How to Live Unhappily Ever After

Posted on by
Reply

How to Live Unhappily Ever After
By AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

“I just want to be happy.”

I can’t think of another phrase capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness. With the possible exception of, “Honey, I’m in love with your youngest sister.”

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal
In our super-positive society, we have a zero-tolerance policy for negativity. But who feels ‘Great!’ all the time?

Yet at first glance, it seems so guileless. Children just want to be happy. So do puppies. Happy seems like a healthy, normal desire. Like wanting to breathe fresh air or shop only at Whole Foods.

But “I just want to be happy” is a hole cut out of the floor and covered with a rug. Because once you say it, the implication is that you’re not. The “I just want to be happy” bear trap is that until you define precisely, just exactly what “happy” is, you will never feel it. Whatever being happy means to you, it needs to be specific and also possible. When you have a blueprint for what happiness is, lay it over your life and see what you need to change so the images are more aligned.

Still, this recipe of defining happiness and fiddling with your life to get it will work for some people—but not for others. I am one of the others. I am not a happy person. There are things that do make me experience joy. But joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what I feel is, interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance, confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn’t all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what I’m thinking is, is that so terrible?

More from Review

The Saturday Essay: Renting Prosperity
When the Troops Were Very Young
Why College Football Should Be Banned
Standards of Living Make Great Wonder Drugs
Young, Rich and Charitable
I know a physicist who loves his work. People mistake his constant focus and thought with unhappiness. But he’s not unhappy. He’s busy. I bet when he dies, there will be a book on his chest. Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested, instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.

The barrier to this, of course, is that in our super-positive society, we have an unspoken zero-tolerance policy for negativity. Beneath the catchall umbrella of negativity is basically everything that isn’t super-positive. Seriously, who among us is having a “Great!” day every day? Who feels “Terrific, thanks!” all the time?

Anger and negativity have their uses, too. Instead of trying to alleviate some of the uncomfortable and unpleasant emotions you feel by “trying to be positive,” try being negative instead. Seriously, try it sometime. This will help you get in touch with how you actually feel: “I feel hopeless and fat and stupid. And like a failure for feeling this way. And trying to be positive and upbeat makes me feel angry and feeling angry makes me feel like I am broken.”

If that’s how you feel—however you feel—then you have a base line, you have established a real solid floor of reference. Sometimes just giving yourself permission to feel any emotion without judgment or censorship can lessen the intensity of those negative emotions. Almost like you’re letting them out into the backyard to run around and get rid of some of that energy.

A corollary to the idea that we must all be happy and positive all the time is that we must all be “healed.” When I was 32, somebody I loved died on a plastic-covered twin mattress at a Manhattan hospital. His death was not unexpected and I had prepared myself years in advance, as though studying for a degree. When he died, I was as stunned as if he had been killed by a grand piano falling from the top of a building. I was fully unprepared.

I did not know what to do with my physical self. It took me about a year to stop thinking, madly, I might somehow meet him in my sleep. Once I finally believed he was gone, I began the next stage: waiting. Waiting to heal. This lasted several years.

The truth about healing is that heal is a television word. Someone close to you dies? You will never heal. What will happen is, for the first few days, the people around you will touch your shoulder and this will startle you and remind you to breathe. You will feel as though you will soon be dead from natural causes; the weight of the grief will be physical and very nearly unbearable.

Eventually, you will shower and leave the house. Maybe in a year you will see a movie. And one day somebody will say something and it will cause you to laugh. And you will clamp your hand over your mouth because you laughed and that laugh will break your heart, it will feel like a betrayal. How can you laugh?

In time, to your friends, you will appear to have recovered from your loss. All that really happened, you’ll think, is that the hole in the center of your life has narrowed just enough to be concealed by a laugh. And yet, you might feel a pressure for it to be true. You might feel that “enough” time has passed now, that the hole at the center of you should not be there at all.

But holes are interesting things. As it happens, we human beings are able to live just fine with many holes of many sizes and shapes. Pleasure, love, compassion, fulfillment; these things do not leak out of holes of any size. So we can be filled with holes and loss and wide expanses of unhealed geography—and we can also be excited by life and in love and content at the exact same moment.

This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: The facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things which ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.

The truth about healing is that you don’t need to heal to be whole. And by whole, I mean damaged, missing pieces of who you were, your heart—missing what feels like some of your most important parts. And yet, not missing any part of you at all. Being, in truth, larger than you were before.

Human experience weighs more than human tissue.

