Taboo Topics: Losing a baby: For those who are not the person who has gone through it.

i thought i was finished with this series on people who have lost a child and then i received this email from a friend of mine who lost a baby. i knew this was one more to be shared and i imagine it will impact a lot of people deeply. i want to encourage those of you who read it to refrain from doing what we often do when hearing someone’s story – justifying, rationalising, critiquing, judging, preparing our response and more – just try and read the story and really hear the voice of a parent who has lost a child and is still in that place of it not being okay. just hear what is being courageously shared. [my friend asked to remain anonymous to protect the people in their life that this speaks to/about]:

Don’t tell me how many times it’s happened to you, I don’t want to know the possibilities of this ever happening again. I can’t see my way through now, how can I comprehend ever going through this again?

Don’t expect me to be better after the time you’ve set out as being reasonable, It may take 5 years, it may never be over. Look out for me, make sure I’m not stuck in a season, but don’t expect me to be fine by now

Don’t treat me like I’m over it, When you see one day that I’m the person I used to be before all this happened, then you can treat me like I’m over it.

I will never be the person I used to be before all this happened

Don’t tell me 4 weeks after my baby has died that you’re pregnant and expect me to be happy for you. I hate you, I hate the God who has allowed you to be happy and not me, I hate the people congratulating you. I am working through asking God for forgiveness for hating. How do you ask a God you don’t trust anymore for forgiveness? I am working through feeling guilty for no longer trusting a God I have always known. How does a God you’ve always known to be one thing suddenly change? I’m working through not seeing God as I’ve always known Him to be. Do you see what your “announcement” has set off in me?

Don’t judge me when you don’t see me singing in Church, I’m reading every song in a different light and with a different perspective, I’m evaluating whether or not I can honestly sing any of those words and mean them even a tiny bit anymore. I’m feeling judged for sitting in church week after week without praising, I don’t want to be here, I want to be in bed feeling sorry for myself, but I’m not…I’m here, I’m with you, it’s a massive step…recognize that

Don’t tell me it’s all going to be ok, you don’t know that. You told me it was all going to be ok when I went for my scan, we know what happened after that…Tell me you love me and you’re there for me, tell me you’ll walk this road with me no matter how long it is, tell me you won’t judge me, tell me you’ll try

Don’t tell me you understand. Really? Your puppies got run over, you understand “exactly what I’m going through”? You will never understand. Maybe one day (hopefully never though) you’ll have some kind of idea, but you’ll never understand. I don’t pretend to understand what someone else in my same situation is going through. That’s because they are unique, their situation will be perceived from the point where their personalities and outside influences affect them. I’ll never 100% understand what they are going through. You do not have the capability of understanding so telling me “you understand” only minimizes my experience of this to the size of your ability to comprehend it. I don’t blame you for not understanding though, I envy you.

Don’t tell me you’re sorry for my “unfortunate situation”. My baby died and was torn from inside me, you term that “unfortunate”?

Don’t offer empty words of consolation, hug me, I’ll know exactly what you’re saying.

Don’t make every “coffee date” a time for you to find out how I’m doing, I want to be able to go for coffee with you without the anxiety of what questions you’re going to ask me, and how those questions will affect me on this specific day. Let the conversations happen naturally, but listen…because somewhere in that conversation I will tell you how I’m doing…

Don’t pretend awkwardly that you haven’t heard me mention something about my baby or how I’m feeling today. Follow up, listen and talk with me, I’m feeling strong enough to open up and talk, don’t ignore me, that’ll only make me feel as if you think I shouldn’t be talking about it.

Don’t let me eat alone in the days right after everything. I feel guilty for even feeling the need to eat at a time like this. Bring food, it’ll make me realize that you think I should be eating even at a time like this and then I can feel just a little less guilty. Don’t ask me what I eat or don’t eat, I feel guilty for being hungry remember? It’d probably make me feel a little less guilty by eating food I completely dislike so I really don’t mind

Don’t make every meeting a somber event, make space for me to have normal times, you know, like when we lived life innocently and we’d go to each other’s houses and play games or watch a comedy together, or we’d go have breakfast in the park. I want ‘normal’, I crave ‘normal’, I can’t get ‘normal’ on my own, I need you to make it for me

Don’t look at my tummy in the months after, to see if I might be pregnant. I’m aware of not being pregnant every day, so keep your eyes off my tummy. Believe me, you’ll know when I’m pregnant again, I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops. So please, don’t make me insecure wondering when someone’s going to ask me about my tummy just because it’s a bit bigger…maybe from being pregnant before, maybe from a bit of extra weight that sadness has added on

