Have You Ever Seen A Bunny Blink?

A plump bunny hunkered in the dirt under the evergreen shrubs in our front yard. She sat, still and unblinking. When I walked past her, her head turned slightly to track the threat, but otherwise she did not move.

I do not find bunnies to be magical as some people do, but I do think they're generally adorable as long as they keep their greedy paws off my Swiss chard. So I felt a twinge of apprehension when M. Peevie called me at work the next day about our own little Benjamin Bunny. 

"Mom, do bunnies have eyelids?" she asked with innocent curiosity.  

"Do bunnies have eyelids?" I repeated stupidly. "What?" Every conversation in my workplace has an audience, and the surrounding cubicles erupted in giggles.

"Yes. There's a bunny on the sidewalk in front of the house. He's either dead or asleep. He's not moving, but his eyes are open. Do they have eyelids?"

"Hmmm," I said, "I don't know if bunnies have eyelids or not, but you sure gave everyone here a good chuckle!"

"Why are they laughing?" she asked. "If you don't know the answer either, then I guess it's not a dumb question!"

"I guess I just assume that they do," I said. "Also, I don't think a bunny would sleep out in the open like that."

"Well, I've never seen a bunny blink before, so I didn't know," M. Peevie said, sticking fiercely to the Scientific Method.

"Well, that's a good point," I said. "I've never seen a bunny blink either--so I'm just guessing that they do indeed have eyelids."

When I arrived home, there was no bunny sleeping with his eyes open on the sidewalk. My thoughtful Next-Door-Neighbor (NDN) had handled the haz-mat clean-up, and I was grateful.

We Have Disappeared

I was making dinner and Mr. Peevie walked in the door from work.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I said back. I chopped an onion for Indian Mother-In-Law Savory Ground Turkey.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Fine," I said, peeling and chopping a hunk of ginger.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said, smashing a garlic clove under the flat blade of a chef's knife.

"What are the kids up to?"

"I don't know."

He was quiet for a moment or two. Then he observed, "You seem to be kind of short with me."

"You seem to be kind of needy," I said helpfully.

"Well, I am!" he defended; and he had every right to be so.

I glanced up at him; he looked stricken. "Well, so am I," I said, with more than a tiny bit of coldness in my voice; and I was. I had no emotional energy to care for his wounded heart. I resented his neediness. I kept cooking, and Mr. Peevie walked out of the kitchen.

The loss of Aidan has changed us and broken us. We are empty, defeated, and fragile. We are facing what feels like a bleak future without our middle son: 40 years (give or take) of making new memories, none of which will include Aidan. It's unfathomable and wrong.

With Mr. Peevie, I find myself short-tempered, hyper-sensitive, and intolerant of the slightest offense. I can't stand his neediness, but if he were not needy, I would perceive that as a deficiency of grief, and would find a passive-aggressive way to punish him for it. I'm so messed up.

Clearly, bereavement strains relationships, sometimes to the point of breaking--but the research does not bear out that divorce is statistically more common among couples who have experienced the loss of a child. In fact, "methodological limitations associated with sampling and difficulties in tracking divorced couples make it impossible to draw clear conclusions about marital disruption" after bereavement, according to the National Institutes of Health. We just don't know.

But what we do know is that loss changes us. Our family has disappeared, and a completely different family has taken its place.

We have been snatched away from our most intimate relationships and have been deposited into a household that looks and sounds and feels alien. We are all changed; everything about our family has been touched and altered.

The way we relate to each other is different: Our hugs are longer. Our rituals are more prominent and precious. Our arguments are more rare and more painful; our apologies more tender. Our conversations, leisure activities, family events--everything has changed. Sometimes we seek each other out; other times, we retreat to our own forms of escape. 

We never stop thinking about the son and brother that we have lost, and he is with us, in us, bruising us with his absence.

