47th Confession

This coming Saturday, four years ago, my daughter looked on the beautiful face of her God, and it took her breath away.

There are wounded places in a person's life which poets say that only time heals. With due respect to poets, that's either a whole lot of time or a whole lot of crap. Either way, it's not something that happens overnight, nor has it really happened in the past few years.

There is a room in my house that I don't go into anymore. There are things I don't think about my child, or other people's children, anymore. There are times of the year that I feel just a little colder. There's a lot fewer things that seem important, and a whole lot of conservative ideas that I've thrown out entirely.There are songs whose lyrics I now identify with a whole lot more closely, and nod a whole lot more.

I suppose that, one of the things that I've heard the most often is, "I can't imagine what it must have been like/must be like to lose a child." Most often, I answer, "I pray you never find out."

There's nothing but numbness and loss for the first week, maybe week and a half. You really don't FEEL anything, be it pain, loss, hurt...There's just this emptiness, kind of like an echo fading. It's fading, and you know you'll never hear that sound again, so you keep listening to it, finding ways to etch it into your memory. Little things, at first: cradling her, because you'll never get to again. Stroking her hair one last time. Holding her and praying - just one more time, silently - that she'll come back.

Then come the "life" things: the somber dismantling of her crib. The getting rid of some of her clothes. The wholesale dumping of the medical supplies. But all the while, still smelling her little baby smell, all through the places where she spent her time: the couch, her room, the hallway, her car seat, the van...

And then, just when you have this whole "getting back to life thing" almost figured out, you look around and realize that other people have either forgotten about it or moved on. And that's the worst shock of all to come to grips with: that life has moved, and you haven't.

All through it, for the first month, there are just these waves of grief and guilt that paralyze you when you're engulfed. Between waves, you can function fairly well, I remember. I remember even getting a bit prickly when feeling okay, thinking, "I'm not a doddering old man, I can really function for a bit." But for every time I felt fine, there were times I wanted to just break down.

And here is the crux of this confession: I probably should have broken down in those times. I probably should have taken some time to truly weep for my loss. I probably should have used a little more down time to process what happened.

But I didn't.

I had a boy to raise who needed his Daddy. I had a house to support. I had a set of vehicles to maintain. I had to keep moving.

And in that moving, there were nights I could feel the emotional granite that was in my core grinding against itself in cracked places; were I to put it another way, it was emotional arthritis.

Maybe another time, we'll explore that. But for now, I think it's time to put this back to sleep, to set this jewel to rest again, and look forward to something a bit more palatable. You've eaten the bitter green salad; now it's time for the meat course, I think.

46th Confession

If you were to find about thirty of my friends and ask them, "How judgmental is Ryan McBurney?"...

Well, first you'd have to find thirty people, and THAT is a Herculean task in and of itself....

But, were you to do it, I'm fairly certain that they'd probably say that, on a whole, I'm fairly easy-going, with a strong sense of what I like and dislike, but mostly open-minded about people.  Accepting to a fault, except if they happen to be in a boy band. Or completely, irrationally obsessive.

I try not to judge people, as a general rule. But the downside of that is, I judge myself harshly.

I never meant to turn out like this. I never set out on a self-destructive, obsessive path about learning everything I could from my mistakes. It's not even that I do; it's that I brood on them, like a hen on her eggs.

I think about what I could have done differently. I think about how I can make amends for my errors. I think about how not to make the same mistake again.

And this kind of thinking paralyzes me, sometimes. It hobbles me and shackles me to my mistakes, and no matter how many times I forgive myself, it all seems to rush back as soon as I mess up again.

Today would have been my daughter's fourth birthday. During her brief year of life, I was finishing off college, I was trying to hold down a stressful job, I was juggling a wife and two kids and a mother in law and a dog and a house and repairs and a lawn and a van and....

I know I did the best that I could. I think I did the best that I could. I'd like to think I did the best that I could. I tried to do the best that I could.

My inner demon tells me I should have done more.

I could have read more to my daughter. I could have let a couple things slide, just to spend a little more time with her. I should have prayed for her more, I should have had stronger faith, I should have...

I forgive myself, and look to avoid my mistakes in the future. I pick myself back up and keep going. Next time, it'll be better.

