Helping Another Grieving Mama

Matt Sloan

December 29, 1980-June 13, 2010

There are so few times when we grieving mamas can do something concrete to help our fellow companions on this terrible journey—usually, our powers are limited to offering words of comfort which we know from experience are only so comforting. I have a chance to use this blog to help a fellow grieving mom honor her son’s memory in a very special way and am asking you to help if you are willing.

My new friend, Judy, lost her 29-year-old son, Matt Sloan, in June. Matt died exactly one month after Hudson did. Matt was a devoted member of the Episcopal community in North Carolina and the Southeast—I heard about him from an old friend at Kanuga, where I used to go to camp and to Episcopal youth conferences in high school. At the time of Matt’s death, he was living in New Orleans and working to rebuild houses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. His dream was to create a non-profit organization to replant native landscaping around New Orleans and improve the lives of returning residents. His family is now working to make that dream a reality. They are competing for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh
Grant during the month of December. These grants are made on the basis of the number of votes the project receives from the public during the month.

If you’re willing to help, you can vote for the project three different times/ways each day:

1. Use the button on the right once each day or go to http://www.refresheverything.com/mattstrees to vote each day.
2. Download the Pepsi Refresh voting application to your Facebook account and vote from there each day.
3. Text Pepsi Refresh at 73774 with the message “104659” once each day.

Even though I didn’t know Matt personally,  from everything that I have heard about him and read about him, I know that he was an incredible person, the kind of kid I could only hope to have raised in Hudson. And having spent two post-Katrina winter breaks during law school helping rebuild a shattered legal system for the poor in New Orleans, I believe strongly in the cause he championed, too. I would love for Judy and her family to be able to continue Matt’s legacy in such a visible and special way. So if you’re willing to help, please do by voting every day (3 times if you can) until December 31, and pass this post along to everyone you know (you can use the easy share buttons at the bottom of this post).

Yet another One Good Thing.  I can’t have my Hudson back, but her death connected me to Judy and I can use this blog to help perpetuate another child’s big spirit in the world.

Shine on, Matt.



(Note after the fact at 1PM:  Be sure to watch the Matt’s Trees video on the Pepsi Refresh website.  I had not watched it before I wrote the closing line in this post.  I just saw it for the first time a few minutes ago-- I got chills when I heard the chorus of the song playing in the background, a song I have never heard before.  It is just amazing to me how our children just seem to stay with us.)

30 Days of Thanks—Day #11

I’m grateful to have discovered that I probably don’t need any new maternity clothes. I was worried that because I was pregnant with Hudson at exactly the opposite time of year than this time, I might need to stock up on some winter maternity clothes. But I sorted through everything this weekend and found that I bought enough pairs of pants for work last time that they will probably get me through most of this pregnancy. And I’ve got some versatile sweaters that should do me for warmth. That’s good, because it is not the easiest thing for me to shop for maternity clothes among what appear to me to be worry-free, happy pregnant women (and often, their children). But I should certainly know that one can never know what kind of burden people are carrying just by looking at them—as much it feels like the sorrow just comes out of my pores, I doubt anyone looks at me and sees how sad I am (well, with the exception of the guy at the intersection I crossed on Friday afternoon who rolled down his car window to yell at me, “Don’t look so sad! Smile a little!”) or imagines what I have lost. But still, I’m glad to know that I don’t have to spend any more time in a maternity shop unless I really want to.
This may sound like a backward bit of thanks, but I’m thankful nonetheless.

Second Time Around

110 days down. 170 still to go. Not that I’m counting.

I will be sixteen weeks pregnant on Tuesday. I’ve only been pregnant once before, but this pregnancy feels utterly interminable. Every time I play my little time trick (where I think about how long I have to go and then think back that far in time and see how long ago that feels), I am crushed. Right now, I have five and a half months to go. Five and half months ago, I was taking my rowing class—and that seems like FOREVER ago. Time couldn’t go by any slower, I don’t think.

What makes this so much worse is that the second pregnancy is supposed to fly by. Many people have told me this and I’ve read it online, too. It’s just supposed to whip by and “that baby will be here before you know it.”  But there’s a reason for this. Usually, the second pregnancy flies by because the mama is way too busy running around after her older child to even think about all the pregnancy milestones coming up or to worry about all the things she worried about the first time around. She’s so busy thinking about how in the world she’s going to manage an infant on top of a very busy toddler that the due date arrives in no time and she just has to figure it out.

But not me. I don’t have my very busy toddler anymore to chase around and make me laugh and keep me from taking all of this too seriously. I have all the time in the world to sit and think about how Hudson should be here with me and about all the things that might still go wrong with this baby.

