For Tepley’s Birthday

Hello everyone -

July 8th is Tepley’s birthday.

She was delivered right after midnight - and just had a nice, healthy cry. She was 10 days late, so Nir and my mom spent those last days killing time in 95 degree weather with a 10 month pregnant person. The Fourth of July was us searching out different hot dogs to try - Nathans? or Hebrew National? I remember the day we spent (not-so-patiently) waiting for her – being induced for 24 hours and thinking about the physical process of giving birth. Truly seeing her at those first moments did not prepare me for how I would grow to adore her by the daily acts of caring for her, teaching her, and learning from her.

BIRTHDAY! If you would like to celebrate her birthday, get yourself a treat from Tepley (she preferred ice cream over cake and blueberries always) and / or light a candle and send her a little happy birthday song. If you are into presents, you can give $5 in the values Tepley learned at her school and we saw in her, in particular inclusiveness and stewardship.

• Stewardship - Tepley was getting very good at taking care of her environment, so we suggest Cool Effect for well researched ways to address the climate crisis.

• Inclusiveness - As you know, Tepley was a first generation immigrant and loved all types of people. If you want to share that love with other kids, we recommend RAICES or KIND (our buddy Rachel Brass is making sure these gifts are well targeted as a board member!)

The last few weeks have been particularly painful, missing her as spring changed to summer and all the plans we made as a family pass without us being there. This week we had been planned for her first beach week - having her discover the waves, running to them and then running back when they come in. It feels as if we get further from her every day – from her laugh, from her smile, from our time together as a family.

With this sadness, we hope that you will keep reaching out to us when you think of us. I know it has been three months and feels like we are over the hump of the initial trauma, but minute to minute we miss her. Your texts and pictures (even the random ones), your calls, and your visits are so needed. (Special thanks to our almost 2 year old buddy Amara - and her sweet parents - for the sweet song and candle...) Thank you!

This week we are at a grief retreat to find more ways to heal and to move forward. It's a mix of therapy, clean air, yoga, and other ways to process and find a way forward (if you know anyone who might benefit, let me know and I'm happy to talk to them. The most powerful lesson I am learning here is that we will be able to build and strength our relationship with Tepley over time, as we (and you) see signs from her that she is okay and that we can invest in building consistent ways that we talk to her and honor her. They call it moving from a physical relationship to a meta-physical relationship, and I have also learned this from those of you who have spiritual relationships with people you love.

Please keep us and Tepley in your hearts and prayers tomorrow. We would do anything not to be in the situation, but we hope all of you treat yourselves in honoring her sweetness and all the days we get to spend together.

With her love,

Allison and Nir
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1) How we're doing now

New thoughts about the grief experience - At Golden Willow, they have different descriptions of the grief phases that are helpful to us. The original writing focused on 5 phases, but here they add two more about moving forward and healing - which from where I am right now are welcome additions.

• Insulation (rather than denial) - This is the protection your mind offers you to process the emotion when you can. The goal is not to hide, but also not to drown. Work is a great example of this one, and I think we are both grateful for our professional time right now.

• Protest (rather than anger) - Anger is an important emotion, but some of us shy from it. Describing it as protest aligns the anger to the particulars of our loss. I want to fight losing Tepley and our little world with everything I have - and I will be able to translate this energy into something positive in the future.

• Cognitive construct (rather than bargaining) - This is all about the fantasy that you want to live in - that your brain keeps trying to figure out what you could have done to protect her or save her, that as a parent if you didn't protect her, you basically killed her. This one is natural but leads you down a terrible rabbit hole of mind overload that at some point you need to resolve.

• Sad surrender (rather than depression) - At this point, I have two counselors and medication, and I reach out to some of you who are willing to send prayers and good vibes. Sometimes I just need a boost to get over the hump. But the more I accept the fact that she is not in a physical form that I can hold and teach and love, the sadder the hopelessness feels.

• Acknowledgement of the fact (rather than acceptance) - Somehow acceptance sounds like it's not okay. Her loss is unfair and it sucks, and I dream every of the alternate reality where she is still here. But acknowledging that it happened is important for healing - the most important part of which is rebuilding a (meta-physical) relationship with our baby.

