Race you

@James.T.Murray

Back to 'I Wish' after a year away! 

 

There were postponements, and too-many-jobs, and travels, and health battles won for two of our team! And in the end? What a joy to gather together once more and celebrate at 54 Below. I feel so especially grateful to gather together in health and wellness in the presence of Drew Wutke post-liver-transplant-miracle-man, and post-4th-bowel-surgery me. We are here!

 

This was our 10th I Wish (since the first one in 2018), and I struggled a little with what to sing. So many of my "wish" moments have been realized—in true productions, or within this glorious series. I had to think outside-the-box. And that often requires me to dig a little deeper...

*

 

In truth, what's been on my mind lately has been personal (and I hate that it currently feels political as well...). 

I don't discuss it here. 

At least I never have. 

The subject feels like a phantom, a shadow of sorrow too tender to give credence to. 

Giving it shape in words feels dangerous, unwieldy; too fully formed for a phantom. 

Best let it haunt me.

I've left it not unexplored, but certainly un-uttered. 

 

And what is this? Well. It is the fact that I will possibly never raise children, and certainly not give birth to them, biologically. 

It's been on my mind since roughly 2015, when I was first diagnosed with UC. At the time I was just 32, chronically-sick-as-a-dog with no solutions in sight, not dating anyone seriously, and honestly I was so preoccupied with every kind of surviving that I honestly hadn't even thought about kids. I was never one of those women that had always dreamed of pregnancy or of parenting; I presumed the thoughts and sensations would present themselves organically...  

 

Then one day, after a few failed attempted medical solutions, I was presented with an option: a very intense drug that worked for many people in helping quell ulcerative colitis. It worked for many, but was essentially chemotherapy in pill form. It could be magic bullet. It works for thousands of people, they said. But: it would forever compromise my fertility. I needed to give it some thought.

 

I did. My thoughts were that my options were slim and growing slimmer. 

I did my due diligence and explored every corner of why people have children, what pregnancy meant or didn't mean to me, what mothering, parenting, legacy, biology... In the modern day, we truly have children for so many reasons. I figured none of these thoughts were going to do me or a child any good if I wasn't here, or well enough to care for either of us. 

I went for it. 

And in the end? The drug did not work for me. 

. . .

 

I'm not usually lost for words, but the sense of loss was palpable. 

 

Yet, this was one of the countless things I didn't (couldn't?) manage to cry tears about. Something about it felt self-indulgent. I went about with the regular unhinged programming of shoving it ever-downward in to my already sabotaged viscera! Keeping medical secrets from a Broadway company and presenting myself as Healthy Al. Nothing to see here. I haven't eaten solids or slept in weeks, I am on more steroids than a Soviet dead lifter, but everything is fine. I gave no further meaningful thought that year to the children I'd never have—Who had the time? After all, they were a figment, a not-to-be-hoped-for addition. And I was focusing on the "lucky-to-be-alive" part. At the time I had no partner to raise them with (something I insisted upon, when my imaginative musings drifted toward parenting), a chaotic schedule as an actor, with a volatile income, distant family infrastructure geographically far away. None of it seemed reasonable. Possible. Or above all: like something I was even "allowed to want."

 

By 2021 my surgery further solidified the story of a life without biological children. The scar tissue from the surgery would settle around my reproductive organs, and would mean IVF was the only option for pregnancy with anyone's eggs.  

 

My surgeon was compassionate. 

All his fellow associates and nurses too. 

I signed 100 consent forms. 

They checked and asked me over and over again—including moments just before the surgery itself—if I was "sure." 

And when I said I was, my wonderful, taciturn-but-compassionate surgeon took a vulnerable leap and in a near-whisper, reminded me of a personal truth: that I had grown up with a sick parent. 

He was right. 

He reminded me that not merely my father's death, but my father's illness had been a source of tremendous pain. He wanted me to know that, for the record: he felt the choice I was making right now—to get well—set me up to be the best person I could for everyone I currently served in my life. And that was also true for anyone I welcome in to my family, in any manner, going forward. 

 

I knew he was right.

 

 

Still. I went from an "I Don't Know If I Want" to a "Can't Have," within hours. The sense of grief has been unutterable. What began as a vibration became a whisper which became a roar, and over time it has only grown louder. So many of my close friends elected to have children and I delight in their happiness and expansion as human beings. But yes, it aches.

Over the years the feelings have evolved. I met Alec—younger than I and likely not even courting the concept of children when we started dating. The greatest tragedy feels like robbing him of being a father, biologically so, without a lot of say in the matter. But we both understood what we were walking in to as we continued to commit to one another.  

Then JD V*ance started going on and on (and on) about "childless cat ladies." About "biological responsibility" and the selfishness of a woman who does not physically bear her own children for the generations to come. Again, there just weren't words to describe the experience of hearing that from an elected official, after everything. 

I don't know that I'll ever have the words.

 

*

So with all this at the top of my mind in recent days, I turn to the best discussion of grief, parents and children and healing I know: The Secret Garden.

  

The story is about a family ravaged by illness and grief, that discover the ultimate healing exists within nature—all symbolized by a near-dead garden returning to life. 

It’s also a story about parents and children…
 

In this song, Archibald Craven— unable to parent his son Colin because of the enormity of his grief, visits him as he sleeps and tells him an ongoing, bedtime fairy-story.
 

I know a lot about the themes of this story. (I once wrote about them, here)  In so many ways I identify with the children— growing up with parents, lost— to death and to grief.  But as I age I come to see myself in the adults too. And as so many parents are quick to remind me— I am not a parent. Yes, believe it or not, I am keenly aware that I don’t have first hand experience with raising children because I don’t have any of my own.

 

But sometimes? 

Dear Gd. 

How 'I wish,' I did.