—Adapted from “This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike,” by Augusten Burroughs. To be published Tuesday by St. Martin’s.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304746604577379891905861390.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Parent’s Bucket List Dying Baby Girl Goes Viral

Posted on by
Reply

Breaks my heart. May God grant the baby health and the parents patience.

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/parents-bucket-list-dying-baby-girl-goes-viral-180155213–abc-news-topstories.html

On Good Friday at around 3:30 p.m., Laura and Mike Canahuati of Houston got a call from a neurologist confirming their worst fear. The tests results showed their 5-month-old daughter Avery has a rare and incurable genetic disorder.
Avery was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disorder that attacks spinal neurons and progressively debilitates muscle function. Avery’s was Type 1, the most severe kind, and doctors told them their little girl had only 18 months to live.
“We had several days of sitting in shock and crying and then we pulled ourselves out of that,” Laura said. “Since we had such a short time, we knew we wanted to make the best of it.”
To cherish every moment with Avery, the Canahuatis created ” Avery’s Bucket List,” a blog written from Avery’s perspective where they chronicle her world and track their family adventures, checking things off from the bucket list as they go.
The bucket list includes milestones in every child’s life – from sitting up, kissing her mom and dad, to having a birthday party, meeting Santa Claus, losing a tooth, visiting college and more.
“We have our days, it’s not that we don’t,” said Mike Canahuati, 31, who writes the blog in his daughter’s voice. “The blog made it into … ‘Let’s go to the Canahuatis and smile at Avery and appreciate life instead of crying.”
“I have a lot of living to do in just a little bit of time,” Avery “writes” on the blog. “In everything I do, the two most important things are that I’m spending time with my mommy & daddy, while at the same time spreading awareness for SMA.”
Avery’s story and bucket list has struck a chord online. Since the Canahuatis started the blog earlier this month, it has racked up close to 500,000 page views, Mike said, with people as far as Malaysia, Hong Kong, Germany and New Zealand visiting it.
“When we saw how many people it was reaching in a few days, that’s when we realized we could really get the word out on SMA and spread the word as much as we could,” said Laura, who worked as a kindergarten teacher before giving birth to Avery, an 11-11-11 baby.
SMA is the No. 1 genetic killer of children under the age of 2 in the U.S., but most people don’t know about it, Laura explained. An estimated one in 40 people are carriers of SMA. If both parents are carriers, like Laura and Mike are, there’s a 25 percent chance of their child having SMA.
Laura and Mike urge all parents to talk to their OB GYNs and get tested to see if they are a carrier for SMA.
“Our goal for Avery to be the face of SMA. Just like when you say the word cancer, I don’t think there’s a single person who doesn’t know what cancer is, we want it to be the same for SMA,” Laura said.
Avery has already lost the ability to move her legs. She can barely move her arms and doctors say eventually she will be unable to move her head or breathe without the help of a respirator. Last week, she had a G-Tube put in so she can be fed through a line in her stomach and her parents constantly monitor her oxygen levels since babies with SMA have difficulty regulating their breath.

Courtesy Laura and Mike Canahuati
While her parents know Avery won’t be able to fulfill many of the rites of passage that are on the list, they are finding joy in what their baby can do – tasting solid foods, taking a “big girl bath,” flying a kite and blowing bubbles – and are finding a way to share in some of the later milestones with her now.
Fast forward a few years, Mike and Laura took Avery on her first college visit to their alma mater at Texas State University, earlier this month. Avery just got her very own (faux) driver’s license made – one with an ugly pictures and one with a great picture, hitting two items on her list.
Thanks to some mommy matchmaking, she scored her first kiss from a boy named Cooper “McDreamy,” who also has SMA.
“His name is Cooper and he’s 19 months old (I just love older men, they’re so much more mature than 3 & 4 month olds),” Avery gushes on the blog. “My mommy and daddy said this might be the best kiss since Ryan Gosling & Rachel McAdams in The Notebook.”
Tonight, Avery will get to throw out the first pitch at a baseball came for a new minor league team in Houston, the Sugarland Skeeters. Another day, another adventure.
The last thing on the bucket list: to overcome her illness. Laura and Mike know that will not happen since the research is too far off to save Avery, but they hope their daughter’s story will raise awareness for the disease and help find a cure.
“No one should have to go through this,” Laura said.

Birth, Loss and In Between By Sabina Khan-Ibarra

Posted on by
Reply

http://www.incultureparent.com/2012/01/birth-loss-and-in-between/

Since I was a young girl, I dreamed of being a mother. Throughout my adult life, it was the moment I most anticipated. When I finally fell pregnant, it was a surprise, one my husband and I welcomed.

