Fate, free will, and serenity

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

- The Serenity Prayer

When I was planning my daughter's memorial, I had to ask for recommendations for someone to speak at the service. My family doesn't attend church or anything similar, so we didn't have anyone in mind. A man and woman were both recommended to me. I spoke to both, and asked both how it makes sense for me to accept that my daughter's death was God's will and that I'm supposed to then rely on God to help me through my grief.

The woman didn't really have an answer. The man told me that a child's death is not God's will, that it was the result of her free will, but that God's will was in all the people who had come to help us through it. At the time, I liked that he had an answer. He performed the service and did a wonderful job.

I've since thought about free will versus fate a lot. The book The Shack (not terribly well-written, more Christian than it thinks it is, and contains some good ideas for anyone) helped me a lot in my thinking. I also watched a TV show recently (Flash Forward, if you're interested) in which a priest says people often wonder about fate versus free will, but that in reality, it's fate and free will working together.

It's the same as the idea behind the serenity prayer--there are things in life we can control, and things we can't. The only way to serenity/sanity/recovery is to try to acknowledge and accept which is which. We all make choices based on the information at hand, as well as our experiences and understanding of this world. And I think that's the most we can ask of ourselves and each other.

The origin of the name

There really is no such thing as an ordinary life. Your life may seem ordinary to you, or to me, but to someone somewhere, I believe each of is is somehow special. My daughter was special to me.

A day or two before my daughter's memorial service, I went out with my husband and brother to buy a guest book for attendees to sign. I didn't find one I really liked, so I looked at blank books and journals. There was one, it was small, with a pink cover that said "There's no such thing as an ordinary life" that seemed just right. My daughter didn't really prefer pink, red was more her color, but the color was appropriate for a young girl.

Unfortunately, I didn't get it to the memorial site in time, but a friend had taken another book there so most of the signatures ended up in the other book. A few went into the pink book. I took that book and started writing down memories of her. Big ones--her mannerisms, habits--and small ones--events, funny things she said.

Someday, her sister, or her nieces, or someone will want to know about her. I want someone who knew my daughter to always be able to pass on her story. There is no such thing as an ordinary life, and for that reason, no life, no matter how short, should be forgotten.

Objectivity and reality

Objective reality can be painful, or a saving grace. I can sometimes boil down my daughter's death to one purely objective sentence--she's gone, and there's no bringing her back. But sometimes, objective reality can be ridiculously unrealistic. She's gone, and I want her back. And then my mind goes to all the things I could do to get her back. I just need to go back in time and prevent the accident, or I need to just talk to the right person who can tell me where she is, or something...

Reality seems to shift a lot these days. I'll be driving somewhere and suddenly find myself back in that horrible day, those horrible first hours without her. When that happens, I get upset in ways I didn't on the actual day. I went into shock, and didn't cry, didn't scream, until I had to go to the funeral home a few days later. When I flash back to that day, I cry and scream like I would have. I'm reliving the incidents without the benefit of the shock.

When I first realized my daughter was gone, the only thing I could think was that it would get easier to be without her as time went on. That was because initially, I kept thinking, "She was just here, how can she be gone?" Now, I think, "I haven't seen her for 10 months, she's really gone."

It's not peace, nor serenity, but reality, I suppose.

Home

It took 6 months, but we decided to move out of the house where we lost our daughter. I think I was the one having trouble deciding. There was so much love, hope, and expectation in that house. It was a pre-foreclosure when we bought it, and we put a ton of work into it to make it livable. We'd sit around and talk about raising our children there, playing in the huge backyard, and we worked hard to make it ours.

After my daughter died, it was really hard to be in that house, to remember the day she died, the events that took place at the house that day and in the days that followed. I work full-time from home, so I wasn't away from it much. There was this dark, horrible feeling in those first days, and a slightly less dark but still sinister feeling in the house after that.

Once we moved, I felt lighter. Things looked and felt lighter. I was able to think more clearly. And I loved our new house, but I felt guilty every time I thought that, as though I'd exchanged my daughter's life for this house. In truth, I'd rather live on the street with both girls than live here without my firstborn.

Last week, I kept thinking, "I want to go home, I want to go home." I've thought and said it before, and my husband and friends always tell me this is home, that my girl isn't at that other house and there's nothing there for me. I guess I feel like I left my hopes and dreams behind. I wanted to come here, to start over and create a safe place with new hopes for my baby girl.

Now, I accept. I accept that this is our house and that my baby will most likely spend the bulk (if not all) of her childhood here. I should love this house--it has so many of the features I always wanted--but it will always miss the one thing I can never find anywhere. So it's our house. I'll have to wait and see if one day it feels like home.

Daydreaming

When I was young, I daydreamed about boys. Then I got married, and daydreamed about being in Hawaii, where we spent our honeymoon. Since losing my daughter, I daydream that the horrible, terrible day went differently. I daydream about waking up, getting her ready and spending the day with her the way we were supposed to.

When I'm working, I daydream that she'll be waiting for me when I'm done. When I plan to meet a friend for lunch, I daydream that I'll have to have my husband watch both girls. I daydream about taking both my daughters out--something I never got to do because when she died, I was still recovering from my c-section.

I'm sure if my firstborn could speak to me, she would tell me not to dream about her, that I should have other dreams for myself, my baby girl, and my husband. Maybe someday my dreams will expand, but for now, all I can think about are the what-ifs, would'ves, and should'ves.

