Category: SUNSHINE & DAISY

Where the hell have I been? LOST.

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You may have noticed that I’ve been MIA recently. I’ve felt bad about it and my first inclination is to sugarcoat it with all the cool, fun and exciting things I’ve been doing, but that would (mostly) be a lie. Though I have been doing cool, fun and exciting things, mostly, what I’ve been doing is vegging out in front of the TV and watching a LOST marathon with Elie. All six seasons. That shit is addictive. And by season 4, it really was pretty much shit. But now I’m hooked, like an addict and I can’t stop till we complete all 6 seasons. When it first aired in 2004 I didn’t even notice. I was elbow deep in the handbag business I’d started in 2002. TV was low on my priority list as I poured my passion, full time, into that endeavor. For your viewing pleasure, this is a snapshot from my catalog from that era:

No, you’re eyes are not playing tricks on you. I was wearing braces. I was in my 20’s and thought I could change the world with a handbag (my handbags kicked ass— with a business course or two, I probably could have.) Even the fact that I was wearing braces didn’t slow me down. I was at the peak of my Muchness and almost nothing could  rattle me. (’till I got screwed over by a large handbag company… we’ll save that story for another time…)

Anyway, I’ve gotten off course. This week, the week between the holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is the week that 3 years ago we went from “Yay! We’re almost at 24 weeks and things are looking good!” to “How is it possible I am no longer pregnant and I can’t even begin to comprehend what just happened.” My point? This is a rough week. So I’ve been laying low watching hour after hour after hour of LOST with Elie and counting it as bonding time. And frankly, we’ve bonded. Just last night he whopped me over the head with a pillow while (mostly) trying to exterminate the loudest, most annoying housefly in the history of all man-kind. Hard to explain how and why this was funny, but we were both laughing till tears ran down our faces, so thats a Win in my book.

As the calendar draws closer to Tuesday, September 25th, the day we said goodbye to our girls, I’m just going to allow myself to do what feels right. But after that, I’ve got plans. Because something else has been going on. Something Big. I’m not ready to spill the beans publicly just yet, but it is something that I am hoping will justify the absurd amount of hours I’ve been watching of this LOST marathon and put TV back on the bottom of my priority list, like it was when I was elbow deep following my passion and my Muchness was in full, full-time effect…

Musings on stress, and other thoughts that always pivot back to babyloss.

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For some reason, today, I just can’t concentrate. I’m sitting at my desk and my brain keeps inserting me into this scene I have cemented in my brain. It was a beautiful day – September 23, 2009 and Elie and I were sitting on the grass outside the hospital. Daisy was already gone and we knew we’d be losing Sunshine. We were so calm, the two of us- in shock, I realize now.
Sometimes, when I feel stressed, my brain just goes there. Or it just plops me in the middle of that hospital- the waiting room, the ultrasound room, the hallways. I don’t even have to be thinking of the girls, it just happens- a split second where I’m working or online and then -boom- my brain is there. It’s almost like a flashback and it is as strong and clear as if I was just there yesterday. I’ve never experienced that sensation about anything else. I hate it.
After the twins died, stress and I developed a new understanding. Stress was no longer welcome. I had two dead babies. Mundane stress couldn’t hold a candle to that. For about 2 years it worked. But somehow I feel like it’s catching up to me. I think this because of the frequency with which my brain is dropping me into these scenes from the past. The moments that I lived through so they could shape me into a better person.

I feel like I’m not making certain choices in my personal life that honor the enormity of those changes. I’m standing in my own way and I don’t know why.

I do know why. Fear.

Yuck.

I lived through the death of my babies. That is like, a human beings worst fear, realized. I am strong and so capable. So why am I letting myself be limited by fear?

My mother was widowed at 35 years old- my age now, with 5 children, 3 of them under 7 years old, and her mother survived the holocaust. I mean, really. And that’s just one side of my family. I come from a long line of incredibly strong, powerful women.
I need to stop my belly aching and get my shit together to make proactive, fearless, smart choices.

