Anger revisited.

Approximately 24 hours out from losing our precious girl, I got myself on the computer and ordered up a stash of grief literature. It's what I do. Need to know something? Find a book. So I did - and I read them cover to cover in the days that followed. But I really didn't read them as though they had any relevance to me: I had a sort of anthropological detachment as I read the stories of other grieving parents. "Oh. Those poor parents. How sad. How horrible. How do they cope?" It wasn't "forgetting" exactly, more a complicated form of denial that I was and am one of those parents now. I read about the grief cycle and how anger can be a BIG part of it. "Not for me", I thought breezily. I'm from a cold, damp region of the world and my constitution is, at best, described as phlegmatic. My idea of a blazing row with D. is to sulk for several hours until he asks what's wrong. I'm just not an angry person really.

Correction - I WASN'T an angry person. It was around Christmas time when I was surprised by the blazing rage that took hold of me - around 2 months out. It really, really scared me. Rage is such an out-of-control emotion and I don't like to be out of control. But, as it persisted over the next few months, I got used to it and I (almost) grew comfortable with feeling so close to boiling point all the time. It felt like an "active" emotion. Feeling angry at my daughter's death made me feel like I was actually parenting her in some way. It felt like expressing my disgust at whoever thought they could take her away from me, at the universe, at randomness, at God, at whatever it was that caused this foul chain of events that ended in my daughter's heart stopping, was productive. Maybe it was. I decided from the outset that whatever I felt was what I needed to feel, even if the emotion was downright ugly. I certainly think it's been healthier for me to feel these emotions than to repress them.

All the same, I was relieved when the anger just naturally dissipated over the summer. Nothing in particular happened to move me along. It was just a gentle summer with lots of fun things happening and it was healing for us all in lots of ways. There were days when I actually didn't mind the version of normal that I have now - it was okay. I learned how to laugh and not feel guilty. I discovered that I could be pregnant and scared but also excited and hopeful.

Since Emma's birthday, the anger is back - but it's mutated. This is cold. It's not passionate or helpful, it's my version of a pity party. I try not to think "Why me?", because really, what's the point? It was me and that's not going to change. But it's the refrain that underlies everything I do at the moment. Some of it is fear - the end of this pregnancy feels close and yet so far. I have started to have very vivid dreams about stillborn babies which I try to shake off but which linger in the shadows through my days.

It's more diffuse now too. I have spent a year in this little corner of the internet now and I have "met" some amazing women (and men). Whenever I read about another stillborn child, another baby born too soon; whenever I read about mothers who are grieving for their precious children and yet also face battles to conceive again or who lose again I feel SO angry. I want to stamp my feet and scream about the unfairness of it. Not just "why me?" but "why us?"

Inside, I'm 4.

Such a ubiquitous image - The Scream. A standard at all the cut price poster sales happening on campus when I was a student. One of those pictures seen so commonly that they are never truly noticed. I recognise it, of course, but have never paid much attention to it; except to feel a slight unease. Now through my dead baby lens I perceive it differently. If I didn't have Edvard Munch's word that this is "the enormous, infinite scream of nature”, I'd have said it was a babylost parent. It's certainly how I feel on the inside - the swirling, garish colours and the pain from too much noise.

Seven months out my veneer is pretty good - my smile doesn't always reach my eyes but most passing acquaintances would probably think I'm healing up, doing okay. To some extent, that's true - I can see the path I'm walking. I can see how far I've come. Unlike my acquaintances, I can see how far there is still to go - the journey towards accepting my daughter's absence is lifelong. No wonder I'm screaming on the inside.

My 4 year old daughter doesn't scream on the inside. She's a heart-on-her-sleeve kinda gal and screaming, when required, is very definitely something to share with the world at large. There is generally no ambiguity about L.'s emotions. Her giggles seem to come from her toes, her empathy is astounding, her hugs are huge and effortlessly healing and her rages are absolute. In the aftermath of a particularly thorough meltdown at church this morning, I found myself deeply envious of her. Yes, her behaviour was unacceptable this morning and embarrassing - but only to her daddy and I. She felt unhappy - and that unhappiness found expression. No repression here!

I have learned so much from the way she grieves. I hate that she does. I hate that her brother does. It is a perpetual source of guilt that my inability to bring home their baby sister has permanently marked my children. But, as seems to be the way with children, her grief is public ("Our baby died you know. We're very sad.") and seamlessly integrated into her day to day life ("I would have shared my toys with Emma, mama. I miss her. Can I have some juice?) I'm the grown up so it's not acceptable to the world at large that I show my grief, that sometimes I still slump on the kitchen floor and keen with the hurt and longing I feel for my baby girl. Inside, it's a different story. Inside, I'm screaming. Inside, I'm 4.