Don’t tell me it was probably for the better. Would you ever go to the mother of a disabled child and tell her it would’ve been for the better if her child had not lived? That’s what you’re saying when you tell me that. I would’ve loved a disabled child, or a sick child, etc inspite of all that. That was my baby, I don’t care what was wrong with him/her

Don’t forget the important dates, I’m remembering them, I’ll never forget. The date we found out we were pregnant, the date we heard our baby’s heart beat, the date the doctor told us our baby was dead, our baby’s due date, what would’ve been our baby’s 1st birthday, it goes on, it forever will. When I’m still raw, remember the dates

Don’t tell me I have a choice as to how I’m going to let things affect me. Do you think I would ever choose to have things affect me like they do sometimes? I don’t have a choice in how things are going to affect me, from one day to the next I have no clue how even a simple question will affect me. You asked me yesterday How I am, I said fine, You asked me today…I burst out crying. You asked me this morning how my day has been, I said great, you asked me this evening…I got angry at you. You asked me at 13:00 what I’m up to later, I said I was going out, you asked me at 15:00…I was curled up comatose on my bed. You asked me at 20:00 how I was, I said good, you asked me at 20:05…I was cursing God. I don’t know from one minute to the next how things are going to go, my life is in turmoil.

Don’t expect me to be your support. I don’t want to know whether or not you’re coping, I don’t have the emotional capability to handle your feelings. You have your own support system, go to it so you can be mine.

Don’t get upset if I react negatively to something you say to me. I’m sorry for hurting you, but right now you’re the stronger one, can you carry that for me? Please?

Don’t tell me (as you roll your eyes at something your child is doing) “one day you’ll understand”. I understand now. I am a mother. I became a mother and my husband became a father on the day our baby was conceived. I may not have a living baby to prove it to you, but he/she will forever be alive in our hearts. We are parents, we just ‘understand’ a different area of parenting than what you do.

Don’t think that when I’m laughing I am not grieving anymore. I feel guilty, I feel as if I am betraying my baby’s memory.

Don’t forget that I’m still grieving. I know it’s hard for you to be aware of things you say to me, but please, is it such a burden to carry in light of everything? Will you carry that for me?

Don’t think my pain is healed. A part of me will forever be broken, but I will learn to live with that…in time

Don’t get annoyed or hurt when I don’t rejoice with you when you tell me you’re pregnant, I haven’t slammed the door in your face. I want to, but I haven’t because I care for you and want to protect you from me so that you can have the space to rejoice for you. I can’t right now, because I’m using all my energy to fight against hating and envying you, but I’m quiet, and that is my way of saying I care enough to be silent.

Don’t get upset when I don’t talk or open up to you. My words are coming from a place of pain, anguish and turmoil. I love you, that is why I’m silent. My words will only hurt you, so I keep them inside.

I used the analogy once when someone asked me how I was, I said it was like that earthquake that hit Japan last year. One week Japan was thriving, nothing on the horizon that was going to turn their world upside down. The next week everything had changed, all there was for as far as you could see was rubble. Lives that had crumbled into little bits that were no longer recognizable, nothing visible that was still intact. Nothing remotely resembling the life they had, the dreams they held for their futures.

Hopelessness, deep, deep sorrow, utter disbelief. The week before they couldn’t imagine anything like this, they didn’t have the ability to even comprehend the devastation lying ahead for them. In the first few days, no one knew where to even start. Where do you start to begin putting your life together again? How do you begin to fix years and years of life that has been broken down to nothing in just a matter of minutes?

Slowly you pick up a brick and move it out of the way. After a while the bricks become too heavy because your arms are tired, so you start moving pieces of broken brick instead. You rest a while. You’re tired, but your life is in limbo at the moment because you have no security, you have no confidence, you have no dreams for the future, you have no hope. You keep your head down because to look at the ruins of your home, your life, your dreams, as a whole picture is too painful, you can’t bear it. So you keep plodding on with your head down. Eventually you reach the base of where your house once stood. There’s a lot more rubble here because of the size of what once stood there, but you’ve made progress. What lies ahead is a much bigger task than what you’ve gone through already but you have nothing else to do, no other reason to do anything. So you keep going. You think of giving up sometimes because of the strain of it all, but you don’t. You don’t know what drives you, you don’t know what pushes you to keep going but you do. Maybe it’s the fleeting thought that one day you will have a house again, if you just clear this mess, you can build a life, build hopes and dreams and a future. The size of the task is daunting, but you keep going.

