I’m not the best holder of dates. So, certain anniversaries might pass me by (at least consciously). Specific dates aside, my psyche and body often seem to exhibit uncanny anniversary sensitivity.
There was a period of time—a couple of years, not a short spell—when loss seemed to surround us and not from afar, really bump-into-your-space surround, crowd us. Without going through the list, I’ll say this: end of life and beginning of life just kept smacking together, mashing us in the middle of nontraditional kids-n-death sandwiches. I’m not being facetious here. It was a messy time, daycare and nursing care, laughter and fear, hospital visits, and really a lot—a lot—of grief.
One thing I learned: loss and grief are not the same things. Loss, as in when you lose someone, has that punched in the stomach quality, and a shocking sense of dislocation. Grief is a different entity, one that is much cloudier—as in changeable, as in looming, as in pervasive, as in viscous, as in fleeting and amorphous—one that has no distinct boundaries or trajectory.
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Earlier this month, our second child’s sixth grade graduation took place on the tenth anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. It so happened that the graduation takes place in the same building where the memorial was held.
Every time I go into that building for a happy occasion, I’m realize that I feel glad this building—Smith College’s handsome and understated Helen Hills Hills chapel—has been home not only to some of the saddest occasions in my adult life, but also some of the happiest. I take comfort in the way this building—one I pass by every day—allows a neutral container for celebrations of all sorts, and somehow doesn’t judge; the stately structure with its slightly musty smell just holds steady, as if to remind me that emotions aren’t good and bad, they just are.
Take away how hard it is to imagine my father-in-law at 87, the energetic man we knew at a grandchild’s graduation from sixth grade would have been tickled, proud, and fidgety (it’s a long ceremony). The way these dates were tethered, I could let myself be reminded of how the slow pace of baby passing a toy back and forth met the measured pace of illness at the end of a grandfather’s life. I’m certain that this grandfather, if he miraculously could meet up with this grandchild now, would not only love him, but quite enjoy the way the boy laughs, big and whole-bodied (and would surely be one to laugh at his grandpa’s jokes).
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But this month another anniversary seized my body unawares until this morning—a week plus past. The date was this: two years ago, we were anxiously awaiting a date when Saskia’s birth father—a man we knew opposed her adoption, a man who had threatened to contest the adoption but hadn’t yet made any official moves toward contestation, a man who hadn’t even requested her picture let alone to meet her—had to file a formal intent to contest the adoption. As the deadline neared, we were anxious to say the least. Ninety-nine percent of fathers do not legally contest adoptions. We were assured his not filing the papers was a good sign that the waiting and worrying were about to end.
Punch me in the stomach in the hallway of the elementary school. That’s where my shaken husband reached me. He blurted, “Ruel filed the papers on the last day.”
Although the first four months of parenting our tiny, beautiful, innocent daughter had been overshadowed by the fear of this very thing occurring pressing down upon us, that moment sucked all the air in the universe, as if theoretical fear of what might happen was intellectual and what happened immediate. Massachusetts’ legal system favors single mothers over fathers and favors the original parents, whose rights are protected over adoptive parents (as should be the case) and even children (I have a range of feelings about that one). The cascade of potential bad things to follow hit me in that hallway and stayed with me until—you can breathe now, too—Ruel eventually failed to follow through on any actual filing and just after Labor Day—there’s a longer story—a judge terminated parental rights, clearing the path for the final steps of the adoption to occur. In fact, the fear lingered much longer and so did the grief, not over what we lost but what we stood to lose (and, I am pretty certain any parent who has faced a near-loss will tell you, that’s pretty dark territory).
I’d already been thinking about grief a lot recently, trying to imagine how writer and blogger Katie Granju can endure her saddest time while anticipating the arrival of another baby next month (a happiest time, and a happiness she fears experiencing in some ways, it seems, so understandably because of how joy will inevitably also call out her grief, that first and last baby so inextricably joined).
The days that hit me hardest are the perfect ones. We’ve had a few of them recently, the ones with blue skies, pristine clouds, and slightly cool breezes. You think to yourself sadness doesn’t fit the weather. That’s the kind of day we got that first legal jolt about Saskia, the kind of morning September 11, 2001 brought the East coast. The glorious weather, it seems, should be balm, the way the baby’s smiles were—and weren’t—the way you know you have no choice but to pull through and see all around you signs there’s more than grief. Yet grief is just so damn encompassing you almost resent being made aware of anything precious that might make you experience even a smidgen more bittersweet. My baby girl’s fingers wrapped around one of mine never ceased to remind me I didn’t get to choose whether to love or not to love—even with the crushing possibility of loss looming—I loved. We love.
