Your Presence is Your Absence

You are not here

But I do not forget you
You pervade my every day

You are in the morning sun

But I do not make you toast

I cannot kiss your waking face

You are in the fold of my arms

But I do not feel your warmth

I cannot hold you close

You are in the playground 

But I do not push your swing

I cannot hear you laugh

You are in the little girl's smile

But I do not feel your joy

I cannot share your glee

You are in my old wedding dress

But I do not see you twirl

I cannot make it fit

You never shed any tears
And I do not wipe them away
I cannot make you better

You are in my mother's soul

As she ages and changes

But you cannot share her life

You are in my past, present and future

In my pain, and in my joy

You are everywhere, and yet nowhere.

Acceptance, and why it may not be such a bad word

I love words. I love writing, reading, and using words. I think about their meaning, how they came to be, and what they mean for me. But perhaps that’s why I sometimes also struggle with words. Acceptance is a word that has haunted me for quite some time. I’ve hated it, avoided it, longed for it, and been utterly confused by it. Such a seemingly simple word, but one that can create such a variety of experience depending on the subject of that acceptance.

Etymologically speaking, acceptance essentially means “taking or receiving what is offered”. For example, the Oxford dictionary provides the following definitions:

1.    the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered

2.    the process or fact of being received as adequate, valid, or suitable, and

3.    agreement with or belief in an idea or explanation:

So why has the word ‘acceptance’ haunted me, and probably many others? Well, when it comes to grief, acceptance is a key term, but it is not so simple. Kubler-Ross’s famous theory includes acceptance as one of the stages of grief (Kübler-Ross, 1969), as does William Worden in his four grief tasks (Worden, 2008). For example, Worden describes the first grief task, acceptance, as ‘accepting the reality of the loss’. He or she is really gone. They are dead.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to be “OK” with the fact that the person is dead (Indeed! I did NOT consent to receive this death!). But they do need to accept it as true (Well, maybe I can agree with the idea or explanation that this death has happened). Sounds simple and logical. But from there, one is also assumed to be able to move on in their life, with the knowledge and acceptance that the deceased is no longer alive and that the relationship that did exist at best needs to be transformed or reintegrated into the bereaved person’s life. This is the difficult bit. Most of us don’t really know what this means. Moreover, a therapist, a friend or relative, a stranger, or a work colleague will no doubt conceive of reintegration very differently. For many, reintegration does not mean openly talking about the deceased, having photos displayed, organising birthday parties and so on. Instead, for many it means ‘letting go’ and integrating the reality of loss into one’s life.

From a psychological perspective, the term acceptance has been described as “a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit...” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance ). Some have also related it to the term acquiescence, which derives from the Latin word 'acquiēscere', meaning ‘to find rest in’.

When my daughter and then my son died as babies I was devastated. Grief was like a deluge. But as horribly painful as it was, true to my independent and occasionally stubborn self, I did not want to ‘heal’. I did not want to ‘move on’. I did not want to ‘accept’. I wanted to immerse myself in my sorrow and never let go. I wanted to protest all this grief work! My poor grief counsellor, a wonderfully wise and amazing woman, must not have known what to do with me at times!

And yet, I did want to live my life. I also wanted to know what this journey of grief was going to be like, in 5 years, 10 years, and 40 years. But there was no manual, and most support guides for grief centred on the first year, maybe two, as if somehow after that it just runs its course and life continues on.

I continued to resist the idea of acceptance. I would close my ears and eyes, my mind and heart, whenever I came across this word in relation to grief. However, I also continued to see my grief counsellor over several years. I wondered whether I would ever not feel such deep pain and sadness. I tended to accept that I would. Because I could see no other way. No other way to satisfy my need to mother my children. This is one of the most difficult things with the death of a baby, when their little lives were so short. Love and pain are so tightly connected that it is difficult to only experience love. And to let go of pain seems as if you don’t feel love.

My children died 10 and 9 years ago, respectively. I’ve often wondered in more recent years how I coped, particularly early on. It wasn’t until I attended an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshop (as a practitioner, not in relation to grief or myself) that I realised acceptance has played more of a role than I ever imagined. According to the ACT guru Steven Hayes, acceptance in this therapeutic context is:

…an alternative to experiential avoidance. Acceptance involves the active and aware embrace of those private events occasioned by one’s history without unnecessary attempts to change their frequency or form…For example, anxiety patients are taught to feel anxiety, as a feeling, fully and without defense…Acceptance in ACT is not an end in itself. Rather acceptance is fostered as a method of increasing values-based action.” (http://contextualscience.org/the_six_core_processes_of_act )

And this is just how I have grieved, although I never realised it at the time. I did not stop my pain. I did not resist it. I allowed it to be whatever it was within me. I did not avoid experiencing my babies, even though that meant also experiencing all the heartache. And it literally was, and still is, heart-ache.

With the support of my grief counsellor (Yes, that’s how wonderful she is), I remember specifically exploring how I might parent my dead children. How could I still be their parent, even in their death? In line with the ACT notion of acceptance fostering values-based action, it was my acceptance of the pain and experience of grief that enabled me to identify what was truly of value to me. Being a mother, and not giving up.

