The new lucky

When I write about how much I LOVE Mo!  How special he is to me!  How much joy he has brought to my life - I feel overwhelming guilt.  Guilt might not even be the right word - but it's the best one I've got.

After losing Max, people kept dismissing our loss, telling us "You can always have more children".  After I got pregnant, they said "Well, at least you can now focus on this child".  I guess it just seemed like no big deal that our baby died.

OOOOOOOOooooooooo!  It made me so mad.  At least!  At least!  At least!  Easy for you to say!!!!!  Have you seen Mo's videos?  Have you seen Maxie's (I have less of those, sadly)?  Can you imagine losing a child?  As I've said before, just because you treat it like it's no big deal - doesn't make it no big deal.  It has broken me.  I feel his absence every moment of every day.  And even when I feel joy, I am acutely aware of the fact that I am feeling joy amidst my deep sorrow.  I don't EVER just feel joy.  It shouldn't have to be this way - for anyone.  It is HARD work - every second.  I know you don't understand - and yet, I still feel COMPELLED to continue to try and explain. It is exhausting.

But, Mo IS here now and he DOES make my life easier.  He doesn't take away the pain of having lost Max.  Nobody could.  But, he makes me feel that life will be good again - a much different kind of good - but still good.  I am lucky.  I AM LUCKY.  I can't even believe I am saying that.  My heart feels sick for those who aren't as lucky as I am.  Those who lost their only child and couldn't have more.  Those who've lost more than one.  Those who've lost whole families....because, Oh My Lord!!!! - it happens.  I feel guilty, guilty, guilty.  I have Mo!

This isn't what I used to call lucky....but it is what I call it now.

Mo's ninth month

I am completely and totally WILD about this boy.  He makes me so happy - so much more happy than I would have ever thought was possible again for me in this lifetime.  When I am looking at him, my heart feels temporarily healed.  I am so grateful for this beautiful boy! 

The last of the broken hearts

I don't want to scare you but I've been thinking about premature death a lot.  I don't think it is as rare as you think it is.  What I mean is -  I think Ted and I often feel like freaks because we are "the ones that lost [our] baby" - but, I honestly don't think we will be the last ones we know who will lose a child.  I hope we are - but I just don't think so.  I've been thinking about all of the young people I've known who've died really young and wondering how it came to be that I know SO many young people who are not here any longer.  I think it is because young people die - much more often than we like to think.  I am sorry for writing about this, but it is what I have been thinking about.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three from my summer camp community.  Two died from cancer - one took his own life.  My camp is a pretty insular place - we all were like a big family.  Learning of these deaths felt like a punch in the face - completely unbelievable.
One friend from high school - gone in a car accident.  It happened just before graduation.  I don't think it ever really sunk in for many of us.  How could it be real?
The guy I dated immediately after my engagement broke off in 2000 - died in a plane crash in Aspen, about a month after we stopped dating.  He was on a private plane and everyone that I ever met through him died with him on that day - they were all going away together for the weekend to celebrate his 25th birthday.  There was nobody left to even bury him as his mother and brothers were on the plane too.  Too tragic to comprehend - impossible to wrap my brain around.
My funny and brilliant friend Judah - who was the inspiration for my Maxie's middle name - died at 39 - the very age I am now.  We all knew he had cancer but nobody thought he would die.  He'd gone through stem cell treatment that everyone thought would save his life.  It didn't.  How can it possibly be that he is gone too?
My hilarious curmudgeonly gay boyfriend and partner in crime, Michael, who took care of me and was my constant companion when my heart was so broken many years ago.  He went home to visit his parents and died in his sleep.  No indicators, no illness......no nothing.
Chelsea, the beautiful childhood friend of my cousin Lizzy - same story.  She was on a trip with her mom - I think to visit colleges - and died in her sleep.  Her mom woke up to find that she was beside her, gone already.  When I say this girl was beautiful - it doesn't do her any justice at all.  Ridiculous beauty and a lovely personality. 
My friend Amy lost her brother several years ago - he had just called home from the road to wish his father a Happy Birthday and then died in a car crash.  He was young and ambitious and full of life.
Recently, two guys I know from high school lost their brothers.  Sudden, unexpected losses. 
Should I keep going?
A college friend who died of a heroin overdose.  He'd battled with the drug over the years but had been clean for several years when he must have made a terrible terrible choice to give it one last go.
Two of my best friends - Jon and Lindsay have lost siblings.  Jon's sister Marissa and Lindsay's brother Darryl.  Both young and married with three children each.
My Costa Rican friend Elier - who was my Spanish teacher and first Costa Rican friend - died suddenly, also just a kid....maybe 23 years old.
I think I'll stop there but I could keep on.
All of these lives - gone.  All of these friends left behind parents, siblings, friends.  All of us will die someday - but we all expect to live long lives - and I am not sure why.  All evidence tells me that there is no reason we should expect anything at all.  I am not trying to be a downer - I am trying to be a realist.  The only moment you can count on is this one.

