Christmas

It's difficult not to be sucked in by the Christmas propaganda. Really it's everywhere. I'm not normally one to "deck the halls" and be "merry" or become overly nostalgic about the year and family I never see or hear from. But it seems that these times make you feel a little worse for wear. Is it the idea that everyone should be joyful and loving and celebrating their lives with one another? Meh. I don't know. What I do know is, I'm sad. Yep just a general sad. Sad that Yuna's not here. Sad that she's not alive. Sad that I can't make her a dress to wear, make her all the beautiful toys I know she'd love to play with. In reality I do know that my attitude toward Christmas or Giftmas wouldn't have really changed all that much if she were here but it still feels empty. Something missing.

I think it's the fake joy. I don't want to pretend just for the sake of a day that means nothing to me anyway.
Santa sucks.
We do giftmas for the boys. It's about them too. They deserve joy and love but I also feel that the sadness around their sister should be just as acknowledged as the rest of it.
The gifts, the food, the fake joy.
But what to acknowledge? How? When? I always struggle with what's appropriate. I guess it shouldn't matter. But I'm kind of in-between with how I'm feeling right now, so that makes how I'm feeling more confusing. I'm angry at the whole situation. I know it will pass but for now I'm just going with it. Letting it settle and then I'll work with it.

Last giftmas I had only been out of hospital a few weeks, Yuna had only been dead two months. So it was all a bit of a whirlwind. We spent too much on the kids, trying to compensate for such a shitty few months. Shitty doesn't even cover it but you know what I mean. I was still in a state of shock so nothing really went beyond the surface. We just went with the tide. Trying not to drown in it.
Then this year it's been long enough to have felt real emotions. To know what's missing. Long enough for the family to have distanced themselves. It's been long enough to realise that I'm going to have a life full of occasions, events, celebrations, birthdays that she wont be here for. I'll always feel like something is missing. I'll always miss her and be sad that I can't be her mama but how to put it into perspective? How to not drown in the overwhelming sadness? How to not be sucked in by all the crap?

Still here

I find that no matter how much time passes I'm still in a relative state of shock.

The shock, the raw feelings that surface when I look back on what I've endured, enduring...

The shock, the trauma. The reality that I carried my baby for nearly 10 months and gave birth. A very significant event in any woman's life. I had a daughter, a baby. Then like a dream it was gone again. It didn't feel real. It's all still so unreal. Like a hazy dream. Or nightmare?

A painful raw open wound that just wont heal. It stings every time you touch it. The raw edges like fire, burning further and further into my soul. Nothing heals that kind of hurt.

There seems to be a whole lot of anger. Anger going nowhere, aimed at no-one. Just being carried upon my shoulders, along with everything else.

The sting of hurt every time I remember the two contrasts of my life then and my life now. It's hard to swallow. Like two completely different worlds, one full of colours and the other a dreary grey. I'm two different people. The woman, goddess, mother before Yuna and just me now. I don't know where I'm going if anywhere at all.

The sting of the happy homebirth planning, the dreams of toast and celebration after the arrival of our new baby. How did it disappear so fast?

I'll question and guilt myself over every decision, every tiny detail, every minute but I know it still doesn't change anything. I'm just lost in a web of empty answers. Dead ends. Confusion.

The cycle of grief is never ending. It just jumps from one pain to another. People just occupy themselves with life but never really heal. It doesn't get better with time. Life just creeps back in around you and you have no choice but to pick up the pieces.

Sink or swim?

It angers those around me when I express how much I'd wished I hadn't survived. I desperately didn't want to wake up after Yuna was born. I knew that then and I know that now.

Isn't it selfish for them to want me? Selfish for them to need me?

If they'd felt what I felt, heard what I'd heard and seen it through my eyes, they too would have begged like I did, to not recover from this. But here I am. Alone in my thoughts, in my head. Wondering what happened. Wondering how it could have been different. Wondering...

Questioning life itself.

peachyfuckingnot

Back to what I do have.

I don't blog about that much. Well because this blog is about me, about grief, about Yuna.