This is me. Putting this out there for who the hell knows who to read. I’m gonna hold myself accountable. Please, somebody, kick my ass if I don’t.

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Rainbows & hearts & bunnies = Muchness for 7 year old boy

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Sometimes at work I listen to podcasts of This American Life storytelling on public radio. Every week they select a theme, and then share a few true stories that discuss that theme from different perspectives. I was listened to today’s podcast, (which is actually a rebroadcast from 2002,) and the theme was about people who are “different” and at what point they realized they were different. The host, Ira Glass, was talking with a mom and her then 7 year old son.

Her son was born with a mental disorder that presented as very angry, scary and violent episodes when he was just a toddler. Discussing her son’s behavior, she described how at 3 years old he’d talk about death and dying a lot. He’d draw pictures of black holes and talk about falling into them. She talked about specific acts of violence he’d engaged in, and the remorse and lack of understanding of his own behavior that quickly followed. To hear his mother describe his violent behavior and destructive mental state was at once shocking and heartbreaking. And then they started him on a medication, and within two days they saw a difference. By five days, he was a different child. He stopped talking about death and stopped trying to hurt small animals and talking about black holes, and instead started drawing pictures of rainbows and hearts. It was when his mother described this change that I found myself getting all choked up. Have a listen:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIsSKGj-4bo”]

“…All those hearts and rainbows and bunnies that he talks about all the time, it’s not because he’s silly, It’s because he’s been through [more] pain and powerlessness…. He made an informed decision that he’s gonna be happy with the good parts of life and he’s gonna spread them around… It all came out of something very hard”

Hear the full episode here

He found his Muchness— things around him that make him feel happy and grateful for the joyful little things in life. Have you found yours?

 

Everything is a journey…

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A few weeks ago, I posted about how I was ready to sit and create an editorial calendar with all my 200,000 blog posts ideas. And I started my list. And I was feeling great. But like I predicted, I just didn’t feel like any of the bajjilion things I put on paper felt right for todays post. Because I am in the midst of so much change that something I wrote 2 weeks ago already feels stale and old-newsy.

So I decided to just write fresh. Even if it’s not all profound and well thought out- it’s me, now, from my heart, today. And it got me thinking about how the things we feel when we feel them feel so fresh, but time does change them. When I first joined the loss boards after Sunshine and Daisy were gone, I was a newbie. I was afraid to post, afraid that what I was thinking and feeling was “stupid” or that I wouldn’t express myself well or I’d unintentionally upset someone. So I just read. And I started to see repeating themes. Themes about despair, about physical pain in your heart, about not knowing how to face tomorrow. And the only response that people could offer was “time”. Time will make it easier to breathe. Time will help you process. Time is your only friend.

And this advice came in all forms- with apologies that it was such a lame response, with reassurances that, though it’s hard to believe, it’s true, and sometimes, most helpfully, the response came with directions, how to get through the time – minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, requiring as little effort on our part as possible. Because when you can barely catch your breathe, any effort is too much to ask.

And time did help. Here I sit, 2 years, 9 months, 2 weeks and 4 days later an entirely different woman. My sister recently told me that she’d been talking about me with some friends who’ve known me almost my whole life and they all agreed “I’d changed.” For some reason, I took offense to this, though I know it’s true. I guess it felt like she was saying “yeah, you were a real asshole before.”  Hmmm… sisters. Actually, I’m pretty sure what she was trying to say was “Yeah, you were a real asshole before.” Go figure.

Where are you in your journey? I know many of you have lost babies or loved ones but I also know that so many others long to find their Muchness, even when there was no defining moment when it was utterly lost. There hopefully comes a defining moment when we make the choice to find it. Are you there? Do you know when it was? Tell me about it.

Though there are moments where I feel I’ve gone through the dark and come out the other end, I know that there is still more darkness in front of me. I hate that I know from this type of pain, but I love that I’ve had the opportunity to understand the depths of feeling it has taught me. That is but one of the gifts I’ve received from Sunshine & Daisy.

Anyway, this is my post about where I am today, as I continue through the path of time. Where are you today?