• Unknown (including forgiveness, grace, spirituality, healing, and transformation) - This one is so helpful to focus on as I work to forgive myself and also spend more time in prayer and investing more in the more spiritual practices like meditation and yoga to recenter myself.

  • Here I have really seen the overwhelming love and support that our community has created. It is certainly from the power that supports us all and it has been amazing to watch and experience. We have been carried.

• Relocation (including service, building passion, and moving from physical to metaphysical relationships) - This is a little about building our Option B, which includes expanding our family, continuing our relationship with Tepley, and growing with the wisdom we can find from this experience. Healing is moving forward with our baby and a contribution to make to our family and friends and to our community.

We've been building more new memories - We are grateful for all of you and for our strong marriage that our love for Tepley supports.

• We just took a trip to Oregon with my family, which was a magical place where we could rest and just spend time together after three months of grief, work stress, our fertility journey, and generally pushing to rebuild our lives. We had been planning to take Tepley for a beach week in South Carolina, but Oregon turned out to be a magical place for us - beautiful wide, empty beaches to fly kites on, to build campfires on, and to listen to the waves. The bright green of the evergreens that we drove through every day was such an amazing place to build new memories – Nir caught his first fish, we crabbed, and we saw whales up close with our nephews.

  • We are very much looking forward to a trip to Israel for the holidays to spend time with Nir's family and our friends there.

• We still really appreciate your visits and your stories. Most importantly, thank you all for being willing to talk - rather than have us talk. Your stories are a welcome world to which we can escape.

  • Thank you to Dad for coming for Father's Day, to Uzi for coming from Israel, to Vikas and Jamie for planning an inspiring soiree in Brooklyn, and for all of our intown visitors. We're looking forward to visitors soon from Dallas, Boston, Albany, and more.

  • Hoping to get out of town to Detroit, Miami, and SF soon.

• Also special thank you for the puzzles! We puzzle every morning, to spend time together that we spent with Tepley. For those of you who have chaos or grief, highly recommending puzzles as a meditative way to focus together or alone. Special shout outs to Meg who got us started and Brooke and Lisa who introed us to the mother of all puzzle makers.

I am still researching what happened to Tepley, and I have been so grateful to talk to immunologists

• Now that we know her final diagnosis, we have questions. How did seemingly common virus cause this chain reaction? I know that the symptoms were not available for us to know how sick Tepley was, but would love help understanding how these pieces come together in children and anything to consider now or in the future.

2) How you can help right now

• Thank you all for celebrating her - We have loved hearing that her friends at school are still reading her favorite books and her teachers are thinking of us and of her. Thank you, Natalie and Alexa, for visiting her resting place and sharing your love with us.

• Please keep thinking of Tepley and when you do, keep texting us / post about it - We are so grateful when people are thinking of us.

  • Light a candle - Just lighting a candle for her at home or at church means so much.

  • Like our pictures on Instagram or Facebook - It's just a little way to say that you see how precious she was to us.

  • Share Tepley's love - and your love - with the world and tell us about it - Extra hug? Little community service project? Write a card to someone you have been meaning to, but haven't gotten around to it?

  • Forgive us if we are slow / negligent in responses - we are making progress!

• Please keep praying for us or send us good vibes depending on your spiritual perspective (still working on wins) - We had a setback in our fertility journey, but we are moving forward so all good energy helps.

  • Please send us your support to have strength, to find ways to live with joy again, to be connected to people who love us, to have peace, to connect to Tepley every day.

  • We are working to do the good things every day that will give us momentum to build good things.

We appreciate hearing about the bees and owls being seen - and blueberries eaten! Thank you, thank you for thinking of her and of us. Thank you for the visits, the love and for the prayers we can not see. We appreciate the overwhelming and palpable support that we are getting constantly from all of you. There are so many of you sending little notes and texts of encouragement.

3) What not to say or to do

Same as last time, the only thing not to do is to stay away. I, in particular, am starting to feel like a burden - that this pain is still with me every day as I try to find a way to process, heal, and move forward. We need your support.