The video post on Monday and other posts on friendship this week have inspired and uncovered lots of topics I hadn’t thought of … like how to continue a friendship after losing a baby. I have heard from my friends without kids that it is VERY difficult to maintain a friendship with someone who has just given birth to a baby, because that baby is so central to the person’s like, and such a source of pain to the other friend. Monica LeMoine of Exhale magazine pens a beautiful piece about that very subject. To get to her piece click here. Thanks to Christina Gombar whom I interviewed on the topic of infertility for bringing it to my attention. I have excerpted the beginning.
Recently, my husband and I were invited to the birthday party of
Kelly, the daughter of our close friend Cara. “Kelly’s First Birthday
Bash!” said the Evite in cheery orange font. At first, I checked the
“yes” box, for who wouldn’t want to hang out by a sunny poolside
and gobble Cara’s homemade cake with a bunch of jubilant kids and
adults, all in celebration of a beautiful blue-eyed toddler’s turning
one!
But then I saw on the invitation that another mutual friend, Nina,
was also going to be present, and suddenly the event seemed less
appealing. Nina, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in months, would
be bringing her handsome, brown-haired son Rilo, about to turn one
himself. “Rilo is looking forward to seeing his older woman
celebrate her first, amazing year,” Nina wrote in her Evite response.
Oh, barf, I thought to myself.
Reading this seemingly benign comment – even just seeing Nina’s
name on the guest list – instantly made a cloud of gloom and anger
begin to spread in the core of my belly. Not anger at Nina or her
son, both completely innocent parties in all this, but anger at the
whole world for singling out me to treat unfairly. Anger at myself
for being unable to let go of old feelings of resentment and self-pity,
outdated worries, obsolete fantasies of the person I thought I’d be
today but had failed to become. I had thought I was over all of these
dark feelings, having moved on with my life, but I guess not.
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