I have been avoiding coming to my blog, reading other blogs, commenting on blogs. I haven't avoided thinking about blogging friends though - this part of the internet has been my virtual home for nearly two years now - a place that I buried myself in for a while back there. I still potter on with my daily life and wonder about the mums who are completing difficult PALs or who are trying to embark on one, mothers who are learning about the joy and the strain of motherhood after loss. And it's all still important to me but, with a dodgy internet connection and online shopping to be done, it was easy enough to claim that precious screen time needed to be spent elsewhere. But, that wouldn't be the whole truth - the decision to step away was somewhat more deliberate than that. These times come along sometimes, it seems to be just part of the cycle.
I don't know what I expected for two years. Something more gentle maybe. But, no. What I got was a stumble, a head first pitch into the deeper recesses of the grief pit. Because there is still a void - a hole that will never, ever, never be filled. Most days I can step around it - carefully, but relatively surefootedly because I know the terrain by now but not this time of the year. I celebrated my daughter's second birthday without her, just as I will celebrate her fifth, her eighteenth, her twenty first... We do celebrate but it is a conscious choice to do so - to do it in the face of an overwhelming urge to roll into a ball, refuse to leave my bed and focus on the void.
And gradually, imperceptibly, the depression lifts again and I only realise how low I actually was in hindsight.
And then it's Christmas - a whole bundle of conflicting emotions to try to deal with. I can't avoid Christmas, even if I wanted do, not with exuberant living children writing Christmas lists and begging for the tree to go up. I think it's good for me to be pulled out of myself and I am finding some seasonal joy this year as we sing along to carols and make mince pies. There are moments of intense sadness - of course there are. Emma isn't here and she should be, no amount wrapping paper covers the void. I took a Christmas wreath to her grave and cried harder than I've cried for a long time. I hang her decorations on the tree and feel again the paucity of what I have for her, compared to the piles of gifts hidden upstairs for her siblings and I feel angry all over again. Angry for what I've been cheated out of, angry that SO many of us face this Christmas without our babies and angry for her, that she is missing all this. Except I don't really think she is missing out on it all. I truly believe she is somewhere safe and well - somewhere I hope to join her one day, if I find my feet with my faith again. Somewhere, where Christmas is celebrated without sadness and only joy.
But, still, at this time of year I long for there to be no gaping hole in my life and I struggle to comprehend that there is - and always will be.
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Strange but true - Denial.
I wondered, when I wrote the post entitled "Acceptance?", whether I was just setting myself up for a fall, hence the question mark. The question mark was supposed to show I wasn't taking it for granted at all, that I wasn't trying to push my luck.
I don't think I ever "did" denial - I sort of skipped over that little bit of the grief cycle. Emma's death was unexpected - I laboured, I birthed her, we rejoiced and then we were handed our dead baby. I don't suppose labouring, knowing is any easier. I doubt it. But, even in the absence of any time to process what this was going to mean for us, we held her and I think we both realised that denial wasn't an option. We both felt that we needed to face the grief, the hardship, the horror face on. I was definitely numb for the first couple of months but I never sunk into any sort of denial. I have told people that I have four children - and omitted to mention that one is dead but I don't omit that information because I can't face it or because I forget or because I try to fool myself. Usually I omit that information for the benefit of the other person or simply for privacy for me.
And yet, since Toby, I have struggled to hold onto her. Immediately after his birth, I lived in the land of gratitude and joy. I had a baby WHO LIVED. I cried a lot more often for Emma, I felt so close to her all over again because I could see her in him. And then, I hit a bit of a slump. Tiredness, hormones resetting ... who knows. But recently, I've found myself resenting the fact that I'm a mother whose child died. I'm tired of grieving and I just want to pretend that I'm not. I've never needed to visit Emma's grave with regularity but it's close and it's a very beautiful and peaceful place. I've never found it hard to go and just be still there - until now. Recently, I've felt like I ought to go and I've been unable to. Something in me has resisted. And I feel so guilty - as though Emma is drifting away from me - and I'm pushing her away. I still love her so much but I haven't quite worked out how to parent my living children the way I want to, how to be the sort of mother I want to be and not deny my precious, precious third child in the process.
I don't think I ever "did" denial - I sort of skipped over that little bit of the grief cycle. Emma's death was unexpected - I laboured, I birthed her, we rejoiced and then we were handed our dead baby. I don't suppose labouring, knowing is any easier. I doubt it. But, even in the absence of any time to process what this was going to mean for us, we held her and I think we both realised that denial wasn't an option. We both felt that we needed to face the grief, the hardship, the horror face on. I was definitely numb for the first couple of months but I never sunk into any sort of denial. I have told people that I have four children - and omitted to mention that one is dead but I don't omit that information because I can't face it or because I forget or because I try to fool myself. Usually I omit that information for the benefit of the other person or simply for privacy for me.
And yet, since Toby, I have struggled to hold onto her. Immediately after his birth, I lived in the land of gratitude and joy. I had a baby WHO LIVED. I cried a lot more often for Emma, I felt so close to her all over again because I could see her in him. And then, I hit a bit of a slump. Tiredness, hormones resetting ... who knows. But recently, I've found myself resenting the fact that I'm a mother whose child died. I'm tired of grieving and I just want to pretend that I'm not. I've never needed to visit Emma's grave with regularity but it's close and it's a very beautiful and peaceful place. I've never found it hard to go and just be still there - until now. Recently, I've felt like I ought to go and I've been unable to. Something in me has resisted. And I feel so guilty - as though Emma is drifting away from me - and I'm pushing her away. I still love her so much but I haven't quite worked out how to parent my living children the way I want to, how to be the sort of mother I want to be and not deny my precious, precious third child in the process.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Balance.
