Beautiful

This was posted on SOBBS by a friend. It is an obituary for twins, a boy and a girl, Charlie and Sierra, born still.  She shared it with me and I thought I'd share it here. So beautiful.

7 months

Dear Angel

Today is 7 months since you were born and I held you in my arms.   Did you know that is about the same amount of time that I carried you inside me?  Did you know that is 213 days?   I can’t believe it in some ways.   I feel strange about the fact that the same amount of time has passed without you here now, as when you were with me.  213 days without you, and each morning when I wake up you are still the first thing I think about and each night you are the last thing I think about too.  213 days of tears, heartache and heaviness.    I hope you are joyful where you are.   I hope it wasn’t painful for you when you left us and that you feel peace and contentment.  We miss you so much.  We continue to love you, through our hurt.

I heard an interesting metaphor about life after loss the other day.  It is like pushing a boulder up a hill.  It’s true, and I think that gives a sense of the heaviness of the burden you carry after going through this type of loss.  It is draining. Everything takes more effort.  Life is messy too.  Relationships are different, your perspective is different, you have a new lens.

In a way this new perspective is a gift from Angel though.  I have now known incredible loss, struggle, suffering…and am pulling myself out of the depths. As I start to come out of the fog, I feel I have a different appreciation for life, a new compassion and sensitivity, I feel there is a stronger me emerging. 

This is Angel’s gift to me.

10th of the month again

I do not like the 10th of the month.  I find myself looking at the clock and thinking back to August 10th, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach.    The day we found out she was gone.  Depending on what time it is, I think back to, 7 months ago at this time I was.....insert horrible memory here....

I wish I could not think that way, but it is really hard not to get pulled back to that. 

Last night I had an amazing dream though.  I am not sure where I was but I was outside in a field and it was very early spring, still kind of cold outside.  But despite being still cold and barely spring yet, I saw several of the biggest, most beautiful butterflies, and they flew right up to, and near me, and around me.  It was an amazing sight. I just stared in awe and I felt a sense of comfort from it. 

Depth of Grief

There was a pretty awful article printed in Macleans this week about "The Mourning After" and how people "overshare" their pregnancy and infant loss.  PBSO formally responded to the article which I am glad about - someone needs to set the record straight from the grieving parent perspective.   The article is wrong on so many levels.  Some of the "facts" aren't accurate, they reference a stillborn baby as "it"....I have to believe the writer has not experienced a loss comparable to mine, because they are writing from such a distance and passing judgement in a way that tells me they can't possibly understand what this is like. I don't want to go too much into the article because it just gets me annoyed but pieces of the PBSO response really resonated with me and I wanted to post an excerpt here:

"What Ms. Kingston labels as "oversharing", we at PBSO encourage as healthy grieving.  We do not identify taking pictures or sharing our stories as public parades of grief, but as sincere ackowledgement of loss.  Only when one's loss is recognized, can one effectively grieve.  Our society is not comfortable with death, particularly when involving miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death.  Depth of grief is not related to length of gestation but rather to the attachment families have."

I think there are probaby alot of people out there that try to qualify grief.  Like - if you lost your child at 1 year old instead of 7 months gestation that would hurt so much worse.  Or taking that further, losing your child at 5, 10, 15, 20 years old, etc.  And you know what I can't speak to those other experiences and I don't want to get into a debate about that.  Ultimately though, Jeff and I lost our daughter.  As another post on here mentioned, she was a real, little person with a heart, soul, body, limbs, and face that looked like us.  We felt and still feel an incredibly strong attachment to her as she is a part of us.  To try to minimize the grief that is felt, just because she was an infant, born at 31 weeks, is incredibly hurtful and magnifies the pain of this experience.  And I think it is totally unnecessary to argue it.

February Project - out of order but inspired to contribute

So, I decided to contribute (late) to the February project on SOBBS. Nothing about grief is linear so why not do things backwards.

PROJECT FEBRUARY rules:
Take a picture. The only rule is the picture must be taken outdoors. Find something that reminds you of your journey or your child. It can be a snowflake, a leaf, a bird, a cloud, an ant....anything that evokes emotion in your heart. Don't be afraid to get down on the ground and look.

Today I saw something that inspired me to participate. This is the view out of one of the windows in my basement, where I work out. I stared at this leaf stuck in the fence while I was exercising and it struck me that it resonates with this journey. Some of the things it make me think about are:

• The tightness in my chest when I think about living life without my daughter
• A similar tightness and anger that I feel when someone says the wrong thing to me about her
• The feeling of being “stuck” sometimes, when I circle back in my head to August 10th/11th and relive the entire thing
• The way time stood still when I heard my daughter was gone
• The fierceness of which I want to hold on to and protect my daughter’s memory

Project March - Angel's name

So, SOBBS is doing something pretty cool and they are coming up with these "healing" projects every month this year.  For March, it was a challenge to create your child's name, in any medium we like, take a picture of the creation and share it.  As grieving moms we love to see our child's name written out - in print, sand, snow, beads - anything really. It helps to validate their existence I think.   Some of the moms started writing out their child's name and then using each letter to describe how they feel about the loss, and I decided to do the same.  Here is what I created for Angel:

The instructions said to "Find ways to carry your child with you, if not in the physical world than in your heart."  I love that.  And I found doing this project does have a healing effect.  It does really help to express yourself - your feelings about your child and your loss, using creative means.

Blink of an eye