Because I'm the Mom

Living with The Great Ache

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:32:03 +0000

Since July 11, my brother's wife and I have talked every night before we go to sleep (that is to say, before I chemically induce sleep). For the first month after my brother's death, her beloved husband's death, we didn't really speak. We just sat and cried on the phone, 2000 miles dividing us but a gaping pit of pain uniting us. Most nights if she spoke at all, it was in such a hushed whisper I had no idea what she said. I'd just agree, and whisper, "I know. I know."

Now we talk using full sentences. Last night we were discussing new photos taken of my nephew, my brother's son, Rocky. He was with my mom, helping her read some books to him. My sister-in-law said that one of the photos in the series was painful to look at, that it seemed to her there was a deep sadness in her son's beautiful eyes. For a split second, I flashed forward through Rocky's life in the kind of time-lapse-projection you can do in your head because you've watched so much MTV. I pictured him growing up, in fatherless moments, with an unfathomable yearning for something, someone, he's knows so well, and not at all.

A writer friend sent me a note a couple of days ago. "Wanted you to know I'm thinking of you and your great ache." Crushing and beautifully well phrased, I thought. That's so right. It is a Great Ache.

This is our Great Ache. Like the country's Great War or Great Generation or the world's Great Books.

This got me thinking about all the Great Aches out there. Ours is our greatest pain, our headline struggle. But we are not alone. I flashed back to all those other families, sitting in that G-d-awful Intensive Care Unit waiting room in that Chicago hospital. They left with Great Aches of their own as well. Every day there are devastating diagnoses delivered like prize-winning blows to the gut. The wrong people die every day. Marriages and cars crash.

There are Great Aches of pure fiction, sole creations of lives unlived, should-have-lived. I have an old friend whose father died when he was an infant, who to this day struggles to find his father in everything he does, in every part of himself, his life, his work, his identity. That remains his deep, lifelong yearning.

And a remarkable young woman I know whose achievements soar beyond any rational understanding of success, who battles daily her mother's disapproval and harsh judgment, a Great Ache that threatens to tarnish it all.

There are Great Aches of loss of what we had, of regret for what we've done, of pain for what never was or never will be, of endings, real or imagined, of lives we shudda/cudda/wudda had; there are real and imagined rejections, identities thieved by the demons of practicality, insecurity, uncertainty or just lousy timing. There are the Great Aches of "if I had only," "why didn't I," "why did I," and "why me" or "why not me."

Your ache may not be mine. Mine may not be yours. I hope to G-d mine's not yours these days. Whatever they are or aren't, they will be.

I think I just wanted to say how deeply sorry I am. May we all, somehow, be healed.

BFF or Toxic Mess? Big life events reveal strengths and faultlines in female friendships

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:33:32 +0000

     It's always tough being the first friend in your best-gal-group to make one of life's big leaps. First one to get engaged, move away, get married, get pregnant. Among women friends, even though this is all good news, you're breaking a certain code. Frankly, you're wrecking things irrevocably because now they will never be the same.
     I've always been that one in my crowd, so I know it's true what you hear, that friends - no matter how dear and close - have complicated, often deeply ambivalent or even hostile reactions when faced with best pals moving on.
     I remember people telling me before my wedding to prepare for the fact that some close friends would let me down, and that I will never forgive them. There's something about those Big events that make you more vulnerable, and your friends more vulnerable at precisely the same moment. Some friends will deliver for you in the most unexpected and astonishing ways - which you will never, ever forget. But it is true. Some will let you down.

Hard.

Their own struggles with the issue you've embraced take center stage and demand to be heard and dealt with. For some friends, all the Five Deadly Sins of Friendship: envy, projection, betrayal, judgment, narcissism -- rear their ugly heads. Many of those relationships never recover.

