Life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living.

"The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, she's going to keep digging, she's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who she is." — Joss Whedon

I'm coming out of the fog. In the past six months, our own private hellmouth (not Cleveland) has opened its gaping maw and tried to swallow us, but it hasn't succeeded. And won't. Because we'll keep going.

I've long wondered if Joss was some sort of nihilist - because the world, his world, is a mean one -- cruel and without meaning. But I had a deep misunderstanding of what nihilism was, to be honest. I thought it was the idea that the world was cruel and without meaning. What it is, in fact, is the idea that values are socially constructed -- nothing is inherent. We create God, we create truth, we create reasons to go forward. We don't do it because it's right, we do it because we decided it was right.

But I think I've come to understand that he's sort of the opposite of a nihilist. Buffy, Angel, Caroline - they do what's right because they know two truths: the world is cruel but there is right in it and right is why - the deep meaning we all strive for - why we're here.

So me, I'm still here. Putting one foot in front of the other with the Season 7 Buffy theme in my head.

A Few Stray Atoms Brought Back to the Elements

I've been thinking all day on Dana Gioia's "Planting a Sequoia" ( http://www.danagioia.net/poems/sequoia.htm). It is a poem about the loss of his son. I've long loved it - thought it to be the best of all of his poems, convinced that he handles with grace the fragility of the moment, contrasting the powerlessness of humanity with the image of his son feeding the roots of a great sequoia.

Tomorrow I will be planting the small remains of our second pregnancy loss. A bit of a morose topic for some, I guess, and something that I admittedly never understood before our own losses. These pieces, these fragments, they aren't a person - I understand that. I won't bury my child but the idea of my child, the remnants of what could have made and supported my child, the future set out in my mind for that child.

When we had our first loss in March, I hung on to my idea that it was strange and foreign and weird and unnecessarily somber to bury the remnants of a not-child. The gestational sac and small pre-placenta that I passed just before 7 weeks was packed up in the trash and I didn't really think about it until 3 days later when the Eagle Waste truck pulled up, its automated arm reaching down mechanically to lift our 90 gallon trash bin and dump it, unceremoniously, into the back of the truck filled with other people's leftovers, dirty diapers, old newspapers, and yard waste. In that moment I understood it was about ritual not remnants.

And so now, tomorrow, we will have our ritual. I will plant our angel child at the base of my favorite rose bush and I will read Gioia's poem - not with a full understanding, but a glimpse, a shard, a shred, my own few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

Lilly sums up the year nicely:

At dinner the other night, she was telling her father her idea for the design on his birthday cake in September: There's a clown, and he's got a voice bubble saying 'I need to puke! Wait, I can't puke, I'm dead!' Then the cake says HAPPY BIRTHDAY! YOU'RE NOT DEAD!

It's always good to have kids around when you're having a hard time, isn't it?

Times like this, I can only think of these lines from Sliding Doors:
You know what the Monty Python boys always said, eh?
What, always look on the bright side of life?
Nope. NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

Can anybody tell me how long the inquisition lasted? Because it grows tiresome. . . Oh, Wikipedia (source of all sources for this English teacher) tells me the Spanish Inquisition started in 1478 and was officially banned in 1834. Fun!

Guess I'll put the order in for that clown cake. . . Speaking of cakes, I suggest anyone reading this blog go check out *my* newest addiction: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/. Nothing cheers a girl up like cake: good cake, bad cake, grammatically atrocious cake. Cake is good.

Since it's been about forever,

A quick update and the perpetual promise to try harder next time.

Tim and I have been, well, I'm trying to find a good euphamism for our past six months but I must admit there isn't one appropriate for prime time. He's been going through change at work - which is, incidentally, perpetual and thus not terribly upsetting -- but new all the same. In the meantime, we were shocked with a pregnancy in February, more shocked when that pregnancy ended in early March, delighted with a positive pregnancy test on the day of Relay for Life, and stunned into shocking silence on July 13th when an ultrasound revealed that this, too, would result in a miscarriage.

For the next 16 days, we waited, wondering if "expectant management" (the nifty euphamism for not doing anything for a patient who's carrying a dead baby) was the right choice. Yesterday we decided that it was not and used four tablets of an anti-ulcer drug called misoprostol to facilitate the miscarriage. Last night was nifty, but today, finally, we're feeling as though we're coming out from under the clouds.

Unfortunately for us, one of those clouds will follow us like Pig Pen's little cloud of dirt, sullying our attempts henceforth at expanding our family. When I found out I was pregnant with Lilly, there was not a doubt in my mind that she would *be*. I discovered I was pregnant with Carter a mere 8 days after ovulation - exceedingly early. Yet now, in the future, should we be lucky enough to again get two pink lines on those pretty little tests, I cannot say that I will know in my heart, "Yes. We've done it. There's our baby."

Because I knew that on February 12th. I knew it again on June 13th. And that just wasn't the case. I think the worst part of this experience for us is that in many ways, our entire first trimester of our future child will be stolen from us. . . or we will have to walk the fine line between embracing a new pregnancy and the knowledge that with two miscarriages in a row, our chances for a viable pregnancy have begun to decline.

Although we know statistics don't mean much. There was only a 4% chance we'd be in this position in the first place.

I DID IT!! I did it! I did it!!

In October of 2007, when David died, our family committed to walking in the Relay for Life the following June. See, just four short months before his death, David had taken to the track on a muggy June evening in Nebraska to walk in the "Survivor's Lap". Just moments before, he'd gotten to introduce himself, his cancer, and his years survived over the PA system. My favorite photograph is of him making the rounds, his big smile and shaved head a testament to his battle.
Last year's Relay was difficult, to say the least. The Survivor's Lap was heartbreaking - because we knew that David would have wanted to be there and we certainly wished he were. Our team, though, was a Gold Fundraising team, and recognized in a variety of ways for the amount of funds were were able to raise for the American Cancer Society.
This year, I've broken new ground. This year I'm the proud member of the "Grand Club." My total at this moment is $1,021.00. I involved my friends in a friendly competition of "Who gets to embarass Monica", I begged everyone I know for just $5, and I look forward with glee to whatever embarassment is bestowed upon me. It's an honor to wear goofy buttons, to write the names of the people for whom I walk on my shirt, and to spend 4 laps of the many I walk that night doing whatever the largest donator wants me to do (short of gymnastics: my back's not that great you know).
Last June, I thought I'd walk in Relay for Life for the rest of my life for David. To honor his memory. This year, I realize, I'm walking for David, yes, but also for myself. And for these people:

In memory of Patty Floan.
For Tof.
In loving memory of Floyd Minnick
For Julia, my Kiwi friend.
For Bud Henricksen, my pal Carrie's father who, as of this moment, fights the good fight.
In memory of Vi Kershner.
In memory of Mark McCarville.
In memory of my buddy Jan's godfather.
For the survivors in my life.
In memory of Corinne.
In memory and honor of many, many, more.

And finally, in loving memory, honor, and glory of David Bronstad. You will be missed, kind sir, missed a great deal, but what you have created here blossoms, blooms, spins out from you and into the world like a series of small miracles. For that, we are exceedingly grateful.