At 20 weeks, we found out that our son had a heart defect. We were devastated. Doctors said it may be a marker for some major genetic disorder. We spoke to a genetic counselor, who spent most of her time trying to convince us to terminate the pregnancy. I couldn’t even think about such a thing, feeling him kick and knowing he was living inside me.

We decided to keep the baby and as the pregnancy progressed, things began looking good. The doctors told us he had a 98% chance of surviving, albeit with some limitations, such as being unable to play contact sports and requiring several surgeries throughout his life. Despite this, he could lead a fairly normal life. We were ecstatic.

He was born at 37 weeks. My labor was extremely difficult. With every contraction, my baby’s heartbeat stopped. I was told in my Lamaze class to relax during contractions, but seeing the baby heart monitor stop at every contraction made being calm impossible. I had to wait to do an emergency C-section in the morning, when the doctors finally arrived. Because I was unconscious at his birth, I never saw my baby with his eyes open.

He lived for only eight days. They were the hardest eight days of my life. Sometimes he was doing well, but more often he had “dips” and doctors just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Despite the antibiotics and constant care, he couldn’t seem to kick the respiratory problems he had developed. He was unconscious the whole time because they kept him heavily sedated to minimize his pain. I longed to hold him, see him awake and look into his eyes, but alas he left us.

Grieving for him has been the most awful and devastating thing I have ever experienced. Although I have already seen the requisite therapist for my loss, talked to numerous people, joined support groups, and even written publicly about my son, I cannot help but feel misplaced.

I began feeling lost when I was sent home from the hospital without my child. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I no longer felt him inside me and knew I would never feel him again.

I had all of the things ready for his arrival, but no baby to use them. I didn’t know what to do with his baby clothes and furniture. I tried to put them away but the uncontrollable crying prevented me from doing so. Eventually, my mother and sisters took care of this for me.

Soon after my son’s passing, my family and friends bought my husband and me a ticket to Hawaii to get away and grieve in private. To this day, I cannot remember which island I went to or what I did the whole time in Hawaii. My only memory is standing in my towel in the hotel room and watching my breast milk seep through the towel and crying.

In the Pashtun culture, we celebrate the 40th day after childbirth by the mother officially bathing, praying and giving money to charity. New mothers do not have to pray while they are healing from the birth of the child. So when she begins to pray, on the 40th day, it is a mark of celebration. The maternal grandmother also gives new clothes to her daughter, prepares food and buys sweets, which are to be distributed among family and friends. My mother made me the food and had my new clothes ready after I showered, however, I did not have any sweets to give away. I followed tradition, with the knowledge that while this was a celebratory time for most mothers, I was grieving my empty womb. On my prayer mat, I cried throughout my prayer. It was my mother who consoled me and told me that God loved me and that is why He tested me with such a difficult test. She said she prays that God takes away my tears and soon blesses me with another child. She loved my son as much as I did and grieved not only his loss, but her daughter’s broken heart.

For some reason, I ended up going to my postpartum appointment all alone. Ashamed, I sat in the waiting room and prayed none of the staff remembered me or asked me about my baby. I watched other expectant mothers and mothers with newborns with a longing I will never be able to describe. Inside the examination room, I cried openly with my wonderful doctor, who did the same. Although her kindness helped me through a difficult appointment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be in a building with all of the happy mothers. Surely, there was a place for someone like me.

I am unable to see other children his age without bringing him up. I have been known to make perfectly normal situations awkward by asking how old a child is and then commenting, “Oh, he/she is my son’s age.” Oblivious and even enthusiastic mothers ask where my baby is and respond with shock and uncertainty when I tell him he passed away. The worst was when I did this at a wedding. I made one mother so uncomfortable, she avoided me for the rest of the wedding. I felt like a leper. I couldn’t enjoy the beauty of it. I didn’t even notice the intricacies of the flower arrangements or the color of the bride’s dress, which I usually do. My husband and I left right after dinner.

The feeling of being lost has stayed with me almost a year after my child’s passing. We have been blessed again and I am expecting my second child on the birthday of my first. When asked if this is my first child, I have to think about my answer. Do I want to answer honestly and say “no” but then have to explain my first child’s death? Or do I want to say “yes” and just let strangers remain ignorant, “oohing” and “aahing” at how “life changes once you become a parent.”