Other friends will stay up all night with you on the night before you get married and talk through every single anxious thought, over and over again, (thanks Katy!) Others will make elaborate surprise gifts for you to open while you reluctantly drive (and sob) across the country with your new husband to your new lives and jobs, 2000 miles away from all you know and love. One gift each day, with a letter of love and support, to be opened at a particular moment of panic, in the car, on the road. Or they e-mail you a poem every, single day in your hard and scary last month of pregnancy, when you're still 2000 miles away from home and frightened out of your mind. (Thank you, Jessica!)

So it is with deep sadness, and shock, that I must report - again from the frontlines of friendship - that it is exactly the same when you're the first one in the group to have something horrifying happen. My brother's death - and my weeks of silence, grief and self-imposed isolation - have engendered the same range of reactions from good friends. There are those who call nearly every day, leaving messages that begin with "you do not have to call me back...just want you to know I'm thinking of you..." and proceed to tell me a funny that makes me smile for a precious moment, or share an observation about how I survived something else, or about how grief is like an elevator deep down inside the ground, that even when you're actually going up, the doors open and it's still pitch black, so you don't realize you're going up but you still are. An observation that hits me hard, where I save the message, play it over and over because it helps me breathe. (Thank you, Dana.)

Or they come to Oregon from London or Chicago, despite insane obstacles and dragons they must slay to get there, just to sit with you, over tea, while you can't say much, and then, to listen, while you can't stop talking, because it's been an eternity since you've talked to any human being. (Heartfelt gratitude to Katy and Jess.)

Those relationships, one I thought could not be more solid, have deepened tremendously for me, even though I can hardly speak right now. Still, their consistent, selfless love and support are sustaining me.

And then there are the others. The women I thought I'd be safe with. The ones who, for whatever reason, simply could not put down their own burdens long enough to actually see mine. It is with a profound sense of loneliness that I must accept that those relationships are over, and maybe never really existed, because, I fear. I never really existed in them. These are friends who, rather than express sympathy or understanding, express rage, disappointment and judgment. In a variety of ways, some quite direct, they told me they experience my silence, my pain, my path through grief, as a deep, personal rejection and betrayal. One actually e-mailed to say she simply was not a big enough person to put her rage at me (at not being able to comfort me? Rage? Huh?) aside to actually comfort me.

For these women, these toxic friendships, my pain was beside the point. I was somehow not delivering something they believed they were owed. My brother's death was somehow all about them. I have to say that the women I'm talking about have been dear friends, are people I admire, are wonderful mothers and make huge contributions to their communities and to the world. It was a complete stunner to me to have my pain met with this reaction.
I was too shocked (and, frankly, exhausted and numb) to really process the loss of these particular relationships, until I came upon this post by a fellow Psychology Today blogger, Dr. Irene S. Levine.
In her blog, The Friendship Doctor, she wrote:
"Could YOU be a toxic friend? 5 Sure Signs"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-friendship-doctor/200909/...

This clarified it for me. Her description of what makes a toxic friend hit it. This released me. I'm out. I'm done. Big losses offer us a kind of friendship stress test. Some are going to pass; others will be revealed as detrimental to your health.

Fighting for our Daughters

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:59:34 +0000

Here are a few crucial weapons for your arsenal in the War on our Daughters' Self Esteem. It's only a quick partial list. There is much, much more. I'll keep posting, and would love to get your recommendations.

Daughters.com
http://www.daughters.com/

Ophelia's Voice Resource list: A fantastic one-stop-shopping site for all kinds of terrific resources to help you and your daughter. http://opheliasvoice.org/ophelia/resources.xml
Ophelia's Voice is a nonprofit organization based out of Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a focus on empowering girls and young women to use their leadership potential to affect social change in their community through self-initiated social justice projects. The organization is led by youth, for youth, and was started by the 17-year-old founder, Joanne Cave, with assistance from her graduate student mentors at the University of Alberta. Ophelia's Voice is in its third year of operation.