After days or weeks, or months, you lift another brick, but this time you see something underneath it. It’s dusty and dirty, and you can’t see it clearly, but you know it’s something you recognize and so you reach for it. It’s a vase, a simple thing that used to hold such beauty. It’s not damaged. Maybe a little dusty, but it’s still intact. You can’t believe it. How did anything survive? You cling to it as if it is the most precious thing in the world. You carry on clearing up. More things slowly start to appear while you’re clearing away the rubble. They begin to form a pile and the pile grows and slowly… keeps growing. Every now and then you go and sit next your pile, and admire the things that are still intact, the good memories start to fill you and give you strength. You get enough strength to go back and clear a bigger section. The times between clearing and resting grow bigger. What once used to fill your days is still there, and always will be, but you have hope now, it may be only a little, but you see how far you’ve come, you could never have imagined getting to this point but somehow you have, you’re a survivor, you ARE strong enough. The road ahead is long. Your house will never look the way it did before, but you start to recognize it as home, you start to see the possibilities in your future. But you never forget, to forget would mean to nullify everything you’ve been through and besides, how could you forget something that impacted your life so much, no, you never forget, but you begin to learn how to live with the memories…

to celebrate a 40 million something goal is human, to forgive is divine…

i imagine this is a much bigger post or discussion than what will fit in here but let’s get it started…

a soccer player [who was worth something like 40 million something – does it really matter when you hit 40 million whether the next word is pounds, euros or dollars?] scores a goal.

a hundred facebook statuses [stati?] read something along the lines of ‘amazing goal – so worth the money spent’

i get angry. [i know, not allowed, how absolutely elizabethan of me]

i post something about how no football player [or goal] is ever worth that amount of money. especially when hundreds of thousands [millions? does it matter once you’ve gone past hundreds?] of people are literally starving to death around the world

angry mob [but since we’re online they can’t exactly storm my castle with flaming torches, especially because of the high-tech moat system i have employed]

so discussion happens. well kinda. words are written and people [a lot of them strong christian types] strongly defend the soccer player, the club, the industry, the system.

but there is a huge disconnect. because arguments will be made [with the understood eyebrow raising condescension implied as to ‘how can you even think such a thing you stupid, you.] and perhaps scripture, or scriptural ideas will be referenced and argumentative questions will be thrown [what are you saying? he should give the money back? how much of it? how much is too much?] all in defense of how much the person is worth his wages blah blah blah

what probably won’t happen is Jesus will not be quoted or referenced, because it is very hard to believe that Jesus would support the idea of a soccer player being worth millions of currency while people [specifically ‘least of these’ type people – Jesus’ favourite type it seems] are left to starve to death or barely survive in miserable circumstances and conditions.

and what also won’t happen is the people defending overpaid soccer [and you can interchange soccer for music or entertainment or business or even church leader/speaker type – the soccer one is just a more blatant example but it is the same across the board for me] player guy won’t ever make a statement that it is okay for the poor person to suffer, starve or die. the position they take leads to that natural conclusion but they won’t ever state “i am okay with the idea that for the soccer player to get 40 million something, hundreds of people will go hungry” because i don’t believe that is a defendable argument – so play the emotion, challenge the lack of viable solution, ask the argumentative question, quote some out-of-context biblical scriptural idea, but refuse to be drawn on the fact [in my opinion] that the system is horribly wrong and broken. and disgustingly so.

the “are you suggesting?” questions are difficult because i don’t know that i have a solution – i do feel that if the player got 20 somethings instead of 40 somethings then possible the people who watch the games would be able to pay half of what they pay and so there would be a lot more money around for them to be reaching out to some of their ‘least of these’ people… but finding a solution is not my initial intention, because i believe it has to start with the acknowledgement that there is a problem. [and yes the problem is the heart of man and so on, but the one we are faced with is a problem of economic disparity that can not be denied] once we acknowledge there is a problem, that the system is broken, that it is ludicrous and shameful and wrong that the soccer player/actor/singer/politician/pastor/writer gets 40 million of something while the majority of people have to live on under 2 of something a day, then hopefully we can start working together on solutions.

at the very least, let’s stop celebrating the wrongness.

