On miscarriage.

The following is a description of something I went through months and months ago. I didn't tell many folks, so it took a gutsy surge of "I don't care"-ness for me to finally post this.  Let it be known that I am doing GREAT! But I'm publishing this so that maybe it can help someone else who has gone through the same thing. If you have, I'd love to hear from you.  We warrior girls gotta stick together! xoxo

It started with a dream.

I saw the blood and tried to scream, but my voice died with my unborn child, a curly-haired barefoot little girl that danced away into a vast nothingness, looking over her shoulder to grin at me just once before disappearing completely.

But it was only a dream.  I woke up and snuggled closer to my curly-haired, barefoot man.  In the morning I told him. “Lucky thing,” he said. “It was only a dream.”

But it was more than a dream.  Later that morning there was real blood. Real pain.  All that was missing was that ghostly, curly-haired little girl. 

I drove around the block before calling the midwife office to confirm that what was happening to me was what I thought it was.  I was brave on the phone, but when I hung up I sat on the far end of a large parking lot and cried.  My curly-haired man left work. I came home to him with puffy eyes and a heavy heart and he held me and let me cry some more.

I wanted to always remember the tear-jerking combination of physical and emotional pain. I wanted to remember what it felt like to close my eyes and try to ignore the reality, but knowing it was impossible, because behind my eyelids were images of so many things that could have been. That were so close to being.  So instead I just counted: “1, 2, 3, 4…” until the pain passed. And then, for another moment, at least, I could breathe.

I wanted to remember how much it meant when somebody understood.  When they just let me talk and nodded and touched my arm and put their hands to their mouths, wide-eyed, at just the right times. I wanted to remember the hurt and anger I felt when people ignored it or brushed it off with the increasingly cliché statement, “Everything happens for a reason.” I wanted to remember the sinking hope that I was wrong, that everybody was wrong, and that I would wake up the next morning and it really would only be a dream. 

I held on to the memory of crying into my pillow, then forcing myself out of bed, then crying into the stream of a burning hot shower, willing it to cleanse me into an older version of myself – a happier, more naïve version; the version that wanted to wait until we’d done everything before we even considered the possibility of a curly-haired, barefoot little person. 

I wanted to remember the number of ways I found to blame myself: That processed chicken salad. My trips to the rock climbing gym. Tickle fights with the curly-haired man.  Not making myself healthier before we dove blindly and recklessly into a decision we knew almost nothing about. 

I hated myself for wanting to remember. But I couldn’t help it.  And in my eagerness to remember every part of my shattered dream, I tried to forget just one.

This part happened as I shivered in my car in that empty parking lot, feeling cold and lonely, sobbing loudly for no one to hear. “Why?” I cried at my dashboard, at my steering wheel, and then at God. And then one of them answered me with a thought: “You need this experience. For someone else.”  And I told the thought to go away, to leave me alone with my pain, and it did.

But it came back later, when I was able to help someone else. It came back when I thought of the day I might really have a curly-haired little girl who really grows up and might really experience the same thing herself.  And now I know why I tried so hard to remember.  If I can tuck these memories away someplace safe deep inside me, I can pull them back out when someone I love needs them.  I’ll show that someone that I remember. That I understand. 

And knowing this helps me move forward.

My dreams get better all the time.

Missing Grandpa Floyd

It was a perfect day outside, but I was wishing it would rain, just so I could know that at least the sky was crying with me.  The world seemed too happy, and I felt so sad.

I pedaled slowly and mechanically down the normally beautiful bike path, reflecting on the phone call I had received minutes before.  I had grabbed my things and raced out of my office before the tears came. I knew what my brother had called to say before he made it past an overly optimistic “Hello”: Grandpa had passed away.

I had a lot of time to think about him on my hour-long bike ride home.

One of my earliest memories is exploring the wonderland that was his farm.  There was an adventure around every corner: a piglet to hold close, a calf to lick my fingers, a giant peacock to trail for stray feathers.   Then there was his noisy, busy dairy, where I could always find him in his coveralls and cowboy hat putting in another full day’s work for the cows who knew him perhaps as well as we did.

As I grew older, I wandered the farm less and found myself visiting inside the old house more.  Both Grandpa and Grandma were always interested in my life.  They were always sincerely and immensely proud of me for what I understand now to be trivial accomplishments.  After Grandma passed away, our family would spend Christmas Eve evening singing and playing instruments and sharing our annual “talent show” with Grandpa in his living room.  He would read us the Christmas story from the Bible and share his most heartfelt gratitude for the birth of Jesus Christ.  Christ and Grandpa had a very close relationship. 

He encouraged me to serve an LDS church mission, and sent notes of encouragement during my 18 months there via my mom.  When I returned, I sat beside his leather rocking chair and held his hand while we talked about the people of Lithuania and my experiences serving them. 

When I got engaged, he had me sit beside his chair again, this time to give me his advice and his blessing for the decision I’d made to marry Kendon.  He wasn’t able to fly across the ocean for the wedding a few months later, but I could feel him thinking of me, proud of me for choosing eternity.

I was never too old to deserve the words, “There’s a special girl,” in his gruff farmer’s voice every time he saw me.  I was never too old for a whiskery kiss on the cheek and a giant hug.  Nor was I ever too mature to be shown his favorite “toys” each time I visited: from stuffed mice that jumped out of boxes to “baby rattlesnakes” in manila envelopes. None of his nine children or 61 grandchildren or 46 great-grandchildren or 6 great-great-grandchildren ever grew too old for these treasured experiences.

I thought about how much I’ve changed since those carefree days of wandering the farm.  Then again, at the end of the day, change is the only thing that’s inevitable.  Today change is causing me pain.  It’s taken away the greatest man I’ve ever known. But yesterday a change in his health was causing him pain.  For years change has been taking away his loved ones. Today change is giving him freedom.  It’s giving him health. It’s giving him back my grandmother, his mother and father, the bride that made him a young widower, and countless more friends and family members whose obituaries he’s been reading for far too many years. 

So the question is, will I let this new change go to waste in my life?  Or will I remember and revere him by applying the many lessons he’s taught me over the years?  Will I see the value and potential of every soul and love each person unconditionally?  Will I maintain an eternal perspective in the face of life’s greatest challenges?  Will I contribute every gift God has given me to every person I meet until I can no longer hear or speak or stand?

I made a resolve on that bike ride home to ask myself what Grandpa would do; to be the type of woman he would have me to be.  And then the cool autumn breeze gave me a big hug, the sun gave me a reassuring smile, and I wiped my tears away.  Everything is beautiful. Including change.

Yesterday a great man passed away. The greatest I have ever known. 

Thanks for changing me, Grandpa.