tree

Mama, was I wish you once made?

Yes, my baby.

Was I wish on a star or on a dandelion?

You were every wish I ever made on anything I could wish upon.

Was I born a fairy or a girl?

A fairy, my angel, with little invisible wings. Your fairy power is to make everything bright and lovely. You do that by being exactly who you are.

It is?

Yes, my baby.

Mama?

Yes, my love.

Can we pray to the angels?

Yes, my love. What would you like to pray?

I want to pray that I am kind to my friends and my friends are kind to me.

That is a lovely prayer.

Well, can we pray it?

You just did pray it.

She hands me a drawing and runs off with her yoga mat. She giggles with her friends, and finds her shoes. I glance at the paper, and it is a tree. Not just a tree, but a tree with stars and the word "love" written across every branch. It has hearts and a squirrel climbing the tree. It says, "I love you." and then her name. The drawing looks like a heart exploding with love.

"It is a tree growing love." The yoga teacher explains to me.

"That is beautiful." I'm prone to emoting these days. I hide it behind fidgeting, but I get choked up.

"I told them to draw a seed, " the teacher points to a heart drawn at the bottom of the trunk. "Then they were supposed to draw the tree from it. She wanted her tree to grow love."

"Wow."

"Exactly, WOW. She is such a cool little person. She did that all by herself. I did not prompt her to draw love."

I don't know what to say. I am verklempt. I am proud, amazed at how much she has to teach me every day. I have no right to be proud; she does not belong to me, but I'm proud nonetheless. I wonder some days, when hits and kicks are exchanged and toys are begged for and extra candy stolen, if my compassion-nagging works, if my focus on our highest self, on banishing materialism, on other people, on love is sinking in. I wonder if I am doing anything positive here by staying home. I know the children are safe, but am I showing them every possibility a woman has? Or just one traditional role?

My daughter is a heart. A pumping, beating, lovely heart of a girl I am privileged to parent. And this little crayon picture humbles me. My best self wants to grow love. If my yoga teacher asked me to finish the sentence, "My tree grows..."  My seed might look like God, and my tree compassion. Those things are intangible, un-drawable. Unable to be articulated nor drawn, and if pushed further, perhaps I would have drawn a tree sprouting love too. My best self likes to think so.

There are days I feel so alone on the Island of Kid. I woke up this morning, for instance, and watched the Backyardigans before I realized that the kids had left the room. I was thinking about race and little creatures dancing together and what this show teaches kids. I sing songs, and tease them. Sometimes I lose my temper and say things like, "I am incredibly disappointed in this behavior." And then tsk, and wish that shame were not my go-to. I leave the laundry build up too long. I just really want to go to work some days. It's not that they are not lovely. Or that they are naughty children. They are lovely, and very well-behaved children. It is just that I don't always like who I am--my lack of patience, my selfishness, my extreme introversion. Some days, I just want a nap. I don't like what being home alone all day brings out of me--not every day, or every week, even. But when I get stuck in my head, or I feel busy and bored, and I grumble and growl at the kidlets, I wonder if my being home helps anyone. Some days, I just don't want to think in pink and light blue and clean-up songs or read the same book a thousand times or talk about unicorns and fire trucks. I don't want to decide breakfast, lunch, dinner, and three snacks for myself, let alone three other people and a dog. Those days are much fewer than I imagined before babies, but they come. The guilt comes with it. Because I know this is a choice for us that few families get to make, and Lucia's death makes their living so precious and not taken for granted.

But when she brings me a picture of a tree blossoming love, I know she is bringing me this self-portrait we painted together. The picture of what my parenting is about--the principles we want to bestow upon our children. Choose love, I whisper for five years, little niggling pushes toward compassion. She translated those whispers into prayers. She asked for help with the love and friendship. That is a gift I wanted to give my children--knowing her limitations, asking for help, turning control over. It is a skill I am only now learning. I still find it immensely difficult to ask for help, even as I preach it to my children. But the truth is (and I am sharing it sheepishly with you) this picture answered my desperate prayer:

Show me my path, please. Help me understand how to parent these babies in a way that is best for their souls. Help me be the best mother I can be. Help me understand what I am doing right, not just wrong.

Thank you, Daughter.

kindness

My friend Jess  wrote these lines over three years ago:


I’ve spent a year re-telling the same sad story. It’s so short too. How many ways can I write ‘My baby died, I never knew her, I wish I did.'

I think about those lines often, when I write, when I talk of her...Lucia died. I never knew her, I wish I did. It's true, you know. That is what all my work boils down to. Jess has a gift for cutting through the bullshit and writing the line that sums it all up.