I'm not for a second ungrateful for what I do have. It's just earth shattering to realise the finality of where I'm at right now. The loss of my womb at only 24.

My feelings as a woman, as a mother.

I love my children. I do. But I also miss, well grieve the daughter I will never see live a long life. The baby I'll never know. She is memory more than real. I just struggle knowing it was all taken from me. Motherhood.

I don't say I have three children anymore. That's not forgetting, it just seems now time has passed it's socially unacceptable to do so. To talk of a dead baby as if she were part of the family. *insert sarcasm here*

This Western world sucks at death. Especially dead babies.

Ssh it's taboo. I want it to be real. To cry in public. Swear at Dr Fuckwitt and his pink shirts. Tell random strangers how sad I am. Reveal myself. Not pretend.

Be socially unacceptable.

Peachyfuckingnot...

They have pills for that kind of behaviour though.

Blogger vomit and random thoughts

This is a few days old or maybe it's weeks now... When I ovulate it seems to coincide with a very intense journal writing session. So here it is.

Night. Dark.

Enemy or trusted companion?

I can be open. Be true to myself, yet I despise this time so much.

I dread waiting for it to arrive yet at the same time I crave it too.

But faithfully it always arrives. Soaks my soul. Whispers to me, to let it out. It's safe here, now.

The days are too bright. They don't truly reflect my inner core. It's fake, cheery. I am not.

The days I spend functioning. Being human. Fulfilling my mother role. Getting on with it but internally struggling with the mere act of breathing in and out. Enjoying my boys like every other day but the night comes and I'm alone in my world, darkness as friend.

The world where it's real. The world where I feel.

The world where the waves crash upon my fragile self over and over again.

I don't know what it is, perhaps when the children sleep, the quiet is overwhelming. My duties are complete yet there is always something missing.

Time heals I know. I don't think that missing feeling will ever fade in intensity. It just is.

I wasn't even consciously thinking of her last night when the darkness became too much. I felt that thumping in my chest begin to pound furiously and then the tears fell. It shocked me. Usually it's a photo, a smell, a day, a place. This time it was nothing. It took over. Crying makes me feel heavy and generally worse. It just makes me think more.

Random Thoughts:

• It's the little things I miss. Breastfeeding mostly. I never got that opportunity.
• Through birth I am her mother, a mother to a daughter but I will never BE her mother or a mother to a daughter.
• I cannot imagine her. Does that make me awful because I cannot imagine what she would have looked like? It hurts to think about that. She would have looked just like me but she's not here so why try to imagine?
• I hate seeing photos of me as a child because I see her in me. I'll never see her grow.
• I can't stand this light hearted banter about things she's doing or would do either here or in spirit. Nor her personality.
• She's not an angel or in heaven. Nor am I an angel mummy.
• She was my baby, my daughter, a human person and yes she's dead.
• I hate him, my body, his hands, Them.
• I am not a woman. I am a sliced, mutilated, butchered empty shell.

Well those were quite random and much deeper than I expected to go. I'm not entirely sure blog world is ready for that.

The first year.

Perhaps I don't blog as often as I'd like because I feel the need to blog something of importance or interest? Not that anything already here is interesting or important. It's just a blergh blog. I'm happy with that. It makes me feel better to vent. Even if I'm the only one reading it.

Tonight shall be a free blog. Whatever comes.

I'd like to be the girl with the journal. Always writing, but it just doesn't come. I don't know how many of those I've started in my years. Nothing ever flows. Maybe at 2am when I can't sleep but really, who actually wakes up enough to write in a journal? Maybe I need to.

So the "big" week is over. A friend actually said "so it's all over now" as if now that her first birthday has passed and the first anniversary of her death is done we can all move on, put it behind us? Perhaps for some. I'm not at all saying that we should live in the past or be gloomy forever. It just took me by surprise that those around me must have been waiting for this big event with the anticipation that life would once again go back to normal. That they can stop treading on ice and put it all behind them now.Stop asking how I am? Stop caring? Stop saying they'll think if her? Stop understanding?

