Bye Bye Baby

While I think it's fantastic that my words spurred the following women to do something other than Photoshop pictures of their miscarriages into scenes of the Garden of Eden, I have to question whether their loss is truly heaven's gain. Perhaps a few creatures that thrive on the flesh of rotting corpses are kicking up their heels in celebration at their loss, but I doubt that big daddy in the sky is throwing a Welcome Home party for each new encephalitic arrival.

Sure, it gets these women through the day, but do they need to share their grief with the world? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but grief is one of those emotions that, you know, should be private -- unless it can be exploited to serve some sort of personal or political agenda, and I'm not sure what point they're trying to further by writing really bad poetry to a five-month-old fetus. The sad part is, I don't seek out these sites; the women come to me. Thanks. You're taking up space that could be better served by another International Lottery e-mail.

This is why the Internet is so boring. For too many people, it's become an escape from reality. Hang out with your cyberbuddies and post every five minutes about how the world is out to get you and your uterus instead of leaving the house and getting on with life.

Did you watch your family get hacked to pieces? Did you have to resettle to a refugee camp, where death was in the air, water, and whatever morsel of food you could scrounge up? No? Then say a few prayers to the Buttercup- or-Blossom-shaped urn and move on. Your suffering isn't unique or interesting, and while the personal obviously is more important to humans, there are other things in the world you could focus your energy on that are more rewarding than organizing weekly chats on how the evolution of your grief is progressing. You know, like fighting injustice and all of that other bullshit.

Death is natural. It happens. Yes, it can cut through you and make you do stupid things. Losing a large part of your life -- although one could rightly question the extent to which a fetus with no known personality traits and that has not had a chance to embed itself into your existence could be a large part of your life -- can be difficult. But if you can't find the will and strength to get over it, please do us all a favor and give God another party planner.

The introduction to their Yahoo group -- which, okay, I had to check out -- is telling about their level of self-absorption and insulation from reality due to their surrounding themselves with equally insulated people: "Losing a child is the hardest thing that anyone could ever go through."

Really?

How about the woman who briefly lived after the Staten Island ferry crash but ultimately succumbed to injuries that included a sheared-off ear, the amputation of both her legs, and her mid-section nearly sliced in half? I think if she had lived and had been cognizant of her condition, that'd be pretty hard, too. If I had to choose between my limbs and the majority of my relatives, Ms. Hand and Mr. Foot would win out each time. Sorry, cuz.

Maybe if I were a young child and I lost both of my parents in an accident, and I was shipped off to live with an abusive relative, that might be hard. I don't know. What do you think? Nah, nothing can be harder than losing an offspring to which you had no considerable attachment.

For your enlightenment: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Our_Loss_Heavens_Gain/

CC: Our_Loss_Heavens_Gain@yahoogroups.com I can not belive how you would make a choice to voice your opinion in such a rude & uncaring manner.

TMB: I can't believe you'd read the entire article. Even Opera has a back button.

Maybe the women & men who make these websites are bringing some closure to what has happened to them.

TMB: Or maybe they're self-absorbed.

If it has never happened to you how can you voice what you think when you've never been in that situation.

TMB: I've had family members die. I didn't take pictures of their corpses and post them on a Web site, nor did I write poetry that would make sixth graders from Newark cringe. Do you think it would have increased my hits?

Its not wrong!

TMB: Nothing is wrong! This is America! Everything is right! Moral relativism rules! Yay! Yay, America! Yay to never questioning the motives behind people's actions! Yay to the victim mentality!

Plenty of people try to get pregnant & the moment they find out they are pregnant they are estatic & fully attached to what you call a clump of cells. At 6 weeks pregnant that little thing you call a clump of cells has a heartbeat, which means it has a soul.

TMB: No, it means it has a functioning internal organ. Is there some religious dogma I'm not aware of that states a soul enters a fetus when a heartbeat can be detected?

If you really think about it, it has a soul from the moment of conception.

TMB: If I really think about it, you're a kook.

I am 9 1/2 wks pregnant with my 4th child, we tried to conceive this baby for 2 yrs and I found out i was pregnant at 5wks. I am very very attached to this child.

TMB: You are very, very attached to the idea of the child -- your hopes and your dreams for it.

My second son was stillborn and he has a memorial website.

TMB: But why? Would you make a memorial to your grandparents? Probably not. Would you have made a memorial if your son died at 18? I doubt it. Because your grandparents' lives played out. You saw what they became. You knew what their personalities were, and what choices they made. Unlike if your son had died at 18, his early death made him an unknown, so you can project onto him endless theories of reality. You're mourning those potential realities, not the actual being because there was no being worth grieving over.

