grief: a long list

November 19, 2009 at 10:52 pm (Emotions) (dealing with miscarriage, grief, grieving a miscarriage)

I came across another blog today which shared an article about how grief due to a miscarriage is different from other types of grief. It has a long list of items, and I found myself nodding in agreement at so many of them. You can view the list here.

I have thought many times about how this loss compares to the other tragedy of my life. I lost my dad when I was very young, only 14. I loved him – he was the sun. I was his good little helper, a daddy’s girl. We did silly little things, like keep our watches perfectly in sync. When I was little, I would greet him from the second step of the staircase when he got home from work. He would put down his briefcase and I would jump from the step into his arms. Eventually, he had to tell me that I was just getting to be too big for that. But we would always have our special bear hug.

In the weeks before his death, he was recovering well from his bypass surgery. He was told that he had lost too much of his vision, that he was now legally blind and would likely never be able to drive again.  True to his form, he never accepted that and never wavered in his belief that he would recover and drive again. And of course he did. He was getting well in every way, I thought. He was fine. And then one day, I got a frantic call from my neighbor telling me that my dad was lying outside on the steps. He was still alive when I found him. His eyes were wild and bewildered and lost. He couldn’t speak. I suppose I called an ambulance, or maybe my neighbor did. The paramedics asked if I wanted to ride with them to the hospital or if I would get a ride there. Not knowing how I would get home if I went with them, I got a ride from another one of my neighbors (an ex-football player) instead. By the time we got to the hospital, it was too late. A counsellor took me into a warmly lit room with a lamp and a couch and a box of tissues. I went home.

I don’t think that the grief from my dad’s death is at all like the grief with my miscarriage. There is sadness in both, but not the same kind. There was no guilt with my dad, no sense of betrayal, no jealousy, no failure. I don’t think I was even angry. With my miscarriage, I feel all of those things and more.

I think one of the most difficult parts of having to deal with a miscarriage is that feeling that my future was taken from me. Grieving for my dad, I think of all of the wonderful memories we had together, like ice skating in the winter on a frozen lake. In grieving for my lost baby, I can only think of all of those memories we never got to have.