LivingIndefinitely.com

More fun with Mechanical Turk

Sonya Carlson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:11:33 +0000

Because they don't know the words?

Someone Stole Roger Federer's Nose

Brady Carlson — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:32:36 +0000

So long as the world remains batty, I will be a poor prospect for advice columning. If people had simple etiquette questions, sure, I could dig through a copy of Emily Post and tell you where the tuning fork goes (right over the buttered ketchup plate) and everyone would feel more polite. But just as the brave clerks and restaurant servers of the world must handle baffling, sub-sentient requests that end up on NotAlwaysRight.com like "don't make me glow after the x-ray," advice columnists must also field questions that would not be asked in a better world:

Dear Prudence handles this compassionately - "I think this is one of those things that's best being your little secret," she says, without even mentioning that Roger Federer had his nose at the French Open, so the writer doesn't have the exact same nose, but merely an identical one, and what kind of clown spends time comparing their noses to tennis stars who are on the rebound after spending much of the last year battling nagging injuries and trying to hold off a surging Rafa Nadal, and a nose? Honestly? A NOSE? WHY NOT SAY YOU HAVE THE EXACT SAME SPLEEN AS MARISKA HARGITAY? OR THE BUTT OF DENNIS RODMAN? WHAT KIND OF SICK LOON TELLS PEOPLE THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME NOSE AS ROGER FEDERER? FOR GOD'S SAKE SON YOU'RE MAKING AN ASS OF YOURSELF FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!

Thus proving that I could, nor should, be an advice columnist. On the other hand, I doubt that Emily Yoffe, as charming and talented as she is, could write as lovingly about Mr. T as I. We all have our place in this world.

Two big victories

Brady Carlson — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:20:39 +0000

Think of grief as a siege. Despair has you surrounded and outnumbered. Your defenses are stretched thin; whatever way you cope leaves you vulnerable because there's too much despair for too much time. Try to carry on normally for too long and you're harboring the pain instead of dealing with it, but dealing with the pain makes carrying on feel like a depressing, pointless slog. And despair isn't just sitting at the gates waiting for you to give up. It's growing – invading your thoughts, taking the little bits of normalcy you still have and making every effort to break your ranks.

Examples: this week a friend of mine saw his young son through a surgery; everything turned out OK. Two other friends became parents to a beautiful little boy of their own. And I know (the grief books all say this) that despair wants me to be jealous of them, to turn against them because their families had good fortune and mine didn't. It wants me to look at those kids as two more reminders of loss – of my losses. And it wants me to think that if I just give in to those feelings that I won't hurt anymore. Because it wants to find a way to break my defenses.

But I also know that in a siege, defense is about making the most of limited options. Medieval castles put up walls and moats, shot arrows out at the invading forces, stocked months' or even years' worth of supplies, but these weren't designed to defeat the enemy outright. They were really just holding on, maybe until reinforcements could come, maybe until the attacker's supplies ran thin, but holding on - just trying to keep the enemy out as long as they could.

So I'm going to use the defenses I have. I have my family – two beautiful children and one wonderful Sonya. I have friends and loved ones who talk with me, support me, laugh and cry with me, help me keep it together. And my friends' kids? They're not reminders of loss but of hope – the hope I had for my kids and for theirs. The hope that all of our children end up happy and healthy and loved. We're all on that side together, and knowing that helps me remember that despair's offer - to turn to jealousy and away from love - isn't much of an offer at all.

Fighting back isn't easy, and the chance of success is pretty low, but what else can I do? I have to hold out as long as I can.

The Long Haul

Brady Carlson — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:58:02 +0000

When I went off to college they (and I have no idea who “they” were) warned me that a weird thing was about to happen: I'd have a week or so where being away from home felt exciting, like I was on vacation, and then the newness would wear off and it would sink in that I was here for the long haul, which would feel weird and maybe scary. And while all of us in the dorm said we were having the time of our lives, somehow we all knew exactly how many days there were until fall break. Hmm.

The last week or so has been rough for both of us, and I suspect we're starting to realize that the last few weeks weren't a break from our lives; they are our lives, and that we can't flee this dorm on fall break because there isn't one. Over time our grief will change, maybe even lessen. We'll continue to find comfort and support from family and friends. Maybe we'll even find ways to turn grief into something constructive. But the grief will always be there. Wherever life takes us now, it'll take us there without our babies, and that's going to feel weird and scary.

