We had a new couple over. And we never mentioned her name. Or her story. Or that aspect of our lives.
Not because she's not important. But because the last two couples we had over, we did mention her, and they never contacted us again. We run into them in town, but nothing ever happens again outside of polite chit chat.
So, last night we talked about high school, and college, and how we met and the big city. But we never mentioned how our hearts were broken and our world fell apart. Sitting here thinking about it, I guess I didn't feel the need to. Or maybe I was afraid to. I don't know if those are synonymous...or if the lack of need is somehow proportionate to the fear of rejection.
I'm lonely, with no friends in this new place. I've tried, and I seem to scare people away. I invite women and their children to events and playdates, and they don't show or respond. I wonder what's wrong with me, worried there's some great flaw that makes me the town pariah. So I scour for the flaws, seeking out what might catch people's eye.
We have pictures of stars, and me being pregnant with Lyra, and Simon...We have our candle and Lyra constellation with a Jizo set up in our home - easy to see if you visit us. Does this make us crazy? Does this make us unlikeable? Who flaunts their dead baby for others to question and squirm away from? Maybe we divulge our lives too quickly. Maybe we're the over sharers, who try too hard.
I don't have a large population to burn through, like in a big city. I don't have the luxury of saying, "to hell with them" when it doesn't work out. But I also can't pretend to be someone else. So, I hope that we'll have a chance to hang out with the couple from last night again, someday maybe sharing some more of our story with them.
Two years and five months out from her death, I'm scared to mention her now though.
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Consider joining in with where you are. Read where others are at.
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One year ago - Right Where I Am: One Year Five months
Oh friend. These words take my breath away.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought is, "Screw them. Anyone who squirms away is not someone I want in my life anyway."
Then I realize that even I squirm sometimes when I just.don't.know.what.to.say.or.do. It's hard...I guess what we are all hoping for is that even when there is an initial squirm, the push to get past that happens, and that's how you know those are really people you can trust and count on. That said, I am the spouse of a Marine. We are a huge, huge community. I have tons of people to 'burn through' (know exactly what you mean by that!) and so I guess I have a different level of ability in saying the old, "Well, to heck with you too."
I'm just praying that your loneliness subsides...that those who may not get it but can at least love you and accept that they don't get it will be put in your life so that you can have support and never again fear mentioning her name.
Sending my love.
That is so sad that people can't seem to handle your honesty. That's not right. Sometimes I wish all of us babyloss mamas could just live together in a physical community somewhere. It wouldn't be perfect, but we wouldn't be scared off by each other's loss. Big hugs. I hope that you find folks that turn into friends soon who aren't afraid to remember Lyra with you.
ReplyDeleteI find myself wishing for that city filled with the babylost again, where we could arrange playdates and have coffee and picnics without worrying about hiding our stories, without feeling strange and odd and set apart.
ReplyDeleteI hope your community is more welcoming soon - it's hard, settling into a new place, hard even without navigating the aftermath of tremendous loss.
I don't mention F to new people anymore, I don't know how or when, but it just kinda happened, they usually find out eventually, if they don't guess from all the photos and candles and trinkets...it's tough.
ReplyDeleteI hope the new couple become good friends. I don't like to think of you being lonely. x
I don't think you're crazy. Or unlikeable. It's your home, why shouldn't both of your babies be present in it? I hope the new couple becomes good friends and can accept, if not understand.
ReplyDeleteThere is such vulnerability in just sharing your story and then to have people isolate you because of it is so hurtful. Small towns can be hard enough to crack. I hope you find your way and your people where you are.
ReplyDeleteOh love. I read this post earlier today and I just ached for you. It's so tough. I'm lonely too. I have some wonderful friends who've stuck by me but new friends, since the twins, hardly any.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, you and L are amazing. You've had three new couples round! You're beating me and my C hands down. I know it's tough in a small-ish town. Because there isn't much wood for burning, I agree. And I'm never sure which is the driver, the fear of rejection or the need to share? Another of those un-chartable relationships so common around these parts.
And it makes me so very sad to think of you examining yourself for flaws or wondering if you are unlikeable. I don't like to mention G to 'new' people but I also feel, very strongly, that not mentioning her at all is pretending, her little life and death is so integral to the person that I am now.