Honestly it is each & every persons differnt choice on how to grieve with the loss of someone, anyone.

TMB: True enough, but most people don't choose to grieve publicly. If they do, they should expect outsiders to bear witness to the grief and comment on it. The Internet isn't your private therapy session.

Remember to someone else the fetus maybe just as important as thier grandmother,brother or sister.

TMB: If a five-month-old fetus, with no personality and no history, is as important as someone's living, breathing, aging relatives and friends, someone has skewed priorities.

I don't want to sound rude, every person is alowd their own opinion but if you were really in that situation you need to think about what you would do......

TMB: Party?

its not matter of right or wrong. But a matter of the person.

TMB: Yeah, man. If someone wants to take a dump on your table at Chili's, it's not a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of the person. Some people want to defecate in public, and that's cool because this is America. Yay, America!

So personally I don't think its right that you are downing other people by how they grieve over a loved one, they are all the same. Each loved one has a soul & right to be grieved over, weither a 99yr old woman or a 9week old fetus.

TMB: But it's not a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of the person. As a person, who matters, I say that you're wrong.

Amber Shiflett
Mother to Christian 12/1/99
My angel man Cameron 6/14/00-6/14/00
Camden my lil' bugger 7/20/01
and baby #4 10/4/04

TMB: Christian. Cameron. Camden. Doesn't that say it all?

I read your article with an open mind. I agreed with much of it, however some of it you are wrong about. I am a parent who lost a child to SIDS. I have never miscarried or had a still birth. I have known many women who have. What you are failing to recognize is that when a woman gets pregnant she loves her child from that moment. The love a mother feels for her unborn child is comparable only with the love she feels once the child is born.

TMB: I'm intrigued by the notion that a mother's love is somehow "special" and that no one could possibly love another human being as greatly as a mother loves her (biological) child. Certainly, it's a different kind of relationship from a husband and wife or brother and sister, but it implies that a mother's feelings for her infant are based on something other than the hormones racing through her body that shout, "Don't kill it! It's cute! It's yours! Don't leave it in the woods for the wolves to eat!"

Given the number of women who drink, smoke, and use drugs during pregnancy, though, I'd guess this feeling isn't universal.

I can only assume you are not a parent or you would know this.

TMB: I can only assume you're shallow and can't conceive of anyone having strong ties to humans that, get this, might not even be related to them by blood. Some of those people, believe it or not, lose those loved ones without creating a creepy memorial Web site.

So while the mother may not be mourning the loss of a 'person' they knew they are mourning the loss of a person they loved. I do not know any women who lost a child who think their child was to be president or any other great power. They only wanted to know their child, hug them. nurse them, love them, watch them grow. You are correct, they are in part mourning loss of potential. What could have been, what should have been. Not in a grandios was, in a motherly way.

TMB: Because, yes, we know, mothers are special creatures. Wooden plaques on kitchen walls everywhere have convinced us of this.

These babies do look like babies, not like a clump of cells. If you truly have seen the pictures you would know that. Psychologists and hospitals are encouraging families to take photos so they have reminders. I know that those who have photos of their child feel so happy they do, and those who do not often wish they did. It is something tangible to help heal. Certainly you would have photos of a living loved one, and when they die you can look at their photo.

TMB: Truth to be told, I don't understand the importance of photographs. I don't have many photos of family, and no one in my family places any great value on them. I know what my friends and family look like. When they die, I won't forget that Grandma had a beer gut or Uncle Mike could have benefited from growing up in an age when Accutane was readily available. Even if I had an entire stack of photo albums, chances are each picture would be of a person who was breathing at the time, not decomposing.

And what I wouldn't need to do is "heal." Because death, even if it takes fetuses, is completely natural, and when you live in a world of pollution, McDonald's fries, Muslims, and random violence, hey, get used to it.

The other statement you made was that angel baby webrings only prolong mourning. I disagree for the most part. Certainly there are some people who get trapped in a grieving process, unable to break free. But that happens in all grieving, whether the person 'lived' or not. There are just some who are unable to cope.

TMB: And creating a Web site memorial, complete with cheesy music, is a clear sign that one is unable to cope.

Mostly, these sites and groups help enormously! I know for me it helped so much to know others had lived through loss and were okay.

TMB: I have to wonder about those who are so sheltered that they don't realize that other people have experienced losses and managed to overcome them without a Yahoo group. Did you think your situation was that unique?

I know these sites help others too. I have seen it with my own eyes. To be able to help a grieving mother smile for the first time since loosing a child, that is a feeling I won't soon forget. To be able to offer an ear, a shoulder to cry on, that helps when you feel alone. The best part of these web sites and groups is when the same woman who came to the group babbling incoherently and crying for days on end is able to say to a newly grieving mother....It will get better, in time. That is the true testament to any support group.

