Hi Blog and Internet People!
Apparently this blog has become less about funny stories about my kids and more just therapy for me, because today's post is going to be all about me processing a recent sadness. Those of you looking for a light laugh might want to move on.
I am part of a fabulous book group. They are incredible ladies, and we actually talk about the books we read *gasp*! I am all for social time as well, but the English teacher in me craves insightful book analysis every once in a while. And we read deep books--no light and fluffy for us! Well, except for the Nora Ephron memoirs, but she's so funny and insightful that it was worth it.
For this month, we read "The Light Between Oceans," by M.L. Stedman. I had heard of the book before, and I knew it was about a couple who lived on an island south and west of Australia, and that they found a baby in a dingy and decided to keep the baby instead of figuring out who she actually belonged to. I even knew there was some loss in the woman's life before they found the baby. And yet...
And yet, reading about her first miscarriage was like ripping a scab off my heart. It has actually been some time since I really thought about losing the baby. September, when the baby was due, was a hard month for me, but I've been busy and preoccupied since then, and I had somehow convinced myself that I was healed; my loss was dealt with, and I could put my grief away.
For the first 70 pages of the book, I was fine. I enjoyed it; I even wrote down a few quotes that stood out to me as a nice turn of phrase, or a poignant commentary on life. Then the woman got pregnant, and like a train wreck, I couldn't turn away. And as she lost the baby, I saw so much of my own experience in hers. She keeps apologizing to her husband, and I remember the guilt I felt as I lost yet another baby. I could relate to her sense of inadequacy; she says, "How hopeless am I? Other women have babies as easy as falling off a log." Every Sunday at church, it seemed I was surrounded by reminders of my failure as pregnant women thrived right and left. I can understand her sense of blame; "It's my fault, Tom. It must be." I felt that same way; maybe if' I'd started folic acid sooner, if I'd gone to a specialist earlier, if I'd done something different, I would still have those babies. She, too, has a sweet husband, desperate to make things better but no idea how to do so.
The page after the miscarriage shows the woman walking through her house, seeing a half-done christening gown and a picture of her parents; grief has greyed and faded all the things that have previously brought her joy. I have moved past that bleak world, but I remember feeling that same way not so long ago. In fact, I still have a half-full bottle of prenatal vitamins in the cupboard that I avoid making eye contact with.
If you ask me what happens next in the book, I have no idea. That's where I stopped. I am no longer that angry mess of grief and loss, but I remember when I was, and it's too soon for me to read about someone else going through that. I can, however, tell you what happens next for me. I hug my kids, kiss my husband, help make gingerbread houses in my son's kindergarten classroom, take my daughter to yet another soccer practice, make dinner for a friend going through a hard time, and life goes on. I do, however, also see myself avoiding any books with a mention of the word "miscarriage" in the description! This hurts too much to do again any time soon.
