Four Reminders

I know I have wondered publicly on this blog if I was inconsiderate as a friend, or if I took for granted all the blessing bestowed upon me in my "before" time. Yeah, sure. I was arrogant. I didn’t ever think my daughter would die, even when I was most terrified during my pregnancy, the worst I could think was “Nothing is going to be the same as it was.” The thought never even entered my mind. I never seemed to ponder that I would be a dead baby mama. Today, it seems, I am getting some important and difficult-to-swallow lessons. Today, someone compared the loss of my daughter to the death of their cat. Today, another person said upon finding out her third child was a girl (after two boys), “I just found out I am having a daughter. Shit.” This was after a long email to me complaining about pregnancy and being unappreciated as a stay-at-home mother. I am a tolerant woman. I am a kind woman. I think this grief thing actually has made me more empathetic and kindly towards those suffering, but I have my fucking limits too.

I had this deeply profound experience at my Buddhist therapist many many years ago, when I was newly single after a long relationship. I told him about my inner thoughts, you know, the ones that for your whole life you think everyone has until one day you mention it to someone and they look at you as though you have three heads. Anyway, when I realized that my thoughts were weird, I committed myself to therapy.

When I get into a plane, or a bus, or even a commuter train, I think, “When this plane/bus/train goes down/bursts into flames/spirals into an unforgiving sea, where are the exits? How do I get there? And who am I saving first?” There I said it. That is what I think every single time I get into a vehicle of one kind or another. The reason I realized that not everyone thinks it is that I was in a line at an airport, and a really obnoxious woman with lots of bling and fancy pants butted in front of me. So I said, “Excuse me?” And she said, “I am in a hurry, and clearly, you are not.” So, instead of continuing to argue (she was right.), I turned to my traveling companion and said, “I’m totally not saving her when the plane goes down.” He laughed. But after a few minutes, he turned to me and said, “You actually kind of believe that, right?” And I said, “So?” We talked the entire plane ride about it. Anyway, the metatext of the initial statement is multifaceted. 1. I always think the plane/bus/train is crashing. 2. I am not afraid of the aforementioned crash scenario. 3. I always think I am going to be coherent enough to rescue the lot of the people. 4. I am a planner. 5. I never think how am I going to go out without rescuing someone first.

The therapists among you will certainly have a field day with that one, and good on you. It is messed up. Clearly, you can imagine how the death of my daughter, in my own fucking womb, plays out in a deranged brain like that. I couldn’t save my daughter from the plane. She died and there was no catastrophe. She just died. That is why sometimes I think I am a character in a novel whose plot even tenth graders can figure out.

A few posts ago I said that my Buddhist therapist is good for me, but perhaps not for everyone. He responded way back then like this, "Angie. Obviously, I could go into a whole exploration of why you think this, it’s obvious you are a survivor, but it's really kind of arrogant."

I said, “Well, I agree, but I don't think that none of the other people could save themselves or someone else, just that they might not realize their own power to save themselves."

Then what he did at that moment changed my life. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “You are going to die, Angie, and the thing is you don't know when and you don’t know how, but you live like you have forever Maybe no one will save anyone. Maybe you won’t even save yourself. You could walk out of here and die. You might decide, based on that realization, that life is too short to spend an hour a week talking to me, and I would understand that. But let us get one thing straight. You will die, and you have no control over when or where. Are you living your life like that?"

He then encouraged me to start incorporating the Four Reminders in my meditation. They are: The preciousness of human birth (It is a gift you are here, Angie), the truth of impermanence (You are gonna die, Angie), the reality of suffering (It’s a gonna hurt, Angie), and the inescapability of karma (You better do it right, Angie). These were so good at the time that I felt like my cells had morphed. Like he hit me over the head with a reality fish, and I needed a good stink. I remember this clearly: after I left the therapist, I went to get my eyebrows waxed. It was a “long lunch” and my therapist and waxer were in the same part of town. This Asian woman pulled all the hair out of this delicate skin above my eye, but I was gleeful and beautiful. And I thought, “I should just hire a dominatrix to beat the crap out of me, it would be much cheaper and more time efficient.”

That is really beside the point. Today, I thought about all of this. I thought about it when these women told me their pain, forgetting that less than three months ago, their worst nightmare happened to me. And, there was a deep dark part of me that wanted to tell them to fuck off, but a stronger, more vocal part of me wanted to send them these reminders. I wanted to tell them, “You are going to die, Asshole. You don’t know when. You don’t know how. But are you living your life like you are going to die? Are you living your life like your daughter is going to die?” Because I sure didn’t. I thought that lesson sunk in, and then my daughter died. I argued with friends when I should have been spending every moment dedicated to serenading my daughter in utero. I wasted hours watching shitty television on Bravo when I should have been watching my living daughter sleep (she is truly a beautiful girl), or reveling in every gentle kick in my belly. I thought I lived the Four Reminders, but I was a fool, but perhaps we all are, until our most precious thing is taken from us.