Girls on the Run - a spectacular national program that uses running, mentoring, healthy messages and activities to support girls nationwide. http://www.girlsontherun.org/

New Moon Girls - an excellent magazine and online resource and community providing resources, friendship, great reading materials and a smart, exciting, safe community on and off line for your daughters and you to learn, grow and have fun together.
http://www.newmoon.com/

Must-have books:

"Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap,"
Peggy Orenstein
http://www.peggyorenstein.com/books/schoolgirls.html

"Reviving Ophelia," Mary Pipher http://www.amazon.com/Reviving-Ophelia-Saving-Selves-Adolescent/d...

"In a Different Voice," Carol Gilligan http://www.amazon.com/Different-Voice-Psychological-Theory-Develo...

"Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. " Rachel Simmons http://www.amazon.com/Odd-Girl-Out-Culture-Aggression/dp/01560273...

"When Girls Feel Fat: Helping Girls Through Adolescence," Sandra Susan Friedman
http://www.amazon.com/When-Girls-Feel-Fat-Adolescence/dp/1552094596

"The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women," Naomi Wolf
http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Myth-Images-Against-Women/dp/0060512...
http://www.daughters.com/

Fellow Psychology Today blogger Dara Chadwick's excellent new book: "You'd Be So Pretty If...Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies--Even When We Don't Love Our Own."

Her site: DaraChadwick.com

Information to spark discussions:

Suicide, stats say girls at risk
September is Suicide Prevention Month. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, girls ages 10 to 14 have the fastest growing suicide rate of any population group, with the rate increasing 75.9% between 2003 and 2004 (the most recent data available). This week at Daughters.com, we're featuring articles and resources about suicide, depression, and self-harm in girls. Read, "When You're Afraid You're Losing Her" by Helen Cordes, "Why do Girls Cut Themselves," by Jean Lynch and Amy Lynch,"

Announcing Rachel Simmons, "The Curse of the Good Girl" Tour
Our friend, Rachel Simmons, just released her newest book, "The Curse of the Good Girl," about how girls can lose out if they're too "nice." Rachel will be talking about New Moon Girls when she does her book tour. Thank you, Rachel! Get more info on Rachel's Tour, and see Rachel's appearance on the Today Show

Meeting at the Crossroads
Women's Psychology and Girls' Development
Lyn Mikel Brown
Carol Gilligan
"On the way to womanhood, what does a girl give up? For five years, Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, asking this question, listened to one hundred girls who were negotiating the rough terrain of adolescence. This book invites us to listen, too, and to hear in these girls' voices what is rarely spoken, often ignored, and generally misunderstood: how the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence, disconnection, and dissembling, a troubled crossing that our culture has plotted with dead ends and detours.
In the course of their research, Brown and Gilligan developed a Listener's Guide - a method of following the pathways of girls' thoughts and feelings, of distinguishing what girls are saying by the way they say it. We witness the struggle girls undergo as they enter adolescence only to find that what they feel and think and know can no longer be said directly. We see them at a cultural impasse, and listen as they make the painful, necessary adjustments, outspokenness giving way to circumspection, self-knowledge to uncertainty, authority to compliance. These changes mark the edge of adolescence as a watershed in women's psychological development, a time of wrenching disjunctions between body and psyche, voice and desire, self and relationship. Brown and Gilligan open their method to us and share their discoveries as they encourage girls at different ages to speak about themselves in conversation with women. They follow some of these girls over time, listening to changes in their distinct voices from one year to the next, addressing their successes and failures as they confront one barrier after another."
-from the Harvard University Press website description of this groundbreaking book

Great national afterschool program that supports girls' bodies and souls:

From the West Seattle Herald:
Program encourages students to think outside 'girl box'
By Rebekah Schilperoort
August 14, 2009
"Since 2002, Girls on the Run of Puget Sound has operated an after-school prevention program for third through fifth grade girls throughout the region and this year it finally comes to West Seattle with two new programs; one at Pathfinder Alternative School and another at Hiawatha Community Center starting Sept. 28.
Kerin Brasch, executive director of the local chapter of the non-profit group, said Girls on the Run is an after school program that combines physical activity with self-esteem building, "life lessons," aimed at preparing young girls for the challenges they will likely face in middle school.
"It's more than running," she said.
The mission, said Brasch is to "use the power of running to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living."

