Saturday, July 19, 2014

Why Some Loss Moms and Dads Hate Formal Family Photos

I am just going to throw this one out there.


There are a lot of things I am getting 'better' at, when viewed from outside. But some things that I am not. Or if I am quite honest with you, not necessarily still 'bad' at, but changed. Perhaps permanently.


And the one thing that I hate is really staged family photos, particularly those that line up kids from the extended family. I am just not into it.


The primary reason is that with spontaneous photos it is a glimpse of that moment. Not everyone is always there, and it is ok. Perhaps you get one with just a couple of your kids in a rare very sweet moment that reassures you that somehow they love each other even after fighting over Thomas the Train, Your lap, A Sippy Cup, The Tablet, Dolls, Trucks, Sandbox, Book, Dog, or basically any other noun in this plain of existence. Sometimes you rarely get most individuals (someone still takes the picture usually). In this world of incompletes, the child that is not physically present can coexist peacefully. They still have photos that exist that capture them as part of your family.


In the staged formal photo, everyone who belongs is there, otherwise there isn't much of a point to it. The problem is that either you have to accept that your child is somehow the odd one out, or that someone accepts this as complete. And while extended family may accept this, or see a very different view of the reality, as a loss parent I personally can't (maybe some can, but a lot do not). Everyone else sees who is there, but as a parent I can only see who is not there. It feels wrong. To me there is no point to it, it makes no sense. The concept brings at best alienation as the fake frozen smiles appear, and just pure pain for the most part. My family to me can no longer be a single family photo. It is a collage.


As kids the cousins would all get together and take pictures lined up. It was cute, all the gapped toothy smiles and teenage awkwardness blended together to remind all the parents of not only what had been for each of these kids, but what would follow in the natural order. Like a pair of jeans, I would inherit that teenage awkwardness as one cousin was growing out of it. Future family reunions stretching ahead spanned before us...And then the unthinkable happened. The line of our little group of girl cousins who would hold hands and play red rover under my Grandma's apple tree was broken. Somehow in the confusion of young adulthood one was taken away, and it made no emotional sense. Doesn't really to this day. We haven't taken photos in a line since. Perhaps most of it is simply due to distance, but it felt like the magic of it all left with her.



So be kind, be gentle. Don't fight it or sneak pictures if it hurts someone. You don't have to understand it.


I have to believe that someday photos won't be necessary to remember. And in that moment, we will cry happy tears because it will all be made right. The future will be restored.


But until that time, we will miss you. Both of you. Becca. Perry.

*Just for the record, I actually love this photo. It captured a moment in time and everyone is actually in it. What I hate is photos that set out to capture deliberate sets of people when one person is missing. If it is clear as mud, I am totally ok with it. I still love you if you can not follow that logic.



Friday, July 18, 2014

Nearly three years

Wow, I am still here. I mean I am not surprised because I had no intention of leaving, but at times it just did not seem possible. The load was/ is incredibly heavy.


But here I am, and sometimes it seems like things are changing. I do not know if healing is the right word, but I guess a new normal is coming. Sometimes I thought I would never reach it, other times I didn't want to (because letting go of that ugly raw pain is hard, because it is sometimes what you have left of your child in the present).  And yet it is coming.


Sometimes I do not cry every day... in the beginning I couldn't cry anymore because my body had no more moisture to spare. I am starting to look at chores again beyond the bare bone basics.... in the beginning getting out of bed to shower was a victory and a clean house was not on the radar. I buy clothing in advance again... in the beginning every unworn outfit stung (I saw them all as sad shadows of the ghost of a future that was never to be).


How did I get here? I guess I learned to cut myself a little slack. I learned to keep Perry with me in a way that felt real to me. I learned to set boundaries.


The angry is going away for longer periods. Bubble people no longer send me into fits of fury. I can largely sympathize with the minor setbacks in life again, or hurts that pale against death . I see most people as complicated lovely messes again.


I am changed. I still carry the aftershocks of Perry's death with me, still cry in the car or during hymns at church.


But I am surviving.