I've been putting off writing this. The truth is, I have had a little bit of writer's block lately, but only because writing this and getting it out of my system has stood in the way.
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how we're no longer pregnant and even though I've tried to keep the conversation about it light, have tried to avoid it and just deal with it privately, I'm finding it incredibly hard to actually do this.
Two weeks ago, Jennifer and I sat in our bedroom and we cried. We wept, we talked things through. In short, we grieved.
I haven't been able to stop grieving. Its hard to put into words, actually. Coming from me maybe that says plenty more than it would coming from someone else. For me to struggle putting something into words... well, it doesn't happen often.
To be honest, I don't know how to grieve. Growing up, my dad was always kind of distant at a funeral, and if he was around he was cracking jokes with his dad or his father-in-law. The only way we grieve, it would seem, is by laughing about things.
But I don't feel like laughing.
I spoke to my Grandpa Withrow the weekend after everything happened - the same weekend he lost his brother - and he basically expressed the same feelings. "I always tell jokes at funerals," he told me. I knew that. Everyone knows that about him. My dad's dad was the same way.
Mourning his uncomfortable so we laugh at it until we either forget it or figure out a different way to move past it, I guess? I don't know.
At one point, I remember praying, "Just tell me what to do, God. I don't know how to react to this, I don't know what to say to my wife, I don't know how I'm supposed to act and that hurts almost as bad as the loss itself."
No answer.
No magical parting of clouds, no voice through the static that is my brain, no magical neon lights telling me what I'm supposed to do.
But I can't really write a blog at all without going way out of my way, mentally, to avoid writing this particular blog. So maybe this is me dealing with loss. Writing it out. Ripping out my own bleeding heart and exposing it for all my friends and family to glare at. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Maybe this will help, maybe it won't. Friends have been very helpful and encouraging, and family has been great.
And maybe its not something I'm going to be able to get over any time soon. Maybe I'm not supposed to. Maybe this is just one step in getting back to feeling right. Hopefully, it will be the last blog I write about it so you don't have to wallow in my self-pity with me - if that's what this is.
All I do know is this: There are times I feel like punching things, times I feel like crying, and times I push it so completely out of my mind its as if nothing has happened. I feel guilty for the last one. Am I supposed to continually remember?
I don't know.
Before I wrap this up I have one more thing to say.
You've the old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."
When someone is going through a loss, if you feel like you have something to say but don't know what to say, say nothing. We have been blessed and have had only a few people who do not know this is actually an option, but those are the people who have actually made the whole situation hurt more. Saying that "this is for the best," may be something that you say to yourself to get you through something, and it may even be true, but nobody wants to hear that crap when they're hurting. Saying, "Heaven just needed another angel," is so absolutely useless, too. Heaven needs angels? Hey, maybe Asia needs more Chinese people. Seriously, don't say that.
The thing is, if you feel you have to say something, you probably don't. Sometimes just saying, "Hey, I'm sorry to hear about what happened. If you need anything, let me know" is the most awesome thing someone can say. Especially when they mean it sincerely.
I remember reading a book where a person said people should never say, "I know how you feel because I went through that." The author (Harold Kushner, I believe) said that nobody knows how the person in mourning feels because they aren't that specific person. I agree and disagree with that statement (I also disagree with several other things he said in that book, but this isn't the time or place). I mentioned previously how my grandmother called and knowing my grandpa went through a similar situation and took it hard was comforting. A family member of Jen's also went through it and was comforting in her words. A close friend talked about how she lost a baby at a much later time in the pregnancy, and I know she mourned with us all the same. But we've also heard, "Well, you'll get over it because I did" and that's just wrong.
Don't... don't do that.
Don't act like you're made of sterner stuff just because you've dealt with it and moved on in your way.
Also, never try and give someone grief counselling because you're awful at it. You're not me, you're not my wife, and it wasn't your pregnancy. It wasn't your kid, your hopes and memories that will never be made that were lost. I'm not saying someone who says that is heartless, had ill intentions or anything of that sort. I'm just saying that this isn't a helpful way of helping people and maybe you need to ask Oz the great and powerful for a blood pumping organ of some kind.
I will end with one last thing. My coworkers, my wife's coworkers, our closest friends and family have been great and I want to say thank you for all the prayers and encouragement and putting up with us the last few weeks.
I may not know how to deal with this, but I know I have good people helping me get through it while I figure it out.
