The last time I was pregnant, somebody died. I’m not kidding. My pregnancy had, like, casualties.
“Oh, that’s a horrible, vulgar thing to say.”
Yes, it is.
But it’s true.
And it was horrible. And vulgar.
Before seminary I volunteered as a grief support group facilitator for teenagers who had lost a parent. Half of the kids in the group would describe the dreadful march toward death—pills, smells, false hopes, pain, the life that had given them life, vanishing, day after day.
But at least we were able to say goodbye, they would admit, looking sympathetically at the other half, who would lament the split-second tragedies—the heart, crushed by an unforgiving, invisible hand; the inebriated swerve, the squealing of tires and the crash of metal and glass. But, they would say in tenderness toward the others, it must have been so hard to see a loved one suffer for months and months.
They were so gentle with one another, and we all agreed grimly that death sucked, no matter how swiftly it came, or not.
But here, I am not a grief support-group facilitator, and I want to go on record: the sudden death is worse, for all the usual reasons, and one more: at the moment of the death, you’re rarely doing something important, something that would bear the weight of what is happening to your loved one. In that instant, you’re probably sitting on the toilet, or picking your teeth, or cleaning the cat box. (Would it have been easier, more holy somehow, if I’d been meditating when he died, or sorting clothes for the battered-women’s shelter, or even just writing, which he loved to do? Maybe, but probably not. It’s just that the intrusion of death in the midst of the trivial and mundane seems like a particularly cruel mockery.)
In my case, I was lying in bed, staring blankly at the wall, when R got the call that Dad had died, swiftly, on his living room floor, while his panicked wife yelled for the neighbors, while the ambulance came screaming into the neighborhood.
I felt no Disturbance in the Force, no shuddering premonition. I was lying in bed on my left side (because that’s the best side for the mom’s digestion and for the baby’s circulation, and I am a good rule-follower), and I was wondering idly whether my child would be punctual, making her appearance in a week’s time, or whether she would keep me waiting.
I didn’t get to play the stop-time game, the one you play when you know the news is bad, when you arrive at the hospital and the chaplain escorts you into the Family Consultation Room with the door that closes and asks you to wait for the doctor, the one where for just a split second you can freeze the frame, or at least take a breath and prepare.
There was no breath, no preparation. I’d heard the phone ring, then later, footsteps on the stairs. There was no freeze-frame between my husband saying “collapsed” and “too late.”
No, with the sudden death, there is no holding your loved one’s hand. There is no whispered goodbye, no gathering of the family into that holy thin space where, even in the sadness, heaven seems to hover near to earth. There is none of that… just a crude, boorish interruption of the ordinary.
Holy thin spaces would come later, to be sure, but by then my loved one was no longer there to share in them.
12 Responses to “remembrance, part I”
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» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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Sounds like this is a holy, thin place you are in on this late night…the holy thin place where grief resurfaces. May you be held there, wrapped and tended by Aunt Beast, safe in our Mother’s embrace.
We seem to never get what we want…
I don’t know…sometimes I think I’d rather get a sudden phone call than watch my sister every day now wanting/needing/hoping for just one day when she felt good again…
For me, I was 33 weeks pregnant and on forced bedrest — my inlaws had come to help watch over myself and my toddler and my husband. I was given a reprieve and was allowed to go to a movie — “Twister.” We had cut off our cell phones and when we left the theatre, they both started blinking red. My husband’s grandmother had choked to death on a piece of meat cooked by her daughter — my husband’s mother. On Mother’s day. My 3 year old witnessed the entire event from a high chair and dreams about it still. My little on was born a week later, premature from the stress.
Somehow all these things have become twisted in my mind — bites of steak, tornados, pregnancy and death.
I hate those calls deep into the night.
You got me thinking about what I was doing when various people in my life died.
Pa Harrel - watching “rasslin’” with my brothers - I was seven
Dad - was getting ready for dinner
Curtis - tending the hogs
Fred - watching him slip away like I had for the last month
Both Grandpa’s - away in the Navy. In Boot Camp in one case and in Nuke School for the other.
Matthew - trying to get another five minutes of sleep and ignored the phone
Granny - don’t remember
Bill - don’t remember
Martha - don’t remember
In my experience, death is more usually an unexpected thing. Even in Fred’s case, where I’d watched his declining health for the better part of two years, it was unexpected, though anticipated (if that makes sense). Life, it seems, conspires to hide from us our last chance to set things right and say good-bye all too often.
Perhaps it’s best that it does so. Perhaps not. Death can be a blessing, just as it is a curse. I watched a friend nurse his wife through her end from intestinal cancer. It was most definitely a blessing for his family.
My father-in-law had heart surgery recently - and at least four of the people on the list above could have had several more years if they’d had that procedure. However, my father-in-law’s greatest fear now is that his body will outlive his mind and he’ll degenerate into an empty husk. My one remaining grandparent has already gone that path. There are many ways to die, and some of them leave a beating heart long afterwards.
