Desperate Powerlessness

The love I have felt as a parent is one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.  The despair I have felt from losing a dear friend is one of the most crushing.  I cannot begin to imagine what happens when the two combine.

Two friends lost their baby recently.  This was not a surprise.  They knew before he was born that their time with him would be brief.  Thinking about it has been barely bearable for me.  In part, it is because...well obviously, it is just a truly horrible thing for a little baby to die.  But also, for me, it is hard to bear because my friend Camile would have loved and then mourned this particular baby.  She would have been crushed to hear of his brief life and the deep sadness his grieving mothers felt.  She would have offered them food and flowers and presents and support.  She would have taken some of the burden of their grief and carried it for them.  I can’t stand being reminded that the world is a bleaker, less comforting place for the lack of Camile.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about group grief.  It is a sad, beautiful, complicated organism.  I remember there was an Onion headline soon after 9/11 that said something like “Housewife Doesn’t Know What to Do about Terrorist Attacks So She Bakes a Flag Cake” or something like that.  It was funny.  It was lightheartedly mocking.  But, it was also a completely accurate description of the way I felt.  When horrible things happen to people you care about, you want desperately to undo them or at the very least alleviate them.  But what can you really do?  You do not have the power to reverse time and stop the planes from crashing or make cancer go away or save a baby.  All you can really do is make a flag cake or cook food or order flowers or buy someone the dvds of seasons 1-5 of a fun show.  You do these things with heroic fervor, and so does everyone else around you.  But even as you do them, you realize they are hollow endeavors.  They are like single drops of water in a desert of sorrow.  There are not enough of us to make it better.  We are—even collectively—ineffective.  I felt it all over again with this baby. 

Rest in peace, little Ellis.  There are people who will always love you, and there are people who will always take care of them.