Trigger warning: This blog post explicitly discusses infant and child death and the pain surrounding them. Today, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day; October is Pregnancy Loss Awareness Month. However, in the hubbub of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this other issue that affects at least one in four women does not get much publicity. However, it’s an important day for many who have lost a child. It’s a time to gather and share in the grief of having a child die way too soon. It’s a day to say to the world, “It’s ok for me to miss the child I lost so many years ago even when society says I should be ‘done’ with the pain by now.” I have experienced both an early miscarriage and a term stillbirth. The summer after my daughter Rebecca died in 1999, I watched a great deal of television as I healed from my physical and emotional pain. When John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s plane disappeared five weeks after her birth and death, I was glued to the non-stop news, not because I was a fan of his, but because I had the tv on as a distraction. As it often does, life forced me to face my pain even when I was trying to ignore it. As the newscasters tried to fill dead air time when there was really no new news to report, they began recounting the many tragic deaths within the Kennedy clan. They spoke of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy’s son Patrick who was born and died two days later in August 1963. I had previously heard of him, and his death did not bother me at all. However, what hit home all too closely was when the announcers began discussing the firstborn of JFK and Jackie Kennedy, an unnamed stillborn daughter. This little girl had been largely ignored by history to that point, never named, rarely acknowledged. That was how stillbirths were handled by society in the 20th century until towards the latter years when stillborn babies were finally being acknowledged as beloved children. I cried very painful tears at that point, weeping not for JFK, Jr. but for his forgotten sister and for all the stillborn children of the world whom people had tried to forget rather than facing the deep and horrible pain of their loss. Any time I approach the subject of the Kennedy children, I end up in tears thinking of the little girl whom history tried to forget. Five years later, I was watching news in the aftermath of the December 26, 2004 tsunami which killed an estimated 230,000 people. One report showed a bereaved mother, holding her young dead son in her arms and keening. As I watched the woman wracked with emotional pain, I thought to myself, “I can’t even imagine what she’s going through.” And then, from nowhere, it hit me. I did know what she was going through. I had held my dead child in my arms, too. There were some big differences in how our losses happened and the age of our children, but I knew all too well what that woman was feeling in that moment. Even though we live half a world away from each other, I have never forgotten this stranger’s face, her pain or loss. That was one of the last times I watched the news for the constantly reported suffering became too much for me to bear. Much more recently, I was watching “The Quarterback” episode of Glee in which the cast mourns the death of character Finn Hudson whose actor had died from an accidental overdose three months before in July 2013. The episode was poignant and well-done in my opinion. One of the most painful moments for me was listening to Carole Hudson, Finn’s mother, talking about the loss: How do parents go on when they lose a child? You know, when I would see that stuff on the news, I’d shut it off ‘cause it was just too horrible to think, but I would always think: how do they wake up every day? I mean, how do they breathe, honey? But you do wake up. And for just a second, you forget. And then, oh, you remember. And it’s like getting that call again and again, every time. You don’t get to stop waking up. You have to keep on being a parent, even though you don’t get to have a child anymore. Again, I knew exactly what she was describing, and obviously one of the people who wrote those lines understood the pain all too well, too. Losing a child inducts mothers into a “sorority no one wanted to join.” In the US, an estimated 1 in 4 women have experienced miscarriages and approximately 1% of mothers have experienced a stillbirth or neonatal loss. Today, as many of us join together around the nation and the world to remember our losses, we understand each other’s pain all too well. There is no other pain in the world that comes close to the death of a child. It’s no wonder our society wants to try to forget about this horrific part of life. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
Yesterday I spent several hours dealing with what appeared to be battery problems on my car. I drive a 16 year old Toyota minivan which has generally been an amazingly reliable vehicle with one exception: It eats batteries. My current battery is a 60 month battery that has about 24 months on it, so I know I am approaching replacement time. The full replacement warranty is for 36 months, and in the past, I have had one die five days after the full warranty expired. As far as frequent repairs go, however, this is one that is actually relatively cheap since it’s usually prorated if not covered completely. One of our previous cars ate CV boots which were $100 each at that time; those got old to repair.
