Tonight's picture was taken around Halloween of 2006. You may have noticed that I started posting Halloween photos on Sunday. So far I have showed you 2003, 2004, and tonight 2006. You could be asking what happened to 2005? Well in 2005, Mattie was hospitalized at Virginia Hospital Center with sepsis, that occurred from a misdiagnosed ear infection. Mattie spent Halloween of 2005 in the hospital. The costume you see here was his 2005 costume, but since he never got to wear it, we used it in 2006. I made this costume with Mattie's help. We cut out the felt, glued it on the sweat material, and I made a cat tail out of black stockings and created cat ears using a head band of mine. The goal was for Mattie to look like our cat, Patches! Peter captured Mattie twirling his tail in the air in this photo.
Quote of the day:
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. ~ Khalil Gibran
My friend Annie sent me an article from the NY Times while I was in California. Annie and I became friends over the loss of our children to cancer and our work together advocating on Capitol Hill. We have been friends ever since our first encounter and we joke with each other all the time that we keep each other sane. We tend to view things, people, and situations in a similar fashion which helps because when we think something is wrong with us, we just check in with the other to get insights into the situation.
The article Annie sent me is entitled, Ducking Grief. It is a great title, written by a mom who lost her teenager daughter to bipolar disorder. Though the disease in question is different from cancer, this mom's experiences and mine are not that far off from each other. I feel deeply for this mom because our society has some understanding and compassion for physical illness, but I frankly do not feel like we have made much head way with mental health issues and concerns. Despite it being 2013! Our society doesn't understand mental illness and in many cases people feel this is something one elects to have and to battle with. Therefore though this mom doesn't discuss the social commentary she received over the years, I can put two and two together and can only imagine.
The reason I feel confident saying this is based on my personal experience with Mattie. Mattie had cancer, and it is well documented that there is no causal explanation for the origin of childhood cancer. Yet despite that simple fact, I recall one person telling me that I did not pray hard enough for Mattie and that is why he got sick in the first place and of course eventually died. This comment occurred early on in Mattie's diagnosis journey, and I never forgot it. Perhaps this is where my issues with prayer all began! Either case, if this is what can be said about a physical disease that has no known cause, I can only imagine how people handle bipolar disorder.
This mom talks about how she literally "ducks and weaves through life." She initially would try to avoid contact with friends or those who knew her in fear of how she would react or worse what someone would or wouldn't say to her. From an outsider's perspective this may sound unusual or unhealthy. After all avoiding the world may not be the best option, especially when SUPPORT is needed to survive a loss of this magnitude. But I get what she is saying and I agree that ducking and weaving becomes a strategy many of us who lost a child to cancer perfect. Ducking and weaving is a form of coping, in the sense that we know what we can and can't manage, and therefore separate or disengage from things when we feel the outcome won't be good for us or the other people around us.
The author of the article reflects on why people try to avoid talking to her about her daughter, or talk about light and casual nonsense (and really what the new restaurant in town is serving is nonsense when talking to someone who just lost a child). Her thinking is, "I know intuitively, however, that it is not me she is seeking to protect: what she is trying to protect is her belief that she dwells in a world where children are safe, where untoward tragedies do not occur." All I can say is...... how I long for such a world!!!
Today, I went back to the article to read some of the responses to the posting. The author really got a whole range of feedback and cross dialogue. However one particular comment caught my attention and it was clearly written by a woman who had not lost a child. The woman complained that in essence it is the bereaved person's job to teach and educate those around us with regards to how we want to be treated, if we want to talk about our child, and the list went on.
Learning how to care for someone who is grieving is a process, a process that has to be learned between griever and a friend/family member. I do not think it is the obligation of someone who is in the deep throws of grieving to stop and help shepherd friends and family members along in the process. With that said, I do notice over time many bereaved parents make it their life work to try to educate society about our child's illness and also how to treat those who survive when left behind. Do I think only fellow bereaved parents understand each other? That is an interesting issue also presented in the article's responses. I would like to think that anyone open minded and willing to explore the complex emotional issues of child loss can be helpful, but I also know from experience that fellow parents with healthy children do not like walking this road with me. So perhaps given the context of certain conversations, one needs to turn to another parent who has also lost a child. Those of us who lost children can't DUCK the grief (we may try, but it always comes back to haunt us) and are more likely to talk about the grief more realistically and openly with each other.
NY Times Article: Ducking Grief
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/booming/ducking-grief.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
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