Thanksgiving gratitude

Today is a holiday designed for several purposes:  cooking, eating, football, and, most of all, gratitude.  Thinking back on the last year or so, it's not difficult to come up with a list of people and experiences for which I am grateful.

I'm grateful for...

• my husband, who is kind and patient, loving and loyal, and never ever says no when I want to buy books
• my friends and family who have showed me, this year in particular, how much they care
• our little apartment, way up in the trees, in this neat, clean, safe western corner of Oregon suburbia
• great co-workers at a job that pays well and a boss who goes above and beyond the call of duty to support and encourage me
• (true, but hard to say...) the experience of being pregnant twice this year - even if I never become a mother, the experience taught me so much about priorities and grief and stretched the capacity of my heart beyond whatever boundaries I imagined were there

As the year winds down, there are moments that I occasionally wish I could erase, but then I realize that they have taught me a great deal.  Horribly painful lessons, but lessons nonetheless.  I cannot deny that life is largely good.  My marriage has been the biggest blessing, the saving grace, of this year.  Thank you, Husband.

Joy and Grief

Spring flowers, like a snowdrop, breaking through the
snow seem an image of hope to me.  

I've heard it said that love and hate have more similarities than one would at first suspect. In Taoist philosophy, yin and yang, opposites, create balance. I'm not sure about all that.  But what the last few months have taught me is that joy and grief can enter your life in what seems like the very same moment, leading me to suspect that they have some interconnection that I had never previously considered.

This past Christmas, my fiance and I received the most extraordinary of gifts. I didn't discover the gift until early January. Two pink lines changed both of our lives, though it took me three pregnancy tests to convince myself and him of the truth of it. Our joy was immense, though coupled with understandable fear and anxiety. Still, I think both of us could prove to anyone that we had more hope, more excitement, more happiness about the prospect of our child than about any other event in our lives. That was jubilation. That was joy.

Grief came with a ruthless swiftness a few weeks later during my first prenatal doctor's visit. There were no smiles in that office that day, just an unforgettable look of consternation on the doctor's face as she stared at the ultrasound screen.  It took her a long while to say softly, quietly, "I don't see a heartbeat."

Our brains are marvelous organs. Mine immediately put up a wall that prevented me from accessing any ounce of intelligence or emotion I possess, though it left me the power to ask dumbly, "What does that mean?"  But even when she stated the obvious, I didn't believe.  I couldn't believe. She wanted to schedule a procedure to remove 'the tissue' the very next day. I refused. I wasn't ready. The baby measured 7 weeks and 2 days. It seemed the right size. My body had deceived me and given no indication that anything was wrong. I was suffering with all of the normal indicators of pregnancy, and doing so happily, always with the end goal in mind.

I made the decision to wait a week to see...if there might be a heartbeat, if there might be growth. During that week, I came to accept that there would not be either. I needed that week. My brain needed that week to gradually tear down the wall. And within that week, joy came again. John's visa interview had been scheduled - the last step in the fiance visa process. That step that would bring him back home.

His visa application was approved.  He will be returning in a few weeks.  That is joy.  And we have much to look forward to - being together, trying again, and even the opportunity to grieve the loss of our gift together.  Joy and grief have been our constant companions these past few months and we know there is more to come. Yet, I think what we both look forward to in the future isn't either extreme, but merely contentment and, finally, a sunny patch of stability.