 

 

What does the mother of two dead babies look like?

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This past weekend I had an amazing, once-in-a lifetime opportunity and I wanted to tell you about it. One of the women I’ve met through Bschool is an incredible, top-tier photographer named Tanya Malott. She saw my story in one of the Bschool groups and reached out to me, and we instantly clicked. She is amazing.
This past weekend, she offered a day of FREE headshot photos to anyone from Bschool who could make it to the shoot. I pounced on the opportunity. She got access to this glamourous photo studio in Manhattan owned by Heike Grebenstein – who makes jewelry that is simply gorgeous and she arranged for our hair to be done by the incredibly talented Joshua Barrett, and fellow Bschooler, celebrity makeup artist Michelle Coursey did our makeup. I mean, the whole thing was like a dream.
But beyond all the pampering and how fun and inspiring it was to was to meet other bschoolers face-to-face, something profoundly emotional happened to me that day, and that’s really the reason I’m sharing this story….
After getting my pictures taken, I was talking to one of the other women there and I found myself telling her a story that I’ve been meaning to share with you but just… haven’t. So, I’m sharing it now.

After the twins died, everything in the world just literally became gray. It was all I could see. I’d wake up in the morning, my face puffy from the tears that had dried on my cheeks the night before. I’d drag myself into my closet and pull something out that felt like I felt. Something gray. Something brown. Something stained, ripped, dirty, overwashed and ill-fitting. I really didn’t care. I’d walk from the bus station to my office, sometimes crying the whole way. Not caring that people were looking at me strangely. “If they had two dead babies, they’d be crying too” I said to myself.

I’d get to the office and do my work, feeling like shit, looking like shit. I wasn’t worried what my coworkers thought of my appearance. That just never occurred to me to matter.

Then, one day, my boss unexpectedly called me into a sales meeting. The women who sat at the table looked polished and fresh in the bright display lights of our showroom. I stood before them, completely mortified. I remember clearly what I was wearing that day. Jeans that were unwashed and way too big, saggy on my tush with an actual patch in the seat to cover a hole. Gray sneakers. An olive green t-shirt stretched over my muffin top and post (dead) baby belly with a graphic of The Beatles stretched across my chest. Over that, I wore a brown vintage button down polyester shirt. I believe it was missing a button. My hair was in a messy, unwashed ponytail.

My boss introduced me as the head of design. “The genius who makes magic happen.” he said. I stood before them feeling like something that crawled out of a sewer. I pasted a smile on my face and answered their questions. When I walked out of the room I thought to myself “Well, they’d look like shit too if they had Two Dead Babies.”

And when I heard myself think that, that’s when I knew. Enough Was Enough.

It was up to me to make the choice to sink or swim, and I decided to swim. The only way I knew to start was with the outside. And so I did- No more gray, no more heavy disgusting clothing. I was going to infuse my outside with color and shine that was so bright and so bold it could break through the wall of gray that surrounded me. And, you know how that story unfolds. That decision ultimately found a name, and it’s name is The Muchness.

When I look at pictures of me before the twins, I feel like it is a different person– a naive, innocent, opinionated girl I no longer know. And when I’ve looked at pictures of me after, it’s felt like a kaleidoscope of bits and pieces of me in the middle of some kind of reformatting process.

This weekends photo shoot felt like a culmination of that journey and that decision to swim. Tanya knows my story and understands the path I’ve traveled to get here. She saw my dress and it was her suggestion to take pictures in this setting. Pictures of a woman who has not drowned in her grief, but has been able to push through to a brighter, even more beautiful place of light & joy. I mean, really. Who wears a party dress in the bathtub?

I looked at the pictures Tanya took of me- beautiful, incredibly muchy pictures of a woman with two dead babies, who has found happiness and beauty and joy again. And those pictures Tanya took, they were pictures of a woman I do know. The woman I am learning to see myself as. Me. 20120703-105429.jpg

Just another sign I was meant to be doing this!

