Community and Casseroles

Blogging is weird. It feels a bit like that dream where you show up to high school completely naked.  But an unexpected thing happened after I published my first post yesterday.  My inbox flooded with emails from friends from all over the country, some I haven't spoken with in a decade, sharing their own painful stories about motherhood denied or lost.  One friend wrote that in the handful of women to whom she's told her story, she's "found the warmest community of support and compassion."

This has been my experience as well.  It's a club no one wants to join.  But sometimes when you share your story, you may discover that there are others who have been here before.

I'm reminded (as I often am about pretty much anything) of The West Wing (since it's my blog, I'm going to just go ahead and declare this the best show in the history of the world).  Leo tells Josh this story:

"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.  A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.  Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

However you've come to join this community -  infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, interrupted adoption, or other form of desire unfulfilled - may I offer you a very sorrowful welcome?  What I'd really like to do is come over to your house, wrap you up in the coziest blanket you own, pour you an inappropriately large glass of wine (if wine isn't your thing, please have mercy on us both and substitute "hot tea" wherever I mention it), and just sit.  We could cry, we could laugh at morbid jokes, we could throw mini marshmallows at any cute baby commercials on TV, we could grief-eat Cheez-its and gummy bears by the handful while escaping the pain with apocalyptic movies (2012 works best for me) or soapy British dramas (Downton Abbey, anyone?).  One of my dearest friends in the world did almost exactly all of this for me this week.  How is it possible to feel simultaneously like you are drowning in grief and blessings?

If you have been spared membership in this painful club, but you love someone who has not, may I gently suggest that you consider showing up with a casserole and without cliches?  One of my favorite pastors delivered a sermon last week that she titled "A Sermon on Snacking and the Stupid Things People Say."  Her point as I see it:  Christianity is not some sort of transcendental spirituality that has nothing to do with life.  It's material.  It involves bread and wine and nails and water and blood and cups of coffee and tears and maybe even gummy bears and movies with John Cusack.  (She says it much more eloquently than this though - you should stop reading this and go read it instead.)

Grief feels especially cruel when we have to endure it alone.  Todd and I have been so blessed this week by our community who made their presence known to us through phone calls, and emails, and text messages, and flowers, and plants, and gift certificates, and meals, and wine and cheese, and trips to Target for frivolous beauty products, and the comments on this blog that all say "you are not alone and we won't let you grieve alone."  I hope life spares the people I love grief, but if it doesn't, I pray I've learned through all of this to love the way I've been loved: by showing up at your door with a casserole and a bad end-of-the-world movie.