Things to say/not to say to someone in our shoes.

People have asked me a few times what things others have said to us since having Olive have been helpful as well as the things that haven't.

We have been reminding ourselves all along that people's motives are always good and well meaning. And in light of knowing their good intentions we we have been trying to receive those comments with that in mind.

The poem I posted a few weeks ago called "Grief Dance" talked about this all so well. It touched on the the uncomfortable feelings we have for other people when they see us...feeling like we need to tell them before they speak that it's ok that they don't know what to say or "the right thing to say," and that we don't expect them to.

It is also strange to see someone you know well who you know knows about Olive, but acts as if nothing has happened. I suppose they are trying to be sensitive and not wanting to bombard you with bringing up painful emotions...but something about not acknowledging her feels even more strange. It's like people are trying to protect us from feeling sad or bringing tears to the surface. Something about avoiding her name in conversation feels more hurtful at times than acknowledging she was alive or the tears that may come with us talking about her.

Things NOT to say to someone who has lost a baby (whether through an illness, miscarriage, or stillborn):

-"At least you can have other children" (this takes the focus off of the loss of the child that has died). Olive is irreplaceable...even having other children will never replace her.

-"Well it was probably for the better." If you have the urge to say this, just choose silence instead. It will be a lot more comforting in the end.

-"Sometimes we just can't understand God's will." I guess I just don't buy it that this was his will for Olive's life...a level four brain hemorrhage, a pulmonary hemorrhage, two laser eye surgeries, one broken shunt, meningitis two times, reflux...etc. I believe that we live in a fallen world and because of that things like this happen...and that God can redeem these circumstances and use them for His glory. That even in the middle of incredible loss He can be enough. But NOT that he wanted this for Olive...I can't bring myself to believe that. One of my biggest current struggles is knowing that God is all powerful, and yet He didn't choose to heal her in the way we hoped he would.

"Jesus must have needed another angel in heaven." I think He has plenty of angels. Pretty sure He isn't a "needy" God.

"This must have been God's grace for Olive. She probably would have grown up to be rebellious and He was protecting her, and making sure she had a safe place in Heaven."  Ok...not sure what to say about this one except for that it bothers me.

-"Aren't you thankful you have a family started in heaven?" NOOOOO. I'm not. Actually, I wanted to start my family on earth...not in heaven.  Am I grateful that when I get there I will get to be with her again? Absolutely. Am I thankful that she is whole and no longer suffering? Absolutely.

-"Well...at least she wasn't crucified on a cross." Yup. Someone really said this. That may be the most absurd thing I have heard in a while but at least it made me laugh out loud. I mean, I guess they had a point...at least she wasn't crucified on a cross. And odd thing to say? Most definitely.

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And when Olive was still alive it was these things we heard more than once that made me cringe:

-"She will be fine." falsely reassuring someone of something only God truly knows may make the person saying it feel better but it isn't helpful in the end. The reality is that none of us ever knew if Olive would be fine...and that it didn't turn out fine.

-I knew someone who had a premature baby at 28 weeks and is perfectly normal now. Ok, but did that baby have a level four brain hemorrhage? Because we know 23 week old premature babies who now are perfectly healthy, but they had no brain hemorrhage. Every story is unique.

-"She is going to be the smartest little girl in her fifth grade class." Ok. Maybe she will be if God decides to heal her, but if He doesn't, then what? What if she is very disabled like the doctors are saying and she is the slowest student in her class and she never makes it to fifth grade? What is that going to do to that person's faith? Is God still there then?

-"I saw another retarded little boy the other day and it made me think about Olive." Can we just stop using the word "retarded?" thanks.

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Things people have said that HAVE meant a lot to us...(there are many more than I will list).

-"I'm so sorry."


-"I'm sorry I haven't written. I just haven't known what to say."


-"I wish I had words."


-"I love you."


-"Praying for you."


-"We miss Olive."


-"There are no words."


and of course the list goes on here.

The purpose of this post was not to tell you ways you have offended me...because I realize that the hearts behind even the uncomforting words were said with the best intentions. I am not sitting here holding grudges, because I realize everyone's words were said out of love. If anything we have felt more overwhelmed by the kindness we have felt through this journey from our friends, family, and even strangers.

The point was mostly to say that it's okay not to have profound words to help someone like me who is grieving. If you are one who is walking alongside someone else who is grieving in the future, and feeling uncomfortable or awkward while struggling with what to say, I just wanted you to know that saying, "I'm so sorry" is significant enough.