We're here for the long haul.

The Wrong Thing

Brady Carlson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:34:19 +0000

A woman got into my elevator this afternoon carrying a huge baby-themed cake. She was en route to a baby shower, and it reminded me that our grief counselor has warned that eventually someone will, without meaning to, say The Wrong Thing to one of us. The Wrong Thing isn't intended to punch you in the gut, but that doesn't mean you don't feel the sting.

The Wrong Thing that I've dreaded most is being in public somewhere and getting asked if I have any kids. Assuming my natural instinct (collapse to the floor bawling) is not a constructive answer, I have two options, neither of them great. I can lie and say “no,” but denying that I ever had kids just to spare myself an awkward conversation is about the most cowardly thing I can think of. Saying “yes” is no picnic either, because the next question is inevitably “oh, how old are they?” and within ten seconds the poor person who thought he/she was asking a benign getting-to-know-you question realizes I am That Guy Who Lost His Kids and Isn't That Awful, and suddenly no one wants to talk about the Red Sox or pass the cheese platter. What a bringdown.

It's good to steel ourselves a little bit in case someone accidentally says The Wrong Thing, but so far no one's even come close to that. I've heard people tell me of their own losses, about how years and years have passed and they carry a little sadness with them as they carry on. I've heard people say that Graham's and Georgia's lesson that life is worth living has inspired them to hug their own kids closer, or inspired them to make a change in their own lives. Most often, I've heard people offer their love and support. We're so sorry. We're thinking of you. We care about you. We're here for you.

A friend sent us a beautiful handmade condolence card. I'd said that telling us jokes helped; this card included one and it did help, but the author worried that he/she had said The Wrong Thing and added:

I'm sorry if that lame attempt at a joke was totally inappropriate but I never quite know the right thing to say – I don't think there is a right thing to say...

Not The Wrong Thing at all – it sounds about right to me.

A Different Light

Brady Carlson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:04:37 +0000

Last night one of the overhead lightbulbs in the kitchen burned out, so I stopped by the hardware store this afternoon for a replacement. The wayward bulb was one of the last incandescents left on the main floor; I snapped its compact fluorescent successor in place without too much trouble. One more item off the to do list.

If you've ever used a CFL, you know that the light it puts out is subtly different from old-school bulbs. The light has a different tinge of color, and it's not quite as bright, so the kitchen looks different. The table and chairs and appliances are all in their usual places, but it looks different. This happened when we switched the bulbs in the bedroom, too; in time I got used to it, but the feel of the room has changed a little from when we first moved in.

Sonya and I are wading back into the real world. Each of us has gone back to work. We do laundry, we run the dishwasher, we pay bills and buy groceries. The mechanics of “regular” life are all the same as before, but they feel different now.

The light has changed. And it's gonna take some getting used to.

Obituaries

Brady Carlson — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:37:28 +0000

We live in a town that still has a newspaper, so I wrote obituaries for the kids and sent them in; they were in the paper on Thursday. This was a challenge: aside from the fact that obits were low on the list of things I'd hoped to do at age 32, obituaries are mostly about chronicling a person's life – where they worked and went to school, who they married, their hobbies. “Loved travel and knitting.” “Beloved wife of 30 years.” “Founded downtown boat store.” What do you write about people who didn't get to do any of that?

Grieving reminds you of what you've lost. My grandparents used to make 4th of July a full day for my sister and me. We'd go to the Main Street parade, get ice cream, go swimming, then walk to the park near their place for a perfect view of the fireworks. The next morning we'd get up real early, just cause we could, and it felt like the coolest thing in the world to do. When they died, the people that gave me those happy memories were gone, and it was sad, but I could come back to those memories and think of all the good times we had together. Grieving Graham and Georgia is different, because most of the time we had was anticipating what we would do together. Picking out books at the library. Taking summer naps in the backyard hammocks. Opening presents Christmas morning. As another of the depressingly large number of friends who's lost a baby wrote to us this week about their own loss: “I so wanted to know who my son would have been.” Grieving our babies is grieving dreams more than memories. So much of what we've lost we didn't quite have.