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:eaRWYg8sHlwJ:www.westseattle...

Pre-Tween Silent Scream: Watching Your Daughter's Self-Esteem Plummet

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:21:30 +0000

It's a war on our daughters.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to happen. They all told me. Hell, it happened to me. Somehow I never thought it would happen to my girl, my confident, loud, intense, will-not-be-silenced daughter. She danced on tables, sang in restaurants, threw her head back when she laughed, wore sequence berets, tutus with footy socks as gloves, accessorized with an eye patch. To first grade. I assumed my kid would leap right over the "girl box," that silencing, stifiling, self-esteem-annihilating cultural massacre that occurs with stunning predictability to most girls staring down the barrel of puberty.

There was no way it was happening to my girl. I thought I had vaccinated her, inoculated her, with the sheer force of my own will and good intentions. (Of course, we all know where the good-intentions road leads, don't we?)

And then it started happening. With a vengeance.

My daughter has always been advanced. Her stunningly docile and heartbreaking entry into the "girl box" is no exception. She is only 8.

In case anybody out there still doesn't get that fat is indeed the most feminist of issues, the first sign of her self-worth going down the tubes was that searing question: Am I fat?

The second round fired came in the form of social wounds inflicted (wittingly and uwittingly) by other girls, festering wounds that refused to heal. The brutality of BFF's gone awry. Next there was talk of a social hierarchy where there once was a playground. There are those who are "popular" and those who are not. Despite excellent reports by teachers and friends and everyone else, she now doubts her playground status. She used to fling herself around the bars, over and over, flying fearlessly up and over. Now, if somebody says something unwelcoming, she flees.

There are worries. So many worries. Worries and wounds and personal affronts and cloaks and daggers where there were swings and slides. Who sits with whom at lunch now merits Kremlin-like analysis. There is endless reading of friendship tea leaves. I was invited to her birthday, but she never asks me for a playdate. Ah, the playdate roulette. Who's going home with whom is the source of relentless speculation and deep pain.

Class issues have erupted. Who has a "mansion," the latest technology, a trampoline, her own bathroom.....All roads lead to who doesn't. My beautiful girl. Now, rather suddenly, she is not enough. Her life is not enough. Her self worth, our net worth, it's all in question, not enough.

In third grade now, she panics in class about the work. She is a vibrant reader who just recently told a teacher she can't really read. (Every single Judy Blume book she's ever read notwithstanding, apparently.) She thinks in numbers, ages, projections, patterns, but says she's "horrible at math." On and on.

How did this happen?

Look, I knew we were standing at the abyss. Somehow I thought we were fully protected. We talk about all of it all the time. She thinks about bodies as healthy or athletic, not fat or thin. I have been hyper-vigilantly confident in my own skin. I have been supremely disciplined in staying out of her relationship with food. I have never once, not once EVER said an unkind thing about myself in front of her, and I have studiously avoided empty praise or focus on her external self (although she is indeed smart, talented, athletic, wise, insightful, well liked, and quite beautiful.)

She has a loving, excellent father. Their bond is stable, strong, dependable and deep. All the research says that's key!

And yet. And yet. This.

We were standing together, at the precipice. I thought we were a team, holding hands, beating back the demons of culturally imposed self-loathing, when before I could gather my wits about me she leapt. She just dove off, without me. All by herself.

It's like in the Catcher in the Rye. I picture millions of 8, 9, 10 and 12-year-old girls, all formerly strong and brave and free, just gasping for air, leaping off this cliff. The moms are all standing there, at the edge, screaming, wailing, some leaping in after them, some falling to their knees. What have we done?