i kissed hating [the church] goodbye…

that is the title of my yet-to-be-published book. i have a title. and i have a book. and i think i am ready to start exploring ideas of how to go forward with getting it published. i have spent the last few days proof-reading someone else’s book and it made me realise [along with a friend of mine who started reading my book and gave me some positive feedback, thankx Liam!] that i pushed through with getting the book finished before coming over to the simple way for a reason…

i don’t suspect i will find a publisher to publish the book [have had one look at it and while he said he liked the content it is not the kind of book they will pick up – but the style for me is part of the heart of the book – chatty, conversational, informal and hopefully still passionate, challenging, contemplative] and so that really leaves self-publishing or e-publishing which both take some time, effort and money i imagine.

don’t have much of any of those but for now it’s just a case of feeling ready to do something and starting to pray about it and hoping that some type of direction for it comes along…

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 22 part ii

continuing with some further thorts from psalm 22

‘I will declare Your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him!
Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel! For He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help.’ [verse 22-24]

‘The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise Him — may your hearts live forever!’ [verse 26]

this psalm serves as a reminder as to those who God seems to have special time and affection for – the afflicted one, the poor. this is backed up hugely by evidencing Jesus’ life in the gospels as He was constantly representing God’s heart for those in the background, the marginalised, by reaching out to the people of the day who were not considered worthy to spend time with – children, women, samaritans, lepers, drunkards and prostitutes, tax collectors… and powerfully vocalised in the parable of the sheep and goats which Jesus concludes with, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ [matthew 25.45]

reaching out to the ‘least of these’ is not an optional extra for Christ followers [who have been called to deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow Him in luke 9.23] but an identifying sign of who we are. ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’ [james 1.27]

and then lastly, i love how this psalm ends:

‘…future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!’ [verse 30b-31]

this is the exact opposite to what is evidenced in judges 2.10 just after joshua dies: ‘After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD…’

yet in this psalm David is speaking of God’s name being pronounced and declared to a future generation that has not even been born yet. the question is begged of us, how will we continue the legacy of Jesus-following among present and future generations?

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 14

and on to psalm 14:

‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God!” [vs.1]

as Mr T’s B.A. Baracus from the A-Team would say, “I pity the fool!”

and that’s an apt combination of thoughts. and ‘pity’ has such strongly negative connotations where what i feel when i look at friends lives who do not know God and are going through stuff and trying to carry it all by themselves is totally a positive reaction of sadness and wishing-they-get-it’ness. even just the added effect of community when you are involved in a church or Christ-following community that understands a bit of what following Jesus is all about. to have to try and live life without that must be such a tightrope walk at times.

then the second part that this psalm gave to me was this:

‘You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.’ [vs. 6]

two sides to that – the scary question of whether ‘you evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor’ ever relates to me? does the way i live contribute to the plans of the poor being frustrated? and a bigger picture question of does the municipality or government where i live ever frustrate the plans of the poor and if so do i ever do anything about that? it’s been great being connected to the simple way where they have actively got involved where municipalities have created some really unfair to the poor and homeless rulings and even had a bunch of them changed [in partnership with other people] it is sometimes a lot easier to simply give a man a fish, or if we’re feeling generous even teach him to fish… but at some stage you have to ask the bigger question of who is polluting the pond and do we intend to do anything about that?

and the second part is comforting and speaks into the situation, that even when i [and my fellow man] are too lazy or confused or apathetic or too busy fighting about the how of it, that ‘the Lord is their refuge.’ God is on it. This shouldn’t mean that i mustn’t be. But it is still a comforting voice in the chaos of life. The poor and needy, the helpless and homeless, the naked and imprisoned and marginalised all have a place to go. and that place is a Person who Loves them very much.

new year’s evolutions to consider part v [community]

my next evolution suggestion to help you transform yourself into a better, more effective you in 2012 is this:

SEEK COMMUNITY

whether it is belonging to a local church or youth group or small group, or if it’s the people in your street or your apartment complex, to be an active part of an intentional community is a healthy and thrive-full way to live

the beautiful val and myself have been living and working with the simple way community in kensington, philadelphia for six months now and how we describe the local focus is simply ‘trying to be good neighbors’ and that’s really it – so whether it is the food distribution on a monday or the after school homework sessions with kids three afternoons a week, whether it is throwing a birthday party with the neighbors for our block captain or sharing a Christmas meal with a couple of neighbors, it really is all about being intentional and invested in the lives of those around you, and giving them space to invest in yours.