Some days I realise all over again that these scales can't be balanced.
I'm an optimistic, "count your blessings" kind of girl. The stuffing got knocked out of me, big style, twenty-odd months ago, leaving me limp and floppy and sad. But, on the whole, I have been unwilling to sacrifice any more of me than was ripped away without my permission. So, I've strived to grieve actively, to confront it all head on. Keep my eye on those blessings. Dave, Ben, Lucy and Toby - they're my lifeblood.
But I can't put them on one side of a set of virtual scales and expect them to balance with Emma on the other side. It's not that simple. That simile doesn't work. That view of life doesn't cut it. She's my lifeblood too, my love for her wraps around everything. Sometimes, it's possible not to be sad - to remember her and simply be glad that I ever had her at all. But other times, like now, fighting my way to the positives is just too hard. I am sleep deprived - I don't mind. I am losing sleep in the best possible cause. But I know me and I know how lack of sleep pulls me down. I don't think this is depression, postnatal or otherwise. But, I don't always have the energy to fight the sadness. Finding balance is hard.
I'm an optimistic, "count your blessings" kind of girl. The stuffing got knocked out of me, big style, twenty-odd months ago, leaving me limp and floppy and sad. But, on the whole, I have been unwilling to sacrifice any more of me than was ripped away without my permission. So, I've strived to grieve actively, to confront it all head on. Keep my eye on those blessings. Dave, Ben, Lucy and Toby - they're my lifeblood.
But I can't put them on one side of a set of virtual scales and expect them to balance with Emma on the other side. It's not that simple. That simile doesn't work. That view of life doesn't cut it. She's my lifeblood too, my love for her wraps around everything. Sometimes, it's possible not to be sad - to remember her and simply be glad that I ever had her at all. But other times, like now, fighting my way to the positives is just too hard. I am sleep deprived - I don't mind. I am losing sleep in the best possible cause. But I know me and I know how lack of sleep pulls me down. I don't think this is depression, postnatal or otherwise. But, I don't always have the energy to fight the sadness. Finding balance is hard.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Some things will always hurt ...
... like:
The family who followed my son and I into his trampolining class, last week. Daddy, little boy, little girl and mummy - proudly pushing 10 day old baby girl. Baby girls will always give me a pang. It was the briefest of pangs because she was gorgeous and sweet and DIFFERENT. Not my baby. That makes a difference these days. What hurt for longer - what still hurts - was the hungry look in my son's eyes. He's seven. It's not fair.
...like:
Coming across her name as I'm marking exam papers - or your baby's name. Because, even though the exam scripts I'm marking are from 11 year olds - giving them first dibs on the names really, I still consider those names OUR names, chosen with care for the babies we love so profoundly. I have to be careful not to overmark all the Emmas I encounter - not to give them extra marks for simply giving me the pleasure of seeing her name written in girlish scrawl.
... like:
Taking Toby "swimming" (dandling him in slightly warm water for all of five minutes, whilst he ponders it all very seriously - as is his wont - before he considers my skimpier than normal attire an open invitation for a snack and attempts to dive bomb my breasts!)
I take him out of the pool, wrap him in a towel and feed him. Milked up and exhausted, he falls asleep in my arms and I'm BACK, back in the hospital room when the midwives handed her to us. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair was still curly-wet fuzz from amniotic fluid and her sweet little mouth was a little slack - not from milkdrunkeness - but from death. I don't see her in him so often these days. He is almost 18 pounds with the cheeks and the thighs to match. He is so alive and so substantial and so very much himself but, in that moment, she was there too. Which is good and painful and confusing, all at once.
The family who followed my son and I into his trampolining class, last week. Daddy, little boy, little girl and mummy - proudly pushing 10 day old baby girl. Baby girls will always give me a pang. It was the briefest of pangs because she was gorgeous and sweet and DIFFERENT. Not my baby. That makes a difference these days. What hurt for longer - what still hurts - was the hungry look in my son's eyes. He's seven. It's not fair.
...like:
Coming across her name as I'm marking exam papers - or your baby's name. Because, even though the exam scripts I'm marking are from 11 year olds - giving them first dibs on the names really, I still consider those names OUR names, chosen with care for the babies we love so profoundly. I have to be careful not to overmark all the Emmas I encounter - not to give them extra marks for simply giving me the pleasure of seeing her name written in girlish scrawl.
... like:
Taking Toby "swimming" (dandling him in slightly warm water for all of five minutes, whilst he ponders it all very seriously - as is his wont - before he considers my skimpier than normal attire an open invitation for a snack and attempts to dive bomb my breasts!)
I take him out of the pool, wrap him in a towel and feed him. Milked up and exhausted, he falls asleep in my arms and I'm BACK, back in the hospital room when the midwives handed her to us. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair was still curly-wet fuzz from amniotic fluid and her sweet little mouth was a little slack - not from milkdrunkeness - but from death. I don't see her in him so often these days. He is almost 18 pounds with the cheeks and the thighs to match. He is so alive and so substantial and so very much himself but, in that moment, she was there too. Which is good and painful and confusing, all at once.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Greedy.
I want to have all four of my children. I want to raise both the sons and both the daughters I have birthed. I should be grateful - I AM *so* grateful for Ben and Lucy and Toby but I miss Emma. Toby hasn't changed that.