No need to mention it again. Like the first is the one to make a big deal of. All the rest, well it depends how you want to grieve. Some anniversaries will be just as intense as the first. Some easier. I'm not sure where I'm headed. Best not to make plans. I think that's how I survived the year. Don't make plans. Don't expect anything. Just wake up each day and breathe...

Her birthing day (the day before her actual birthday) was more intense for me. All those feelings, memories, smells, dreams and wishes came flooding back. Like time had never passed. I felt like a video played in my head. It was all so clear. The bitter sweetness of it all. The complete change in our lives from those few hours the year before. Life couldn't have been better. I was giving birth and it was wonderful, beyond words. I spent the day mostly alone, arranging flowers, lighting candles and just wandering around keeping busy. Much the same as I would have been doing the year before.

Then we entered into the intensity of the "birthday" where for me I don't really remember much, actually. It wasn't a significant day for me. I guess we just did what we thought we were supposed to do. Celebrate your dead daughters would have been first birthday. It was just a weird strained feeling. Nice looking from the outside, but something was missing. Hmmph funny about that. I'm glad we did what we did, but it was all just out of place. Although I felt like we should have done something, not nothing, even if none of us actually wanted to.

Then came the ultimate low. Almost like coming down from that birth high. I was left feeling numb and sad. We just spent 2-3 days trying to pretend we're a happy family "celebrating" a person's birthday who isn't here. Life returns to the way it was before. We retreat to the corner to lick our wounds. Go our own way. Alone. Functioning as the days pass into the next year. We survived the first year after the death. Apparently that's a triumph?

I know I know

Is it for me or is it for you? That I'm not entirely sure. I guess it doesn't really matter. Once it's out, it's out. Said and done.

Again this week is moving like slow motion. A lot like the same week a year ago. Only I was high on a cocktail of drugs and trapped inside a hospital. This time I'm only trapped inside myself. My own thoughts. I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm too exhausted to post photos from Yuna's birthday or even blog about it for that matter. I'll get around to it eventually. I also have some placenta planting stuff to blog about but that can wait a few days too. I need to compose my thoughts a little more. I know, a lot less random. Not my usual style! But as always I like to piece out my thoughts, see where they came from and where they're taking me next. There are so many emotions flowing through me I don't know where to start.

This week has been like flying blind. Not knowing how, when or what to feel. Searching for things that I'll never grasp. Story of my life these days. I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. No one ever wrote a book about the 12 step program to recovery when your baby dies.

Trying to remember the little details. Reliving every moment just to know I'm not dreaming.

Feeling a wee bit insane. Trying to forge on, cheer up and love.

Love. That's a tough one. Maybe I need a whole new blog about my love issues?

Feeling and Letting Go

When you are visited by grief it takes a while to feel it. I mean really feel it.

You know when you do though.

It's thick. Sticky. Hard to shake.

It's like smoke. It seeps into your soul. Gets under your skin, fills your lungs with black and clutches at your heart.

It may seem odd but it's difficult to let that go.

I know the intense feelings of love and amazement when I gave birth to Yuna, then in a flash it was overcome with other feelings. The slap in the face kind of intensity of new but just as powerful feelings. Pain, loss and grief.

So it begins. You nurture it. Cradle it. Hold those new feelings closer than you'd really like to. You begin to need that feeling over and over again. It after all seems to be the only way you can feel. It keeps you floating along in this foreign sea of loss. It seems to be the only connection to the original feelings. The feelings that were.

That connection to you, Yuna.

Because if you're feeling pain then it must mean I'm not forgetting you. It means I'm loving you.

But surely there's a way to love you and be connected to you without the grief, sucking the life out of my very heart and soul.

Perhaps just the fact that you existed should be enough?

It's scary to let go because almost like every ache, every pain is like a way to show my heart, the world how much I wish you were here in my arms.

It's memories now. Distant yet vibrant memories. It feels sometimes that I'm making them up. I have to wonder if they were indeed a reality. Your birth, your short life, even your death.

