Heaven for Beginners

While Carey was pregnant, I began writing an essay about my ideas on Heaven.  If you know me, you won’t be surprised that it has little to do with clouds and harps and (as Schwyzen puts it) chucking Hosanna-propelled crowns at the resurrected Christ.  Heaven, for me, was easiest to think about using geometric concepts and maybe a quantum mechanic thrown in here and there.

It’s been just over three months since the boys left us and these ideas are more precious to me than ever.  People have asked me about where I think they are and whether they’re able to see me and hear me.  “I think they can,” I tell them.  “In fact, I think they can see and hear everything.”  My wife has asked me if I think they miss us as much as we miss them and I told her I didn’t think so because I think we’re with them.

Anyhow, thanks for reading.  I’m still deciding how to use this space.

Dissent/discussion welcome.

1 (Line)

To understand One, grab a pencil and draw the number one itself, which is to say, draw a line. It can be as long or as short as you like. One has no depth or thickness, only length. It’s a single axis, a way to describe point A’s relationship to point B.

That’s really all there is to say about One.

2 (Plane)

Two is a plane, a flat surface. It’s circles and squares, length and width. It’s the Mona Lisa or a page of Brahms’ Cello Sonata in F.

But Two has no depth, so if you want a Two representation of your own life, they best you can do is a photograph. For example, take a look at that snapshot of you from Heather’s wedding. Beautiful reception and everyone remembers that gorgeous flower arrangement at the head table. But what kind of flowers were they? The photograph isn’t telling because your shoulder’s in the way. Turn the photo over if you want, look underneath it, or zoom in on the image as hard as you can, lose yourself in the grain of the pixel blur… you’ll still never know. The information, like the photo itself, is flat.

Color, shape, length, width.

That’s Two.

3 (Depth)

Three is length plus width plus depth; the x, y and z axes. If Two is a circle, Three is a sphere. 2D is area, 3D is volume.

We live in a Three world and it’s here we can crane our necks and see over your shoulder and, yes, chrysanthemums.

Perspective, thickness, dimension, atmosphere. Board a ship, sail around the planet, end where you began.

Three.

4 (Time)

Ask a friend to locate the Eiffel Tower on a world map. If they’re reasonably educated, they’ll find Europe, then France, then Paris. “There.”

Maybe they’ll give you precise coordinates, latitude and longitude, distance above sea level. It’s conceivable they’ll tell you how far it is from the Earth’s core or the nearest tip of the Crab Nebula.

Now ask them to locate The Olympics.

Four is when.

We may be living in a Three world, but we’re coasting through a Four reality, one moment at a time, so casually and consistently that we forget what a marvel it really is, like fish who only know Wet.

We exist on an earth that’s hurtling around our sun at a breakneck 18 miles per second, which is attached to a solar system traveling even faster. “Where” changes so fast and so often that the concept itself is borderline useless if we don’t couple it with “when”.

We die, then we make babies together, then we fall in love, then we’re born, then we’re married, then we meet. (Not necessarily in that order.)

Three is space. Four is time.

Onward.

5 (AllNow)

If you could step outside your own body and observe your activity for one day, it may or may not be all that remarkable, but imagine consolidating all your comings and goings into a single, 3 dimensional, long-exposure image. A you-shaped blur that begins in your bed, curls into the shower, the kitchen, your car, into your workplace, eventually snaking back into your home, and ending in bed. Depending on your routine, that single you-caterpillar would likely stretch for miles, if straightened out end-to-end, a perfect map of everything you did, everywhere you went that day.

Now think of the Earth itself, winding around the sun for centuries, millennia, as a single image. A solid blue ring around a little yellow star.

Now imagine all life, everywhere, all activity and every event as a single, literal object. The entirety of time and space, every birth and death, every asteroid collision and every cup of coffee drunk. The blurs of human history, overlapping and intersecting, piping through the cosmos, as the earth spins round the sun spins round the galaxy spins round the universe.

And not just everything that’s happened, but everything that will happen. All time, start to finish.

This is Five, what Morrison refers to as the AllNow.

For us, “today” is everything. In fact, it’s all we have. Your maximum point of influence in the universe is the instant you’re experiencing at this precise moment. But look: that moment’s gone and now you’re in a new one. And look! A new one.

Et cetera.

Not so in the AllNow, the time/space object where we all exist, but can’t perceive it properly because we’re forced to experience it one moment at a time.

Your life story will conclude; it’s a fact. As surely as it began, it’s going to end. If you could see your Three/Four life from a Five perspective, you’d understand and you wouldn’t be afraid, because there it is. No more surprises.

That’s Five.

6 (Possibility)

You’re in a coffee shop, you accidentally knock your spoon off the table. He notices, gets you a new one. You begin talking, get married and live out your days together in Walla Walla.

You’re in a coffee shop, you bump your spoon, but catch it just in time. He buys his coffee and leaves. You move to the Dominican Republic to volunteer at an orphanage.

