Going In

I have some flute music on my iTunes list that I heard once on the local classical music station.
It was playing one evening as we drove - without Tikva, because she couldn't leave the hospital - to Shabbat at Laurie's.
To be with friends in the same way we had gone to Laurie's for Shabbat with friends when it was just Dave, Dahlia and me.
Except that we were now a family of four, but still going to Shabbat as if we were three.

Now we are three again, with an angel who floats around us in the breeze,
Or rests quietly, peacefully in our hearts,
Nestled in God's palm,
In our love.

When I got to Laurie's that evening, I went to the computer and looked up the playlist of the classical station
To find the name of the hauntingly, sadly sweet flute melody that had been playing in the car.
I tracked it down there, and when I was home the next morning, I downloaded it and put it onto my iPod.

During the last few weeks of Tikva's life, I listened to the flute as I pumped my milk in the middle of the night.
I thought of my Baby Girl in the hospital, whether she was resting peacefully or having a hard night.
I tried to push away the feeling that I would probably never get to nurse her at my breast,
That she would probably never have the chance to drink all the milk I had frozen in so many freezers,
From so much pumping all those weeks.

I cried and cried, beginning to grieve already for what I suspected was ahead.
I began then to speak to Tikva - spirit to spirit - to let her know that she could let go if that was what she needed to do.
I wanted to scream out, "Don't go... Please stay..."
But I had to continue to love her completely,
For her, for what she needed from my love.

Listening to that melody now, I am right back there.
The chair where I sat to pump is still in the corner of our bedroom, rarely used.
A reminder of those melancholy nights of longing for my daughter to get stronger, to get better,
To turn back towards healing as we so believed she was doing in the first part of her too-short life.
Those nights of longing to have her home, lying in bed between us, peacefully sleeping or nursing at my side.
Those nights of beginning to confront the elephant who was coming to gently take my daughter away.

Listening to that melody now, I remember lying in my bed at night in the first week after she had gone,
Wondering when sleep would come, crying, crying, crying...
Playing the song over and over because in its notes I could feel Tikva,
So close, floating in the still air above me, touching my face.
I could still see her looking up at me from her isolette.

If there was a musical instrument that played the sound of Tikva's sweet gentle nature,
Her soft mighty fragile spirit,
It would be the flute.
A quiet, peaceful, slightly sad flute.

I have cried so much this past week.
There have been a few days when I have cried less,
And on those days I find I am more irritable, more short-tempered, less patient with Dahlia and Dave.
So I am allowing myself these tears, honoring them.

I am going in... into that deep dark place that is the only place from which I can heal.
That place that is both comforting and frightening,
Familiar because I have been embraced by dark emotions before,
Strange because I'm not sure I can go through this in the same way I have encountered my challenges in the past.

A note on how I experience the word dark:
It's not negative.
I feel comfortable in this place.
I am not sinking into a hole I will never be able to come out of.
Rather, I am going into that deep place of real healing that is at the core of
The most vulnerable emotions,
The most profound grief.

I have seen so many young babies in their parents' arms this week.
I have wondered so many times if their journeys to parenthood have been difficult,
If they know how lucky they are.

I have sat in a large room filled with parents who have lost babies too,
Honoring our children and our loss at an annual memorial for parents like me and babies like Tikva.
I have been comforted in seeing some of these families with pregnant bellies or new babies after a loss.
I have been struck to realize that some of the children there are the twins who survived when their brother or sister did not.
I have seen beautiful photos of tiny babies who died before they were born, some smaller than a hand.
I have been blown away by how many of us there are,
We who have lost our babies,
We who will always miss them even as time moves us forward.

We sang this beautiful song I have heard before but can't remember where:
(words and music by Libby Roderick)
How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you're connected to my soul?
As it came out of my mouth I felt it going to Tikva,
And from her back to me.

Yesterday I felt this: I felt BUMMED that Tikva had died.
I felt bummed that she was not in my arms like all those babies held by their parents.
I felt bummed that it was not she who was crying out because she was gassy or hungry or tired or her diaper was wet.
I just felt this simple emotion: What a BUMMER that she couldn't stay.
Such a range of emotions... there is room for them all.

I am reading a book called, Healing through the Dark Emotions.
(Thank you Susan)
I like it already, I think it is going to help guide me on this strange path where I find myself now,
After Tikva's arrival and departure.
It's about the dark emotions: grief, fear and despair.
It's about going deeply into them, through them, in order to transform them into the deepest kind of healing and even joy.
I believe that you have to go through it to get through it, so I think this will resonate with me.

And this: The author lost her first child after two months of a life lived entirely in the ICN.
She names his life as the beginning of her own journey through the dark emotions,
The beginning of a great spiritual transformation.
Just the beginning.

Maybe it is just the beginning...?

