We're sane, completely sane...
Thanks to all who have contributed to the March of Dimes on behalf of our team. We are thrilled to announce that we have exceeded our goal!
Today was Tim's last day of "paternity leave" (loose definition, but we''l take it). We commemorated the occasion by taking Timmy to the zoo. We had an absolutely beautiful day and thoroughly enjoyed some family time.
In case you are wondering about the pictures, please read below. It is pretty long, but hopefully conveys our message. Our huge thanks to Corey, Kelly, Ryan and Nancy:
When Tim and I returned home from our deployment, we kissed the ground for two reasons. For one, we had just returned safely from a year in a combat zone. Some of our friends were not so lucky. The second reason we were excited to be home was that we thought we had completed the interminable series of lectures about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, rage and healthy readjustment. We were sick and tired of the endless litanies reminding us not to hit our spouse, not to spank the kids and not to kick the dog. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we underestimated the Army’s resolve to curb rage, PTSD and domestic abuse. We eventually became the lecturers who would discuss these issues with our Soldiers.
At the time, we just laughed off all of these lectures and went about the business of celebrating our return. It was not until a few years later when we have looked back on some of our experiences that we realize just how much rage has played a role in our lives. I will preface this entire discussion by noting that we have ALWAYS lived in a very peaceful house that is completely free of violence. We have a very strong marriage and have never felt any inclination to domestic violence. Perhaps we are a little arrogant, but we consider ourselves educated, creative, introspective and expressive enough to deal with anger without violence. However, we definitely have had to deal with anger after our experiences.
When we returned home from deployment, a very nice family had moved in across the street. The family was comprised of a very loving, religious and gentle couple with a little girl. The lady would eventually become our son’s first babysitter, whom I trusted deeply for her compassion, gentle nature and talent with children. About the time that we moved back into our house, a few events happened:
We bought a new weed whacker, and Tim had made it his business to rid our yard of a year’s worth of unsightly weeds. The trouble was, we had an “economy” weed whacker with an industrial strength weed problem. Tim only vaguely recalls the actual incident in question, but at some point the weed whacker got thrown across the yard, picked up, stomped on and thrown across the yard again. A few weeks later, we met our neighbors across the street. When Tim introduced himself to the lady, she said “oh, you’re the one…with the…weed whacker. I saw you from across the street. So nice to meet you…” A little later on, Tim met her husband, who INDEPENDENTLY also mentioned the weed whacker incident. Apparently the spectacle not only got the attention of the neighbors, but it probably generated some interesting dinnertime discussion. We were a little embarrassed.
Another incident occurred a little later in the summer after we returned. We had just purchased a brand-new boat (because there “was a sale”) and were extremely proud of our new toy. Before we had arranged for boat storage, we had to keep the boat beside our house, which required some maneuvering (of which Tim was an expert). One day, Tim decided to take the boat out for some reason that escapes me now. When I returned home from work, I noticed that the boat was gone…and so was the mailbox. I probably would not have noticed the missing mailbox, except for the splinters that lay strewn all over the yard. My mind could only conjure up what had probably taken place in order to have the boat missing and the mailbox in shards. I imagined the amount of force Tim must have hit the boat with in order to destroy a mailbox. I immediately called Tim up and braced myself for the worst. Tim was still “a little hot” at this point, but told me that the boat had only sustained a scratch, though it extended along the entire side of the boat and had shredded some of the graphics on the side. I did not ask any more about the mailbox.
Later on that night, Tim and I went shopping for a new mailbox and I gathered the courage to ask about what had happened to the old mailbox. Tim coolly explained that he had only slightly dented the mailbox while moving the boat, but when he had seen the damage to the side of his brand new boat, he went for the baseball bat. The mailbox was in shards after he had beaten the whole thing (to include the post) with a baseball bat. Imagine what the neighbors thought about that one.