One happened, the other didn’t. There’s only one you, only one destiny, only one fifth dimensional time/space object. Right?

Six: possibility.

Schrödinger proposed a simple scenario in which a cat is trapped in a box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter and a poison flask. The cat’s dead, unless it isn’t. We can’t know for sure until we open the box and observe it. It’s conceivable there are two realities operating simultaneously: one in which the cat is dead, the other in which it’s very annoyed.

What if time and reality are constantly forking and branching, accommodating every possibility, every permutation of every event that ever was? What if the time/space Five object we’re inside is simply one option, one strand of infinite realities?

Somehow, somewhere, you did get the job. You did wreck your car. You did quit smoking.

He does love you.

What if every story ever written, ever dreamed, however outrageous, really is happening?

AllOccurs in AllNow.

Six.

7 (Heaven)

“Why is there something rather than nothing?”

That’s Leibniz asking the question from the 17th century, and he wasn’t the first.

To recap: a time object supercontext, infinitely versioned to allow for every possibility of every event in the universe. 3D worlds inside 4D realities inside 5D timespaces inside 6D possibilities.

At last, Seven. The omega level, the authority, the governing dimension, the place of souls.

Seven is Heaven.

If you’ll allow that only the eternal can contain the infinite, that we’re, all of us, being prepared for something… there must be some method of building, containing and nurturing all that is.

It’s here the iterations of time and space are nakedly displayed, where we’re there to see it and understand it. As e. e. cummings describes:

everything which is natural, which is infinite which is yes.

It exists because it has to, because it’s the only Somewhere that makes sense. If Five is AllNow and Six is AllOccurs, Seven is, must be, AllIntimacy.

Your ambitions and purity and the completion of the You project is Here. Your dead ancestors and friends and even your descendants: they’re not just fond memories and they’re not simply with you “in your heart”. Even your loved ones and your enemies and everyone you’ve never met, who are still living now in the “present”.

They’re HereNow.

And you. The Real You, not the moment-to-moment crash test dummy you’re riding now, where the past is memory and the future is unknown. The Authentic You. The 7D You:

You’re HereNow.

AllIntimacyOccursNow.

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” (Yes.)

“God is Love.” (Yes.)

Heaven is here. We’re in it unknowingly.

Deep breaths, friend. You are loved infinitely. Take comfort: One is a line.

Heaven is Everything.

Tags: Heaven

Best Possible

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve posted, but I’ve thought of my blog and those who read it often. This post isn’t so much an update as a, well, a Something. A couple of weeks after the boys were born and passed, I began writing a short piece without any sort of idea where it was going or who would be likely to read it. Maybe it would be just for me.

Tonight finds me at an open mic night at Seka Coffee House in Long Beach. I’ve been given 5 minutes to do whatever I want with a captive audience and I’ve decided to read what I wrote. Due to time, I’m only doing an excerpt, but the full text is below, if you’re interested.

It’s called Best Possible and it was inspired by my sons.

It’s after sundown. I’m in my car and I’m driving somewhere, only I don’t know exactly where because that’s up to my passenger, who’s giving directions, calling out the turns and the exits, the merges and the yields. I ask him about the destination and he says “trust me” and I’m not altogether sure I do, but I will.

He’s in his 40s, maybe even 50, and his hair’s starting in with the gray, but mostly he’s pretty thin up top. He’s paunchy and pale, with a voice like my father’s, only a little deeper, and a profile like my mother’s, only a little more beaky and it’s been a few days since he’s shaved.

Point of fact, he looks exactly like me. Or anyway, exactly how I’ll look in 10 or 15 years. Truth is, he’s my future self and he’s returned to his past, my present, to tell me to stay on the 710 south.

“How many kids do you have?” he asks me and I tell him he already knows and he says, “humor me, would you?” and I tell him the truth, which is to say I had 3 boys, but now they’re dead.

He shakes his head and winces. “I’m sorry,” he tells me. “You’re one of those. Two of my sons also passed, but the third, Oscar, he made it. He starts high school in the fall.”

The place we arrive, it’s sort of a little studio, the kind where they teach children karate, only it seems to be closed. My passenger, the future me, says, “go ahead in.” I cut the engine, undo my seatbelt and hesitate. Finally, I ask him if he has any, I don’t know, advice or something. He itches his nose and rakes his fingers through his hair the same way I’ve done since I was a toddler and eventually says, “oh, sure. You should exercise more.”

I leave Future Me in the car and head inside. The door’s unlocked and the lights are off, except for a little desk lamp on a tiny, wooden table in the center of the room, between a couple of chairs. In one of them sits Future Me, who I could’ve sworn was in the car just a second ago. He’s slightly older, or maybe younger. Something’s different and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what, but he’s focused on his paperback copy of The Brothers Karamazov, the one collecting dust at home on my shelf in my office, and if he notices me, he doesn’t say anything.

I sit in the opposite chair and eventually break the tension by telling him I’ve tried to make it through Karamazov three times and I always fail miserably. He looks up and chuckles and says, “this is attempt number five for me and it’s a real climb. Would it kill these people to have a regular conversation once in awhile? Page 170 and I’m ready to murder all three brothers.”