I will always feel like I have lost something. But with prayer, a good husband, wonderful family and friends and mostly time, I find myself learning my place in life again, where I am the mother of two children—one in heaven and one inside me. This knowledge makes me stronger. I am learning to no longer be unsure about what to say concerning my son. And I also realize that because my loss was so great, I am forever altered.

My Journey to Healing Birth

Posted on by
Reply

My Journey to Healing Birth by Michelle

A place for me to reflect and vent as I take this journey to birth for the sixth time.
Friday, October 21, 2011
My Homebirth Loss: The beginning
*** Before I begin I would like to preface this post with a few things. First off, I have not shared the details of this birth publicly since he was born. This was largely due to the most insensitive and hurtful comments that I have ever seen a person make online regarding my loss without them even knowing the details. Please bear in mind that I lost my son and no one carries that burden of loss more than I do. If you comment with anything that is offensive, mean, or otherwise insensitive it will get deleted. Secondly I am writing this birth story in 3 separate blogs, the pregnancy and labor, the birth, and the hospital trasnfer. I am doing this because 1- there is just too much information to put it all in one post and 2-I want to separate my emotions from those three cycles of this process. The labor was amazingly beautiful, the birth was somewhat scary, and the hospital transfer was nothing short of infuriating.****

The Pregnancy:

From the moment I got a positive pregnancy test I knew this was going to be a different experience. I cannot explain it in a way to make anyone understand but I never felt like this baby was meant to stay with me. I made my first appointment with the OB office to confirm pregnancy and get dates ( my period had just returned and was irregular). From the minute I saw him on the ultrasound I had this sinking feeling I would never hear him cry, never see he smile, never hear him laugh. With this heavy on my mind hearing the doctor tell me she wanted to tie my tubes really bothered me. All I could think about is if this baby dies I would never be able to have another one and I would be devastated. She clearly wasn’t supportive of my desire to VBA2C either, so when I got home I posted a message on the ICAN-online (http://ican-online.org/) email list asking for help. I needed more options.

The ladies there were very helpful and threw out the idea of a birth center as well as homebirth. I contacted the birth center a few hours from me but was pretty sure they would not take me as a client. I was also given the name of a traveling midwife that was living in my state and told to contact her. After researching more on homebirth and the statistics of homebirth I decided to contact her and just see what happened. I told her my history and my desire to VBA2C and asked her would she be willing to attend my birth. She responded enthusiastically that even though she had retired she felt that fate had brought her and I together. The feeling was mutual especially when I realized the house she purchased to retire in was 2 streets away from me. Dr. Wayne Dyer says “In mathematics, two angles that are said to coincide fit together perfectly. The word coincidence does not describe luck or mistakes. It describes that which fits together perfectly.” She was perfect for the journey in every way.

What I needed this time was to be able to gestate in peace without all the scary “OMG this is wrong with you!” ideas. I did not want any tests done, no ultrasounds, no nothing. It was important for me to embrace the fact that pregnancy and birth and a humans ability to do this was natural and normal. The only thing that was checked was blood pressure, urine for sugar, heartbeat and fetal growth. My entire journey was nothing but submitting myself to the will of Allah and believing in my ability to birth my baby which for me started with belief that my body could appropriately take care of the growing baby inside of me without unnecessary tests.

This baby was so unlike my older two. There was something about him that was so peaceful and so calm. I worried much of my pregnancy that when my midwife came for check ups that the heartbeat would not be found. The intuition that he wasn’t going to stay was just that strong. I remember thinking many times that if he doesn’t stay with me I want to at least give birth to him if nothing else. I wanted to have that at least. But every prenatal he had the most beautiful heartbeat ever. He sounded perfect. He was perfect. I never shared my feelings with anyone until the aftermath. Sometimes I feel like it was a Mercy from Allah to prepare me for the loss. I want to make it clear that this feeling I had was there long before I chose to homebirth.

The entire pregnancy my baby measured behind by a couple of weeks. When my “due date” came we had a prenatal and he measured at 38 weeks. I went 2 weeks past my due date and at my 42 week prenatal she measured him and he measured 2 weeks ahead. At this point she stated that I may want to think about doing some natural inductions as the baby was getting big and she wanted me to have the chance to birth.

In many ways I felt a little defeated by that idea. It was extremely important to me to not have any intervention especially an induction. I needed to know that I wasn’t broken that my body did know how to labor on it’s own. In some ways I think mentally I held on to him. I knew where he was he was alive and I was afraid to let that go. I spent that night thinking and asking Allah to make it possible to avoid any type of interventions. I agreed to allow her to check my cervix in the morning (which was something else I wanted to avoid)and then we would discuss where to go from there. As fate would have it after an excellent nights sleep I woke up on Jummah Friday at Fajr( morning prayer for the non-Muslims reading) October 21st 2005. It was also the last ten days of Ramadan which is a very significant spiritual time for Muslims.