If I close my eyes could I reach you?

Somehow, somewhere.

I never wanted to let my grief take me away from who I am. Sometimes you just have to be that grief as a whole. I didn't want it to define me, but I see it's now a part of who I am. There are many parts to me. This is just another for the collection in this life.

I hope, I was going to say I hope there are less tears and more smiles but I know there will be. I also know there are plenty more tears for you, Yuna. That's okay too.

Your beautiful face and those wise soulful eyes. Magical.

I'll always remember them.

It's just hard to be happy and feel joy when I ache to hold you again.

The struggle to understand the grand plan. The lesson. Perhaps that is the plan, letting those ideals go too?

Silent thougths

As inspired by a fellow blogger A Garden for Butterflies I thought I'd let go of the many random thoughts that never pass my lips. They forever swirl around my mind until they are suppressed into the depths of my soul for a later date or transformed into some other negative feeling. This exercise is to be a regular occurrence. If only we could be socially acceptable despite screaming motherfucker at the world itself. I know I'd feel better by doing it. Wouldn't you?

Some random thoughts for today. Some sad, some crazy, some just me.

*Oh goddess she was beautiful* (looking at her not so tiny feet sculptures)
*What will I do with that placenta in my freezer? I should be planning something special*
*What happened to me? Said as I examined myself in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes*
*I shouldn't be fearing the days to come. I should be planning Yuna's very first birthday party*
*I never got to make my chocolate labour cake. Was that an omen of things to come? She would never have a birthday?*

What were your random thoughts you kept to yourself today?

Quite Random

I've been floating along in my own little bubble. I much prefer the air in here to that of the big bad world. The air is thick and makes it hard to breathe. Detrimental perhaps to my social self but it's safe. Much safer than crying to a stranger at random. Or wanting to make them see sense. Or scream at the mother who was physically smacking her 6 month old baby because she was crying. Yes, you read that right. The world does my head in. I can't relate. I do not belong here. I belong somewhere else. I belong in a world where my daughter lives. Impossible dreams and hopes will forever linger in my mind. They'll never be any lighter to carry upon my heart. They just wont. The longing for her will still forever break my heart and crush my ribcage like a wild animal hunting it's prey. Dramatic? I think it perfectly describes that feeling when you realise your not in fact dreaming. That this world is your reality. That you do not have a baby in your arms. That baby is no longer.

I swing violently between knowing that all things happen for a reason and my daughter had a purpose yada yada to this is all bullshit and unfair. I guess that's a normal response too. We can't always be level headed, all of the time. I am rational. I'm not a screaming lunatic, well publicly at least. Maybe I'd feel better if I did do it in the middle of a crowded street?

I was told that most of the first year after losing someone you spend struggling to make it reality. To accept that it's real, that they're dead. I feel like I'll forever be waking up wondering how the fuck my life ended up this way. How the fuck did I go from blissfully pregnant to giving birth, to almost dead, to watching and waiting for my perfect looking daughter to take her very last breath? I don't know. I just don't know. I'm waiting for some kind of awakening. Doubt it.

Writing that makes me realise that I never got that "time" to grieve. Sure it's been almost a year. A whole year since my daughter was born and died but I just can't help feeling like I missed something. I could go on for eons about what I didn't get but there is something I can't put my finger on. It's just all out of order. Like I missed some process after she died. I know everyone does it differently. I just feel like I should have been at home, in private. In the place she was born, surrounded by her things. The birth smells. Her home. My home. Our home.

Instead I was a patient in a disgusting hospital and alone, completely alone.
There it is. The salty tears. Perhaps that's it.
I was separated from those I needed most. My daughter was gone and I was busy being poked and prodded and x-rayed and filled with tubes and pumps. Being examined and judged and watched.

I remember vividly only on one occasion during my hospital stay did I completely collapse in a mess of tears. Well in view of others anyway. A whole team (I'm talking 10 or more people) of medical students and the senior staff barged in and there I was in a chair wailing. They quickly apologised and left me alone in the room. They demanded the social worker see me because I was upset.