What can we do? Therapy? Check. Positive messages in school curriculum? Check. Avoid most commercial television? Check. Maternal modeling of good self esteem and healthy body image? Check. Surrounding her with positive role models? Check. Plenty of healthy athletic activities? Check. Preventive discussions supported by well-researched books, movies, girl-power magazines? Check. Check and Check.

Is it just inevitable? Is there some genetically-driven magnetic force pulling American girls borne ceaselessly toward the abyss?

According to Carol Gilligan and Lyn Mikel Brown, in "Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development," it seems necessarily so.

"For over a century the edge of adolescence has been identified as a a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. Girls at this time have been observed to lose their vitality, their resilience, their immunity to depression, their sense of themselves and their character," they wrote, in their 1992 groundbreaking book.
The Harvard University Press website describes the research this way:
"On the way to womanhood, what does a girl give up? For five years, Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, asking this question, listened to one hundred girls who were negotiating the rough terrain of adolescence. This book invites us to listen, too, and to hear in these girls' voices what is rarely spoken, often ignored, and generally misunderstood: how the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence, disconnection, and dissembling, a troubled crossing that our culture has plotted with dead ends and detours."

I'll post some resources I've found helpful in my next entry - and hope to get suggestions from the rest of you warriors out there, battling the War on Our Daughters' Self Esteem.

Running from the human race

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:33:25 +0000

I was one of 874 runners in a 5K this weekend.
I'm not really a runner. I mean, I run. Slowly. Very. Very. Slowly. Like as slow as the guy, say, who picks up the poop behind the tortoise. And I run every day alone.

If I were a messenger service my ad would be something about how if you want to get it there fast, don't use me. But if you want it to get there, for certain, with commitment, at some later date - but for certain-go with me. I'm all about endurance. My endurance is freakish.

I picked a place in the middle of the pack to start. People who cared about time in front of me. People walking and just out for some air behind me.

It was in their snippets of chatter, small talk, haven't-seen-you-in-ages ...that it hit me hard, how profoundly alone I am. I cannot make small talk. All I want to say, need to say, is:
My brother is dead. I am dead. Don't you see me bleeding all over the street? Don't you see my broken heart? I am broken. Shattered.

Their lives go on. Their world goes on.
They share the details like I'm not standing there, bleeding. The details of lives actually being lived: The lushness of Saturday's farmer's market, the start of school, how he's going to beat this time or that, the gloriousness of our shared sunny day, the strained ankle, the blast that was had in Italy; none of it. I can do none of it. I am in the middle of humanity, but not in humanity. I am in-humane.
The horn shrieks. The scruffling scrum of New Balanced-hooves beats apace. I am shuffled, lost. How can I be among so many and with no one at all? My solitude, my grief, is at once perfectly metaphorical and literal. I cannot stand the human race. I ache with aloneness, in this throng.

I have left my body somehow, am moved - and yet utterly unmoved - by the mass of humanity taking me with it against what's left of my will. I start to move with my own power, I guess, because I hear my feet thromping through my heart. My heart, I notice, is beating. I literally notice it, and it is a surprise.

I am off. We are off.

The legions of stroller-pushing moms at the back of the 5K starting line push right by me.

I still appear to be moving forward. I am aware, as I always am when I run, that I like feeling my feet hitting the ground. Like a person who could be mistaken for someone who is alive.

I make it through the first six minutes, which is always the worst for me. Once I get beyond it, for whatever reason, the motor just goes. Painfully slowly, I should mention again. People who are not walking that fast pass me.

