Category: Grief

Real

On By Mary LennoxIn Anger, Conflict, Grief, Loss, Love, Therapy2 Comments

(or Questioning Everything I Once Held to Be True About the Therapeutic Alliance)

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out-handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

~ Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

There have been several occasions when I have had to remind my therapist that therapy isn’t real.  She always takes offense at my insistence that therapy is actually an alternate, concocted, manufactured universe that doesn’t even come close to approximating reality.  If all the people in my life were as compassionate and empathic and understanding and able to listen and willing to negotiate and able to engage in conflict and open to change, not to mention be completely focused on me, as my therapist is, then I wouldn’t have a need for therapy!

I know that therapy is meant to be a petri-dish, where you get to test and experiment and fail in safety with a dedicated guide and cheerleader right there by your side.  It’s a chance for a dress-rehearsal, to try things out before you have to do something out there, in the real world.  But it is an artificial construct, with carefully appointed boundaries and roles and responsibilities.  The real world doesn’t work in the same way.  I wish it did, but sadly, it doesn’t.

I also know that what my therapist is really reacting to is my suggestion that the relationship between us isn’t real.  She will counter that the relationship we have is indeed very real, and intimate and loving and supportive and everything you’d hope to find in another person you can relate to.

Sometimes in the past I had allowed myself to believe this, to be pulled into the notion that what we had between us was more than a business transaction.

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Holiday Wish

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, LoveLeave a comment

(or Guilt in a Box)

A few weeks ago a colleague asked me “How was your Thanksgiving?”  I replied by letting out an audible groan, to which he laughed and replied “You are the first person to respond that way.”  And in that moment I realized that not everyone sees the holidays as a detonated minefield ready to explode.

For me, the holidays highlight loss.  I become acutely aware of what I’ve had to sever in order to stay true to myself.  I have a heightened sensitivity to people who are no longer in my life – either by death or estrangement.  I look wistfully at friends and neighbors, who seem surrounded by family and who never have to contemplate the question of where or how to spend the holidays.  Of course they will be with family, of course everyone will get together to celebrate.  I live in hope that we will find a “chosen” family of our own, but it never seems like there is anyone around us who is also family-less.

And yet, I find myself trapped in the traditions of my childhood, unable to completely let go and forge a new set of traditions for my family.  The past is hard enough to shake free from, under normal circumstances.

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Out of Control

On By Mary LennoxIn Conflict, Grief, LossLeave a comment

(or More Tantrums Required?)

Our 4 year old is currently in a battle for control, or lack thereof really.  He will launch into these emotional tantrums and irrational tirades, seemingly over nothing at all.  Or perhaps they are over everything.

Which is how we found ourselves at the beach at few months ago, on a mid-September day, with our son in his pajamas.  When he has these fits, if we can even figure out what he is upset about, we do our best to concede some point or decision to him.  The director of a local preschool advised parents not to fight their children on what they wear to school.  She even suggested that if they want to show up naked, that was perfectly fine – and that after that one time, they wouldn’t try that antic again.  I’m not sure I support the peer shaming of preschoolers to get them to conform to societal norms, so I’m okay with most things as long as there is no inherent danger present, physical or emotional.  Pajamas on the beach seemed to pass that test.

Since it was mid-September, we were just planning on sitting on the beach.  It was a clear, sunny day, but not the beach weather of the height of the summer.  We had left behind our beach umbrella, our sand toys, even our swimsuits.  But sure enough, our son in his pajamas wanted to go into the water.  I said we could go dip our toes in the water, certain that it would be too cold for much else.

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Raw

On By Mary LennoxIn Conflict, Grief, Loss, Therapy2 Comments

(or In Session, with Cancer)

The long-awaited text had finally arrived.  “Can you do Tues at 1:00?”

