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.