Stages of Grief

If you've ever taken an introductory psychology class, you know that most people believe there are 5 stages of grief. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Denial is the obvious one anyone will experience first. "This can't be happening." You may also know that people don't just go through the stages one at a time, or only once.

Instead of stages, I've come to think of the experience of grief as a spiral. When loss happens, like when a loved one dies, the world shrinks down to a tiny pinpoint that consists only of that loss. And you go deep into denial. The way your body puts you in shock determines how you respond.

For me, shock meant being almost shut down. I'm normally a very outspoken person of action. When I went into shock, I could barely move. I couldn't cry, couldn't scream. I slowed down more and more to the point where I nearly passed out. I was told my blood pressure probably dropped.

Eventually, you're forced out of that tiny spot. Or you experience serious mental illness, I would think. You move from denial to one of the other stages. But not always right to anger. I think I was depressed first. Then angry. It took more energy to be angry.

Gradually life began to expand for me again. I had a baby who needed me, even as I was grieving her older sister. Being the breadwinner for our family, I had to work. And slowly more of the world came into view. I had to exercise to get strong enough again to carry the baby as she got bigger. I had to sleep so I could focus at work. And so on.

But I keep walking the path of grief. It keeps spiraling outward, like the yellow brick road in the movie The Wizard of Oz. I move away from the pinprick of pure pain, yet I will always be walking that path. And up ahead, I can see others who are walking it. Sometimes it's hard to see anything besides the path below my feet, but other times, I'm able to look up, and look around, and see what else is around me.

Other people (AKA Friends and Family)

When the police were at my house that day, and my daughter was taken to the hospital, they kept asking me if there was anyone they could call, if I had any family in town. And I kept saying no. Eventually I realized I'd need to call someone to come watch the baby. My grandma was staying with us, but she was in shock and didn't seem to understand what was going on.

So I started calling. I called the friend who lived the closest who I thought could come over first. She didn't answer. I called another friend. I called and called, and couldn't reach anyone. Eventually, I did get through to the first person, who agreed to come over though she seemed confused (she would later tell me that I seemed so calm that she didn't really understand what I was telling her had happened). I also reached another friend while I was being driven to the hospital, and she came over.

My husband and I were at the hospital for several hours saying goodbye. I called the house many times to ask my friends to get phone numbers from my husband's cell phone. One time, my friend asked if I wanted people at the house when we got back. I said yes, definitely, the last thing I wanted was an empty house.

When we got home, the house seemed full of people. And more people came as the day went on. There were at least a dozen people there at any given time from the day my daughter died until the day of her memorial. They talked to us, made sure we ate, drove us where we needed to go, took our clothes to the dry cleaners so we'd have something to wear to the memorial, and babysat our family members who'd come to town.

And then, everyone went home. But for several weeks, we still had a lot of visitors. My brother stayed in town a few days after everyone left. And then a friend who'd moved away came. She'd been planning to visit her family for a while, and ended up spending a lot of time with me. And then another friend, who had also planned a visit many months earlier, came and stayed, stayed longer than she'd initially planned.

We traveled for a while, and then had to get back to "real life." I started work again. But my best friend, who lives in another state, called at least twice a week and answered whenever I called. Other people called and checked on us all the time. I got emails from people I don't know IRL. It all kept me going.

It's been nearly 9 months. Things have changed. People have gotten back to their lives, for the most part. And we've had to. Well, I guess we didn't have to, there is always the choice to just hide under a desk screaming until someone injects you with a heavy-duty sedative and locks you up.

There are friends who I feel will always be there. And I'm trying to be there too, in whatever way I'm able. In this way, I feel anchored to something, and I feel like I can make it through another day. Just this one day, at least.

Healing

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the word "healing." At first, I thought it meant I would feel completely better someday, that I would no longer feel sad, anxious, angry, etc. about losing my daughter, that I would stop flashing back to the day she died, saying goodbye to her at the hospital, the days leading up to the memorial, and the months afterward that passed in a blur.

I later decided that emotional healing is a lot like physical--there is always a scar. Both my daughters were born via c-section. The scar is small, even after two surgeries, a faint line that can't be seen even when I wear a bikini. But it's there, as is a raised area directly above it, which is where the scar tissue is. Sometimes, when I get sweaty or overheated, the scar itches. Otherwise, I don't think about it too often.

I'm assuming that someday, that's where emotional healing will get me--my daughter's death will affect me only sometimes. I can already tell that I think about it--her accident, all the things she didn't get to do, the fact that she's gone forever--less than I used to. I never thought I'd get back into the other things in life, but somehow I have.

HOWEVER, when I do remember--when I flash back to that day, to finding her, to being in the hospital--I'm hit hard. It's like I'm back there. It's the experience without the cushion provided by shock. I suppose that's what counseling is for. I started going right after she died and I do think it's helped.

An emotional injury isn't like a physical one. You break your leg, people see your cast and give you a break. Even after you heal, you may have a scar that people will ask you about when they notice it. Most people have no idea what I've been through. Sometimes that's good--I need to get through life without being completely raw and emotional all the time. Other times I wish I could wear my broken heart on my sleeve. Maybe if everyone else could see it, and be appropriately sensitive, maybe some days would be easier.