As a grieving mother of a baby girl born and lost almost six months ago, I’m in the middle of what they call “the angry stage”. I wake up in the morning and start directing my rage at anybody who’s had the misfortune to cross my path: family members for things they said (or didn’t say), colleagues for things they did (or didn’t do), friends for getting in touch too little (or too much)… And then of course there’s also the neighbour, the fishmonger, the handyman, the building manager… All of them guilty of something (or its opposite) and therefore deserving punishment!
I don’t know whether this is a good thing, but it all happens in my head only: I’m not actually picking up fights with these people in the real world, but rather these arguments take place only in my imagination. In that secret world of mine, I can shout at anybody and say anything that comes to my mind, whether it makes sense or not, whether it’s fair or not. In light of this, I’ve started using writing as a way to release tension and avoid completely losing my already-precarious “mental health” (whatever this phrase actually means…).
As it happens, I’ve written down the various comments I’ve heard from people in the past few months. With some of them, it’s hard to believe that they were actually uttered with the aim of consoling someone for their loss: some are pure cruelty, others are utter ignorance, others still are plain stupidity. But, most sadly, some are comments that I myself expressed at some point to other agonizing people like me. These comments come from a variety of individuals, ranging from family members to complete strangers, from PhD holders to less educated people. No one is without sin…
But the cathartic bit of this exercise consisted in trying to find, for every comment I heard, the answer I’d really have wanted to give but couldn’t find. In most cases I just kept quiet because the comments were expressed shortly after my loss, when my brain was numb with pain and I just didn’t realize what was going on. Those comments have been surfacing again more recently, as I have slowly and painfully started coming out of that cloud that protected me and kept me alive in the early months following my baby’s death.
From the material I gathered, I eventually picked the most significant ten comments and relevant answers and put them together in what I named "castrated dialogue". This is a potential dialogue that is however impeded by the absurdity and unfairness of events, as well as by the consequent inadequacy of all the parties involved in it; a dialogue that inevitably takes the form of a monologue, but one in which the answers – though not said – are all the same real, and as aggressive and extreme as the comments they aim to respond to.
My writing is simply the report of a dysfunctional dialogue: on the one hand, people who are unable to understand the pain that a grieving parent is going through; on the other, a grieving parent who is unable to make sense of the words she hears from other people. It is not aimed at castigating anybody: I think I’ve come to the conclusion that both those who try to provide support and those at the receiving end of it are simply equally ill equipped to understand each other’s experience and to engage in successful communication.
I’ve been following baby loss related groups for a while now, but apart from adding a few likes to posts I found interesting, I never thought of actively making a contribution to any discussion. I just didn’t feel like exposing my grief. As I approach six months since my baby died, I feel I’m now ready to share some of the feelings surrounding my loss. My “poetry” may not be worthy of Chaucer; but being able to faithfully describe my loss and my grief in rhyming decasyllables in what is a foreign language for me, is an achievement that I dedicate to my wonderful baby daughter Maia.
THE RHYME OF THE WISE FRIEND
(AND THE STILL-MOTHER)
Ten hurtful things heard as a still-mother…
(and ten angry things I’ve dared not utter!)
How are you doing, darling? You look well!
(In fact I’m falling headlong into hell…)
I know your pain, it’s there to make you strong!
(You clearly have no sense of right and wrong…)
At least you are alive, you risked your life!
(Some days I’d rather take it with a knife…)
Believe in Mother Nature, she knows best!
(All I believe in is my aching chest…)
Behind all this there is a godly plan!
(I wish I knew that at my latest scan…)
I’m sorry, this was sadly meant to be!
(A sadder thing is you talking to me…)
Trying again will surely ease your pain!
(Filling this void can never be my gain…)
You have to suck it up and persevere!
(I’d rather drown myself in gin and beer…)
You need to stop revisiting that day!
(As if I could just make it go away…)
Better to lose her now than later on…
(It would be best, in fact, if YOU were gone!)