We spend a few minutes talking about books we like and books we don’t and he mentions Ayn Rand and I tell him she’s one of Carey’s favorites and he says “who’s Carey?” I’m not sure if he’s joking, but I say, you know, she’s my wife and he closes his eyes and smiles. “Carey, right. From college.”

I’m for mystery as much as the next man (and in this particular case, that’s me too), but I eventually ask him who he is, what this is. He points to a little door in the back of the studio that reads STAFF and says, “you’re going to have to go in there, sooner or later.” Then he hands me a raffle ticket with a number hand-written on it and says, “I’m you. The you that gets you ready.”

I open the door.

The STAFF room is less of a room and more of an indoor arena. Not exactly a stadium, but it’s in the neighborhood. There seems to be a big event going on in the center, on some kind of red platform, complete with concert-style lighting.

Also, the place is, well, packed. Old men, young men, everything in between. Some in outrageous outfits, some in understated suits. A handful seem to be drunk or high and others still are handicapped. But the big thing they all have in common is they all look exactly like me.

“We’re waiting,” says a voice next to me, who turns out to be a very pained-looking, mid-twenties me, propped against a wall, clutching his sides. “You’ll want to get comfortable, most of us have been here awhile.” I ask what we’re waiting for and he says, through gritted teeth, “we’re all waiting for some one-on-one time with the guy on stage. The one in the center.” I ask who’s in the center and he says, “it’s me. You. All of us. But he’s the Best Possible Version.”

I thank him and begin making my way down the aisles. But before I do, I ask him if he’s having kidney stone trouble. “How’d you guess,” he says and I tell him to try a shot of lemon juice each morning. He says, “no kidding?”

Every 10 or 20 minutes, the sound system barks out a number. I take a look at my raffle ticket and it looks like I have a few thousand ahead of me. I do my best to get situated.

Hours turn into days turn into months. I spend a lot of time talking to other me’s, listening to my life story over and over, sometimes with only slight variations from my own experience, sometimes wildly different. Since we all have the same name, we refer to each other by our numbers, which is kind of cool and makes us all feel like Patrick McGoohan.

It’s the old versions of myself, the guys who are 80+, that really flip my shit. They don’t seem in any hurry to convince any of their younger selves of anything and they’re mostly short on words of wisdom. It’s all Que Sera Sera, which is the opposite of the frantic teens and reckless 20s.

I hear stories of me’s that were and others that weren’t and others still that were, but maybe not quite in the way I remember. For example, I attended Samford University, met and married a girl named Molly, and began art directing video games. I also sold my first play when I was 18, which was called Whatever Gets You Through The Night and divided my 20s between trying to get stage shows off the ground in New York and living with my dad in Hartville when money was tight.

I had an affair with a coworker when I was 31, divorced Carey for her, and turned to getting high when that ended in tears. In high school, I was screwing around with Matt Brainard and wound up getting hit by an icicle, which took off my left leg. At 52, I published a book on 15th century Spain that less than 100 people bought and at 25, I lost my life to a drunk driver.

There are a few trending themes. Carey’s in a lot of the stories, the lives, maybe even half of them. Art and writing, in some form or another, are in nearly all of them. I tend to wind up with at least one child. I’m typically either Christian or agnostic, but sometimes Buddhist and in one case, I’m even a Scientologist, if you can believe that.

The only thing I’m consistently sure of, with each story I hear, is that I’m simultaneously inspired and disgusted by what I’m capable of.

Finally, my number’s up.

I head up the stairs to the red platform, head buzzing with all the conversations of recent weeks and months, trying to keep straight which me I am. At the top, on a small, tan couch, sits the Best Possible Version of me. He’s older than I am, significantly older, with silver-crazed eyebrows and leather suspenders. He looks tired. Ready for whatever I have to throw at him, but still tired.

He stands when I approach and shakes my hand. “It’s your time,” he tells me. “What would you like to talk about?”

We sit. I tell him I’ve been thinking about that parable where everybody puts all their problems in a big pile and winds up taking back their own problems for themselves when given the choice. I tell him the story’s bullshit, as I see it. I’ve met a lot of me’s recently and there were quite a few of them whose life I’d choose over mine. I miss my sons. I want a life where I get to see them grow into men.

Best Possible nods. “What do you want to ask me?” he says.

I tell him I want to know what he did so differently from the rest of us. Was it faith that made him better? Or adversity? Or was he just born with a better soul? How did he avoid all the mistakes the rest of us seem to make?

“I avoided nothing,” he says. “I’ve probably made more bad choices than anyone here. Not just because I’ve had time to make them, but because I’ve been terribly, terribly stupid with my talents and my relationships. If there was something to screw up, I screwed it up. I could tell you my story, but you’ll have to take my word for it: it’s a real heartbreaker.”

I ask him what makes him the Best. Did he cure cancer or something?