When we attending counselling with our bereavement midwife, she used the metaphor of Emma's death as a great big black ball. She said that as time passed and as we mourned we'd find things to wrap the ball up in. Gradually we'd find more things to stretch over it, we'd get more adept at covering the ball but, crucially, the ball would remain the same size forever. It would never shrink. Toby has provided us with so much wrapping for the big, black ball of our grief but it is true. The absence of Emma remains as big and as tragic and as sad as it ever was, as it always will be. I stood by her grave with Dave, just after Toby was born, and told him I wanted them both. "I know", he said, "I'm greedy like that too."
When we attending counselling with our bereavement midwife, she used the metaphor of Emma's death as a great big black ball. She said that as time passed and as we mourned we'd find things to wrap the ball up in. Gradually we'd find more things to stretch over it, we'd get more adept at covering the ball but, crucially, the ball would remain the same size forever. It would never shrink. Toby has provided us with so much wrapping for the big, black ball of our grief but it is true. The absence of Emma remains as big and as tragic and as sad as it ever was, as it always will be. I stood by her grave with Dave, just after Toby was born, and told him I wanted them both. "I know", he said, "I'm greedy like that too."
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Subsequent Pregnancy Guilt
Survivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives himself or herself to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event. It may be found among survivors of combat and natural disaster, among the friends and family of those who have committed suicide, and in non-mortal situations among those whose colleagues are laid off. The experience and manifestation of survivor's guilt will depend on an individual's psychological profile.(from Wiki.ped.ia)
Lately, I've been dealing quite a lot with what I can only really describe as "Subsequent pregnancy" guilt. I love this community. I have no doubt that my path through grief has been a little smoother, a little less lonely because of my involvement in various online communities. But, it is strange to actually cry tears of anger, frustration, joy for people I have never met face to face. There is a large degree of trust going on here. You have to trust that I am truly a bereaved mother, just as I do for you. And I do ...
To digress for a moment: my husband and I are big fans of a cult, terribly British, sci-fi show from the seventies (sounds great, doesn't it !?) called Blake's 7. I remember, in particular, an episode when an idealist, alien, freedom fighter tells a far more cynical character: "My people have a saying. One who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken." I can't quite decide if that is profound or just terribly cheesy. Maybe it's both. But I think of that quote often when I'm meandering around in cyberspace, especially this babylost portion. I choose to believe the blogs I read - usually because there is something in them that strikes me as real or honest, something I recognise from my own experience of losing a child. As a result, I do invest a lot of emotional energy in what I read. I quite often dwell on posts throughout my day. I quite often feel frustration at my inability to do more than simply post an (often inane) comment.
So, back to the pregnancy guilt. There are a lot of us here who are navigating our ways through pregnancy after loss. But, I am so very aware at the moment, there are many other blogging parents who are hoping and longing for another pregnancy. And I feel so tremendously guilty that I already have 2 living children and I've been able to conceive with relative ease again. I feel a little ashamed of having broadcast my very straightforward, average PAL when other pregnancies after loss are not straightforward and have risks of complications and difficulties attached.
I suppose all I can do is to say that I do not take the blessing of my living children for granted. I do not, ever - not for one minute - take the blessing of this little life within for granted. In the midst of fears about losing again and grieving again, I do acknowledge the awesome privilege that this pregnancy has been and is. And to say that I long for each and every babylost mother or father who wants it to be able to walk this path too is an understatement.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Anger revisited.
Approximately 24 hours out from losing our precious girl, I got myself on the computer and ordered up a stash of grief literature. It's what I do. Need to know something? Find a book. So I did - and I read them cover to cover in the days that followed. But I really didn't read them as though they had any relevance to me: I had a sort of anthropological detachment as I read the stories of other grieving parents. "Oh. Those poor parents. How sad. How horrible. How do they cope?" It wasn't "forgetting" exactly, more a complicated form of denial that I was and am one of those parents now. I read about the grief cycle and how anger can be a BIG part of it. "Not for me", I thought breezily. I'm from a cold, damp region of the world and my constitution is, at best, described as phlegmatic. My idea of a blazing row with D. is to sulk for several hours until he asks what's wrong. I'm just not an angry person really.
Correction - I WASN'T an angry person. It was around Christmas time when I was surprised by the blazing rage that took hold of me - around 2 months out. It really, really scared me. Rage is such an out-of-control emotion and I don't like to be out of control. But, as it persisted over the next few months, I got used to it and I (almost) grew comfortable with feeling so close to boiling point all the time. It felt like an "active" emotion. Feeling angry at my daughter's death made me feel like I was actually parenting her in some way. It felt like expressing my disgust at whoever thought they could take her away from me, at the universe, at randomness, at God, at whatever it was that caused this foul chain of events that ended in my daughter's heart stopping, was productive. Maybe it was. I decided from the outset that whatever I felt was what I needed to feel, even if the emotion was downright ugly. I certainly think it's been healthier for me to feel these emotions than to repress them.
All the same, I was relieved when the anger just naturally dissipated over the summer. Nothing in particular happened to move me along. It was just a gentle summer with lots of fun things happening and it was healing for us all in lots of ways. There were days when I actually didn't mind the version of normal that I have now - it was okay. I learned how to laugh and not feel guilty. I discovered that I could be pregnant and scared but also excited and hopeful.