I also realize that everyone is different, and the things that weren't helpful for me, may not be the same for another person. That's part of what makes this "grief dance" so difficult.

love muffins.

Libby sent me this video the other week of some of the kids from the Akha Youth Development Center. For those of you who sponsor these little ones...the first little boys are Aunglee & Mingkoun, then sweet Malee, and finally Mingkoun again, Chaleumwong and Chanwit.

a great book about loss.

I'm currently reading a book called, "A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss," written by Jerry Sittser. The author himself experienced profound loss when his wife, mother, and 4 year old daughter died in a car accident as a result of a drunk driver. I've been given lots of books on loss, but so far this one has been my favorite.

I wanted to share some of the parts that have been important to me over the last few weeks. I will probably share a little here and there as I go through it.

"We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given. Choice is therefore the key. We can run from the darkness, or we can enter into the darkness and face the pain of loss. We can indulge ourselves in self-pity, or we can empathize with others and embrace their pain as our own. We can run away from sorrow and drown it in addictions, or we can learn to live with sorrow...

The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Loss can enlarge its capacity for anger, depression, despair, and anger, all natural and legitimate emotions whenever we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is also capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace, and love. What we consider opposites--east and west, night and light, sorrow and joy, weakness and strength, anger and love, despair and hope, death and life--are no more mutually exclusive than winter and sunlight. The soul has the capacity to experience these opposites, even at the same time...

The darkness lingers for a long time, perhaps for the rest of our earthly lives. Even if we really do overcome our own pain (which is doubtful in my mind), we nevertheless find ourselves more sensitive to the pain of others and more aware of the darkness that envelops the world. The choice to enter the darkness does not ensure we ever completely come out the other side. I am not sure we can or should."

What is drawing me most to this book is how often he talks about eventually living with sorrow and joy simultaneously.  He never once mentions "getting over it." There is something so comforting about not placing those expectations on myself.

"In other words, though I experience death, I also experienced life in ways that I never thought possible before--not after the darkness, as we might suppose, but in the darkness. I did not go through pain and come out on the other side; instead, I lived in it and found within that pain the grace to survive and eventually grow. I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it."

road trip.

Many of you already know that Rusty and I have been on a road trip this last week. After spending time with friends in Seattle, and Rusty's family in Lynden we started our drive down the Oregon and California coast. Rusty's sister asked a few months ago if we would be willing to drive a couch she had purchased on sale from someone in Washington to her home in Texas. We gladly obliged, thinking of the time it would give us to have a little space, be together, and get some fresh air in a beautiful part of the country. We drove through the redwoods, the Oregan coast, Sonoma/Napa Valley, Yosemite National Park, and saw some of Rusty's aunts and cousins along the way. Currently we are in Phoenix, Arizona spending time with my cousins for a few days before heading onto Texas. We've both found this to be helpful in clearing some of our very confused and cluttered thoughts about our future.

At this point we are hoping on returning to Thailand in June, and prior to that we will be focusing on setting up a non-profit in the States for the foundation we work with in Thailand. This will also provide time for us to have some counseling before returning overseas.

The future has felt very confusing to us, as most doctors are recommending that we return to the States for our next baby since I am at high risk to have another premature baby.  Rusty hopes to one day finish his degree, and I would like more experience working in a hospital Stateside...but at the same time so much of our hearts are intertwined into our work in Thailand and the relationships there--and neither of us feel ready to leave just yet.

So, if you are the praying kind,  please pray for clarity for our future. At this point we are trying to just focus on taking on step at a time, and not get too far ahead of ourselves.

little miss O.

"When someone you love dies, you don't lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time..."                        -Joe Wenteworth  

spring in Washington.

Every day this last week I've been going on long walks by myself enjoying fresh air and the spring weather. I realized today that it's been about two years since I've been in weather like this. In Thailand when outside, we are usually sweating and getting sunburns. Since arriving to the States we have been in the frigid weather of the midwest. The crisp clean air of the northwest and sunshine with cool breezes is something I have missed.

Over the past few days I've been missing Olive so much.  Some days I am able to remind myself of  how much better off she is now, free of any pain or discomfort. But for the past few days all I want is to have her back again. Every night I sleep with her blanket and smell it before going to bed right in the crusty part that held the smell of her spit up. Last night was the first time I could barely smell it any more. I hate the thought of losing her smell.

