News From Hawkhill Acres

Yesterday was the third anniversary of my youngest son Mike’s death.  His sister is 11, a few months older than he was when he died. I read about another family who lost a child and what David Cameron, the father,  said after his son’s funeral. He said Ivan’s death had left a hole in the family so big “words can’t describe it.”

That hole is what made my chest hurt for months after my son died. Why I didn’t have a heart attack is a mystery to me, because I’ve never felt anything so painful, not even childbirth. My kids felt the same pain, but I think it was worse for my daughter than it was for my oldest son.

Daughter and Mike were inseparable. She came to us when Mike was 3 and after his doctors had assured us that he would lead a normal life, with a few developmental delays. We didn’t want to take on another child if I’d be spending weeks in the hospital like I had with Mike’s many illnesses for his first 3 years. We should have trusted our own instincts, but I guess we wanted to believe that Mike was finally out of the woods and that his immune system had “kicked in” as the doctors put it.

It hadn’t and there were more hospitalizations, but not as many, and he and Daughter bonded immediately. He fed her, held her, read to her and shared his toys and everything he had with her. He was never jealous. To the contrary, he pushed her forward to make sure that she got her share of  our attention.

We have so many photos of them snuggled together in a rocker, curled up on the couch watching TV, playing with their little dolls and blocks, and sleeping in a heap like puppies or kittens. Even when they were older and they began to develop separate interests, they still leaned on each other, stood with their arms around each other and hugged each other goodnight every night.

I read somewhere that it surprises parents, when their child dies, how much of their grief is yearning for the physical presence of their child.  It surprised me, although it shouldn’t have. Mike needed so much “hands-on” care from me:  nebulizer treatments four times a day and sometimes every two hours for days, help with bathing because of the tubes in his ears and severe asthma that meant that a drop of  water in his lungs developed into pneumonia almost immediately, help with many things that most kids his age could do independently but he couldn’t because of developmental delays. I didn’t realize until after he was gone how many times during the day I smoothed his hair back, held him in my lap for nebulizer treatments or kissed the back of his neck as he snuggled because he was sick and needed comforting.

How much more must his sister have suffered, because she had lost her biggest source of comfort. I had her and her brother and my husband. She had me, but I have to admit that I wasn’t really “there” for a long time after Mike died. I went through the motions. I hugged her and held her and cried with her, but the biggest part of me had gone with Mike.

So many people told me, starting with the chaplain in Mike’s room right after he died, that I’d heal. I got so tired of hearing that, because I knew that it wasn’t true. You heal from broken bones, cuts and diseases, but not from the death of your child. Go on, yes. Of course, I’d go on; I have other children. If  I hadn’t, I would have driven into a pole on the way home, which is what I felt like doing. But heal? Not bloody likely.

I haven’t changed my mind about that. None of us has healed. Our hearts all still have a hole in them. One of my kids said that the problem is that it’s a Mike-shaped hole, so nothing else fits into it. That’s a very wise way of putting it. The only thing that’s happened is that finally, just in the last few months, we’ve started to patch the hole.

Yesterday, instead of keeping to ourselves like we have on March 4th for the last two years, we had friends over. Three kids to throw snowballs for the dog with Daughter, to chase each other around the kitchen and fall into a laughing heap when we tell them not to run in the house.  Kids laughing at a funny movie and finally, another little girl to whisper and giggle in Daughter’s bed and sneak the dog up between them so they can both hug her.

Our hearts will never heal, but they’ll grow stronger where they’re patched. Daughter will never stop missing her brother, but memories of what she’s lost are being overlaid with what she’s gaining every day. I’ll never stop missing my son, but watching my other two children reaching toward happiness and growing toward the light is my heart patch.

We realized after Mike died that he was the glue that held our family together in many ways. Mike was a peacemaker, a bridge between Daughter and Son, who are 8 years apart from each other in age. He was our social guy, the kid who drew the rest of us introverts into contact with other people and new experiences. When he was sick, we all rallied ’round and helped each other and him. When he was well, he was usually lying on the floor playing with his cars, while he leaned against me or his sister.

For months after Mike died, I couldn’t settle to anything. I felt like I needed to be moving, to drive, to go away from home. I didn’t know why for a long while, then it hit me. I was looking for Mike. He wasn’t home, so he must be somewhere out there.  Naturally, we can’t settle to anything when our child is missing. He’s still gone, but I don’t look for him anymore. I know where he is. He’s in our hearts, right under the patch.

