The Ones that Made the Choice

For the ones that made the choice to let go:

To lose a child is a horrifying experience.  It is something you can never really get over; you will eventually move forward but never past it.  It is something that will walk parallel to you for your entire life.  While, thankfully, many people will never have to walk this awful path, the ones that do could tell you how tough it can be.  But there is a smaller sub-sect of loss parents; the ones that have had to make the earth shattering decision to let their children go.  To have to say that you will allow your child to leave this world, withdraw care?  This is an entirely separate burden that makes the path forward feel, at times, too difficult to travel.

To the ones that had to choose:  I remember barely being able to choke out the consent too.  When Sean and I had to make the impossible decision to go the palliative route for Jack, having the doctors and nurses just keep him comfortable until he passed, I couldn't even believe the words were leaving my mouth.  Every fiber of my mother-being wanted to scream ‘No, save him, do whatever it takes! Just, please, don’t let him die!’ But, rationally, I knew that it was inevitable and we had to let him go, that it was what was best for his little life; that no amount of love could save him and no medical intervention to make up for that.

To the ones that made the choice, I too beat myself up more than anybody could probably even imagine.  Asking myself what kind of mother gives the okay for her child to die?  For a long time, I hated myself.  I sometimes hated Sean for having agreed with the decision and not fighting me to fight for him harder.  I should have believed my sweet boy could have fought.  These are the lies I told myself; the lies I allowed to almost break me.  These are the lies that, more often than I’d like to admit, steep into my subconscious when I think of Jack and sometimes they damn near destroy me.  I have to remind myself that I loved that boy in that moment, that we loved him so deeply in that moment, that we could not allow him to suffer any more; yet it is still a choice that weighs heavy on my heart each day.  

To the ones that had to choose to let go, our road feels longer than the others. Not that either l path is one any of us wanted to take but when choice is taken out of the mix, I wonder if it feels less treacherous?  If the responsibility does not sit on your shoulders, does it make it any easier to breathe? Unfortunately, I suspect not.

To the ones that had to make the choice: I am with you.  I walk this road with you. My shoulders sag with the same weight yours do and I second-guess my decision almost every day.  But we mustn’t lie to ourselves.  We loved those children in a way that most will never have to experience. And because of that love, we had to let them go.

From a Different Perspective

To say my life has been moving at a break-neck pace is putting it mildly.  Since my last post in January (which kills me that it has been this long), I have been non-stop moving with my little pack in tow.  We have been firing on all cylinders from Kennedy’s social life and extracurriculars (my little girl got her ears pierced!), social commitments Sean and I have made, family visits and quick trips to visit friends, all the while planning for our Jack’s Herd annual fundraiser and trying to make sure we slow down enough from time to time to let my beautiful last baby actually be a baby.  I’m exhausted just from remembering it all, let alone actually having gone through it.

It all came together in the end and the months of planning paid off.  We had another incredibly successful year for Jack’s Herd; the turnout was amazing and the generosity was overwhelming.  This year we had a family present that were Jack’s Herd recipients after losing their precious little one recently.  To talk with them and listen to them say how appreciative they are of all they were able to receive made all of the stress and hard work that goes into the night worth it.  I felt, so deeply, in that moment that Jack’s Herd is doing some real good.  Though I say often that Jack and I are forever tied, always on that night I feel it so acutely.  Our sweet baby is leaving a gorgeous footprint on this world.  

There was another reason why it all felt a little more deeply this year.  A good friend of mine had reached out to tell me that he and his wife were expecting but that they did not get good news.  Their situation felt so eerily familiar to me; I have had a sick feeling in my belly and heaviness on my heart knowing what path they were likely to embark on.  Then just a week or so before I received a text I have been dreading from him for weeks.  It came first as just a picture.  The moment I saw it my heart dropped and my throat felt like it was closing.  It was a picture of the beautiful memory boxes Jack’s Herd donates.  He shared with me their loss; he told me how they were so appreciative of what Jack’s Herd helped do for them and he told me that he has never dreamed that when he donated to us that he would one day be a recipient.  And my heart broke.  Never in my worst dreams did I envision these things going to a friend; a friend that was there for me in so many ways after we’d lost Jack. 