I'm sorry that the sad stories don't end with ours because what that means is that we won't be the last broken of the hearts.

We certainly aren't the first. 

My happy boy

Mo's being so cute makes it very easy for me to not write when I don't want to. Instead, I can just post a video of him being himself.

Mo - 91/2 months old:

Still nine months

Mo is STILL nine and a half months old.  This has been the longest month since he was born.  It feels like the days are passing by and somehow, he is still only nine months old.  I let myself feel safe and then I realize that it could still happen at any minute.  There are no indicators, there is no gut feeling, there is no nothing.  I have been so stressed out that I now have hives all over my chest and back.  Seems like my body's way of getting my attention is to make me super itchy.  I think I enjoyed migranes better.  At least they go away after a few hours.  I've been itching for days.  5 more days.....I can't wait to stick the 10 month sticker on my baby. 

Forgiveness

Moriah said something to me during her reading a couple of weeks ago that has stuck (well, apparently my grandpa Jack communicated it - but Moriah said it).  She was talking about a difficult relationship in my life and why it is the way it is.  She ended by saying, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?".  Good Question!  It kind of gets to the crux of most of the issues I have with other people.  Sometimes I just can't believe that these people refuse to take responsibility for their actions.  And often I KNOW I AM RIGHT to think that.  But, you know what?  They think the same thing about me.  No matter how right I know I am...they know they are right too.  And, even though I feel like I shouldn't have to be the one to forgive - I WOULD rather be happy than right.  It doesn't mean that I've let go of all of my hurt and gotten all  "Kumbaya" - it just means that I have bigger battles to fight  - like with my own demons.  I don't have the energy to be mad anymore.  People don't change - you either have to forgive them and change your expectations or stay mad.  I am trying to choose the first method.

PS- I forgot to mention my BEST BEST FRIEND ON EARTH Marla yesterday!!!!!  Sorry Malsie.  You know I love you ;)

What is your definition of friendship?

In high school, I was voted "Most likely to tell a story about her best best friend on earth".  What can I say?  I've got a lot of best friends.  I'm lucky - I've always made friends easily.  It's always been surprising to me that even though I've had a lot of friends, most of them are of the really quality kind - intelligent, loyal, funny, ambitious, deep and interesting.  Depending on when and what's happening in my life, I have a different best best friend on earth (bbfoe).  There are my childhood best friends - Sigalle and Danna; my high school best friends - Bianca, Amy, Suzy, Molly; my cousin best friends - Sharon, Lizzy, Jodi and Leslie K; my college best friends - Jessica, Eowyn, Kate and Robyn;  my guy best friends - Greg, Jon R., and Keith; my adult years best friends - Carmen, Sigalle (again), Tamar and Greg (again); my camp best friends - Carly, Lindsay and Tamar (again)....my sister-in-law best friend - Beth and my best, best, best friend on earth - Ted.  I've left a bunch out too (like my San Francisco bestie -Rose, and my traveling best friend - Leslie H, my auntie best friend - Alison, my new best friend - Kim and ....)

OY! Dear Other Besties - please don't be offended - you are still my best best BEST friends on earth!.  Somehow quantity has not compromised the quality of said best friends.  Everyone I've named here is still a BBFOE - even after my losing Max and my mind and a good part of my soul.

Someone left a comment the other day that I have had a hard time understanding and wrapping my brain around. The comment said (in part) " I wouldn't know how to relate to you if we ever met because it seems as though you want everyone to suffer your loss in order to understand what you're going through or be your friend."  Uh..............YA!  I still cannot tell if that was written as if it were a bad thing.  Is that too much to expect from my friend?  I am not sure what your definition of friendship is but I think you might not be aiming high enough in the friendship department.  My friends are people who I have chosen to walk through life with.  They aren't people that I was born to or that I NEED to spend time with or that I am getting paid to be around.  I chose them.  They CHOSE me.  We root for each other.  We show up for each other not only for the really exciting life events - like marriages and babies, but also for life's heartbreaks.  When my friend is suffering from a broken heart - whether because he/she lost a job or a boyfriend or a loved one or some self confidence - I suffer too.  Their loss is my loss, their gain is my gain.