Like erica, I wish we could all just move to the same city. Our boys could hang around together and we wouldn't have to pretend or hide. Hoping that you find some good souls for company.
My heart goes out to you....I wish I could be closer and we could go for coffee and we could just be real. You aren't unlikeable and there isn't anything wrong with you. So don't ever think that is the reason. People find raw honesty difficult to deal with. Maybe because in their own lives they live with fear about being real. I hope that soon you can find someone to share and grow into a meaningful relationship with.
ReplyDeleteI ached for you reading this post.
ReplyDeletexo
I'm careful about whom I share Charlotte with now. I used to blurt it out to anyone I encountered, now I hold back. I don't feel the need to wear my babyloss like a badge anymore, I guess. This post made me sad. I'm sorry it's been difficult for you to find friends who are comfortable with your story.
ReplyDeleteReading this, my heart hurt for you. I hope one day you're home enough in your community to be your whole self without fear, and without fear from other people too. That had to be painful.
ReplyDeleteSending my love. I hope you're not lonely soon - it's hard to settle somewhere new and find people that are right for you.
ReplyDeletexx
I wish we were closer Rachel! We would hang out, create together, laugh and cry and together. You are not crazy. Liam is all over the house in pregnancy photos, his photo. I have DoD art up on our walls. Jizo art on our fridge. Liam's candle is up. We do not hide our first born son and you should not hide your daughter if it feels right to have those items displayed in your home. I think as time goes on though the need to tell people of our stories, of Lyra or of Liam, fades a little. The fading feels wrong at first, conflicting... but then one day it feels forced to tell. So complicated! SEnding you friendship and support and love from afar. ((((hugs)))
ReplyDeleteMuch love to you darling. Do you want friends who cant accept such a big part of you? Ack, its easy to say isn't it, my own mother isn't accepting Ellie Rose as part of our lives. I echo what Amy said. We have our memories on display (not right in your face, but out there), and it helps me feel connected to the little one we lost. I think there are no rights and wrongs, even amongst parents who have all suffered a loss, the protocol is hugely varied, I guess its just to hard to understand if you have never experienced it. A beautifully written and well observed post.
ReplyDeleteValerie
xxx
I completely understand you in this post...being afraid to share of your loss. Society is not equipped to handle baby loss...it is something often tucked away to get dusty from neglect. Rarely mentioned let alone memorialized...yet while I am careful how I bring up my babies I do not apologize for the need I have to do so at times...we must do what we have to for ourselves, our sanity...my babies know I love them whether I mention them to people or not...your daughter knows too! You are a wonderful mommy...thank you for sharing - I was blessed to read your story. <3
ReplyDeleteSuch a raw and beautiful post. The isolation that comes with baby loss is simply cruel. People become afraid of you, like it is catching. They leave you out "for fear of hurting you" or make you feel as though you are unreasonable for feeling as you do. This post made my heart ache, such truth.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling. I often wonder what people think when they enter our home. We don't have many people over, either but when someone comes in, the electrician, babysitter, etc., I realize after they have gone if my house was uncomfortable or not because of the pictures and things up of Chase.
ReplyDeleteBut that's life. Well, my life, anyway.
I understand. I don't tell everyone. But ask me to take his picture out of my dinning room? His ashes off the shelf? In the one place that is mine, where I am most fully me?
ReplyDeleteNo. No. A million times no. We don't draw attention to it, but it is there and part of who we are.
Hoping for the right people as friends.
Wow Rachel. Wow. I am in many ways angry for you at the reactions of others. It hurts so much to see my fellow bereaved so greatly failed by the outside world.