What part of that isn't normal? A woman whose had everything taken from her, including her uterus, her baby is dead and you're concerned she's acting like a crazy woman?

Okay this post was supposed to be about something completely different. In fact it was to contain the use of the word "motherfucker". Although I'm sure I could use that word on more than one occasion when describing most of my interaction with hospitals. I'm thinking that would have been more fun to blog about but it seems my heart has poured itself all over the keyboard and taken over.

I guess that's pure release of some kind. Don't know how it helps but it's worth a shot, right?

Visitors

If you read this blog I'd really love to hear from you.

So feel free to drop by and leave a comment. :)

Where?

Where do you go when I sleep?

When I close my eyes and dream of you?

Whispers of love sent

Passages of hope dreamt

Time fading

Memories wet with tears

Where do you go when my heart aches for you?

She

She dreams

She creates

She loves

Dust, Earth, Salt

Tears

She is free

Hope, Peace, Love

She dreams

Open heart

She loves

Open hands

She creates

Open soul

She dreams

Alone into the night

Being alone appeals to me

I guess it's running from pain even though I know it's still going to be there

Yet this self imprisonment allows some kind of inner torture

Punishment

For what I'm not sure

A broken mother

Crashing

Being swallowed

Looming darkness

Outstretched claws

Ready

Waiting

Whispering

Weakness

Pulling me down just a little deeper

Into the night

Inside

How does one survive when there was no inner core, no strength, no stability to begin with?

You crumble, you drown, you fight for air.

It's hard to love when you don't love yourself.

I feel like I'm forever picking up the pieces. Rebuilding over and over. From the ground up.

Turmoil, pain and a whole lot of self hate.

I'm detached and disconnected because I'm afraid to hurt. Of the hurt.

You've been broken it's hard to get that back.

Self confidence.

Love and passion.

I need to work out how to love me first.

I don't want to. I don't deserve love.

I am learning. Slowly but learning it's okay to live.

The dual nature of the human spirit.

We can be happy yet be sad too.

Joy and pain.

There is no one or the other. Everything just is.

Accept it with grace? Learn to be.

Not one or the other, just be.

Everything.

Easier said than done.

Soul

Mystic Weavings

An ultimate reality believed from insightful gifts

Visions from Creator and my contemplative spirit uplifts

The reason I was born, a puzzle pieced with forgiveness divine

An expression of creativity connected, unrelated to bloodline

My greater purpose courses through the veins of my past

As surroundings are experienced with intimate contrast

I am meant to serve by transforming perceptions ignored

So that rites of passage are lived with a valued, inner reward

A deep satisfaction as I personally grow to share

That making a difference in the world is love in prayer

Each new breath of gratitude I’ll weave within nature

With discernment, not judgment to specific nomenclature

No monastery, castle or dogmatic school of thought

Just peace, love and devotion within, eternally walked and talked.

TK Rosevear

"...and the time came

 when the risk it took to remain 

in a tightly closed bud

 became infinitely more painful 

than the risk it took to blossom."

~Anais Nin~

I'm unfolding

blossoming

somewhere deep in here

I will emerge

fresh

new

and possibly wiser...

Cords

In fear of forgetting I seem to hold onto this deep earthbound grief. It has it's ups and downs but letting that go almost seems like I'm letting her go. Forgetting a part of her. I know that's not possible but it's something I'm emotionally struggling with. I'm seeing a pattern here and seem to hold on to negative people only because they're connected to me and to my experience. When in reality it' s unhelpful and causing me more grief that I need. I need to break those ties. Let them go yet not be afraid that I'll lose the love I've got. Still feel her with the passion of a mother that I do now.


I am grasping at any kind of connection to her. As a way to keep living. When the reality is those people aren't always the right people to connect with.

So deep work is needed. I need to sever those cords of attachment. Live this on my own.