Yom Kippur was hard, really hard.
I didn't fast, thank God.
That would've made it even harder.
I did cry, a lot.
I even yelled, felt irritated, went in and out of the sanctuary about 30 times,
Overwhelmed, annoyed, needing to be alone, needing to be held.
I sang; I did not dance in the aisles.

I had a hard angry defensive conversation with Dave,
(That's when I yelled and got yelled at)
Then we had a better conversation,
And another better conversation.
Sometimes we need to rehearse a conversation a few times before we get it right.
At the root of it all, our love is strong,
Our commitment to this love is solid.

Friday I woke up so weary, and so did Dave.
We both did nurturing things for ourselves all day.

Before acupuncture
(Thank you Linda)
And a massage
(Thank you Barbara)
I went to Kabuki Spa and soaked in the hot pool
(Thank you Amy and Kath)
(So nurtured...)
And rubbed my skin with salts in the steamroom
And sat for a long time in the sauna,
Sweating out the toxins of anger from the day before.

I looked at my body,
At the line that is still on my belly from my pregnancy,
At my stretched out belly button,
At my breasts that are small again because they no longer make milk.

I looked at the bodies around me and could tell which ones had carried children,
Which ones had nursed or were nursing.
I wondered what each of their stories told.

I am so continually amazed by the emotional depth of women.
I think this when I read the blogs written by other women who have lost babies.
There is such a space for honesty,
For vulnerability,
For sharing grief,
For being heard,
For listening,
For healing.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I thought about all of the incredible people in my life who hold a space for me where I can be listened to.
It's not easy to be in the presence of someone who is grieving,
To just be able to listen comfortably so that the pain doesn't have to be held alone.
There is great healing in listening - it is a gift,
And I am blessed with so much space to be heard, to share, to grieve in the presence of others who care about me.
Thank you for this gift of healing.
Dave calls it courageous - to be able to stay present in the face of another's sorrow and struggle.
I agree.


Today Dahlia and I had an urban afternoon in downtown San Francisco.
We went to a dance performance by an Israeli dance company
(Thank you Joan)
And played at the playground and rode the carousel four times,
Then had dinner with sweet friends,
Followed by frozen yogurt with toppings.
Just me and my girl,
The one who is growing up so fast,
Who continues to mystify me with her depth and curiosity,
Who blows me away with her vitality and energy.


Tikva was close to us today.
So many milkweed seeds floating everywhere;
Even a reddish colored bat flying by in the middle of the day.
There was a manmade wishing tree with metallic leaves on it where children had written wishes.
I turned just a couple of the leaves over to read them and found this one that read:
I wish my mom would be happy again


I ordered some children's books for Dahlia from a grief resource catalog and we have been reading them together.
They are so sweet; they make me cry.
They are honest about grief,
Honest like I choose to be with my daughter.
She knows why I cry when I cry.

I think a lot right now about how much better off we would be
If we acknowledged with each other more honestly during our lives
That we all feel grief and sorrow and pain
Sometimes.
Maybe we would feel less alone and strange in our dark moments.
Maybe we would be better able to befriend those emotions and learn from them.

I know I am not going to be crying forever about losing Tikva.
I know I am simply at the beginning of a huge journey that is just barely starting to define all that is ahead and who I will be in it all.
A liminal place, a wise friend calls it - where I am not who I have been, and not yet who I am going to be.
In between... a perfect time for going in...
Trusting as much as possible in the unknown.

Here's something that came out of my mouth during one of my better conversations with Dave on Yom Kippur:
That part of me always knew that Tikva would not live for very long.
(Did I just admit that, here?)
I didn't worry about her my whole pregnancy,
But during the first two weeks when I was just pregnant but didn't know for sure,
I had a strange feeling that made it hard to settle joyfully into the possibility that I was carrying a child again.
Just a little worry, a little something...
I don't think I would have had an ultrasound at 7 weeks if I had been sure that my baby was fine.
But I felt cramping on the right side and it worried me that my embryo had implanted outside my uterus.
It hadn't, but I needed to be sure.
I didn't worry after that clear and positive ultrasound,
But I remembered those first few weeks when we had the ultrasound again at 21 weeks.
And I remember it now.

I always hoped and wanted so deeply to believe that Tikva would make it for a long and healthy life,
But something deep inside me knew that that wasn't going to be her path.
She would "make it," but in a different way.
Something in me knew when I pumped that she probably would never drink most of the milk that came out of my breasts.
I even wondered, at times, if I should even continue lactating indefinitely.
It sometimes felt like an act of pure faith, contrast to what I felt in a different, a more sad and fearful, place in my heart.

I think I needed to hope, though, so that I could be present with Tikva for as long as she was here.
She asked me when she was in my belly to give her a chance,
To let her decide the course of her journey.
I was able to give her that.
I have no regrets.
None.

I miss you terribly, my Tikva Ahava.
My Sweet Baby Girl.