by Heather Plett | Sep 26, 2006 | Uncategorized
As I’ve said before, Maddie and I have the best conversations in the bathtub. This one happened last night:
Maddie (pointing to my tummy): Do you have a baby in your tummy?
Me: Nope. You were the last baby I had in my tummy.
Maddie: What about Matthew?
Me: Matthew was in my tummy before you were.
Maddie: Is he still a baby?
Me: No. He’s almost 6 years old.
Maddie: What’s he doing right now?
Me: Well, he’s probably hanging out with Grandpa. Maybe they’re feeding cows right now.
Maddie (looking doubtful): But they don’t have farms in heaven.
Me: How do you know? Have you been there?
Maddie: Yes.
Me: When have you been to heaven?
Maddie: Whenever I close my eyes.
Me: And what do you see when you close your eyes?
Maddie: (grinning at me) Flying pigs! (laughs) And flying cows! And flying sheep!
So… what does heaven look like when YOU close your eyes?
by Heather Plett | Sep 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
Yesterday morning in church, I put my arms around a young mother who’d lost her first baby to miscarriage (yes she IS a mother none-the-less). My eyes filled with tears as I expressed my sadness for the life she’d lost. It’s never fair. It’s never easy. And even though I’ve had a similar loss, I never know the right words to say.
Later that day, I looked over at my sister holding her beautiful dark-eyed baby girl. My eyes filled with tears again as I gazed upon one of the most beautiful images in the world – mother and child. In this case, the picture is made more beautiful because it’s been preceded with more than a little pain along the way. After years of perfecting the auntie role, and quietly longing for her own child, my sister came to motherhood late and now wears the cloak with beauty and grace.
It struck me, as I sat there next to her and reached over to pluck Abigail out of her hands, that the “successful” birth of a child almost seems against the odds sometimes. In between hugging the mother-without-child and sitting next to the mother-with-child yesterday, we had 2 families in our home for lunch, both of whom have adopted at least some of their children. One family adopted all four of their children, and another adopted the two in between their biological children because it seemed they wouldn’t give birth again.
I just need to look at my own family to know that babies cannot be planned or even expected – they can only be hoped for. There are four siblings in my family (including me). None of us have had the family we “planned”. My oldest brother and his wife ached through years of infertility before they adopted their first child. The second child they adopted was only in their home for one night before the birth mother changed her mind. After their third adoption, their family is as complete as it can be while there’s still a hole in it from the one that didn’t stay.
My second brother and his wife had 2 sons in quick succession. They hoped for more, but cancer took that hope away. We are so grateful that my sister-in-law survived the cancer, but we know that there’s still a tiny hole in their life too.
We have our hole too. After 2 beautiful daughters, our son was born lifeless. This week, we remember his sixth birthday. About six months after we lost him, we miscarried another baby. The next year, Maddie brought us joy and comfort after our losses, but while I was pregnant with her (and for several years after) I had an irrational fear that we would lose her too. When you’ve lost one, you keep company with death, and you are forever reminded that life is temporary. It didn’t help that we lost my dad, my uncle, and my grandma just over a year after she was born. The grim reaper seemed too close at hand, and Maddie seemed almost too precious to stay. When she was diagnosed with a heart murmur, I thought my fears would be realized. She’s four now, and couldn’t be healthier, but that doesn’t stop the irrational fear from surfacing now and then.
As I mentioned earlier, the fourth in my family, my sister, waited for years to become a mom. In between, she nurtured her nieces and nephews, but always had to go home alone. The fact that she’s a mother now doesn’t make that pain any less relevant.
When I look around the blogosphere, I’m reminded of the same thing. Anvilcloud and Cuppa rejoice in their daughter’s pregnancy, but this is only after long months and years of living with the pain of infertility. Karla lives with the same fear I did while she goes through her third pregnancy. Her first baby, Ava, lived only a few short hours. Her second pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Gina longs to have a second child, but health concerns have made that difficult. Those are just a few of the examples I’ve come across. I’m sure there are others of you who have unspoken pain. Some of you, for example, may cringe a little when you look at pictures of my daughters because it may not seem fair that I got to have three when you had none. I don’t know your pain, but I validate it none-the-less. (And if I have shown insensitivity in any way, by talking too much about my children and not leaving space for your reality, please forgive me.)
My heart aches for each person whose life didn’t go quite according to plan – for those who lost babies, those who lost hope, those who cried alone in their rooms when other people brought babies home, and those who had to give theirs up because of circumstances outside of their control. Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to birth and raise our babies, but sometimes we have to live with a different reality.
For all of you who have children, remember to be grateful. Hold them close and enjoy them. Be mindful of the moments you have with them. Don’t take that for granted.
For those whose children didn’t get a chance to grow up in your home, if you feel comfortable doing so, please share their names or stories in the comments, and I will commemorate them the next time I visit my son’s grave. For those whose longed-for children remain only a dream, I’d like to remember them too.
On September 27, our son Matthew would be six years old. When I visit the menagerie at his grave this week, I’d like to take with me each of the names of your beloved missing children – whether they died, went away, or lived only in your dreams. You can simply send me a name, or you can send me a poem or some other memento. If you want to post something on your blog, let me know and I will print it and bring it with me. If you had an early miscarriage, and never got around to naming your child, you may want to consider doing so now. A name can be a powerful way to make the memory or dream of your child more real and your pain more valid.
If you don’t feel comfortable sharing in the comments, send me an e-mail instead. If your pain is too raw or too personal, I will respect your privacy.