ReplyDeleteI have lost a few friends since Cullen's death. Some immediately in the aftermath and some a year later when feelings and emotions led to a complete collapse. I understand.. completely. I too live in a (sort of) smaller town so it's not easy to just find a new friend. In many ways I am now learning to live with the reality that I probably will never be the social butterfly I once was. Recluse is more like it now. It's not easy, but I feel as though the more I accept it the easier it is keep walking. Maybe there is someone someone out there down the road with whom I will connect in friendship like I once did. Maybe. xo
At 2 yrs 2 months I am beginning to be able to not mention Freddie too. I don't deny him exactly, but sometimes I hold my peace, iyswim?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing. I am close to where you are in your grief journey, I guess you could say. I am at two years, and almost three months. It is interesting to read other's blogs that had their loss around the same time I did.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry you are having a hard time finding friends. :(
I can understand to a degree. I am an unmarried, 22-year-old babyloss mom. So, not many other 20 somethings "get me." Not other babyloss moms get me because I am not married. Because I cannot try again for a rainbow. I just feel like I don't fit in anywhere. I feel like I have to stay on surface-leveled things in order to have friends. But, I love what you said. "I can't pretend to be someone else." I can't pretend that my daughter's life hasn't changed everything and colored my world and everything in it forever. I too am an "oversharer." I tell about my grief and loss too soon, at times. I think it scares people off. Isn't it interesting that so many of us babyloss moms and dads do that...
I hope you and that couple get together again and that they will be sweet and loving about your loss.
Thank you for sharing.
Much love and hugs,
Hannah Rose
I'm lonely too. My best friends in the city all moved during my pregnancy and so, like you, I'm in a position of trying to make new ones. I want to make just one friend, preferably one with a child close to my daughter's age, but it is so unbelievably awkward to be trying to make new friends so soon after my second daughter's death. Do I mention it? How can I not? I can see that some of the parents at my older daughter's daycare are scared to talk to me now and would take the first opportunity to bolt if I mentioned A. But, another woman I told recently at the playground, who seemed to take it more or less in stride and who I therefore thought was minimizing my loss, just told me today that she thinks about it all the time and that she wanted me to know that. I don't know - it's hard to be lonely, but it's also really hard to have 'friends' who can't handle our truths. Thank you for sharing where you are. I wish it wasn't so hard.
ReplyDeleteLike S. said, I just ached for you in reading this. And it's familiar to me too.
ReplyDeleteWe were just over at a friend's house (friend of my husband's actually) for dinner last night and we have those silly family stickers on the back of the car (my seven year-old daughter asked to put them on the hatchback, including one for her sister) and as he walked us to the car, the friend said, "Why do you have two girls there?" Then he remembered and with a look of keen embarrassment on his face, he changed the subject, said a quick goodbye and that was it. People just seem not to want to deal. And it hurts. It feels like a slap in the face for those of us left standing here.
I'm also new in my area as well. Only living in this suburb a year. I have one close friend (who knows all about C. and lets me talk, without reservation or changing the subject), but that's about it. The rest are all on a casual "Hi, how's it going?" basis only. Sometimes I wonder if my living daughter's incorporation of C. in her school life has gotten back to them somehow and they think we're freakishly odd: she included C. in her drawing of family members and bawled out a fellow classmate on a field trip to the local cemetery because she felt he was being disrespectful to the graves and she told the teacher that she did it because her own sister is in a cemetery. Who knows?
Many ((HUGS)) to you. Thinking of you...and remembering Lyra. ♥
Hello my friend. This was really beautiful and perfectly put and I'm so sorry you feel so lonely. I hope you find someone that isn't afraid of grief or death and that can come into your life naturally. Peace and love to you. Thanks for sharing where you're at.
ReplyDeleteJosh
Oh, Mama, I'm so sorry, both that you lost your precious girl and for the loneliness and isolation you feel. I grew up feeling different than everyone else and thought I was over it, but losing our twins has definitely thrown me right back there. Now, I am most comfortable with other babyloss parents. There's so much that is understood between us, so much that doesn't require explanation...so much acceptance of where we are. I can't fathom trying to make new friendships right now, when some of the old ones feel so tenuous. I have experienced that moment of thinking, "Do I say something about my babies, or not?" it sucks.
ReplyDeleteHugs to you...
My first thought was that, after up sticks and moving, you have managed to find three couples to try and connect with. That strikes me as really brave. As others have said, I have some old friends who have stuck with me through the grief but not a lot of new friends - I have lost the desire and the ability, seemingly, to connect on any meaningful level.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that you have not met anyone who can abide with the whole of you - the babylost mother too. I hope that you do.
Sending peace and strength to you... Thank you for sharing. I look forward to reading more. I'm glad you haven't taken down pictures, the candle, etc. in the interest of others. I'm glad you're keeping Lyra's memory alive in the ways you're able, despite others' discomfort with it.
