"...you're not alone // I say // you are not alone // in your darkness // you are not alone, baby // you are not alone..."
Today, October 15, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
I, like so many, many women before me and so many, many women to come, am the mother of a child who never graced this earth.
I won't rehash the details. If you know me well, you know them well enough anyway. But to say it was painful...yeah, that's an epic understatement.
This loss--which rocked me to the ultimate core of my being--showed me a lot about myself. In many ways, I'm *still* working on the "new" me, trying to figure out my role in this world with this added element irreversibly attached to my soul. But I made it. I lived through it.
I truly felt as though a part of me died that winter. I was so happy to be with my three loves (keep in mind this is pre-LF and pre-Sunshine), but I couldn't have felt more...desolate. I remember sitting on our bed in the bedroom, staring out the window and watching the snow pile up. We lived in a newly developed area, so instead of trees, there were miles upon miles of skies. Nothing to break up the land-to-skyscape other than the sporadic house or two. Just space. Empty atmosphere. A thin line, a thick divide. I sat there, on our bed, in the dark, with tears pouring effortlessly down my face, night after night after night. And I felt like that every.single.day of that season. I felt like getting dressed was too taxing. I felt like leaving the house was too overwhelming. A pregnant woman in a grocery store could trigger hours of crying. It was hard. And it stayed hard for a very, very long time. Beyond that season, and the next. But is got better. It really did. It just took a serious amount of time and patience (which I tend to lack in the most basic sense, but hey...it is what it is).
You can never possibly "get it" if you haven't lived it. When being a mother is the desire of your very soul--the role in life you live for beyond any other--but you are only able to relish that opportunity for a moment before it's seemingly snatched away, there's no real way to describe it. Sure, anyone could be empathetic, but if you've never lived it, you'll never understand it. So reader, if you're here with me tonight, I'm sorry you have to understand it. I'm so, so, so sorry. I wish you didn't have to "get it". I wish you couldn't possibly fathom the loss.
But I want to switch gears now. I want to move from the painful to the positive.
Someone who since became a close, amazing, inspirational friend (and he knows who he is!) quite possibly pulled me through the dark almost independently. Actually, by now he's more like family (and the kind of family you actually like, too!
than a "friend". He shared with me his
own grief--his own loss far more substantial than my own (although he
never made my loss seem trivial in any way, shape or form)--and in turn
provided an outlet for me to start the slow process of rebuilding,
reconstructing.
And it was a slow process. And in many ways it still is.
But aside from the constant validation of my grief (which I so very desperately needed), he never tried to "fix it away". He helped me learn to maneuver through it, to ride many waves of incredibly insensitive comments, to take time to feel whatever I needed to feel. You know, you think you know this stuff...I mean, it's a basic response to grief, no? Well, sort of. It's not that easy when you're so convoluted and twisted and lost. It's hard to separate your sense of self from your sense of overwhelming emptiness. But above all, he stopped me from attempting (repeatedly, might I add) to set arbitrary "end times" to my grief. This--perhaps more than any of the many other lessons I learned from him--was the most instrumental.
I no longer spend my days racked with grief, but that's not to say I'm "over it". Or even that I'm "fine". Sometimes the loss is still so tangible that I can taste it. And when that happens, I take some time and work through it however I need to do so. I am wholly unapologetic about this, although it's taken me years to get to that point.
So if you've endured this sort of loss and subsequently found this entry through a search engine, a linked post, a friend of a friend, etc., please know that wherever you're feeling is okay. However long it takes to feel "normal", however long you need or want to grieve...it's all okay. The beautiful thing about the internet is that we're all connected through a couple of keystrokes. If you're feeling lost, please know there are so many of us walking this path with you, willing to help, willing to lend a shoulder when it all gets to be too much. As long as you're grieving safely, you're not "doing it wrong". And even if it seems like it, you couldn't be any further from "alone".
Tonight, I will light my candle as I do every year on this date. I will light it for my Bean, and for all of you who are grieving the loss of your own precious babies. I light it in honor of those lost, of course, but also in hope that in some small way...this tiny light will travel to those who need it--those who are overcome by grief, those who are ankle, knee, or waist deep in loss and longing--and break apart the empty feeling of singularity so that the sense of solidarity will prevail. You are not alone. <3
I, like so many, many women before me and so many, many women to come, am the mother of a child who never graced this earth.
