Have you ever seen a car go by (say a green honda) and you think to yourself, “that reminds me, I need to get my teeth cleaned”. Two totally unrelated events/items yet somehow connected (or not). This kind of happened to me today (or not…).
I ended up on Big Daddy Autism and he got me to thinking… is there any humor in my loss?
Shortly after Alexander passed away, I was holding him up to my face and making him do “Chubby Bunny” (where you squeeze their cheeks together and make them say “chubby bunny”, with older kids you make them eat a bunch of marshmallows, hoping they don’t choke and then get them to say “chubby bunny”, anyways…). My husband and I were laughing. We took pictures. I remember (at the time) thinking that just because he was dead was no reason to treat him any differently than my other children. I might have regrets about other missed opportunities, but I have no regrets about that moment. Remembering makes me smile.
After that, I was stumped. No more humor in my loss.
Then I got thinking, what about hypothetical, future “humorous” stories that will no longer be? Like, “one less kid to kick out of the house”, if Alexander was anything like me (although I know that he was more like his father), this would have been a potential reality. Or, “one less person to borrow the car”. I could make a ton of jokes about him costing us less money. Not that any of that matters or is even funny. However, if Alexander had lived, it might have been “funny” and I don’t want to treat him any differently.
There is no humor in losing a child in my opinion, but there is humor in the lives that we lead while losing our children and after they are lost. I posted a while back (while I was pregnant with a child we knew would not survive) about my husband making me a grilled cheese sandwich but forgetting the cheese, so I just had two pieces of grilled bread which I ate half the sandwich before realizing! I do not think that event would have occurred if we were not grieving our soon-to-be born child. I also had an incident with my two youngest children running around the living room without pants on while a nun helped me plan our son's funeral. Those are moments I am not likely to forget which are deeply connected to our little Eli. Little reminders that even in our deepest sorrows, there is joy and laughter.
ReplyDeleteI like your Chubby Bunny story - it brings a smile to my face, thank you for sharing!
Though I add funny things here and there to my loss blog, I would not say it was humorous. My "Lorelei-isms" always make me laugh. :)
ReplyDeleteOh and when I was giving birth to my Charlotte (stillbirth), I farted and laughed hysterically. I will always remember that.
You read my post about Gabrielle running away with the top to Caitlin's urn, right?
ReplyDeleteI laughed at the horrible outfit the nurses dressed Caitlin in when I held her; it was like they'd read my mind regarding "outfit I would never ever in a million years put any child of mine in", and then pulled it out of a bag.
And after we left the funeral home, I burst out laughing because the director hugged ME on our way out, even though it was my husband who was crying during the entire meeting.
Like Mandy said, there's nothing funny about losing a child, but there are still funny moments that just can't help popping up where they do.
I don't know if you've come across it since you wrote this post (I'm just playing catch up on your blog) but I've always found the blog Knocked Up, Knocked Down very (often darkly) funny. The author has also published a book.
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