Since Emma's birthday, the anger is back - but it's mutated. This is cold. It's not passionate or helpful, it's my version of a pity party. I try not to think "Why me?", because really, what's the point? It was me and that's not going to change. But it's the refrain that underlies everything I do at the moment. Some of it is fear - the end of this pregnancy feels close and yet so far. I have started to have very vivid dreams about stillborn babies which I try to shake off but which linger in the shadows through my days.
It's more diffuse now too. I have spent a year in this little corner of the internet now and I have "met" some amazing women (and men). Whenever I read about another stillborn child, another baby born too soon; whenever I read about mothers who are grieving for their precious children and yet also face battles to conceive again or who lose again I feel SO angry. I want to stamp my feet and scream about the unfairness of it. Not just "why me?" but "why us?"
Correction - I WASN'T an angry person. It was around Christmas time when I was surprised by the blazing rage that took hold of me - around 2 months out. It really, really scared me. Rage is such an out-of-control emotion and I don't like to be out of control. But, as it persisted over the next few months, I got used to it and I (almost) grew comfortable with feeling so close to boiling point all the time. It felt like an "active" emotion. Feeling angry at my daughter's death made me feel like I was actually parenting her in some way. It felt like expressing my disgust at whoever thought they could take her away from me, at the universe, at randomness, at God, at whatever it was that caused this foul chain of events that ended in my daughter's heart stopping, was productive. Maybe it was. I decided from the outset that whatever I felt was what I needed to feel, even if the emotion was downright ugly. I certainly think it's been healthier for me to feel these emotions than to repress them.
All the same, I was relieved when the anger just naturally dissipated over the summer. Nothing in particular happened to move me along. It was just a gentle summer with lots of fun things happening and it was healing for us all in lots of ways. There were days when I actually didn't mind the version of normal that I have now - it was okay. I learned how to laugh and not feel guilty. I discovered that I could be pregnant and scared but also excited and hopeful.
Since Emma's birthday, the anger is back - but it's mutated. This is cold. It's not passionate or helpful, it's my version of a pity party. I try not to think "Why me?", because really, what's the point? It was me and that's not going to change. But it's the refrain that underlies everything I do at the moment. Some of it is fear - the end of this pregnancy feels close and yet so far. I have started to have very vivid dreams about stillborn babies which I try to shake off but which linger in the shadows through my days.
It's more diffuse now too. I have spent a year in this little corner of the internet now and I have "met" some amazing women (and men). Whenever I read about another stillborn child, another baby born too soon; whenever I read about mothers who are grieving for their precious children and yet also face battles to conceive again or who lose again I feel SO angry. I want to stamp my feet and scream about the unfairness of it. Not just "why me?" but "why us?"
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Funeral
A year ago today, our family all gathered in the parish church near our house to say our formal goodbyes to Emma. Not our final goodbyes because, to me, that's what grief is - a lifetime of saying "I love you and I miss you and I'm trying to say goodbye".
I still find that thinking about her funeral triggers the disbelief. I still can't believe that I am someone who had to organise MY CHILD's funeral. It still makes me shake my head in sad wonderment - especially when I remember that most of us plan and order such things so soon after our babies leave us. When I think back to the state I was in this time last year I honestly cannot remember how we managed to make the plans we did - I suppose the numbness serves a useful practical purpose.
We don't have photographs of Emma's funeral - this is not something I regret. It never crossed our mind that it might be a day we wanted to document to be honest. Moments of the day are burned into my mind anyway - the moment my dad carried her tiny, tiny casket into the foyer of the church, the moment Dave's dad carried her out of the church. I close my eyes and I can be back there in a moment.
I honestly don't know what to do with this anniversary. Are we "supposed" to mark it in some way? Do we want to? We're away from home today so even a visit to her graveside is not practical. We visiting family, surrounded by noise and chaos and small people - it's very different from a year ago ... maybe that's for the best?
I still find that thinking about her funeral triggers the disbelief. I still can't believe that I am someone who had to organise MY CHILD's funeral. It still makes me shake my head in sad wonderment - especially when I remember that most of us plan and order such things so soon after our babies leave us. When I think back to the state I was in this time last year I honestly cannot remember how we managed to make the plans we did - I suppose the numbness serves a useful practical purpose.
We don't have photographs of Emma's funeral - this is not something I regret. It never crossed our mind that it might be a day we wanted to document to be honest. Moments of the day are burned into my mind anyway - the moment my dad carried her tiny, tiny casket into the foyer of the church, the moment Dave's dad carried her out of the church. I close my eyes and I can be back there in a moment.
I honestly don't know what to do with this anniversary. Are we "supposed" to mark it in some way? Do we want to? We're away from home today so even a visit to her graveside is not practical. We visiting family, surrounded by noise and chaos and small people - it's very different from a year ago ... maybe that's for the best?
Friday, 23 October 2009
Malaise
I'm still here, still reading - though not so frequently right now. Still celebrating when there is news to be celebrated and breaking my heart when I read of more sadness and more hurt. Just - not posting or commenting much.
I know from other mothers that what I'm experiencing is not unusual. The aftermath of Emma's birthday has been so much harder than the days before or the day itself. It's not the raw numbness of this time last year, the weeks between her death and her funeral. It's flatness - and tiredness. Exhaustion seems to be a very physical manifestation of grief for me. I just can't seem to pull round and find my va-va-voom. It's been swallowed up in a general sense of "bleurgh".
