New Subscription Feature!
Click here if you would like to receive an email notification when I post a new blog entry.
The Cat in the Hat Principle
We had a whole collection of Dr. Seuss books when our kids were little. I read them so often, I could do it with my eyes shut. If you’ve ever fallen asleep while reading a bedtime story, or even a middle-of-the-morning story, you can empathize. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was a favorite. It chronicles Sally and her brother’s second misadventure with the crazy feline. Near the climax, their yard is covered with pink snow, spread by the Cat in the Hat’s “assistants” Little Cats A to Z. Those two uptight kids are dismayed by the antics of these twenty-six imps, and yell at the Cat in the Hat to take them away. . .
Journaling
As I read back over my journal for the winter of 2006, I am impressed at the hours and pages I devoted to pouring out my feelings at that busy time of my life; and realize how valuable those hours and pages were at the time, in helping me to process my feelings, and are now as a record. Especially for me, being blessed with a brain that holds onto memories like a sieve holds water. If I didn’t have my journal, I would have forgotten this particular day in January. . .
Why?
An ongoing issue for me in dealing with my first, and subsequent miscarriages, was the desire to understand why it had happened. I was dumbfounded to hear my doctors say, “We don’t investigate miscarriages until you’ve had three.” Reeling from my first loss, it was hard for me to imagine multiplying that pain by three before anyone would throw me a lifeline…
Room to Maneuver
Decades ago, I had a neighbor with an RV - a big one. He would park it in a narrow corner of his back yard. It looked like an impossibly tight squeeze, and it very nearly was. I would watch him parking from my kitchen window, and learned his secret, a very simple one - patience. . . .
Burial
We had several choices for what we could do with Loila’s remains: have them cremated, bury them, or allow the hospital to dispose of them (“respectfully,” I was assured.) We left her at the hospital for two months while we grappled with that decision and everything else. I wrote in my journal, “Some days, I think I would like [to bury her]. Sometimes I think it would be too much effort, or too much emotion.”
Grandmother Mountain
I think it’s impossible to live in Calgary and not love the Rocky Mountains. I see them, blue in the distance, whenever I look west. I’ve camped and hiked and cycled in them all my life. There is awe in the size and strength of rocky peaks, wonder in glimpses of wildlife on the meadows, comfort in the gurgling of mountain streams….
Between 2005 and 2008, I lost four tiny babies to miscarriage. In an effort to help others who may be experiencing similar losses, I want to share the story of that journey. If you click on the title above, and then follow the “Next in Miscarriage Journey” links at the bottom of each post, you can read through my story sequentially.