ReplyDeleteMoving has proven difficult and isolating for me too. Plus, I feel that I want to be more picky about who we choose to spend our time with and expose Bea to.
ReplyDeleteSince we were moving from a liberal region to one known for its conservative nature (read buckle of the Bible Belt) and we had already moved once and found it hard to make friends once you're not in college anymore, we devised a plan. This included finding a liberal community in the form of a UU church. I don't know if that or another kind of religious community would work for you, but it has been wonderful for us - we instantly knew tons of people and now have many acquaintances
I think maybe you should move back to Clovis, I am pretty sure we would get along swimmingly. I am sorry you are having a hard time finding people to connect with. Having your baby die can be ostricizing and than being rejected for it can be so incredibly hurtful. I hope you find some loving hearts to hang with.
ReplyDeleteI moved house too, and I hear what you're saying.
ReplyDelete"I don't have a large population to burn through, like in a big city. I don't have the luxury of saying, "to hell with them" when it doesn't work out." It's so easy to say "screw them, if they don't like it they can lump it", but it's so hard and lonely to follow it through.
I can relate. It's hard to make new friends, because what do you say and when. And it's hard to keep some old friends. Some have been very supportive. Others have run away from us like we're diseased. And I mean literally run away - we mentioned losing the baby at a party (the first and only party I've been to), and the couple left us about 30 seconds later and never approached us again. Grief is so lonely to begin with, and even harder when others treat you like there is something wrong with you.
ReplyDeleteI am so so sorry. I wish I was your neighbor and we could talk about it till your heart's content. (Which could never happen I'm sure, who is done talking about their beautiful child? I'd never tire I promise.)
ReplyDeleteWe moved back to my hometown 10 months after R died. And even with all of the people here that I already know and the various activities that C is in and all of the time that has passed, we still struggle to click with people. I try not to mention R but she always comes up sooner or later. It's a handy way to separate the wheat from the chaff (hardly worth the cost) but it's so hard dealing with the loneliness. There's a house for sale on my block. Come to the Philly 'burbs and we can be friends.
ReplyDeleteI wish we lived closer so our little dudes could hang out. And we, too, of course. Sending you lots of love, friend. Thank you for sharing--I feel like we are some a similar trajectory, and that makes me feel a bit better :)
ReplyDeletexo
thank you for sharing. It's sad that people walk away when they don't know what to do or say. They think that running away is the answer. is it really that hard to just sit and listen and learn?
ReplyDeleteI really do hope that an understanding and caring couple come your way and you have some one special to look in the eyes and share your special daughter with.
hugs
Maria
xxxxx
I am such the over-sharer who is probably too quick to say Aiden's name to the innocent bystander who has no idea the story of true hell that is about to be unleashed onto him. I recently hosted a small baby playdate at my house for other moms in my neighborhood, I was so desperate to fit in. But no one questioned the picture of the baby on our living room wall illuminated by candle light with the name Aiden so clearly transcribed above it. None of them ever called again or invited me into their homes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where you are, but let's get together and let our kids play while we have coffee and talk about our babies, dead and living, without guilt or awkwardness. xo
It is so hard when we want to talk about our children, just as every mother of living children wants to share hers, but when we mention our babies who have passed, we seem to have the plague.
ReplyDeleteThinking of your precious Lyra.
I'm so sorry your in such a lonely place. I really hope you can find good friends soon.
ReplyDeleteI never share Andreas with new people, except in this community. I never have. Not until I feel that we have built some kind of a foundation and, I feel like this is someone I think I can trust. That is still no guarantee of acceptance, but it improves the odds. That doesn't mean that I don't have the need to talk about him, but his memory is sacred to me and, I don't need ignorant people to ravish it. I wish we were all living in a world where people could deal with baby loss and, accept that they don't hold the correct answers to which would be the best way to healing, as there is no universal solution. But until we do He lives in my heart and, I protect him against hurtful opinions and comments, much like an oyster with a beautiful pearl. That doesn't mean that the same thing would work for you. Everyone has to find their own path and, I'm sorry that it has to be so difficult. I'm thinking of you and your precious Lyra. I'm so sorry she's not in your arms. Wishing you peace and healing.