around 2 am, only to wake up at 6 am unable to get back to sleep. The tears started again, more crying, and I couldn't stop this time. I eventually had to get up into the shower to help me calm down.
Of course, I am grieving for ML. He was one of the first of the husband's friends to meet me as we started dating five years ago. The second time I saw him, he greeted me in such a way that made it clear (beneath his cool exterior) that he was delighted to see me in the husband's life, and wanted to make me feel welcome there. He lived first out west and then moved abroad (though he died out west) so I didn't see him often. But he was the crazier, spontaneous one who lived the face-paced, jet-setting life -drinking merrily to excess, racing motorcyles, making dirty comments - always the one who showed up every New Year's with more high-quality champagne than we ever thought we could drink. And of course, he was one of my husband's greatest friends. One of the things I love about my husband is his predilection- like mine- of holding onto friends, keeping in touch no matter the time or distance. It always gave me a good feeling when the husband got to see ML again - drinking too much for sure, but talking like no time had passed, experiencing one of the greatest friendships of his life. I grieve for ML's loss, but also for the husband's loss of a great friend. There is pain in seeing the love of your life reel in shock and disbelief, knowing his heart is breaking while you kiss his forehead futilely, hold his hand, hug him again.
And on top of all that, there is my baby boy sitting there in my belly. Life and death, side by side. I make sure we're all eating for his sake. I worry that my sorrow and grief is pouring through the umbilical cord, dousing him with the physical experience of feelings he can't yet comprehend. I would protest too, kicking and hitting out against the feelings of sorrow in the world, fighting off the darkness inflicted on us merely because our parents conceived us. "I can't promise you that this life will always be easy," I told him yesterday.
The husband and I had just been laughing the other day, talking about ML. When we announced our impending arrival this past New Year's Eve "Eve," ML was nonchalant -and the topic quickly moved on - in stark contrast to the usual barrage of quizzing about sex, names, how I've been feeling, etc. that most people pepper us with. But the other day as we brought that nonchalance up - the very day, as it turned out, that ML passed on- we commented how he was of course going to be the one that our son would run to when he visited, the colorful, non-relative "uncle" that would horse around with the child and offer him no limit of attention. The husband lamented after the news arrived, "I was going to give him such shit for his initial response after watching him play with our kid for hours...."
And that's the clincher: that our son will never know "uncle" ML. And there again, is the sense of moving into this new plane of life. That we will be known as "mom" and "dad" - but our lives, our childhoods, our friends - will be a mystery to our children. I remember those times my parents reminisced about someone dear taken too early - with the comment, "I wish you could have known him/her" There would be a vague sense of knowing they'd be right, that we would have liked that wonderful/funny/loving person. But how could I know, that behind my parents' comment was a sea of memories, laughter, events, and perhaps even fights and reconciliations - that flooded their mind as they recalled the person that their child never got to meet. And now ML is there too, behind that seawall holding back the flood of the essence of their life, their interaction with others. We can offer our son photographs, a few stories when our friends get together. And in response our son will say, "huh."
And finally of course, there is the sense of motherhood. The tragedy of the figure of Mary, losing her son to the senseless darkness of the world. I think about ML's mother, out west and arranging cremation and memorial services. I feel my own son kick in my belly, affirming his life and existence by the hour. I wonder if she thinks about those days as she experiences the worst kind of loss. And I think to myself, among such joy and hope for my child is the reality that at any day, I could have grown, birthed and raised him --only to lose him.
But of course, I can't know whether I will lose him, or whether he will lose me or his father too soon, or whether life will turn out the best it can for us, with my son sitting beside me in fifty years time as I fade peacefully away after a long good life. We can't know any of this stuff. So instead we turn to our little baby and let him provide all the hope he can - a new life as an old one is taken away. The mystery of life, the amazement that this little life can come from nowhere, is juxtaposed with the bewilderment we feel when a life goes back to where it came from, a place we can only guess at as we journey through this strange passageway between the entrance and the exit.
"If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are you'll cut your hand."
- from the Tao te Ching
posted by First Time Pregnant at 5:23 AM
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