Instantly, I felt on the other side.  My perspective shifted.  I was now the friend of someone who was experiencing the unimaginable loss no one wants to know about.  I was the one fumbling to say something that would bring comfort in a situation where comfort does not truly exist.  I was the one standing in the aisle of Hallmark searching for the right card, with the right words in the devastatingly small section for ‘Loss of a Child’.  I was the one arranging a MealTrain for the family, knowing that no amount of food in the world would ease the empty feeling inside but praying it could anyway.  And it had been pretty awful. 

In these moments I have felt what I can only imagine all of the friends and family that rallied around Sean and I during our darkest moments felt.  The desperation, the devastation, and the awful feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.  And my heart broke for all of them too because I don’t think I have ever been able to truly appreciate what that experience had and has been like for all of them.  What it has been like to be the people that stand by the grieving parents.  The shift in perspective has been eye opening and heart wrenching and ultimately very needed.  Grief has this way of wrapping you up and causing blind spots; blocking your vision so that all you can see is what is happening to you or right in front of you.  The periphery just doesn’t exist.  

I can only hope that my experience and journey can give my friend and his wife, the recipient families of Jack’s Herd, the friends and families of grieving parents and shift in their perspective too; they can survive this awful loss.  They can put the pieces together again and make them into something resembling a happy life again.  It will take time.  It may be ugly from time to time.  Some pieces will never quite fit again.  But, if you shift your perspective, even just a bit, it can still be something beautiful and whole in its own way again. 

Forever Tied

I’ve followed the news story for the last 2 weeks; the orca whale mama, J-35 or Tahlequah, that has been carrying her baby- who died just thirty minutes after she gave birth to it- with her, unable to let it go.  Reading with tears pouring down my cheeks, and praying for that poor animal that she would find the strength to let it go, I knew this story all too well.  Just last night, I sat with Sean after having a little coffee table dinner date and we talked about it.  I cried, telling him I feel like it would be better if these marine biologists monitoring the whale pod would just separate her from the dead calf because there was no way she could do it herself at that point.  But I knew in my heart that be would wrong too.  I cried because I felt for her and it was all too real; I knew what it was going to take for this poor mama to let her baby go.  And today when I learned she was spotted and was no longer pushing her baby at the surface of the water, my heart broke.  She had done it; after seventeen days and over one thousand miles, somehow she let her baby go.  At least physically. 

(PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBIN W. BAIRD, CASCADIA RESEARCH)
National Geographic 

I often think about the moment we handed our sweet baby Jack back to the nurses, knowing we would never have him in our arms again.  And I know that as I sat in the hospital holding Carter almost one year ago, I sobbed as I thought of that moment, wondering, as I held my precious, warm, pink baby, how I ever managed to give his older brother back.  My mind reeling knowing I could never hand over the boy I was holding in my arms. To this day I don’t know how. Well that’s not entirely true.  I gave him to Sean and I asked him to do it because I couldn’t bare to do it myself.  That is something I’ve always prayed that deep down he didn’t resent me for-asking him to do the worst thing he’d ever have to do; to be stronger than I could be in that moment.

I’ve wondered, sometimes ruminated, about whether I should have kept Jack with us longer in the room; did we give him over too quickly? But as I’ve followed my ocean mammal counterpart all of these days, I know we did what we had to do, that every moment that past, the more my heart was attaching itself and the more impossible it would be for me to tear myself from him.  So I wonder, what gave her the strength after sixteen days?  Was it her family pod that followed, patiently, along with her?  Did they just know that she needed more time- to grasp what had happened- to digest that her baby was really gone?  Because I can relate to that as well.

The reports say she appeared to be in good spirits.  I hope that it’s true and not just wishful thinking or anthropomorphizing on the part of the scientists.  I hope they know too that maybe she is just having a good day and that there could be bad days ahead as well.  I hope they realize that just because she let her calf’s body go she grieves still; that she is forever tied to that baby.  

Do I feel silly for feeling so emotionally invested in this? A little.  But us grieving mothers have to feel for each other, to offer up silent encouragement, and the “I feel for you” sentiments.  I hope that this mama takes care of herself and her pod continues to surround her.  And though she may never know it, the world knows her baby was here- even if only for a brief time- and it’s life mattered and the love she showed her little one did not go unnoticed.