a thoughtful time

I’m coming up on an anniversary of the beginning of a very sad time. For years it hasn’t made me sad anymore, more thoughtful around the end of April. I’ve written more specifically about it in this post. Today I was floating around the lazy river at the water park, being end-of-April thoughtful, and found a tiny baby bird just below the surface of the water. I scooped it out with my hand and put it gently under a plant.  Thoughtful meant I could not help remembering that I’d only held a dead baby in my hand that one time before.

And then also it’s almost exactly a year since we rescued a one-day-old kitten. We (mostly I) bottle fed her every 2 hours, then every 3 hours and eventually 4 hours, night and day for weeks.  For awhile not confidant she would live, nor really confident that I would cope well if she died, I was feeling in some tiny barely-and-reluctantly-acknowledged nook in my soul that she was some kind of chance to pick up where I left off and not fumble it this time (a day-old kitten is around the same size as a 16-week fetus).  I can’t believe I’m sharing this, and I probably wouldn’t be able to except that she is now sleek and fat, bigger and snugglier than either of our other cats and a special friend to our youngest, born three years after we lost the little brother.

A friend of mine has been through this baby-losing lately and reached out to me to see if I had any insight, experience, and support. I shared that post about Dhaka and some of what people said that was helpful and some of what was less helpful.

I’m reluctant to give advice here, to tell people how to feel or behave, because that seems like one of the most irritating and click-hungry areas of the Internet.  I’ve been deleting nearly everything in my FB feed that starts bossing me around. But. I have found the most interesting and helpful advice comes from people who have been through hard things and want to help you help other people who are going through hard things, because it’s difficult to know what to say or what people will need, even when we want desperately to be able to say it and provide it.

This is one that I like: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407

I also like the one that’s been written by lots of people lots of different ways that suggests that asking a person to let you know if they need anything means that you might feel like you've done your part though the person in need will likely never ask you- so specific suggestions of ways in which you could help might be more likely to support people.

The one part I add, that helped me then and I have remembered ever since, is about woman who came in to me the morning after, to my bedside in the hospital in Bangkok, and simply told me that I was doing hard work. She was visiting in her role as a patient liaison person but had previously worked as a midwife there. She didn’t encourage me to think to future children or the ones I already had, she just met me right there and acknowledged the process and my place in it without hurrying me through it. The memory of this one encounter has stayed with me over the years, even as that work has eased, is the core of what I offered my friend, and is what I share with you as I’m passing through this thoughtful time.

Dhaka on my mind

The combination of being in the “leaving” mode here and following the news about the tragic factory collapse in Dhaka has me reflecting on my Bangladesh experience. The situation I’m in right now, leaving a place I love, is about as opposite as it can be to that leave-taking from Bangladesh.   For the last two months that we lived there, I couldn’t wait to leave, didn’t care that we were headed into an uncertain future of no home and no job secured to support our family of four.  I was filled with grief and blamed it in large part on Bangladesh.

I moved to Dhaka happily and full of curiosity, with a newborn and a toddler.  We had a driver provided by my husband’s work and an apartment in a posh, tree-shaded, gated neighborhood that was home to embassies and several international schools.  Expats in Dhaka were warm and welcoming, exchanging phone numbers and arranging playdates after meeting each other for the first time.  We became members of the American Club and spent hours every week in the pools and on the playgrounds.  When we went on vacation it seemed easier to leave Bangladesh on an airplane bound for Thailand or Laos or even the US than to battle traffic leaving Dhaka by car.   I was rarely out of the expat bubble and then never alone. 

That wasn’t my intention.  When we moved there my immersion experiences in other countries still outweighed the time I had spent as an expat in the expat world.  Arriving with an infant and a toddler, I got swept up in the play-dates and sing-alongs and eventually the international club and school scene.  I did try to avoid the people who had only complaints about their lifestyle in Dhaka, who could not see the irony of bemoaning their difficult life while they enjoyed a drink at the club and their ayah played with the kids on the playground.  When I got pregnant with my third child, midway through the second year there (when we were still expecting to live in Dhaka for three or more years), I still thought I might follow the example of some missionary friends and go to a hospital in the northern part of the country to give birth, instead of jetting off to a world-class hospital in Bangkok.

There was a period right at the beginning of our time there that I started to have a sense of how many people in Dhaka were living right at the edge of their capacity, how close to the surface their frustration and anger simmered, and how if they ever decided to make an effort to get some justice for themselves and we happened to be in the way, we would not stand a chance.  In occasional moments of panic I would calculate how I’d get to the American Embassy eight blocks down our street, with both kids in tow, how long it would take if I had to carry both of them, wondering if I would be strong enough.  As I got used to the rhythm of our life there and saw that demonstrations rarely if ever brought any threat of violence to us, I relaxed and stopped thinking about it.  Eventually my son started school, I started working from home, singing with the international choir, and hired an ayah to watch my daughter. 

And then the baby died in my second trimester.  That first night of knowing the news, before I jetted off to the world-class hospital in Bangkok, I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen and thinking that my own little tragedy was nearly nothing in relation to people’s daily struggles to survive.  That clarity disappeared quickly as I wrapped myself up in my own personal tragedy, trying to figure out what to call it – birth a too-hopeful word for a dead baby slipping out, miscarriage sounding like I had fumbled and dropped it.  I struggled to bring my living kids back into the center of my attention and stopped thinking about Dhaka much at all.  I resolved to leave as soon as possible.

