Destinova
Okay, dads, I want to offer a preface to what I have to share by first acknowledging that if you are reading this then you have probably recently suffered the worst thing imaginable: the loss of your little boy or little girl. I am so sorry for your loss. I wish I could fix it for you, or that someone could fix it for me, but that is not what the gods have to offer either of us. I will only be able to offer you my tears, my open guts, and a voice to make you feel less alone in your dark hours.
My son died of SIDS two days shy of his third month in this Material World. It has been about a month ago for me, and I'm still coping. He literally left this world from his mother's arms, both of them sleeping on the couch in our front room. The Medical Examiner confirmed that there was nothing we could have done to prevent this from happening. There was nothing obstructing Weldon's airway, he didn't choke, he didn't struggle or wake up. There was no pain or trauma, he just gathered up his spirit and left our world, leaving his precious little body to grow cold in his mother's arms around dawn one spring morning.
I am blessed in my faith. The Lady and Lord have given me so much support during this time and my two decades of study in the Craft has led me to an understanding of how this kind of thing can happen. The Pagan community where I live has been tremendously supportive as well, and I probably wouldn't have gotten as far through this as I have without them.
I wanted to tell you this so that you can truly understand that I know how you feel. I'm not just mouthing the words hoping that something good will happen. Now, let me tell you a little about me. My name is Destinova. I am 43 years old. I am a career law enforcement officer in Texas. I was initiated into the Craft of the Wise in 1978, and achieved my third degree in 1981. I am twice divorced, and have lost 4 children before Weldon to miscarriage and abortions. (No, I'm not against abortion, but I love and wanted children. That was denied me because it wasn't my right to choose. I grieved and mourned each of them, but it wasn't like this. Read on, please; this is just background.) In my life I have helped others, screwed up terribly, learned some things, saved a few lives, taught the Craft as best as I am able, and fought verbally, spiritually, and physically for what I thought was right. I am a man my father would be proud of, and that means a great deal to me. I guess most people think of me as an "intense" person. I am, altogether too often I suppose, a very passionate man beneath my exterior appearance.
Now, let's talk about it. This is guy stuff, ladies, you may not want to read any further, but if you do, well, be kind in your judgement to us simple boys. It's all true, from the way we look at things.
I awoke that morning to a scream from the front room which catapulted me from deep sleep to upright and running in a single second. You know that kind of scream. It says "something is really wrong" not "oh darn, the cat jumped out of the clothes dryer and scared me." As I ran into the front room Weldon's mom was hysterical. "The baby's not breathing! Do something!"
It was more than awful. There was nothing that could be done, but I tried anyway. I tried for all that my life is worth. My son had been dead for hours.
I could write for you here all of the detail of what happened next, how the firemen and police came, my boss, homicide and forensic detectives, how I was butt naked with all of these people streaming into my home and Weldon's mother telling me to go put some clothes on. I won't tell you much more about that here. Maybe someday I'll write about it, but that's not what I want to talk about right here and now. It would be too easy to lose the meat of what I was asked to share with you among gruesome details.
The shock that overwhelmed me first was soon blocked by decades of ingrained conditioning. I had to get control. My son was dead, so I could not carry on screaming and crying like a wounded ox. As a man, I had to get ahold of my feelings. Someone was going to have to be strong and deal with it. I am the man; it had to be me.
My grief, which was later to become so much worse as total realization soaked in, was pushed down. I rode the physical symptoms of shock to keep me going. I vomited a few times, then I started to make calls and put things away. I avoided looking at Weldon's body on the carpet where the EMTs had laid a blue plastic blanket over him. I didn't want to see him or perhaps I should say that I was afraid to remember him that way.
A little later, after the detectives and Medical Examiner had completed their duties (that was when we learned that it was SIDS , or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) the homicide detective shooed everyone out of the house. He said that we could have a little time alone with Weldon before they had to take his body away. His mom wanted me to lay down on the floor with him, she being one side and I on the other just once more. It was all I could do to not completely go wild with grief. The precious narrow margin of control over my emotions was beginning to unravel in my hands. I felt like an enormous black hurricane was barely being contained inside my skin and I didn't know where the rest of me had gone. So I did what she asked. I lay there on the floor with her next to my son. I think I may have wept a little at the time, but no other emotions could be let out of the maelstrom within. If I had let one feeling out, the dam would have burst and all of what I was feeling would have flooded out and washed away my self control. I don't know what I would have said or done, and that scared me as much as holding my cold and blue little boy.