A woman who lives with Rheumatoid Arthritis writes in her blog (http://idanceintherain.com):

Do not see acceptance as a weakness.
Accepting a situation does not mean you are giving up.

When I read this, it was like it had been written just for me, and Lillienne and Finn. I did not want to give up on parenting them, even though I had accepted that they were dead.

I’ve learned a lot about parenting a dead child over the past 10 years. I’ve written briefly about this before (see my post “Parenting the dead” from October 2012). But I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately as we get closer to Lillienne’s 10^th birthday this year. And I’ve reflected on how I’m changing as a parent to her in subtle ways, just as I would if she really was a little girl of ten. I give her a little more independence now. I don’t worry about her so obsessively like I did when she would have been much younger, and in the earlier years of my grief. I still think of her every day, and I miss her like crazy at times. But I can even smile sometimes when I think of her, and wonder if maybe she is off having fun with another little soul. Sometimes I feel her beside me, but when I don’t for a while, that’s OK too. She always returns, because we are connected, she is a part of me, totally (re)integrated, and always will be.

Artwork by Sharon Hendy-Moman (Brisbane) - commissioned in 2013 by me,
to represent Lillienne and Finn as children.
http://www.sharonhendymoman.com/

On mothers and mothering

Today is Mother's Day. For weeks now, the shops have been full of merchandise and marketing, telling us to be thankful for our mothers, to celebrate them and the things they do for us. And of course, this is a joyful thing to do. But not for everyone.

Most of us grow up believing that mothering is an intuitive thing. You have a baby, and you are automatically granted 'mother' status. You will love this child, care for it, do the best for it, never stop loving it, and would fight for it unconditionally. Perhaps even give your life for it. But no, sadly, this is not the case.

Life is much nicer if we ignore the fact that some women are just not good at mothering. But it exists. And today, while many of us celebrate our mothers with love and joy, there will be children and adults who grieve. They grieve the lack of mother love in their lives, re-experience the trauma, past and present, that is a result of someone not mothering with intuitive care, skill, and consistency. Something that so many of us often take for granted. Our mothers have always been there. Loving us, protecting us, supporting us, sharing our lives with us. Mothering us.

It may seem foreign to try to imagine not mothering a child in this way. For me, it really does feel intuitive at times. At least the loving bit does. But I also feel lost in my mothering, and confused about what to do at times. In the end though, I find that love and it's consistency allows me to find my way. I think I learned this from my own wonderful mother.

So why do some women not feel the intuitive sense of mothering? Why do they make poor decisions, allow their children to suffer, disregard their needs, control or ignore them, or worst still, dis-own them? Perhaps these mothers didn't have good role models themselves, they didn't feel loved as children, or now other life circumstances prevent them from being able to carry out the kind of mothering they aspire to; illness, difficult or dysfunctional relationships, economics, and so on. It's not a straightforward answer I'm sure. Our world has a complexity like never before.

Some children I have worked with, who have not experienced intuitive mothering, who grieve the constancy of love and care from their mothers, often say "It would be easier if my mother was dead...". They imagine that this would allow them to package up their grief and trauma, and try to move forward in their lives. But it's not that easy.

There's a book written for children called "The Invisible String". It is a great tool to help young kids deal with separation anxiety as it explores the idea of constant connection between mothers and children, or between any two people who love one another. You can tug on this string and send your love all the way down the line to the other person. And when you feel their love in your heart, it means they have tugged on the string in return. This piece of string can go anywhere and everywhere, even to heaven, and it is stronger than anger. Nice in theory.

But I think in many ways this invisible string does exist. Unfortunately, for some children (and some mothers too) they keep tugging on that string, but struggle to feel the tug in return. For some, the string continues to be attached to their heart, even when it seems to be floating freely at the other end, unattached to the intended other. That's when instead of feeling the return tug and love in their heart, they feel pain and loss.

Today, I hope that for all those people who feel their mother-child invisible strings, not pulled taut with constant tugging, but loose and lost at the other end, they feel love and connection with others; fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbours, teachers, or someone who lets them know they are loved. So that today, rather than being full of sadness, it can have moments of hope, kindness, and guiding experiences for how to mother one day themselves.

from: http://overthefencewithem.com/the-invisible-string/

Creativity and Grief...

Who'd have thought that there could be any similarity between creativity and grief? This may seem like a long shot, a creative mash-up gone wrong, but somehow it makes sense to me.

Last week we attended the Sunday service at the church located at our son's school. My husband regularly plays the drums in the church band and it was one of his playing days. I didn't know it in advance but it also happened to be the special Year 3 service, where these students actively participated in the service, with singing, talk and drama. About 40 little 8-year-olds and their families flooded the chapel. The girls were wearing their favourite dresses and looking very much like, well, little girls. Bright eyes, smiling and nervous faces, hair bows and shiny shoes creating a wave of glitter as they rushed by.

