Last year Kelly and I spent most of the day outside planting in Rhys' garden. Adryn was in utero. It's a fitting memory at this point because year two has been an experience in life with a child physically sharing our space and monopolizing our time. Our plans are similar this year except, of course, Adryn will be on a blanket alternating between playing with some toy, staring at birds, and enthusiastically reacting to something that will end in his pitching in a certain direction unexpectedly and either face-planting, belly-flopping, or rolling gracefully onto his back. You never can quite tell how it will end up. But we'll be out there, removing the arborvitae that didn't make it through last season and planting a new bush or tree that will bring more life to Rhys' little corner of our world.
Something we've discussed many times is what life would be like, had Rhys been born full term. It's a conversation we've had with friends who've experienced losses of their own. It's such an odd thought for those of us who have living children now because you quickly come to the realization that the children who are living and sucking the life out of you now probably wouldn't be here. And then you wonder, what would that be like? What would it be like to have never met this one? Would I be happier? But I would have memories of life with the child I loss. I would know him by more than name and birth weight and length. He would be more than Rhys Arthur who lived 11 hours and 54 minutes, who squeezed my finger, who was helpless. It's a completely warped and fucked up world that these are normal passing thoughts in a day. That this isn't a cause for institutionalization is probably a startling and disconcerting thought for someone on the outside of this world to hear, but it's totally there.
Adryn's being here doesn't erase Rhys from our lives. It doesn't make that experience easier to deal with or fix what happened. There's nothing to fix. Death isn't a fixable condition. I'm not sure why that escapes so many. What Adryn's being here does is complicate, intensify, and invoke new and ever widening dimensions of emotion. He is not a replacement. There's never been anything to replace. And so, it's been a year of puzzling through how we want to be a family honoring all of our children while raising our youngest. It's been a year of sharing with Adryn our memories of Rhys, of acclimating our family life to an environment that openly addresses who Rhys was, what he meant to us, and how he changes us. And It touches on a piece of the cultural rhetoric around infant loss that bothers me. The, "babies are angels," you, "celebrate their angel-versary," or the ever popular, "they're in heaven, you'll see them again." I want to preface that by saying, I'm totally fine with someone connecting to their loss in that way, It's just not how I do. The frustrating part is that it's the assumed point of connection. Instead of honestly connecting to people in these situations and asking them how they're managing and feeling it becomes another one of those, "I'll tell you how your supposed to feel," moments. Instead of existing in a world where babies do and have died, you can conveniently look right past that and focus on a bright, cheery, beautiful future.
I'm posting this xkcd comic because it is emphatically not that and also because I read it at least once a week while thinking about Rhys. By virtue of being Rhys' younger brother, Adryn will know of death at a young age and I think that's a good thing. Much of the culture that I live in is woefully inadequate at explaining grief, loss, and death. Grief is not getting over or a process for moving on. There is not a formula in which, at the end, you will have met certain benchmarks, become proficient in different areas and feel better. Grief is the process of allowing change. It is the shifting of the locus of one's world. At some point you recognize that all life is this. Change, shift, move, dance, cry, laugh. Life is grief. Dictionaries would have us believe that grief is deep sadness. No doubt sadness is part of that, but so is anger and joy and fear and every other emotion in any capacity one can imagine. The kicker for me is this. My oldest son has always been more than Rhys Arthur who lived 11 hours and 54 minutes, who squeezed my finger, who was helpless. It just takes time to figure through all of that, to feel the sadness deeply and completely, to sit honestly with all of the fears and anger that conjure themselves up in various ways. It takes time to get to know those new reasons for those feelings, to accept them as an integral part of who I am and be able to place them back into my life and allow them to shape the person that I am.
In Taoism, there is an emphasis on studying the natural world because it provides us with hints at understanding Tao. While this particular xkcd comic takes a bit of license in sentimentalizing the science behind ophrys apifera the thought has been a poignant reminder for me in this second year. Memory is my connection to my son. Memory will be what I pass on, the lessons I've learned because of my remembering will be Rhys' gift to his younger brother. Eventually, I hope, those lessons will be shared by Adryn with the people in his life as he grows and undoubtedly those lessons will be changed and morphed and grieved into something new and different as well. It is, for me, the height of what it means to be a sibling; that our lives and lessons and memories are shared and changed and influenced by the others. And that, at least, is something I can help my sons to share.
No comments:
Post a Comment