A fairly common problem among those who are energy workers and/or highly sensitive people is that they accidentally drain batteries. Many people see this happen with their watch batteries, though now that more people are using cell phones instead of watches, it is less of a problem. Someone I know blows out headlights on her car on a regular basis. Anything that involves energy or power is at risk for being drained by an energy worker, though obviously most of us are not doing this intentionally. Lately, I’ve started noticing a pattern related to my emotions and when electrical and/or battery problems happen in my car. So one of my upcoming personal challenges is to figure out how not to let my emotions and the energy they release impact the electrical system on my car! Whenever my battery dies on my car, it’s always an interesting experience to see how I get help and who offers it to me. In yesterday’s case, my ex-husband was off work for Indigenous People’s Day (or Columbus Day if you believe the local calendars), so he came to help me. The holistic health office I was at when my car refused to start had two receptionists, one of whom had a Prius and the who had a half-dead battery which she had jumped on Friday. Neither was really a realistic candidate for helping me jump my car, but they were both very kind to me, helping find a wrench when we needed to remove my battery. All of the other practitioners were in sessions with clients or patients, so clearly they couldn’t help me. As my ex-husband was jumping the car, I was sitting on a nearby staircase, and an elderly woman came by. She smiled at me and said, “I’ve been there.” That is the bottom line of it: All of us have been there with car problems at one time or another. To me, it’s never a bad idea to help someone out jumping a car if you are in a safe location and have the time and ability to do so. It feels like a deposit in the karmic piggy bank for the next time your own car dies. A year or two my yard guy’s car battery died in front of my house. I was happy to turn my car around and lend him my jumper cables to jump his car. What surprises me is when people refuse to help for non-existent reasons. It really shouldn’t because it’s simply another indication of the narcissism and selfishness that is abundant in our society. When my car battery died three years ago in August, I had a horrible time finding someone to help me jump it. I was stranded at Zilker Park outside of Barton Springs pool with all three of my kids in 100 degree heat. My ex-husband was out of town, and his car was at the airport parking lot. I stood by the exit and asked everyone exiting if they could help. A few people were very apologetic as they refused, and I do understand. Sometimes you really do *have* to be somewhere. The oddest refusal, though, was a man who said, “I have a brand new car so I can’t help you.” I wondered if I were a gorgeous young 20-something in a bikini if his new car excuse might have melted away. Finally, one of my kids’ camp counselors, a college student with a beat up old car, quite willingly helped me jump my car. She was incredibly understanding and helpful, and I will be eternally grateful to her for assisting that day. Compassion can seem the most powerful at times when it appears as help with the little things. Sparing a little battery juice and five minutes of your time to help someone start a reluctant car is one of those acts that can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Whenever we can, it seems like the kind and human thing to do to help others in whatever way presents itself. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
Recently Helen Mirren proclaimed, “It annoys me when I see men with an arm slung around their girlfriend’s shoulders. It’s like ownership. Of course, when you’re young, you want the guy to take your hand and look after you. But when I see girls being leaned on, I want to say, ‘tell him to get his damned arm off your shoulder.’” This statement has created quite a bit of discussion on the internet about whether or not a man’s arm around a woman’s shoulder is anti-feminist or sexist.