Today the strangest thing happened.  I was walking around outside taking photos and enjoying the fresh air and got a wiff of something that smelled like Olive. Maybe it was my imagination, or a flower that smelled like her or something else...but a smell can take you back in time in a way that few other things can, and for a minute I felt close to her. I hope this won't be the last time that happens.

canada.

We are now in Lynden, Washington (Rusty's hometown) staying with his parents. Yesterday we took a day trip up to White Rock, Canada for an appointment, ate some delicious salmon by the water, then went for a walk on the pier before driving home.

the beautiful northwest.

This last weekend I went to Camano island to stay in a cabin on the ocean for the weekend with some of my friends. We had such a nice time together. We ate well, laughed a lot, and cried quite a bit too. It's been nice to be around friends that know me so well.  

The weather here is a nice change from the cold and snow we left in Chicago. Here we have been spoiled by being surrounded by snow capped mountains while walking around in sweatshirts.

shared tears.

Rusty and I flew to the Northwest for a few weeks to reconnect with friends and family. On the plane ride out we noticed that the women sitting next to us had a bag that looked like it was made in Thailand, so we asked her about it. Turned out she had gotten in Laos on a trip she had made to Southeast Asia two years ago. The conversation continued and eventually led to her asking what we do in Thailand and what we are doing here now, which lead to sharing about Olive. When she heard Olive passed away about a month ago tears started streaming down her face and she said, "I am so sorry. There are no words. I am just so sorry."

Every time that a women has responded this strongly to me after hearing about Olive, i find later that they have experienced some sort a deep personal loss themselves. I waited for a few minutes, then asked her, "have you ever lost a baby?"

More tears.

silence.

and then, "Yes."

more tears.

silence.

"I lost my first son at nine months...he was stillborn. Then two pairs of twins after that at five months."

She lost five babies. FIVE babies.

shared tears.

silence.

more quiet tears.

She shared that eventually she had chosen to adopt after losing her babies, then had two healthy pregnancies following that adoption. She looked to be in her 60's, had already retired from working for the city of Chicago, and still quietly weeped with a fellow stranger whose pain she was all too familiar with.

Grief seems to be understood most easily with simple stories and shared tears.

I've noticed that the quick, predictable and cliche answers tend to cause something in me to cringe the most...though I try to remind myself that people's intentions and motives are usually pure and good.

The day before our flight to Seattle another women  shared with me about losing her child at  20 weeks. After the doctors failed to find a heartbeat they sent her home and gave her a week hoping labor would start on its own.  I asked if that was horrible to carry her baby for one full week knowing that it had already died inside her. Her response was, "No. It was actually a beautiful week." And oddly enough, I could relate.

I remembered the night Olive died, and not wanting to let her go. Not wanting the nurse to walk her down the hall and put her little body in the morgue...all alone.  Rusty and I each took turns rocking her little body and sang the songs we would sing to her every day one last time. The reality that we would never be able to cradle her warm body in her arms...and the thought of her being put into a refrigerator was just too much. And yet there was a strange realization that sweet Olive wasn't in her little body any more and that her spirit had left it's shell behind.

Tonight we talked with a couple in Seattle who aren't able to have children and heard a bit into the pain they have walked through on this unexpected journey of unfulfilled dreams. The grief of what they thought was supposed to be. The painful loss of significant expectations.

A childhood friend of mine who lost three of her babies to miscarriages and is pregnant again carrying her current baby now at almost 28 weeks... and hoping to carrying him/her full-term.

Other friends who over the last few years lost their babies from miscarriages, molar pregnancies, and more stillbirths.

And then there are handfuls of you who I know are battling cancer...and those who have lost your loved ones to it.

Life has turned it's head on some of us and it has turned out to be much different than we ever thought it would be. Many of us have lost big dreams. The answers are missing. Pieces of our hearts are ripped out and can't ever be fully replaced or repaired. And somewhere in the midst of all of our questions and confusion, there is a sense of depth arriving in us that wasn't there before. Life has become much more fragile. Tears come more easily than they used to. Easy answers aren't as comforting as we hoped they might be, and most of it is out of our control.

But somewhere in all of this loss something beautiful is growing in me, and I have seen it in so many of you who have walked down your own unplanned personal losses.  I don't really know how to put it into words yet, but i hope that I/we can find ways to foster it rather than snuff it out.

Put more simply,  I don't want to allow cynicism or bitterness rob me of whatever this "something beautiful" is.