I have such fear too. I have been working so hard to embrace this new pregnancy and give our little Jurgen all the love and excitement and anticipation that his/her siblings have all had in utero. Mostly, I think I've managed it - I am genuinely in love and every kick represents hope. But, passing Emma's birthday has brought the alternative possibility right back into my field of vision. I reached viability the same week I reached my daughter's birthday - a minor co-incidence that I have found very hard to reconcile. Catherine has written very powerfully about what the word viability means to her. My, somewhat morbid, thought on the subject was that legally I'm now in the same position I was last time. If Jurgen dies I have to go through exactly the same again - registering his/her birth, arranging a burial. Jurgen has been so real to me for so much longer than just these past two weeks so but somehow that landmark - a small celebration for most innocently pregnant women - has combined with the oppressive sadness of these past few days to make the hope and the possibility of a better outcome feel a little more elusive.
I haven't fallen back to the very bottom of the pit but it feels like I've fallen in and got caught in a ledge half way down. I will climb back out - I know that. It's just taking a little bit of time.
I know from other mothers that what I'm experiencing is not unusual. The aftermath of Emma's birthday has been so much harder than the days before or the day itself. It's not the raw numbness of this time last year, the weeks between her death and her funeral. It's flatness - and tiredness. Exhaustion seems to be a very physical manifestation of grief for me. I just can't seem to pull round and find my va-va-voom. It's been swallowed up in a general sense of "bleurgh".
I have such fear too. I have been working so hard to embrace this new pregnancy and give our little Jurgen all the love and excitement and anticipation that his/her siblings have all had in utero. Mostly, I think I've managed it - I am genuinely in love and every kick represents hope. But, passing Emma's birthday has brought the alternative possibility right back into my field of vision. I reached viability the same week I reached my daughter's birthday - a minor co-incidence that I have found very hard to reconcile. Catherine has written very powerfully about what the word viability means to her. My, somewhat morbid, thought on the subject was that legally I'm now in the same position I was last time. If Jurgen dies I have to go through exactly the same again - registering his/her birth, arranging a burial. Jurgen has been so real to me for so much longer than just these past two weeks so but somehow that landmark - a small celebration for most innocently pregnant women - has combined with the oppressive sadness of these past few days to make the hope and the possibility of a better outcome feel a little more elusive.
I haven't fallen back to the very bottom of the pit but it feels like I've fallen in and got caught in a ledge half way down. I will climb back out - I know that. It's just taking a little bit of time.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Emma's day.
Thank you all for remembering us. I have been so touched by the outpourings of love and compassion sent to us from so many sources. Emma's birthday was gentle and went as well as it could overall, I think. If anything, the 13th was probably harder as I kept reliving my lovely labour and remembering when I felt so excited about meeting our baby, before I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Dave had the day off work. Over breakfast, we all had a little present each to unwrap in memory of Emma - which the kids thought was great! We dropped the children off at school and then went to Emma's grave to plant daffodils and narcissi around her headstone. Hopefully, they'll bloom in the spring (we're not very accomplished gardeners so we're crossing our fingers). We came home and I baked a birthday cake for our little girl and then DH and I went out for a pub lunch together. We spent the time after school playing with Lucy's new baby guinea pigs, who are both very sweet and made us smile. I imagine Emma would have loved tormenting them! Then we all ate birthday cake. It was hard but it was special too - I'm glad we managed to do some things that marked it as "her" day.
Dave had the day off work. Over breakfast, we all had a little present each to unwrap in memory of Emma - which the kids thought was great! We dropped the children off at school and then went to Emma's grave to plant daffodils and narcissi around her headstone. Hopefully, they'll bloom in the spring (we're not very accomplished gardeners so we're crossing our fingers). We came home and I baked a birthday cake for our little girl and then DH and I went out for a pub lunch together. We spent the time after school playing with Lucy's new baby guinea pigs, who are both very sweet and made us smile. I imagine Emma would have loved tormenting them! Then we all ate birthday cake. It was hard but it was special too - I'm glad we managed to do some things that marked it as "her" day.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
October
So here it is - with a twist of the calender we've got here. THE month. It's an absolutely perfect, beautiful, crisp autumn day here. It won't be long before the kids and I can stop on the village green on our way home from school and fill our pockets with conkers - we didn't do that last year. Firstly, because at 39ish weeks pregnant simply waddling home was pretty much enough excitement in my day and then - well, a lot of "normality" went by the wayside through October and November and beyond.
I read Jay's beautiful meditation as she approaches Josie's first birthday too. I've known and followed Josie's story since the beginning. She and Emma were born and died just four days apart so our paths have coincided many times. Jay's musings on grief and acceptance resonate very strongly with me right now. It's true for me too - although I am sliding into a quiet melancholy, I don't feel the same rawness now as I did at the beginning and I don't feel compelled to try and recreate it for her birthday. There is a gentleness about my grief now that I'm content to live with.
Unlike many babylost parents, I'm not dreading Emma's one year day. I almost feel a sense of relief that I'm reaching that point, that I made it, that I have survived a whole twelve months without her sweet babyness here on earth. Last October I couldn't have told you I would. I don't feel as though I am passing through some portal that will separate us because I know that nothing could. I carry the essence of her with me into this second year and forever more.
Almost eleven months ago, I had an idea for a piece of art. It has remained unexecuted because I'm afraid that I lack the necessary skills to execute the fabulous idea in my head! I wanted to draw a mother's face and upper body with an outsized tear falling from her eye and an outsized heart bursting from her chest. I wanted to draw a tiny baby nestled in her tear and one in her heart and inscribe it with the words "In my tears and my ever pregnant heart" because she is. She is there, always and eternally, whether it be one year or eleven or one hundred and one. Maybe I'll screw up every tiny ounce of my limited artistic ability and actually make it one day soon. Watch this space.
