An Excruciating Requirement of Being Human

I think grieving the loss of a child is, in a strange way, like giving birth. So much in our culture tells us we can't bear the pain, that we should take a pill or an anesthetic because comfort is more valuable than the journey through the agony to the other side. I was raised by a woman who believed in our innate ability to give birth. She refused the common practice of being put under during labor. She wanted to feel it all. She told me that women were born to give birth, we've been doing it for millennia and humans have survived because of our ability to get through the intensity. When I went into labor with Hunter I was 40 years old and determined to give birth at home, in water, in community. It was the most exhausting, amazing, intense, painful, and rewarding rite of passage in my life. I remember one point when I was moaning/chanting like a Tibetan monk, concentrating every breath and muscle and intention on safe passage for this baby-- a few people were chatting with the midwife and I opened my eyes and said to them "Please, go elsewhere-- this is hard work and I need to focus" (ok, I probably said "shut the fuck up- I'm giving birth!) but you get the idea. I couldn't have any distractions around me it was that sacred. I never begged for someone to take away the pain because my body trusted that it would be worth every cry, every gasp of breath. And when Hunter slid into the water the pain immediately subsided and there, in my arms, was the child that had started as my deepest dream and was now breathing on his own.

I believe grief is similar-- an excruciating requirement of being human. It's a rite of passage, a tunnel through which I must pass. And so, I will not numb the pain. I will not be distracted from the work of it, because if I do this well, if I learn how to let it flow through me and shape me into something altogether new, then it will be worth it.