Labor:

I wasn’t actually sure I was really in labor until after a couple of hours of contractions. I cannot express to you the amount of relief I felt that labor started on it’s own and that intervention wasn’t needed. I called the midwife and let her know and a few hours later she was there. We started to fill the birth tub and I just followed my body’s cues. I stood up during contractions and moved my hips back and forth. The contractions were pretty regular at 5 minutes apart. I was surrounded by peace and love. I was able to move the way I wanted. No machines tying me to a bed, no one there that I didn’t know or didn’t care about me as a person. My midwife was like my family. I loved her, enjoyed her company, and trusted her.

After 12 hours of labor or so the contractions were getting a bit more intense. I decided to take a hot shower because I wanted to be in the water but I did not want to get in the birth tub to early and delay labor progress. The shower was comforting and helped me relax a little. At this point I was sitting on the birthing ball for contractions. Shortly after my midwife wanted to get some rest so she asked if it was alright to check me so that she at least knew where I was. I hesitated a lot about that cervical check because I was labelled a failure to progress in my previous labors. I agreed to the check and knew that it would likely be the only one I got. I was about 5-6 cm baby was really low and my cervix was pretty thin. In a lot of ways I felt triumphant. My body DID work. I went into labor on my own and now I have dilated halfway there all on my own. Trusting in nothing but Allah and the perfection of His creation.

The midwife left and I spent a few hours with my then sister-in-law and my doula. I would kind of hang onto one of them while the other applied pressure to my back. Something about my relationship with my midwife is just indescribable. It wasn’t long before I just needed her presence there with me. It wasn’t that I felt like birth was soon coming. It was that her presence in my labor was overwhelmingly comforting. I refer to her often as my “birth” mother. The type of love and comfort she gave me was unlike anything I had ever experience during a pregnancy. She wasn’t just my midwife, my care provider but she was my friend.

It wasn’t too much longer after she arrived that I decided to get into the birthing tub. The warm water was exactly what I needed to make labor more manageable. It was probably early in the morning on October 22nd 2005. I honestly had no idea what time it was because the clock was not in my view. And honestly I think it was better that way. I didn’t need to be on a time constraint or feel pressured to hurry up and have a baby.

As I entered the transitional stage of labor I began to feel really emotional. I still had that nagging feeling about the heartbeat not being found and got nervous every time she wanted to check his heart-rate, yet every time it was a beautiful healthy sound. I remember sitting on the side of the tub being overcome with silent tears. I don’t even know why I was crying other than transition releases a certain type of hormone that may have caused me to be overcome with emotion. Or maybe it was that I was really doing it. I was laboring on my own. I had started to feel a lot of pelvic pressure. I could tell baby was moving lower. I wasn’t broken after all. At that moment with tears streaming down my face my midwife came to me and got eye to eye with tears in her eyes and told me that she knew exactly where I was at and that she was with me 100%.

At some point I began to feel really pushy and I am not sure if it was suggested that I get a cervical check or if I asked for one. Either way I got out of the tub in order for her to listen to the baby and check my cervix. The baby sounded great and I was dilated 9.5 cm. I had a small cervical lip so she suggested I wait before trying to push. I got back in the tub and she came to me and said that she didn’t want me to be mad at her and she knew that I did not want any interventions but she thought breaking my bag of waters may help get rid of my cervix faster. I was very hesitant to agree and argued even. In the end she made a valid point that breaking my water at 9.5 cm was not the same thing as my water being broken at 1 cm. I was close to giving birth. This was not going to make me a failure to progress. I finally agreed since by this point I was ready to give birth and knew the cervix needed to be moved away.

So I got back out of the tub, water bag was broken, and heart rate was checked again. Again everything was perfect. Everything was going smoothly. My labor had been smooth sailing consistent and progressive. The baby had been perfect the entire time. I still felt like I couldn’t wait to birth him so that the feeling I had carried for 10 months would be laid to rest as an unfounded fear. Eventually I got to the point of “ok I have to push I can’t fight this feeling any longer.” At that point I got out of the tub in order to give birth. I did not want to be in the water for the birth. I needed to be out of the water instinctually.