I read Jay's beautiful meditation as she approaches Josie's first birthday too. I've known and followed Josie's story since the beginning. She and Emma were born and died just four days apart so our paths have coincided many times. Jay's musings on grief and acceptance resonate very strongly with me right now. It's true for me too - although I am sliding into a quiet melancholy, I don't feel the same rawness now as I did at the beginning and I don't feel compelled to try and recreate it for her birthday. There is a gentleness about my grief now that I'm content to live with.
Unlike many babylost parents, I'm not dreading Emma's one year day. I almost feel a sense of relief that I'm reaching that point, that I made it, that I have survived a whole twelve months without her sweet babyness here on earth. Last October I couldn't have told you I would. I don't feel as though I am passing through some portal that will separate us because I know that nothing could. I carry the essence of her with me into this second year and forever more.
Almost eleven months ago, I had an idea for a piece of art. It has remained unexecuted because I'm afraid that I lack the necessary skills to execute the fabulous idea in my head! I wanted to draw a mother's face and upper body with an outsized tear falling from her eye and an outsized heart bursting from her chest. I wanted to draw a tiny baby nestled in her tear and one in her heart and inscribe it with the words "In my tears and my ever pregnant heart" because she is. She is there, always and eternally, whether it be one year or eleven or one hundred and one. Maybe I'll screw up every tiny ounce of my limited artistic ability and actually make it one day soon. Watch this space.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Intact
Several months ago I was reading a post I came across in a grief and loss forum. A mother, six months out from the death of her toddler, talked about the difficulty in trying to reconnect with friends from the time before. "I can't just pretend," she wrote (I'm paraphrasing slightly as I can no longer remember the exact words), "that I don't hate their intact lives."
It was one of those "Whoa" moments. I understood exactly what she meant. That sentence clarified exactly what I had been feeling. I have written here before about being introvert, about needing solitude and preferring to avoid anything requiring a degree a sociability. Deep down I had a sense of what this mama was saying but I hadn't managed to articulate it, even to myself. I planned to write a blog entry about it, back then, several months ago. But then other things came up, other topics to consider and I would remember it as various times but never got round to writing about it.
I've been thinking about it a lot over the summer and the post I write now is very different from the one I would have written three months ago. I have had a LOT of company these past few weeks. My husband and both my older children have been on holiday for six weeks and we've crammed such a lot of things into a month and a half. Most profoundly for me, we have visited with family and I held my thirteen week old nephew for the first time and spent time in the company of my little niece - 5 weeks older than Emma would be. What struck me was the lack of resentment. I braced myself for these visits, expected to survive them and sink into a deeper grief afterwards. It wasn't like that at all. Of course I thought about my daughter and looked for her features in these cousins of hers. Of course I longed for it to be different - to be passing my nephew back to his daddy because I needed to stop my 11 month old making a beeline for the staircase. But there was more too. I enjoyed snuggling a wonderfully warm and cuddly three month old and seeing him smile. I realise that somewhere in the last three months I have stopped hating people for their intact lives.
I know, of course, that some of this is down to Jurgen and the hope that he/she engenders in us. If I weren't pregnant again I doubt I would have had the same capacity for graciousness. But, there's more to it than that. After all, my husband and I have both considered how best to tell people about this pregnancy (it is still for the most part a secret to anyone except family and blog readers). We want people to be pleased but not to assume that this baby replaces Emma or somehow makes us "intact" again. He/She doesn't. If this baby lives and thrives, I will still be a bereaved mother - something everyone here gets but not everyone in real life.
I think mainly it is the passing of time. My grief, in the early stages, was of necessity selfish. How I felt, how I handled things, what I needed to do to survive and get through the day - these were my main considerations. They had to be. As I'm slowly emerging from the deepest level of this pit I am able, once again, to consider other people more objectively. Whilst very few of the people I know in real life have experienced tragedy at a level I have, I can now recognise that life is not perfect for anyone and I do not need to hate their "intactness". Also, I'm in a better position to appreciate the joys and good things that still exist in my own life - my truly amazing son and daughters and their wonderful daddy and other smaller daily gifts.
If this sounds insufferable, I apologise. I do not intend it to come across that way. This is a season I'm in at the moment - a breathing space for which I am grateful. Emma's first birthday is approaching - I know. This fact nudges at me through everything else. I have other milestones to face - my 20 week scan on Friday, my son's seventh birthday, my daughter's fifth birthday. For now, all my concentration is on these things but when October comes around there are no more distractions and I don't quite know how I will be. It's too big and momentous a time. For now, I'm just trying to enjoy a period of respite.
It was one of those "Whoa" moments. I understood exactly what she meant. That sentence clarified exactly what I had been feeling. I have written here before about being introvert, about needing solitude and preferring to avoid anything requiring a degree a sociability. Deep down I had a sense of what this mama was saying but I hadn't managed to articulate it, even to myself. I planned to write a blog entry about it, back then, several months ago. But then other things came up, other topics to consider and I would remember it as various times but never got round to writing about it.