“No,” he says, “you need to listen to me, here. I haven’t led a good life and I spend my time choking on regret. But I look around and I see all these versions of myself and I ask every single one the same question: how do you feel about the men assembled here?”

I say I love them.

“Yes,” he says. “So do I. And they all love you, too. They’d do anything for you, because they know you from the inside. Isn’t that the perfect way to feel about someone else?”

I say Yes it is.

“I doubt any reasonable person would call me the best version of anything,” he says, “but I sit up here because one of us has to and I thought it might ease the burden of a life that didn’t turn out how I’d planned. You already know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?”

I nod and say You’re going to offer me your seat.

The old me slings an arm over my shoulder: “Yours if you want it.”

And if this is a dream, here’s where I wake up.

And if this is what it’s like to be dead, here’s where I find out What’s Next.

And if this is just a story, here’s where I clue you in about the sort of story you’ve been taking in.

And no matter what I decide, the numbers will continue to bark from the sound system and the long procession of me will continue up and down the stairs, maybe some staying in the Best seat, others not wanting to bear the weight. The artists, the husbands, the leaders, the abusers, the addicts, the fathers, the heroes, the professionals and the basket cases, everything I ever could have been and ever could be are waiting their turn.

Like Patrick McGoohan, though, I’m not a number. I’m a free man.

And while I may not be the one who decides how my life turns out, how my story goes, I do have a say.

Today I say Continue.

Tags: art, boys, Grief, multiple versions of myself, short story

Memorial Video: The Bear Triplets

Below is the video produced for the June 25th, 2011 memorial service for Rudyard, Desmond and Oscar Bear, our triplet sons.

Please be warned: while this video contains a handful of images from their brief lives, it also contains some imagery captured shortly after their passing. If you’re disturbed or offended by this sort of thing, please don’t feel any obligation to watch.

Thanks for celebrating them with us.

Tags: art, Babies, boys, drawing, memorial, photos, Pregnancy, Tribute, Triplets, Video

Faces

Today was our boys’ memorial, which was shared with a few dear friends and family.  It’s another example of something I’d like to talk more about later, but suffice it to say it was a really tremendous time.  If you were there in person or in spirit, thank you.

It probably hasn’t escaped you that Carey and I have been very precious about sharing photos of the boys.  Only a very few people have seen them and that may change eventually, but to commemorate the day, it seemed a good time to share my drawings of our sons, produced for the memorial.

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Rudyard

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Desmond

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Oscar

Good night and God bless.

Tags: art, Babies, boys, drawing, memorial, Triplets

From Noelle

Posting this week will be sparse, even though I have half-drawn thoughts on Father’s Day, E. Coli and other odds and ends wasting time in my WordPress Drafts folder. Our boys’ memorial is this weekend, see, and all available moments are being directed that way.

I mentioned last time that Carey and I have been lucky enough to receive a lot of notes from a lot of beautiful people and today I decided to share one of them. Noelle runs her own blog over at These Mountains Are Mine and, rather than picking through what she said and presenting it in bits for the sake of modesty, I’ll just give you her whole letter.

It’s difficult to explain what it’s like to lose your children and Noelle doesn’t claim to know, but I think she has an idea:

Jeremy,

I appreciate the mention on your blog and I hadn’t originally planned to write to you, but after reading your most recent post I figured maybe you’d want me to. I originally wrote a much longer post specifically inspired by your blog. But, after rereading it, I decided not to post it.

I thought maybe my honesty about my lack of understanding would offend or be misunderstood. So instead I decided to steer people towards your blog and experience the story for themselves.

But I’ve decided to share some of the original post with you:

There’s something about the loss of a child that changes you, isn’t there? I haven’t experienced this personally, but I have family and friends who have, even recently. Tips for Triplets dad, Jeremy, got to me today. I read the story of his three sons. It was heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. I blame his writing skills for my emotional breakdown. I’ve heard these stories before, but the way he wrote it conveyed all the emotions they were feeling and suddenly I understood.

Losing a child of any age is heartbreaking. It’s just out of order and isn’t suppose to happen. But I’ve never truly understood before, the concept of equal heartbreak for a child who was never born. I know friends who’ve lost babies. I know that they still think about them, love them, grieve for them on their birthdays each passing year, and believe they’ll be in heaven waiting for them someday. Above all they consider that child as much one of their children as any. It’s hard for me to relate and sympathize with those feeling because I guess I’ve just never experienced it. If you miscarry and never name or meet your child can you really already love them that much already? I’m guessing the answer is yes, but the story of the sons that Jeremy lost takes it even deeper for me. They were each born into the world, held in their parents arms, talked to, loved, and then they died. That has to be one of the most heart wrenching situations. He introduces and describes each boy, their unique names and characteristics–I have no doubt they’ll never forget their sons. I’m not sure that I will ever forget their sons.

