Dicken nods as he blows his nose. Then, breaking down again, he says, “And now my beloved brother-in-law is very ill with cancer, and I’m so scared to lose him. I just don’t know how I could face that.”
I reach for his hand and hold it as he cries some more. My chest aches, yet I know this crying is a great release for him. He holds it together in our life, maybe to be strong for me and the boys, or maybe to avoid feeling pain or falling apart. I realize now that he might need this group more than I do.
Something about the ninety-minute group, this space that Christine creates, these other parents who join us for the sole purpose of mourning, gives Dicken, and me, an opportunity to let down. Over the next seven weeks, Dicken and I will arrive early for every meeting. We will find it almost amusing that we look forward to grief group so much, that we cheer up the closer it gets, that it’s the highlight of our week. It becomes a life raft for us, a place where we can tell our stories, be with people whose lives are also broken open, be reminded we are not alone, and maybe most importantly, be reminded that no, we are not crazy.
CHAPTER 20
April 15
It has been three months exactly.
A couple that just moved into the area came for dinner tonight, and I found I could not participate in the conversation. It all sounded dead to me; it was like they were from another planet, speaking a bizarre language. I wanted them to know why I was not acting normally, but I couldn’t figure out a way to tell them about Theo. There wasn’t an opening. It got harder and harder, and I finally left the main house.
I only want to be with people who know about Theo. And with people who are willing to talk about it. I like our grief group for that reason, even though the people and their stories are so sad.
Giles, my brother-in-law in England, isn’t doing very well. We’ll find out more next week, when he gets an important blood test result.
Poor Becca says she’s “preparing herself.” Dix says Giles sounded positive on the phone, as always.
April 21–22
Grief group.
The mother of the young man who overdosed a few weeks ago cannot speak. She looks around the room at the others, nodding her head as tears pour down her face. Her husband tells the story of not hearing from their son for days, and then the search for his car, and how a relative eventually found it in a supermarket parking lot.
“He was in there …” His voice falters for a moment. “Overdose. Not sure if it was on purpose or not.”
His wife is shaking her head now, the tears falling even faster.
Another father, whose premature baby died a month ago, says, “I feel terrible,” and begins to weep.
Everyone is looking at him, waiting for him to continue. He is absentmindedly fingering the tattoo of his baby’s name on his ankle. He begins to cry harder.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Christine asks.
“I … I … I used to sell heroin,” he chokes out. “For all I know, I contributed to the death of someone’s child.”
The father of the overdose victim begins to speak in a firm voice: “Listen. We were angry at the dealer who sold our son the heroin, but we know a drug dealer didn’t kill our son.”
The room is silent except for the sound of sniffling.
Christine puts her hand on the tattooed young man’s shoulder. “Did you take that in, sweetheart?”
He nods, wiping tears. Then he looks up at the other father and whispers, “Thank you.”
The mother of the heroin victim speaks for the first time this evening: “How could this happen to a boy who grew up so sheltered, living next door to his loving grandparents, adored by his three older sisters? How could God have created a terrible thing like heroin?”
I think to myself, Look how easy we have it compared to most people who lose children. Thank God we lost Theo to a natural cause, not something self-inflicted like drugs. But then I look at Dicken and his tear-streaked, stricken face, and I think, No, we’re not lucky, either. I’m angry at God, just like this mother.
April 23–24
I watch the video–slide show Gabriella has made in honor of Theo, by myself. It is heartbreaking, exquisite. My own beauty surprises me. I mourn that somehow. Mourn for what I don’t see now, lament how ready I am to discount myself as old, ugly, chubby, unlovable. In the video footage I look open, radiant, alive, soft, sweet. And the love that surrounds me! The sweetness of Jasper and Grace, their sorrowful faces, their tenderness, their concern. Too much to bear.
It blows out such a huge space in me, I hardly sleep. I feel that everything is passing too fast, I can’t grasp anything. The world of the video: it was all so precious and lovely and doomed. I look for something solid to hold onto but keep falling into space. I feel hot, especially in my hands, like I am boiling from the inside.
I wake crying in the night, my hands searching for something—the baby? Then I realize I am hungry, and I weep for all those nights when I was pregnant and used to go down to the kitchen and get a snack. My little midnight feasts with Theo, our only shared meals as it turned out. And there I was, expecting years of them. It all goes by so fast—whizzing along, everything dying, yet we’re lulled to sleep, only to wake and find that the thing we counted on is gone.
Terrifying to see the truth and not be able to find a place to rest. Is that even possible? Are we supposed to find rest in the falling?
April 25
I wake at three and can’t get back to sleep, my second wakeful night in a row. I have so much emotion and energy coursing through me; not thoughts, really, which is a blessing. Tears, grief, wonder, passion: a sea of feeling. No time to waste in sleep! We are dying and it’s flying by. I see death everywhere. I feel it in my cells.
I also see beauty everywhere. Today, I really look at the kids who come over to play, especially the little ones. I pick them up and hold them and marvel at them, and they beam it back to me like flowers opening to the sun.