I've been thinking about it a lot over the summer and the post I write now is very different from the one I would have written three months ago. I have had a LOT of company these past few weeks. My husband and both my older children have been on holiday for six weeks and we've crammed such a lot of things into a month and a half. Most profoundly for me, we have visited with family and I held my thirteen week old nephew for the first time and spent time in the company of my little niece - 5 weeks older than Emma would be. What struck me was the lack of resentment. I braced myself for these visits, expected to survive them and sink into a deeper grief afterwards. It wasn't like that at all. Of course I thought about my daughter and looked for her features in these cousins of hers. Of course I longed for it to be different - to be passing my nephew back to his daddy because I needed to stop my 11 month old making a beeline for the staircase. But there was more too. I enjoyed snuggling a wonderfully warm and cuddly three month old and seeing him smile. I realise that somewhere in the last three months I have stopped hating people for their intact lives.
I know, of course, that some of this is down to Jurgen and the hope that he/she engenders in us. If I weren't pregnant again I doubt I would have had the same capacity for graciousness. But, there's more to it than that. After all, my husband and I have both considered how best to tell people about this pregnancy (it is still for the most part a secret to anyone except family and blog readers). We want people to be pleased but not to assume that this baby replaces Emma or somehow makes us "intact" again. He/She doesn't. If this baby lives and thrives, I will still be a bereaved mother - something everyone here gets but not everyone in real life.
I think mainly it is the passing of time. My grief, in the early stages, was of necessity selfish. How I felt, how I handled things, what I needed to do to survive and get through the day - these were my main considerations. They had to be. As I'm slowly emerging from the deepest level of this pit I am able, once again, to consider other people more objectively. Whilst very few of the people I know in real life have experienced tragedy at a level I have, I can now recognise that life is not perfect for anyone and I do not need to hate their "intactness". Also, I'm in a better position to appreciate the joys and good things that still exist in my own life - my truly amazing son and daughters and their wonderful daddy and other smaller daily gifts.
If this sounds insufferable, I apologise. I do not intend it to come across that way. This is a season I'm in at the moment - a breathing space for which I am grateful. Emma's first birthday is approaching - I know. This fact nudges at me through everything else. I have other milestones to face - my 20 week scan on Friday, my son's seventh birthday, my daughter's fifth birthday. For now, all my concentration is on these things but when October comes around there are no more distractions and I don't quite know how I will be. It's too big and momentous a time. For now, I'm just trying to enjoy a period of respite.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
My grief work
After reading Lea's lovely news about her new pregnancy and her thoughts about a second blog, I contemplated the possibility of starting a new blog to document Jurgen's journey. I only contemplated it briefly. I am unlikely ever to win an award for world's most prolific blogger as it is and I know that I would not be able to do either blog justice. So, with your permission, I will remain a solitary blog kinda girl for now.
This is Emma's place and I still intend it primarily to be about her and my journey since meeting her, kissing her and saying goodbye. There will be the occasional pregnancy post of course. The crazy triad of birth/death/maybe life that is pregnancy after loss (so powerfully articulated by Sally here) is an enormous part of my tangled, messy grief yarn right now. Parts of Emma's birth and death that I thought I had begun to process, begun to integrate suddenly loom very large again now.
I remember reading "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" just a few days after Emma died and latching on with absolute fervour to the idea of "grief work". The idea that grief was something I could "do" something about, the possibility of clawing back some control in a situation where I lost every last vestige of controlling influence - that possibility was a heady and intoxicating one. It still is, although I think I possibly have a more nuanced idea of what it means now. I might be able to "do" grief but I cannot do away with with it.
I also remember reading a thread over on the pregnancy loss section of Mothering, not long after Emma died when my arms ached to hold a baby and getting pregnant again seemed the cure for all ills. There was a wise and gentle post written by a someone who was several years into this journey. She found herself unexpectedly and quickly pregnant again after the death of her precious firstborn daughter. She talked abut how she handled her still very raw grief alongside her hope of a different outcome for her second pregnancy. She talked of working on her first daughter's scrapbook & journal whilst all the time documenting her journey towards meeting her second little girl. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, a powerful and positive way to approach a new pregnancy and I have stored it away in my brain for a time like now.
I'm about to leave the first trimester and today I saw Jurgen again, doing headstands. I am being forced to believe (against my current inclination to preclude any optimism in case of a jinx) that at his moment in time, this pregnancy is progressing well. When I was expecting Emma, I started a cross stitch birth sampler for her. I didn't start it until I was 34 weeks as I was making one for her cousin first who was expected before she was. So Emma's was unfinished when she was born. I looked at it a few days after I arrived home from the hospital and had what might have been my first coherent thought of the aftermath. "I can't complete this now but if I ever have another pregnancy, this is my project to get me through". I have not touched it again but now I'm ready. Ready to document my daughter whilst I wait hopefully for her sibling. Like the cross stitch, this blog is a place to document her too, another place where I do my grief work.
I think there is still quite a lot to do.
This is Emma's place and I still intend it primarily to be about her and my journey since meeting her, kissing her and saying goodbye. There will be the occasional pregnancy post of course. The crazy triad of birth/death/maybe life that is pregnancy after loss (so powerfully articulated by Sally here) is an enormous part of my tangled, messy grief yarn right now. Parts of Emma's birth and death that I thought I had begun to process, begun to integrate suddenly loom very large again now.
I remember reading "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" just a few days after Emma died and latching on with absolute fervour to the idea of "grief work". The idea that grief was something I could "do" something about, the possibility of clawing back some control in a situation where I lost every last vestige of controlling influence - that possibility was a heady and intoxicating one. It still is, although I think I possibly have a more nuanced idea of what it means now. I might be able to "do" grief but I cannot do away with with it.