You’re right, though. Regardless of how they pass, there’s no slow motion, no merciful flashes of grand memories. There’s only the heart-wrenching gut-burning loss that nothing ever fills.
Life continues. Both in our bodies - and in the body within your body.
God Bless.
I slept in the next room the night when my mother died…I had no idea till I took in her breakfast next morning. I hope she wasn’t afraid.
While my father died, I was revising for my A levels.
It was good to be there with my father-in-law, to watch him gently let go and relax into the Love that was waiting for him…
Blessings on all who watch loved ones move on, and on those who carry regret that they weren’t there, or weren’t ready.
I shared a holy place with my parents this morning, while celebrating the Eucharist: it completely blows me away, how very close the whole communion of saints seems to be when I say those words.
While everything was going down, Anya and I had just purchased a new surround sound system for her television, and had just settled down to “test it out” with my favorite James Bond movie “Tomorrow Never Dies,” which as I type this seems a tad bit eerie, not only because of the title of the movie, but because the Bond franchise was dad’s favorite series of movies. The phone rang once and we paid it no mind. The phone rang a second time about 2 minutes later, and a tenth of my mind was wondering what was going on. By the time the third rang came, a knock came on the door from a friend who was trying to get me to call my brother who lived a mere mile away.
The rest is of the night…well, it is what it is. Seems like a blur now. It must have been really hard on my brother to tell me the news, but of all the people who told me, I’m most glad it was him and that we were able to talk in person. I’m also glad that I was able to talk with all of my siblings that night, and that the familiar bonds I was hoping to feel translated well through fiberoptic telephone lines.
One of the hardest things about this whole thing is that I often times just have random images pop in my head of how scary it must have been for both Karen and dad, and I sometimes even have horrible premonitions of what it all must have looked and felt like to a third party observer. I’m not sure what that’s all about, but I wish that was one thing I was able to turn off forever.
I have to agree with the sudden death being a lot harder. It’s the out of the blueness that really just bugs me. The Rolling Stones said it best when they wrote “You can’t always get what you want/but if you try sometimes you find, you get what you need.” Well, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten either. I wanted and needed just a moment to say farewell and that I loved him. Life and death can be a total bitch sometimes.
Right, Matthew, and what I didn’t put in the essay, maybe I’ll revise it someday, is that Dad and K were just sitting there watching Everybody Loves Raymond, of all things, when it happened. I can’t imagine that dreadful scene going down with that disgusting canned/studio audience laughter in the background. Not to mention whatever garish commercials were on at the time.
Mamala, you’ve definitely nailed the downside–day after day of wishing for relief. On the other hand, you have a chance to say everything you would like to say.
Eh, like I said, neither way is exactly fun.
(o)
i was 8 months pregnant when bob’s mom died. when we got the phone call we didn’t know whether she had actually died or not. bob left and went to the hospital where she had been taken. i stayed home and vacuumed the house and cried and cried. i think our older 2 kids (ages 1 and 3) must have been napping because i don’t see them in the picture. somehow i thought it was important to have the house clean if grammy had died.
i had already bought cards to use as birth announcements for baby 3—with rainbows on the front. i’d already written some of the info inside by hand (leaving out the part about name, size, date, etc. until later.) then the next day after grammy died there was the most beautiful double rainbow in the sky. it seemed to be a personal message that grammy had already placed a blessing on dawn’s life. (even though we had yet to meet dawn, we felt like grammy had already met her and told her the most important things.)
thanks for this posting which reminded me of the congruence of life and death superimposed on one another.
I always love your writing. Thanks.
I have a story about the WG and my beloved Grandmother missing each other on this earth by about 16 days. It has a limited audience because to tell it, I have to (very briefly and tastefully) talk about WG’s conception for the story to make sense.
People get squirmy.
Thank you for your story. It never get easier, at least is doesn’t for me. In my family I am the taker of “the Call”. For each grandparent (starting at age 10, 11, 13, then 24) each uncle, cousin, friend, I was the one who had to pass the news along to the respective parties.
When I received “the call” for my mother, it was 5AM, and I knew. My husband (Xpatriated Texan) lying next to me grappled for the phone, and I gently extricated from his hands. Mom was in a nursing home for almost 8 years with senile dementia (unproven Alzheimers). The nurse that called had taken care of mom for 6 of those years. It was I who comforted her as she told me.
The phone calls to the rest of the family came at 7AM, as did the arrangements. I was in charge, as it seems to be my road to take in these very situations.
Three days later at her final resting place, I finally grieved. The rest of my family walked away. My loving husband held me as I shook with tears for all that was left unsaid, all that would be missed.
It never gets easier; I think you just get number.
Peace and prayers to you,
Beth