I am so looking forward to it.
One, because I love this momma's blog and the way that she thinks but also because we both suffered from pre-eclampsia. It's so interesting to feel those blog vs. real world feelings of "Oh, you really do exist, you are real, you aren't just words on my screen that i find comfort and friendship in." :)
On the face to face topic... most all of us are familiar with Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope organization. this week i found out that I will be the new leader for the Face2Face friendship groups here in Humboldt county! (Ours will be called Humboldt Faces of Loss Friendship Group). There is little to no support here for people like us so i am honored and stoked to be able to start this for our community.
I really hope some local women take interest in it. It would be really nice to be around people who get it, within my own community.
They are sending me business cards to drop off at OB offices and i made a posting on craigslist. So far the only person to reach out to me was a naturopathic doctor from Eureka looking to share her PTSD info.
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Saturday, before father's day, was a big festival here called "Oyster Fest"..... which is basically a drunk as you can be festival. It starts at 10am and goes until 5:30pm and people get WASTED. I had to work for the whole thing. Where I work is right on the plaza where the festival was held. So after a busy day of drunk customers, i needed a beer too. So Jeff and I met up with some of the people who we hang out with when we feel like being social. I'm not terribly close with these people (they are more like Jeff's people) but they are around when we feel like doing something.
All of them we either severely tipsy, or drunk. I had one beer down and Truman came up.
Nice at first. someone brought up how this time last year they remembered me being pregnant and over the moon and that it made them shed a little tear for us and Truman. Which was nice.
Then.
It was someone else chiming in, "I'm sorry you lost him but you need to remember that YOU are not replaceable. Your life has meaning still."
Uh god, I thought, why are we talking about Truman when all of you are drunk when none of you bring him up when your sober? when all of you talk to me like were are talking about a cat that died and not my son? Sensing that this person was implying that Truman is replaceable, I just said, "Well, yes, but Truman was an individual as well, with just as much personality and emotions as I have, I hope you guys understand that he isn't replaceable either."
Then shortly after, father's day came up and I mention to another woman who i have felt close to in the past that I hope Jeff is feeling okay. and she just looked at me "sympathetically" and said, "Someday Laura, someday...."
I was confused, so i said, "Someday what?"
Her eyes got a bit bigger, and then she shrugged her shoulders.
Ohhhh... someday i'll have living children and we can celebrate father's day instead of miss Truman.
She thinks i'm pining away for future living children..... does she not see that we are parents, that we do celebrate mother's and father's day we just so happen to be missing our child.
This is when I realized that with this group of people the ignorance about our situation has been snowballing.
I said, "'Someday', no. Someday has absolutely nothing to do with father's day." and left the room. It was a burn. and mostly for Jeff. Because father's are SO forgotten about sometimes and here is this person basically saying he isn't a father, but someday he will be.
This person who said this knows someone who just lost a 17 year old. It was her only child. I just wanted to say, "Would tell that mother that she is no longer a mother because her only child died?" What about a woman that has 6 children and all of them die under the age of 1? Is she not a mother?
And honestly i'm not even being defensive about the whole parent title.... what it goes down to is the understanding. The acknowledgment that i gave birth to a child, who lived for 3 days and then died. and also the fact that it's the day before father's day and no matter how drunk you are maybe things like this shouldn't be said because it's just rude. Like if her mother died I wouldn't say to her condescendingly "Someday.... someday maybe you'll have another mother" the day before mother's day.
A few days after father's day a friend who knows all of these people confessed that she felt horrible for not reaching out to me on mother's day, that she had wanted to but when she was hanging out with this crowd, they all told her not to bring it up to me, to just leave it alone.
I reiterated (for about the 5 millionth time) that talking about Truman, being reminded of Truman, in no way makes me feel sadness or brings me down-- that i think about him all day every day and it's not like i forget that he died and someone else bringing him up will make me hurt any more then I already do. If anything it would make me feel good that he is remembered and that we are thought about.
It just feels like this group of people are determined to not understand Jeff and I. Our words don't get far with them. They never ask us questions, they tell us how it is, or they assume how it is and spread it to each other.
Doesn't help that none of them have kids, none of them are married, they are more on the immature party side of things. But for me at this point it is exhausting to deal with and being around them makes me feel heaps of unpleasant emotions that usually if i feel i just weigh the reality of the situation and then cut myself off from it... but in this case one of Jeff's very close friends is in this group. So it's not really up to me.
I went from just missing my son, just a little bit worried about Jeff and wanting a beer..... to missing my son, worried about Jeff, wanting a beer, feeling isolated, not heard, misunderstood, a little bit frustrated and angry.
This has been an interesting time frame, 10 months out. Some people are coming forward with "I'm sorry's" for not being there in the beginning and then other's are becoming more closed off and ignorant to what we live with everyday. a shift.
Anyways, so on sunday, father's day, i was feeling anger. and frustration. and even a little sadness that was residing for the previous night. I was hurt by the ignorance within this group of "friends" who are so adamant on misunderstanding us.... and especially the timing of it all for Jeff was just sucky and unfair.
It's really exhausting. All of this is.
Since then though i feel better about it all. they can think what ever they want about us and our situation. I have no control over what kind of people they are. I am just going to keep talking and keep telling people our truth and hopefully sooner than later I'll find people that i can actually connect with, on my level, here in Humboldt.
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My friend Julie sent me a picture that she took of us one year ago today. The weekend when I started to become pre-eclamptic. I LOVE seeing pictures of the three of us that I've never seen before. I loved my time with him SO much. It was taken with a cell phone... and don't mind my pj's! ;)
