Saturday 6 March 2010

Drama Queen

I feel a little sheepish about my previous post. Thank you for all your kind comments. You are all so understanding and sweet.

I promise that I have taken Jessica to the children's centre many, many times without so much as a whiff of melodrama. Not even the teeny tiniest hint of any awkward question or bitterness. Without a mention of dead children. We have left that self same centre on many occasions without me crying into Jessica's hair. However that particular, unrepresentative visit to the children's centre is the only one, in all probability, that will ever feature here. Because I found it upsetting for reasons that I brought upon myself. Nice Catherine, real nice.

I worry sometimes that a stranger stumbling upon this blog would imagine that I live my days in agony, that I weep continuously, tearing at my hair and rocking myself back and forth in a corner mumbling 'My babies, my babies, why did it happen, why did you come so early, why did my Georgina die, I am so sad, I am so very, very sad.'

And that, when I'm not occupied doing the former, I storm around green, hairy and grinch-like snarling at pregnant women and people with twins who both lived and anyone else I consider luckier than myself.

Yes, I have been known to do all these things on occasion. Sometimes, on particularly bad days, I might even manage two or more of these simultaneously.
Storming around in a rage AND weeping.
Tearing my hair AND mumbling in a corner.
Storming AND weeping AND tearing hair AND mumbling. Now that's a sight.
Yes, even now when all it seems so long ago.

But there are in between days. When I don't feel so terrible. And because I don't feel so terrible, these days remain undocumented.

I'm going to go off on a bit of tangent here but bear with me. I'll get back to my drama queenish main point by the end of this post. Promise.

I've written in a previous post that, after the twins were born, my taste in literature started to travel in a dubious direction. I had the misfortune to read, in quick succession, two books by the same author. I'm not going to mention her name in case she (a) googles herself one day (b) has such a massive ego that she actually bothers to click on every single mention of herself and reaches my blog as the ten millionth hit and then (c) takes offence to what I've written and picks a fight with me. Unlikely but . . . .still.

Her books have pastel covers with nice, fluffy titles. They look innocent enough. However, the two most recent efforts featured dead babies. And not even well-written, well-rounded fleshed out dead babies with names, the hopes and dreams of parents attached to them, with photographs, with details.  Instead we get the kind of 'dead babies as plot device / character development' efforts that Tash wrote about so beautifully here. Both featured mysterious women who had kind of lost the plot. And why had they gone slightly round the twist I hear you cry? Yup, dead babies.

It made me angry. I myself have a dead baby. Really? I hear your gasp. Yes, me Catherine W. 100% fully paid up member of the dead baby mama club.
My daughter who I loved and wanted and dreamt about and cherished was born too early and she lived briefly and then she died. Those are the facts. But Georgina was also a real person. Not just someone that makes me sad and slightly crazy and, if one of these novels is to be believed, will cause me to move into a commune, have sex with an unsuitable man, pretend to be pregnant and steal someone else's living baby whilst neglecting my oldest daughter. Causing her to be given away to foster parents and then lose her memory in a fire. No, I haven't made this plot up. This is a real, published work of fiction that (sadly) yours truly paid good money for.

Seriously, I'm not going to do any of these things. Well I wouldn't rule them out entirely because anything is possible but it really doesn't look likely.
Do people read these books and think that THIS is what I am like?
That THIS is how I live now?
That these are actions that I am teetering on the verge of committing?

Well it isn't how I live now. I'm not going to do these things.

My mother once said that I had a core of steel, a rock at the centre of my being.
When Georgina died, that little rock was put through fire, water and ice, stamped on by numerous people, squeezed in a vice. It cracked and changed.
But it didn't disintegrate. It's still here. I am different. But I am still here.

I am wondering if my blog has run its course?
Is it just becoming part of this conspiracy that losing a child will be the end, the undoing of your life?
Because I only write when I am sad.