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As previously predicted, this Marie Forleo B-School is really kicking my ass. Her lessons and programs are really helping me think about why I started The Muchness, what I want from it and MOST IMPORTANTLY, how I can best serve my MuchnessSeekers and help them reach their full Muchness potential! Ya know, these are hard questions to answer. I ‘created’ The Muchness on a whim. I assumed at the time that I was doing what ‘everyone’ does these days- starting a blog about myself. I invited others to join me in my Muchy online adventures because, well, they asked and I loved seeing their Muchness. And I am thrilled to have them (you) here.

I’ll be honest- mostly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I shoot from the gut and follow my heart. I post about what moves me, what inspires me and what I’m discovering about myself and the world as I travel this journey from grief through healing (and then pit-stop again for some grief,  and then take a swing around the corner to see what joy is waiting there…)

A long time ago it was suggested that I create an “editorial calendar.” That’s fancy blogger talk for “Plan your postings in advance and put them down in a structured, logical manner.” I only know how to write honestly and from my heart and that felt really contrived and ‘planny’ to me, and if there is something I have learned in the last 2.5 years, it’s that, when it comes to my deepest feelings, I really don’t have control over where they take me. I just have to buckle up and go for the ride.

But, I also VERY MUCH want this site to grow into a real, reliable, helpful resource for inspiration and encouragement and actionable tips and advice that can help each of you achieve your full capacity of Muchness, because I KNOW it’s in you… I read it in your posts, in your private messages to me, even in the pictures of sparkly goodness you post on facebook and tag me with! You guys are amazing and I REALLY want to help you shine!

So, when Marie started talking about creating an editorial calendar, I listened. I heard how it doesn’t have to be contrived or planny, and just because I put the million and one ideas I have for posts down in a logical manner, it doesn’t mean they are going to lose their heart, quite the contrary- without having to wrack my brain for which subject to write about, I’ll be able to simply sit down at my keyboard, slit open a vein, and write straight from my heart.

So, I was convinced. I would create an editorial calendar. And then, then….. then Marie – who pre-records her seminars which are listened to my hundreds- probably thousands of people- then she said something (which in my mind was) directed right. at. me.
She said “When you set up your editorial calendar… you’re gonna skip with Daisies and Sunshine is gonna be shootin’ out of your eyeballs and your ears when you have this done, it’s awesome.”

My Sunshine & Daisy- if it's something that can get me skipping with them and having them shooting out of my eyeballs and ears- I'm game.

I rewound that thing 5 times. I got chills. I actually almost started crying. Who the hell talks like that about Sunshine & Daisies?? Who? NO ONE that’s who!! I’m telling you folks, it’s a sign!!! So I went right away and made that little green box sign up form on the top right of this page for my newsletter because I am making a calendar and I am committing to sending one email a week with inspirational, actionable Muchness nuggets to help YOU get in touch with your MUCH! Because that is my goal. That’s why I’m here. My Muchness goes through the roof when I help someone else connect with their Muchness, Because when you share The Muchness, it pays you back in spades… and I’m ready to take on this challenge. And YOU TOO should share The Muchness! If you know someone who you think can benefit from it, tell them to sign up too!

Tova’s Muchness Challenge – Day 25- It’s Not a Headshot!!!

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Y’all know what my face looks like already. Today- no headshot. It’s something else I wanted to share with you.

I bought a groupon for some laser hair removal! I know! That is exactly what you were expecting to hear, right?!? I can see that bewildered look on your face… And now you’re wondering if I’m gonna do a 30 day laser hair removal challenge. Rest easy my friend, I will not.

I likely would not have thought about going for Laser Hair removal but I bought the groupon cuz it was a good deal, and the thought of never shaving my armpits again also seemed like a good deal. So today I went.

Turns out, the laser hair removal doctors office was in the very same building as the grief counselor I saw after I lost the twins. I didn’t see her for very long, since I found that, for me, sharing my feelings with other baby loss moms online was really the best therapy, but the few times I saw her were definitely helpful. Just having a place to say some of the things I needed to say out loud, being able to spill my guts to a stranger and not feel judged or like it made them uncomfortable to hear someone talk about their dead babies was incredibly helpful. She also left me with some insights that have stayed with me- particularly the concept of shadow sadness that can follow you, popping up when you don’t necessarily consciously expect it, just casting it’s darkness over you.  Recognizing it when it arrives has, so many times, helped me move through it without getting too buried underneath it.