Next post will probably be about grief once more - the day Abby went home and everything that followed. After that, I promise to have some more light-hearted happy blogs. :D

45th Confession

TS Eliot, my favorite poet, once said that "April is the cruelest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/Dull roots with spring rain." He talks about the mysterious teasing of life from death that happens in April - the slow, creaking growth that comes after the dormancy of winter, painful and so very slow.

February is the cruelest month. My regrets, compounded by another year of experience and growth, come creaking to life on the first of the month. They lumber around like trolls, smashing and destroying for the sake of destruction, until about the end of the month. Then, troll-like, they go underground, hiding from the rising sun, until once again in August I hit a patch of regularly scheduled self-reflection.


Four years ago, February was a cold month. As I drove my wife to our midwife, I passed a car turned on its roof in the median on 270. I don't remember much about that day...fragments form a patchwork in my mind when I try.

Joy being unresponsive in the bathroom....a red sedan, on its roof, as I desperately try to head north, without flipping my own...the cold, professional nurse..Joy not responding again...being shoved into the waiting room...watching something about true crime, not knowing what's going on...hearing medical terminology that I understand, knowing that it applies to my wife and child...being told to get someone, cold nurse turned somber...

I hear that they're both alive, and it takes my breath away. I hear the mortality rate of what happened, and I lose my breath again. I'm wandering the halls of the hospital late at night, unable to call anyone. I'm hearing that my wife might still die. I saw her, and she scared me. The Who's Tommy is not the thing to watch in the ICU.

Finally seeing a coherent wife. Getting to see my daughter for the first time. Having faith for her future. Praying against fear. Stubbornly refusing to believe what the Groucho Marx-esque Pakistani doctor says. Believing, and seeing the fruit of that belief blossom.

One year, nine days.

Getting The Call. Driving to the wrong hospital. Getting to the right one. Believing for a miracle. Releasing her.

Calling my folks to let them know she's passed. Hearing my sobs mingle with my wife's in a cold operating room, as though they came from some other people.

February is the cruelest month.

44th Confession

It's happened again. The terrible, incredibly painful tragedy of death once again rears its head too close to home.

When there's nothing to say, say nothing aloud, but let your actions speak volumes.

Hug your children more. Model wise choices, as far as you are able. Above all else, let them know that you love them.

It's February. Next time, a February recollection.

43rd Confession

February is my least favorite month of the year.

I've heard it taught that time was the first thing God blessed and set apart as holy, even before there was a definition of the word "holy." The same teacher said that anything that can be blessed can also be cursed; therefore, bless your time at every opportunity.

It seems to me that February is already the absolute low point of anyone's year. Lewis Black once raged that it was the grayest month; he also claims that Valentine's day came about because someone slit their wrists just to see color. While I enjoy a good rage comedian from time to time, I think Mr. Black unintentionally stumbled upon a point.

I know some people whose greatest artistic binges come when the leaves begin to turn in the autumn; for me, this February stuff is the complete antithesis. I feel more lethargic and torpid during this month than during any other.

Maybe it's the cold. Maybe it's the ice. Maybe it's the fact that spring isn't just around the corner quite yet.

Maybe it's Abby.

I don't know. But I do want to explore it this month, if y'all will stick around for it?

42nd Confession

Wow, it's been a long time since I've done this. Apologies to anyone who was hanging on my every update; January was a crazy busy month for me, and I think the new year is going to be quite interesting indeed.

Well, now that my mother in law is heading out on a Mexican cruise, I think there will be more time for me to sit and write, as well as a little more motivation, especially as February is one of my lest favorite months of the year. I have a feeling that this, above all other reasons, is unconsciously why I started this blog: to finally get some of my bottled-up feelings out on some kind of media, like a confessional booth.  Which makes anyone who reads this a priest. Or a therapist. Which is kinda funny, really, if you stop and think about it.

So, some quick life updates: Joy is still doing Art school.  We purchased a Wii.  I'm very good at swordfighting on it. Edan is still adorable, but recently he's been taking to praying for a newborn child for the family. I'm not sure what brought THAT on, but I'm working on dealing with it.

We recently lost power to our house.  There's nothing like an ice-storm blackout to show you how dependent you are on electricity.  Especially when your whole house is powered by it.

Finally, I'm going to say that I'm sorry I haven't written for a while. Personally, I haven't heard too many complaints, so it hasn't been in the forefront of my "things to get done" list. So if you want more, let me know.