I remembered something about myself as a child today. My mother had two miscarriages and a stillbirth. I think the still birth was the most painful because they’d already found out the gender and named her…Naomi. She was born, buried and mourned. I remember that growing up I always told people that I had a sister in heaven named Naomi…I really considered her my sister. I don’t even know what it’s like to have a big sister (and honestly, if she’d been born, I probably wouldn’t be here anyway), but I considered her to be very real and she was just a story my mom told me, before my existence. I also remember telling people that really there were six kids in our family, but three were in heaven. I had it in my head that the other two were boys.

Maybe it has something to do with being wanted. When you lose a child that you wanted in your life and should have been…you just lose a child. Once you give your child a name, and a face, how can you get them out of your heart?

I guess the answer is…you can’t.

I know I can’t really understand, but I was absolutely struck by your sons story. I appreciate your honesty about your feelings. I also appreciate your cinematic references. But most of all I admire your courage. You know, the messy-sometimes angry-courage that it takes to keep blogging and remembering your sons. They have found there way into many of my conversations, and they absolutely will not be forgotten.

Since I have no idea how to end a letter to a stranger, I suppose I will just share with you one of my favorite poems…

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overheard, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Noelle
http://thesemountainsaremine.blogspot.com/

Thank you, Noelle.

Tags: Babies, Grief, Letter, Noelle

Hello

Carey and I can’t quite escape it and maybe we don’t want to: writing blogs and reading blogs and being members of the blogging community has meant more to us in recent months, particularly in recent weeks, than almost anything. We should probably hang around.  Well, we need to. I suppose there’s a part of us that feels that, if we’re writing and others are reading, that’s a piece of our boys that gets to stay with us.

Anyway, it’s a start.

I’ve received emails and Facebook messages that have been written with such zeal and honesty that I’ve wanted to say to the sender: Could you paste this onto a FB wall or a message board or even a blog comment? Because I think others should read this too.

Carey and I are putting together a memorial next week and as we prepare material for it and discuss the people and places that have meant the most to us in our time with Rudyard, Des and Oz, we keep returning to you. And when I say “you”, I mean, well, you. You, looking at your laptop or desktop or smart phone, at home or at work or out and about. You, who maybe know us already or maybe not. You, who know our little fellows as well as their aunts or grandparents know them because you’ve taken the time to check this space.

There’ve been some really, truly generous souls who’ve gone back to their own Facebook statuses and even their own blogs who’ve used their own digital real estate to talk about us and our sons. Often asking for prayer, sometimes just mentioning who we are and how what’s happened to us has affected them, in some cases petitioning others to visit us here or at ModVegan to lend their support.

In not just the spirit of reciprocity, but also true appreciation, I’d like to mention a handful of blogs who’ve brought others here by writing about us. They’re the reason people know about our boys because they took the time to tell people. And, bonus, in every single instance, I’ve been moved or intrigued or in some way struck by their perspective. They’re worth reading and I want to tell others about them.

If you’ve got a second, give these folks a click. Odds are decent you already know at least one of them:

Multiples and More
Amanda is the queen of all things multiples and her mini-empire isn’t so mini anymore. If you have twins, triplets, quads or quints, Amanda wants to meet you. Without question, she’s directed more good people here than anyone and it’s been a real blessing to be a part of her network.

Stay At Home Triplet Dad
When I was flailing around, panicked and bleary-headed, after discovering our triplet pregnancy, Al was my first triplet-parent friend. He’s been generous with advice, spreadsheets, schedules and, most recently, prayers. I hope to meet him for reals one day.

Newlyweds Next Door
Kirsten is a real-life friend with a real-fun blog about the comings and goings of herself and her husband Jon. Her help and support has been a big deal to Carey and me and we’re lucky to know her.

Fireworks to Fireplaces
“Ms. G”, a very dear friend of ours, writes about her pregnancy and eventual loss of their little one, “Baby G”, last December.  She graciously offered to spread the word about our children and she’s kept her promise.

Spontaneous Triplets Blog
Good friends Esther and Jason have generously shared the journey of birthing their spontaneous triplets with the world. William, Jackson and Emilia were born healthy and strong one week ago today.

Pyjammy’s Blog
Pam knows social media and she’s maybe the most committed blogger I’ve ever seen. She left the very first Tips On Triplets comment and she’s been on our side ever since. Her boys are lucky to have her.

Lost and Found Connections Abound
A network/blog that exists to provide a supportive community for parents and parent-hopefuls, particularly those who’ve experienced loss.

Crossing the Double Pink Lines
Chloe, like us, lost all three of her triplets recently. Her words and support have been essential to both of us. During our hospital stay, she advised us, “you won’t feel like it, but take lots of pictures. You’ll want them later.” We did and she was right.

She Breathes Deeply
Mandy is cool, energetic, tattooed and her blog is popular for a reason. I’ve only discovered her recently and I’m glad I did.  If you’re not reading her, you should.

What the Blog?
Jenn doesn’t just entertain and inform, she provides a valuable service to lots and lots of people everywhere: she inspires.  A very insightful blog with nitty-gritty anecdotes genuinely helpful to new parents.

