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.

Another R.V. Retreat

My friend M from the Rachel's Vineyard retreat I went to in 2010 and I are registered to go to the R.V. retreat taking place next month.  In a way, I'm excited, because once you've done two retreats you are eligible to help out with future retreats.  I think it will be extremely healing for me to help others in the future with this.

The only part I am dreading is the memorial service on the last day when I have to put the little doll representing Claudia in the cradle.  I remember from the last retreat that for quite a while I couldn't even think about that ritual without crying.  My therapist has told me that he would discuss that worry with me and help me get through it.  And ... he wants to go to this second retreat's memorial service with me!  YEAH!

The first retreat was held at a bed and breakfast about 30 minutes away near the mountains, but this one is going to be held at a large rented house that's a whopping three-minute drive from me.  Funny!  Some retreat, eh?

40 Days For Life

After the Rachel's Vineyard retreat I went to in 2010, the coordinators of the retreat have been active in pro-life things (going to the rally in Santa Fe for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, etc.).  At first, coming from a post-abortive standpoint, it feels kind of hypocritical to stand for something pro-life when you had one taken away.  But lately I've been feeling like I'm pro-life as in "I don't want anyone else to go through the same hell I am."

Usually during Lent there is a 40 Days For Life (pro-life) prayer campaign going on, where it lists clinics in your area that daily prayer vigils are being held at.  You can also do fasting, either for a meal every day or give up something important for the 40 days (like you would for Lent).  This time it's from September 26 to November 4, probably to coincide with the election.

There aren't any vigils being held in my city.  Since I can't physically give up food for health reasons, I've been fasting from ... Facebook!  My public P.R. reason or "spin" on it though is that I'm sick of all the political posts so I'm not signing in till the election.  (Which isn't exactly a lie but it's not actually the real reason I'm not on there.)  Now that I had been forced in August to convert to the Timeline, I had started to play Mahjong there a lot and listen to music on that wonderful app, Spotify.  Oh, I do miss them! But I signed up for the 40 Days For Life daily emails and devotionals for this campaign, and honestly they are really helping and blessing me.  It's so worth it.

Un Increíble Conversación de Almuerzo

No, I haven't suddenly learned Spanish, and actually I blame Bing Translation if the title isn't the correct way to say "An amazing lunch conversation." I've kept in contact with my roommate ("M") from the Rachel's Vineyard retreat I went to a couple years ago.  We went to lunch today at an authentic Mexican restaurant here in town.  A mariachi band (two guitarists, a violinist and a trumpeter) was playing for the lunch crowd and it was so awesome.

M retired a few months ago and has been traveling in Europe with her husband and their two young adult children.  She told me about an incident that happened in Spain, and she said I could share it with everyone everywhere to show how amazing God is.  Her son and daughter went out dancing at a club since the drinking age is lower in Spain.  At 2:00 a.m. the kids still weren't back at the hotel and M's husband wondered if he should check on them but she told him they would be all right.  The next morning they were getting ready to go on a tour bus and M went to her kids' hotel room to get them.  Her daughter answered the door frantic - her brother wouldn't wake up.  (Even though I knew the ending must have been okay since M was calmly telling me about it, I started crying.)  M was shaking him, she tried moving his arms and they were just limp, and she said his breathing sounded like rattling and then she couldn't hear him breathing at all.

M was hysterical screaming and the hotel personnel called for an ambulance.  A man who just happened to be walking by with his girlfriend said he was a doctor from Israel and asked if he could look at her son.  He rolled her son onto his side and a bunch of watery vomit dribbled out.  The man cut her son's shirt off him and was going to give him CPR, but he started breathing by the time the ambulance got there.  They took him to the hospital and he didn't wake up the whole day.  M said he was released from the hospital and began to feel like himself about three days later but she just wanted to cancel the whole trip and go home.  Her son said he got a bottle of Absinthe (which M said is illegal here in the U.S.?) and his friends back in America were on video chat telling him to "have a shot for me."  He said the last thing he remembers is drinking the third shot.

M's husband had given the Israeli doctor his business card.  After they came home from the trip, the doctor sent her husband a message asking how their son was and said that he and his girlfriend had overslept that day in Spain and ended up missing the bus for their own tour.  If they hadn't missed that bus and heard M screaming, her son would have died.  God's timing is perfect in everything.  I want to trust that for my own life too.

A hard goodbye

(Written on 10/26/12 for event 9/12/12)

I had a friend Nancy from church, and for two and a half years I sat behind her and her husband at the early service but I quit going to church after Easter 2011 (long story) and have just been doing church on the internet instead.  About seven months ago I had gone to the church again just to get a phone number from my old Sunday school teacher (who I hate).  As I was walking back to my car, I saw Nancy standing in the parking lot with her husband talking to another couple.  She was carting an oxygen tank (because she had lung cancer).

I marched right up to her, no qualms at all, right in front of them all, and looked her square in the face and said, "I love you!"  She looked a little surprised but then said she loved me too.