About 12 minutes in I see a girl, about my daughter's age, limping, crying, alone. Running and crying, just like me. I run to her, introduce myself as the mother of a third grader, ask where her parent is. She said her mom ran ahead, and she "popped" something in her leg. I told her my name, and asked if she'd like me to sit with her at the sidelines and wait for her mom to come back around, or maybe we could call somebody. She said okay, if I wanted to. I said I did. I pointed out people I knew in the race as they zipped by because the 10K had started behind us. I didn't mention that I can't/won't speak to any of those people because I'm in too much pain and have left the human condition behind for some other existence in exile in my own dark brain. I told her who had kids, how old, what school. I told her about my daughter, how embarrassing she thinks I am. She seemed grateful for the distraction. So was I. We were both holding back our tears.

Then, suddenly, her eyes welled up, her face flushed. "Mommy! There's my Mommy!" she said, lurching up, holding her leg, bending over, the sobs overtaking her. Her mom ran right by her. I knew it was her mom because they looked so much alike, and had matching shorts and t-shirts. "Can't I just finish the race?" the mom yelled...clearly frustrated, in the zone, wanting, probably just this once, a few freakin' minutes for herself, that's all she's asking for is that so much? The girl's sobs grew. I looked at the mom, wondering, and she slapped her hands to her sides, "Damnit!" ran to her daughter, held her, cradled her, "the race doesn't matter, sweetie," she said, more to herself. "It's okay." The girl's sobs were breathtaking and intense. Or maybe that was me.

I started running again. The 10K runners were plowing through us now like bullets. I was going at a decent pace for a belly-crawling tortoise. Good breathing. Calming breathing. Suddenly, this bolt of blonde, lithe lightening dazzled by me, or through me. A real marathoner probably just warming up with the 10K. Total Amazon goddess. Legs for days. An old boss of mine would have seen her and said, "Now that's a tall drink a' water."

As she was passing me, staring straight ahead, she said: "You are kicking ass." Was she talking to me?

Initially my brain processed this through my own charming filter of self love. I thought she said something about letting her pass or get my fat ass to the grass or something but no, it was actually quite clear. She was cheering me on. My brain then wanted to explore the possibility that she thought I seemed so pathetic that I needed some kind of ....or it was remarkable that a person such as myself was upright (which, actually, given my state of mind, it is....) But before I could fully develop the theme of complete self-loathing, the feeling came back. That is to say, my feelings came back from wherever it is they go when I go numb to function. They came back and I sobbed and sobbed because there was something so intense and painful to me about her support.... this anonymous winged Athena murmuring back to me from her perch, urging me on, reminding me I am not alone. I am not alone. It was an unbearably kind gesture that almost sent me to the ground.

But I kept running. And weeping. And being so grateful she said that. It was all I could take, this drive-by act of kindness. It was the most intimacy I could stand. Almost too much, but somehow, I withstood it.

At the end, me and my tortoise ass passed by the stroller brigade, the wine-tasting chatterers, the taking-in-some-air dilly-dalliers. I ran by them, one by one. The 10K winners were sailing by me, pumping and thrusting to the finish line. It was a literal finish line, with an announcer saying our names and numbers, throngs of cheering townspeople. I just kept running. A little further. I can do it. I am kicking ass, afterall.

A few feet from the finish line I hear the announcer say my number and slaughter my name...Pamela KitchenKytroSkypinBomb. Sobbing, I put my fists in the air. And then, "Mommy!! That's my Mommy!! Hey Pam!! Hey That's My Mommy!! You're doing so great!!! Mommy!!!"

I have won, and lost, so much. I grieve and weep and run for it all.

It's here

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:30:07 +0000

The letter from the Gift of Hope organ donation organization arrived. White 8 by 11. Thick, like the ones you got when you knew you'd been accepted by a college.

I know that right inside there are what I thought were the answers....to my healing, to my relief, to some way to assuage this agony. What was printed on those pages, I was completely convinced was my path out of this darkness. I know there are names and ages and answers to questions I thought I was desperately asking. But that was a couple of days ago. And one thing I've learned about this terrible business of grief is that feelings, even ones that feel rock solid, are just waves. Ideas that seem utterly concrete, thoughts you believe are literally keeping you alive, are all just waves. Just ideas. Just thoughts. They move, sway, change, blow away. Days later, minutes later, seconds.