I will try to honour each of your children and your memory of them in a fitting way. I will post a picture of whatever mementos I place at the grave. If you do not have a sacred space for your memories or your sorrows, I hope this can serve as a virtual memorial for you.
by Heather Plett | Sep 22, 2006 | Uncategorized
1. Agree to final edits of video production for “An Uncomfortable Truth” (yeah, it is SO a knock-off of Al Gore’s film title, but it works) and get it and the cover graphic to the production company. CHECK.
2. Sign off on design work of a huge project (magazine, poster, etc.) that will get mailed to 10,000 churches, send it to the printer, and pray to God they can print it before my trip to Toronto, where I’d rather not show my face in front of my staff if it’s STILL NOT DONE. CHECK.
3. Sign off on design work of the annual report for the year that ended five months ago (it’s not MY fault it’s late! And it’s a month earlier than last year, so this is an improvement!) CHECK.
4. Send graphics for envelopes, posters and other assorted items from our new “corporate re-branding” line to the printer. CHECK.
5. Sign purchase orders for spending a WHOLE WHACK OF MONEY on above projects and pray that it’s worth it and the donations start flowing in. CHECK.
6. Pray that the mistakes that we ALWAYS find on completed print jobs will not be major ones this time around – like spelling the board president’s name wrong, or something equally embarrassing. (It’s inevitable – there will be mistakes, even though we proofread about 10 times. I tell people we do it on purpose – like the mistakes on an Amish quilt – to keep us humble.) CHECK.
It’s been a productive day at work. I have no idea why every project reached completion on the same day, but the stars must have aligned themselves that way. I love creative people like graphic designers, but given the very nature of their creative line of work (and the way their brains work), they don’t necessarily follow the ordinary protocol for such mundane things as meeting deadlines, returning phonecalls, and all those other fun things that go along with big projects like all of the above. I will be happy not to live with this twitch I’ve had lately from all the waiting I’ve been forced to endure.
And next week, if the printer’s machine breaks down and every one of these projects is horribly delayed, I will run away to a beach in Costa Rica and never come back.
by Heather Plett | Sep 22, 2006 | Uncategorized
I hardly ever get around to doing memes (my apologies if I ignored yours and offended you -please try not to take it personally), but I’m bored tonight, there’s nothing good on TV, and I really don’t feel like doing something mature and productive like laundry. (Plus I have to live up to my husband’s pronouncement that “all I ever do is blog”.) So here’s the one Laura passed me…
4 JOBS THAT I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE:
– I dressed as a panda for a summer job and people got to have their picture taken sitting on my knee. (That was the year the local zoo had pandas visiting.) It was the hottest summer EVER and I was stuck inside a panda suit. (For part of the time – the other part of the time I was the photographer.) Yes, it WAS as hot as it sounds. Especially when grown men decide that it’s fun to sit on your knee. The next time you take your kids to the zoo, see the kitschy little photo booth where you can get your picture taken with a “zoo animal”, THINK ABOUT THE PERSON IN THE SUIT!
– I cleaned hotel rooms for a summer. Blech. Double blech. I suck at cleaning. If I were GOOD at it, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this post.
– My very first job was running a summer day camp in our local community centre. It still freaks me out that parents of about 30 children trusted their kids with three bored sixteen-year-olds. Trust me – we weren’t equipped.
– I spent one year working in data entry at a trucking company. Back then, I was naive and not very bold or I would have slapped that sexist arrogant truck driver with potent body odour (after 5 days in a truck and no showers) who used to think he could sidle up to me at my desk and touch my shoulder. Yuck.
4 MOVIES THAT I COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
– I really don’t like watching movies over and over again. Once I’ve seen it, I rarely want to watch it again. There are a few I could tolerate the second (or third) time around though – Shawshank Redemption, Dead Poet’s Society, Music Box, and this year’s favourite, Little Miss Sunshine.
4 PLACES THAT I HAVE LIVED:
– Arden, Manitoba
– Steinbach, Manitoba
– Banff, Alberta (where I suffered through that chambermaid job)
– Winnipeg, Manitoba
4 THINGS I LIKE TO DO:
– ride my bicycle
– read
– write
– step off airplanes in new countries
4 OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
– pad thai
– almost anything made with cream cheese, including the chicken dish I made the other night
– the pizza we get every summer that’s cooked in a wood-fired brick oven on an organic farm (the ambience is half the value)
– my mom’s cinnamon buns
4 PLACES I WOULD LIKE TO BE RIGHT NOW:
– that resort near the Serengetti in Tanzania where they bring you moist towels and fresh mango juice when you pull into the parking lot – one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been
– that beach in Greece where my sister and I finally “did like the locals” and went topless
– that little kitschy outdated motel in Truro, Nova Scotia, with the magical tree in front that looked like a burning bush
– that crepe restaurant in Quebec City where watching the crepe chef was like watching an artist at work
4 WEBSITES THAT I VISIT DAILY:
– almost every blog on my blogroll, but now that I’ve finally figured out about bloglines (I’m a little slow on the up-take), I usually just go there to see who’s updated rather than clicking on them one at a time
– CBC news
4 PLACES THAT I HAVE BEEN TO ON VACATION:
– Europe (backpacked through nine countries)
– Mexico (my only winter hotspot vacation)
– road trip through British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, and California
– Kenya and Tanzania (technically it was a work trip, but it felt more like a vacation)
4 FRIENDS THAT WILL I THINK WILL RESPOND TO THIS:
– knock yourself out – lots of you have already done this, so I won’t bother naming you.
