Monday 3rd May: Please sponsor me

As I write I am feeling a little breezy around the ears, because yesterday I shaved my head for the first time ever. This has been something I have been thinking of for a week or so, before deciding to do it after I talked to Counsellor Jane about it last Thursday. Let me try to explain why I did it.

Firstly, I did this as a mourning ritual. Cutting and shaving hair has been a tradition of mourning for lots of cultures for a long time, particularly for women.

http://jhom.com/topics/hair/mourning.html

Some cultures prescribe exactly when and how hair should be cut after the death of a loved one (for example some Central Australian kinship groups). Other cultures expressly forbid the cutting of hair after the death of a loved one. Other cultures require specific self-harm practices to show respect to the deceased, and to remind people that a person is in mourning (particularly for cultures where they are prohibitions against using words to communicate that someone has died and who that is).

The last 3 weeks have been really shit for me, and now I feel something is shifting in me for better or for worse. Our culture doesn't offer me prescribed ways to be allocated the role of 'griever'. I an not encouraged to wear black clothes, and I wouldn't anyway because that's not me. Not that I want to romanticise the mourning rituals of other cultures or write-off how we do grieving in our culture. I like it that in our culture it is generally not taboo to talk about grief or how someone died, and people are not pressured into grieving in a certain way. For example Judaism has some wonderful rich traditions of mourning that recognise different stages of grief, in which the community is required to support mourners not just immediately after the person dies but for some time after woulds. But if I was an Orthodox Jew, I might be discouraged from publicly mourning Salome at all, because although there are rigorous mourning rituals requiring the community to attend (such as sitting shivah), these mourning rites are not extended to a person who dies before they reached 30 days old.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/291135/jewish/The-Basics.htm

If was an Orthodox Jew I might also be required not to listen to music for 30 days after Salome's death (or for 1 year following the death of a parent!), and to not cut my hair until I was rebuked by someone else to do so. So I think if I was required to adopt orthodox Jewish traditions, I would go as mad as a cut snake. Maybe it is part of our culture to respect and sometimes appropriate other culture's mourning rituals and incorporate them if we think it's useful, just like me do with other culture's wedding practices etc. I think the reality is that the most common grieving ritual people in my situation in Australia take part in (apart from the funeral) is to get a tattoo. I remember a staff member from SIDS and Kids commenting that their client group "gets more tattoos than a bikey gang". Matt and I may get a tattoo at some point but now is not the time. I remember seeing on a website a photo of a young Babylost Mamma who within a few weeks of her son's death had tattooed a big teardrop on her cheek. I don't want to have this sadness tattooed onto me. When the time is right we might get a tattoo that reflects our gratitude for Salome's life and our joy at having her in our family for as long as we had her, rather than permanently attaching a reminder of this heartache and loss on our bodies.

The meaning for me of shaving my head as a grieving ritual are:

1. As a way to communicate to others that I am grieving. I think over the last few weeks, I have becoming more aware that people around me are 'moving on' and Matt and I are becoming more alone in our grief. This is exactly how it should be: Salome was our daughter to grieve, and there is no advantage to us if other people prolong their distress about our daughter dying. This is what I would hope for all of you: that Salome's death causes less and less sadness at time goes on, and that the rest of your lives (happiness + busyness + everyday frustrations) takes over. We are surrounded by so much love, and we have a lot of support. However, I feel increasingly isolated in my grief, not that no-one cares, but that the reality is that it is my grief to do, my road to walk. With that comes the feeling that I am at fault for not keeping up with the natural recovery of the world. For me the world got ripped open the day Salome died. So much pain was caused, not just to us. The world is healing, but I am not healing as fast as the rest of you, and sometimes when I lose perspective I blame myself for not recovering fast enough, and for still feeling so dreadfully sad, so angry, and so cheated. I know other people don't expect me to heal faster. This is all shit in my head that makes trouble if I don't manage it. My shaved head is a reminder to me that I am grieving, and maybe a reminder to others too. What do I want others to know when they look at my shaved head?

*That I have recently suffered a substantial loss and i am in a transitional state between bereft and "doing OK".

*That my smiles and happiness when you see me are real, but so are my tears when you don't see.

*That I want my grief to be respected. I am confident in my capacity to survive this loss and to grow from it, and I want others to have the same confidence in me, rather than hedging me towards steps of 'recovery' that meet other people's timetable.

*That I am currently not able to fulfill social obligations that I otherwise would. My capacity to do stuff and be around people changes from day to day and it's impossible to predict. I would rather not volunteer to do stuff than to risk letting people down.

2. As way to remind myself that things are changing: It will be really good for me to watch my hair grow back. I won't stay bald for long. The world will turn, the weather will grow colder, the seeds I planted last week will become seedlings, and soon itchy scratchy fuzz will grow on my head. My grief will change over time too. I won't always be feeling like this. There will come a day when I can watch the little 1 min video footage we have of Salome as she was prepared for transfer from birthing suite to NICU. One day I'll see photos of friend's new babies and I won't flinch or cry. I don't need to make my grief go away any more than I need to make my hair grow back: these things will just happen and all I need to do is ensure I don't impede the process. Grieving is as organic as growing my hair.

3. As a way to reflect that I am different now: My experience of birthing and then losing Salome has changed me, and not all these changes are bad. I suspect that after surviving this, I will have a capacity for staunchness that I didn't have before. I don't know how I will be different yet, and it will take some time for the dust to settle and then some parts of my life and relationships may need to be reconfigured. My shaved head says 'Watch this space, major work in process'.


Secondly, I shaved my head to raise money for Leukemia Foundation, through the Be Brave and Shave campaign. I initially registered myself with Be Brave and Shave because I thought it would be a great cover story for when people ask me why I shaved my head and I don't want to tell them the whole story. However, I am thrilled to have raised over $900!!! It's not too late to sponsor me by going to

http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/personalPage.aspx?SID=12317

THANKYOU!

Thirdly, I shaved my head because deep down in my psyche something told me that if woman is feeling truly desolate and mournful and it's getting colder, what she should do is shave your head and stomp about in public gardens in a big black coat. I wonder where that comes from....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0

My brother shaved his head back at Uni, and his concludion was that Mother Nature gives us Wooldridges a thick lifelong head of hair because our skulls are so ugly that our genetic line would cease if we showed ourselves without hair. I am relieved to report that while I don't look sexy, I don't look hideous either. VEEEEEEERY relieved!

I am glad I shaved my head. It has helped. Now I need to go buy some hats. Thank you again to those who have sponsored me. I am delighted.