Shoes

I hit a bizarre milestone in my life: I wore two different shoes to Mass and didn’t even notice until I got home.

(I found a style of shoe that’s supportive and fits well, so I have a couple pairs in the exact same style and forsake all other shoes. In my defense, they are identical in everything but appearance, and the appearance is close-ish.)

It was such a visual reminder. How things are off. How they don’t match up. How David and I might look similar to who we were a year ago, but if you really look close, you will see how much we are struggling.

David had an appointment in a home with pictures of a little boy born in June 2022. It is difficult to recover from being confronted with such vivid images of our alternate reality.

That’s just one example of the day-to-day happenings that take our breath away, that make it hard to function, that bring us back to square one levels of shock, anger, and sadness.

I think part of why this journey has been so hard is that as a culture we don’t really have much of a system of how to handle grief. Where we live, people bring food over that first week after a loss. The parish helps with putting on a funeral. On the feast of All Soul’s Day the parish remembers all those who died within the last year.

Those have all been great comforts. But there have been a lot of other days in the year without any comfort.

I’ve spent too much time being sad, angry, and disappointed at the people who are completely inept at dealing with grief. It’s not their fault, though. This isn’t the 1800s when there were strict, well-known rules about how long people mourned, what they would wear, even what they would or wouldn’t do socially.

Now we expect people to get back to regular life right after the funeral. And we don’t teach everyone else what they should say, how they should help, or what to expect of normal grief.

We have had a handful of people this past year who are safe places to be honest. Who are compassionate and generous and sympathetic. Who know.

Christmas for Joseph was another one of the year’s comforts. Those people who took the time to give and then to let us know—they will certainly be remembered in heaven. They brought such peace. Our current parish brought us meals during Advent. it made life so much easier during that season of “waiting for baby Jesus.” The hard thing is that it all seems so far in the past–

It annoys me that it’s human nature to dwell on the negative, to pass over the positive. Why do the schmucks get so much more brain play time than the dear hearts who check in and give hugs? I am annoyed that I can’t escape this bug in the program of humanity.

I need to work on letting go of the hurt caused by those people who should know better, but don’t because they haven’t ever suffered. I think it’s possible to guard our hearts from these people without being resentful of them, but I haven’t figured out how yet.

For now our only option seems to be avoidance, staying away from those who make us feel as though we are the problem, those who are too self-absorbed to offer compassion, and those who don’t try to understand. Unfortunately some situations are unavoidable, and we are forced to face The Greatest Insult. Intended or not, the message some send is that Joseph didn’t matter. I think there are books written on how to forgive people who aren’t sorry, but I need the cliff notes version if you’ve got it. I can’t seem to get past The Greatest Insult on my own.

Joseph was delivered on Wednesday before Easter, so we are marching on to our year anniversaries. Holy Week can never be the same for us. Not after we have held the lifeless body of our perfect son. Then because Easter isn’t on the same date every year, we will have another round of date anniversaries. The anniversary of the ultrasound that changed everything. The anniversary of delivery. The anniversary of the funeral.

We approach the coming weeks with uncertainty as to just how hard they will be, knowing how difficult it is to function already, not knowing how the new versions of who we are will handle the grief. There will probably be new levels of forced humility we can’t even imagine at this point.

I guess I’m getting more comfortable about ugly crying at Mass. No. Nevermind. It’s still awful and embarrassing. Maybe at least I will make myself a post-it for our door at home to make sure I am wearing pants before leaving the house. Mismatched shoes, I can handle. No pants? That’s against the law. Well, maybe not if I was just running to Walmart. Either way, it’s a good idea.

I don’t know what Alicia from 2007 would have thought of Alicia from 2023 who might need a reminder to wear pants. Who wears pants all the time, but just wants to be reeeeeeal safe. Turns out there was a lot that it’s probably good 2007 Alicia didn’t know.