Filling the Empty Space Inside Me

A month after my miscarriage, I lifted my head and peeked out at the world around me. I wrote a blog and admitted I’d been sucked into a strange, dark place. After writing it down, I decided to return to life. Maybe I thought: now that it’s out there, I can move on, heal. Written words are often little echoes of the things I feel inside me, the things I can’t understand until I see them written out before me.

I might as well still be eleven when it comes to needing to see my words. Only now I use this laptop instead of pencil and paper. Blogging helped me, writing helped. Returning to life was freedom, hope. I tapped out words and more words, filling in the gaps left in the LDS teen novel I’m working on, ready to face a future of possibilities.

And then I miscarried again.

The day it happened, I tried to pretend it wasn’t. I didn’t want to go back. I’d been there. It was dark. Empty. Lonely. And so many things I didn’t understand at all.

People wanted to fix me. Maybe this will help, or that. My friend tired this. But I wanted to let it all go. I wanted to live like another child wasn’t tightly wound around my happiness. I wanted to be strong.

I poured myself into my book. I stayed up all night. I was going to finish it. I wouldn’t let another miscarriage put me more behind. I would move on, and it would be easier this time.

It was only after a week of this—when the pulse of my story world faded under the tender touch of the Holy Spirit on the sound of primary songs—that I found out I was not okay.

I’d been filling up my book with words, but I was still empty. So, so empty.

The answers were around me, little whispers left by my Heavenly Father that I’d yet to explore beyond the muted sound of His Spirit’s voice. He’d been speaking, but I’d been writing, writing, writing.

Four days after miscarrying, I took my nine-year-old son to walk the Provo Temple grounds. The Spirit bubbled out on his words, “I’m so happy, Mom. Why am I so happy?”

His joy was beautiful to me, but I found myself wishing that the flowerbeds we passed hadn’t been emptied already. They were also beautiful just weeks before. Now nothing but dark earth remained. We circled to the fountains at the front of the temple and sat watching the sunset, a large, empty flowerbed directly before us.

My thoughts converged. I’m empty too. Will something like flowers eventually grow in the spaces that have been dug out of me? What could I learn by seeing myself as empty as those beds? Was it simple hope in something coming someday? A distant Spring I’d been prepared for?

A memory of snow came, of walking up to the Provo Temple in the dark of last winter and seeing that very flowerbed in front of me filled, not with flowers, or bushes, but with a Nativity.

This was the place where they put the Christ Child at Christmas.

The bed was empty for Him.

The truth of that thought stayed with me. I held it tucked inside, a soft burning light that didn’t lose or gain anything for weeks. Since then, I’ve waded through the ups and downs of emotions, and more than anything, waves of unhealthy anxiety and anger. I’ve been drowning in unreasonable guilt and worry.

At our ward Halloween party, I found myself confiding in friend. I wished at once that I hadn’t said anything, but her love for me wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward. She didn’t try to fix me. She listened. She shared her personal experience without making me feel judged. Her love, somehow, freed me again.

I went home and every time my anxiety tried to horrify me with the thought of, “What were you thinking telling her!” I replaced that thought with a prayer. “Father, thank you so much for Sister Tolman.”

And the light inside me grew warmer.

I read conference talks, went to the temple, sat in my living room pondering, and returned to a pen and paper to write out my thoughts. I studied how to put the Savior at the center of my life. I stood in the warmth of an autumn darkness as my children played with flashlights in the backyard, and I laughed freely for the first time in a month. My burden lifted. I told Him I was ready for Him to take it. I needed Him to take it.

I breathed.

And I kept writing.

I’m empty. No child grows within me. The spaces inside me have been hallowed out by loss and then rubbed raw. I’m broken a little, and oddly enough, the title of the book I’ve been writing so obsessively is Break. But when things are broken, that is when the Savior finds His space.

These places inside me are empty for Him.

I know Him a little better now. I believe Him a little deeper. I love Him a little stronger.

My healing is in Him. Not so empty, not so lost. I am not alone. My night has been full of angels and flickering lights of hope. Darkness can be warm and beautiful too. It was, after all, night when the angels appeared to the shepherds. And under a starry sky, the wise men searched until they found their Savior.

Grief and the Real Me

My kids and I on our way to visit my sister. 

I miscarried last month. Normally I’m a little more reserved about sharing stuff like this, but what’s the point of writing non-fiction if not to share something real? And this is as real as it’s got for me lately.

This last month has been hard. There’s this disconnect between what I know and what I feel. I know many women also have miscarried and some never even speak of it. I know five weeks is really not that long and other women have had it worse. I know God still has a plan for me and that I’m blessed to have two children. I know. I know. 

But I still feel like crap. I’m still depressed. I cry at stupid times over seemly nothing and didn’t write for four weeks. I binge watched Korean romances and my house fell apart. I felt angry, sad, hopeless, and frustrated, in alternating rotations, sometimes within one hour.

I’ve been thinking about myself, the me underneath everything that happens to me and around me and through me. I’ve also been thinking about depression, hormones, and emotions. It’s struck me more than once that my emotions aren’t me. My depression isn’t me. My anxiety, fear, and my imperfect body are not me. They are what’s happening to me.

