Because when something this earth-shattering and tragic happens to you, there are only so many tears you can cry on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong; I cry all-the-time as any woman with a dead baby would do. But I also laugh. I laugh about the circumstances of this being my life and not just some other lady in that sad book or in that TV show. I laugh because if I don't, I might go clinically insane. I laugh because sometimes I want to forget that my life and all its "perfection" has now, essentially, ended and started anew without seeds or the newness we associate with something positive. It just plain started in the middle of someone else's sad, dreary existence.
Lucky for me (and unlucky for them), I've met some other people out in technology land who I can converse snidely with about our dead babies. It's not in the least bit funny, but we still laugh. {which then reminds me of that song from Brad Paisley, Online}
I finished reading Elizabeth McCracken's memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination and noticed she's pretty snide and cynical herself. An aside, I was emailing with a fellow BLM and referred to McCracken's book as "An Exact Figment" instead of "An Exact Replica" and then realized that "An Exact Figment" would just be the title of my stupid, unwritten memoir. {please laugh}
In An Exact Replica, McCracken relives the life and death of her son to stillbirth, and then her subsequent pregnancy. In speaking of her subsequent pregnancy, she writes...
"All the while, all I could think was: Dead baby dead baby dead baby."
"I wanted a separate waiting room for people like me with different magazines. No Parenting or Wondertime or Pregnancy, no ads with pink or tawny or pearly smiling infants. I wanted Hold Your Horses Magazine. Don't Count Your Chickens for Women. Pregnant for a Time Being Monthly... I wanted scrawled across my chart in shaky physician's cursive: NOTE: do not blow sunshine up patient's ---."
I tend to avoid the books that are soft, sweet, and gentle to mothers of dead babies. I just don't want to hear another person utter soft condolences and heartfelt suggestions about journaling my feelings or finding my inner chi.
In an email today with a few of my BLM friends, I said something to the extent of, "Ray is going to die when I tell him that." I was talking about something really funny and used that figure of speech that I wouldn't have batted an eye at pre-December. But now, I typed it but also added a disclaimer. My other friend commented about saying, "I'm gonna kill myself" as a figure of speech in the hospital. After losing your baby, health professionals are (justly) worried about such things as suicide. But really, we've been stripped of the ability to use these figures of speech-- though they are pretty rotten, aren't they? My other friend commented on how she's become more careful because though superstitions are potentially false, there's always a chance. After all, there was less than a 1% chance our babies would die and they all did. Percentages are just numbers. They mean nothing to someone who has lost a baby.
So maybe I will be re-thinking this whole system of middle-school hyperboles we learn and mutter so nonchalantly. But not because I don't want stares from people when I talk about death, but because I just can't begin to imagine if muttering that stupid phrase would dig me deeper into griefdom.
Griefdom, a new location. Hm. Do you think anyone would want to book their next vacation there? Kind of like Disneyworld, but not at all. Maybe it'll be a Groupon someday for half-price. Who's buying?
p.s. Ohhh. I used "utter" and "mutter" in this post. Gold star.
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