I really think this is an issue that is situation dependent. There are definitely men whose public displays of affection (PDA) are territorial. They’re making sure that all other men in the area understand that their women are their property and no other man should even glance at the “taken” women. In these cases, the men often don’t let the women step more than a few feet away from them. It is actually suffocating for the women, though I’ve known women who have happily gotten into relationships like this after having previously been in neglectful relationships with men who didn’t pay any attention to them. In those cases, the women think they’ve hit the jackpot with men who are interested in them not realizing that they are sacrificing their independence and their basic selves in relationships with possessive and overbearing men. In other situations, though, a man’s arm around a woman is a beautiful thing. It’s a simple reminder to her that he’s there, and he’s got her back in a supportive way. He lets her move away when she needs to, and he doesn’t mind her talking to other men. For him, it’s not a possessive act but one rooted in love and affection. I personally love seeing couples like this where the physical connection between them merely reflects the deeper emotional connection between the two partners. For me, one of the more painful parts of my relationship with my ex-husband was that he was not comfortable with PDA. He felt it was rude to other people to engage in affection in public, yet on a subconscious level, this was in part a story to cover up his own personal discomfort. When he was willing to touch me in public, it was often reluctantly and was generally limited to hugging or hand holding. Putting his arm around me was definitely beyond his comfort range. As a feminist woman whose love language is touch, I always was disappointed that the man in my life did not put his arm around me. In the end, this is an issue that really boils down to the individual couple and what they want. Short of public sexual intercourse, we really shouldn’t be judging how others show (or don’t show) affection to each other. Our only focus should be on our own relationships. If Helen Mirren doesn’t want her male partner to put his arm around her, that is her choice. But it’s not her place or any of our places to judge others for how they interact with each other. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC Many of us (if not most of us) reach a time in our lives when we have to decide to end a relationship with a romantic partner. But how do we know if we are making the right decision to terminate what we thought was a dream come true? One way to approach the decision making is through creating a list. In this list, write down all of the characteristics of your dream partner and your dream relationship. You will have to be honest with yourself, or this exercise will not work. On the list, include information such as:
After you've made this list, go back and check off all the things you are getting in your current relationship. From there, evaluate whether or not you are getting what you need to be happy in a relationship. If your Prince/ss Charming has blond hair and your current love has dark locks, that's not such a big deal. If you want sex weekly and your partner wants it monthly, that's a bigger issue. If a large percentage of these items that you want in a relationship are missing from your current relationship, then you are very likely not in a great relationship for you. It's time to move on. If you are accepting something less than you want or deserve, it is likely because you are afraid to keep looking or because you don't realize you deserve better that what you have. I know from personal experience what it's like to settle. I realized I was settling for my ex-husband when I married him, but I did it anyway. And now, after four years of being single, I can attest that it is better to be single than to be in a relationship that is not meeting your needs. It is very hard to leave, but once you leave and do some healing work, life gets better much faster than you could imagine. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
Several years ago, I began changing my Facebook usage. I realized that most of my 300+ “friends” were actually people whom I had no real contact or relationship with. Some lived out of state and rarely checked Facebook. Others were people whom I felt like were gawking at my life like a trainwreck: They wanted to watch the pain in my life to comfort themselves that their lives weren’t nearly as bad as mine. Those people had very little desire to actually be involved in my life. When I asked someone to help, they were never there for me. Having confronted the reality of how much time social media was taking from my life, I pared my “friends” list down over several cuts eventually landing on a list of less than 45 people.
More recently, I became aware of a very disturbing pattern among the remaining people on my friends list. Very few of the people whom I let see my most intimate posts were able to support me in my disability discrimination struggles. When I post about being discriminated against, there were crickets chirping on a regular basis. Had I posted that I had been told to cover up while breastfeeding, a large portion of of them would have been outraged and would have called for a nurse-in. They would have stirred up online protests and would have gotten the media involved. Had I posted that I was stopped by the police for driving while black, another large portion would have been up in arms, ready to protest against racial discrimination. But when I post that I am experiencing disability discrimination, almost none of my “friends” could be bothered to say something to me either on or off of Facebook. To me, that is very telling. Friendship is supposed to be in good times and in bad. Friends are supposed to want to celebrate your joys and support you in your suffering. As Stephen and Ondrea Levine state in their book Embracing the Beloved, “To be in relationship is to open to the life pain of another on the way to yourself.” I am someone who gives to the limits of my being when others are hurting, yet I often do not find people who want to give in return. Furthermore, it is very hard to find friends who want to support you when your issues are not a hot cause or something they can identify with personally. Perhaps they are too influenced by the media and choose to only support causes that are popular right now such as #blacklivesmatter or #breastcancerawarenessmonth (not that those aren't extremely valid causes). Let’s have a reality check: Every single person in this world who is not disabled is only one major accident or infection away from being disabled