At one point all the students were on stage, and I could see the full array of little girls. I wondered to myself, "What would Lillienne look like now? Would she be like that girl, tiny and shy, or like that other one, seemingly proud and confident. Would she love to wear sparkling sandals and a flowing dress? or would she rather something else?". Lillienne, my dead daughter, would be the same age, in the same class, as these girls. As we began to sing a hymn, I couldn't hold back my tears any longer. They rolled down my cheeks and I covered my face with my hands. "No, not now!" I thought. So I gathered myself together in the moment, and steeled myself for the rest of the service. I lip-sync'd the rest of the hymn. I was unable to get any words out, especially anything to do with love, longing, suffering or goodness. Unfortunately pretty predictable themes of most religious songs.

As the service ended, I avoided the gaze of anyone, knowing that if someone were to say 'Hello, how are you?' I would burst into tears. And that would not be good timing. After 8 years of experience, I've learned that it is unlikely for people to handle another person's tears very well. Even less well when they discover that not one, but two, of my babies have died. What does one say to that? Usually not much, followed by an uncomfortable silence, and muddled segue to some other topic of conversation or a need to leave. I truly feel for anyone who has unknowingly walked into this with me. Of course they don't know what to say. Why would they? Grief is one thing that all humans experience, but it is one thing that we rarely talk about or learn to be comfortable with.

So my grief, when it comes, is not often timely. In the middle of a church service, or driving in the car. Not good timing. Tears and driving are a particularly unsafe combination. Like sneezing repeatedly. Both could potentially lead to a crash. Tears and being in public are just plain uncomfortable and inconvenient, for everyone. So I've learned to 'suck it up'. Suck up the tears back to where they came from, suck up the pain and cover it with my invisible armour so it cannot be seen. And hope that it returns at a more opportune time. When I'm alone and have the time to be with it.

Because I do hope it returns. At least most of the time.  It is through my grief - the pain, the memories, the longing - that I am able to connect with my daughter and my son. Love and pain are inextricably entwined in grief. Especially grief that follows the death of a child.

But the inspiration, or trigger, for my grief is not something I can contain or control. Just as is the inspiration for creativity it seems. And here's the link. Finally! I hear you say. Famous creative individuals have often talked about the process of inspiration being something you can't always control, that it often happens out of the blue. For example, Leonard Cohen the musician and songwriter has said:

"I can work, I can go to my desk and work every day for a year and nothing happens...Whereas, sometimes just a waitress handing me a sandwich can...touch me very, very deeply and suddenly everything will open up - the heart will open up. It's very mysterious how the heart opens up."

And Elizbeth Gilbert (author of "Eat, Pray, Love") recounts how Tom Waits once described driving down the freeway in LA when all of a sudden he hears a little fragment of melody, coming to him in that often elusive way, when there is no way to capture the inspiration as it comes. In this story, Tom apparently looks up to the sky and says, "Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving...do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you...".

So I wonder what the underlying similarity is for this triggering experience in grief and creativity? Perhaps it is that both involve our emotional memories and processes in the brain. Perhaps that is why creative approaches are often used in therapy, such as writing, art and drama. But here's another thought. What happens to creativity if you ignore it? With grief, it inevitably comes back to you, and often in waves much stronger than those you've tried to repress. Or it finds other ways of seeping through you such as with illness, depression, anxiety, or an inability to be free to feel anything.

But what of creativity? Would it matter if you repressed those inspiring moments, those urges? Abraham Maslow (early proponent of Humanistic psychology) suggests that humans have a innate need for growth and self-actualisation, "the full realisation of one's potential". Perhaps for some individuals, creativity is part of their potential and therefore not to fulfill their creativity would be not to fulfill their potential. According to a humanistic view, feeling stifled in one's personal growth leads to mental ill-health. So, like repressing grief, perhaps ignoring the need for creativity would also have a negative impact on one's well-being.

Later that day, after coming home from church and entertaining family for the afternoon, I was still feeling the heaviness of my held-back tears. But I felt like the moment had passed, and I thought "What good would it do me now?" as I climbed into bed. What was the point of sharing this with my husband, when there was nothing he could do? But as I turned to say goodnight, I couldn't get the words out before I began to cry. Through gut-wrenching tears I told him about seeing all the little girls at church. I don't know how long I cried for. But I haven't cried like that for years. I cried so hard it hurt my ribs, my eyes, my head, my heart. I cried for all the times I couldn't cry. For all the times I held in my tears, too embarrassed, exhausted or guilty to shed them. For all the times I wanted to show the world my pain but didn't. For all the times Lillienne's or Finn's spirit had come to me at an inopportune moment, and I had wanted so desperately to be with them but couldn't. Afterwards I felt a little lighter. Relieved to have allowed the inspiration to come and be processed.

A friend of mine, a writer, academic, musician (and just all round very creative person!) recently wrote of her experience of creativity. She talked about how she engages in her own creative processes, allowing herself to take moments of inspiration, and that her well-being, personal and professional, is so much better when she does. It was reading her reflections that inspired me to write this. So there you have it. Creativity and grief. Perhaps a perfect combination.

Oso Blue: without you Paula Swenson ©2013
   (from: http://seekyourcourse.com/blog/2013/02/creativity-as-self-care-in-times-of-extreme-need/)