I was afraid of doing "something stupid". As we all know, real men never do "something stupid".
I shut down. I robotically went through the required motions. I went to the police station to give a statement. I tried pitifully to offer some kind of comfort and support to Silver, Weldon's mom. I spoke to people I didn't know and just bled internally. It was the only way I could maintain control of myself.
The only thing that anyone said to me that really helped came from my Chief. Lots of folks offered their sympathy and compassion and I am forever grateful to them. My Chief, Paul Williams, said that it was okay to feel what ever I was feeling, that there were no rules to cover how I should act or feel after losing my infant son. "This isn't normal. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen," he said. He was right, and after that, when I was alone I could start letting the pain and horror flow out onto my pillows.
Hear those words, fathers. This isn't normal. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen. Feeling abnormal is normal under abnormal circumstances, okay? Got it? Good. Use it. This is the only real gift I have to give to other fathers who have lost their baby.
I stayed shut down for four days, until the funeral. I don't think that I would have gotten out of bed except that the house was constantly full of people. They were good folks, Silver's family and our pagan brothers and sisters. Many of them we had been spatting with for months, but they closed ranks on us in a fashion that I know the Lady and Lord are proud of. We held an Irish wake for Weldon. We drank heavily for days until the funeral, and I was leading the pack. The liquor helped keep my feelings muted so that I could stay in that controlled, robotic state until I was alone.
Guys, this is so typical of what we do. It's what we are taught, to force down our emotions and master whatever situation is at hand. We know that doing this kills us, but for most of us, like for me, it's an automatic response. I urge you, if you are reading this article after suffering the loss of your little one, to find yourself a safe zone to let your feelings out instead of trying to kill them. I'm not suggesting that you do what I did at all, (but if that works for you, well, remember what my Chief said). Better yet, I do suggest that you get a brother, a trusted friend, a covener, counselor, or High Priest someplace where you can be alone and bleed some of it out on them. Drain out all of that dehumanizing black emotion -or as much of it as you can do. You are hurting; wounded in the worst way a human being can be hurt. You don't have to "be a man" at a time like this. Switch off that automatic response. Ignore the "big boys don't cry" bullcrap we were taught as kids.
I will insert here something for your mates, fathers. I know that many of the ladies will read this guy stuff anyway, but if they don't, well, I want to make sure that someone knows exactly what you feel. Daddies really get it just as bad as Mommies, just differently. Most of the SIDS literature, and grieving parents books too, really focus on what the poor Mothers have to suffer in the first few stages of loss. I have witnessed this first hand and know how hellishly agonizing it is for them. In those first few days, we Daddies have other, unique flaming hoops to jump through. We are the ones who have to hold the rest of the family together, no matter how desperately we already scramble to keep ourselves upright and moving. Daddies are usually the ones who, from the deepest tarpits of our grief, must make the hard decisions, the "arrangements" and agonize over the bottom line. Nowhere have I seen any words of comfort or support for the men who are not allowed to keep the world at arm's length until they are once again strong enough to face it. We have to do it, so we do, though it strains us even further than we have already been torn. We need special comforting during these times. Men, Daddies, don't be afraid or shy in seeking it out.
I'd also like to share with you a warning. Once you begin trying to contain uncontainable emotions it's awful hard to stop. It can easily, almost covertly lead to bizarre or self-destructive behavior. Take care of yourself. Your family is going through a rough time with you. They need to grieve with you, not at you. If you try to be the "big strong man" or become emotionally remote you are not only depriving yourself, you deprive them too. So let it out. It's okay. If you want to let it all come out at once in a safe place that's cool. If it's better to get it out a little at a time for you, go ahead and do it that way. But for the Lady & Lord's sake don't try to hold it all inside forever! Chicks are much better at this kind of thinking than we are, on the whole. They seem to understand better that emotions flow like water. When water is under pressure, it WILL find a way out. If you try to hold all of your emotions in, plus everyone else's, then you are setting yourself up to start unconsciously springing emotional "leaks".
