188: Making Room for Hope after My Daughter Died

Allison Langer  0:15  
I'm Allison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz  0:16  
I'm Andrea Askowitz, and this is Writing Class Radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing. No matter what's going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. Oh, shit. To say, shit, shit, shit. There's no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in.

Allison Langer  0:55  
So today on our show, we're bringing you a story by Farida Taha. In this episode, Farida writes about loss and basically working through how to move forward. So we talk a lot about loss on our podcast, because writing is how many people process grief. And I've actually written a lot about loss, because I lost my daughter at 16 months, and this was cautious, like almost 16 years ago now, so I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that story, but most importantly, I've learned and healed, I don't know, really gotten a process a lot just through writing about it. So for me, it's been super helpful, and I've seen it with students, Andrea and I both have seen it with so many of our students. They come with a story and they've been trying to get it out and get it out, and it could take years, but by the time they finally do get it out, or after they finally do get it, everything starts coming out. All their stories, the writing gets amazing, even more amazing, and it's it's because it's that one story sometimes blocks everything. So just releasing that block is really healing, at least I have felt. So I'm hoping that happens also for Farida, because she was a writing class radio student ages and ages ago, and went through a terrible thing, and she talks about that here. And we're hoping that her brilliance and her writing now just flourishes, because, you know, she's finally put it on paper. We'll talk more after but we want to have you hear Farida story. So back with Farida after the break.

Andrea Askowitz  2:29  
We're back. I'm Andrea askowitz, and you're listening to writing class radio. Here's Farida Taha reading her story, making room for hope. You

Farida Taha  2:50  
I found out I was pregnant one year and one month after losing our daughter. The thought hit me as I sat in the blue nylon chair of the OBGYN waiting room. I'm not sure there's even a word for what I am, yet here I am a nameless aberration, affected and petrified. On the other side of the room sits a woman in her third trimester with a closed mouth smile that makes her look like the tiny brass Buddha statue I have on my writing desk. Her belly so large it bobs up and down with her steady breathing. She has a tranquility about her. It reminds me of me during my first pregnancy. I carried hope, anticipation, dreaminess, but now I sit opposite her, carrying my grief and now a baby I spent the months after our daughter died, Tenny to my grief as if it were her. I nurtured it, cradled it, spoke to it. I cried, wrote and flipped through videos on my phone, dreaming OMS back at the time she was with us, I listened to her favorite songs on repeat. I convinced myself that pink sunsets and singing Blue Jays were signs from her anytime I made room for any normalcy, a walk or a coffee with a friend, I felt rushed to get back to my grief as though it needed me as much as I needed it. Our daughter was 18 months when she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare pediatric cancer that grows from miniature nerve cells. She left us 10 months after that, the average pregnancy is 40 weeks, which is almost the same amount of time that we injured hospital rooms, anesthesiologists, radiation and nidhika sadna, I was it possible I chose to endure more uncertainty. A nurse enters and calls my name. She gives me a tiny cup and points to the restroom and tells me the ultrasound tech will be waiting for me. I stand in the mirror staring at a face I hardly recognize. I'm only 10 weeks pregnant and have experienced no sign of pregnancy other than the tiny two pink lines that drew neither tears nor laughter. Instead, I stared blankly at them for longer than I can remember. Just as I stared into the mirror lined with urine sample cups and Sharpies, I looked exhausted. Circles sit thick under my eyes, my lips hardly discernible. Seemed. Blend into the pale color of my flesh. It wasn't long before people started asking me if I would have another just as they would any normal mother before our daughter got sick, my answer was always a swift and undoubted No. We had our two children, a boy and a girl, just three years apart, which, according to parents weekly, is the optimal age difference between children. We had a dog and a house and a red wagon we love to take to the park in the afternoons. But somehow, only months into my grief, that question began popping up again, and this time, the answer didn't come so quick. It was a question that filled me with so much hope and so much helplessness.