This Beautiful Mess
Charity and her family are old friends and we’re lucky to know them. She’s beautiful and intelligent, just like her blog.  Also, she’s a pastor’s wife, but try not to hold it against her.

All This Grace and Charm
Carly is an admitted fan of all things fun and clever. A stylish lady with a stylish blog that I’ve just recently begun to enjoy.  Her mojo is infectious.

Multiple-y Blessed, written by Kim

The Adventures of TaderBaby, written by TBONEGRL

Three Times the Giggles, written by Helen

OneParkBench, written by Susan, who we’re lucky to know

Triplet Diaries, written by Kari, Mariann and Trude

Zone Defense, written by Kitty

No.17 Cherry Tree Lane, written by Rachel, who prays a lot

Spermination Station, written by Genevieve

Just a Dash of Sanders, written by Jamie and Chrissy

These Mountains are Mine, written by Noelle

Three Little Ladies, written by Ryan

About the Small Stuff, written by Cary

A Magnolia Heart, written by Whitney

Fille d’Eve (Daughter of Eve), written by Tami

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I do apologize if I’ve left you off the list and, admittedly, this doesn’t include the people who’ve spread the word about us through Facebook, Twitter or email, even though it should. If I’ve neglected to include you, please say something and give me and everyone a link to your blog/twitter/tumbr/facebook.

And, for that matter, I think this would be an appropriate time, if you feel so inclined, to introduce yourself, whoever you are. If you’ve been reading/hoping/praying or even just lurking, say hello, would you? And, holy smokes, if you have a blog, please mention what it is and where it is.

There are good people here, who’ve made the last couple of weeks a little easier.

And if now isn’t the time to come together, then, man, what is?

Tags: community, links, Triplets

Remaining Men Together

Last night found us at a support group for bereaved parents, you know, like us.  I’m not exactly sure what it’s called, but something like Failed Pregnancies, which is about as appropriate as anything, I guess.

It was surprising.  I can’t exactly put my finger on why or what was so surprising about it, maybe the fact that it was small (only about 8 or 9 attendees) or maybe because no one there looked like parents of dead children.  In fact, they didn’t really look like anything other than the sort of people in front of you or behind you at the grocery store.

Sharon, the organizer, invited everyone ahead of time to share their “stories” and I suppose I was expecting something along the lines of Hello, I’m Gloria and this is my husband Chester.  We were just so excited about our pregnancy and so shocked when we discovered a heart defect at 18 weeks.  It’s been 3 months since we lost our baby and each day is still a struggle.  We named him Kilroy.

This most definitely wasn’t that. The stories were epically lengthy and hugely detailed. And when I say detailed, I mean medically. I can tell you all about these ladies’ vaginas. Not to mention their cervixes, placentas, amniotic fluids and so on. But most of all, I can tell you everything that went wrong with their unborn children. From the nuances in the doctors’ tones of voices to the phone calls with grandma to which episode of what was playing on television the morning their water broke.

Grief is strange and interesting and scary. We’re a group of people who have very little in common other than the fact that we’re reluctant members of a local chapter of a very big international community: we’re all in the the Dead Baby Club. And we’re all there because of this big, weird, sticky-yellow thing with tentacles and 1,000 little eyes called Grief. And we’re trying everything to get it to leave us alone. From curling up in a ball, fingers in our ears, to embracing it full-on, to ignoring it altogether, to laughing at it, to feeding it, to starving it, to yelling and screaming and hacking away at its shitty limbs, even though brand new ones appear to regrow almost immediately. The only thing that seems to satisfy this prick is the last thing any of us want to give it: lots and lots and lots of time.

Eventually, it was our turn to talk. I wasn’t sure what to say and I stumbled around a little before admitting I’d never been in a support group and the whole thing felt weird to me. “Like that scene from Fight Club, where all those men with testicular cancer are sitting in a circle talking about how much they miss their balls,” I told them.

Carey told our story better than I did and she cried. And nearly everyone else there cried too. We were hoping that the more seasoned people in the group would say something about how much easier it is now than it was 9 days after their babies died, but they didn’t. One or two women mentioned how difficult it can be when well-meaning people say things that don’t entirely help, like the old “remember, the Bible tells us that God will never give you more than you can handle” and other gems. I suppose Carey and I have been fairly fortunate in that regard, by the way. Nearly all encouragements and sympathies we’ve been given have been genuinely encouraging and sympathetic, which helps a lot.

(Side tangent, though, because it’s a pet peeve of mine: the bible doesn’t say anything about not giving us more than we can handle. It’s true; I looked it up and everything. It mentions something about how God will never allow us to be tempted us beyond what we can bear (1Cor. 10:13), but that’s a different thing entirely. End/rant.)

Eventually I chimed in again: “It pisses me off. All of you seem to be really nice people who deserve your babies. Doesn’t it piss you off?”

Vigorous nods.