Tim is not the only one that had to deal with a little anger. Fast forward a few years when I was pregnant with Emma. A few weeks before she was born, we knew that she was not going to make it and I was filled with anger. One day, when I returned home from ten hours on the job, I found the house smelled horrible. I went upstairs to find that our dog, Chance, had experienced a full day of being sick in every way imaginable. The evidence of the illness was in every square inch of my kitchen, but the dog was thankfully clean. In the course of figuring out how to keep Timmy out of the mess and how to move the dog out of the kitchen without furthering the disaster, Chance excitedly took a huge slip ‘n slide ride through the kitchen. Everything was a mess, to include our 130-lb sick dog. I was pregnant (probably about 20 weeks) and had difficulty moving the dog, and Timmy was curious. I managed to get Chance outside and somewhat clean. Tim was not home from work yet, and I did not have anyone to watch Timmy while I rushed the dog to the vet. I was tired, irritated at the mess, and very frustrated by the events at the end of a long day. To make matters worse, as I was loading Chance into the back of the Volvo, he jumped up and put a huge set of scratches all over the back tailgate. I lost my mind. I think I taught Timmy an entirely new vocabulary of inappropriate words. When my tantrum was finished, I sheepishly looked around the neighborhood to make sure no one saw me. Thankfully, everyone was gone and I was “off the hook” for another embarrassing conversation with the neighbors about anger. I quietly packed up the rest of my things, breathed a deep breath and calmly (seriously, I had calmed down) drove to the vet. (Several hundred dollars and a million tests later, Chance recovered).
I say all of this to make the point that even though we have experiences to laugh at, anger has definitely been a part of our lives. Throwing weed whackers, batting mailboxes and throwing tantrums in the driveway are not the most constructive methods of communicating anger, but we have always avoided violence to each other (and our dog). This has definitely come into play lately as we have navigated the enraging waters of our grief and sense of being out of control with our pregnancy with Emma. Not only were we sad, angry, frustrated, confused and scared, but I also had a major surge of hormones that was significantly higher than the levels experienced in any healthy pregnancy (about eight times as much). I needed a channel for my anger and I knew it.
The hardest part of our ordeal was coping with the fact that the best and brightest doctors that Kansas and the Army had to offer were still not completely sure of a definitive diagnosis of what was causing my ailing health. Everyone agreed and confirmed that our baby Emma was sick and would not survive through the pregnancy. In the last week of my pregnancy, my hormones were completely off kilter and I was feeling absolutely terrible. We consulted with a number of specialists and doctors, and there was little agreement among them on what health risks existed for me. We all knew that a number of things were going wrong, but could not quite predict the future and offer a prognosis for my health that was as definitive as the prognosis for Emma. The answers we got ranged from “you’ll be fine” to “you have an immediate threat to your life.” We were scared.
At one point, we made a trip to a specialist that was two hours away. To ease the boredom and anxiety, I called a good friend of mine, Nancy, to chat. I trusted Nancy’s logical judgment and knew she would know what to do and say to make me feel better. She had experienced a lot of the same uncertainty and difficulty when her husband, Ryan, was recovering from a serious injury at Walter Reed a few years ago. I explained the latest circumstances to Nancy and told her how angry I had become. I wasn’t angry at any particular person. I recognized that all of the doctors involved were offering their best medical opinions based on their individual medical training and unique experience. I fully recognized and verbalized the fact that the doctors were probably the recipients of a LOT of displaced anger from a LOT of patients who were hearing unhappy news on a daily basis. On many levels, I really pitied the doctors, who were committed to patient care and compassion at an enormous personal emotional expense. I imagined theirs as a very thankless job that required very uniquely patient individuals.
Regardless, I was still angry. I told Nancy that I was full of rage and joked that I really just wanted to break someone’s kneecaps with a crowbar. I didn’t have anyone in mind, and I have never, ever felt a genuine desire to hurt another human being (no matter what). My wise friend told me that she had experienced the same anger at Walter Reed. She was always so poised and appreciative of the care that Ryan received, but she admitted that sometimes she “just wanted to break something.” I could not have agreed more. We agreed that it would be therapeutic to just see something smash into bits. She said that she truly felt what Walter Reed was missing was a “break stuff room.” I could not have agreed more. Nancy suggested that I go to the grocery store and buy a watermelon to smash. I joked that I didn’t think it would be a good idea…I wasn’t completely sure that I could make it out of the parking lot of the grocery store without breaking the watermelon. After all, what could possibly be more sane than smashing a watermelon with a crowbar in the parking lot of the local supermarket? “Nothing to see here…move along.” “SECURITY!!!”
I really appreciated my conversation with Nancy. I was calmer after talking to her, and if nothing else, she made me laugh with our big plans for “smashing melons.” I could always count on her for good advice and a few laughs.
Fast forward several days after the conversation with Nancy. It was the night before I entered the hospital. I was feeling tired from the emotional energy I had expended on grieving for Emma and preparing for her birth, not to mention the physical toll that the pregnancy was taking on my body. My parents flew in from Virginia to help care for Timmy and to take care of the house. We were also supplying a guest bedroom for our two friends Corey and Kelly, who recently came back from Korea and were in search of a new home in the area. Corey and Kelly came home at about 10pm that night. We were all still up, avoiding the sleep we all knew we needed. Corey came in and said “I need about ten minutes, but we have a gift for you…” Knowing Corey and Kelly, I knew I could really be in store for just about anything. They are really fun people, but I just wasn’t in the mood for fun.