(If you’d like to know what I was thinking two February’s ago, read this post from 2.22.07))

Are you always a day late and a dollar short? Do you often find yourself wondering what happened to a couple of weekdays or a weekend that you must have lived through but can’t recall? I’m not talking about “Lost Weekend” kind of lost weekends here; not the ones that drowned under a sea of Seagrams. I’m talking about the times that someone says, “Wow! Thursday already!” and you’ve spent all morning doing Tuesday.

This kind of thing has been happening to me a lot lately. Looking out from the weekend, I see two doctor’s appointments on Monday, a trip to the library on Friday and lots of empty, home-based hours in-between. Plenty of time to work on my websites, get my proofreading done, think up some scintillating blog posts and help my kids learn.

Heck, there might even be a little time in there for a spot of housework. That would be a good thing. We’re either going to have to vacuum the dustbunnies or catalogue them and offer them on ebay as collectibles. And there’s only so long you can write “TEST SITE! DO NOT REMOVE THIS DUST!” on furniture before visitors catch on, although apparently everyone in the house believes it, because no one ever dusts.

So, I’m kicking back on Sunday with a good book and a glass of Cabernet and then all of a sudden, it’s Thursday, the mortgage is two days overdue, there are piles of dirty clothes all over the basement, we’ve missed a dental appointment that I forgot to put on the calendar and my daughter is a size bigger and can’t fit into any of her clothes that I bought her just… Well, actually, I guess it was fall, when we last did a mall-crawl, although it’s such a traumatic experience for me that the afterimage is imprinted on my credit cards for months.

TMJ has struck again. (That would be Temporal Manipular Join Syndrome, where my sense of Time doesn’t mesh with actual Time.) It doesn’t help that I’m one of those down-to-earth types who lives in the “Now”, like all the self-help gurus tell us we should. Right. That makes sense if you’re never going to plan anything or recall pleasant memories or imagine your future. Living in the “Now” isn’t really helpful for learning from one’s mistakes either or anticipating the consequences of present actions.

True, paying attention to what we’re doing “right now” is a really good idea, especially if what we’re doing now involves chainsaws, cooking candy, bathing cats or voting for President. But human minds never really focus totally on what they’re doing to the exclusion of everything else, no matter how long their users meditate on a candle flame or listen to white noise. You can bet your bottom dharma that some of the meditator’s attention is in the past and/or the future, thinking about what they’ve done or what they’re going to do.

Nope, this Time thing is a real poser. Einstein almost had it figured out, but then it went all bendy on him. And Hawking is still working on it and may be close to tying it all together. At least, I believe he’s answered the question of whether energy escapes from a Black Hole, and that will certainly help. I haven’t yet found a practical application for it in my own life, although I’m working on applying it to lost socks, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Who am I to belittle anything Hawking comes up with, no matter how impractical it seems. The man is probably the smartest man on the planet and, by the way, tell me HE lives in the “Now”, hmm? I don’t think so.

Well, the clock says it’s lunchtime, although I’m sure that I looked at it twenty minutes ago and it was right after breakfast. The kids have probably segued from The History Channel to Cartoon Network and, no doubt the dog’s water bowl has dust in it and the cat’s litter box is crusted over. I’d better go make some lunch and then try to accomplish at least a couple more things on my list. I’m not doing too badly; I have almost everything checked off, except for three or four things that I’m sure I’ll have done by tonight. And then I can move on to the next list in the pile from January. Or maybe I’ll tackle something easier and work on a Unified Field Theory instead. Now, where did I put my String?

Pumpkins are melting into sodden orange lumps on doorsteps. Womens’ magazines feature yet another recipe spread for a low-fat Thanksgiving dinner, which seems terribly surreal to me. No matter what anyone may say to the contrary, eating real food instead of the processed fast food we eat the rest of the year is the whole point of Thanksgiving for most of us. Well, that and waiting for Santa to arrive and open the official Christmas shopping season after we’re entertained by huge, inflated creatures bopping each other and threatening to injure spectators. (This could be a description of either the Macy’s Parade or a football game. Take your pick.)

Yes, once again, the season of goodwill and peace on earth is upon us, which means it’s time to get out our skinny little wallets and shop for America. Unfortunately for the retailers, this year things may be a tad less remunerative both online and off. I’m not buying the hype that online sales will be higher than last year, because people can’t afford mall prices. I think online and offline sales will both be smaller than last year.