themselves. Perhaps that is why no one wants to see the blatant ongoing discrimination I and many others face on a daily basis in our society. They are too scared to recognize that someday they, too, may be disabled and in need of assistance. If you have ever told yourself that disability discrimination is an issue that doesn’t affect or matter to you, stop and ask yourself: Why don't you actively support the disabled in our society? What are your prejudices? What are your fears? What makes you potentially unable or unwilling to support this problem even on the very local level of saying, "I'm sorry you got treated like a second-class citizen" to one of your friends when they experience disability discrimination? So many people have told me, “But I don’t know what to say.” That, too, is an indication of personal work that they need to do. When these friends see other friends or acquaintances struggling with personal troubles, the death of a loved one, or another life challenge, they have no problem offering support. They offer up generic words of encouragement: "I'm sorry you're facing this." "I am sorry you hurt." "I hope things change for you." "I wish you weren't having to go through this." Using the examples above, even when friends don’t understand struggles on a personal level because they aren't black or they haven't had breast cancer, they still know how to say, “I’m sorry you are having a rough time” or even "That sucks!" It's Basic Friendship 101. That is part of what being a friend is about. If they chose to, they would be able to apply the same skills to their disabled friends and their struggles. However, with the topic of disability discrimination, people, even those who purport to be my friends, want the issue to be invisible. They don’t want to have to face it. The sad reality is that I’ve done another Facebook purge as things like this show me clearly who my friends and acquaintances really should be. They are the ones who understand that my life is a roller coaster, just like most other humans', and if they want to be my friend, they have to be there for both the ups and the downs. I have found that fair-weather friends are abundant in this world, and I really don’t have a need for them. It’s the friends who are with me through thick and thin that really count. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
When my daughter Rebecca died in 1999, one of the things the social worker intern told us as we left the hospital was that we needed to find a funeral home. As my ex-husband and I did not grow up in Austin, we had never been involved in the planning of a funeral here, and we had no family attachments to a particular funeral home as our families did in the city where we grew up.
When we got home from the hospital, my ex-husband went and fell asleep (after having been up all night with me in labor), but I had the post-childbirth hormonal surge going through my body. Sleep was not going to happen for me. So I started doing what I do in any crisis: dealing with all the details and arrangements. I had no idea how to choose a funeral home, though I knew that funeral homes had a reputation of being expensive. Hence, I opened the phone book (in the days before everyone had websites) and started calling various funeral homes and asking prices. The first funeral home I called quoted me a price of $500 for an infant cremation with no service (since we were planning on having a memorial at the church we belonged to then). That was far less than I expected. The second funeral home I called charged $300. The third and final funeral home I called said they handled infant cremations for free. We had a winner! The funeral home that I selected had only one seeming drawback: It was on the other side of town, 25 minutes away without traffic. In my physically uncomfortable postpartum state, that was a bit of a challenge, but it was doable. My ex-husband and I made the trek down there the next day to fill out all of the paperwork since both our signatures were required; two weeks later I went back alone to pick up my daughter’s ashes (something I definitely should have taken a friend with me to do). While we were filling out the paperwork, we learned the reason that the funeral home handled infant cremations for free: The funeral director who worked with us had lost his prematurely born infant daughter about 30 years before. He started crying as he talked about her, his child who would have been close to the same age as my ex-husband and me at that point if she had lived. The funeral director apologized for being “unprofessional” with his tears, but we found his tears very consoling. The tears supported the pain and grief we were feeling and let us know how powerful the loss of a child really was. His compassion and empathy toward our grief was incredible, and we were grateful to him for all he did for us. Sixteen years later, it still brings tears to my eyes to think about him. Despite how positive of an experience it was working with this funeral director, this was still a horrible circumstance. No one wants to have to make cremation and memorial arrangements for their child. Thus, that funeral home became a painful site in my mind. I rapidly became incredibly grateful that it was on the opposite side of town. There was a cemetery and funeral home by our house that we drove past almost every day on our way home from school/work. I was glad that I didn’t know what the inside of that funeral home looked like and that I didn’t have to relive the memories of making my daughter’s cremation arrangements every single day when I drove past. Thus, that is my one bit of advice for picking a funeral home when making arrangements for a loved one: Consider a funeral home that isn’t on a path you drive by on a regular basis. The memories of your child’s cremation or funeral arrangements are going to be difficult, and having to drive by that building regularly where you felt pain will be difficult for many people. While I wish no one would ever have to make funeral arrangements for a young loved one again, the reality of our world says that they will. Finding ways to make that difficult time easier can be helpful in the healing process. (9/16/17 Comments closed on this post due to the preponderance of spam from funeral homes!) © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
I purchased Emotions: Freedom from Anger, Jealousy, and Fear by Osho to see what I could learn in preparation for my Meetup session on jealousy. It’s a small pocketbook of only 150 pages, and the font is very liberally spaced on those pages making the book seem even shorter than it actually is. I think the book was required to have at least ten comma splices on each page; it’s enough to make a former English teacher like me insane.