I never knew her, I wish I did. So instead of not-knowing her and wishing I did, I write and paint and do other yummy, delicious stuff. I wear raven feathers and dance barefoot in my studio to pagan music. I meditate in suffering until it fills my chest. I breathe it in like unwelcome water. Searing pain and dull ache and the feeling of death. My lungs burst, a flood pocked with drowned moths and buzzards erupts from the hole left behind. I light wooden-wicked candles that smell of campfires and crackle like a language. I eat hundreds of life savers, but I am still lost.

There are people all over the world whose babies just died. They feel completely alone, like I did. I remember. I remember thinking, "I will always be that woman whose baby died." Because it used to matter to me which woman I was. I told a friend that, and she thought I was lying. Who would think that? It sounds like literary license, but it isn't. It is what went through my head. This will define me. I knew that this thing that just happened--being told my baby was dead in me--rewired my pathway. That I would have to tell this story over and over again just to make sense of it.


I bemoaned and wailed and called and keened and prayed and clucked and sighed. And then I conjured a community. They were conjuring me. Leaning over cauldrons. Adding eye of nice and aroma of clever. Chanting, "Let these people be babylost and not overly angel-y and maybe a little punk rock too. Let them be artists and magicians and conjurers. Buddhists and pagans and Christians and Jews and Zoroastrians. And full of compassion and patience and support."

There is a community of people whose babies died. Sometimes I write here for them. Sometimes I write here for me. But I am here. Over and over again. I have asked myself if it is healthy. If it is okay. If it is weird.  I asked psychics too and tarot readers and mediums and women that talk to angels. I asked them if it is healthy, but in me I know that I have to give back to this community who saved my life. I know that I need to keep writing here, painting here, talking about grief and daughter-death. I counted on someone three years out, ten years out, seven years out to tell me that what I was feeling was normal and that I was going to be okay. Not back to the way it was before, but something better even. Those people showed me a way to integrate this storyline into my life. Jess happened to write about this today at Glow. Even though I was writing a little bit about it too over here a quarter of the world away. I take writing about Lucia and telling this sad story seriously, because my story has changed. I can say with confidence and love that my daughter Lucia gave me the most amazing gifts. She taught me so many truths, so much beauty, so much compassion. She taught me about my weaknesses and strengths, and I have allowed her death to become the way to connect to thousands of people, because at first, I only allowed her death to cut me off from everyone.

We all grieve. If we don't now, we will one day. If you can find nothing to like about someone, nothing to feel empathetic about, use that as a starting point to grow compassion. Every person has lost someone. Every person will lose someone. Every person will be someone's grief.

Last Friday was the MISS Foundation's International Kindness Day project. For it, I offered to paint mizuko jizo for parents, friends, family, anyone who wanted one. I meant to do it in silence, but after an hour and a half of sitting through the massive tonglen session, then one painting group, it felt too isolating. Plus, the kids popped in, and I talked without thinking. I am human, and besides, it is enough to do thirty-five paintings. I wanted to listen to my music, the rain, sing, dance. I need to also be kind to me. Here is a video I made after Kindness Day. It explains about me and why I do this.

On compassion

After reading Sarah's post, I was thinking about the word compassion. I use that word all the time. It is the main quality I wish to bestow upon my daughter. But I have never really looked it up before. So, I did:

–noun
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Even the definition makes me feel deeply that the universe is a good place...It isn't that I don't know what this word means, but I wanted to be reminded of all the elements of it. Deep sympathy. Sorrow for another. Desire to alleviate suffering.It isn't simply one of these qualities or feelings, it is all of them together. That is powerful medicine. The synonyms that came up are commiseration, mercy, tenderness, heart, clemency. Wow.

I asked Sally the other day how she found my blog, and she said Sarah sent an email to a few people. Then she honestly said, "I must admit, when i got the one about you I was like 'fuck not another one' almost as if, my heart is full, i can't support any more." And honestly, I don't know how she did, yet grateful that she is. We all have an the exhausting job of mourning, of sadness, or existing. That is enough, like that folktale I wrote about once, that is enough work. But all of these women come together and sound the call. I imagine it sounds like a great wail across the world, hitting San Francisco, Australia, Germany, England...like the bat signal, only a loud, deep guttural cry only a mother experiencing the death of their child knows, to support another new mother of another dead baby. Compassion, indeed. And the effect is tangible. I am here and ready to offer my arms, my ears, my tears, my memory for the next woman, even as I beg the universe that there will be no more women...This beautiful, sad, cyclical community thrives on compassion, and proves the extent in which our hearts are capable and ready to love.

