Loss

A friend of ours recently had a loss, and last week one of Darlene's coworkers lost her mom in an auto accident. Sudden, painful. Life is just so brutal sometimes. Whenever things like this happen I usually think the same thing ... there are no words. That is my preferred saying of all the cliches and encouraging things people share. When it comes down to it, a hug feels much better at a time like that than anything someone can come up with and verbalize. Words just can't capture the emotion at a time like that, so I always feel lame trying to think of something to say when I hear about a new tragedy. I'm also not religious, and when life is particularly rough, that's one of those decisions/mindsets you wonder about. I think it would make things simpler to deal with, but that's probably me just thinking the grass is greener.

We had two miscarriages before our first son was born, and they were quite different. After waiting for years and years to finish grad school we finally took the plunge and allowed ourselves to try as school was winding down for me--I think it was 2000. We'd been married 5 years and had friends married after us who had 3 or more kids already. We got pregnant pretty quickly once we tried...and that was the last good news we would hear for a while. Everything went wrong around 6-7 weeks and it shouldn't have surprised us. Things didn't seem to be going well after the first doctor visit: blood counts were off, Dar didn't feel well, and there were tons of indicators, etc, and when you hear nurses and doctors constantly saying things along the lines of 'that's not good but...' and 'it might be okay' you eventually learn that's code for 'if you're extremely lucky it might be okay, but prepare for the worst.' Anyway, it was painful and we were scared we could never have children, and it put a dark cloud over us for about half a year I think. However, eventually you can try again, and conception at least assures you that you're fertile, even if you have to worry about the carrying to term part. You toughen up mentally under that adversity and you trust that things will work out. You breathe in and out and just move forward. And that pain did fade eventually. I look back now and with all the good we have, to be honest I don't recall much about that first miscarriage. Time really does heal all wounds, they say. Sadly, it's also been forgotten due to how bad the other one was, and that one time never really will heal all the way.

I don't know why I started writing this blog tonight, but I felt like talking. Suffice it to say that with the second loss, everything was going well after a long damn time of waiting, planning, surgeries and doctor visits, and then when we went for the long-awaited good ultrasound to confirm things were just as good as they felt -- well, it wasn't good. A little embryo, 8-10 weeks along, had its little heart but...it wasn't beating. We went from expecting, hopeful and excited to... misery. It just took a second or two to do it too, like being sucker-punched completely without warning. It was instant grief, and I remember holding my wife and wanting so bad to take that pain away from her and at the same time being glad she was there for me, because I just lost it for a while there in that room. It was the worst moment of our lives. I have no doubt about it, looking back. I felt...shattered. I don't know how we got home, or how I managed to stumble through work and life the next few days. They did genetic testing later and found nothing conclusive, which in some strange way was perhaps supposed to make us feel better, except that they told us it was a boy. Ouch, that hurt too -- I really wish I hadn't ever found that out. It's weird, but that made it a bit more like losing a what-could-have-been instead of a never-was. I'll leave that place now. Having our sons years later helped heal it some, but like the other losses in my life, I usually choose to not visit the memories--it makes it easier.

The point is -- whether or not you've personally gone through a tough loss, every experience is unique, and the only common truth is that yes, it hurts. I don't want to know what a worse tragedy feels like, though I know they happen every day and someday my luck will wear out--it's inevitable. On things like that, you just have to hope or pray that you stay untouched as long as possible. And hug those you love... because fate can take them away much too easily.

And remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. If you're Lost , it's even more important. Ciao for now.