I still have good days, I still enjoy the company of my mother, my sister, my husband and my friends. Admittedly the latter are fewer in number since all of this happened but the ones I have left, they are true friends.
I still laugh.
I still enjoy my life.
I am still happy. I am happier now than I ever was before.
Because I knew Georgina. Because Jessica is here with me.
I am glad to have been the mother of my daughters.
I am terribly sad that Georgina died but I don't want to become part of the same conspiracy that these pastel covered books belong to.
That women whose babies die go mad and bad and kidnap other people's children (can you tell that irked me yet?) have complete personality overhauls and never laugh again. We don't. Do we? Well, at least, I don't. I am sad, I am heartbroken, I am mad on occasion, possibly even bad. I am simply . . . different. Different because of Georgina.
Who only lived for three days but because of her existence I am changed.
In ways I can't even begin to describe.

The deaths of our children aren't the end. It feels like it but they aren't the end of us.
We are still here, figuring out how to live without them.
That's the hard part.
I don't think I'll ever get it down but I intend to keep trying.

Having said that, I'll probably be back to my drama queen ways for my next post.
But I just felt the need to set the record straight.

17 comments:

  1. i'm sorry catherine, i actually laughed! i often wonder if people stumbling across my grief blog will think, "ohmygod this lady is a psycho, she has a living baby and she can't handle seeing a pregnant woman?? what is her problem omgwtfbbq" but then i think, so what if they do! i know it's not like that (usually, anyway...ha).
    my blog has changed over the (WHOA) almost 2 years i've been keeping it. it is sad sometimes, sometimes it's funny, a lot of times it's irrelevant. it's always pretty random. i feel like as long as i have something to say, no matter how random, it will be good for me to keep it.
    it's a weird place to be, where we are, with so much sadness and so much happiness both in our lives, but you know other people in this place will understand, when they read, how you can feel the pangs so deeply of losing one child, and still feel the contentment and joy of being able to parent another child.

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  2. I know exactly what you mean. xx

    I can't stand that people think we babylost mamas are crazy. That book would have enfuriated me too.

    I think you are one strong chick, Catherine. I think your expression of pain is a sign of strength. xx

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  3. You didn't need to. I get you. You always make perfect sense to me, and speak right from my own heart.
    Still figuring this out with you....

    xo

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  4. No need to apologise Reba! That was my intention and I really pleased I made you laugh! Just felt that this blog was getting all doom and gloom (which, given the subject matter, is rather inevitable) but I needed a counterbalance, to show that my life is different after losing Georgina but that it does continue. And here I still am muddling along as best I can. x

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  5. Phew... Through reading this post there were giggles AND tears. As usual a pleasure reading you Catherine.

    I get angry whenever the media reports on a crazy DB-Momma kidnapping a child. There are 2649846 kidnappings per years, and how many of them are stolen by DBMs? Right... maybe around 0,5%? So lets make a big story out of it... Grrrr.

    In those moments I am glad I have my blog to vent and save everybody from the craze of a dead baby momma. Shall they think what they want... I am still me.

    Sending some love!
    xoxo

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  6. Urghhh, yes I hate those plot lines. Saw one recently on Ghost Whisperer (my guilty pleasure) and was so angry!

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  7. "I still laugh.
    I still enjoy my life.
    I am still happy."
    Yes, yes, and yes. I realized in the last couple of months that I'm really happy with my life, despite the great sadness. Like you, like most of us?, I write more when I'm really upset. That has always been my way. If you read through the journals I kept during my life, you would probably find me terribly depressed. Writing about sadness and anger and all the negatives is a way to process and vent. The good stuff I mostly just enjoy.

    Catherine, I often mean to comment on your posts, but don't because there are so many pieces that strike a chord with me I can't quite get it together to begin, so I walk around thinking about what you wrote, meaning to come back and comment, but too often not doing so.