The text had been sitting on my phone for more than two hours before I saw it.  I stared at it for several minutes, trying to make sense of what I was reading, trying to get my brain to take in what this really meant.  I checked my calendar, then responded “Sure.”  It was the only answer I could give that captured my mixed-up feelings of anticipation and dread.  I wasn’t feeling a “yes” or “absolutely” or “I’ll be there.”  I definitely wasn’t feeling anything punctuated with an exclamation point.

I had been waiting for weeks for this moment to occur.  Of course I would be happy and relieved to see my therapist, but I was also feeling anxious and sad and scared and overwhelmed.  I hate it that our relationship has to be confined to the four walls of her office.  And that the only way I get to make physical contact with her is in that space.

About 30 minutes before I needed to leave for my session, a headache emerged.  My entire head hurt, as if some invisible and unrelenting force was pushing down squarely on the top of my head, but also down the back near my neck and towards my forehead.  I probably should have taken something before I left my office,  but I was hoping it would pass.  On the subway ride downtown, the pain intensified, my head hurting more with each jerk of the train.  By the time I arrived, I was in full-on headache mode.  Not the best way to arrive at a long over-due therapy session.

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Left Behind

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, Love, Therapy, Time2 Comments

(with Unfinished Business)

It’s been 15 days (and counting) since I last saw my therapist.  The last time I saw her I was still functioning under the illusion that she and her doctors were working, slowly, methodically, through a long diagnostic process.  Initial signs, along with a family history, pointed to MS, but in order to diagnose, they had to work down the MS rule out list.  There was a long list of possibilities to test for and that would take time to get through.  I did not sense any urgency.  It seemed sensible to remain calm and carry on with these rule-out tests.  Cancer was in the mix, and mentioned, along with the caveat that it seemed unlikely.  At one point, less than a month ago, there was even talk of just needing back surgery, with a mere 10 days to recuperate.

So I wasn’t worried.  And I wasn’t prepared when the very next day, the cancer diagnosis was made.  I had no time to prepare.  I didn’t know we’d be heading into a long, traumatic break.  When she took a 3-week break last spring, we had time to prepare and plan and find ways to explicitly stay connected.  This time, the bottom just fell out.

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Fill It Up Again

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, Love, Therapy2 Comments

(or You Can’t Always Get What You Want Need)

One of the ideas rattling around in my head before the election madness took over had to do with routines and the impact of disruption to these orienting, centering, reliable constructs that make up most of our lives.  As a parent, I know I bemoan any disruption in my children’s routine, be it a snow day, a holiday break, summer vacation, even the weekend.  We all know that children usually thrive on routine, when they are fully aware of plans and timings and expectations and what comes next.

I suspect many adults also function better on routines, but for some reason we aren’t allowed to openly admit that.  As adults we are somehow expected to better withstand the changes in routine, to be able to adjust the sails and keep the boat from capsizing.  Even if it’s a tricky maneuver, we must try to make it look easy and effortless, even in the face of gale-force winds.

I’m likewise certain that the recent election results are unsettling to so many precisely because we are entering unchartered waters, and have no idea of where we are going, or how we will get there or what the ultimate outcome will be.  The routine of life as we know it has been completely disrupted and we may never settle into a new, predictable routine again.  Responding to rapid changes may become the new norm.

For me, the theme of therapy this year has been disruption in routine.  It started back in April when my therapist took a much-needed sabbatical abroad.  I didn’t begrudge her (too much) this time away, but I did anxiously count down the 25 days she was gone.  Then we ran into a 21 day stretch at the end of June when I was away and another 20 day stretch at the end of the summer when our vacations misaligned.

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The Missing Piece

On By Mary LennoxIn Complicated Grief, Grief, Loss, Love, Motherhood, TimeLeave a comment

(or Simple Questions, Complicated Answers)

People can ask the darnedest questions.  I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve been asked “Are you going to have a third?” or “Do you want to try for a daughter?”  Usually this comes in the form of idle small-talk and meaningless banter.  I have to hope that the questioners are just naive, and that they haven’t given much thought to the myriad of ways one could answer these seemingly innocent questions.

