When in doubt, send a card

I’ve recently learned there are two types of people in this world—those who send sympathy cards, and those who don’t.

Our dining room table is covered with cards we received after Zach’s death. There are probably more than 60 all told, a few of which are doubles from people who forgot they had already sent a card. It is heartening to know that so many people care so much about us.

But when I look at those cards, I tend to think more about the ones that aren’t there.

For example, there is no card from K, a friendly acquaintance from work. She and I occasionally worked on projects together, and once she found out I was pregnant (she was due at the beginning of November), she was thrilled and got me a little onesie as a gift. She and I went out to lunch for some “baby talk,” and I had been hoping we would become better friends once we were both part of the “mommy club.” She even knew about the low amniotic fluid, but was confident there was nothing wrong and even followed up that fateful Friday afternoon with an e-mail asking how things went.

The problem was, I never came back to work that day. And that was her last day working before maternity leave.

From what I’ve pieced together since returning to work, she called our office assistant several times that week to find out how I was doing. I know she had been told the baby couldn’t live outside the womb and we were inducing labor.

But over the past six weeks, I have heard nothing from her. No sympathy card, no e-mail, and certainly no call. Actually, scratch that—my e-mail address was included in all the pictures she sent us of her newborn. Fortunately, my co-workers deleted them before I came back. One of my co-workers suggested that maybe she felt weird approaching me because she has a healthy newborn. Maybe, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t send a short e-mail stating simply, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” It’s almost like now that I’m not pregnant anymore, she has no more use for me. Point taken.

The same goes for J, another friend through my Bible study. For the past two months, she has lived in the same house as A (the pregnant friend from my previous post, who, incidentally, organized our Bible study group to provide meals for us in the first few weeks after Zach’s death), so I knew she was aware of everything that was going on. Yet the first time we had any communication was when we went to her goodbye open house last week. She told me she had “wanted to call, but didn’t know if she should.” So why not just send an e-mail? Or a card? That’s certainly not intrusive! Instead, she did nothing.

I realize this may seem a bit harsh to some of you. I truly understand that this kind of situation is awkward and people don’t know what to say. But my goodness—don’t say nothing! From my perspective, it seems like you don’t care—especially if I had considered you a friend beforehand (casual acquaintances I can forgive). I certainly sent my share of sympathy cards before we lost Zach, but I didn’t realize just how much they mean—even the ones that say nothing more than “I’m sorry.” They’re a very, very easy way of acknowledging someone’s grief without having to actual face them in person.

I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, so I do want to acknowledge the many, many people who did come through for us. There was the (formerly infertile) sister of a friend who sent a touching e-mail even though she barely knows me; the (formerly infertile) friend of a friend who sent a meal to us even though she barely knows me (notice a trend here? Gotta love the IF sisterhood!); my friend A who organized some of the meals; my friend AW who called me the morning before we left for our induction just to check in on me; my officemates who sent us beautiful flowers; my friend K who drove two hours on her day off to visit us two days after we received the diagnosis; and of course our families, who have been with us through this whole ordeal.

I just wish we had a couple more sympathy cards on our stack.