desiderium - an ardent desire or wish; longing or wish, properly for a thing that you once possessed and now miss; a sense of loss. A material sister to the geographical nostalgia. The Latin word means longing, sense of want.
Stolen from Philip Howard's 'lost words' column in today's Sunday Times.
I re-read some of the more recent posts on this blog. I'm mildly surprised at how angry I sound. I don't spend a great deal of time feeling angry these days. I would hate for some poor soul to stumble across this outpost of dead baby blog land and think, geesh, I'll still be THAT angry in three years time. Really?
I think I was so angered by the extract featured in my previous post because I am a former magical thinker myself. Reformed now obviously. And we all know who the most vehement anti smokers are? Usually the ex-smokers.
Yes, I confess. I once was one of those suckers who thought I could save my children from death with the power of my mind, with the strength of my love. I quite miss having those stupid, misguided thoughts. They made me feel safe. But, as Merry wrote, until you know, you don't KNOW. And I shouldn't be angry at people who don't know. That isn't fair. And as Monique commented, a pat on the head would be a better response than a whole lot of spleen venting.
Expressions of anger are unacceptable in day to day life so I tend to take them here. In the real world you have to do a lot of biting your tongue and swallowing. Which can make you a little acidic.And though I'm a little more snappish than I used to be, I am not as bad as I sound here. Promise. Or at least I hope I'm not.
I find that thoughts of Georgina, her small life and her death are a constant in my day. Like a trapped nerve or a pulse, a nystagmus. Pulse. Flick. Pulse. Flick. She died. She died. Her life permeates my own. Just a fact rather than something that drives me to extreme pitches of emotion. Like a sponge soaked in NICU machinery and small babies, I slop about on my day to day rounds. Obsessed with something I can hardly bear to think about.
Sometimes my hands extend like fleshy claws and I can see them, my hands, doing their thing. Driving the car, changing nappies, buttering toast, flicking pages. All at a distance. My life is peaceful but, sometimes, it feels very far away. As though it is happening to somebody else. Where that leaves me I just don't know.
I still cycle around the five stages of grief but these cycles have decreased in duration and emotional amplitude until I can deal with the whole process in less than a minute.
Denial - she isn't dead.
Yes, yes she is. Waste of time to pretend otherwise.
Anger - not fair.
Nobody ever said life was fair. Life is not a bowl of cherries. I never promised you a rose garden. It's nothing personal. None of this means anything. You aren't cursed or to blame. You just had bad luck. Waste of time to pretend otherwise. Go write on your blog.
Bargaining - if I have to lose her, please keep the others safe. Please take me instead. Please.
No takers. Waste of time to pretend otherwise
Depression - I am so sad.
Nobody cares. Waste of time to pretend otherwise.
Acceptance - Here I am again. But acceptance feels like a bit of a misnomer.
I find I can't take the process any further than the 'she died' part. I can accept having a pregnancy that ended abruptly, a daughter that died and another daughter that nearly died. In the abstract. I know that these things happen to people, I knew that before they happened to me. One of those things. Sending out ripples in concentric circles.
Very sad for me and my husband.
Very sad for Jessica and Reuben, although I hope they will not feel the loss as we, their parents, do.
Sad for our families.
Mildly sad for friends and acquaintances.
Not much of anything to anybody else.
Increasingly, I find the details unbearable to think about. So I don't.
I don't look at her photographs. I'm frightened of them. I am scared to see those blue eyes looking at me from all the time ago.
I can deal with the 'dead' part. Just not the rest.
Yet I can't leave it be. My eyes snag on the corner of that time. I cannot quite look away.
Long ago, I saw something horrible.
Long ago, I saw something wonderful.
So horrible and wonderful and strange and beautiful that I still stand here. Enchanted. Stupefied. Shocked. Still, after three years. I am in shock.
I cannot look away. I cannot look either.
So I just remain. Not angry or denying or depressed.
Just standing, staring at a point in the middle distance, at nothing.
Somewhere between August 2008 and here.
She was beautiful. That tiny baby. Georgie.
But I can't tell anyone that.
Because nobody else wants to hear it.
Except for you, here.
Because out there, in the real world, she is only dead.
But I miss her terribly. I love her.
I have a desiderium for golden days.
FWIW, I don't think of you as a particularly angry person. Blogs like journals often capture the negative because they are the safe space to do that. And we're here to nod with the anger and tell you that yes she was beautiful and tiny and perfect and wonderful, that we see Georgina, your baby, not just dead.
ReplyDeletethinking of you my friend. and yes, to us, her memory is very much alive. sending love and peace.
ReplyDeletexoxo
lis
I can definitely hear this... in my world her life was as important as any other. Though she has died, she has not been forgotten.
ReplyDeleteSending love my friend....
I can deal with anger (not that you come across that way particularly) a whole lot better than platitudes:- it was gods will, it wasn't meant to be, he'll always be your baby, that's what nature meant.
