Monday Mournings: The Death of a Sister

Susan Oloier, author and writer; mother and wife. In my previous life I was a third grade teacher and Reading Specialist until my husband and I decided to quit our jobs, sell our house, and buy an RV to travel the U.S. for a year with our then two-year-old son. Now I write and take care of my kiddos. I was raised in the Midwest, lived in Phoenix for quite some time, and now reside in SW CO.

DW: Who was the person who died?

Susan: My sister-in-law, Sara. Her death last year dealt a devastating blow.

DW: How old were you at the time?

Susan: Early 40s.

DW: How old was the person?

Susan: 36

DW:Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?

Susan: It was sudden and tragic. Sara was driving home from work, and there was a horrible car accident. No one else was involved. Somehow, she wound up hitting a concrete light pole. I believe they had to use the jaws of life to extricate her. She was taken to the hospital with countless injuries. I can still picture her lying there—so much herself, yet so very different. She never did wake up, so my brother was faced with some extremely difficult decisions. To this day, no one knows what happened.

DW: Did you and Sara ever talk about death?

Susan: We never really talked about her death. Though, I would occasionally bring up the life-limiting diagnosis of my younger son with her. She was so warm and loving with him; very compassionate.

DW: Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before this person died?

Susan: Yes. Many. Family pets (don’t laugh), all of my grandparents, aunts and uncles, two miscarriages, a close friend to cancer, and way too many children of other families who had children with Trisomy 18—my son’s diagnosis. In fact, after Zane was born, we were told to expect him to die within a few months. So death seemingly has been a companion lately.

DW: Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?

Susan: I found people to be very supportive. There was a lot of family around after Sara’s death. But everyone was really in shock. I helped my brother and Sara’s parents plan out the memorial, and I helped officiate. So, in addition to grieving, I found myself in the role of supporting my brother’s grief, as well.

DW: Is there anything you wish you’d done differently with Sara?

Susan: I wish I would have reached out to her more, gotten to know her better. We were just coming to a point where we were feeling so much like sisters. So many times I get caught up in the minutiae of life that I tend to let too much time go by between calling someone. Maybe we’re all a little guilty of this. But it will always be my regret with Sara. I wish I could tell her how much she meant to me. But somehow, I believe she already knows that.

DW: Was she buried or cremated?

Susan: She was cremated.

DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?

Susan: I believe grieving is a life-long process sometimes, especially when death is untimely. I learned this from all the babies and children who have died as a result of complications associated with Trisomy 18; I’ve learned it with Sara. One critical thing I’ve discovered is that loved ones don’t want us to forget those who have passed. So we need to keep talking about them and not be afraid of hurting those who remain by bringing up their names. They’ve already been through the worst. We need to keep them alive in spirit, in heart, and in memory. It’s when others stop asking and talking about the deceased that it becomes especially painful.

DW: I couldn't agree more. Last but not least, were any songs played at the memorial that were

important to Sara?

Susan: There’s one from Rascal Flatts that was their wedding song, but it’s still too painful to have you play that. I can picture them dancing together at the reception to it. Instead, my brother made a slideshow using In My Life by the Beatles. Listening to it (even today) brings me to tears and makes me think of the memorial. It is so very fitting, though. And Sara’s parents are huge Beatles fans.

This one goes out to Sara...

Unspeakable Loss

     The day of my first wedding, and yes I’ve had two, I found out that I was pregnant.  My period was late, but I attributed its absence to pre-wedding jitters.  It was bad timing on my part to take a pregnancy test on an already emotionally weighted day.  When I showed Guy the stick with the two blue lines, the color drained from his face.  He tried to keep it together for my sake, but his eyes revealed an inner horror, like he was in a tiny canoe heading towards Niagra Falls.  

     I wasn’t too thrilled either.  The pictures from our wedding show a lot of fear.  Our bodies look like mannequins, stiff and uncomfortable with frozen strained smiles on our faces.  During the champagne toast, I felt guilty for even holding a glass of alcohol.  While I did my best to hold back tears, Guy looked like he had a corncob firmly wedged up his butt.  We waited a couple of weeks after the wedding to share the news with our family.  They weren’t exactly thrilled, as we were young and not particularly settled into secure corporate jobs with insurance and a 401k.