Anyway, I’ve thought a few times about reaching out to her and sharing this community with her, but honestly, I didn’t think I’d actually ever do it.

But there I was, underarms burning like a mofo, I sat on the stairs and wrote her a note and included my hot-off-the-printing-press business card.

I slid the note through the mailbox of her darkened office, and I assume she’ll get it sometime tomorrow… and then visit the site…. and then read what I am writing… now… as I write it… so…. Hey Dr. K! 🙂

No good post title for a good day

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I wanted to write about today.

I felt like the twins were visiting all day… and now, into the night.

OMG. weird.

This morning I woke up invigorated.

I took Liat for a walk to the coffee shop. In the coffee shop sat a dude I’d never seen before- except yesterday. He was there yesterday. And he’d talked to me about his dog. Today I saw him and said Good Morning. He was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter. The character who first spoke of Muchness. hmmm…

We walked home. We live on a quiet dead end street where we always see and usually know everyone who walks by. As I got closer to my house I saw two women walking. One pushed a stroller and the other was accompanied by her twin daughters. I know those girls. They don’t know me. Those girls make my heart palpitate. The summer after I lost our twins, those twins, who live around the corner from us, went on a daily walk with their nanny at the exact time I’d leave to go get Molly from Daycare. Every day. Those little girls- maybe 1 year olds at the time, would accost me with their presence. Strolling down the street together, holding hands with their blond hair bouncing in the sunlight, while my twins lay in their graves. God, how I hated those twins. And there they were, now 4 years old, standing in front of my house admiring the hot pink flamingos on my front lawn.

I said Hi to their mother, introduced myself. I chatted with the girls, about their sparkly Toms Shoes. I realized, for the first time, they they are not identical, which helped a lot. I also realize I don’t hate them. I mean, really.

Liat and I went to the backyard where she and Molly were blowing bubbles. I was pulling the weeds out from between the pavers cuz I enjoy that sorta thing. And then, for the first time I noticed this plant in our mini little garden area. 

Hmmmm. That’s weird. See, last year, on a particularly emotional night, when we were sleep training Liat and she was crying in her crib, I had a mini breakdown, because listening to her cry tore me into pieces. More than a normal woman. I couldn’t even stay in the house and Elie sent me out. Just Out. I went to CVS and trolled the aisles in a daze, thinking about the twins and how my heart was breaking that Liat was home crying and I was too weak to handle it. And then, in the middle of CVS were some ‘easy grow’ flowers. The only two varieties they had were Sunflowers and White Daisies.

I took it as a sign and though I have never been able to grow a flower in my life, I bought them. And then I planted them, and shortly after that, they budded, just a tiny little bit, and then they died. Go figure. You can choose to read into that as much as I did, (ie: a lot… anytime I’ve tried to grow a sun or daisy they bud and then die…. good, positive thoughts. I should have just nicknamed the girls ‘roasted chicken’ and ‘mac n cheese’ – two things I have created numerous times that have never died on me ) or you can be sane and logical.

Anyway, I took the ones that I believed were the Daisies and because they are perennials and I figured might bloom again this year, I dumped the dirt around my girls’ memorial rock I painted that is in my backyard. Because the Sunflowers are Annuals and I assumed they’d dried up, I think I just dumped the dirt in the trash.

So today, for the first time, I noticed that those leaves that had started to sprout a couple of weeks back, have just grown TREMENDOUS in the last few days- to the point where they cover the pink flamingo that watches over the rock (yes- I have flamingos in the front AND in the back of my house… wouldn’t you???) I’m thinking now that those stems actually are maybe too big for daisies and it’s possible I got the containers confused and they might be the sunflowers that weren’t Supposed to bloom this year… which was kinda cool. I’ll wait till they bloom and keep you posted.