Distance

Today, April 21, we remember our Caitlin on her birthday. She would be 19 this year. I wonder how old she is in heaven. I wonder if she and Aidan are buddies. I wonder if there are buddies in heaven.

Caitlin was born at 22 weeks, weighing only 13 ounces (369 grams). We wanted the doctors to take her to a hospital with a unit that specialized in micro-preemies, to work on her, to save her. They couldn't, they said. She was too small (less than 500 grams), they said, and her gestation (less than 25 weeks) was insufficient.

We held her for her whole life. We looked at her and wondered at the tiny perfection of her fingernails and wept at the transparency of her skin. We gave her the name of my grandmother, Libby, for her middle name. I told her story beginning with this blog post.

Since we lost Caitlin, I have wept with many other families who have lost their children. My friend Rock Star, who's little boy died at full term before he was born. My friend Rofu, who lost her twin boys well into the second trimester due to a rare genetic abnormality. My friend Donkey, who lost one of her triplets in the first trimester and the second at term, shortly before his sister was born healthy.

So many other families in our circle have experienced the devastating loss of a baby in late pregnancy or shortly after birth that it feels like it's nearly as common as having a healthy full-term baby. It's not, of course: 

Rates of pregnancy loss decrease as the pregnancy progresses. Overall, about 10 to 20 percent of all recognized pregnancies and 30 to 40 percent of all conceptions end in pregnancy loss. Miscarriage that occurs at 13 to 14 weeks' gestation usually reflects a pregnancy loss that happened one to two weeks earlier. Approximately 1 to 5 percent of pregnancies are lost at 13 to 19 weeks' gestation, whereas stillbirth occurs in 0.3 percent of pregnancies at 20 to 27 weeks' gestation, a rate similar to that of third trimester stillbirth. (Source here.)

You feel like you can't go on, when you leave the hospital with empty arms. You feel like the rest of the world should stop, because yours did. You feel like the most important thing anyone could know about you is that you had a baby, and she died.

And for the first few months, for the first year, maybe longer, this is your life. You pull the seatbelt around your waist and you think, "I'm not supposed to have a waist yet." You go to church or for a walk around the block, and you quietly resent the pregnant women and any woman holding a baby. You avoid going anywhere near the strollers and baby clothes at Target.

You feel like your face looks different, that anyone who looks at you can see in your eyes that you had a baby, and she died. Maybe they can.

And gradually, but not linearly, you cry a little less, and then a little less. When you meet people, you are able to tell them that you grew up in Philadelphia, or that you still love to play softball. The conversation about the baby you lost is not always the first conversation any more.

Is it easier, or harder, or just different, to mourn a child with whom you never had a chance to create memories, compared to mourning a child that you've nurtured from infancy to almost manhood?

I think I need a little more distance from this present grief to really know.

Everything is Harder

Everything is harder.

I know I recently wrote that everything is easier--but it's not. It's harder.

Walking up the stairs in my house, from the first floor to the second floor is harder. Aidan's bedroom door, plastered with goofy drawings, stickers, a photo of Buddy Holly, and Einsteinian wisdom ("Imagination is better than knowledge") faces the top of the stairs. I walk up those stairs at least five times a day. I stop in front of his door, a canvas of accumulated tokens of his eclectic interests. If he were here, I would be starting to nudge him to remove them and start over with a blank slate. Now, I think they might stay there forever.

I walk past his room and look in, still expecting, hoping, to see him kneeling next to his bed, the laptop open in front of him, his papers spread out on the blue camouflage comforter. But instead, his room is empty and neat. The bed's made. Most of his stuffed animals remain in his room, except his two favorites: Manny the manatee who lives with me, and Dot, a big floppy stuffed dog, who lives with M. Peevie.

It's harder to concentrate on anything but grief. It's harder to focus, harder to read, harder to motivate myself to do anything meaningful or productive.