On top of that, Hudson was taken from me in a most bizarre way—a rare, one-in-a-million infectious disease that stealthily overwhelmed the immune system of my fully vaccinated child. As I’ve written before, once you’ve been struck by lightning, it’s hard not to wander around looking at the clouds all the time. And sadly, since I’ve joined the babyloss community, I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about how wrong a pregnancy can go, even after we’ve seen a 12-week ultrasound of a really healthy-looking kiddo, even after a 20-week ultrasound, all the way up until delivery and the days afterward. And, of course, I already know from experience how bad it can get even long after that. These weeks between OB appointments are really difficult right now—I know the baby was fine as of three weeks ago, but because it’s too early to feel any fetal movements, I have no way of knowing that it’s still OK. All I can do is wait for the next appointment in another week and sit on my hands to keep myself from calling the OB every day in a panic. Every twinge in my abdomen makes me think I might be having contractions, even though I know what contractions feel like now and will be able to recognize them if they actually happen. Every time I feel pressure in my pelvic floor, it’s another doomsday sign of pre-term labor, even though it’s common in a second pregnancy to feel this earlier than the first go-round. Every time I feel my heart pounding in my chest, I fear my blood pressure is going up and that I’m going to end up with life-threatening preeclampsia. I worry all the time about pulmonary embolisms--the other night, while I was lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, I felt a twinge behind my left knee and immediately thought, “Would I be able to feel a blood clot?” It’s insane—I feel insane. These are first-time mom fears—I shouldn’t be suffering through them again (and I haven’t even been reading “What to Expect” ).  I find myself tempted just to go ahead and ask the OB if I can come in every two weeks already (even though they don’t normally do this until around 28 weeks) just to keep myself from going totally nuts. 

And then on top of all THAT, I worry the most about why I’m so very anxious for this baby to arrive. Obviously, I was anxious to meet Hudson when I was pregnant with her, and I’m sure if Hudson were alive, I’d certainly be looking forward to meeting the Penguin as well. But I worry about the pressure that this anticipation inadvertently places on the Penguin’s arrival. I know better than anyone that while this new baby will bring much-needed joy into our lives, it can never erase the pain of Hudson’s absence, even if we wanted it to. I just worry about unintentionally developing false hope that the baby’s arrival will be a panacea for all that plagues us now, when I know that is not true.

I’ve written many times about the dizzying array of layers of this loss. This is just another one—never again will I have the luxury of being a happy-go-lucky, cheerfully glowing pregnant mama. And that is pretty sad.

30 Days of Thanks—Day #10

I am grateful, again, for signs. If you read here at all, you know that I am generally unsure about what awaits us after we die, and therefore, I am generally unsure about where my sweet girl is now, if she is anywhere. I certainly know that it brings me great comfort to imagine (indeed, to hope) that I will see her again, that she sees me now, that she still feels my love, that she’s with other people I love who have died, that she is happy, that she is OK, and that somehow, she can still communicate with me when I most feel the need to know these things.

So I’m always grateful when little things happen that nurture that hope and put a dent in my natural skepticism. Like getting the sudden urge to open the holiday decorations only to find a picture of her holding a stuffed penguin. I’m trying harder just to be open to the comfort these things bring.

Today, my dear friend Caroline (who happens to be first cousins with my Jess) sent me an email about a dream that she had early Wednesday morning on Hudson’s birthday. Caroline and her husband, Chris, spent several months this year fostering a German shepherd named Josie back to health and friendliness after years of neglect. They took her in not long after Hudson died, even though they already had two 5-month old German shepherd puppies—Caroline said that her impetus, in large part, was having witnessed a moment between Ed and Bess when Caroline and Chris had been visiting with us the week after Hudson died. Caroline said:

We were sitting on the patio and Bess was sitting next to Ed on the couch. Ed looked at her and said, “You miss Hudson, don't you? We do, too.” He said this very quietly, and in some ways I felt like I was intruding on a private moment. But that has always stuck with me.

Soon after, they found out that a local German shepherd rescue was in desperate need of foster homes, and Caroline insisted, over some hesitation from Chris, that they take one in. With Caroline and Chris’s love and care, Josie transformed from an anxious, timid, and un-housetrained dog to a dog every person fell in love with as soon as they met her. They finally found a great new home for Josie in October, where she lived happily until she suffered a fatal blood clot on Monday night. Caroline found out about this on Tuesday and was devastated. That night, Caroline had a hard time falling asleep, overwhelmed with sadness for Josie and Hudson, both of whom had been taken too soon from homes where they were adored and happy. I’ll let Caroline tell the rest of the story:

I woke up Wednesday morning with Zeva [one of their other two dogs] licking my hand to wake me up, as she does about every morning. I realized I was smiling and had been crying in my sleep. And then my dream came back to me. We were at the hospital with Josie while they put her down and while her body stayed on the table, we could see her “spirit” or whatever, walking down this long hallway towards some light. We were crying but she was just prancing along, as she always did. And then, all of a sudden, I saw Hudson. She came running down the hall from the other direction, towards Josie, as fast as her 2-year-old little legs could carry her, and squealed and then just wrapped her arms around Josie. Josie was thrilled. She has always loved kids and she just seemed ecstatic that Hudson was there. Hudson never looked at me standing there, she only had eyes for Josie. And then the 2 of them pranced off together down the hall, with Hudson babbling away. I couldn't understand what she was saying, but I knew she was telling Josie about all the great things they were going to do together.