The book itself is filled with nuggets of wisdom that I found interesting to contemplate. Osho uses a combination of prose and poetry to share his ideas. Both have powerful results in some parts of the book. I really enjoyed the section on jealousy. The section on fear was shorter and weaker than the other two sections; it felt only partially developed. One of the final chapters of the book on transformation was nothing more than a redux. Furthermore, I found Osho’s perspective to be seriously lacking in an understanding of the mind-body-spirit connection. While that’s not unusual for a Western medical doctor, for a mystic, it feels like a sign of denial or ignorance. His active meditation ideas in the back were different, but none were compelling enough to make me want to try them. A great number of them involve physical motion which is difficult at this time for me, but it may be perfect for others who have difficulty with sitting still and meditating. Most frustrating for me was the section on anger. Osho’s view of anger is very simplistic. He believes anger requires two people, yet that fails to explain why we can have anger at ourselves. Equally errant is his belief that one can release anger in only a few minutes by changing one’s thought patterns. Either Osho is not a naturally angry person or anger does not work the same in men as it does in woman. I can go to bed, dream all night about different topics, and then wake up the next morning furious again about something that happened a day or two before. I found most of Osho’s suggestions for releasing anger (such as punching a pillow or running one’s self to a point of exhaustion) to be simplistic and pointless: They aren’t going to actually relieve the cause of the anger and often for me this type of tactic doesn’t even remove the energy of the anger either. Physical exertion just makes me tired and sore on top of being angry. Despite all of those complaints, I do think there was a great deal of wisdom in the book. Osho is great for “sound bites.” I found many quotes that made me stop and think for a few minutes as I encountered them. I saved many of those bits of inspiration for future mantras for my blog. I’ll also be using some of his poetry about jealousy to open my Meetup session on the topic because it is incredibly beautiful. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
wrote this meditation for the closing activity of a discussion group on jealousy for the Meetup group I lead, Your Personal Healing Journey of Austin. This meditation was inspired by and adapted from “Rejoicing” in The Meditation Bible by Madonna Guading, pages 192-3. This meditation focuses on the third and fourth chakras. It also works with the mind-body-spirit connection between our emotions and our organs, more specifically love-heart and gallbladder-jealousy.)