It is nice to have people that you simply have uncomplicated fun with - people that you can party with or go out dancing or drinking or shopping with - but those people aren't necessarily your "friends".  When I lived in Israel, I spent a lot of time on a Kibbutz where there was a pretty large group of young Israelis and volunteers my age.  It was one of the most fun times of my entire life but I made very few genuine friends.  I had people to hang out with, go to the nearby Arab village for falafel with, and go to the pub with...but at the end of the day, I was totally replaceable - people were coming and going all of the time.  Those people weren't my friends, though I used the same word to describe them.  They were people I played with at a certain time in my life.  They were great!  But, I certainly wouldn't turn to any of them in a tragedy.  I wouldn't have cried to any of them about my broken heart.  I didn't know much about their hopes and dreams and fears.  It doesn't mean that they couldn't have grown to become real friends - they just weren't at that time.  Our "friendships" were superficial for the most part.  And that is ok.

In Hebrew we call those people who we have superficial relationships with our "Yedidim", which translates to "friends" but means something different than "Chaverim", which also translates in English to "Friends" but whose significance far surpasses those in the first category.

In times of heavy grief, we tend to go deeper within ourselves - making those superficial relationships impossible to maintain.  How can we continue to be in "friendships" with people who just want to have fun with us when we are incapable of having fun?  It is just impossible.  In times like these, we need our Chaverim, our best best friends on earth - the ones whose hearts are also broken that we are suffering - and in our case, those who are missing Maxie with us.

I read this AMAZING book recently called "A Grief Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss", by Jerry Sitter.  Sitter lost his mother, wife, and two year old daughter in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.  Sitter and three of his children survived the accident.  There were may valuable lessons Sitter shared in the book.  Practically every line in my copy is highlighted.  He wrote a lot about the importance of the community that formed around him and his surviving children after the accident and about their willingness to share his pain and make themselves vulnerable.  "Throwing caution to the wind, they walked into the house and embraced me in tears, though they had no idea what to say to comfort me and the children.  They chose to make themselves available, vulnerable, and present to our suffering."

He also writes about how, many people were not able to step up to the plate, and how he knows that in the past he had been one of those people himself.  Even people who do care can't really step up  "..tragic loss, like mine, always engender a groundswell of support that ends almost as quickly as it begins.  We should not necessarily fault friends for the brevity or superficiality of their support.  I have been prone to do the same myself...I wanted to express concern, which I did.  But I did not choose to embrace the suffering and did not allow it to change my life.  In most cases I lacked the time and energy; in a few cases I also lacked the willingness and heart."

He goes on to say what this experience is like for the griever, who themselves lacks the energy to carry on the superficial relationships - too tired from just getting through the grief each day.  "I did not have enough room in my soul to let all of them in.  I could not keep retelling the same story, update people on what was happening to my children, or explain what I was thinking and how I was feeling during the many bleak days and months following the accident."  There is only so much room in one's heart.  As much as people have kept their distance from us, not wanting to get too close to our pain - we have kept those who cannot get close to our pain at a distance as well.  It goes both ways.

All of this to say -Yes, it's true.  I EXPECT my Friends....my Chaverim....feel heartbroken for us.  I expect that they are feeling broken that beautiful Max died.  Not because they "have to", just because they do.  I expect that they miss him and that they also think about him when they meet a child of 9 1/2 months, or when their own child turns 10 months or when they encounter a 2 1/2 year old child.  I expect them to feel this way because not everyone makes my BBFOE list (though it may seem otherwise) and because I really only have space in my heart for those who care.  I believe that my nearest and dearest have the same expectation of me.  I deeply care about the lives of all of my closest friends - I want for them love, happiness, health, prosperity, joy, beauty, success!  And I suffer with them through heartbreaks, physical pain, disappointment, and loss.  That is what friendship is.  If these aren't the friendships that are present in your life, you are missing the deep soul connection that is possible between human beings and I am sorry for you for that.  My friendships are incredibly rewarding and fulfilling and I wish that for you too.

"The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't, but in the end they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into, and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself." 
- cheesy Sex and the City quote 
http://missingmaxie.blogspot.com/2012/06/evolution-of-friendship.html

Challenge Update

Hey!  My weight loss challenge is in round two!  During the first round, our group lost 50 pounds between all of us (and it would have only been 49 without the pound I contributed!)  My already teeny, tiny friend Jessica won $200 after four weeks for highest percentage of weight loss.  There were other very impressive losses in addition to hers also.

I may not have really lost weight but I feel a whole lot better - mostly from the working out part.  Ted and I literally work out in our living room every night together.  We have a lot of fun too.  We've basically memorized the DVDs that we do and enjoy quoting Jillian back at the television set - we try to beat her to the punch....like we say "You want more? I've got more!" before she can say it first.  Ah, the memories we are creating!