    

     In my tenth week of pregnancy, I was in the dressing room of a maternity store trying on waist expanding pants.  I removed my too tight Levis and found that my underwear was spotted with bright red blood. I grabbed some tissue from the dressing room and left in a panic.  I called Guy from a phone at the mall and we met at the hospital.  Since UCSF was a teaching hospital, several pre-med students stood around and watched as the doctor performed an internal ultra sound, which was like a gynecological exam times ten on the embarrassment scale.

     The room was silent and tense as the head physician stared at a screen near my head looking for something, anything.

     “I’m afraid the fetus has died,” he said, his eyes still fixated on the monitor.  I turned towards Guy, the only friendly, caring face in the room.  I don't know if it was nerves or what, but my husband of two months looked more relieved than concerned.  As the nurse lowered the stirrups and helped me sit up, the medical students left the room. 

     “It’s for the best,” said Guy patting my arm.

      I was in shock, not fully aware of the implications of this dismissive comment.

     “I can order a D&C right now, or you can let it happen naturally,” the doctor said.

     The last thing I wanted was to break down and cry in front of that steely-faced doctor, so I chose option number two and fled from the hospital as fast as my unstable legs could carry me.

    The next few days were weird and tense, as I waited for the fetus to expel itself from my body.  

    “It will be like a heavy period,” the doctor offered as some sort of reassurance as we left the hospital.  At the first sign of cramps, I swallowed one of the pain pills I’d been given. Within an hour, I was writhing in pain in the bathtub, hoping the heat from the water would help to soothe my aching body.  But it was unbearable.  I was alone and I wanted nothing more than someone to walk me through this, give me comfort, or just hold my hand and say they were sorry.  As I exited the tub, a spasm of pain overtook me and I fell onto the tile floor.

     Guy rushed me to the nearest emergency room, which was located in a Catholic hospital, just a few blocks from our apartment.  Contractions surged through my body as I approached the receptionist.

     “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked coldly.

     My body twisted and contorted like Joe Cocker in the throes of a song. 

     “She’s having a miscarriage."

     “Oh,” she replied and called a nurse, who quickly shuffled the two of us into a room.  I was instructed by the nurse to remove my underwear and to change into a gown.  She then led me to a scale.  Blood streamed down my legs and onto the green tile floor.  I was mortified, but as usual, I kept my thoughts to myself.  The nurse threw a large cotton pad onto the examination table, asked me to sit down and then proceeded to stick me about four times with a needle.  Her unskilled intrusion popped one of my veins, resulting in deep blue bruising up and down the length of my arm making me look like a track-marked junkie.

     After thirty minutes of waiting and wondering why I wasn’t an emergency, the frazzled ER doctor wandered into the room.  While examining me, he asked the nurse for a pan. 

     “No wonder this was so painful,” he said and removed the placenta, which was the size of a calf’s liver.  Like an oddly excited kid in a science lab, he pointed out the fetus to Guy, who relayed to me later that it looked like a tiny slug.  

      That night, and for many nights after, I went home; cried, slept, chain smoked, and ate a lot of ice cream.  I never went back to my job. I wanted to start over and pretend that it didn’t happen. There was no funeral or public grieving over this thing, this slug.  Everyone was complicit in maintaining the silence.  It wasn’t until I saw my father at a family gathering that I was cruelly reminded of the potential of my loss. Holding my cousin’s newborn baby, he said, “See what you missed out on?”

     I met Susan Oloier in Bayfield, CO when we both showed up for a new writer's group at the public library.  That night, she read an essay about suffering a miscarriage and we bonded over our shared experience.  I don't know about you, but I find it incredibly refreshing when someone speaks about something that no one ever really talks about. Miscarriage is one of those things.  It's important to share our stories.  Just because we don't have a physical body to bury or a picture to remember that being, that life was real the minute the two lines appeared.  

     If it were up to me, I'd wear a shirt that said "Ask me about my miscarriage," as a social experiment.  And I bet you I'd get approached by a lot of women--women who had no one to commiserate with, or who were embarrassed that they'd failed at doing something "natural", or shamed that is was their fault.  Our stories are important.  They define us.  The help us make sense of things.  They let us heal.

     Susan has written a novel called "Fractured" about a couple who experiences a miscarriage.  It is available as an E book at Amazon and Smashwords.

     I'm so proud of Susan for writing this story and getting it published!  She's doing a blog book tour, so check it out!

     Have you experienced a death in your life?  Would you be willing to be interviewed on this blog about it? I'm looking for people to talk with on my "Monday Mourning" posts.