Dicken is thinking of buying us a new car, and I am filled with grief. Looking at the Subaru, the one we bought on the day of Jasper’s baby shower when he was still inside me, I weep.
“What’s the matter with you?” Dicken asks. “Aren’t you happy we have the money to buy a new car?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just that I see selling the Subaru as a rejection, another death. I can’t handle any more changes right now.”
I run outside to the car and sit in the driver’s seat. I speak aloud, apologizing to the car, promising we’ll keep it, love it, never let it go, the way I want to reassure my body that we still love it, tell it it’s not useless even though it’s aging and most likely past childbearing.
When I come back inside, I hear Dicken talking to someone at the VW dealership. It feels like a betrayal. I almost start screaming, wanting to sabotage the call by yelling so that the dealer can hear me: We can’t afford car payments! We haven’t even paid the electricity bill in months! They’re about to shut off our water! I’m such a wreck, a madwoman, but at least I’m laughing and crying and seeing beauty amid all the death.
Cecily calls, saying she wants me to redo some of the lyrics of “New World,” a song I wrote the words to last summer.
“Can you make the line ‘I was angry, I was scared’ a little less predictable?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll have a look and e-mail you what I come up with.”
It doesn’t take me long to think up the line, “I would sit in his electric chair.” That should add a little spice. If she wants shock, I’ll give her shock, literally. I e-mail her the revision, feeling confident it’s a great improvement.
Cecily calls back a little later, sounding worried. She asks gingerly, “Are you okay, Cinda?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“No, but I’m used to that by now. How come?”
“Well, it’s just that, you know, the line about the electric chair. It’s a little … a little alarming. I mean,
should I be worried about you?”
Suddenly I see how extreme it must have sounded, and I start to laugh.
We end up in hysterics.
*
And yet in a way I do feel like I am facing my own execution. Everything is dying—the car, my fertility, these precious days. Jasper and Kevin’s childhoods. I feel sad about Dad, how far away he lives, how we don’t get to see him regularly. I miss him. I don’t want to have him grow old and die and find I haven’t cherished him enough.
April 30
I walk around town feeling utterly bewildered. My attention is floating. I don’t feel like going to the library, the bookstore, browsing in shops. I almost have a panic attack. I try reaching Dix on his cell and can’t get through. My pulse pounds in my ears. Everything seems speeded up to some level of activity I can’t relate to at all, like time-lapse photography and those films of commuters getting on and off trains and crossing streets. I feel alienated. Spring is here and people are cheerful and celebrating, and I’m not ready.
Thank heavens Dix is more functional, but how in the world are we going to navigate the near future—the July trip to Costa Rica we’ve promised Kevin, and after that, our annual trip to England? I’m already dreading Costa Rica, mainly because I don’t want to be away from Dix, but I don’t have a choice. Kevin badly wants to visit his family, and I’ll have to be the one to bring him as well as Jasper; Dix has to stay here and keep working. Thankfully, Mom’s coming along so that I don’t have to handle both boys by myself.
My scar is throbbing today. I feel great compassion for myself, walking around pretending to be okay when everything in me is dying.
*
The Theo journey has been intense this week with lots of tears, but I’m pretty used to all that; and in contrast to human relationships on earth, I prefer the one with him right now. It’s so simple and pure, even the broken, desperate longing for him, and I never lose the connection to my loving heart. Part of me just wants the world and its complexities to go away and leave me to lie in bed and close my eyes and be with love.
May 10
I’m in the office, working on ideas for Theo’s ceremony. Dicken is on the phone with Giles, who is still very ill with metastasized colon cancer.
“Yes, I really would love to get over there this spring,” Dicken says. “We could play golf.”
Their conversation goes on for a while, with Dicken moving around the office. He seems a little nervous. “I really miss you, Giles. I, uh, I love you. You’re a brother to me, I mean that.” There’s a pause, and then I hear Dicken talking about golf again, and his hopes to go over there soon.
When he hangs up, he’s in tears but smiling. “I did it! I told him I love him. I’ve never done that before. My men’s group gave it to me as a stretch. And he said he loved me too.”
“I’m proud of you,” I say. “I know it’s not the English thing to do.”
“I really want to go over and spend some time with him, go on my own. Hang out with him, you know, before it’s, before it’s too late.” His voice breaks.
“Yeah, you really should do that.”
I want him to go, but I also hate the idea of him being away from me.
“He’s so brave, he really is, but it’s not looking too good,” Dicken says.
I can’t speak because I’m choked up, but I open my arms and he falls against me, holding tight.
May 13–14
We spend the evening at the Megaritys’ and watch the Theo video with Angie and Shannon. Dicken cries a lot. Back home, as we get ready for bed, he is still blowing his nose.
“You okay?” I ask.
“No. It was really hard to watch that. It just seems like such a waste.”
He says the word “waste” with anger.
*
In the night, I bleed heavily. I wake feeling sad and tender about today being Mother’s Day, remembering how joyful it was that first year when Jasper was a baby. I go to the bathroom to clean up the blood.
When I get back to bed, Dicken stirs and says, “What’s going on?”
“Just cleaning up.”
“Well, don’t bloody these nice sheets.”
