When is writing like water?
Writing like WaterBy Dianna Vagianos Armentrout
Some
people are sturdy as mountains. Others are like rivers, moving around and
beneath and through vegetation and stones. Roots and shadows. My memoir, Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart: A Journey
of Pregnancy, Grief and Newborn Death is fluid in its genre because I am
not a mountain. I like to wander and wade and dive deeply into places and
moments. When I found out that my unborn baby would die, I floated into my
daughter’s life and death not knowing what the future held. Somehow I survived
the unthinkable.
These
days we see the blending of genres more and more. Novels can be inspired by real
experiences, and memoir is never exactly true. The memory of our experiences
changes as we change. We tell stories, but they sometimes contain the fictions
of our point of view. The moment in time that we are attempting to capture is
gone, and all we can do is remember.
When
I put together my book, I wanted to include journal entries that I wrote when I
was pregnant and found out that my baby would die. The journal entries are
rough. They are not the refined writing of a graduate writer’s workshop, but I
wanted to show that jagged, dark space to other families going through
pregnancies with life-limiting and sometimes fatal diagnoses.
I
started a blog. I wrote essays on birthing at home with a fatal diagnosis. I
wrote about trisomy 18 and bereavement doulas. I wrote about grief. The longing
for that which we cannot hold. These blog posts became another section of my
book.
Poems
poured out of me with Mary Rose’s milk. I was angry. I was shocked. I wanted my
baby, and I wrote. Poetry is my first genre, so we have a section of poems too.
I
studied poetry therapy for many years, and I wrote about the healing experience
of writing through grief. Writing really can help us process the hardest
moments of grief.
Why
does my book contain so many different genres? I could not write a book about
my pregnancy with my daughter, Mary Rose, in a linear narrative. My pregnancy
and my grief afterwards waxed and waned with every step I took. My book is a
manifestation of my own journey. I need more than one genre to express the
different manifestations of grief and of creating my new life after the birth
and death of my daughter.
Grief
is also like water, though it can be stormy like the ocean. After Mary Rose
died, I was not prepared for postpartum life without my baby. Many times I thought
I was okay, and then I burst into tears. Again.
The
book has many short chapters, short poems and excerpts. In the aftermath and shock
of a difficult diagnosis during pregnancy, the brevity might be easier for a
weeping mother. I also included some chapters on how to navigate through such a
diagnosis. Do you send out birth announcements when your newborn dies? Do you
plan a funeral? If the baby lives, do you want life support? How do we deal
with social media posts about healthy pregnancies and babies when our hearts
are broken? Where do we find support?
I
offer my book to my readers, hoping that each reader finds something that
resonates with her. Grief is lonely, but many of us are grieving. I wanted to
give voice to the mourning mother who miscarried or lost a baby. I hope that we
may comfort each other with our stories, as water comforts us in its many
manifestations. River, ocean or lake; stormy or calm. Our babies were carried
in water, and we are water too.
Where to find the book:
And where to find the author:
Comments