In A Letter To Another

I wrote this to another brand new babyloss mom who lost her child 2 weeks ago and was accused of being "selfish" by her co-workers...pretty much sums up where I am in life right now when it comes to friends and family.

Hi Allie,


I am so sorry you have found yourself on this agonizing road with us. It sounds like you are having to deal with some insensitivity on top of it, which is so far from helpful.


I have found myself to be a much more hardened person after losing my son 3 months ago. At 2 weeks, I can honestly I didn't give two hoots about another person on the planet except my husband. It's so normal, and I believe healthy to dive into yourself in the midst of the grief and just focus on your own well being and keeping yourself going. Even now, 3 short months later, my entire perspective of life and relationships has changed drastically. I HAVE to focus on my husband and I alone because otherwise I don't think I could continue living. Not to be dramatic, or attention seeking, but because it's the solid truth that my world ended when my son took his last breath.


Unfortunately, having been a very caring and loyal friend all of my life, many friends and family cannot and do not understand the change they see in me, hell, I don't understand the change I see in myself. But I know it's there for a reason, it's there as a result of losing my son, my world, my future. I will never be the same person I was before, none of us will, because we can't be. We can't go back to who we used to be, and quite honestly, I wouldn't want to. That person wasn't a mother to a beautiful boy named Matthew.


Please, please be gentle to yourself, and please, be absorbed in your own well being above all else. They can take care of themselves, and they should be worried about taking care of you instead of being so insensitive. This entire process, is life-long, and unending. If you do not learn how to cope, grieve, and live with it now, there will be a day that it comes crashing down hard. That is the entire purpose of grief, it's a learning experience, and a reflection of the love you had for your baby.


I wrote more than I meant too :-) But I just can't stress enough how important it is that you allow yourself to be "selfish" now and in the coming months. I have yet to reach the point that I "care" about others. Yes, I love my friends and family, but they are no longer and will never be my priority again. Day to day, right now, I focus on getting through the moments and hours without the clutter of worrying about who I may have offended or who I should be reaching out to.


Another thing I have learned, is those who are true friends and TRULY care about me, will understand my coldness, my lack of communication, and my "selfishness". Those who take offense and judge me for it, have no place in my life.


Blessings and hugs to you and yours.

The World May Never Notice

The world may never notice
If a Snowdrop doesn't bloom,
Or even pause to wonder
If the petals fall too soon.
But every life that ever forms,
Or ever comes to be,
Touches the world in some small way
For all eternity.

The little one we long for
Was swiftly here and gone.
But the love that was then planted
Is a light that still shines on.
And though our arms are empty,
Our hearts know what to do.
Every beating of our hearts
Says that we do love you.

3 Months

Happy 3 month Birthday Matthew. Mommy and Daddy miss you so much.

You're in a better place, I've heard a thousand times
And at least a thousand times I've rejoiced for you
But the reason why I'm broken, the reason why I cry
Is how long must I wait to be with you


I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now


Help me Lord cause I don't understand your ways
The reason why I wonder if I'll ever know
But, even if you showed me, the hurt would be the same
Cause I'm still here so far away from home


In Christ, there are no goodbye
And in Christ, there is no end
So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have
To see you again
To see you again


And I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow


I've never been more homesick than now

Lyrics

Heard this song today that I don't usually like all that much, as it's fairly shallow and silly, but one of the verses touched me deeply. They weren't meant or intended in the way that they touched me, but all the same...

Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors
Oh, and life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain't even gray, but she buries her baby

The sharp knife of a short life
Well, I've had just enough time

I Still Sing

He's not here, but I still sing to him. I know he hears me.

I sing my love, my pain, and my mother's heart to him. I sing his name. I sing his songs. I sing love over and over again.

He hears me.

One day, the day that cannot come quickly enough, I will sing to him in my arms, and I will never let him go.

Another's Words, Spoken From My Heart

"I don't need to find a meaning in my son's death. Or, more precisely, I don't think there can be meaning grand enough to be worthy of him, to be worthy of the enormity of what it means to have to live without him.

To me, my son's death doesn't have to be beautiful and meaningful. It doesn't have to teach anyone anything, and it doesn't have to have changed our lives for the better. In fact, I think if someone tried to find anything of the sort in our story, I'd be beyond livid.

I remember a post on someone's blog from when I was only a couple of months out from A's death that has stayed with me throughout the years. The post was about how of course the deaths of our children are unfair, about how we, the survivors, didn't deserve it. There was a quote too, about how the only thing worse to imagine than their deaths being unfair and undeserved is for their deaths to have been fair and deserved. Jeez, right? What would you have to do to deserve to have your kid die? And if you put it that way... Well, the beauty and meaning thing, I feel similar about these-- what in the universe can possibly be worth my son's life? I have only one answer to that-- nothing, absofrigalutely nothing.

Which doesn't mean that I do not see beauty in our stories, in our story. The difference is that to me the beauty is internal.  It doesn't come from or depend on anything that happened as a result of A's death It's jagged and mangled, and may not look like beauty to anyone but us, and let's face it-- few are willing to look for long enough to see it. The beauty I see is in the origin of our pain, in why our worlds are torn and our hearts-- a mess of shards. That, of course, is grief, the new and unbidden roommate-inside-us.

To me, there is beauty in the pain, in the grief. But not because I enjoy the sight of blood and gore-- I don't. I see beauty in why the pain and the grief are there. They are there because we love our children. And when they die, when we lose the world that was to be them, the pain is the reflection, the mirror image of the love. And to me, that's good enough. Actually, to me that's the only way it can possibly be."

-julia http://www.glowinthewoods.com/

Sometimes

I think about the things I've lived through, been through, and I can barely believe I've survived. I relive those moments again in my head with absolute clarity, and it feels like I am watching someone else live my memories. It can't be me. I couldn't have gone through something so horrific and still be alive. I'm not that strong. My memories seem like deception, but alas, they are true. Every single moment is true. Sometimes...I don't believe my own mind's recalling. How can I be here, when I was there? How can I have lived through that without losing my mind, my heart, my soul?

Keeps On Rolling

Ah, life. How unfair, yet healing it is that you continue on, regardless of the events within. I have wished you would stop countless times. I have wished you fast forward countless times. Yet, you ignore my wishes and steadily carry on, knowing better than I.

Steps have been taken and lost over these past few months. Mostly lost, but still, progress towards a little healing has been made. Unfelt, invisible, but still there in my days. My memories begin to hold not only intense pain, but also joy. I can sometimes envision his face without sobbing now, and the thought of his little nose and toes can bring a smile, when before there was only tears.

I carry my inked likeness of his tiny feet with intense passion and love, tenderly stroking the outlines of his baby feet daily. All of these things say "He was here." At this point, I can ask no more. Though there are so many moments that all I can choke out are pleas for his presence, there are now moments, amazingly, that I am able to acknowledge my gratefulness for his time with me.