What's really awesome is that when we started just a few weeks ago, I could hardly do a jumping jack.  I blamed it on bad knees.  But, now - it ain't NO THANG!  In fact, a lot of the exercises that I could hardly muster in the first week are easy peasy now - I'm not braggin or anything - just sayin'.

An acquaintance of mine (who is now a friend - not merely an acquaintance), whose brother I know from my high school days, offered to coach me through a nutrition program she did to lose weight after having her daughter and it seems to be working for me.  I am journaling my food every day and sending it to her at night.  She then returns my emails and says things like, "That's great.  Ideally, I'd like to see you get more vegetables in".  She's so sweet.  Their family also had a major loss recently, so we've been checking in with each other about these cycles of grief as well.  I always loved Leslie, even if I didn't know her well. Whenever I'd see her out over the years, I always gravitated towards her - she's adorable and I am so sorry for her family's loss.  It's just inexplicably horrible.  

I was sent a couple of other diet plans as well that I'm keeping in my back pocket for now (thank you Erin for the plan you shared....it will get used I am sure!).  It's kind of funny that I am putting this much effort into something that I hope gets derailed (with a pregnancy) in the not too distant future.  But, I was in bad shape and you know, I needed the distraction.  Anyway, aren't you proud of our challenge group?  50 pounds is no joke!

Sunday

We actually had a really nice Mother's Day.  My mom, Ken (Mom's significant other), and my brother came over.  Mostly we spent a lot of time watching Mo and taking lots of pictures.  He was in a REALLY good mood.

We also laughed really hard watching this:

Have you seen it already?  It is so hilarious...I want to be as happy as these people again.  I think that I may have been once.  Not sure.  Anyway, I love them.

Grateful for my mother

I have always been close to my mother.  We are great friends, travel companions, and confidants.  I have laughed with her so hard that my stomach hurts and tears roll down my cheeks.  We have been on many adventures together.  We worked together. We found and bought our vacation home in Costa Rica together.  We've made and shared friends together.  I even lived with her for eight months when I was 32 - In fact, I was living with my mom when Ted and I started dating.

My mom and I have also had some of the most major blow out fights I've ever known.  The most memorable blow out was when she came to visit me while I was living in Israel.  I was 21 and feeling pretty adult, having spent the previous 7 months living abroad.  As we traveled around the country together, we were at each others throats.  I felt pretty confident about how to move around in what was considered a pretty unstable time (when isn't it?).  She was more adventurous, wanting to explore places that I thought were risky or dangerous.  I have always been cautious - she has always thrown caution to the wind.  We ended up in a screaming match in downtown Jerusalem the day before we were leaving for a 5 day tour of Cairo.  "I can't wait to get there!", she screamed "I'm going to make all new friends on the bus and we are going to take pictures together and stay in touch after we leave and you can make your own friends!"  It's hilarious to me now - it was actually hilarious to me then too.  What was most hilarious is that when we got there, we found out that we were the only ones booked on the tour.  Not one friend was to be made.  We laughed and laughed and still laugh about it.

Last year was a very hard year for my mom and I, despite the obvious reasons.  I decided to write a bit about it because so many of the other grieving parents I have spoken to over the last 22 months have shared similar experiences with me about their relationships with their own parents since their loss.

When I look back, I remember that everyone in the hospital room with us and Max was in shock.  We were all feeling devastated, sad, out of our minds.  It felt then like we were a team.  We had each other.  I think I thought we would leave that hospital and continue to be a team - holding each other in our pain, going through hell together, crying over the tragic end to the happiest nine and a half months of our lives.  I think I thought we would grieve together.  That isn't what happened....with any of us.  I still don't even know who grieved and who didn't - or if anyone didn't - or if everyone did.  I honestly just don't know.  I know everyone was upset-  but I am not sure if everyone felt destroyed, like me.  I am not saying they weren't destroyed, I just really have no idea.  As it turns out, grief is so personal, that some people just never even talk about it.  No wonder people keep telling me how "honest" I am - there were times like I felt I was the only one willing to admit that the landscape of my life was completely changed - that the good I had known was gone - and that I was (am) completely devastated and unhinged.  As I've mentioned before - I KNOW Ted felt (feels) the same way - but our expression of that pain was completely different and it was sometimes (often) hard to relate to each other.  We have closed that gap tremendously since the early days but it will always be hard I am sure.