“I think I might be starting a season of anger here which I’m really not excited about, but it seems inevitable and, you know, I’d rather just skip it. I don’t want to be an angry person. But I went back to work today for the first time since our children died and it made me really really upset that I’d be driving home soon and when I got there my kids wouldn’t be there. It’s stupid. We’re just people, we’re not equipped for this. I WANT MY SONS BACK.”

I suppose mini-tirades are what support groups are for.

One of the moms in the group recalled a story where a woman lost her child and the hospital gave her a discarded Pampers box to keep her mementos in. Since then, her “ministry” I guess, she paints decorative boxes and gives them to parents who’ve gone through what we went through. In fact, we were given one of her boxes the day Rudyard, Desmond and Oscar were born and passed and it’s meant a lot to us. It was nice to be able to thank her for it.

I suppose we’ll go back. It’s more helpful in hindsight than it was in the moment, but I’m glad we were able to meet these people. I hope to stay in touch with them and I really hope Carey stays in touch with them.

I think we’ll need them.

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Speaking of needs, I’ve had an ever-mounting pile of guilt the past week and a half over failing to adequately respond to the beautiful words, prayers and desperately-needed encouragements Carey and I have received, particularly online. Frankly, in this, the hardest thing we’ve every experienced, neither of us have ever encountered anything like the outpouring of love and support we’ve been lucky enough to receive.

I know I’m a broken record here, but thank you. Even now, we return to our blogs and our Facebook pages when we’re in our darkest moments and it helps every time, particularly when we share them out loud to each other.

But it’s not just kind notes. We received some gorgeous flower arrangements that have brightened our home and lifted our spirits. “I’m so happy people have been kind enough to get us flowers,” I told Carey a couple of days ago. “It’s pretty and thoughtful and, best of all, temporary.”

She knew what I meant. While framed poems and knickknacks and other sentimental objects can be great, there’s a stressful side to it too. We’re doing our best to continue the home-purge that began months ago because the new Bear Family Mantra is “Live With Less”. And more stuff can easily turn into more to manage because we feel too guilty packing it away or, god forbid, getting rid of any mementos from this period of our lives.

And then there’s the food.

I can’t tell you how sweet it’s been the last couple of weeks to not have to worry about where our meals are coming from or making time to purchase or prepare them. People just keep showing up to the house to drop off lunches and dinners and snacks and desserts and groceries. And not McDonald’s, either. Good stuff, real food. I don’t think we’ve ever eaten better in our lives. The generosity has been overwhelming and, trust me, we’ve been taking full advantage. I mentioned to Carey the other day, after our friend Christy brought by a delicious meal from Ambrosia, “except for the grieving part, this really is the life, isn’t it?”

A couple of people have asked about “donations”, whether it’s for our bills or for a cause we’d want to support in the boys’ names. As far as our bills go, thankfully, we’re ok for the moment. In terms of a charity or something, we’ve been trying to think of something, but we’re really not sure. Carey in particular has a few different causes she’s passionate about, causes that we already give to regularly, especially the ones that involve kindness to animals and/or the environment. But we’re not sure if it’s strange or tacky to use what happened to us to draw attention to our particular missions. Admittedly, though, I don’t know how these things typically work. Erm, any thoughts?

Finally, there’s this very blog. I don’t know what to do with this place and, let’s face it, even the name of it now almost borders on insulting. I know of several other blogs that have made the unfortunate transition from Expectant Parent blog to Grief blog and I can’t decide if that’s what this should be.

But, fact is, our boys lived. They existed in the world and, however humble, their brief lives left an impact on the world. I’m hesitant to dismantle this site altogether.

At the very least, though, it really is time to take down our baby registry link and update the FAQ. You wouldn’t think something like that would take tremendous willpower to do, but it does.

Yes, we are Men.  Men is what we are.

Deep breaths.  Welcome to Grief.

Tags: bereavement, blogs, flowers, food, Grief, support groups, Triplets

The Bear Boys

Our sons are gone, but their spirits remain in our hearts, our home, our heads.  Speaking as a father, I’ve never been prouder of anything than I am of these boys and I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to introduce them.

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Rudyard Bear
b. 6:28 am, 6/4/11
1 lb., 1 oz.  /  10-1/2 in.

Rudyard was “Baby A”, whose sac ruptured Tuesday evening.  He fought hard to replenish his fluid over the following few days, but was eventually forced to surrender to the weight of his brothers and the stresses of infection.  We saw him, his heart beating weakly on an ultrasound screen, minutes before his delivery.  By the time he’d completed his journey through the birth canal, he was considered stillborn.

When I was in high school, my favorite poem was If, by Rudyard Kipling and it’s remained so to this day.  It provides what I consider to be perfect instructions for any boy anywhere on the requisites of becoming a man.  At 16, I told friends I’d one day have a son named “Rudyard” and, mostly, they laughed.  But it’s always been a dream of mine and I petitioned my wife, when we discovered our triplets were boys, to set it aside as the name of our oldest.