Now here is one of the dumbass things that I did. I am sorry for your loss, but try not to screw up the same way I did. While I wallowed in the tarpit of my own feelings of loss and grief, I forgot that people grieve differently. I guess I was a little blinded at the time (which is another pitfall of dealing with overwhelming emotions). Let your partner have the space to do the same thing you are trying to do, sir, and please let her do it differently if she wants to. You two are not on a schedule for this event. After the funeral for my little boy I wanted the house quiet. By the gods, all I wanted was to sit in my chair and have everything be still. Silver was doing it all differently. She had the need to talk nonstop. She fluttered around the house like a chattering mockingbird that would never light on one spot. After a while I got irritated with her. I was wondering if she was breathing through her ears because her mouth never seemed to stop making words. I didn't realize at first that this was the style of her bereavement. I was so blinded by my own suppressed feelings that I told her at one point to just shut the hell up. I was wrong, and Silver has now my written as well as spoken apology. Remember, my brother, that your mate just lost a baby too. Be there as much as you can for her, but let her get her feelings out her own way. Don't do what I did. No matter how you try, you will not be able to fix, arrange, or control the flow of another's grief over losing a child.
Guilt is another issue. I guess I don't really feel much guilt over the death of Weldon. There was nothing I could have done. I believe that the most evolved souls don't reincarnate for long lifetimes here on the Material Plane. Why should they, if they only have a tiny bit of work to do here? Babies like Weldon who shine so brightly and leave so quickly are those old, old souls. It is a privilege for me to have been allowed to spend the small amount of time with him that he needed to be here. It's nice to know that I will see him again.
What I sometimes have guilt over is being alive while he is not. I don't know if that is a stress reaction or what. I sometimes feel guilt when I catch myself enjoying something, thinking that he's not here to enjoy it too. I'm not saying that it's rational to feel this way, just that sometimes I do.
Here's an example of how guilt got away with me. My birthday was two weeks after Weldon left the World. I felt lousy, as you can imagine. I didn't want to celebrate a birthday, of all things, when my whole being felt voided over the death of a baby. Silver insisted that we go out for a nice dinner, and so I finally said okay. We dressed to the nines, I picked up some cash and off we went to a very swanky steakhouse. I was doing my best to be good company when a couple with two very small children, a boy and a girl, were seated next to us by the hostess. The little girl was looking at me in a most peculiar way, and I thought "Oh, my Lord, she knows. I'm here partying while my little boy's ashes are at home on the mantle." I started crying in the restaurant. I mean, it wasn't a huge bawling fit or anything, but tears just started flying out of my eyes and wouldn't stop for several minutes. I felt ashamed to be having this nice birthday meal at a time like this. I was embarrassed as hell, hoping the waiter didn't see me leaking and unable to stop. Silver asked me if I was okay, and I just said that I was thinking of Weldon. I didn't tell her the rest of what I was feeling, that would have ruined the dinner. Then I felt guilty for that too.
Guilt is a trap. Once I realized at the restaurant that my guilt was trying to pull me into a round robin of feeling guilty for feeling guilty about my feelings just because a beautiful baby girl was looking at me, I straightened up. We enjoyed the rest of our evening as best we could be expected and then went home and things were okay. But they were only okay because I was able to get a grip on the vicious circle of guilt before it got a grip on me!
Guys, we gotta talk about these things. It really is the only way to get what is hurting us inside out. We can do things for people, make things, fix things, be creative in a thousand ways, but nothing works better than talking it out. When you're truly devastated talking can be as painful as having a rotten molar yanked out, but the like the bad tooth healing won't really begin unless it's done. You don't have to talk about everything with everybody, you just have to talk about everything with somebody.
Well, pagan fathers, I am going to offer you my blessings. Thanks for taking the time to read my words. I hope that my offerings are of some help to y'all out there in cyberland. You can write to me, if you want, via email. I check it pretty often and it may help to talk to somebody who has walked the proverbial mile in these shoes. That goes for me too.
Bright Blessings are forever. Tears dry away, brothers.
Destinova