I know my budget is having a hard time stretching to cover oil and gas and food and I assume I’m not alone. I know this because of the posts in parenting forums where mothers are trying to figure out how to have the Christmas they always have on a third of the money they usually spend. We don’t overdo on Christmas. As a matter of fact, we celebrate more of a Solstice-y, Winter Holiday as an excuse for celebrating sort of thing and presents aren’t a big part of it. But we’re still cutting back.

Perhaps as we all tighten our belts around our bulging American bellies, it might help us to feel a little less deprived if we consider the families around the world who aren’t having a problem figuring out how to fit toys into their December budget. I’ve been doing that a lot lately and it really gives me a different perspective on the holidays and our whole way of life.

Even if you don’t watch the news, it’s impossible to ignore what’s happening in Darfur, Rwanda, DR Congo, Iraq and so many other places. That the brunt of this falls onto the already overburdened shoulders of women and children is what bothers me. As Slaid Cleaves sings,

” Women cry as the men kill
Always have and always will
You know we’re never gonna run out of blood to spill”

But while the men fight the wars, women are left behind to try to feed and shelter their children. You see them digging up roots in Africa, even though the roots make their children sicken and die. There’s just flat out nothing else to put into their bellies, and the roots do keep them alive a little longer. I know without being told that I’d do the same thing, hoping that the war would end and food would come from relief organizations in time to save my child.

They’re starving to death in tiny rooms in Iraq, because if they go out without a male family member, they’ll be beaten and maybe raped. We’re texting in our cars and IM’ing our friends about the latest surprise on Survivor. Their orphan sons are foraging in gangs and getting kidnapped by rebel armies where they’re taught to kill by the people who killed their parents. We worry that our sons spend too much time online playing World Of Warcraft.

Their toddlers are watching their mothers starve while ours are watching their mothers try to stick with the latest diet. We obsess about picking the best pre-K for our daughters. Their mothers gave up on school for their girls when the teacher was gunned down by militant fundamentalists in front of the class for teaching their daughters how to read.

We have so much stuff that we need books to help us figure out where to put it all. They cling to a battered pan, scraps of cloth to cover their children at night, a cracked cup just in case they find something to put into it. Their husbands, sons and brothers are lost to them, whether or not they’re killed in the war or missing or prisoners, or just too tired and dispirited to come home. Ours are in the living room watching sports, stealing marshmallows off the sweet potatoes in the kitchen and cuddling with kids on the couch watching the parades.

But what can we do, eh? We didn’t start the wars. Well, maybe the one in Iraq, but really it was Saddam’s fault for saying he had weapons of mass destruction. Besides, the people are a lot better off now than they were then, just like we’re better off now than we were before the Iraq War. Or not.

Maybe, though, we’re a little less smug and a little more able to sympathize with what’s been happening in so much of the rest of the world all this time. As we slide back on the scale towards where so many women and children are trapped in poverty, war and disease, maybe we can understand a little better a tiny portion of what they feel when they can’t give their kids what they need.

In their case, of course, it’s food, shelter and health care. In our case – this year – for most of us – it’s toys and luxuries and the standard of living we and our kids are used to. Next year? Who knows. Maybe things will turn around and we’ll be back to “normal”, if normal means consuming over a quarter of the world’s oil and ruining the environment in the name of jobs.

But maybe, just maybe, things won’t turn around. Maybe things will get worse and next year we’ll be even closer to a Rwandan or Congolese mother, unable to afford medical care for a sick baby or heat for our house. Worse, maybe we won’t be able to afford a house at all. If we’re forced to go into an apartment or even a homeless shelter, where will we put our stuff?

Is that why we turn away from the despair and hopelessness on the faces of women who cradle babies who are so still that even their mothers can’t tell if they’re still alive? Is it because we know that it’s only a fluke of fate that keeps us from what they’re going through, and fate is very fickle?

They could be us. She could be me. I could wake up some morning and find that my world is gone, taken by war, taken by losing all my wealth, taken by disease. You could too. That’s why I’m doing what I can now to help the women who can’t help themselves. My first present this holiday season was to the Women’s Commission For Refugee Women and Children. Quick, affordable and I didn’t even have to wrap it.

I would be so chuffed if this post got one other person to donate or to write a post in aid of aid to women and children who are displaced by war, threatened with starvation, subjected to gender-based violence or forced to live without food, shelter and peace for any reason. I know how lucky I am no matter how bad things get for me financially. I hope that the small gifts I make will give another woman a little bit of what I’m so fortunate to have.