ReplyDeleteI loath platitudes. None of it makes it all okay.
When people say something about Freddie to me, I almost always say "he was beautiful" in response. Because he was. I can always say that about him. He'll never mind.
Catherine, I never think of you as Angry. I think of you as loving. You always capture feelings I struggle to articulate, you do it beautifully with so much love for Georgina.
ReplyDeleteShe's very real to me, but yes I understand why you say this...
"Because out there, in the real world, she is only dead"
x
I think about the ripple of his memory and his life too. I know that for Leif and I his absence is deep but with each successive step away from us his absence is felt less and less. I've been struck, at times, how little his memory and the lesson of his life has made an impact on people I thought would understand. Maybe it is vanity...I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI don't find what you write any more angry than anything else people write about. I read blogs about all types of things and sometimes people sound angry about the most ridiculous things. It makes me roll my eyes at times. So if you are angry and that comes across here, which I'm not sure it does any more than it does for anyone else in the world, don't feel badly about it. Georgina died and it is ok to still feel angry about that.
I am sorry that I have no words tonight but I do want to say that I always love to hear how beautiful our angels are. Georgina was and very much still is beautiful. Ax
ReplyDeleteIf you come across as angry (and I don't think you do - or at least no more than any of us who are writing about having our babies ripped away from us), then it is justifiable. I am constantly surprised by how the anger is the emotion that resurfaces the most often. I think, maybe, because there is really no-one to be angry with so I've never really learned what to do with the emotion.
ReplyDeleteAnd like Merry, I will respond to (increasingly rare) questions about Emma by telling how beautiful she was. Because they are - our sons and daughters - beautiful and precious.
Oh, you write so beautifully and honestly. I haven't lost a baby but instead my dear brother...hope it's OK for me to chime in here even though our losses are different. I know what you mean about not thinking of the details or looking at photographs. Sometimes I feel like the only way I can bear what happened is to pretend that it didn't. Yet it's still with me every day. It was in a major way at 3 years...in a slightly less intrusive way at 6 where I am now, but still it's there.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being so honest and open about the grief process...I'm so sorry for your loss...
My dear friend, it must be the three years thing. Because I felt this post in my bones.
ReplyDeleteEspecially this: "My life is peaceful but, sometimes, it feels very far away. As though it is happening to somebody else."
And if you're angry, I have no idea what that makes me. Like others have said, our blogs are often the only safe places to vent the anger. I know it doesn't destroy you on a daily basis.
All my love to you. And beautiful Georgina. I know she was beautiful.
xo
i love your beautiful writing, and i have never thought of it as seeming angry.
ReplyDeletei too have learned that the lives of children who are gone are not so...what's the word? important? significant? remembered?...by everyone else who aren't their parents. other people want to be happy. they leave the dead to their memories and keep living their lives. we can't do that because they were ours--and we wouldn't want to even if we could.
This post is so true for me, too. You've captured exactly in words how I fell about Calla dying: "I can deal with the 'dead' part, just not the rest."
ReplyDeleteI can't look at the pictures, I can't think about the night we went to the hospital. It's easier for me to just think to myself, "She's dead." and be done there.
She was beautiful, and loved and so very missed.
xo
I thought the anger in that last post was a very kind anger - I mean, you went on to recommend the book. It can be hard finding an ambush in an unexpected place. I was watching an old episode of Sports Night where the producer's daughter had placenta previa (happy ending - everyone was okay), and now I'm convinced that Aaron Sorkin is trying to kill me with babies. Even though he doesn't know who I am. Even though it's been long enough that perhaps these things shouldn't get to me so much.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you and your beautiful little Georgina. I relate to so much of what you write here - the recurring cycles of the stages of grief, being caught between looking and turning away.
Sending love.
I love your response to anger, and I must learn to practice it myself. Logic is so much more comforting than the angry "thoughts" our heart spews out.
ReplyDelete"Obsessed with something I can hardly bear to think about."
ReplyDeleteThose words ring true with me. The rest of this post too. This wonderful/horrible thing that happened but can't really be aired in the light of day. Sometimes I can't decide if I'm more angry that she died or that I can't really talk about it honestly anywhere other than the blog.
Did the word sister pop out of that definition to you?
ReplyDeleteI will say you don’t seem angry to me. You seem reflective and honest. And as someone who is closer to the loss, I really value this. Seeing that there is a path to accept with honesty yet still carry on.
I just reread the above paragraph and I think it needs clarification. You don't seem angry to me in the sense of lashing out to no purpose. To me angry for the sake of angry would not be reflective is I guess what I meant..
When Aurelia died, some friends connected me with a friend one connection or so removed who had lost a twin similarly three and a half years before. I asked her early on how long it would take for thinking of the dead twin to not be a kind of undercurrent to my thoughts. Her answer was that it wouldn’t, but the quality would change. Your words seem to also convey this.
Is it acceptance when you resign to it more than choose it?