Meh

It's raining
I'm cold
I'm exhausted

Nothing profound to share
Just another shitty day

Mother Woman

We all imagine our lives contain chapters or phases. We generally move through them without much thought or notice. I guess we take that for granted but when you are forced into a new chapter or phase in your life you're left wondering how to cope.
How to keep turning the pages. How to learn who you are all over again.
I spent a good seven or eight years discovering who I am as a woman and also as a mother. Only in the last two did I fully develop this new sense of womanhood.
I embraced it and really found depths of myself I only ever dreamed of, or saw in other women.

I wanted to be that warrior, that goddess, that nurturing mother. I finally found her and suddenly I feel like I've been swallowed up by the enormity of this new part of my life.
I've spent so many years in that role as life giver and mother, now that chapter has ended.

I never imagined I'd be walking this path, living this chapter so soon.
I thought I'd be that crone.
The wise woman, an older woman.
Not me. Not now.

Who am I? Or more importantly what to do with me now?
I guess it's just adjusting to the reality of my life.

Who ever thinks they'd wake up without a uterus one day? Seriously. It's not something you think about on a day to day basis is it?

Perhaps I let motherhood define who I am?

A dear friend said that she's a woman and parenting is something she does.
I find it hard to separate the two.
I have for so long felt like a mother and rarely saw the woman in me.
I'm faced with the reality that bringing life into this world is a memory now.
Past not future.
So how to get that woman back?
How to look inside me and remember the woman warrior goddess?
I felt like I found that woman within me by becoming a mother and birthing.
Can they really be separated?
Womanhood and motherhood.

Roads

I find it interesting when I speak to people they ask if I've had counselling, as if that's some kind of helpful statement. I guess some people just don't know what to say or feel that the death of a baby requires treatment. Yes it's traumatic and incomprehensible but it's a part of the great cycle. Like the GP who on more than one occasion tried to tell me I needed sedatives and anti depressants in order to get my life in order and feel better.

I guess you can only whole heartedly accept that death and more specifically the death of your child is a plain truth, a part of our cycle when you are slapped square in the face with it.

In short I just cannot sit in a chair and be counselled through this grief. Some can, not me. Perhaps blogging is my therapy?

I'm rational and I'm functioning. Not so well ALL the time but hey that's fine by me.

I simply living one day at a time. Sometimes it's hour by hour.

Admittedly I'm sitting in a foreign place sometimes just holding on to my grief. In some kind of other world. A world that belongs only to me, yet knowing there are others.

Those experiencing grief or loss or trauma or a combination of all of those walk their own path. You can read all the 'right' books and do all the 'right' things but ultimately we walk this path alone and eventually we walk to somewhere in the future and we've miraculously survived.

I've read many a story of loss. It's like my drug of choice. You find a sad kind of comfort in reading about other people who know what you've been through. Not that you'd wish it upon anyone, you find a place of peace knowing your not the only one. It's tragic. I've shed many a tear not only for my daughter but for all the children who've returned to the great mother.

For the parents who've got empty arms and broken hearts.

So back to walking this road. One thing I've learnt from sharing my experience is that you do survive. It doesn't always look so bright, I can say that honestly because some days ARE bleak and you can't hold back the buckets of tears. You don't ever forget, you may move forward but you don't forget. I imagine I'll still be shedding tears for my daughter in 20 or more years.

A common thread in the web of loss is that one day something within you will shift. It might be a series of little shifts or a big massive one. You wake up and it's not so hard to breathe. You see joy. You feel the presence of love. It can be overwhelming. It took me a long time to realise that's what was happening.

I feel my daughter all around me or perhaps it's the enormity of my love for her radiating from within me? Or both?

You haven't forgotten.

You never forget.

It's all we've got.

Memories.

Gee you look good.

I find it amusing when people tell me I look good after they hear what I've been through in the last few months, as if that's some kind of compensation?

I tell you what I wouldn't give to be told "gee you look like shit."
What I wouldn't give to be still in my pyjamas at three in the afternoon.
Pyjamas that are covered in baby vomit.
What I wouldn't give to wake to my baby during the night.
To hear her cry
To carry her in a sling
Feed her
Dress her
Hold her in my arms...