Rudyard was very likely going to wind up being his Dad’s boy.  I’m an oldest son myself and even though we’d planned to keep the boys’ birth order a secret, I suspected I’d always have a very unique and immediate bond with Rudyard.  Shortly after his birth, I held him, told him how proud of him I am, assured him I loved him and later thanked him for selflessly protecting his mother and brothers from the infection that had ravaged him.

Before saying goodbye, I recited the final lines of If to Rudyard.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Desmond Bear
b. 7:03 am, 6/4/11
13.8 oz.  /  10-3/4 in.

Desmond was “Baby B”.  At various moments throughout the pregnancy, Carey would feel the babies kick and the vast majority of the time, it was Desmond she was feeling.  The small handful of times I felt a kick, it was always Desmond.

He was born without any doctor assistance.  In fact, when he came, our doctor wasn’t even in the room.  He emerged healthy and without a mark, perfectly colored, with a head of dark brown hair.  If our boys were Beatles, Desmond would’ve been “The Handsome One”, as he emerged completely free of infection with ideal proportions and features.  He was tall and lean, maybe the strongest of the three.

Carey had picked Desmond’s name for a few different reasons.  TV is filled with lots of sexy/dark/mysterious leading men, but LOST’s Desmond Hume was the sort of animal you don’t see a lot these days in popular entertainment: a true romantic.  We pictured our boy as suave and slick, who ladies would one day fight over.  And speaking of The Beatles, it didn’t hurt that he shared his name with another Desmond, the one from The White Album’s Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, the story of another romantic soul.

But in the time I spent with Desmond, I found myself telling him the most about his third namesake, Desmond Tutu.  “There’s a very silly idea in this world,” I told him, “that it’s best to judge people a certain way or treat people differently because of what they look like or where they came from or who’s in their family.  There are a lot of words for it, but some people call it ‘apartheid’ and Desmond Tutu spent a lot of time telling people that there are better ways to do things, smarter ways to see into a person’s heart.  And that’s what we were hoping you could someday show to others.”

Of the three boys, Desmond stayed with us the longest.  As he did his best to gasp air into his tiny lungs, we assured him we’d continue holding him, that we wouldn’t leave him alone for the rest of his life.  “Be brave, young man,” we said.  “Your parents love you.  We’re proud of you.  Don’t be afraid to let go when you need to.  We’ll be right here.”

Desmond stayed with us for nearly an hour and 30 minutes after his birth.

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Oscar Bear
b. 8:40 am, 6/4/11
11 oz.  /  9-3/4 in.

Oscar, “Baby C”, was nearly our miracle baby, who seemed to be staying put in his mom’s womb for over an hour and a half after Desmond’s birth.  Throughout the pregnancy, Rudyard and Desmond would crowd and kick each other, while Oscar always seemed to float high above the melee, opting to let his brothers work out their differences amongst themselves.  He was typically the sleepiest of the three, the “laziest” as Dr. Chao warned us.

Only a few short moments after Desmond’s post-birth passing, the womb around Oscar shrank to the point of breaking his water, inspiring labor.  His was a rough entry, a breech birth, and Dr. Chao told us later that she did her best to reposition him for the cleanest, safest arrival.  He came left-arm-first, causing said arm to dislocate and purple violently.  He was bruised, but clearly whole, the smallest of the group, the runt of litter.

We’d stumbled upon his name only recently.  Carey remarked throughout our naming discussions that she thought Baby C’s moniker should be something fun and rascally.  She more or less plucked “Oscar” out of the blue and it immediately felt right to both of us.  After all, we’d planned on reading the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde to our brood.  I’d portrayed “Oscar” in The Odd Couple in high school and again in college.  And since it was a theater audition that first introduced me to Carey, we thought it appropriate to name him after what’s popularly recognized as acting’s highest honor.

In our short time with him, we did our best to comfort and swaddle him, which wasn’t easy, as his frame was too tiny and delicate to wrap up properly.  We told him who he was; I explained the proud tradition of Bear Men and how our family’s biggest challenge is usually sitting still and staying quiet.  I described what an “Oscar” is and how to dream big.  “They don’t just give them to actors,” I told him. “Writers, directors, musicians, people who create beautiful things to look at… all sorts of artists can win an Oscar.  Old men have gotten them and even a few little children.  You just have to be very committed to being the best you can be at what you love doing.”

Oscar did his best to breathe in the short time he was with us.  Like his brother before him, we assured him we wouldn’t leave him as long as he was with us.  We told him just how much his parents love him, but he would need to take courage.  “You’ll be back with your brothers very soon, son.  Take care of one another.  Let them know we’ll all be back together again one day.”

I kissed his head and told him, finally: “Oscar, my boy, I promise you.  Our time was short, but I’ll think of you every single day for the rest of my life.”

Oscar stayed with us nearly 40 minutes before going on to join his brothers.

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They fought hard, to a man, and I can think of no better tribute to these boys of mine than to do my best to follow their example.

It’s, after all, what they would have wanted.

Tags: Babies, boys, Desmond Bear, Oscar Bear, Rudyard Bear, Triplets