It's harder to be compassionate and kind; it's harder to forgive. Why is this? I think when we do these things--when we show compassion or kindness, or forgive someone who has wronged us, we pay an emotional price. I don't have much of a balance in my emotional account, and I'm often overdrawn. The people who see this most often are the people who most need my kindness and compassion: the other Peevies. There are others who are sad and suffering, too--but I have very little to offer them.

It's harder to go to sleep at night. When I lie down to sleep, the images come. I run through That Day in my mind, with the feckless hope that if I do something different, or if the paramedics arrive sooner, or if the ER docs try a new technique, the outcome will be different. Or my mind goes to the ER waiting room, where we gathered to begin to process the idea that Aidan would not be coming home with us. He is behind that door over there, still and silent. I couldn't bring myself to go in. Maybe if I had gone in, he'd be OK.

It's harder to wake up in the morning. I'm exhausted. Grief is physically, mentally, emotionally exhausting. I didn't sleep well. I don't care about anything anymore, so why bother. I think I should be in a better place by now--it's more than four months. But frankly, I don't want to be in a better place, ever. I don't ever want to feel better about losing Aidan. I'm conflicted and confused.

It's harder to think, and to write. It's harder to be organized and coherent. It's harder to find the right words, because there are no right words.

Everything is harder.

Everything is Easier

Everything is easier now. Grocery shopping, logistics, laundry, dishes, homework help. I fold four piles of laundry instead of five. The food bill is noticeably smaller. I set four places for dinner, and buy half a gallon of milk a week instead of two gallons. I don't have to stock up on frozen pizza, frozen waffles, and Log Cabin syrup every week.    

The house is exponentially quieter: the doorbell used to ring so often that we were tempted to crush it with a baseball bat. We'd open the door and inevitably it would be one of Aidan's friends from the neighborhood. "He can't come out right now," we'd tell the kid. "He'll be out in an hour." Ten minutes later the doorbell would ring again; this time it was the brother of the previous ringer, or another kid.

"He can't come out right now," we'd say--only this time, with a bit of an edge. "He'll be out in an hour. Don't ring the bell again." Five minutes later, it would ring again. "AAARRGH!" we'd all agree. Apparently, they didn't pass the word along.

Now the doorbell doesn't ring at all. (C. Peevie's friends usually just let themselves in.) And the basement is often dark and quiet--no shouting at Madden NFL, no Mario Kart races, not even much ping-pong. We don't have to navigate around six extra pairs of gym shoes when we walk in the front door. Almost every day four boys would huddle on the front stoop around stacks of Pokemon cards, analyzing, trading, and battling; now the stoop is just a stoop.

Everything is easier now. There are no middle-of-the-night conversations about death or tachycardia or the meaning of life; there is never a bony boy crammed in bed next to me, seeking comfort from a terrifying nightmare. 

I had just started to look into classes and options for the next home school semester, but now there are no home school logistics to arrange. Aidan had started to get the hang of taking CTA buses to X-Mom's house for his weekly science class with her precocious son Big L. He'd take the 86/Narragansett bus to Irving Park, and then hop the 80/Irving Park west to Pioneer Court. But his other routes gave him ulcers. He tried bravely to navigate two buses and two trains to get to his co-op classes in Skokie and Evanston--but with CTA stations closed for construction, and city streets closed for repairs, the route changed every week. He'd call or text us for technical and emotional support every time. 

Now Aidan is buried in the cemetery that stretches along that Irving Park route, right by his stop at Pioneer Court, in a section of Acacia Cemetery called West Portal. It sounds like a place he might have invented for one of his stories or fantasy card games. "This card will transport your character to West Portal, where you can visit the mage and regain your spells," he might have said.

Everything is easier now. We hardly ever see any "ologists" any more: our orthodontist and pediatrician appointments are down by a third; our dentist and optomotrist appointments down by a fifth. No cardiologist, no endocrinologist, no electrophysiologist, no neurologist. I don't remind anyone to take their meds every day; I don't make trips to Walgreens for prescription refills other than my own.