But I look well? What's that supposed to really mean?

Slap In The Face

For a fleeting moment surrounded in madness I felt that urge, that pang, that "Oh how I'd love to have a baby." The maternal rush.

I know it's impossible so I dismissed it, squashed it as deep as it would go, covered it in darkness. We all know these kinds of things feed and grow in darkness. Like a fungus.

 Somehow it felt better to push it away, out into oblivion. Far far away. 

I too realise that I cannot deny these feelings. They exist and I need to acknowledge them. It's easier to write about it than to actually voice them. That way they're not as physically real. You say them and someone might hear you...

I'm always going to have these feelings, I always have. Albeit it's the first time I've felt this way since Yuna's birth and death. I never thought I'd feel this way again. I realise I've got a very long life to live with these feelings, those pangs in the heart, in the pit of your stomach, in your aching empty breasts and the constant slap in the face reminder that, that's all they'll be. Feelings. Dreams. Wants.

Never a reality. My days as child bearer are over and it kills me. A huge part of me is gone, my life, my purpose, my existence.

How do you heal from that too? Am I supposed to be learning something from all this? It all just feels like a cruel joke.

Haven't I been challenged enough?

Ebb and Flow

Full Moon Saturday 9th May 2009

The weather is cold and miserable and I feel about the same. My emotions feel so out of control and extreme today. It is a full moon. I guess it's to be expected. I'm just having so many feelings rushing through me, I feel like I'm going to burst.

I'm not big on the whole Mother's Day consumer rubbish but for some reason I'm feeling a little flat that this year I should have been celebrating our first mothers day with Yuna. I should have been woken up far too early, bleary eyed and looked down to see our chubby 7 month old girl staring back at me. Instead I'm left looking at her photos and a jar full of ashes dreaming about what might have been. That is not how I thought I'd ever have to spend a mothers day, any day for that matter.

I just haven't been able to stem the flow of tears today. Everything hurts far too much. I'm so tired of this ride. I want it to stop, just for a moment.

I'm supposed to be organising a family trip to Sydney in October but I jut keep putting it off, as if it wont ever be October. I am terrified. 

It's been day to day for so long and you almost don't realise that time is passing and passing far too quickly. Well you do realise, it's always present somewhere in your mind. 

I just never imagined that I'd be anticipating the twelve months since my daughters birth and death. Not one whole year, look how big she's grown. I know it's only been seven months but the thought of October looming makes me want to vomit. I guess the anticipation is far worse than the day itself? 

I just wonder sometimes how I keep going. I guess the same way I managed every other day. How I managed to survive even though I willed myself to die after she was born and yet here I am. You just do. You wake up every morning and the nightmare still exists. You feel the fire constantly breathing down your neck. The darkness always one step away. The claws scratching at your soul.

I've come to realise now there are so many women and men that know the pain of losing a child yet despite this knowledge and access to this sometimes secret society I'm left speechless and shocked by it, time and time again.

I watched a montage of a couple's baby daughter who was stillborn and through the tears all I could think was that no one should ever have to place their baby into a coffin. No one should ever have to feel that pain. Yet many of us do. Those are the images that rip me open to the core. Twist my insides and shatter my heart into a million pieces. I never knew you could physically feel your heart break, yet I'm left feeling rattled at the numerous times I've felt it over the past few months. It never feels any less painful. 

That blow is never any easier to take.

Keys of Use

On some days I'd like to

Select All
Cut
Delete
Erase
Shift
Esc
Pause/Break
End
Ctrl

If only those keyboard keys applied to my life...

Loving and Living and Marshmallows Too

In the spirit of this blog 'from loss to living'. I'm taking it one step at a time. I'm learning that life does go on. That I need to enjoy it while I've got it. 

Yeah there are days when I'm not feeling like that but that's okay too. 

My major lesson from my daughters birth and death is that I need to love to live and ultimately live to love ;) Got that? Sound simple? Not all the time.

