A lot of rain has fallen here in the past week. We have had over 50ml in the gauge for November so far, which is very pleasing. The trees we planted in winter (revegetation, plus woodlot, plus truffle oaks, plus assorted conifers and deciduous in our arboretum) are loving it. I have had the week off watering in my summer vege crop seedlings, and the big replant we did at the surgery garden on the weekend is getting an excellent start to life. Whoo Hooo!
I visited my best friend on Tuesday afternoon. We sat in her shed (house is only 1/4 built) with tin roof and the rain pelted down, then eased, then pelted down, then eased. I said: “this rain is like grief” she nodded: “comes in waves”. We just sat and held hands. She showed me pictures of her tiny boy, and told me of her amazingly spiritual experience of giving birth to him. I am finding great courage through her grace. I always felt as though if this situation occurred to me, I would break apart forever. But seeing her go through it, take every joy available and face the darkness head on, I see that I could do that too. What a great gift for her to bring me, the release of that terrible fear of stillbirth. She told me that my latest loss had helped HER accept the outcome of this pregnancy – he would come, or he would not, and that’s all there was to it. So she determined to love every minute of it and not dwell on what could be. Which means now she has 17 weeks of wonderful memories to bring with her into the future, even if she doesn’t get to watch her boy grow bigger.
None of this means that she is any less sad about the event, the loss of a person, and all that potential. But it won’t kill her, and she chooses not to search for something/someone to blame, not to ask “why me?” because in the end she knows that as hard and painful as it is, acceptance is actually easier, and the quicker way through the quagmire of grief. And so do I. Which is why, as her loss stirs again the strings connected to my own, both recent and long past, I am letting the feelings come. Naming them, acknowledging them, allowing them to rise up and out. Knowing that those feelings of sorrow will always be in attendance in some form or strength, ready to burst forth when the moment is ripe, and not being scared of them, or angry that they are still there, is healthy for me. I am glad to not have to set myself expectations of “I should be done with this by now” or “when will this be over? Why does it have to come back to me now?”. To just accept these feelings for what they are, whenever they come, gives me a great feeling of freedom and peace. I suspect that a similar attitude is what is sustaining my friend this week.
So we sat and we talked, and we sat in long silence, and we wept a little, and hugged and decided we had a full choir of angels now, on high, and always with us. [Between us we have lost eleven children]. And the rain came down. And still, it comes.
For those of you wanting to recapture the heady days of the Go-Betweens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5CRiS8bRTw
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