I made my way to the ultrasound room, a sweet, petite woman sits on a soulful chair and greets me. Room is dark except for the brightness of the computer screen that surrounds her face with a soft blue light gray shape fills the center of the screen that is otherwise mostly black. The emptiness of the screen reminds me of the emptiness I feel how miraculous something living could find a home in such hollow quarters. The technician begins her exam as I stare at the pebbled ceiling tile. It feels cold and dark and reminds me of the tiny rooms where we would spend our night sleeping upright on chairs. Our daughter was asleep in her crib, and my heart ached for her safety, battling with the fears that consumed me. I think of the rise and fall of her deep breathing. I was every breath. I prayed for a life where I would get to see her grow a wishing sound, the beat steady and strong. I listened to its rhythm, and think then of the tiny brass Buddha and the lesson I had once read. At every moment there is life and death. I stare at the screen. I see your tiny body bobbing up and down her legs and her arms, even her lips, my eyes well as I allow her in, but only partially, hardly allowing a wheelchair to form. There's your little guy, beautiful and strong, the technician says, I allow my gaze to drift to her smiling face. I look back at the screen amaze. I know nothing is certain. I know better than to rejoice. But at this moment, I decide my grief has to make a little room with a hope that's living inside me.

Andrea Askowitz  7:30  
This story is so beautiful, and one amazing thing that I want to talk about is how you know when a writer brings a detail into a story, that detail has to matter. And this time, she from the very beginning, remember when she brought up the Buddha, and, like, I was wondering when I first heard this, or first read it, I was like, Why is she saying that? Like, you know, but she mentioned this other woman in the waiting room, and she reminded her of a Buddha, and it reminded her of her. That was really good, but in my mind, it wasn't enough. Like, I don't care about a Buddha, until the end of this story, where she brought the Buddha back and, like, this was, like, one of the most amazing lines ever. It was this paragraph, and it goes a whooshing sound. So she brings us right back into the moment where she's in the office, and she's hearing the fetus, the beat steady and strong. I listen to its rhythm, and think then of the tiny brass Buddha, and the lesson I had once read at every moment there is life and death, so satisfying, such good writing. That's why she brought the Buddha up at the beginning, and that's what she's learning, that there's both life and death, and also the story is about, I'm sorry I keep blabbing on, but it's about hope, and she has both hope and helplessness, and that's something she brings up twice, too, yeah, which I thought was gorgeous writing. 

Allison Langer  8:58  
This didn't happen that long ago, so she's still really reeling. I just finished listening to a book. It was called fee. Anyway, the New York Times had recommended it. I was listening to it, and they talk about, like, what is the amount of time necessary to get, like, not over, but to be able to live with grief in a more sort of solid, healthy way and move forward. And it's five years, you know, I thought back to my own loss and my own losses, and I was thinking the first couple years were torture, and then the fourth year was like a little bit by the fifth year, and that is when I still carry these people with me, but it's not as as sad every single day. Oh, you're sad now. I'm always sad, like whenever I in. There's something about hearing a story like this that brings me right back to the sadness. And I I don't feel the sadness as intensely because I have a shit memory. But I can feel her sadness immediately. When anybody's children dies, or especially children, I feel this like almost incapacitated sadness where I can't even be of use for them, but I feel it for them, even though I know they're going to be okay.

Andrea Askowitz  10:19  
But you're saying that you're still, like, overwhelmed with grief, but after five years you were able to process the loss. Are you saying this in terms of, like, because we talk about this on in writing circles, like, how long, how much distance do we need to be able to then write about a situation. Do you think five years?

Allison Langer  10:45  
Well, I think it varies. It's going to vary for everybody, and it depends, you know, like, you know, I don't know how it feels to lose somebody that you've lived with for 21 years or 45 years. I know that I had my daughter for 16 months. So for me, you know, I don't look at things and have everything remind me of her, but I know that if I had to think about one of my children now, who are, you know, 714, 17 and 19, like, there's so much that reminds you of a person. Is five years enough? I don't know. I don't who's to put a number on it. I don't think you can say, okay, five years. 

Andrea Askowitz  11:21  
Well, you just put a number on it. 

Allison Langer  11:23  
That's what it said in the book. That's what they said experts, an average of five years. So maybe for some people it's a little bit less. For some people, it's a little bit more. I don't think that says anything about how much you love the person or how much it's just that being able to process the grief and be able to live with the grief and move forward in a healthy way.

Andrea Askowitz  11:41  
Well, writers talk a lot about how much distance they need to process a situation in writing, and I actually want to challenge I don't think there is any set number of years or months or, you know, some people write their stories within the grief, and some people need five years to then make sense of their grief or whatever situation it is. But I think that's interesting. The five years is average, based on experts, and it felt true for you, you're saying.

Allison Langer  12:12  
More or less, yeah. 