TMB: More power to you if it gets you to shut up about it, but don't be surprised that there are people who are critical of your support groups or memorial sites.

I can understand your ignorance on this subject and do not begrudge you for it. I do think you should find out more before making sweeping statements about a subject you have no clear knowledge of. I hope you never know the hurt and heartache of loosing a child, one who has lived or was to live.

TMB: Again, because losing a child is the absolute worst thing that can ever happen in the world, and anyone who hasn't lost a child will never know what it truly means to suffer. No, no self-absorption there.

C. Anderson

Merry meet...

TMB: You know it's never a good sign when someone opens an e-mail with that. Don't you have some granola to crunch or a bonfire to dance naked around?

In response to the article titled, "Die, Die" on your website:

**While I do agree with some of what was stated in the article there are a few points that I must address to the author. a) Even as a Non-Christian I take offense with the idea that life is not sacred... it is, the "human species" has forgotten that it is, and therefore does not treat it as such... and in my mind that includes Christians, as many are not exempt from forgetting about the sacredness of life either.

TMB: Life is not sacred. Lives are a dime a dozen. Kill one, someone in Pakistan will churn out 10 more. But true, there isn't much worth to a Paki, is there?

b) It is obvious that you have never lost a child, so you should refrain from offering an expert opinion in a topic that you have neither experienced nor researched.

TMB: I've never been raped, either, but I'm pretty sure it sucks to get bent over a chair by a 5'5 Dominican named Jose with rank breath and a knife to your throat. I'm just supposin'.

c) While I am certain of the existance of the "immortal soul" and that it continues on after the death of our physical bodies... grief is natural, not to do so would make us less than animals... yes, animals grieve also, I have witnessed it many times especially with dogs as well as other domesticated animals. I have even seen a dog that was so grief stricken at the loss of her puppies that she laied over thier burrial site for nearly 2 days... she certainly did not understand that her actions could be viewed as morbid or fearful.

TMB: Grief is natural. A Web site with Celine Dion midis and photos of a dead baby is morbid entertainment.

d) It would appear that you have given yourself the title of GOD...

TMB: Actually, "Goddess," but at least you've recognized my divinity.

who are you to determine that the life of a fetus or infant is less significant than that of an older child or adult? As a woman that has experienced the miracle of having a life growing within her body, I know first hand that a fetus in the last half of pregancy is quite aware of sounds and can even reacts to outside stimulus... I watched on an ultrasound, more than once, as the technician moved the doppler and my son followed it's movements with his hands and with his face.

See, it's those buzz words that get me. "The miracle" of pregnancy. "The miracle" of giving birth. Iraq becoming a united, secular country would be a miracle. Getting pregnant and popping out a kid hardly qualifies as a miracle. It's rather mundane. Uneventful, in most cases.

Unless you count the creature my cousin's girlfriend crapped out. Man, that thing had one eye -- one eye! -- no mouth, and no anus -- no anus! That ain't a miracle, my friend, that's a freakshow. And a testament to why you shouldn't knock up a buck-toothed tramp from a trailer park in Jackson, New Jersey.

e) It appears that you have confused grief with the fear of death... as a grieving parent, I am not afraid of death... however, I do miss my child, I lost him in just 25 days before he was due to be delivered, and his older brother, who was 11 years old at the time, was, and is, still upset at the fact that he was never allowed to hold his baby brother, dead or otherwise. You see, in grieving we prove that we adhere to the principal of life being sacred, and we honor the existance of those we love and have moved on without us.

TMB: I'm sure your 11-year-old son was utterly heartbroken, without any influence from you. Because pre-pubescent boys are so sensitive. He probably just wanted to throw him around like a football.

"Hey, Mom, catch!"

It appears that you've confused my confusion. I wasn't discussing the fear of death so much as I was addressing that Americans tend to view death as "unfair" and something that happens "to" them. It perpetuates both the victim and entitlement mentalities.

I can, however, understand being upset that you wasted x-number of months, potentially wreaking havoc on your body, with nothing to show for it.

Perhaps it is best not to make generic statements about a reality that only encompasses one side of a larger picture. And... Christians arent the problem, people and "human nature" is the problem. So for those of us who will continue to honor the passing of those we love, or have loved, by having websites or annual vigils in thier memories, or what have you... thoes of you that "don't get it," will just have to get over it...

TMB: Because some of us are capable of getting over things.

Blessed Be (that's not a Christian closing either)...

TMB: No, it's even worse. Isn't Wicca over yet?

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

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