I won't rehash the details. If you know me well, you know them well enough anyway. But to say it was painful...yeah, that's an epic understatement.
This loss--which rocked me to the ultimate core of my being--showed me a lot about myself. In many ways, I'm *still* working on the "new" me, trying to figure out my role in this world with this added element irreversibly attached to my soul. But I made it. I lived through it.
I truly felt as though a part of me died that winter. I was so happy to be with my three loves (keep in mind this is pre-LF and pre-Sunshine), but I couldn't have felt more...desolate. I remember sitting on our bed in the bedroom, staring out the window and watching the snow pile up. We lived in a newly developed area, so instead of trees, there were miles upon miles of skies. Nothing to break up the land-to-skyscape other than the sporadic house or two. Just space. Empty atmosphere. A thin line, a thick divide. I sat there, on our bed, in the dark, with tears pouring effortlessly down my face, night after night after night. And I felt like that every.single.day of that season. I felt like getting dressed was too taxing. I felt like leaving the house was too overwhelming. A pregnant woman in a grocery store could trigger hours of crying. It was hard. And it stayed hard for a very, very long time. Beyond that season, and the next. But is got better. It really did. It just took a serious amount of time and patience (which I tend to lack in the most basic sense, but hey...it is what it is).
You can never possibly "get it" if you haven't lived it. When being a mother is the desire of your very soul--the role in life you live for beyond any other--but you are only able to relish that opportunity for a moment before it's seemingly snatched away, there's no real way to describe it. Sure, anyone could be empathetic, but if you've never lived it, you'll never understand it. So reader, if you're here with me tonight, I'm sorry you have to understand it. I'm so, so, so sorry. I wish you didn't have to "get it". I wish you couldn't possibly fathom the loss.
But I want to switch gears now. I want to move from the painful to the positive.
Someone who since became a close, amazing, inspirational friend (and he knows who he is!) quite possibly pulled me through the dark almost independently. Actually, by now he's more like family (and the kind of family you actually like, too!
than a "friend". He shared with me his
own grief--his own loss far more substantial than my own (although he
never made my loss seem trivial in any way, shape or form)--and in turn
provided an outlet for me to start the slow process of rebuilding,
reconstructing. And it was a slow process. And in many ways it still is.
But aside from the constant validation of my grief (which I so very desperately needed), he never tried to "fix it away". He helped me learn to maneuver through it, to ride many waves of incredibly insensitive comments, to take time to feel whatever I needed to feel. You know, you think you know this stuff...I mean, it's a basic response to grief, no? Well, sort of. It's not that easy when you're so convoluted and twisted and lost. It's hard to separate your sense of self from your sense of overwhelming emptiness. But above all, he stopped me from attempting (repeatedly, might I add) to set arbitrary "end times" to my grief. This--perhaps more than any of the many other lessons I learned from him--was the most instrumental.
I no longer spend my days racked with grief, but that's not to say I'm "over it". Or even that I'm "fine". Sometimes the loss is still so tangible that I can taste it. And when that happens, I take some time and work through it however I need to do so. I am wholly unapologetic about this, although it's taken me years to get to that point.
So if you've endured this sort of loss and subsequently found this entry through a search engine, a linked post, a friend of a friend, etc., please know that wherever you're feeling is okay. However long it takes to feel "normal", however long you need or want to grieve...it's all okay. The beautiful thing about the internet is that we're all connected through a couple of keystrokes. If you're feeling lost, please know there are so many of us walking this path with you, willing to help, willing to lend a shoulder when it all gets to be too much. As long as you're grieving safely, you're not "doing it wrong". And even if it seems like it, you couldn't be any further from "alone".
Tonight, I will light my candle as I do every year on this date. I will light it for my Bean, and for all of you who are grieving the loss of your own precious babies. I light it in honor of those lost, of course, but also in hope that in some small way...this tiny light will travel to those who need it--those who are overcome by grief, those who are ankle, knee, or waist deep in loss and longing--and break apart the empty feeling of singularity so that the sense of solidarity will prevail. You are not alone. <3
Posted by courtney at 10/15/2011 8:25 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: miscarriage loss grief bean angel babies love motherhood october 15 pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: miscarriage loss grief bean angel babies love motherhood october 15 pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day
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