In the years that followed I kept in touch with friends I made in Dhaka and took great joy in reunion when our paths occasionally crossed, but could not think much about the place itself except as a source of grief and bad health.  It was especially difficult when I would meet Bangladeshis and have to answer the inevitable question about how I had enjoyed living there.  I'd mumble about the food and warm wonderful people and then change the subject.

 The beginning of reconciling with my Dhaka experience came when my daughter’s first grade teacher asked me to take on their classroom’s presentation for their yearly UN day celebration.  Over two days, each classroom is transformed into another country and each class cycles through every room, spending 20 minutes in each “country.”  A good friend in Bangladesh sent fabric, handcrafted paper, models and storybooks, I made up a slideshow and put together brief presentations designed with the various ages of the students in mind. I had the kids who could read check their tags to see where their clothes were made- invariably there was a “made in Bangladesh” on one of them and that led to a short discussion of the garment industry and workers.   I wondered if any of the older kids saw the news and remembered our discussion.  What if one of these kids grows up and works their way through the ranks of a company that has power over a garment factory in another country?  What if they end up working for an organization that can have a positive impact on those workers and their families?

Honestly I'm ashamed of how fleeting my own moments of clarity and empathy were while I was there.    Why does it take yet another tragedy there for me to start trying to think about how I can help, now from the other side of the world? And how much understanding is necessary for empathy?  Living somewhere doesn’t mean I’m an automatic expert on it- I feel uncomfortable being called to represent a place that I really only lived on the margins of. Still there is a role we can play- I strongly believe that awareness confers responsibility.   The challenge is keeping that responsibility in mind and finding an appropriate role to play.

All of this is a work in progress

post script: the story of one immediately good outcome of my bad experience- had my driver not learned about the ultrasound clinic (at which I got that devastating news) by driving me and my danish midwife there, his son might not be alive today.  Soon after this, a quack doctor told his wife that their own baby had died inside and that she required an emergency D&C to preserve her health and fertility.  He took her for a second opinion at the clinic I had used and learned that she and the baby were fine.  Their son was born several months later, after we had left.  Our driver is a man of extraordinarily even-tempered broad-mindedness and integrity.  I have no doubt his children will make the world a better place.

Meredith's story: the importance of family support

I met Meredith and her son, Adam, at a baby-group in Dhaka.  Originally from the eastern United States, she had come to Bangladesh with her husband, son, and two big dogs. She always seemed to be one of the most relaxed and friendly people around- a good match for the tensions of moving internationally with family and pets. After three years they moved back to the US, to southern California, where they live now. 

Her story is different from most of my fellow expat friends because her husband is Bangladeshi and her most immediate support network and sources of information, when she arrived in Dhaka, were her in-laws. This gave her a unique window into Bangladesh to which expats don’t usually have easy access, but also added some stress to her acclimation phase.   “They were helpful in that they already knew where the locals shopped, where you could get the best deal, also the good vs. bad restaurants to eat at.  Their presence just helped me mesh better with the local population.  It was hard in that they were very protective and would 'advise' me to not go somewhere or do similar things that other ex-pats were doing.”

My conversation with Meredith also reminded me how much one’s partner can be a very important source for connections in a new home.  My own husband, like the partners of many of my trailing spouse friends, is usually so busy with his new job during the transition time of moving that I don’t count on him to help me much at all when we arrive. It followed that my questions for trailing spouses, until now, have not included anything on how the working spouse helps support his or her partner. Meredith’s husband was very attuned to her needs as they moved and made extra efforts to help her feel settled and make connections with people in Dhaka.  “He is very cognizant of my feelings and comfort level, and really pushed hard to get our [Dhaka] apartment live-in ready.  He also was the one to reach out to the American women’s organization, and to other ex-pats, as well as Bangladeshis married to American women, and made sure I got to meet them.  He made a special effort to get us a membership to the American Club so that we would have a place to go and hang out.  Immediately after moving back to Southern California, he invited all my family out for Christmas so that I would get to see them for the holidays, since we very well couldn't fly back across the country to be with them.”

Trailing spouses must be flexible in their own careers- the work available may not relate directly to previous jobs and may not seem relevant to the job market in the next country.  In Dhaka, thanks to in-law connections, Meredith was able to find work teaching and advising on policy with the Institute of Governance Studies at BRAC University.  “Although the policy advising job in particular was very relevant at the time, bringing that experience back to the US has had little effect in helping me find a job.”

Meredith and her family are now settled into Southern California and think ahead to possible future moves, acknowledging that the next one may be harder now that her elder son is old enough to feel attached to their current home and lifestyle.  “Honestly, some days I want to move; others I want to stay put.  From October - December, all I want is to go back east and plant down some roots, because it's the holiday season.  The other nine months of the year, if someone came to me and offered a job to me or my husband overseas, I'm outta here!!!”

Meredith’s advice on preparing for a move and what information she would want to have available in those first weeks after arriving:

·   Tending to the kids' needs first is paramount: research the schools, sports leagues, anything that can get your child involved.  

·   After the move, getting the house in order is her number one priority.  "I don't like for things to stay in boxes for long because I'm ready to start settling in ASAP and I don't like that feeling of everything in chaos."

·   Moving somewhere new, she would want to know which organizations (social, athletic, academic, etc) she could join where she could meet fellow ex-pats.

·   Find out where most expat kids go to school- with the local population or international schools,

·   Find the best places for an expat (not a local) to go for groceries and other shopping.

·   After that, how do you really get to know and enjoy the local culture?