Nancy and I have the same birthday even though she's 21 years older than me.  We both love dogs.  She loved Humphrey Bogart.  During the time I knew her, I had been to her house for lunch once and got to meet her big dog named Bogey.  Another time she invited me and another lady to Cracker Barrel for lunch.  I will never forget how she said grace that day.  She held both our hands and prayed, "God, thank you for my friends."  It made me feel so good to hear her call me a friend.  One Christmas eve service, my husband and kids had gone with me and I introduced her to them.  My oldest son always referred to her as my "surrogate mom" and his surrogate grandma (because my own mother isn't very loving and my husband's mother is even less loving than mine, only interested in her money).

On our birthday in July this year, Nancy had to go to Mayo Clinic to consult about her voice (she could only talk in a whisper at that point).  They said there wasn't anything further they could do for her cancer.  Although she was happy to be going home with Jesus, we were all pretty much in shock.  For the rest of the summer, I kept thinking I should go visit her but I was scared.  I wouldn't even look further in myself to find out why I was scared.  I ended up writing her a couple of letters in the regular mail.  Even though I already had been "brazen" enough to tell her I loved her (and in front of people, no less!), I wrote her everything I felt about her, no holds barred.  I told her I regretted not telling two friends I had worked with in Florida how I felt about them before they died and I didn't want that to happen again.  She emailed me a nice response and thanked me a lot for sharing everything in my heart.

Then hospice came into the picture.  Again I thought about visiting her.  I even talked about it with my therapist.  I was so despondent and scared about going that he even said he would go with me if that would help.  I didn't want to be a burden on him though.  That's way outside the scope of his job to visit her with me.

I wrote Nancy another letter and mailed it.  I know this will sound totally insane, but I didn't want her to get to Heaven and be surprised to see Claudia.  I didn't want Nancy to be mad at me for not telling her about Claudia either.  I know, I was just so paranoid that when Nancy got to Heaven that even Claudia would be mad at ME for not telling Nancy about her, and then they'd spend years talking about what a jerk I was, and then when I'd finally get to Heaven they would both hate me.  (It's irrational, I know now, to think like this, but I was panicked and upset at the time.)  So in my second letter, I told her all about the guy I went out with, what happened and me getting pregnant, and what happened to Claudia.  I remember one of the last things I wrote was "So if you get to Heaven and see someone who looks a lot like me, that's Claudia, and I love her."

I decided to call the pastor's wife one week to see if she would go with me to see Nancy.  I waited for four days for her to return my call and then I called the church again, mad as a hornet.  Their story was that the receptionist got sick the day I called and never wrote the message so his wife didn't even know I was trying to call.  The pastor's wife said she was busy all that week and we would go on Wednesday the next week.

Sunday, September 2, was my daughter's birthday.  My husband had gone to the mall with her, her friend and her brother, so I was home by myself watching "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dance and Charm School" and folding my husband's laundry when the phone rang.  It was the pastor's wife informing me that Nancy had passed away.  I screamed, I cried, and she told me she'd let me know when the funeral was.  When my husband and kids got home, I put on a blank face because I didn't want to ruin my daughter's birthday.  I waited over a week to tell him.

I talked to my therapist that week about being scared to go to the funeral, and he had said he would go with me.  (Which, I thought he literally meant "he would go with me" but later I found out since I didn't actually ASK him to go with me, he didn't think I wanted him to go with me.  I know, weird.)

Wednesday, September 12, was the memorial service with just pictures.  My therapist was nowhere in the sanctuary so the pastor's wife said I could sit by her and her friends, a couple who she introduced as her "surrogate parents."  (Wow, I thought that was neat she had surrogates too.)  I cried so much during the service that those friends came up to me later and said they were sorry for the loss of my friend.

The worship leader sang a solo of "I Can Only Imagine."  One of Nancy's close friends gave a little speech about the fun times they had at Starbucks every week.  One of her stepchildren read a letter from her biological son (who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair and couldn't travel).  The worship leader sang another solo of "Amazing Grace" (the Chris Tomlin version).  Her Bible study leader said a few words.  A trio from the choir from the early service (that me and Nancy always went to) sang a song.  Then, believe it or not, Nancy's husband gave a eulogy about his wife.  (I didn't know she was the "legs girl" for the old advertisement for Legg's pantyhose in the late 70's.)  Then they were supposed to have a song played from a CD but there were audio problems and I didn't even know what it was supposed to be (turns out it was "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion).  

They had a lunch afterwards of just rolls and ham and potato salad and some kind of jello salad and chocolate cake.  Each table had a centerpiece of daisies (her favorite flower) in a clear glass vase.  They said we could take some home so I did.  Then her husband walked up to me while I was eating and gave me a letter Nancy had written me a month ago.  I was the only one at the funeral who got one.  I waited till I went to my next session the next week to read it with my therapist.  In her letter, part of it said that when she gets scared of dying, she thinks of all the people she loves who are in Heaven waiting for her, and then she said she and Claudia would wait for me.

In one of my sessions after that, I decided or discovered that the reason I was too scared to go visit her was because I couldn't bear to say goodbye.  I wish she was still here and I wish she never had to die.  I can say that about my other friends I mentioned, my grandmas, even Claudia.