Ah, May, you have turned out to be as difficult as I imagined you would be.
On April 29th, Emily's three month birthday, I had a great day. I felt good. Sometime that evening, I realized that it was her three month birthday, and I hadn't lost it that day. Hey, look, progress! Then, May 1st hit, and things crumbled again-
May, the month of planting when we thought we'd be juggling a new baby and a crazy work schedule. May, when my husband starts working 6 am to 11 pm, and I don't have anyone to hand life off to while I go cry. May, when my older kids hit exciting milestones and I feel both joy for them and sadness that Emily won't hit those milestones. May, when I go back to school, something I love but know I wouldn't be doing it if I had a newborn baby in my arms. May, when mother's day hit which is normally one of my least favorite days of the year, but hit harder this year. I will never have the joy of seeing my daughter become a mother.
It has been a month of finding our way on a new path. And, it has been hard, but I'm making it.
Emily's due date was sometime in the last week or so. Dated by ovulation, it was May 22. Dated by ultrasound, it was May 19. Since I have medical issues that require a very closely watched delivery, I am normally induced a week early. That means that Emily would have been born sometime around May 12-15. I had no idea how I was going to mark these dates. They are points on a path that doesn't exist.
Quite by accident, the last week or so has been full of Emily-things, more than any other week since her funeral. We have planned on planting a tree in her memory since her death. Tom suddenly found himself with an afternoon off, so we went and got it and planted it. And, we've placed her headstone. We couldn't have planned it better.
On May 22, Tom called me to tell me they were on their way with Emily's headstone. I had wanted to be there when it was placed. So, we went. There has been a temporary sign at her grave next to a black pile of dirt. As I stepped back and saw her headstone and sod, not dirt, it blended into the cemetery. It no longer stuck out, screaming at everyone who went there "This death is new and raw." It has become a permanent monument to her.
And that is just what this grief is- permanent. It is a part of our story, a permanent fixture in my life and in my children's lives. There is something oddly comforting to know that. Emily, her whole story with the joy and grief that goes with it, will always be there. I can visit her grave any time. I can visit the grief any time. I can go to ball games, and amusement parks, and read to my kids, and throw myself into a good novel, and go out with friends, and do all of those things, too. And, in all of those fun and joyful parts of life, the grief will be waiting, ready for me to visit.
One thought that I've had again and again throughout this process is that Emily didn't experience any of these things. But, she is sealed to us. She is a part of us. What if that bond allows her to experience earth life through us? I know she is with us often, at good times and bad, and realizing that she depends entirely on us for her earthly experience makes me think about what I am teaching her about this earth life. Do we make it one of joy and happiness? Do we allow ourselves to fully feel the grief and sadness? We do both, and we do them at the same time. We live, experience, feel, and let Emily exist as part of all of that.
I wouldn't choose this path for me or my family, but I'm on it and we are figuring it out.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Pieces of Grief
I am writing this on my public blog because I want to share it. I lost my baby girl in January, and there has been a LOT of writing going on here. It is very therapeutic for me. This blog post is a the result (or a stopping point on the way to the result) of me trying to make sense of my grief. That's how my brain works- I read, study, pray, ponder, and try to come up with a way to frame my emotions in order to understand them.
When we were first told that Emily was gone, my heart shattered. I can't even say it broke, because I've had a broken heart before, and this was much more. Everything fell apart into a million little pieces.
Since then, I have started the process of putting all of those pieces back together. One of the books I've read called "Transcending Loss" refers to a rebuilding process after loss, and that analogy works well for me. I am rebuilding all of the pieces of life- from how I parent, to how I use my free time, to how I feel about those around me. Those pieces are going back in, slowly, and not in the same way they were before. I have changed, a lot, and in ways that are surprising me.
But, those aren't the pieces of grief. The pieces of grief are the ones that I can't put back in, that no longer have a piece in my life. There are so many pieces of grief involved in the death of a child. They are every where- from little things like seeing stores put out sundresses for babies which I won't be buying now, to finding a pair of pink socks I had tucked away for Emily. At different times in my grief, I am mourning different losses. I grieve for Emily being gone. I grieve for the absence of feeling movement. I grieve that my husband never felt that movement. I grieve for not having a little girl. The list goes on. I have been aware of these different pieces of grief at different times. Some resolve more than others. Some I have control over more than others. Some are pieces that will forever be pieces of grief.
These pieces of grief are why we each experience loss so differently than another. We recognized from day one that Emily was spared pain and suffering, and that wasn't a piece we would need to grieve. But, we do grieve never having held her alive, seen her look up at us and smile, or feeling her warm breath. I couldn't cuddle with her (she was too fragile). I grieve for that. But, at the same time, I recognize what a gift it was that she did not suffer or feel pain at all during this life. My pieces of grief are different than another mother's pieces are.
Sadly, society has grabbed ahold of the "tragic death" piece of grief and run with it. The media sensationalizes violence and pain, feeding us a diet of adrenaline rushes with stories of tragedy. The problem is, when a death happens without it, the adrenaline rush doesn't happen. Some people forget that grief and sorrow is not the adrenaline rush. They have a hard time seeing grief without the drama of it. Sometimes, I have seen this lead to creating drama around the death of a loved ones. And, others will dismiss a mourner because of a lack of drama.