It's about finding balance too. You cannot surround yourself with grief and expect to feel anything but that. I'm not saying we cant, wont or don't grieve. I'm saying there is a time for other things too. We need to cry and be angry but we also need to see beauty and nature and love. We need these things. I'm reaching a point where I feel that my daughter came to teach me something. She didn't come to teach me pain and anger and saddness. This is the human reaction to loss and to the physical/material world. She's physically gone and I'm grieving that,  but in reality, she's still very much surrounding me. Filling my heart.

Perhaps I'm having a better day than usual?

So back to the point about finding that balance in life. 

Finding those ways to love and live. 

What do you do? 

You bundle the family into the car, buy a tent along the way and you sleep in the bush. 

Watch in awe as your children marvel in the bugs and the dirt. 

You do something you would have only attempted to do as a child, you let go. 

You feel the wind in your face. 

You squeal in excitement along with your children.

You watch the sunset and watch it rise again on a new day

Oh and you eat far too many marshmallows toasted in the campfire...

Wild Tree

If I could capture in just one image all my thoughts and emotions for the moment, this would be it. Something drew me to this tree. It almost felt like she was calling my name. Whispering it in the wind. I made Brendan stop the car on the side of the road so I could take her picture.

I see me in this image. It expresses me. 

There is darkness surrounding her, yet there is light.

The storm clouds lingering, 

ready to pour down on the earth. 

This lonesome tree in the middle of a field. 

She is complicated and delicate. 

Her branches are twisted and bare. 

Yet she stands strong,

Her roots planted firmly in the soil.

Those roots so intricately entwined around the deep heart of the earth.

She continues to grow despite her harsh conditions. 

Standing the test of time.

She continues to survive.

There is more to her than I see.

Her wild branches reach for the skies, 

Searching, 

Searching for something.

I read about a farmer who saw great trees sprout where young calves were born still.

Perhaps I share in the pain of loss with this great tree?

Honouring what once was.

It is nature

It is life 

It is death

It is life...

Worn out

I've been so busy I've hardly had time to think. I don't know if I like that feeling. I think I have become accustomed to moving at the pace of a snail. Blending into the background. I don't enjoy busy life. I thought I used to but it seems such a waste.

I'm trying to make parenting decisions and I feel like I'm failing miserably. I'm trying to do the very best, perhaps trying to hard? I want my children to be nurtured and cared for, why is that so hard to understand for some people. Our daughter is a huge part of our lives, after all she is one of the family despite not actually being living. I don't know how to integrate this concept into my life. Or more importantly how does my son integrate that into his life without it being a major problem for him.

So far I've let my son grieve in any way he needed to. I've tried to nurture him and surround him with love whilst he's dealing with his sisters death but now we've reached a point where I don't know what to do next. I miss my happy carefree and spirited boy. He's so sad and depressed. It breaks my heart to see his spark lost.
I know I can't fix this. I wish I could. I wish I could take away that pain he's carrying.

Just venting my thoughts...

Expressions

I wish I wasn't so emotionally blergh. I don't even know how to describe it. Stunted? Dead? Numb?

I wish just for once I could say how I really feel and mean it. Feel it, show it.

Even those closest to me have no idea. I'm good at this block. It's like I have a pre-recorded response to all these questions. Yet inside I'm crushed, broken, hurting and crying. No one can see that. Perhaps they do and just pretend as much as I do.

Why is it so hard for me to express the pain I'm really living. I don't want to keep playing that recorded response over and over. I don't want to say I'm fine when I'm not.

Blergh, that sums it up.

How to overcome this feeling? Perhaps it's more appropriate to say I'm okay than to fall in a heap on the floor and cry. Who knows what's appropriate.

We tend to rationalise life and it's events. An old woman dies, well she lived a long life or she's not suffering anymore. How do you do that with the death of your child? You can't. There is nothing I can say to make those words "My daughter died" any less painful.

They say time heals. I think time just keeps moving. It doesn't heal, it just continues on around you. Eventually you take another step and once again move along with time. We don't heal, we keep living. Or should I say, we keep breathing...

I'm not living. One day my soul will blossom and I'll learn to live again.