I have to tell myself it's okay to grieve. Sorrow and sadness are the mirrors of hope and love. That is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe we can only feel as much love as we are willing to feel sorrow.

Little by little, I’m getting myself back. I write a bit here and there, read, and clean my house. I go on a trip to visit my sister. I stand in a parking lot and my dad and mom wrap their arms around me and tell me things that I need to hear. Even though I’m thirty and supposed to be all grown-up, I cry on them and feel better. I go to a ward barbecue and though I can't find it in me to really talk to anyone beyond the usual hellos, I feel a spark of the old me reemerging as I look for the missing shoes of my neighbor's children.

Tiny things. Tiny moments. I fight to let myself grieve, to stop judging myself, and let what I feel be honest and true.

I start to wake up.

I see blessings; gratitude breaking through the hurt and leaving my heart softened for the re-planting of faith. It becomes my stepping off point for all the good that can be found, somewhere. In a future still opening to me, still unfolding into a distance marked with hope. Because none of this is me. It’s my test. It’s my journey. It’s supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s a million things tailored perfectly for me. The real me. The me I sort of know, but can’t quite remember, who understands that this life is a blip in my eternity. 

The real me continues, before this and after this, always and ever a daughter of God. And that's non-fiction, in the realist of ways.

How to Help When your Best Friend Loses a Loved One

 Funerals are Tough. Viewings are Tough. Burials are Tough…

But they are also sweet, comforting, peaceful, even joyful events in our lives.  The people we know and love surround us and make them so.

 

When our friends are going through hard times, we want to HELP! But it isn’t always easy to know how to give comfort, relief, support and love.  I don’t have all the answers, but our family just returned from a funeral of a most beloved and missed and cherished magical grandpa, father, and father-in-law.  And we were surrounded by people who were experts in giving comfort, relief, support, and love. Let me share some ideas we can all remember when someone is faced with this kind of loss.

 

1.  If at all possible, attend the funeral.  Go to the viewings. Be present. Even if your only interaction with the family will be a quick hello and a short hug, it will be remembered. Your presence is a show of love and support.  It is not a burden on the family to have to talk to “one more person."

I was so touched by a man who has known our family for decades. He attended each viewing and the funeral. Then the following day the family drove four more hours for the burial and an additional viewing and as I walked in the door, I saw this family friend.  His attendance still brings tears of gratitude to my eyes.

2.  If you know any of the people well enough to know their likes, dislikes, or comfort food, now is the time to show that with gestures that demonstrate you know them and remember.  Anything however small will be grasped and held and loved in memory for years to come.

One neighbor regularly uses the family’s favorite bread recipe. It was taught by our grandpa’s mother and is a cherished taste in and of itself.  This neighbor brought by a few loaves just a day after we heard the news.  Then when she noticed how quickly it was sliced up and served around, she came by a few days later with several more loaves.  We still talk about her kindness.

3.  There will be a lot involved in the funeral process and often families will want to show some kind of personal representation of their deceased family member.  If you are close enough, offer to help with this part of the day.  Make copies of pictures, put them in frames. Offer table cloths, centerpieces, show up early to help set it all up.

Someone (a few someones) did just that, and I love them for it.

4.  Offer to be or find home security during the funeral and viewing hours. Sadly, these hours are posted in local newspapers and therefore create targets for burglars.

5.  Be aware that funerals are expensive times. If you have extra, give, give, give.

We were so so very blessed by many anonymous people who shared more than they had to give. Their offers to my sweet mother-in-law are too sacred and special to go into any more detail.

6.  Share your positive and loving memories with the family. Make them laugh, smile, grin.  Talk about the positive influence they and their deceased family member has had on your life. Share memories you have they may not have ever heard before. Consider writing a letter expressing all the reasons you are grateful for them and their loved ones.

7.  When attending a viewing and greeting grieving family, it is OK to cry, but try to focus on the positive reasons to cry.  Do NOT talk about how difficult life will be from here on out.  Unless you feel you should, don’t ask, “How are you?” That is not an easy question to answer when the pain is still fresh in your heart.

8.  Remember the value of food.  It is a basic need after all and even though it is the first thing most people think of to help, it is TRULY NEEDED.

We had around 30 people to feed in our home at any given time and people brought over delicious home cooked meals to feed us all every night for more than a week.  Not only that, but throughout the day, people dropped by with lunches, snacks, their favorite desserts, fruit and veggie trays. etc. I have never seen so much food. And we loved it and we ate it, and we gathered around it together as a big extended family and created precious memories. It was “just food”, but it was so indescribably the perfect thing to do for us.

9.  When all the rush dies down, when everyone else’s lives return to normal, remember that those who have a loved one in heaven are changed forever and sometimes even normal life is painful because it seems too normal.  Think of ways to show love and care even throughout a whole year after:  Notes to express love, drop by lunch, filling in needs whatever they may be, inclusion in social gatherings…Remember the deceased person's birthday. Remember the anniversary of their death.

10.  Have extra patience and understanding.  Give LOTS of benefit of the doubt. Choose to not be offended by anything. Don’t back away or give up.  Be present, loving, kind and patient…..for a long time.