The rest of this birth story will be continued in the next blog so stay tuned…..

http://michellesbirthjourneys.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-homebirth-loss-beginning.html

What you mean to me

Posted on by
Reply

Lately, I have been trying to figure out who you are. I mean you came into the world as my child. I carried you for nine months, watch my belly grow, felt you kick from within yet still I wonder what you really meant to me. You kicked and screamed your way into the world; you were vibrant and animated, if only for a little while. Of course, I never witnessed this. I wonder why I wasn’t given the pleasure or honor.
Your whole life, of eight days, consisted of you being heavily sedated- only reacting to me once. Doctors said the oscillator you were on was very painful, and therefore, you had to be drugged so that you wouldn’t feel any pain. It hurt me to know you may not be aware of my presence, due to the heavy medication, but I could not see my baby in pain and understood the Doctors’ decision.
Your condition went up and down, mostly there were downs. I kept waking up hoping only to end the day crying because you seemed to only be getting worse. I began to fear seeing you. I couldn’t see you in so much pain. I was sick of hearing the nurse tell me of what a rough time you had while I was away, as short as those times were. I went home to cry, until my father reminded me that I was being unthankful for the gift Allah had given me. He reminded me that you were my son. There and then, three days before you left us, I decided I would enjoy my time with you, however short it was. I would not ask the nurse how you did in my absence. I would just spend my day with you, absorbing the positive energy you gave off, smelling you, kissing you, talking to you, singing to you, and praying over you.
Your death was surreal. When the Doctors’ told me you were not going to make it. I knew what they would say before they said it. I felt like you had told me some time before, when we were alone together. I had accepted this and prepared. As I sang to you for the last time, your father knew from the look in my eyes, that you were leaving us. He felt it, too. He joined me in stroking your cheeks and taking turns talking to you. I used to call you “Zama Baby,” which means “My Baby.” Your father doesn’t understand Pashto but he remembered that I used to say that to you and only recently asked me what it meant.
You were put in my arms and I watched and felt you take your last breaths. I don’t know how I survived it. We were given a private room so I could hold you for the first and last time. My family was there. It was unbelievably sad but there was a peace. I didn’t scream or shout. I believed, and still believe, that I will see you in heaven. I prayed softly over you. My little wise man.; suffering more in his short life than any grown man I have ever known. You passed to a place unseen, going through the pangs of death. I witnessed your passing over, your last breath. I visit your grave and cannot believe a piece of my heart and flesh lies under all that earth. I cry for you.
But I look back and think of who and what you really were. InshaAllah, when I have more children, does that mean your memory is erased? Will you still be my eldest? Will I forget you? Do I think you will come back in the form of my other child(ren)? These are all questions I have thought about myself or have been asked. I have even talked to your father about.
I think you were a sign, a symbol: of God, of my humanness, of mortality, of mercy.
I think of you as my child.
I think of you as love.
I think of you as peace.
I think of you as longing and sadness.
I think of you as a wise being.
I think of you as a teacher.
I think of you as the reason for my humility.
I think of you as a reason for my compassion.
I think of you as my reason to believe.
I think of you as hope.
I think of you as showing me reality.
I think of you as the one who made my dreams come true.
Your father imagines you in heaven as a little leader- all wise and knowing. We believe you are waiting for us to join you, because you know more than we do how this life is so fleeting. Ibrahim, in your short life, you were more to me than just a son, you were all the things I lacked and more. I thank Allah every day for blessing us with you; through you I learned how to open my eyes and my heart. I love you Zama Baby.

October 18, 2011

Kahlil Gibran – Your pain is…

Posted on by
Reply

Your pain is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break,that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder
at the daily miracles of your life, your pain
would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your
heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink
his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided
by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter
has moistened with His own sacred tears.

- Kahlil Gibran

Home of Thankfulness

Posted on by
Reply

Ahmad and Al-Tirmidhi reported that the Prophet (PBUH) said: “Allah says to the Angel of death: “O! Angel of death you took away my servant’s child. You took away his most beloved, the fruit of his heart.”
The angel of death says: “Yes”
Allah says: “And what did he say?”
The angel says: “he (your afflicted servant) thanked you expressing his gratitude to you and returning everything to your destiny.”
He (Allah) says: “Build a home for him (the afflicted servant) and call it the home of thankfulness.”

This reminds me of when Ibrahim’s soul was leaving us and how I prayed for strength, hoping I would not displease Allah.

May Allah forgive me for my shortcomings and may He build me and other parents a home of Thankfulness in Jannah.

