Claudia's Letter from the Retreat

This is like really personal but I will share the letter I wrote to Claudia for the memorial service at the retreat.  Like I mentioned in my other post, I was really pleased with how it turned out.  (The letter from the first retreat I went to wasn't very good so I never shared it on here.)  The thing I was dealing with in this retreat (and even before I went) is that I knew in advance we were going to have to put our little bereavement dolls in the cradle at the end of the service and I was panicked about it.  I was feeling like the "doll Claudia" (or even the real Claudia back in 1985) was scared the same way I used to be scared to be in a hospital having surgery as a child.  I wanted to reassure "doll Claudia"/real Claudia in the same way that I wish I had been reassured by my mother.  

Since my first memorial letter was weird and written by my current self, this time I was trying just to write the letter as coming from my 17-year-old self.  And I think it turned out fabulous and healing for all of us: current me, 17-year-old me, child me, "doll Claudia," and real Claudia.  Standing up there in front of everyone and reading it, I cried so much but I wasn't that embarrassed because it was totally from my heart and for Claudia.

Dear Claudia,

I deeply regret that I pushed you out of my mind for so many years.  I would've been a good mother to you.  I would've loved you with my whole heart.  I do love you now and I'm always gonna think about you till the day I die.  Even though you aren't here with me, you'll be in my heart.

I can't wait to see you someday in Heaven.  I bet time will go quick for you.  Jesus will take good care of you so don't worry.  I'm sorry you got hurt.

You are so important to me.  I wanted you and I wish I had fought harder for you.

I can't say goodbye because it hurts too much, so I'm saying see you soon.

I love you Claudia.  Everything's gonna be OK.

Love,

Mommy

My Anger Letter from Retreat

During the retreat, we had an anger exercise where you pick one person you are still mad at and write them a letter for 15 minutes, which you don't have to send to them but you could share with the rest of the group that weekend.  I've been so mad at her lately about other things that I didn't want to start it off with "Dear Mom" because that seemed too friendly.  Here's what I wrote:

Dear Mother,

I'm angry at you for not helping me when I was pregnant.  I'm angry that you think you know what's best for everyone including me, and you won't accept me as I am.  I'm angry that you have to be so smug and aloof all the time.  When I'm sad, you act impatient.  I hate that everyone thinks you're a perfect mom.  You do everything perfect and right but you don't love me.  I used to hate myself because I wasn't as good of mom as you, but at least I love my kids and I tell them!

You attributed a lot of signs* about my day at the abortion clinic to God for some sick reason and I hate you for that.  I know they were from the pit of hell.  God wouldn't have wanted my baby stolen from me.  [This is all I had time to write.]

*These were the signs:

1. She tried calling the pastor of her church for advice about my pregnancy.  He was on vacation out of state, so she told me that was a "sign" that an abortion was the right thing to do.
2. The weather had been horrible (blizzards) the whole three days before the abortion date.  But the day we went, the highway to Rockford was completely free of snow, so she told me that was a "sign" that an abortion was the right thing to do.
3. (The sickest one) The abortion doctor came into the recovery room afterwards and told me that my family doctor (the one who actually made the appointment for me at this clinic) was a friend of his and they went to medical school together, and my mother also thought that was a "sign" that an abortion was the right thing to do.

I think it did help to write this letter even though I'll never send it.  If I ever did send it, she would self-righteously protest that she was doing what was best for me, in her know-it-all way.

My Second R.V. Retreat

Last weekend I attended another retreat for Rachel's Vineyard.  I wanted to do a second one so I would be eligible to help at future retreats.

The house it was held at was just a couple minutes from my house, but I completely forgot how close it is after I first walked in there.  From the street view, you have no idea the house is so big.  I shared a huge dorm-size room (eight cots) with one other person, T.  She was from Albuquerque.

There were two couples besides me and T.  One couple was the husband supporting the wife and the other couple was the wife supporting her husband.  I just love the feeling when you first get there and everyone is so loving and accepting.

The food preparation was a little different because parts of the house had no electricity so everything had to be catered in.

My flowers from retreat

The format for the retreat was the same as my first retreat (which you can read Day 1, Day 2, Day 3), with the exception of:

• The priest this time was Enrique - he had a thick Hispanic accent but he was very helpful.
• The rocks we had to carry were all about hand-sized instead of lugging around a burdensome one, and the counselors were more lenient if you forgot your rock.
• For the anger letter exercise, this time I wrote to my mother.
• An additional anger exercise was us forming a circle and then tossing a pillow to each other, and when you have the pillow you say one bad way of expressing anger.  Then we did it again and gave suggestions on good ways to express it.  (I think this helped because the two men in the group were military veterans.)

For Saturday night's "Adoration" (where you sign up for time alone to sit with God and pray for an hour), my roommate T picked 5:00 a.m. Sunday so I picked 6:00 a.m.  At first I was annoyed because I didn't bring a book to read and I already wrote my letter for the memorial service, so ... I ... actually ... prayed.  And before I knew it, my hour was over!  At first I was just thanking God for stuff, like how lovely everyone was to me that weekend, but then I got kind of serious because I was dreading the memorial service part where you put your doll in the cradle.  Even though I was crying, I felt like God understood me.  I also told him I'm feeling like giving up because this grief is going on forever and asking Him if I'm ever going to stop hurting so bad.  Well, for the first question, I felt in my heart that God was saying that it's okay if I put the doll in the cradle because He will take care of our babies till we get there.  I felt that as clear as day.  I didn't feel anything from him about my second request.

Bereavement doll (Claudia)

 The Memorial Service

Once again my therapist attended the ceremony.  In counseling we have been working on saying what I need from him without worrying that he's going to be mad at me for asking.  I've been trusting him a lot lately.  When I first saw him Sunday, I walked up to him and told him that I liked how he felt to me in sessions so could the ceremony count as a session.  (I like how I can yell or cry or say ANYTHING during a session, even swearing, and then the next week I come in and he's the same loving person he was last week, and I just craved that for the ceremony in case I went to pieces.)

And he said sure.  Which is good, because I went to pieces.  I mean, the first retreat I went to, my roommate M broke down reading her letter to her baby; this retreat I did that, and even though it's mortifying to cry in public, it felt good in a way.  My letter was different this time because I wrote it from the perspective of what I wished my mother would say to me (especially those times I was having surgery in a hospital).  When I was up there reading it, it felt like I was the 17-year-old me saying it to Claudia.  I don't care for the letters I wrote at the first retreat, but I actually am pleased with the letter for the second retreat.  My therapist is making a photocopy of it for my file and I'll add it to my blog when I get it back.

After everyone read their letters, we had to get the Certificate of Life and a rose and a pin, and then put the doll baby in the cradle.  I was so panicked.  My therapist had talked to me a little bit before the ceremony started and he had brilliantly thought of something I could say to my doll before I put it in the cradle.  It felt so perfect and healing for me.  When it was my turn for the cradle, I literally screamed, "What do I say, again?!" and he patiently re-told me.  I walked up and said, "I still love you and you're still mine."  I felt it healed something inside me but I couldn't tell exactly what.

The priest had everyone leave the room so they could set up for mass, and me and my counselor skipped mass and just sat in the living room talking for about half an hour, and then he had to leave.

I do believe it was no accident that I wrote the letter from a 17-year-old me standpoint.  All this time I had felt like something was stolen from me.  After my hysterectomy in 2008, that feeling got excruciatingly worse.  And I love what my therapist came up with to say, because even though Claudia's in Heaven and even though people back then didn't want me to have her and people nowadays want me to get over it, she's still mine.