** Settle into your chair. Shake out any part of your body that feels tight or uncomfortable. Take a deep inhalation, and set your feet firmly on the floor, exhaling as you do. Focus on how strong the earth feels beneath you. Continue breathing in and out at a speed that feels natural and relaxing for you. Visualize the powerful energy of the earth slowly rising up into your body. First you feel the energy in your feet, and then it moves slowly up your shins. It crosses over your knees and into your thighs. Eventually feel the energy from each leg join together in your pelvis. Take another deep breath in, and let it out again. Now feel the earth energy rising in your abdomen. Slowly it moves up above your belly button and into your solar plexus region. Stop here for a minute and let the energy permeate all of your third chakra. This is the seat of your self-esteem. It is the location of your gallbladder, the organ that controls resentment and jealousy in the body. Take another few deep breaths in and out so that you are certain that your third chakra is buzzing with the powerful energy that the earth uses to support us. Next, move the energy up upward into your heart chakra and breastbone area, the seat of love and compassion in our bodies. Let the energy permeate your heart, warming it and awakening it. We will be drawing on this area later to help us let go of some of our jealousy. Feel the energy continue to rise in your body, spreading upward through your throat and inside your head. Allow the energy to massage your scalp and then move back down the outside of your neck and soothe your shoulders…. Release any burdens you may be carrying in this area as the energy moves through…. Slowly the energy continues to descend your biceps and triceps, your elbows, your forearms, and finally reaching your hands. Feel any excess energy dripping out of your fingertips, taking along some of your stress, your fears, your pain, and your jealousy with it. Bring your attention back to the rest of your body, noticing how much more relaxed you are now than just a few minutes ago when we began. You were able to make radical change happen in a relatively short amount of time just by focusing your attention and positive energy to the areas of concern. You always have the power to make this kind of change in yourself. Now take a moment to reflect about someone or something that you have felt jealous about recently. It might be a romantic partner, a friend, a family member, or a co-worker. It might be a financial gain, a new client, a promotion, a new baby, a lover… whatever the jealousy is about you that triggers unwanted or uncomfortable emotions in you. Take a moment to contemplate whatever it is that brings out the green-eyed monster in you. As you think about this jealousy trigger, simultaneously focus your breath and energy on your gallbladder which is located below your right breast. Breathe in and out as though your gallbladder was another nose or mouth on your abdomen. Let the energy of the breath move around your gallbladder, soothing and calming it in its jealous state. Feel the healing happening in your body as your breath helps remove the physical and emotional toxins within you. Ask yourself why you are holding this jealousy toward this other person or other thing. Why do you want what they have? What about it appeals to you?... Would having the same thing help you to get something you want? ... What is that goal that you desire so badly?... If you had the thing that is making you jealous, would it actually make you happy?... If so, how long would your happiness last? ... Continue to breathe in and out through your third chakra, allowing your breath to calm and heal your gallbladder. Question whether or not your jealousy is serving you in a positive way. Is it helping motivate you toward achieving a personal goal?... Or is it just causing you to wallow in your own selfishness and pain? ... Can you transform your jealousy into something productive? ... If so, how would you go about making this transformation? Take a moment to think about how the jealousy could become something positive in your life. Take a few more deep breaths in and out of your third chakra. Let your jealousy release on the out breath, sending as much of it out of your body as possible. Thank it for serving you, but let it know that you no longer need it in your body…. When you come to a place that you feel comfortable doing so, shift your attention to your heart chakra, across your upper chest and centered in your breastbone. Feel the warmth of your heartbeat in your chest. Feel your lungs fill with oxygen each time you breathe in and out. Feel the love that naturally resides in this area of your body. Now comes the most difficult part for most people. As you think about the situation that has made you jealous, try to feel happiness for that other person. Instead of feeling jealousy, attempt to come to an internal place where you can release your pain, your insecurity, and your selfishness. Focus on the joy and happiness that the other person most likely feels…. As you cultivate this feeling of generosity, send the other person your blessings on their situation. Telepathically let them know that you celebrate their good fortune with them.... Allow the love in your heart chakra to spread throughout your abdomen, helping pushing out some of that jealousy in your gallbladder in your solar plexus chakra below. Release as much of your jealousy from your gallbladder as you can, replacing it with the joy and happiness you feel for the other person. Let those love-related feelings drive out the jealousy.... As you do so, feel peace settling into your body instead of jealousy and pain.... As we draw near the end of our meditation, expand your newfound sense of gratitude and joy to help others who are struggling with the same types of jealousy that you have felt in your life. Send good thoughts to all of those who are creating suffering in their own lives though jealousy. May all of us choose joy and happiness when someone else has a reason to celebrate rather than bitterness, envy and jealousy. May we all respond with full hearts. May we all learn to work from a place of love and compassion that recognizes that each of us is meant to do different things in our own time. Just because someone else has something you do not have does not mean that you will never have it. Rather, you are working on different lessons in your life, the lessons that your soul needs the most. You will eventually be in a different place in your life, but for now you are blessed to be where you are. Say a word of thanks to any higher power you choose to acknowledge sharing your gratitude for all that you do have in your life right now and all of the blessings that you are surrounded by each day. You are truly blessed in your own right.... Take another few deep breaths... and slowly open your eyes when you feel ready. Take a moment to write anything in your journal that you would like to remember from this meditation. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
Trigger warning: This blog post discusses infant and childhood death.
