Despite feeling like a complete failure because I was unable to protect him, I focused on how I could use my experience to be the voice for change.
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I couldn’t imagine that my life would one day be filled with laughter, joy, and love again; but it is. Of course, there are also challenges, tears, and pain. All these can coexist in one heart. My heart is filled with love, grief, joy and hope.
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I needed a way to say goodbye, not only to the life that had been growing in me, but also to the due date, the list of names, the future I had already started to paint.
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We can’t choose how long it takes to win any given battle with grief, but we can choose whether we’ll keep fighting for the life we want to live, or whether we’ll settle into our misery. We can turn with courage toward healing, or we can turn our backs on it.
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"I was experiencing the grief of losing my mom and then I started experiencing the grief of losing my pregnancy.”
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The present and future are mine to create, and while I’m still finding my way, I see such calm in the skies, and that helps me feel whole.
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My child, once torn from me,
Seems close.
I feel her.
She is mine,
I am her mother.
We have been blessed to be able to make connections with other friends and local families that have experienced losses as well. The network and support of their experiences connects us in a family bond that is hard to describe.
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I was only prepared to expect the future with my babies, not expecting the reality of losing them both.
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I’m here now without her, but I still carry her with me. All of the plans we made are unfolding, and instead of her being in my arms, she’s brought along in my mind.
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And then there's grief itself which feels a lot like standing with your back to the ocean. You’re never sure when a wave will hit or how big it will be.
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Parenting your dead child is like painting by numbers but there are no numbers to paint by… All the rules and directions have been lost. How does one know what color comes next?
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There is a light flickering somewhere inside of every bereaved mother, even on the darkest days, that is fueled by faint pieces of who we are. That light may be dim, but it can shine brightly again.
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Once you are able to take some deeper breaths, you may notice life isn’t moving past you so much, but life is beginning to move in you. In a new way. No, nothing will ever be the same, nor after your loss would you want it to be.
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I find peace in the natural world that my daughter, like a rose bud that never got to bloom, was still a part of the bush, part of the garden and her lifetime however brief in the grand scheme of the universe was as important as any other being.
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I realized I was done waiting for others to heal me. My childhood was trauma-filled, and I believed that my healing needed to begin here first. It was important to me to be extra gentle with myself through this process. I welcomed all of my emotions. I cried when I needed to and laughed as much as possible. I see my inner-child as my true spirit.
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I wish you the very best as you trek through your grief journey. I hope to see you on the other side of grief, in your own timing. And that one day you will find the courage to use your voice not only to share your story, but to also be a light for a mother following in your footsteps. That is how we will illuminate the pathway for others and be able to move our baby loss community forward.
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In the beginning, the colors were gray and dull, with shades of pitch black and searing white blinding me from all other colors. But the colors are brighter now, full and vibrant. The birdsong is louder in my ears. When color and sound returned, they were brighter than I remembered, more beautiful.
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Do we ever actually “heal” from the death of our child? I would definitely say no. But we integrate their life and death into our own being, into our own story, into our identity. And we emerge with hope, a sign of life. A sign that their life wasn’t in vain. A sign that their life, albeit short, has propelled us towards something more beautiful, something more meaningful, something more profound. And I dare say that this may be one of the most precious gifts our children could have given us.
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Everything remains so much brighter, so much darker, so much more beautiful and more terrible than I could have ever imagined. But I still love him, and seeing the world with the eyes he gave me, learning the song of his silence he gave me, is part of how I show him that.
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