Confession: For all my talk about Hope, I have the worst Survivor’s Guilt of anyone I’ve ever known. It stems all the way back to 1996 when I lost my sister. She’d endured the same tragic childhood I did… but I got to live and she didn’t.
I look at others who have suffered the same abuse my sister and I did and wonder how in God’s name I was able to move on from all that. It is a knife in my heart to watch the number of precious souls still struggle through the muck and the mire of their betrayal, their abandonment, and all the rest of the fallout that comes from being tossed around and thrown away as if they were worthless. I made it out alive and well – and that seems unforgivable to me.
Most people ask, ‘Why me?’ when they go through excruciatingly painful things. ‘Why do I have to go through this? How come this is happening to me?’ People who suffer from Survivor’s Guilt ask, ‘Why me?’ when things are going great for them. ‘Why am I so blessed? What did I ever do to deserve this beautiful life?’ We know we’re not better, smarter, faster… we don’t buy it that we were simply chosen for good things – the lucky ones. That’s crap.
Yet here we are.
Truthfully, I would feel guilty if I had two M&Ms and someone else only had one. And here I am on Mother’s Day with my child when other mothers have children gone too soon. How can I share in their suffering when my son will eat at my table today? How can I tap the depths of a grieving mother’s heart today, of all days? How can I even scratch the surface?
And how can they possibly share in my joy? How can I expect them to?
If I could bear more children at 50 years old and put them in these wanting mothers’ arms, I would. I can’t.
It makes me feel guilty… and this isn’t even about me or my pain or my loss. And this stupid piece of writing, this incredibly feeble attempt to let these women know that I am shattered for them, is sorely lacking at best – because I am not shattered enough. Not like they are. Never like they are.
What do we all do with that? This alleged ‘Hope Girl’ has no idea. I preach all the time, ‘Hope Givers deliberately and intentionally place themselves in close proximity to the suffering of others for the sole purpose – the soul purpose – of pouring out Hope. Hope Givers sit with one another in their pain for as long as it takes.’
I can’t bring myself to join the well-intended masses in wishing all the mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day on social media today. I don’t dare post a picture of me and my son because my friends whose children are gone will see it, and it will cause them pain, and they’ve already endured more pain than any human should ever have to.
Can I expect them to share in my joy? People with Survivor’s Guilt question why they’re entitled to joy – especially when they’re looking someone straight in the eye whose joy has died and you hold in your hands the very thing they’ve lost.
I remember having a miscarriage after trying so hard to have a baby with Sean-Martin. I remember avoiding pregnant women for two years. I was in pain. I couldn’t share in their joy. Eventually, as my pain subsided and my grief was diminished somewhat, I could hold babies again. I could put my hands on another woman’s round belly and share in her joy.
Eventually.
I remember the days after my Grandma Polly passed away three days before Christmas, her present still under my tree – and the present has been placed under my Christmas trees, unopened, every year since. I remember seeing women with their grandmothers. Everywhere, I saw them. At church. In the grocery. On the street. And I was overcome with sadness because I missed her so much. I’ve never cried out loud, unabashedly, in so many public places. Eventually, though, as I took comfort in the fact that my grandmother knew that I loved her and that I knew she loved me and that there was nothing left unsaid between us, I began to share in the joy of others whose grandparents were still here with their children and didn’t seem to be going anywhere for a while.
Eventually.
I remember having to put down our dog, Sofie, last summer because the cancer had invaded her lungs and her heart – and then seeing people with their dogs everywhere I went. I remember how long I’d suffered after my miscarriage and how long I suffered after Grandma Polly died. I remember the bitterness that crept into my heart because other people had the very thing that I wanted. And I made a choice, in the midst of my sorrow, to share in the joy of those who were out and about with their dogs. Doing tricks with them in their driveways. Playing fetch in the park. Running down our street with them on a leash.
Losing a dog and losing a child. Such a pathetic, weak comparison – maybe even a cruel one to suggest. There is no adequate connection to the two. How could I not concede that? But it’s all I have. It’s all I possess in the way of a life experience as I struggle to suggest that perhaps such choices could bring us some small measure of Hope? That even while we lament, we can find joy somewhere? That even while we cry, we could laugh? That even while child-sized holes haunt us relentlessly, we could somehow be filled? That we can share in each other’s suffering and share in each other’s joy? That we could somehow believe that we are all connected. My children are your children. Your miscarriage is mine. Grandma Polly is every bit yours and your heart is broken for Sofie. I suffered your abuse, and you suffered mine. Your unopened gifts sit under my Christmas tree, and my gifts sit under yours – year after year after year, unopened. The death of your heart is the death of my own. We sit with each other in our suffering, our loss, our devastation, and our emptiness. And we share in each other’s resurrections and we are both alive again – until we’re not. And then we are. For a time. Life ebbs and life flows.
Moments pass.
And we are colossally inadequate and we probably drink too much and our blog posts suck. And we love each other, and it’s hard. It’s impossible. Yet it’s not. Because here we are.
And we, of all people, know that The Good Doctor, Gary Schmidt, is telling the truth when he says, “The world turns and the world spins, the tide runs in and the tide runs out, and there is nothing in the world more beautiful and more wonderful in all its evolved forms than two souls who look at each other straight on. And there is nothing more woeful and soul-saddening than when they are parted...everything in the world rejoices in the touch, and everything in the world laments in the losing.”
Everything in the world rejoices in the touch.
And everything in the world laments in the losing.
Everything. Everything. Everything. And everything.
Please forgive me for this miserable attempt to put my arms around you, knowing that it isn’t enough. This is not enough. Nothing is enough. Forgive me for not being able to put Hope in your hands. Forgive me for today if you can – even though I cannot forgive myself. I begrudge myself my own happiness. I’m super effed up. I know.
But I love you. And I love you.
And I love you.
Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. She lives with her husband, Sean-Martin, in the beautiful state of Idaho and teaches English and Literature during the school year to the best 7th graders the world over. Daisy spends her summers writing, speaking, researching, creating, gardening, and canning.
Hope Givers: Hope is Here, is the sequel, of sorts, to her comedic, spiritual memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, which was her publisher's (Christopher Matthews) #1 top selling book in 2012. She has also written a free e-book for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You, which appears in its entirety in Hope Givers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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