“Thanks a lot,” I whisper. It’s not like him to be this way; he’s usually very solicitous when I’m having a heavy period. I figure he’s still upset from watching the video.
We wake again hours later and he apologizes, teasing himself about how mean he was. Then he says, “When I watched the Theo movie, I asked myself if Theo would want us to have another baby, and the answer was yes, there’s room for that.”
I nod, looking at him carefully.
He goes on: “It just seems like such a sad thing that two people who love each other so much would have all these pregnancies and only one living birth child.”
Something about the way he says this makes me feel flooded with light.
Just then, Jasper bursts in from the garden with a huge bouquet of bright yellow daffodils in a thermos flask.
Dicken: “Did you use scissors?”
Jasper: “Nope, just my hands and my teeth!”
Kevin comes in smiling and gives me a lovely card with three poems he’s written about me. I read them and choke up.
What a Mother’s Day—a banquet! Dicken makes me decaf and we go for a walk.
I’m thinking we’ll give this grief process until January, and after that we’ll reassess and either try for another pregnancy or move on from there.
That night, I write:
What do you think, journal? Whoever is listening (witness, reader, me in some future), are you as curious as I am about what will unfold in these pages? Will another Weatherby baby be born? Will we stay on the farm? Will we travel, or will travel become less and less possible as the world changes? I think I’m going to start carrying around a note to myself that says, “You are exactly where you are meant to be. Home.”
CHAPTER 21
May 15
I have an appointment with a nurse practitioner I know. I’ve been having hot flashes and tired spells, making Dicken suspicious about a hormonal imbalance. So I’m coming in to get a checkup, Pap smear, and blood tests. Filling out a form in the waiting room, I get to “age,” and as I write 36, tears spring to my eyes.
The nurse measures and weighs me, and says, “Wow, you’re light for your height.” I shrug, not caring either way at this moment. I wonder if she knows I’m four months post-pregnancy. Has she read my chart? I want her to know everything, without having to tell her. I wish I could wear a sign that explains my story. The urge to have her know increases as she takes my blood pressure, and I wait for her to say something that I can jump on, a segue. I will her to ask me how many children I have, or ask me why I think I’m having hot flashes, anything that could justify mentioning my situation. But she is quiet, concentrating on her tasks. I give up and sigh, an ache inside growing as I sit there.
*
In the afternoon, Courtney comes over to talk about Theo’s memorial celebration, which is just over a week away. She’s thrilled that we asked her to be the celebrant.
“I’m afraid I’m going to cry too much and won’t be able to get the words out,” she says.
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I tell her. “What I’m worried about is everything else.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one, the space—outside too loud, inside too small. I’m also worried people will be uncomfortable and distracted. I’m regretting that we invited kids, imagining they’ll be disruptive. People will be too hot. The video footage will be upsetting for some. There won’t be enough food. The food we do have will spill and create a big mess.”
“Wow, that is a lot to worry about,” Courtney says.
“I know. I almost wish we hadn’t planned this in the first place. I mean, we already did some ceremonies right after he died.”
“But you know you’ll regret it if you don’t do this. You’ve said all along you want to share him with the larger community.”<
br />
“You’re right, I do.”
“And even if all those things you mention go wrong, which is highly unlikely, people will still be moved, and you’ll feel supported.”
Later, as I lie in bed by myself, thinking about the ceremony, I can see that what I want is to have everything go perfectly, even though I know that’s impossible. I realize I feel extra pressure since this is the only shot we have of celebrating Theo in a big, public way. There will be no plays, no music recitals, no graduations, no weddings, no airport arrivals. I’ve already written this one chance off as a disaster; I’ve already blamed it on my bad planning. But really, it’s my not accepting the human side of this, and the reality that Theo is gone.
May 18
My blood test results arrive in the mail. Dicken frowns as he looks them over.
“Wow, you are severely anemic—ferritin level at six, should be forty or higher. Red blood cells low too. How are you even able to stand up?”
It’s nice to know there’s a reason I’m tired. It makes me feel gentler toward myself.
Also in the mail is a card from a childhood friend announcing she is pregnant. Paula, Kelsey, Kate, Tracy, Deb, Melanie, Elizabeth, and Marianne—friends and relatives—are all pregnant. It is jarring to hear of all these women I know expecting babies this year. I feel left behind, not ready for everyone to move on. I’m not exactly envious; it’s more about not wanting to deal with the emotions these births and babies might bring up.
May 24
I spend all morning preparing for Theo’s memorial celebration. We get ready to head to town early so we can help set up the room and make sure the audio-visual system works. We take the boys with us.
“Can we listen to that funny guy?” Kevin asks as we set off down the driveway.
“Who?” Dicken asks.
“You know, the guy that tells jokes. Mom knows.”
“It’s not ringing any bells,” Dicken says.
“He means Tony de Mello.” I run through the recordings on the family iPod and press play. Soon, Kevin is cracking up at the silly religious jokes, and I am smiling inside, deeply touched that this nine-year-old we adopted from the jungles of Costa Rica appreciates the humor along with me. Jasper listens too, but doesn’t laugh out loud.
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