Miscarriages and Stillbirths: The Loss of a Baby in Muslim Communities

Posted on by
Reply

Miscarriages and Stillbirths: The Loss of a Baby in Muslim Communities, by: Binte Abiha

Whispering a quick prayer asking Allah for strength, she stepped into the prayer hall. After weeks of calling upon her Lord as she dealt with the pain and grief of her miscarriage, she decided that she should get out of the house and attend the program at the mosque.

As the ladies spotted her, they immediately crowded around and started firing question after question at her: What happened, did you do something wrong? Why didn’t you take care of yourself properly? Did you eat something you shouldn’t have? Did you find out if there’s something wrong with you?

Although perhaps well-meant, these kinds of questions can have dire effects on the person being questioned. The ending of this situation varies from person to person, but often it ends with the sister going back to her state of grief, blaming herself for the miscarriage.

Every community has their share of couples who suffer the loss of their unborn or stillborn baby, and every community has their share of curious questioners. What we need to realize is that just as we would be considerate for the sorrow of those who have lost a relative or friend who lived a life, we should be considerate for the sorrow of the couple who has lost their baby. It is a death all the same, and no matter how little time passed before the loss occurred, the parents would have already built a strong sense of attachment to the child – they are now dealing with the loss of the object of their affection.

With a rate of 15-20 percent of expecting women having a miscarriage, it is unfortunately common. Miscarriages can occur within the first 20 to 24 weeks of pregnancy, while stillbirths can occur onwards and during labor. Both forms of loss can occur for a variety of reasons, a vast majority of which are not preventable by anyone. Besides easily identifiable causes such as smoking, alcohol consumption, caffeine surplus and serious diseases, other unanticipated reasons can include chromosomal abnormalities, hormonal imbalances, harmful infections and positional complications of the fetus.

After a baby is miscarried or stillborn, especially in the many instances where no clear cause can be pinpointed, it is difficult to come to terms with what happened and to figure out what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Thoughts about whether or not it was their fault or about how life would have been had the baby survived, are going through the couple’s minds.

Indeed, it is a way of life among our communities for everyone to be involved in everything, sharing in each other’s sadness and happiness. So either as a close relation or as a distant acquaintance, we all feel inclined to help the couple through their situation. For each role, however, there are some vital things to keep in mind so as not to intensify their grief or make them re-hash their harrowing experience.

You obviously want to help the couple through this difficult time, and you want to help solve their problems, but it is important to choose your words carefully. Essentially, remember not to say anything that sounds like you’re dumping all the blame on the husband or wife for the loss of the precious little life.

The best way to show your concern would be to let them know you heard of their loss and are sorry. Say that you will remember them in your prayers or take out Sadaqa in their name, and offer your help should they ever need anything. Of course if you, or someone close to you, have gone through a similar experience, then you can express your understanding of their situation and perhaps provide some helpful information. If they choose to talk about the details, let them do so at their own ease – do not try to force it all out of them by shooting rounds of intimate questions at them.

When you do ask questions, keep in mind your location, your surroundings and your relation to the couple. If you’re in the middle of a crowd or particularly if you have never really spoken to the couple, then keep your questions few and respectful of their privacy. If this sounds like your situation, then here are some tips on behaviors and questions you should avoid:

* On the one hand there are people who will shun the sister who lost her baby, as if she has become an outcast of sorts. Realize that miscarriages and stillbirths are common occurrences even in the most technologically advanced countries. Most of these losses are not preventable. There is no reason to act as though it’s a strange thing that brings humiliation to the couple, or as though there is no worth of the woman if she has lost her child.
* On the other hand, there are people who will overwhelm the couple with a string of questions and relentlessly bring up the topic each time they meet. While it’s thoughtful of you to be concerned, ease up on the questions. It may just be a query or two from your end, but the grieved couple is being asked the same questions by everyone else too. Having to answer each time means subjecting them to seeing a reel of their experiences played all over again in their memories.
* The couple had a miscarriage and is trying to move on, so don’t ask them to relate all the intricate details of their unborn child to you. So if it seems like they don’t want to volunteer the information, then don’t ask about the fine details of the surgery, whether it was a boy or a girl, whether they got a chance to hold it, and other questions along those lines.
* Don’t suggest that this is karma or punishment for a sin, that perhaps the couple wasn’t worthy of raising a child, or that maybe this happened since they put the evil eye on someone else’s happiness. Allah has His merciful reasons for what He does, and no one else needs to speculate about what the reasons could be.
* The couple’s love for the baby shows in their sadness at the loss. Every loving parent tries to do what is best for their child before birth, during childhood, during adulthood, and indeed until the very last breath of life. So to ask a question that suggests that the would-have-been mother or father did something to harm their child is appalling! Not only is it rude, but it would likely also plant a seed of baseless blame for themselves or for one another into their minds. Even if did occur because of one of them, they would already be aware of that fact and have enough guilt to deal with, without anyone adding to it by pointing it out.
* When Allah will decree it, He will gift them with a child. By pestering the couple with questions of when they want their next child right after they have lost one, or of whether they can ever even have a child after the miscarriage, you will not be speeding up the implementation of Allah’s plans – so don’t ask those questions.
* Keeping that in mind, don’t ask for a progress report every time you see the couple. Insha’Allah once there are improvements which they wish to share with everyone, you will find out. Until then, just pray that they be blessed with a healthy child someday.