I don't know why I am writing about this this morning, when others have written about it so well. But hell, I will probably write about it a thousand times again. But it got me thinking about these stories. Our stories. I devour babylost stories. Before I could find my own voice, I relied on the stories I read of others able to somehow breathe another day. They told my story. They put words to the anger, the pain, despair, grief, guilt...Some of those women went on to birth again and showed pictures of their beautiful children. Women that wrote stories about a small joy in life, like the first flower popping after a long cold winter (hey, my front lawn is littered with crocus). Stories about women who were finally emerging back into the world, a little pale and clammy, but eager for sunlight on their skins. I wanted to read about survival, especially from women who experienced the stillbirth of their child like me. The most powerful posts for me are the ones where the emotions are so raw, so honest that they floored me, somehow made me laugh a little, but left me slack jawed and crying all at the same time. Where there are no other words to describe the experience except fuck, or wow. I vicariously live through those happy times, laugh at the rants, feel a great satisfaction at pure raw anger and vitriol, and I cry with the sad.

Before Lucy, I didn't know you existed. I didn't know about your children. I'm sorry. I should have known. The world should know about all of our babies. But now, I think their names constantly along with my daughter's name. Name after name, like couples, I cannot think about a mother without thinking about her son, or daughter. They go off in my head interminably. And I think there is part of me that is collecting these names. One day, when they hand me a microphone somewhere, and I will say them all together, in a long litany, so those thousands of ignorant fools out there, of which I am and was one, will know about our babies. And I will say each name, "Angie and Lucia. We will not forget." Standing tall, trying not to cry, and say them all, until I drop...or they pull me off stage and tell me this is the annual book festival of Collingswood...

But I just thought I should remind anyone who might think of themselves as not compassionate enough, your comment on one woman's stupid blog might change her outlook for the day, it might change a tide in Philadelphia, it might change the world.

Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed

As I waited to birth Lucia, I decided to open a grief package they give to parents who have lost a child. In it was a pamphlet of what to expect after birth, and a local grief support group's newsletter. The newsletter contained poems written by parents who had lost children through stillbirth or miscarriage. On the front page, a piece entitled “A Letter to Alex” caught my eye. I had read this before. It was written by someone I knew. She was my colleague at the job I had before becoming a stay at home mom. They had lost their son four years ago. He was born prematurely, and died three days later. When I sat in that bed, feeling waves of contractions through me, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I am not the first person to go through this pain. Here I was all wrapped up in my suffering, getting incredibly sort of narcissistic about my grief. "Why did this happen to ME? What did I do? Why did MY baby die?" Me. Me. Me. And here was this person who also lost her baby. A person I knew. The fact that I knew her humanized her. I remember her grief, and her sorrow. I remember running into her in the bathroom at work and crying with her. Did I tell her enough how sorry I was? Did I tell her that reading the email about her loss made me cry for the first time in my career in front of my colleagues? Did I even say anything? Was I the person to her that I needed now? No. I knew the answer without asking. But then it reminded me of a story I once read called Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed. It began obsessing me. I was anxious to find a copy right there in the hospital. But I just remembered that suffering affects everyone, in their own way. It calmed me. It made me strong to think of this story.

When I finally got home from the hospital, I googled the story of Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed. I am paraphrasing here, because it means something to me that might not be the true story that Buddhists have studied for years. It is a new story for me now. Kisa Gotami was a wise and kind woman. She married a man who was rich, though she was not. I cannot tell you why I remember that part, just simply perhaps, that it was because she was a wise, compassionate and kind woman, and not because she was beautiful, that she married a nobleman. She had one son with him. On a night while a storm raged, she realized that her baby wasn’t crying. I always remember this part, because it is exactly those types of details that us who have lost our children remember. He should have cried from the thunder, but he didn’t. The thunder. The fucking thunder.

When she realized her baby son had died, she prayed. She prayed to every God she could think of. She prayed to the devils too. She prayed all night, but still, her son was dead. So when morning came, she went into the marketplace with her son in her arms to find medicine to bring him back to life. The people took pity upon Kisa Gotami, because she was such a kind woman.

“Your son is dead, Kisa Gotami. There is no medicine to cure him.” The merchants tried to tell her the truth, but she couldn’t hear them. The entire city felt sorrow for her. Some even suggested killing her to stop her suffering. I like that part. Perhaps because it is morbid, or so unbelievably kind, depending on your perspective, that people would think to do that. Finally, she arrived at the apothecary who was expecting her. When she asked him if he had a cure, he pretended to think for a long time. I always imagine him scratching his chin, and looking up at the ceiling, maybe taking off his glasses, then and putting the stem in his mouth. He told her, “I don’t have the medicine your son needs, but Gautama (the Buddha) used to be a doctor before a monk. He can cure your son.” She took off at once, still carrying her son in her arms.