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  8. I hear you, and I understand what you're saying. It's sad to me that we endure this terrible tradgedy and then still have to worry about what everyone is expecting from us.
    If we act to strong, 'they' are happy and think we have forgotten about it. If we seem down, we are dwelling on our dead child, and 'they' are uncomfortable.
    I've endured some comments this week that that all seem to imply that I don't need to think about my dead child anymore, because I'm about to have another. I can't stand that line of thinking that treats children as interchangeable. Like we stained our favorite shirt and can just order another and forget about it.
    Don't worry about 'them'. It's sad that dead babies make good background for plots involving women going crazy, but sadly, authors do it often to spice up their stories.
    I know you're not a sobbing mess scrunched into the corner everyday. I'm sure many of us don't think of you that way. Glad you got it out though and I sure don't want you to stop writing.
    Sorry for the lengthy comment.
    Love to you..
    XO

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  9. I think I may have read this author... And, I think I may have read her while I was in the hospital... And I think I also may have gagged with similar thoughts, as in "I have a dead baby- three of them in fact- and this... fluff... doesnt do them justice."

    Thinking of you...

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  10. I agree with you, sometimes I wonder if people read my letters to Henry, and while I want them to feel this naked, ugly, grief, I also dont want to leave them with the notion that I am a wretch who cries all day. Yes, I do cry, alot (more than some say I should), but there is always life that creeps back in, even when you dont want it to. I dont want to let my grief kill me, I think all we really want to do is experience it, not ignore it, and give it a place to live.
    love to you...

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  11. :) I love it, drama queen!
    My goal after loss was no guilt trips (by others, that is, and I'm still working on no guilt trips by me) and no need to explain my actions or feelings. They just are.
    Whether that contributes or detracts from the misunderstandings of baby-lost mammas in fiction or real life, I don't know, but it seems to sit right with me.

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  12. God, you are so good at voicing what we all feel inside but are unable to express! I think you should write a book, Catherine. For cereal, lady!

    Love you lots!

    Sarah xoxo

    P.S. My personal email is sashibeak@mac.com. Would love it if we were able to meet maybe when I am in the UK!

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  13. I get what you're saying :) , and I've struggled with similar thoughts. At the end of the day, though, my blog is the only place I'm really allowed to express these doom and gloom feelings! They're *not* present all the time, but when they are, it's not socially acceptable to tell the world about them. So I write. And I trust that those who read understand that they mostly only see the dark side, but that it is that dark side that so desperately needs an outlet.

    Which is a long way of saying - no worries, I assume the same about you too ;)

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  14. Oh, I get it. I don't come over here to comment often enough, but boy, do I get it. I've had many of those similar thoughts - 6 years on, yes, I'm happy, I smile, I live, but my god, I miss him.

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  15. Like all these wonderful other moms, I getcha. I think maybe that's one of those sad skills we've learned on this journey - the ability to not presume to know the whole story based on what you see on the surface.

    That make any sense? Like we know all too well the secret sadness that hides behind a smile, or sometimes the quiet joy that can be present even during sadness.

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  16. I think writing is an outlet for many of us and what we need to express is our sadness. When we are happy, we are happy and don't need to go around telling people. But this is our safe place to share our thoughts and let each other know that no you aren't crazy, just a normal bereaved mother like the rest od us. xx

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  17. Catherine, I found your blog after you dropped a comment on my grief blog. If anyone went there browsing I sound like a grief wrecked mom. It has been 4 1/2 years for me. I only had 6 precious hours, but the impact of the 7 months of trying to save my twins lives, fighting so hard to the bitter end to still lose one that was so loved and to feel like sometimes I'm the only that remembers him as an individual. separate. unique inspite of his twinness, that is what keeps me blogging even after 4 years. Like you, my blogging is done on mostly bad days. The good days are mine to cherish. It took a long time to find my new normal, to laugh, to be happy, but I am changed. Always changed, and grateful for every minute of those 6 hours even though they have given me 4 1/2 years of grieving his loss. Drama queen, not hardly, human definitely. A loving Mother certainly, and if you are a loving Mother to all of your children. It is evident in every word you write. It is hard to be Mom when your child is in Heaven, but your desire and love don't change because they are out of reach. Much love and Just remember your grief is as big as your love, that's why this is so hard.

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