i think when it comes to the people who live next door it can seem quite a daunting thing, but my folks are brilliant at it – any time someone moves into their street they arrive with a plate of scones or muffins and a welcome and so they know everyone in their street – my dad has jumped over neighbors garden fences and mown their lawns [this was a muslim family that moved into the community and they later invited my dad to pray for one of their kids when he went into hospital] and so it really is pretty easy to do, but often just takes that initial decision and step.

we can be part of a group as an attender without really committing to the group or investing in it and so if that has been you, why not take the opportunity to step up in 2012 and really start building deeper relationships and investing in the lives of people [so move beyond a superficial ‘hey, how you doing?’ on a sunday at church or as you arrive home and walk into your house – invite someone round for a meal or out for a drink or get creative in a hundred other ways that can be effective.

and take it a step further to seek community based on what you can bring to it more than what it gives you – we are called to serve each other in love and so try and emulate the love demonstrated by the life of Jesus by doing what works for them more than it works for you – offer to babysit so your neighbors can have a date nite, gather a group of mates and paint their garden wall [maybe get permission for this one first], have a potluck [bring and share] meal and invite everyone in your street [if only two people come, start building relationship there] and start learning peoples names and getting to know them and being in their lives and watch as community happens.

no person should be an island, we were created for relationship. but especially if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, it is impossible to do that in isolation. God works with individuals within communities, where each person brings what they have to offer [time, energy, money] and offers it to serve and strengthen the group and those beyond it.

seek strong, intentional community in 2012.

to read the next one on laughter, go here…

i am homeless, not heart-less [part 2]

i managed to find Paul’s second letter, which he gave me a copy of when i went to visit the homeless community on sunday with val and some friends from SA who are visiting to join them for a quaker type service – it has been published in a few online newspapers and i got this copy from here. when we arrived at their base, they had been issued an eviction notice and had to leave by yesterday 11am:

Paul Klemmer, a homeless carpenter — and, it’s turned out, eloquent scribe — has written his second open letter detailing the plight and desires of the group of homeless individuals who left Occupy Philly at Dilworth Plaza to seek safe accommodation and who’ve been camped below an I-95 overpass for nearly a week. (Read his first letter here)

The camp has been issued notice by PennDOT, which owns the area beneath I-95, to leave by 11 AM tomorrow morning. The group does plan to leave — but where they will go, or when, remains to be seen.

Klemmer’s letter outlines two options that several people beneath the bridge shared with CP toady: seek temporary shelter inside or outside a church that would agree to host them; or, disappear: and drop beneath the radar of law enforcement officials who’ve chased them now from three homes.

Here, in its entirety, is Klemmer’s most recent letter:

Today we face two closely-related crises. The first very immediate need is that of the 20 or so individuals that trusted the Occupy Movement and Interfaith Community to rescue them from the consequences of the Occupation of City Hall and impending renovation there.

The second crisis, an ongoing one, no less immediate because of the season, is the people of Philadelphia’s, and America’s, willingness to allow armed men and women to prevent the poor from working together to increase their fortune.

With a nail gun, even a butane-powered one, and some battery-powered tools, I and the skilled carpenters in the camp could create, from recycled materials and donated fasteners, structures like those at Christmas Village, easily disassembled and transported, to see us through the winter.

What’s more difficult to create is a sharing, loving community with those who the System has habitually fractured and fragmented. We’ve come a long way in a short time and formed the core of such a community of shared involvement and responsibility. We’ve been conditioned by being forced to exist alone, to grab all we can before someone else does, this alienation suiting the purposes of a status quo which would keep us invisible and blame us for our own misfortunes.

If we find a place to move from here, we need to immediately structure the receiving and distribution of donations in an equitable fashion and create, with guidance from the Interfaith Community, a minimal list of expectations and obligations agreed to by those who would join our community and work toward building solutions, not only for our group, but at least as an example, for all the needy.

It’s been suggested that the churches of the Interfaith Community might provide temporary sanctuary for our small tent community, providing a launching pad for other, longer-term solutions such as acquiring abandoned indoor or outdoor space through legal channels, disappearing into safer spaces ofr bouncing from church yard to church yard, doing clean up and repairs in the community, inviting community involvement and integrating the homeless within these communities. But by tomorrow, Monday, we need a place to regroup or just crawl back under the rocks we crawled out from, disappointed that the hot air generated by Occupy was insufficient to keep us warm through the coming snows.