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After that setup, Betty took a deep breath. “And I feel, where were you, God, when we needed you? I've come to the thoughts now that if there is a God, it is either not a loving God and I want nothing to do with Him, or once we are born and are on earth, God has no control over our lives. If He has no control over our lives why bother to pray to Him? And I have not been to church except twice when I had to go to a baptism and a wedding. I'm not interested in religion. If I'm somewhere and people say the Lord's Prayer if I can get by without even saying it, I'd rather not. I don't go to church and I don't miss it and I don't care to go again and I want nothing to do with God. I wouldn't actually call myself an athiest because I can't say there is no God. I just don't know that. But my feelings are, if there is, it's not the kind of God I'm interested in. I feel like, shit on you, God. You shit on me, the hell with you, God. I'm still feeling that way after fourteen years, and that was one big definite change in my life.”
Pgs. 167-168
Rather drear reading for a rather drear Sunday, my fellow Sunday Salon-ers (and others).
After our first and only child was stillborn two years ago, I had a whole raft of books on grief and loss recommended to me. Some were practical-- after a baby dies kind of stuff. They had advice on how to stop my milk, what to do for a funeral, what to expect in terms of attitudes in the world around me. Some books were more philosophical-- I think about something like Lewis' A Grief Observed. Now that I'm two years into the journey, I'm starting to reach for the more...sociology-based studies, I guess. What does grief do to your mind over time? How does mourning affect your every-day life in the long-term? I'm starting to take solace from a more objective look at the loss of a child.
Finkbeiner's book is in the third category. She, herself a bereaved parent, began a project to find out what the long-term effect the death of a child had on his or her parents. Through a combination of interview and information, she takes us through subjects like changes in relationships (to spouses, other children, God), changes in priorities, affect on what the parents want and expect from the world. She does a thorough and comprehensive job. I could identify with a lot of what I read in the book. I found it moving and informative.
Unforunately, I know that a fair amount of this people come to my blog because of Google searches on preeclampsia, HELLP, or stillbirth. I feel that I do need to warn you with this recommendation that Finkbeiner rather explicitly does not deal with infant loss. Only one of the parents featured in the book had suffered loss of an infant-- and even she had to lose more than one to apparently make her eligible for inclusion. (Do you hear a note of bitterness in my voice? There probably is one. I've learned the hard way that there are hierarchies even among the bereaved.) This book is primarily looking at the loss of older children. That said, I found that I recognized many of the same changes that Finkbeiner discusses, so it was still useful to me. Your mileage may vary.
This is also not a book to help with the practicalities of immediate grief or to give short-term assistance to someone whose friend has lost a child. Think of this more as a map for the later years-- a compass, if you will.
Sometimes I confess that the whole project of books on grief and mourning baffles me, even as I reach for them myself. What is it that I'm looking for here? Reassurance that what I feel or felt is normal? What value does normal have in such circumstances? I don't know the answer to this question, but I keep reading.
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