Spoiler warning: This blog post discusses crucial elements of the plot of In the Bedroom (2001). Other information: October is Pregancy and Infant Loss Month. This is a part of a series of articles I will be writing this month on the topic of losing a child to death. One of my favorite books of all time is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s work of nonfiction, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. Reading this book in my second year as an undergrad, I made up my mind that I wanted to go do my Ph.D. in American Studies. (The professor whose course included A Midwife’s Tale actually ended up becoming my dissertation director.) During grad school, I read Ulrich’s 1991 Bancroft Prize acceptance speech entitled, “Martha’s Diary and Mine.” In it, she describes, “At some point in all this a 250-year old lady took up residence in the loft above my bedroom, alternately cheering me on and chastizing me for my lax habits and flagging spirits.” I’ve loved that image because I found it to be very true in my own research and writing. Your subject becomes an integral part of your life. When my daughter Rebecca died in June of 1999, I was midway through writing my dissertation on 19th century Irish-American Catholic women. These women had become a part of my life, just as Martha Ballard had become part of Ulrich’s. Ironically, it was also among these women where I found some of the greatest comfort when my daughter died. In the modern American world, we’ve reduced our infant death rate to less than 1%. Few women know the pain of having a baby or child die. This contrasts greatly with an estimated 10-40% mortality rate for children under the age of one and up to a 50% childhood death rate for the earlier 19th century. (Exact numbers are difficult to pinpoint because of poor record keeping.) When women were having an average of seven or more children, having at least one child die was a default expectation, and many women experienced the death of several of their offspring before the children reached adulthood. Thus, as I immersed myself in the world of 19th century women while I wrote my dissertation, I found a comfort that I never would have expected. At that time, none of my living friends had experienced the death of a child, so in the modern world, I felt very alone. Yet as I read the poetry and letters which many of these bereaved 19th century women wrote, I found myself surrounded by peers even though we were separated by over a century in time. They understood my pain. They understood my loss. Many of them had lost far more than I had, and yet somehow, they managed to carry on.
All of these thoughts came flooding back to me recently as I watched In the Bedroom (2001). This mistitled movie is incompletely described as “A New England couple's college-aged son dates an older woman who has two small children and an unwelcome ex-husband.” However, the movie is far more than that. It’s actually a very powerful drama about parents losing a child to a senseless death. In one scene, the local priest, Father McCasslin (Jonathan Walsh), is speaking with bereaved mother Ruth Fowler (Sissy Spacek) in the cemetery adjacent to the church where she had just been visiting her son’s grave. Father McCasslin says,
Louise McVey lost a child a few years back…She told me about a vision she had when she found out her daughter had died. She saw herself at a great distance from the Earth and encircling it, an endless line. As she got closer, she saw that it was made up of mothers traveling forward. She fell into line and began walking with them. When they reached a certain point, the line divided, and she said she knew that all the millions of women on her side were the mothers who had lost children. She seemed to find great comfort in that.
The character of Ruth Fowler was not powerfully moved by this vision, but I was because I understood all too well the pain and comfort that McVey described. There is something powerful to being surrounded by those who understand your pain. A local blogger who had experienced the death of one of her sons once described it in a post as joining the sorority that no one wanted to be a member of. You didn’t sign up for the sorority, and you didn’t want to be there. None of the other members wanted to be there either. And yet, there you all were, sharing a bond of sisterhood that no one ever wants another to have to endure.
I am grateful to those women of the nineteenth century whose words reached out from the paper and microfilm to comfort me in my time of bereavement. They helped less my pain and helped me to feel like others understood all too well what I was going through. The internet now provides a multitude of venues for bereaved mothers (and fathers) to connect with others like themselves so that they can find others who have endured the same horrible losses. Compassionate solidarity in suffering can make a huge difference in reducing the pain of life’s greatest burdens. © 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC |
Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.
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