On the day that I buried my infant daughter, I received a card
from a distant relative on my husband’s side. I’d call it a sympathy card, but
the hand-scrawled message from the sender negated any comfort it was meant to
bring to us.
“It’s so refreshing to hear of a couple choosing life over
abortion.”
Refreshing? That’s a word that wouldn’t make my top million
descriptors of the experience. Was it excruciating, soul-crushing, and bone-wearying?
Yes. Refreshing? Not in the least.
I’ve tried, over and over again, to understand what would
prompt someone to think such a thing, much less write it in a missive to the bereaved,
but I can’t find a reasonable explanation, other than the fact that it’s easy
to arm-chair quarterback the lives of people you’ve only met once. It’s easy to
judge when you don’t have a vested interest in the case at hand.
It was precisely that fact that led us to a private funeral
for Anna. After months of being asked if I was going to terminate the
pregnancy, and being told that there had to be something the doctors could do,
and listening to people who weren’t shy about spouting off on my situation, I
couldn’t bear the thought of exposing my beautifully imperfect baby to
insensitive or prying eyes.
We fibbed in the obituary and said that services had already
been held. They hadn’t, of course, but well-meaning people have a tendency to
see and hear what they want to and I didn’t want to tempt fate with those who
might mistakenly believe that the term “private” did not apply to them.
It wasn’t out of meanness or spite that we closed the
funeral to everyone outside of our immediate family and closest friends.
Rather, it was out of self-preservation. We’d been judged by the court of
public opinion for months and were entitled to a respite. It was probably the
first time in my life that I didn’t feel guilty about setting boundaries.
There were people who were put off by our decision, but it
was the best thing Scott and I could have done. Mourning in the company of relative
strangers would have inhibited our ability to absorb the healing energy that a
funeral rite is meant to provide.
Anna’s intimate funeral gave us—natural introverts that we
are—space and permission to fall to pieces. It enabled us to stop worrying
about what people might think and give in to our grief.