So back then, to the original problem: how do you write obituaries for people for whom facts – things that actually happened – are scarce? Based on Sonya's cravings while pregnant, one or both of the babies liked Wendy's hamburgers. One or both of them liked milk: Sonya went from drinking a typical human amount of milk to guzzling the stuff. (Whichever baby it was got this from me; my folks could've saved a lot on groceries if they'd just thought to keep a cow in the back.) Graham, who looked a little more like his dad than his mom, was caught hiccuping in two separate ultrasounds (another trait from dad). His middle name, Charles, is in honor of Sonya's grandfather. Georgia looked a bit more like her mom and, from her cries after birth, also had mother's nice loud voice. Her middle name, Margaret, is a name from my side of the family; we've had a Margaret in every generation since coming to America, including my mom, my sister and now my daughter. But none of this adds up to a particularly good obituary material, though, does it? “Georgia Margaret Carlson, April 9, 2009 – April 9, 2009. She might have liked milk.” “Graham Charles Carlson, April 8, 2009 – April 8, 2009. His hiccups will be in our memories forever.”

Their lives were different than most people's lives, so their obituaries – the sum of their accomplishments on earth – can't be marked the way most obituaries do. Their lives are told not through what they did themselves, but what they inspired in us. Knowing they were coming was exciting; it made people smile. They got me to not just see things I wanted to improve in myself, but gave me the motivation to actually do it. Even now, they remind me that the world we wanted to share with them is still worth enjoying.

They lived. They were, and are, a part of our family. They made a difference in our lives.

Different than most obituaries, but in a lot of ways, just the same.

Graham Charles Carlson died Wednesday, April 8, 2009, after being born unresponsive at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. Georgia Margaret Carlson died Thursday, April 9, 2009, about one hour after birth in the same hospital. Both were born approximately 18 weeks premature.

Though each child's time on earth was short, the happiness and love each of them inspired in those around them will last and grow.

Graham and Georgia are survived by their parents, Brady Carlson and Sonya (Budach) Carlson of Concord; their grandmother, Camille Budach of Glen Ellyn, Ill.; grandparents Kenneth Carlson and Margaret Lane of Downers Grove, Ill.; and many relatives and friends.

Private services were held through the Phaneuf Funeral Home in Manchester and the Cremation Society of New Hampshire.

Um, very funny?

Brady Carlson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:00:42 +0000

Sonya dreamed about a hummingbird last night – another sign from Georgia. I haven't seen any signs in my dreams, but sometimes I feel the kids really close by, as if they sense a wave of sadness is coming and they're on standby for Mom or Dad. Other times I get the feeling they're - well, having a little fun with us.

On Tuesday we took Sonya's mom back to the airport. She'd dropped everything to come be with us and had been a real comfort as we came to grips with what had happened, and so we were really sad to see her go. On the way back home, just ahead of us on the on-ramp, we saw a delivery truck for A&B Vending Co.

A&B are, for those who don't have twins, the labels medical people use to distinguish which twin is which in ultrasounds and other tests. We only stopped calling Graham and Georgia A&B a few weeks ago, when we found out they were a boy/girl pair, and even then we still used A&B as much as their gender-specific code names, “Luke” and “Leia.”

This morning we were running errands, essentially trying to fill our brains with busy work, and we deliberately or accidentally (I forget which) missed our usual turn to drive home. And what should we happen to drive past on our scenic route? The headquarters of A&B Lumber. We giggled. I said it would've been more subtle if they'd founded the Carlson Twins Forest Products Consortium – Grieving Parents Welcome.

My side of the family has always joked that members of the clan can have pretty much any character defect – mean, stingy, cruel, bad hairdo – as long as they're funny. A and B, you're in.

Dreams and Signs

Brady Carlson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:09:57 +0000

My mom reminded me the other day that the priest who said my grandfather's funeral Mass told us to “be watching... he's going to be sending you signs.” Graham sent his mother a sign before we'd even left the hospital. Georgia welcomed us home with hers.

