Anger

January 21, 2011

The other night Sam couldn’t sleep so he came and got in bed with us. I don’t know how long he been there but eventually I felt this tapping on my shoulder and then heard a, “Mommy, I’m not tired.” He didn’t ask to get up or anything, he just wanted to talk. So we lay there and talked for two hours.

First, he wanted to hear stories so I told him the standard ones (Three Bears and Three Little Pigs). Then, he wanted to hear about our “ventures.” I told him about our trips to Boston, Wales, and San Diego and then he told me some stories about ventures that we’re going to have in the future. Most of them revolved around our horses.

At one point, though, he said, “You can talk about Toby if you want to. Can you tell me some pictures about him?” This was the first time that he had ever asked. I started from the beginning and told him everything I could remember about Toby, trying to focus on things that they did together. He was pretty happy about this. He got confused, though, when I said that we could talk to him and he could hear us. He didn’t understand why he could hear us but we couldn’t hear him.

We really try hard not to use words like “Heaven” or “angels” because, well, neither one of us are sure that those are the forms of afterlife that we believe in. If I believe in a place after death (and I’m not entirely sure that I do) then I think it would be more like Summerland. I couldn’t imagine spending eternity in the Christian idea of Heaven, but Summerland sounds very nice. (To simplify matters, think of Summerland as being kind of like the place in “What Dreams May Come.”) I also believe in reincarnation and I lean toward that route with Toby. But these are things that are hard to talk about with a 3 year old so to simplify things we usually just tell him that he’s gone, that he can’t come back, but that we can still talk to him.

I have found myself getting so angry at people lately. I cut myself off from Facebook again because I’m afraid that I’m not going to have any friends left at all at this rate. I kept deleting people and then I figured that maybe I should just deactivate it again until I felt better. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is real anger and what is misdirected anger.

Sometimes, though, I know that my anger is not misdirected. There is one person in particular in our lives that I am so angry at that I have to force myself not to really think about them or else I get worked up to the point of tears. I have never in my life met someone so selfish, self-centered, manipulative, and mean-spirited.

Fortunately, for some geographical reasons, we don’t have a reason to see this person. That doesn’t mean that we’re not aware of them, however. They were sending upsetting messages while I was in the hospital, during my ultrasound, on holidays…E-mails are left unread, but text messages are a little harder to ignore.

At some point, something will change but I cannot fathom a situation in where I am in the same room with them. That door is closed forever. I can’t imagine my family being welcoming, either. Especially since hateful messages have been sent to Mom, too. I told my dad a little bit about what was going on and showed him things that had been sent to my phone and he was appalled. He made me repeat it three times before he could believe it. Dad is a very mild-mannered guy and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like him, and that’s about as mad as I have ever seen him.

I am sad for Sam’s sake sometimes, and for this baby’s as well. But then I think about people that he has like Ashley, Uncle Ray, Aunt Fran, Vickie and Ned, Aunt Jane, Uncle Linden, Aunt Carol and Uncle Herald, and the 16 other aunts and uncles that I have as well as the 45 cousins and I think, well, it’s not like he doesn’t have people around. Elsewhere, he is treated as a non-entity anyway. So am I, but that doesn’t bother me nearly as much.

My granny, Stella, was a weird woman. She was not an easy person to get to know or to get close to and after about 16 years of trying and failing I pretty much gave up on her. It frustrated me sometimes that she didn’t seem interested in me, but Nana more than made up for that and even Stella’s husband Leslie had been very affectionate when he was still alive. Growing up, I was angry that she wasn’t more interested in me, but then I got sad. Not sad because I didn’t get to know her, but sad because I didn’t care that I didn’t get to know her. Dad’s family is a complete anomaly to me and that doesn’t bother me. Mom’s side has always been enough, at least when I was old enough to realize that.

Stella was always a little off-putting to Mom and didn’t treat her very well, either, but looking back on that I have to think that was pretty stupid. Did she not realize that she should have been nicer to Mom? I mean, if something had happened to Dad, she wouldn’t have seen me again. She never made the effort to see me on her own and with her attitude; Mom wouldn’t have made the effort, either. I wonder about that a lot, now. Grandparents don’t have rights, unless they can prove that they have been the caregiver of the child for most of their lives. So I wonder about that with Sam. Or is he so far off the radar already that it doesn’t make a difference anyway?

We had an ultrasound yesterday. It was a hard visit. Sam is upset that we’re having another baby because to him a baby means death and screaming and funerals. We were made even more nervous by the fact that the baby was inactive and they couldn’t give us any accurate results without more tests. I started to tell people about it, but I didn’t feel like explaining it to everyone and then having to re-tell them again when the tests came back. I have another appointment on Monday.

Feelings

Grief isn't linear and sometimes you can go days feeling great and them regress and feel as though you haven't come far at all. One of the most frustrating things is thinking that what you're feeling isn't "normal." While there is no "normal", there are some things that are common. The following is a list of things that you might feel or experience. (or, you might not,)

From the "Bereaved Parents of the USA" website: http://www.bereavedparentsusa.org/BP_NewlyBer.htm

Some of the things you may experience or feel are:

• Depression.
• A profound longing and emptiness.
• Wanting to die. This feeling usually passes in time; for eventually you will realize that you must go on for the sake of remaining family members, yourself and your child who died.
• Profound sadness.
• Crying all the time or at unexpected times.
• Inability to concentrate on anything, frequently misplacing items.
• Wondering “Why???”
• Forgetfulness.
• Questioning yourself over and over: "IF only I had….?" "Why didn’t I…?"
• Placing unnecessary guilt on yourself or others.
• Anger with yourself, family members, God, the doctor and even your child for dying.
• Fearing that you are going crazy! (very normal)
• Great physical exhaustion. Grief is hard work and consumes much energy!
• Difficulty sleeping or sleeping all the time to avoid the pain.
• Physical symptoms such as heaviness in your chest or having difficulty breathing (if these feelings persist see your physician) tightness in your throat, yawning, sighing, gasping or even hyperventilating.
• Lack of appetite or over eating.
• Weight gain or weight loss.
• Anxiety. (Often associated with overprotective behavior toward surviving children and other family members.)
• Denial of your loss, thinking that your child will return. (Denial can be effectively treated by spiritual leaders as well as psychologists. Seek help if your denial phase persists beyond a month.)
• Needing to tell and retell the story of your child’s death.
• Inability to function in your job.
• Sensing your child’s presence or an odor or touch associated with your child.
• Having difficulty grocery shopping because of seeing your child’s favorite food(s) on the shelves.
• Irrationally upset with yourself if you smile or laugh, thinking how can I smile, my child is dead? (Your child will want your life to be as good and as happy as possible in spite of death’s intervention.)
• Feelings as if your spouse or other family members don’t understand your grief or are not grieving as you think they should. Remember everyone grieves differently.
• Losing old friends who don’t seem to understand your pain and grief.
• Making new friends through support groups with members who have also experienced the death of a child and therefore understand your feelings.
• Feeling like you are making progress in your grief work, then slip back into the old feelings. Grief work usually is a succession of two steps forward and one step back over a long period of time.
• Becoming very frustrated with others who expect you to be “over this” in a month, six months or a year and who say so. Or even being frustrated with yourself for expecting to be “over this” too soon.
• Grief work from the death of your child is a slow process. Be patient with yourself.