Building bridges.

Angie's recent post on self-compassion gave me a lot of food for thought. It's an incredibly rich piece - deep and meaty as Angie's writing is and I've only really scratched the surface of what she is saying but it has made me think. As has the renaissance of new and fragile faith in me. I have missed it, I'm simply not cut out to be an atheist or even an agnostic but it has been a slow and painful journey to this place. A place where I sit with the doubts and my certainties and it's okay, it works and I find peace there. The two together have left me reflecting on the relationships I destroyed when my baby died.

 I cut myself off after Emma died. I wrote about wanting to be alone, about being an introvert, about simply wanting to wrap myself in my family and never interact with the outside world again. It was me. I think, perhaps, that is unusual in our circle. Too many times, bereaved parents have posted about the stupid/the wrong/the insensitive things others have said to them - some forgivable, others not - others hurtful and cruel beyond imagining. Or, as often, the silence and the failure of words.

It hasn't been that way for me ... well, not much. The odd sentiment has been expressed badly or clumsily. The odd remark has shown me that someone really doesn't understand. But really, the friendships that have fallen by the wayside have done so because I  willed it so. I closed those doors and blew up those bridges. I did it quite consciously in the early days. With a few exceptions, if you hadn't lost a baby then you were too hard to be around. And these were good and compassionate people (my bridesmaids among them) - people who could have helped me carry the burden if I had let them. But I wouldn't. They came to visit and they supported me with love and I closed the door behind them on the way out and never rang again. I hated using the phone - but that was just an excuse. In these newfangled, modern times where I spent hours communicating with dbms on the other side of the world, I could have connected easily enough but I chose not too. I don't know if I feel bad or guilty about it exactly. It was what it was - I can't change it and I think, for me, it was how I needed to grieve. I remember holding Emma in my arms and thinking (in the midst of a maelstrom of incoherent thoughts) that I would feel this however I wanted to feel it and I would not apologise for emotions that made people uncomfortable. But, in making that decision, I ignored the fact that, at some point, they might miss me - miss my support. I suppose I thought that nothing as bad as a baby dying would ever happen to them so they would NEVER be the one needing support again. The friendships would always be unequal with me as the keening mother without a baby and them holding me up. I refused to acknowledge that divorce or ill health or money worries or unemployment could cause heartache in the way that infant death does. But where is the compassion in that? Where is the opportunity to connect to someone with love, to be a friend?

And so, recently, I have been attempting to rebuild some of these friendships. It is a slow process - building takes longer than destroying always. I still hate using the phone. I still find it easier to interact virtually than to deal with real people but I have started to reach out to friends I haven't seen for 3 years, to ask them, "What's been happening in your life?" and to listen - to really listen (without the gentle background hiss of my inner demons who chant "Not as bad as baby death, not as bad as baby death").