She ran and ran to the monastery where the Buddha was lecturing to the monks there. She ran in screaming, and disturbing the entire scene. She said, “Please, I was told you can cure my son. Please help him.” The monks chattered amongst themselves. Someone said, “Take her out.” Another said, “Have compassion, her son is dead.” She stared at him pleading. She said to the Buddha, “Please, my husband is amongst the wealthiest men in the city. He will pay you any price. Anything you want.” I can just see this scene in my head, though I am undoubtedly influenced by Hollywood movies.

The Buddha stared at her for a long time and said, “Yes, I know the cure for death.”

Of course, everyone gasped. I’m sure a thought passed through each of the monks heads that they were following a charlatan. I would think something along the lines of, “Sonofabitch, I thought this dude was the real deal and not another snake charmer.” She said, “I will give anything.”

He said, “I only need one thing. A mustard seed. One mustard seed. But it cannot be a common mustard seed. It must be a mustard seed from a family that has never known death. If you bring me that seed, I will prepare your cure.” Of course, she was enthusiastic. He then told her to do this alone, and leave her son. He said that he would prepare the rest of the cure while she was on her mission.

It was the first time in two days that Kisa Gotami did not hold her son, and as he lay there in front of the Buddha, they all saw that he was rotting and had maggots. After she left, they cremated the child in her absence.

That part always makes me shudder. It is so real. I actually thought after I birthed Lucy that I wanted to just keep her. That I didn't care if she was dead, I was going to carry her around with me. As morbid and gross as it sounds, it occurred to me as I was holding her that she would disintegrate and rot, like it occurred to me suddenly that this was just her body. Like that Magritte painting, "This is not a pipe." It is a picture of a pipe, but it is not a pipe. That thought calmed me, strange as that might sound. It reminded me that I couldn't hold on to my daughter's body forever, because it wasn't my daughter. It was the shell that housed my daughter.

She began her arduous search for a seed. She was thorough. She went to each house and asked each family for a mustard seed. The first house she knocked on the door, “Can you spare a mustard seed?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, wait, has your family ever known death?”
“Yes, my father died last month, Kisa Gotami, don’t you remember you were there?
And on and on, “My brother”
“My daughter.”
“My husband.”

Kisa Gotami exhausted her search through the city, and knelt in the mud crying, “My son is dead.”

She went back to the Buddha and he asked her if she has a mustard seed for him, and she said, “No. How selfish to think only I could be spared from death.” And I am going to quote one of the versions that I read, the Buddha says:
"Your observation is accurate in every way, Kisa Gotami. Neither those wise nor those foolish are immune to death. However great a father roars, he can never waken a dead daughter. However much a mother begs the gods, a dead son will never cry again. One by one, Gotami, we each die. "

After reading this story, I traveled about the world for the next few days looking at everyone as though they weren't "Bob" or "Michelle", but they were their suffering. Like Bob had become Prostate Cancer, and Michelle had become the one whose mother just died. Even those who were not grieving, I saw people that were insecure, nervous to talk to me, and I saw them simply in their suffering. I remember saying often in the first weeks, “I’m sorry” after someone would offer condolences. My husband Sam thought it was crazy, as though I were apologizing for our baby dying, or apologizing for receiving condolences, but it wasn’t that. They were suffering. I could hear it in their voices, I could smell it emanating from their bodies. Some of those people felt genuine grief at my daughter’s death, and some had felt genuine fear at having to talk to me. I was sorry for them too.

I also began seeing everyone as someone’s child. I remember having a glimpse of that when I gave birth to Beatrice, but this was different. I felt so kindly towards everyone. It is an incredibly healing way to imagine the world—compassionate, empathetic, vulnerable.

I often thought about my sanity, and if I was sane or not. I thought of Kisa Gotami not being able to see the maggots on her son, but only see her beautiful newborn son. She did not know she was gone. She only knew one thing—save him. I recognized that if I wanted to remain sane, I had to accept this world for what it is, not what I wanted it to be. People die. People we love die regardless of their goodness. Humans are fragile beings. We must be kind and good and compassionate and gentle with ourselves and others when we are not, people die, become wounded inside and out. People ask how us non-religious people move forward, how we deal with death. We deal because we do not pretend that someone will right all this suffering. It simply is. It is sometimes unjust. It is sometimes just. I didn’t much linger on the thought of “Why me?”, because the logical flipside of that coin is, “Why not me?”

I felt this amazing sense of connection with the universe. This calm emanated from me, and around me for two weeks. I sobbed often, but for all of our suffering. Sometimes thinking about my husband’s suffering made me cry more than my own suffering. It was one of the most spiritually profound periods of my life. I just saw everyone as their suffering, and I felt an amazing amount of love and compassion for every living thing. It lasted for two weeks or so. And now, some days, I can touch that again, (just writing about it makes me feel that warmth in my stomach) and other days, I feel like a Neanderthal. "What did I do to make Volcano Gods angry? Must sacrifice goat."