Everything is easier now. The toilets, formerly obstructed every three days with ordure of epic  proportions, never need to be plunged. There are no skinny-man boxers with skid-marks mouldering on the floor of the shower.

Everything is easier, but nothing is as it should be.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one;pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.;For nothing now can ever come to any good.                 

                      --W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues, 1938

RUOK?

Texting with Aidan was always fun. He spurned text shorthand, and tried to write everything grammatically. Here's one of the last exchanges we had; I was at work, and he was traveling to his home school co-op:
 
Aidan: Can you look up how long you need to wait before your bladder explodes?

Me: Why?

A: I really have to go to the bathroom and Im on the train.

A: Im starting to feel like Im going to faint.

Me: Put ur head down between ur knees.

Me: Ru ok? I tried to call u.

A: Im not sure.

Me: Answer your phone.

Me: How now?

A: Im on the train. I dont want to be rude.

A: How now?

A: How do you mean, brown cow?

Me: Its not rude when ur mom is worried that ur going to faint.

A: Im feeling less of that now, but can you answer my question about bladder eruption?

Me: No I can't right now. Sorry. It is not going to explode.

A: Just you wait...

and later...

A: I need my levothyroxine, my heart beats are super uneven.

Me: Levo does not affect ur heart. It's for your thyroid.

Me: R u worried?

A: Not really.

Me: Ok. I will try to pick up ur levo on way home tonight.

A: The only thing Im worried about is your text talk.

Me: Heh. 

Learning How to Breathe

Like an accident victim re-learning how to walk after months in bed, I am slowly beginning to re-learn how to breathe. 

After Aidan died--it will be two months tomorrow--I felt like I had to remind myself to breathe. I had to push each breath out deliberately, or it would lie too long in my lungs. It helped if I pushed on my chest, right in the middle, at the top of my ribcage. After the exhale, I'd wait to inhale, expecting that if I waited long enough, when I started breathing again, things would be different. Aidan would still be here. Aidan would still be breathing. 

(I have to use his real name, and not his Peevie moniker, because being whimsical just doesn't feel right any more. My whimsy is gone, at least when I'm talking about Aidan.)

I have made progress in the breathing department, but I am still lost and confused and empty with regard to every other aspect of life. How do I go back to work? How do I read books about anything other than grief and loss? How do I tell jokes, and laugh, and find beauty in the world? 

Maybe it's too soon for any of these things.

How do I answer when someone asks me how I'm doing? It's a normal question. It's not wrong that people ask me; in fact, I understand that they say it to be encouraging, to express love and support.

How am I doing? Here are my answers: Nothing is as it should be. Shitty. Empty. Sad. Bereft. I finally started to cry, after four weeks of wondering where my tears were.Like a blanket of fog is hanging low over the architecture of my life, touching and obscuring everything, dampening or deadening all pleasure and enjoyment.

I'm reading (and re-reading) everything I can about grief and loss. So far I've read Lament for a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff; The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis; and I'm halfway through a collection of essays called Be Still My Soul, edited by Nancy Guthrie.

I still want to talk about Aidan all the time, remember him, have people remember him to me. I don't really want to talk about books or movies or politics or celebrity gossip or anything that doesn't directly connect to Aidan. I remember this feeling after Caitlin died. I remember that for a year after we lost her, our first child, born prematurely and living only two hours, the most important thing you could know about me was that we had a baby and she died.

And now this is The Thing that defines me: the lack of Aidan. There is no Aidan--at least, not on this earth.

I am clinging to Aidan's things in his room, to Manny, his stuffed manatee, to his poems, to photos of Aidan sitting on the beach writing in his journal, goofing around with his friends or siblings, smiling into the camera with his gentle, sweet grin.

And with feeble faith, I cling also to the hope of the resurrection, and to God's promise:

We believe that Jesus died and rose again; and so it will be for those who have died in Christ. God will raise them to be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words. --I Thessalonians 4:14, 17-18