trash/treasure

isn't relativity funny?

most of us agree that trying to compare loss, which one is better or worse, more painful, is just utterly useless. everyone has their pain to bear and that's it. we all recognize the familiar cycles and waves of grief, we all echo the same pain of babyloss.

i think we all, at some point or another, laughed at ourselves maniacally about what we used to think pain was. we all, at some point, remembered what we used to think our life's traumas were, our worst days, moments, the worst things that ever happened to us. we can laugh, we can find it twistedly and dastardly ridiculous...now. we held our dead babies. what a point of reference.

i was working yesterday at the OB/GYN office. there was a new OB patient in seeing the nurse for her initial consult. at one point, the nurse told the doctor that the new patient would benefit from talking to him. apparently she was very upset about her first birth with another practice in another hospital.

i share an office with the practice manager, who lost her first and second sons to stillbirth. i used to wonder if she heard the heartbeats echoing through the office the same way i did. i used to wonder what it was like for her, being more than 20 years out. one day it hit me: other tragedies in her life became "The Big Ones." it's all relative. even babydeath.

"she's very upset about her first birth," the nurse said.

"they told her the baby died and would be stillborn, and then proceeded to get on top of her and really roughly delivered her; it was shoulder dystocia," the nurse said.

"the baby was born, and they called time of death and everything," the nurse said.

"and then the baby took a breath. and she's got pictures of the baby; she's SO beautiful. can you IMAGINE?" the nurse said.

my friend and i just turned and looked at each other.

"i can totally imagine the first part," i said.

i've been at the OB/GYN office for a year. i've only been slightly moved by the tiny heartbeats, the hugely pregnant, scheduling c-sections, the brand-new newborns. this incident almost made me pass out.

THIS LADY IS CRYING OVER MY FUCKING DREAM COME TRUE. this lady is talking about our collective goddamned wildest dreams come true as the most traumatic event of her life. and i get it, i really do. i used to think having triplets was traumatic. I GET IT.

what it makes me feel is, really, does anything matter?

everything is relative and we are all running around with our pain and our traumas and our bullshit...and one woman's pain is another woman's prize. even in our own lives, we dwell on one pain until another one, one which cuts even deeper than the last, seizes us. and so, does any of it really matter? is any of it as real as we feel it to be? i'm not sure.

am i questioning reality, or myself?

it's been two years since i held her. i feel like i am getting better. i also feel guilty and heartless, and, like my mother says, like a stone. i feel like having her here would be my dream come true, but i also feel her absence and accept it. her absence is a part of my life and although it's there...always there...the lack of desperation about it is startling.

what was worse than losing her?
living without her.