I am not sure if my mom had delayed grief, or if she just needed to keep busy, or if she wanted to demonstrate strength to me - but I felt we didn't connect.  I felt all alone in my grief and I needed her.  I felt that there was nobody who could relate to me.  There were people I could call, who would listen (and I am so lucky to have had those people - SO LUCKY!), but they didn't know and love Maxie the way we did.  Nobody was really saying "My life feels ruined too and I just want to sit and cry with you"....and that is ok in retrospect but at the time, it didn't feel ok.  It felt very very very lonely.  I just wondered how every single person who loved Max didn't feel just like me (again, they may have - I just didn't know) - all of the emptiness, the darkness, and the pain.  Ted told me many times, "not everyone feels ruined".  I couldn't even imagine it.  Still can't.

Max was my mom's only grandchild - he was wild about her and she felt the same about him.  She babysat for us - he had overnights there - he even spent a whole weekend there while we attended a wedding when he was about five months old.  I knew she had to be out of her mind.  I knew it!  How could she not be?  But, when I saw her, I would cry and cry and she was generally so busy with work that she couldn't let herself go there and it made me mad.  I wanted her to sit on my couch with me and hold me and cry and scream at god and I don't know.....I wanted to know that he was SO loved that his absence had caused a deep dark hole in the lives of everyone who knew him.  I would end up so upset that she was being so strong and distant, that I would get mad at her, and then she would leave with hurt feelings....causing her to feel even more distant - widening the gap.  This went on for months.  MONTHS.  I finally stopped calling her for support.  We just weren't on the same page.  I don't think it was anyone's fault.  Human interaction is already very complicated - Mother/ Daughter relationships are some of the most complicated out there - communicating through grief is like speaking to someone in morse code.  It's just hard to understand.

Finally, she made herself vulnerable to me.  I don't remember when it happened.  I don't know if it was that she just finally started to really feel the pain much further down the road (most everyone who loses someone they love goes through somewhat of a shocked period and the really awful disgusting grief gets delayed because of it). She told me that she'd been having breakdowns all along but that her breakdowns happened at home.  She felt that she had to be strong for me.  I guess that is what a lot of people think.  Everyone has been so strong for us that most of the time I feel like nobody shares our pain.  And, maybe they don't -  afterall, only Ted and I are Maxie's parents.  Anyway, I'm sure it was selfish of me to want to know that she was miserable and it isn't that I actually wanted her to be miserable, it's just that I couldn't believe that she wasn't.  I could not bear the idea of Max's life and death not having that kind of life-altering impact on the people who loved him.  He was the most amazing person in the world - a baby: innocent, sweet, chubby, cuddly - a bundle of joy and love.  How could anyone walk away from his death without questioning the sanity of the universe?  Honestly, I can't bear the idea of the people who were supposed to have loved Maxie most having been able to walk away from his death without deeply feeling his loss.  Go ahead and think that is incredibly selfish!  I say lots of "controversial" stuff I guess....but I tell the truth.  This is how many bereaved parents feel - we cannot believe that our child's death didn't destroy the world around us.  We cannot believe that the world keeps on turning and that people's lives keep on going.  We just CANNOT even believe it.

Last Mother's Day I couldn't bear the idea of acting celebratory.  I felt like motherhood had been snatched away from me (because it had) and I didn't feel like sitting in some restaurant pretending to be happy.  Plus, I was having a hard time with my mom.  This year, I feel like we are closer than we have been in a very long time - like we have found our way back to one another.  This year, I feel grateful to be able to celebrate my mother along with being a mother.

I am GRATEFUL that my mom and I have found each other again.  I am GRATEFUL that she trusts me enough with her emotions to really tell me how she feels about losing her first born grandchild - about how much she misses and longs for Maxie.  I am GRATEFUL that she continues to include him in our family occasions, that she never leaves him out of the conversation, that she always acknowledges how bittersweet all of the joyful moments are without him.  I am GRATEFUL that she tells me when she has really bad days - the ones where she spends all day crying and wondering how the hell this happened to our sweet boy.

What I have learned is that when life falls apart and you are at your most vulnerable, sometimes you need other people to be vulnerable with you.  In fact, the strongest people - the ones who have really been my pillars of strength are the ones who haven't been afraid to get dirty deep down in the trenches with me.  Being strong is easy - being vulnerable is the hard work.  I am GRATEFUL for my mother.  I love her so much - much more than I ever have in 40 years - if possible.  Her love for Maxie is eternal - as is my love for her.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!  I am so grateful that you are willing to meet me in the depths of this hell.  I know it isn't easy for you but I know that you know that sometimes I need you here.  I hated being down here alone.  I love you.