No matter how often it happens, it always takes my breath away, even for just a minute.  My heart wrenches, a sadness overwhelms me.  I might pause for a minute to think about how to respond – or how I would like to respond.  I usually defer to simple answers: “oh, I think we’re done” or maybe even “you never know.”

Truth is we already have a third child, a daughter.  She was our first and had to leave this human realm before we even had a chance to hold her.  She wouldn’t have survived here on earth, but I have to think she is somewhere, without pain, in the great beyond.

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Free Fall

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, Love, TimeLeave a comment

(or A Day to Forget)

I wrote this out last year, long before I started even thinking about a blog.  It was too much for Facebook, and seems more appropriate to post here anyways, this marking the 15th anniversary of that horrible day.

Last night (9/11/2014) as we looked over the river to the beams of light, what I noticed most was the sound of the airplanes.  Lots of airplanes.

IMG_0949

And it made me remember the silence of the city that September night.  It was eerily silent and still, except of course for the steady stream of the sound of sirens.  But even those seemed to fade into the background, leaving the world all too quiet.

I remember the smell.  It’s a smell I would much rather forget, but don’t think I ever will.   It was an unavoidable smell that hung over the city for months – a combination of burning jet fuel and melting iron, dust and ash, flesh and death.

I really dislike the mantra “never forget.”  Many need to forget, in order to be able to move on, to be able to keep on living.

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In the Pursuit of Perfection

On By Mary LennoxIn Anger, Grief, Loss, Love, Motherhood, Rare DiseasesLeave a comment

(or So What Did You Eat Today?)

We just got home from a weekend conference where we had hoped that our older son would realize that he is really not so alone in this world.  I’m not sure that this objective was met – it’s hard to get much in-depth emotional processing out of a 6-year-old.  I, however, came away with a whole host of revelations of my own.

But to get to those, I need to start at the beginning.  You see, my son was born with a very rare, very serious metabolic disorder that, if left untreated, causes irreversible damage to the central nervous system.  Or to be exact: brain damage.

It is hard to fathom that the very foods that so many of us eat, and take for granted, are toxic to the hundreds of thousands of people with inherited metabolic disorders.

To protect both his and my anonymity, I’m not going to name the specific metabolic disorder that he has.  His specific diagnosis isn’t all that pertinent, and I hope my own thoughts on this topic apply to anyone raising a special-needs child, far beyond the reaches of our very small metabolic community.

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There’s No Place Like Home

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Home, Loss, Love, Motherhood, TherapyLeave a comment

(or Do Turtles Ever Get Homesick?)

I’ve just spent two weeks away from home.   Some would call this a “vacation.”  I don’t mean to sound flippant or ungrateful.  Yes, we’ve been in England these last two weeks… but mostly visiting my in-laws and in the non-stop company of two young, jet-lagged children who don’t really understand where they are or why their bodies are so out of sync.  It’s hardly been restful or restorative, as the word “vacation” usually implies.

What I’ve noticed most about this trip is my longing for home, a home-sickness of sorts, that I’ve never experienced before when we’ve traveled.

Perhaps it’s because it’s been more than two years since we’ve made the journey over the pond.  Or maybe it has to do with being here, during the Brexit vote and subsequent fallout.  I long for the perception and illusion of stability and safety back home, as opposed to the stark reality of instability and unknown that can’t be avoided on this island.  England, or more generally the EU, was always our backup plan.  If things get too politically unstable in the U.S., we always can head to Europe, or so we thought.  Now I’m not so sure.  I want my children to thrive in a global world, not be restricted to small-minded island thinking.

Maybe it comes from so many years of living in a country where I felt so many of the states were “off-limits.”  Sure there are gay people living in all 50 states (shock! horror!), and many did so under repressive local governments, but that’s never what I wanted for myself or my family.  I refused to live in such places and was lucky that I didn’t have to.

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