And also, I told Elie. And he seemed to think that might be kinda cool too… or maybe he was just being sweet and didn’t really think anything at all.

But then, as I finished telling Elie, Molly started calling out- “Look mom! Two white butterflies! they like the bubbles! Two white butterflies!!” and those butterflies danced through our backyard for quite a while. Honestly, I was never really one to see these things and think of them in these mythical, spiritual ways, but today, I just did. And even more shocking, I think Elie did too. Or, again, maybe he didn’t really think much of it at all… I’m basing my assumptions about what he thought wholly on the fact that he glanced at me when Molly yelled about the butterflies. A glance. That’s it. I invent a thougfht process he may or may not have had  in his head, based on a glance. However, Maybe it was fueled by the fact that last night he and I went to dinner at a new friends house, and we talked about the twins, their whole story, out loud, for the first time, together. I don’t think we’ve ever done that. hmmm.

There was only one other time when I saw two white butterflies dancing with each other and it struck me  like that. It wasn’t a particularly emotional day but the car I was a passenger in pulled into a parking spot and those butterflies were Right there, in the windshield, dancing like it was their stage, and it nearly knocked the wind out of me. But anyway…

So, the rest of the day passed and was nice. And I’ve sat here at my desk for the last few hours working on some of the really Muchtastic things I have planned to help share The Muchness with the world. As I worked I thought about typing this post but was having a hard time getting focussed so I thought, eh, maybe I’ll just let it pass… not necessary to write about…

But here’s the thing.

As I sat here working, I kept hearing this really irritating, constant, buzzing sound. I’d never heard it before and didn’t know where the noise was coming from.

Above my desk is my huge Sunshine and Daisy framed print that I ordered the day after we lost them.

God as my witness, the picture was vibrating against the wall.  Not vibrating like weegee board haunted and possessed vibrating- I mean, I couldn’t actually see it moving, but when I touched it, the sound stopped. When I stopped touching it, the sound started again.

And then I decided to write this post, because that was a little too much for me.

Please, do not think I’ve lost it but if you look at the top of my post I started with “I felt like the twins were visiting all day… and now, into the night.”  and I was going to start by talking about the vibrating, but as soon as I wrote that line, the buzzing noise stopped. It stopped. I swear. that’s why the next line is “OMG. weird.”

It was buzzing for 2 or 3 hours straight before I started this post as I worked and in the entire time I’ve written this post it hasn’t started again.

I wish I knew what to take from the weirdness of this day, from the fact that my logic tells me this is absurd but my heart tells me it’s real.

I feel like I’m on a good path. I feel like they are proud of me. And I feel like they came today to say hello and they love me.

So weird.

It’s so late.

I’m beginning to wonder if I should even hit “publish’ on this post? As I typed that line I was beginning to wonder if by writing that line the picture would start vibrating again. It didn’t.

I skipped the part of  today where I reached into a pile of shirts to grab a gray one I thought was one thing, but turned out to be a shirt I last wore while pregnant with Liat. I put it on and had a moment then too. In the mirror. Seeing a pregnant body that simply wasn’t there.

Anyway.

Good Night.

Saying goodbye to a possibility. And a bath.

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2 years, 7 months, 2 weeks, 6 days since we said goodbye. I just woke up this morning feeling like crap. I think I had a dream last night that I had a miscarriage. I’m not pregnant and have never had a miscarriage so I don’t know where that came from. But now I’m feeling really shitty.
On mothers day I watched the twins memorial video and cried. And then felt like those tears were a betrayal to Liat- even though I know it’s not true. What a sucky feeling.
Either way, I think my mood today is also maybe related to the fact that I’m having a yard sale on Sunday to get rid of stuff, and I’ve decided to sell all the baby stuff I used for my daughters because we’re “done”… I already gave away almost all their outgrown clothing. For some reason, more than anything, the idea of getting rid of the baby bath is freaking me out. The baby bath. A $20 piece of plastic. I don’t know what that’s about.

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