The hours we spent holding these babies after their births were full of pride, love and wonder. Our nurse, Mary, took pictures as we marveled at how perfect each baby was. Every piece of these little puzzles had been put in its right place. The only thing against them was timing, and hours after Georgia's birth time was turning against us too: at 4 am not even Graham's tiny bit of fuzzy white hair or Georgia's long fingers could keep us conscious. Sonya dozed off with an assist from the pain meds in her IV; I rolled around on a fold-out hospital couch while time passed, which I guess is technically sleep.

At one point I woke in a position that faced directly toward Sonya's hospital bed, and even without my glasses I could tell she was looking straight at me too. “I had a dream Graham opened his eyes,” she said.

Babies don't open their eyes in the womb; they're sealed shut for protection. And Graham was born unresponsive; officially, neither his eyes nor any of his senses took in this world. In the dream, he opened his eyes - the windows to the soul - for his mother. We collapsed in each other's arms. Our boy had opened his eyes.

It wasn't until we got home Thursday, to a hungry cat and a familiar bed, that Sonya told me another part of the dream: Graham had not only opened his eyes, he had talked. “I love you, mama,” said her son.

----

Georgia's sign was more subtle. This was a slight surprise, as she'd declared herself a brave, defiant little soul by literally exploding out of the womb – her water didn't break until Sonya's last push (this caused our poor nurse to scream in fright) and she gave us several cries and movements before her little lungs gave out. Even then, her heart kept steady time for almost an hour while her mother ran a hand across her smooth little forehead. What kind of sign does such a free spirit give from the next life?

Years before we met, Sonya took a summer camp job in Colorado. During lunch one day, a hummingbird had found its way inside the building, and in trying to fly back out, it had somehow gotten stuck in the glass panes of the open window. As they pulled the panicked bird out, she realized it needed a moment of calm before it would be ready to fly free again. She put it in her hand, on its back, and held it for a short, short moment before it went on its way.

We spent Thursday night at home, but mentally we were still at the hospital. So when we woke Friday we made a point to keep our minds and bodies busy with a long walk into town. Two hours and lots of tears later we were back home, and we decided to take a lap around our own yard before heading inside.

“Quick - look,” Sonya said, pointing at something moving among the row of pine trees running alongside our house. “We've never had a hummingbird here before.” We watched it fly up toward the tops of the trees and something told me instantly who'd sent it. We'd held her on her way from one world and now we would see her fly to the next. Our free spirit was free again.

Thank you, dreamer. Thank you, hummingbird.

Flowers

Brady Carlson — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:10:54 +0000

We've received many beautiful messages this week. Sadly, many of them include stories of losses like ours. One of my friends shared a passage from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn and said it offered comfort in his/her grief:

"In my hermitage in France there is a bush of japonica, Japanese quince. The bush usually blossoms in the spring, but one winter it had been quite warm and the flower buds had come early. During the night a cold snap arrived and brought with it frost. The next day while doing walking meditation, I noticed that all the buds on the bush had died ... A few weeks later the weather became warm again. As I walked in my garden I saw new buds on the japonica manifesting another generation of flowers. I asked the japonica flowers: 'Are you the same as the flowers that died in the frost or are you different flowers?' The flowers replied to me: “Thay, we are not the same and we are not different. When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not sufficient we go into hiding. It's as simple as that.'

“This is what the Buddha taught. When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again.

...

“If a baby has been lost it means that conditions were not enough for him to manifest and the child has decided to withdraw in order to wait for better conditions. 'I had better withdraw; I'll come back again soon, my dearest.' We have to respect his or her will... It is because there were not sufficient causes and conditions for it to arrive at that time. It will come again."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh, No death, No fear (2002:3-4;13-14).

April 8th – Graham's birthday, and the day we went into labor with both Graham and Georgia – is also the birthday of the Buddha. He taught that the only way to free ourselves from the pain of death and impermanence is to confront and, eventually, accept that the world has its own way. To let go of our own fear and sadness and find our true nature in love and compassion.

Our babies had neither fear nor pain; they just had love and beauty. And that helped us set our grief aside long enough to find our true natures and love them while they were with us. We're trying to draw strength from that now.

I'd never heard of Japonica, or flowering quince, before reading this passage, but it strikes me as something familiar now. Its foliage emerges in the spring and shows itself for only a short time. But its beauty, while not long-lasting, is striking, and its many branches make it easy to share with others.

My beautiful flowers. If and when conditions are right for you to come again, your mother and I will be watching.