four surefire ingredients for public speaking success

On the eve of standing in front of a crowd, there’s nothing that eases confidence more than a sore throat, a drippy nose, hormonal acne and a vicious sextuple outbreak of herpes simplex. RRROWR.

I’ve never spoken in public other than 1) yelling for another beer from across the room and 2) weepily announcing to everyone at our wedding that I adored them after two double rye and cokes.

And this isn’t just ‘public’. This is mothers and fathers gathering to remember lost babies. I feel so indebted to them, so invested in their contentedness on this day. And I feel a bit like a fraud.

I’ll get up there and see those faces and think I’m so sorry. I’m not really one of you because I lost a baby, but had another to take my milk. No matter how intense the six weeks of Liam’s life and the twelve hours of his death, Ben came home and Evan was waiting with incessant demands to bathe up to his neck in a tub full of nestle quik.

Survivor’s guilt is having the same nightmares, the same visions, and only one-half of the same outcome. I know how the pungency of morphine overpowers the scent of a baby when it’s dosed through a needle in the scalp. And I came home to a noisy house with an infant who may have been small, but who nursed like a dog with a bone.

And so I’ll be sheepish, and not just for the multiple contagions and other unsightlies camping out on my face. But I’ll do my best to honour the babies there in spirit and their parents who try so hard to discern them.

And to amplify the love I know will be in the air.

Comments

[Paula]

you will do great Kate! You DO know....the ones at home that lived do NOT make up for the one that is not at home or the pain of him. You go girl... you words will be fine. I have great confidence in you!
hugs,
Paula ;)

[camerashymomma]

you will do great, no matter the illness!

your power of words is a source of comfort to others. no matter those details of difference, it is the similiarities that matter. the love of spirit babies in the air.

i'll be thinking of you and all these families this weekend.

[heidi]

I second Paula's comment. You'll do great and the one at home doesn't make up for the one that is not there. I can't think of a better person to represent the parent of lost babies. I'll be applauding from Seattle! KATE< KATE< KATE<KATE<

[LaskiGal]

No way are you are fraud. You'll speak directly from your gut . . . with your heart guiding the words.

You know. You care. You get it . . . Fraud. No way.

I wish you all the luck . . . from a blog-hopping (post-perusing) stranger.

[daphne]

Kate: your nerves are getting the better of you and it's a good thing we're all here to set things straight for you. You have a lot of wonderful things to share and a lot of people who want to listen - but this time they will be in front of you rather than in cyber world. That's all, no biggie. You will be more than fine, you will be fantastic and I wish I could be there to share the experience - they are very lucky to have you speak.

Also, ditto to Paula's comments.

We can't wait to see you. xoxdaph

[schmutzie]

You are being featured on Five Star Friday:
http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2008/10/five-star-friday-edition-26-which.html

[Shawna]

Oh, I can sympathize on the inconveniently timed afflictions, but count another one cheering from Seattle!

We stand side by side with love and support, but each woman walks her own journey. Your own words, your own story, will help another woman follow her own path and that is what matters. I'll be sending you good vibes all day, and I'm sure I'll feel the love for each and every spiritbaby all the way down here.

[stomper girl]

Wishing you all the best for your speech, I'm sure you will be great, breakouts or no.

[Jennifer]

You will be wonderful. You are not a fraud. You are one of them, it's just different for us. We are forced to walk on both sides of the line between happy parent and grieving parent. I often felt that I didn't fit with other babylost mamas, cause like you, I still had another beautiful baby at home. The above posts are right. That baby at home doesn't replace or lessen the grief over the ones we lost.

Good Luck. You'll be great.

[Mad]

Good luck with it, Kate. I know that you will do fine, herpes notwithstanding. Your heart is big enough to see into yourself and beyond as well. That is what matters.

[janet]

You wear the grief with poetry and grace here, in this place. I can't imagine that the audience won't instantly feel a kinship with you and your words. And your acne. ;)

All the best.

[mamie]

i know you will amplify the love, your words just seem to do that, to demand that, actually..

[starrlife]

I have total faith in your ability to connect and speak to others!

[Laurie]

Ummm, please do NOT call yourself a fraud. Just because the end circumstances may have been different than some of the parents there - you still had a loss and a loss that was just as important to you as to other parents. I am sure you will be great and bring the love and the peace that I see on this website every time I stop by. Good luck!

[Elaine]

I think standing up in front of those people with your body on the edge of total revolt ("Pimples, to the forward flank, ATTACK!") is so much more authentic to loss than to stand there looking perfect. Bring yourself to the stage as you are and let that speak to WHO you are, right now. People cannot help but respond to that. After 15 years of work in the theatre, I can promise you that.

[Jen]

Good luck to you. I believe you'll do fabulously.

[erin]

good luck kate. we all know that you have major skillz with the words;) you'll do great.

excited to hear all about it.

[sara]

kate... you're too fantastic.

[janis]

You will do great, I just know it! xoxo

[maggie]

i am sure you will be wonderful, because you are obviously so empathetic. that kind of acknowledgment of pain is rare and nourishing. i like your page! is your book a children's book? i wasn't clear. i'm writing a novel, half way through.

[crazymumma]

They are all happy, I am sure, that you had a baby to take home. No one would begrudge you that.

You will do wonderfully. Unsightlies and all.

[Antigone]

Seems a harder path in many ways.

[Karen (miscmum)]

Good luck. I'm a bit late and you've probably already spoken, but I'm sure you'll be great.

[Carol]

The survivors guilt is so awkward and everpresent and to me illustrates perfectly our inablity to not compare.Said plainly it sounds ludicrous: After all, really, I am not like you because my baby didn't have to live in the NICU hovering between life and death and I didn't have to see her die. I had the nice, peaceful experience of having her always be dead... and this somehow seems easier? For me to have never worried?

See? Truth is we're all just plain babylost, there really isn't any other way around it, is there?

I only wish I were visiting my in-laws in Edmonton...