I know what I said. I know what I wrote. I know how absolutely certain I was. I went to that mailbox a thousand times a day. I KNEW I'd tear it open and get on a plane and find them all and all that. Turns out, I can't. Not now. Maybe not ever. Can't open it. Can't look at it. Can't do it.

Waiting for the Letter: Finding out what happened at the other end, the happy end, of organ donation

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:00:34 +0000

My brother's heart "is local."

That's all I know. It's all I could stand to let the Gift of Hope organ donation coordinator tell me that last, long night, just before we left the Chicago hospital for the last time six weeks ago. He said my brother was a "homerun donor," a rare organ donor whose every offering matched and saved a life. This makes perfect sense to me. In his life, every fiber of my brother's being thrummed to connect with everyone he encountered. In death, too, he was a perfect match for the world.

The letter should arrive any day, the letter that tells the story of what happened after we said goodbye.

"During the first 18 months after a family's loss, we provide a series of communications to donor families. One of the most important letters will come to families about six weeks after the donation-a letter that provides general information about the recipients and how they are doing. For families of tissue donors, we provide information on the process that takes place from the time of donation to the time that donated tissues are provided for transplant."
"A donor's family will be told the age, sex, state and other general characteristics of recipients. If both the donor family and the recipient agree to release information to one another, they may exchange names, correspond and even meet...."

I want to write more about the experience, about what organ donation did for me, is doing for me, in my grieving process. I want to take this and find a way to be an advocate. I want to be the person who makes meaning, who finds transformation, redemption, purpose.

But I can't yet. I'm not there yet. Not even close. Where I am is checking the mail every 15 minutes; freaking out waiting for that letter. I'm the one in my family who felt able to handle the information, who dealt mostly with the people from Gift of Hope at the hospital and after. I'm the one who asked the awful questions and answered the ones that were even worse.

I don't think they want to know what I may find out yet. So for now, I'm alone, 2000 miles away, waiting for the letter.

I want to meet them all, the recipients. I want to grab hold of their hands and tell them who he was. They can decide not to communicate with us, the "donor family," but I hope they want to meet. I hope they choose to connect.

Gift of Hope: http://www.giftofhope.org/about-us/about-us.htm
Wendy Marx Foundation for Organ Donor Awareness: http://www.transplantbook.com/foundation.html

What Grief Takes With It

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:13:03 +0000

Maybe you can't take it with you, but grief sure don't pack light. As the days and weeks go by and the (sur)reality of losing my brother sets in, it's becoming increasingly clear how much I (fear, believe, think) I no longer have - how much life death takes with it.

I cannot:
listen to music
watch families
stop seeing him
stop missing him desperately
feel happy; ever imagine feeling joy or happiness again
look at the sky
look anyone in the eyes
think about eyes
speak more than briefly, superficially with anyone
feel at ease, calm
remember our childhood, our past
make future plans
feel like making future plans
think about the past
stop regretting everything
feel good about having him for the time I did (are you kidding me?)
feel much other than a) numbness, b) rage, c) despair, d) thrumming panic
eat
sleep
relax
play
laugh
feel grateful
feel anything but sad
enjoy ______ (fill in the blank)
wish for anything
feel deeply connected to anybody; too painful
teach without crying
read
think about teaching or reading or connecting or celebrating or laughing or doing anything that feels alive and like moving on because that part of myself, the open part, the alive part, feels cauterized, shut down, tucked away somewhere in Grief's suitcase

Hypervigilant anxiety meets worst-case reality: I got punk'd by my own brain

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:02:39 +0000

Can grief be an antidote to anxiety?