True to his promise, Corey came in a few minutes later and announced that they were “ready,” but I needed to change into old clothes. I asked if I had consumed enough alcohol for whatever lay in store and also wanted to know if anyone was going to throw tomatoes at me. He replied “no, you’re fine. Just trust me on this one…”
So, I walked outside and immediately started laughing. There, on the ground, lay every implement of destruction known to man. There was a giant tarp with a hatchet, a hammer, a giant mallet, a lighter, a screwdriver, a chainsaw and even a shotgun. And carefully laid out beside them were a half a dozen melons and tomatoes. They had put up a ladder and placed on sign on it that read “mean doctors” (Seriously, I harbored no resentment for my providers at all, but the sign seemed fitting anyway). The tarp contained a sign that read “The Great International Stress Relief Smash-Off…Love, Ryan, Nancy, Corey and Kelly.” I immediately started laughing and prepared to politely decline this exercise in the absurd. After all, it was 10pm at night and I was sure that this would just add another layer of lunacy that our neighbors had probably come to expect from us by now. But, there stood everyone, camera poised, cheering and waiting on me to take my first whack. I was little apprehensive because actually smashing a melon seemed so…violent. But, I was deeply touched by this fun little project of absurdity from a great group of friends, so I decided to take a whack. And another…and another. (As a safety note, I will point out that we removed the shotgun and the chainsaw from the equation. They were more for the initial “effect” and did not actually get used.) When I had thoroughly smashed the first melons, I hungrily moved on to another one. When that one was completed, I began throwing tomatoes. Unfortunately, I have zero aim, so I missed the target completely and lobbed the veggie into the neighbor’s yard (oops!) Tim took over and joined the fun. He was able to smash a melon with a rubber mallet, which I will admit takes a lot more strength than you would think. It took a lot of effort for me to get a melon smashed with a hammer, much less a rubber mallet.
We spent a long time out there that night “relieving stress.” It seemed like something that was straight out of the Patch Adams movie...except it was real. This act of kindness that our friends gave to us was a great opportunity to have a lot of fun and to share some serious laughs together (at 10pm at night…in plain view of the neighbors, who happened to drive by). We have always had a deep respect for our friends, but never have we felt quite as much love and appreciation for their friendship as we felt that night. Their gift was “just right, just in time.” We could not have been more grateful. I do not know just how many nurses and doctors I graced with the story of Corey, Kelly, Ryan and Nancy and smashing melons over my days in the hospital. I will say that the number was high…I was touched by their kindness and creativity and loved to tell the story. I am also sure that when I said “I need a melon…NOW” during my labor, my nurse probably did not find this to be an odd request. She probably knew exactly what I meant from my recounts of the night with the melons.
I have since moved on from the anger and rage that spurred the melon smashing event. I got over the anger that night by smashing melons and using Nancy’s creative outlet for my pent up anger. I also got over the anger by feeling an overwhelming sense of love and friendship from the organizers of the melon-smashing, all of whom we love dearly. Since Emma’s death, the anger that I felt has been replaced by the overwhelming emotion of profound sadness and the business of grief. As part of that “business of grief” I have resolved to begin several projects. I have started working on creating an informal support group at our local hospital. I have started writing a book. I have designed a patch for Emma on a memory quilt that honors infants who have died. I have started fundraising to participate in the March of Dimes. I have also resolved to run my first (and probably only) marathon in Emma’s honor, possibly with a fundraising component for an appropriate non-profit agency. (This will be in the distant future, when I am in shape enough to safely begin a marathon training regimen). I have planned a funeral and created a memory table in Emma’s honor. I have completed the memory boxes and started a scrapbook. I have six weeks of convalescent leave that I have completely devoted to the business of “constructive grieving.” I have to adjust to a schedule that is more relaxed than anything I have ever experienced, so I am grateful for so many tasks that will help me grieve but also grieve with a purpose. At the end of my six weeks, I must prepare to resume my normal life and “move on.” There was a time for annihilatory melon destruction, but that time has passed. Now is the time for healing and positive action. A few weeks from now will be the time for returning to work and resumption of my “new normal.” But I will never forget the purpose in healing that the melon smashing served and I will never, ever forget the kindness of my friends.
