Bring a casserole

"Let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

Please, God in Heaven, make them stop saying that to me.  The only thing anyone on this earth can do for me is to rewind the world to before all this happened and make it different.  That's the only thing I want, the only thing I care about, the only thing I need.  Nothing else.  Nothing else at all.

I know grief is messy and I know it makes people uncomfortable, so they just stay away until the dust settles because it always does.  If it didn't there would be a whole world of people rocking and drooling.  Up to 40% of pregnancies end in miscarriage.  I'm not the first, I won't be the last and chances are better than average that this will happen to me again.  The thought terrifies me, paralyzes me.  'Choked by fear' comes to mind.

Mere hours after I found out, people were asking me what they could do.  Wha????  How do you answer that question?  How could I even fix my mouth to talk?  I didn't want to open it, for fear of screaming and not being able to stop, much less to engage my brain and tell you what you should be doing.

When I first arrived home, I told Drew what I needed.  I'm a big girl, I've been in therapy and I know how to use my words.  I told him that all I wanted was someone to sit with me and hold my hand.  No talking, no asking questions, just hold my hand.  My mother had come home with me but I wanted him, my husband, to hold my hand.  He told me he couldn't and I tried to honor that - he suffered a loss too and people grieve differently.  For him, he needed to be active, to keep moving and that was the last thing I wanted.  I wanted to lay in bed, in the quiet and have someone sit with me and hold my hand.  My mother wasn't good for that either - she kept saying over and over and over "Desiree you need to talk.  You need to get it out, it's not good to keep things inside.  You need to talk.  It's not good to be quiet.  There will be more babies.  You need to talk.  Can I get you anything.  You need to talk.  Do you need anything?  You need to talk."  I could barely send her away before my head exploded.  I'm the one who's been in therapy,  I know I need to talk, but can I do it on my fucking time when I am fucking up to it?  Can you just fucking sit with me and hold my fucking godblessed hand?  FUCK!  But I had no strength, I had no words, I was paralyzed.

Grief is messy and makes people uncomfortable.  It takes a lot to sit with someone and not talk and not do and not fuss.  Most people can't.  But I knew Kathleen could.  So I called her and asked her to come down.  She would be able to sit and not ask me to engage my brain and give her something to do. 

That's what people continued to do.  Ask me what they should be, could be doing.  As if I had the first fucking clue.  As if I could think about anything but dead babies for even a second.  As if breathing wasn't difficult enough, now I have to think about you?  A healthy, non-grieving person and I have to task you with something so you can feel better about yourself?  You want something to do?  You want to get me something?

Go back in time, Superman-style and make things different.  Give me a healthy pregnancy.  Take this pain away.  You can't do that?  Then sit with me, don't talk, don't ask me to talk and just hold my hand.  Can't do that either?  Then go the fuck away.  You have nothing for me.  Because that's all I want.

Do you feel like talking? Eating? Bathing? Watching TV? Taking a walk? Dying? No, no, no, no, no, and yes please God if it would make everything stop.  I don't feel like anything and it's safe to say I won't for a while.  Just hold my hand and stop asking me questions.  I have no answers - just hold my hand.

Let me know if there's anything I can do.

You know why people say that?  So they can feel better about themselves.  So they can feel like they've extended a hand.  But the thing is, grieving people can't think.  I think non-grieving people know that, they count on it, so they won't have to interrupt their own lives to tend to a messy grieving person that makes them uncomfortable.  BUT, they can say 'well, I told her to tell me if she needed anything.  She didn't say anything so I guess she's okay.'

I. AM. NOT. OKAY.

You know what you do for grieving people if you can't stand to be around them?  You go to their fucking house and you bring a casserole.  You sweep their fucking kitchen floor.  You put in a load of their fucking laundry.  You bring fucking flowers.  You sit on their fucking sofa and say a rosary.  You look them in the eye and squeeze their hand and say "I'm so sorry for your loss." And then you shut your fucking mouth.  You think for your FUCKING self.  You DO NOT ask the greiving person for direction like you're all of a sudden retarded. 

You don't know where something is?  Find it or ask someone else.  I understand that you need to know where my car keys are but I'm a mite preoccupied thinking of dead babies and I can't find the off switch in my brain and I really could give a fuck less about the location of my fucking car keys.  I know I need to eat but I don't really care if I ever eat again much less where the food should come from so I'm probably not the best person to ask for restaurant suggestions.  You're right, I should talk but you DO NOT want to hear what's going on in my head right now.  It scares me.  

You need something from me?  I'm indisposed.  Figure it out for your fucking self. 

If you really want to show you care, do something on your own.  Even if it's as simple as reading what I write.  You bear witness and that matters.  It matters the most.  I have read every single comment, I know you're there, I know you're listening.  I know you expect nothing of me but what I'm ready to give and it is because of that, because of you that I find my words, that I use them.  Because I know you're there.  All of you, reading what I write, are doing the equivalent of sitting with me and holding my hand.  And I thank you.  I thank you so much.  It is enough to bear witness, it is enough to say a prayer.  Thank you.

I pray to God that when my time comes to comfort a grieving person that I won't drop the ball.  That I will show up at their house with a fucking casserole in a dish they don't even have to give back.  I pray that I will be able to hold their hand and say nothing, that I will listen when they are ready to talk, no matter how uncomfortable I get because it's not about me.  That when they talk, they will feel safe enough with me to say anything, no matter how scary.  If I can't do those things, I will tell that person that I prayed for them today and I will do it.  I won't say 'I'm thinking of you every second of every day' because you're fucking not, you can't.  You don't get points for frequency.  I pray that I will be sincere, that I will just do, not ask.  Or at least if I have to ask, I'll ask someone else and not fucking bother the grieving person. 

I pray that I will be able to sit and hold their hand.