What happens when you've spent your entire life in an epic state of panic, waiting for the horrible, terrible thing to happen? It's around the corner. You will not be fooled or surprised. Everything is risky. Germs, driving, date rapists, identity thieves, breast lumps, pandemics, stranger danger, ebola, ecoli, left arm pain, child abductions, odd bloating sensations, racing heart rate, lower back pain, radon, Y2K, weird rashes, killer bees.

You've been on it your whole life, checking under the metaphorical bed, kicking the tires, peeking behind every door, watching your back. Waiting. Getting your flu shots. Relentlessly checking your credit rating. Upping your flood insurance. Yearly freckle checks at the dermatologist. Pap smears. Mammograms. Colonic health. Flossing. Praying. Fasting. Being good. Doing good. Breathing out bad thoughts, in strength and peace. Wishing others well. Mostly.

But, nothing terrible happens.

Until it does.

The worst thing ever has happened. I lost my brother, the best person in my life, taken from me, out of nowhere. How did this one get past my supersonic, hypervigilant anxiety radar? I thought I had played out every possible loss, every scenario, all of the potential wolves and Nazis at the door. Never saw this one coming.

In my lifelong attempt to protect myself from getting hurt, I placed my bets wrong. I made decisions to avoid certain kinds of demons, but not the right ones. It is pure Greek myth-sized hubris to think I could have foreseen anything, really. I'm like my own mythical Cassandra, in reverse: consigned to a life of knowing the truth but never to be believed. I was so certain I knew what to look out for. I bought my own hype. What arrogance. What a waste. I thought I could outrun the wolves I thought were coming after me.

Now I'm left staring over the bleakest, most enormous pit of regret, full of
decisions made out of fear instead of strength, choices made to give bad luck the slip. I know these are just thoughts and my life is full of profound blessings. But that's not how if feels. I got punk'd by my own brain. Big time.

What does this mean for my anxiety? It's kind of a pathological innoculation. A relief. Nothing is scary anymore. No loss seems impossible, but I'm so lost it doesn't register. More bad news? Just add it to the list. Put it on my tab, bar keep. I'm already there. Lightning has already struck.

"What are you doing to take care of yourself?" Anybody know why it takes a deep loss to force a Mom to ask herself that question?

Pamela Cytrynbaum — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:44:37 +0000

I still don't know how to answer, and yet it is the first question everybody asks when they hear I've lost my brother.
What AM I doing to take care of myself? I never know what to say.

Therapy. Lots of therapy.
School shopping.
Not doing stuff I hate.
Avoiding everybody.
Saying no.

As a working mother, I've been putting the oxygen mask on somebody else for so long I am struck dumb, utterly silenced, by this apparently essential question. Why is that? Why don't I remember how to take care of myself? Why are there no clear answers?

After 200 or so awkward moments after this question is asked, I started thinking about when it was that I actually knew how to take care of myself well. I was in my 20s, not so long ago. I was single. And then I wasn't. And then I had a baby, and nobody asked me then what I was doing to take care of myself. THAT is the time we should be taking the MOST care of ourselves. There's a basket you get from the hospital after having a baby. It's festive, full of washcloths, receiving blankets, diapers, wipes, pamphlets on breastfeeding and (alas) samples of formula. But nothing in it says: FIRST THINGS FIRST: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

When you bring the baby home, nobody asks if you're taking care of yourself. They ask how long it's been since you've slept, or they inquire about nipple soreness and how's the baby latching, but that's about as close as it gets.

And then the question sits dormant in some deep pit of your brain for, well, I thought for longer than this. And then something horrifying happens, like you get cancer at 33 or your beloved younger brother gets swiped off the earth out of nowhere and you are laid bare. And then, all of a sudden, everybody wants to know, demands to know, what you're doing to take care of yourself. And you're like, um, what does that even mean?

So I have come up with the answer. It's true. It's accurate, and it moves the conversation along. I run for an hour every single morning. I run slow, and I cry hard.

I guess it's a start.