Reading this brought both Ed and me to tears. For now, I’m just choosing to believe that Hudson was trying, in some way, on a day that was very, very sad for us, to let us know that she is OK and happy. I don’t know how much it changes about my sorrow, but it is certainly comforting to imagine.

30 Days of Thanks—Day #9

I am grateful for my dad. He is here this weekend for the umpteenth time helping us do repairs and improvements around the house (among the many, many other things he’s done for us at this house and our rental houses at home, he helped Ed paint Hudson’s nursery when I was pregnant and couldn’t paint). When Hudson was alive, he came up on numerous occasions to watch her so that we could attend some special event, most recently last January, when we spent our first (and ultimately, our only) night away from Hudson to go to a spa for my birthday.

But on top of all the practical help he gives us, he’s trying, as a 67-year-old guy, to change some things about himself. Men in my dad’s generation were not raised to discuss their feelings. My dad was no different. He and my mom spent 30 years largely talking past each other, in part because all my mom wanted to do was talk about her feelings (of which she had a lot, and many of them were dark, complicated, and very difficult to understand, even for herself) and my dad just didn’t really know how to deal with that (really, none of us did).

Recently, I noticed that my dad never seemed to talk about Hudson when he was around me. Sometimes it felt like he was purposely trying to avoid talking about her, even when I was crying in his presence, which I didn’t understand, because I knew that her death had deeply affected him—I knew that he was suffering a lot, too. So I decided to talk to him about it. He told me that he worried about how upset I already was all the time and he didn’t want to make it worse by talking about her to me (I imagine this was not the only reason, but I understood what he meant). I told him that it’s good for us to talk about her, that I don’t always cry when I talk about her or think about her, and that even if I do cry, that’s OK, too. I told him it it’s way worse when it felt like we just try to pretend like she never existed.

And so he changed. Now he talks about Hudson freely with me and with the rest of our family. He spends time in her room when he comes to visit. He tells me when he’s been feeling sad. We cry together sometimes.  And what a difference it has made for me.
It’s not easy for a 67-year-old man to change his ways, particularly not his emotional ways. I’m grateful that mine is working on it. I’m grateful for him. (And I really hope he’s not embarrassed by this post.)

I love you, Dad.

30 Days of Thanks—Day #8

I am grateful for little signs, wherever they might be from.

Last night, on Hudson’s birthday, after the hardest parts of the day were over, I was just suddenly inspired to go ahead and get out some Christmas decorations. Sitting on the top of the pile in the second box I opened, I found a framed picture that my dad had given us last Christmas after Hudson’s first (and only) visit to see Santa Claus. She was less than thrilled with the experience and in their zeal to get Hudson to smile, the mall photographers handed her a toy to hold. I had totally forgotten about this altogether until I pulled the picture out of that box.

Look at the toy in her hand.

Little signs.  Grateful.

30 Days of Thanks—Day #7

Wow. Such an amazing number of things to be grateful for today.

I am grateful for Hudson’s life, and I am so incredibly grateful for the way that her life continues to have such meaning after her death. And as much as I write (and have written today—phew!), I could never find the right words to say how grateful I am to each and every person who did One Good Thing (or more than one) to honor Hudson on her birthday. Your stories, written here and in personal messages to me, are inspiring and heartfelt, and I just want to thank you from the depths of my being for helping Hudson’s light continue to shine in so many ways all over the world. I am, as always, humbled and overwhelmed by the goodness of people. You all give me so much hope, and hope is probably what I need right now more than anything. Thank you so very much. I will never, ever be able to say it enough. 

And I am grateful for each and every person who passed on the link to this blog so that Hudson’s story and lesson could be shared even more widely—the blog has seen 4000 new visitors and 12,000 pageloads since Monday. That is amazing. Another way for Hudson to keep shining.

And I am grateful for all the other messages, blog comments, texts, cards, flowers, balloons, and visits we received today, and all the love, prayers, hugs, thoughts, and good wishes being sent across many, many miles. It was an incredibly emotional day, maybe even more so than I had prepared myself for (and I thought I had really prepared myself), but I felt lifted and uplifted in every minute.

I am grateful that the rain dried up and the sun came out just before we went to the Arboretum to spread Hudson’s ashes.  Hudson shining again. 

And I am grateful just to be here, to have survived the last six months, and to have not only survived this day, but to have lived it just like I wanted to—for Hudson’s sake.