Pray to the Creator that He gives them strength, and that they will be blessed with an adorable bundle of joy and delight when He deems it appropriate. With the formula of Du’a and Dawa, supplication and medication, insha’Allah everything will work out for the best.

In order to avoid causing the couple pain because of our words or actions, in order to help them through this time of sorrow and recovery, and in order to maintain our standard of Akhlaq, we must make the effort to think before we speak. If we are careless in our behavior, we may very well be earning the displeasure of our Lord by striking His believers when they are most hurt.

http://www.islamicinsights.com/news/community-affairs/miscarriages-and-stillbirths-the-loss-of-a-baby-in-muslim-communities.html

Six Months Later

Posted on by
Reply

Today, you would have been six months old. According to the email notifications I can’t seem to turn off, you would have been very entertaining at this age. You would be smiling, waving, and eating anything you could get your hands on. I see other babies around your age and smile, wondering what you would have been like. Sometimes being around them can be difficult yet I swallow my grief and continue as if nothing was wrong. I have become quite good at this actually.
Sometimes, I am really patient. I know that Allah has a greater plan and do not question His wisdom. Other times, I lie awake at night missing the feel of you inside me. I miss how feisty you were inside me; waking me up every night at exactly 1:00 AM, kicking, tossing, and turning. Sometimes, I could swear you were playing with me. You would kick me and I would push on where I felt you. After a pause, you would kick again. I would do this until one of us fell asleep, laughing the whole time.
The nights I really miss you, the literal emptiness I feel inside becomes unbearable and I resist the urge to scream in pain. I find myself trying to be strong for your father. I have spent my whole life creating an image of a strong, independent woman and even now, do not want anyone, even your father, to know otherwise.
I miss not being able to sing you the lullaby my mother sang to me. I miss your warmth next to me as I sleep. On days your father comes home late, I think of you even more. We would have hung out together until he came home. These are the nights I find myself moaning in anguish, holding my pillow close. When I eventually fall asleep, I find myself restless, dreaming about you in the hospital and all the pain I saw you endure; reliving the torture through these visions. I dream of holding you as you took your last breaths and I wake up with a start. I spend the rest of the night crying, wondering if there was something I did during my pregnancy that lead to your illness.
Two days ago, I thought of you during the day. I was helping your Mamajaan prepare Iftar, my cousin had also come over. I worked quietly as everyone joked around. Suddenly, the topic of the Day of Judgment was brought up. Babajaan told us about a bridge which we must cross on the Day of Judgment. It is to be a difficult bridge to cross. I listened without making a comment, imagining the terror of crossing the bridge (I am deathly afraid of heights), when suddenly my cousin interrupted my thoughts. She told me in Pashto that my Ibrahim, you, would take me straight to Allah. The way she said it was so poetic and perfect. I needed to hear that just right then. That is when I realized that Allah’s mercy is without definition- a saying, or small gesture can make all the difference in the world and heal us.
Allah’s mercy is also infinite and knows no bounds. I truly and wholly believe this. He shows me His miracles everyday and I am thankful. The Allah I know understands that I am human and will miss my child. He compares His love for us to that of 70 mothers, demonstrating that a mother’s love is the ultimate love. As, the Prophet said upon the death of his son, Ibrahim, “The eyes send their tears and the heart is saddened, but we do not say anything except that which pleases our Lord. Indeed, O Ibrahim, we are bereaved by your departure from us.” Then he turned his face towards the mountain before his and said, “O mountain! If you were as sorrowful as I am, you would certainly crumble into pieces! But we say what Allah has ordered us: (We are the servants of Allah and we will return to Him; We thank Allah, the Creator of the Universe).”
I love you, Ibrahim; I will always miss you, as you will always be my eldest child.
Love,
Your Mama