Andrea Askowitz  12:15  
Wow, wow.

Allison Langer  12:17  
So back to what I was saying is that she's still really it's still really fresh. She's still trying to figure it out. And now carrying another baby, I'm sure there's so many thoughts that come with it. I did that too. You know, I had another baby after with all these expectations that was a lot to place on my kid as well. Life is tough. It's not easy. There's no like in three years this, five years this, 10 years this, but having just being able to write this story and share this story, I think hopefully help this narrator process a little bit more what she was feeling and why and how to move forward.

Andrea Askowitz  12:53  
Yep, for sure. I hope so. I want to get back to the writing. Okay, sorry, remember that old notion of we care about your story, not your life, like that? Used to be a writing class radio tenant, but it's so funny, because on the podcast, we always talk about what's going on and not just the writing. But okay, back to the writing, and maybe you can understand this in terms of not just the writing, but the line. Anytime I made room for any normalcy, a walk or a coffee with a friend, I felt rushed to get back to my grief, as though it needed me as much as I needed it. Holy shit.

Allison Langer  13:33  
Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. The way I heard that and understood it is that it's weird to hear people laugh and to have fun. You feel like, how could you be doing this if your kid is dead? And I don't know if that's what she was thinking, but it's just more comfortable to just wallow in grief. And sometimes it's necessary, often it's necessary. And I was happy that she was getting back to it. This really drew me to the narrator. And I was like, Wow, that's so vulnerable. She's being honest. And I loved that, that line.

Andrea Askowitz  14:06  
I felt like that line tells us, I mean, no judgment on her, yeah, she needed this grief, yeah, and I so got it. But the way that she wrote that line, the way I understand it is, it's sort of like she's rushing back to her grief, the way he would rush back to the baby. There was another line that I thought was so beautiful and like, so I don't know, I think I experienced this story in like, I'm like, rolling along, and then all of a sudden, there were these moments in the story that really hit me. And that was the Buddha, then that moment where she rushes back to her grief, and then what about this? How miraculous something living could find a home in such hollow quarters. So now she's back in the ultrasound room, and she's can't believe that she who was this hollow vessel. Soul is able to create, create life again, in in this hollow quarters. Ah, I don't know, so beautiful.

Allison Langer  15:11  
I was dying to hear the whole book. I know, I don't know if this is a book or will be a book, but I wanted to know who she was before this, because I felt the sadness and the like, there's just it was so, like, intensely sad, and I wanted to know, was she always just kind of like a sad person, or was she like a happy baby's just person? I'm thinking she was and she had this great family, and then everything changed.

Andrea Askowitz  15:38  
I'm thinking that she like Buddha, or like the lesson of Buddha, was both very hopeful and capable of sorrow. Obviously, that's who she is now. But yeah, I would like to know what she was, what was her general disposition before the loss of this child. Thank you so much, Farida Taha, for sharing your story and thank you for listening. Farida Taha is a writer and a mother of three. She is originally from New York City and resides in Miami. She's a former Writing Class Radio student and avid listener. 

Allison Langer  16:24  
Who isn't an avid listener? Duh.

Writing Class Radio is hosted by me, Allison Langer. 

Andrea Askowitz  16:38  
And me, Andrea Askowitz. 

Allison Langer  16:40  
Audio production by Matt Cundill, Evan Surminski and Aidan Glassey at the Soundoff Media Company. Theme music is by Justina Shandler. There's more writing class on our website, including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats and live online classes. If you want to write with us every week, or if you're a business owner, community activist, group that needs healing, entrepreneur, or you want to help your team write better, check out all the classes we offer on our website, writingclassradio.com. Join the community that comes together for instruction, an excuse to write, and the support from other writers. To learn more, go to our website or patreon.com/writingclassradio. A new episode will drop every other Wednesday. Before you say the last line, I just want to tell you that somebody contacted me. One of our listeners had a daughter, and they live in Germany. The dad is a surgeon in the Air Force, and I helped her with her writing, her essay writing for college, and she found us on the podcast. It was just really cool. Was so fun meeting, yeah, people from another country. So anyway, thank you.

Andrea Askowitz  17:48  
You mean that just happened last week? 

Allison Langer  17:49  
Yes, yeah. 

Andrea Askowitz  17:52  
Cool. 

Allison Langer  17:52  
It was great. I love it.

Andrea Askowitz  17:55  
There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What's yours?

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  18:08  
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