melting walls

Hi, Alex -
I'm so sorry to hear about the pain in your sternum. Of course it threw you into a panic, and of course it has narrowed your lens and reignited fear, albeit temporarily. And the anniversary of the diagnosis -- the return of the weather, the smells, the state of earthen hibernation that surrounds you, which is now associated in your body with the diagnosis, with feeling sick, with feeling scared, with feeling sad -- should not be underestimated. Powerful powerful powerful. Yes, it is what it is; that's true of your feelings, too. And I wish it could be something different.

I want to tell you about another inspiring woman in my life who is in pain, and is in hope. I find myself thinking about the two of you so often that I almost imagine you know one another. Of course you don't, but you can know each other's stories. Her name is Eleanor. She is one of my close friends here in Vermont, and we met because our daughters, now almost 7, became best of friends when they were 3. Ever since then, Eleanor and her husband have been trying to have another baby. She got pregnant, and had a miscarriage. That happened again. She saw doctors, saw naturopaths, changed her diet, started supplements. Go pregant again, and had another miscarriage. And another. More doctors, more alternative treatments. And one more miscarriage. Five. Her daughter so wants to be a big sister. She so wants another baby. The struggle is daily for them, it's always in their consciousness. They started trying to adopt. They were given the chance to choose a baby in Guatemala, which they did. They chose the little boy who looked just like her husband's father, who had just been killed, along with his mother, by a drunken driver. Yes, in the midst of 5 miscarriages, they also lost two parents. So, they choose this baby, and then right before it is finalized, Guatemala closed their doors to US adoptions. They started over, had a couple other near misses, including one where they were at the hotel, waiting for the baby to be delivered to them -- it will be tomorrow, it will be tomorrow, it will be tomorrow, they were told, until finally they were told, no, the baby has gone to family members, instead. They flew home empty handed. So, two weeks ago, they get a call. There was a woman in Arizona in labor, and she wanted to give her baby to an adoptive family. Did they want the baby? Ten hours later they were on a plane to Arizona. They took the baby from the hospital back to their hotel and waited to the 72 hours that are required by AZ law to pass before the birth mother couldsign the final papers. It was a grueling 72 hours. Eleanor desperately wanted to love this baby, wanted to feel hope, wanted to feel joy. All she felt was scared. The walls had grown so thick from loss, from pain, from fear. It was nearly impossible to feel free to love and to hope. But over the course of a few days, she was racked with emotion. She grieved and grieved and grieved all her previous losses. She felt her fear, she felt her heartache, and then she also was able to feel her love and her hope, again. But she realized that she couldn't get to one without the other. After a few days, although she continued to sob in her sleep and dream that the baby would be taken away, she loved her. She even started to lactate. But...they did, in fact, take that baby away. The birth mom could never bring herself tosign the papers, she changed her mind, and the social worker came to the hotel and took the baby away. I am sure I will never forget the sound of Eleanor's cries on the phone telling me, "They just took her away. They were here, and they took her away." Of course, the sadness the sadness the sadness. But I also felt so afraid for her, Alex. I was so afraid that the wall was going to come back up, and be impenetrable. I was afraid she would never open up to the love and the hope again after the torture of more loss and more pain and more fear.

But I saw her today. She is home. We stood and hugged and cried in front of the elementary school where we were picking up our best friend daughters (who came out of the schoolside byside with easy smiles and about an inch between them a few minutes later). She told me that her daughter had asked her last night whether they were really going to get a baby someday. I held my breath to hear her response. She said, "Yes! I am more sure of it now than ever before! This was such an important part of this porcess. we had to go through this, this was part of the journey, and we are more ready than ever, now."

She has your fortitude, your persistence, your power, your strength. And she really took in the learning, the lesson, that you can't feel the love and the hope without accepting and feeling the fear and the pain and the loss. One opens the door to the other. Your emotionally fragile times are not your flaw, and they are not your weakness. They are part of the journey, and you can't feel the love and the hope without them.

I love you - Lindsay