Emily's passing and grieving for her were not full of drama and adrenaline, and thanks to some amazing family and friends, the process of her delivery, funeral, and burial, all happened with a quiet peace and comfort about them. Since that time, though, as I have emerged (slowly!) into the real world, I'm encountering those who want to dismiss my grief because of the lack of drama surrounding her passing. That has been painful, and has prompted me to seek understanding of grief better.
I will be candid and say that I do not know how the pieces of grief surrounding a different kind of loss of a child feels to the mother. I have lost a child that I loved through an accident, but I was not the mother of that child, and I won't claim knowing what her pieces of grief look like. I just simply do not know that experience, and I am not claiming that. I am just pointing out that every mother who has suffered a loss carries pieces of grief with her, for the rest of her life. I can recognize that another mother is holding different pieces than I am, but still holding those pieces of grief.
I have met one person in this whole time who has lost both a young child and a stillborn child. It was the cemetery caretaker. When we went to pick Emily's burial spot, he pointed out where his two children were buried, side by side, and told us of them. He told us that both losses were hard, both were painful, and he carries both losses with him to this day. If one of the few that has experienced both refuses to compare, then I believe the rest of us should follow his example.
There you have my framework for understanding my own grief. It helps me to have ways to think about grief. Maybe it will help someone else, too, or maybe not. (As a disclaimer, I am not writing this as a "this is how you need to see things" as other blogs do. I am only putting my own thoughts out there, in the hopes that they may help another person.)
When we were first told that Emily was gone, my heart shattered. I can't even say it broke, because I've had a broken heart before, and this was much more. Everything fell apart into a million little pieces.
Since then, I have started the process of putting all of those pieces back together. One of the books I've read called "Transcending Loss" refers to a rebuilding process after loss, and that analogy works well for me. I am rebuilding all of the pieces of life- from how I parent, to how I use my free time, to how I feel about those around me. Those pieces are going back in, slowly, and not in the same way they were before. I have changed, a lot, and in ways that are surprising me.
But, those aren't the pieces of grief. The pieces of grief are the ones that I can't put back in, that no longer have a piece in my life. There are so many pieces of grief involved in the death of a child. They are every where- from little things like seeing stores put out sundresses for babies which I won't be buying now, to finding a pair of pink socks I had tucked away for Emily. At different times in my grief, I am mourning different losses. I grieve for Emily being gone. I grieve for the absence of feeling movement. I grieve that my husband never felt that movement. I grieve for not having a little girl. The list goes on. I have been aware of these different pieces of grief at different times. Some resolve more than others. Some I have control over more than others. Some are pieces that will forever be pieces of grief.
These pieces of grief are why we each experience loss so differently than another. We recognized from day one that Emily was spared pain and suffering, and that wasn't a piece we would need to grieve. But, we do grieve never having held her alive, seen her look up at us and smile, or feeling her warm breath. I couldn't cuddle with her (she was too fragile). I grieve for that. But, at the same time, I recognize what a gift it was that she did not suffer or feel pain at all during this life. My pieces of grief are different than another mother's pieces are.
Sadly, society has grabbed ahold of the "tragic death" piece of grief and run with it. The media sensationalizes violence and pain, feeding us a diet of adrenaline rushes with stories of tragedy. The problem is, when a death happens without it, the adrenaline rush doesn't happen. Some people forget that grief and sorrow is not the adrenaline rush. They have a hard time seeing grief without the drama of it. Sometimes, I have seen this lead to creating drama around the death of a loved ones. And, others will dismiss a mourner because of a lack of drama.
Emily's passing and grieving for her were not full of drama and adrenaline, and thanks to some amazing family and friends, the process of her delivery, funeral, and burial, all happened with a quiet peace and comfort about them. Since that time, though, as I have emerged (slowly!) into the real world, I'm encountering those who want to dismiss my grief because of the lack of drama surrounding her passing. That has been painful, and has prompted me to seek understanding of grief better.
I will be candid and say that I do not know how the pieces of grief surrounding a different kind of loss of a child feels to the mother. I have lost a child that I loved through an accident, but I was not the mother of that child, and I won't claim knowing what her pieces of grief look like. I just simply do not know that experience, and I am not claiming that. I am just pointing out that every mother who has suffered a loss carries pieces of grief with her, for the rest of her life. I can recognize that another mother is holding different pieces than I am, but still holding those pieces of grief.
I have met one person in this whole time who has lost both a young child and a stillborn child. It was the cemetery caretaker. When we went to pick Emily's burial spot, he pointed out where his two children were buried, side by side, and told us of them. He told us that both losses were hard, both were painful, and he carries both losses with him to this day. If one of the few that has experienced both refuses to compare, then I believe the rest of us should follow his example.
There you have my framework for understanding my own grief. It helps me to have ways to think about grief. Maybe it will help someone else, too, or maybe not. (As a disclaimer, I am not writing this as a "this is how you need to see things" as other blogs do. I am only putting my own thoughts out there, in the hopes that they may help another person.)
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