I also remember reading a thread over on the pregnancy loss section of Mothering, not long after Emma died when my arms ached to hold a baby and getting pregnant again seemed the cure for all ills. There was a wise and gentle post written by a someone who was several years into this journey. She found herself unexpectedly and quickly pregnant again after the death of her precious firstborn daughter. She talked abut how she handled her still very raw grief alongside her hope of a different outcome for her second pregnancy. She talked of working on her first daughter's scrapbook & journal whilst all the time documenting her journey towards meeting her second little girl. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, a powerful and positive way to approach a new pregnancy and I have stored it away in my brain for a time like now.
I'm about to leave the first trimester and today I saw Jurgen again, doing headstands. I am being forced to believe (against my current inclination to preclude any optimism in case of a jinx) that at his moment in time, this pregnancy is progressing well. When I was expecting Emma, I started a cross stitch birth sampler for her. I didn't start it until I was 34 weeks as I was making one for her cousin first who was expected before she was. So Emma's was unfinished when she was born. I looked at it a few days after I arrived home from the hospital and had what might have been my first coherent thought of the aftermath. "I can't complete this now but if I ever have another pregnancy, this is my project to get me through". I have not touched it again but now I'm ready. Ready to document my daughter whilst I wait hopefully for her sibling. Like the cross stitch, this blog is a place to document her too, another place where I do my grief work.
I think there is still quite a lot to do.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Inside, I'm 4.
Such a ubiquitous image - The Scream. A standard at all the cut price poster sales happening on campus when I was a student. One of those pictures seen so commonly that they are never truly noticed. I recognise it, of course, but have never paid much attention to it; except to feel a slight unease. Now through my dead baby lens I perceive it differently. If I didn't have Edvard Munch's word that this is "the enormous, infinite scream of nature”, I'd have said it was a babylost parent. It's certainly how I feel on the inside - the swirling, garish colours and the pain from too much noise.
Seven months out my veneer is pretty good - my smile doesn't always reach my eyes but most passing acquaintances would probably think I'm healing up, doing okay. To some extent, that's true - I can see the path I'm walking. I can see how far I've come. Unlike my acquaintances, I can see how far there is still to go - the journey towards accepting my daughter's absence is lifelong. No wonder I'm screaming on the inside.
My 4 year old daughter doesn't scream on the inside. She's a heart-on-her-sleeve kinda gal and screaming, when required, is very definitely something to share with the world at large. There is generally no ambiguity about L.'s emotions. Her giggles seem to come from her toes, her empathy is astounding, her hugs are huge and effortlessly healing and her rages are absolute. In the aftermath of a particularly thorough meltdown at church this morning, I found myself deeply envious of her. Yes, her behaviour was unacceptable this morning and embarrassing - but only to her daddy and I. She felt unhappy - and that unhappiness found expression. No repression here!
I have learned so much from the way she grieves. I hate that she does. I hate that her brother does. It is a perpetual source of guilt that my inability to bring home their baby sister has permanently marked my children. But, as seems to be the way with children, her grief is public ("Our baby died you know. We're very sad.") and seamlessly integrated into her day to day life ("I would have shared my toys with Emma, mama. I miss her. Can I have some juice?) I'm the grown up so it's not acceptable to the world at large that I show my grief, that sometimes I still slump on the kitchen floor and keen with the hurt and longing I feel for my baby girl. Inside, it's a different story. Inside, I'm screaming. Inside, I'm 4.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Cycles
I have been a bad blogger. A combination of horrible grief and sick children has pretty much robbed me of the power to articulate all I want to say.
But it's simmering in my head so here goes ...
Well, as the light nights get longer again, DH has once again raised the possibility of me getting a bike (DD1 insists it must be a purple one). Our eldest two can cycle a fair distance on their own and we have a great cycle track near us - the old disused railway. I have a very poor record with bicycles. My only broken bones? (the tiny ones in my right hand since you ask) - a trip over the handle bars of my first (only) bike. My enduring memory of my German exchange trip? Cycling to my exchange partner's school, applying the break, locking the front wheel and sailing over a 4 foot metal barrier. Yep, me and bikes - it's a fraught relationship.
And yet, it appeals (a bit). Getting out, getting away, doing something *so* different. I feel betrayed by my body on so many levels - it feels saggy and flabby and I cannot help but regard it as the cause of my daughter's death. I have, I think, been essentially punishing it since Emma died and it's definitely showing the strain of too much wine and too many bars of chocolate. Maybe showing it some loving kindness and trying to nurture it for a change might not be such a bad idea.
So, if you spot an overweight women on a purple bicycle this summer, do give me a wave. And if I'm head first in a gorse bush at the time do, please, pull me out.
:::
How do I feel about The Kubler-Ross grief cycle? I think of it a bit like this:
Hard to balance with a blooming uncomfortable saddle.
On the one hand, just as I seek out other babyloss mamas to compare what I am feeling with what they are feeling and so check that I'm "normal" (!?), I also find reassurance that I recognise myself in the dips and peaks of the graph. On the other hand, there is a part of me that screams that my grief is my grief and no-one can quantify it, measure it or label it. How dare anyone assume they can explain or explore this to me. I think I'm bothered by it now because I worry that it is unavoidable - that whether I will it or no, I will encounter ALL of these phases. I know for sure that I've "done" denial and anger ... oh yes, I have done anger. I have screamed until my throat hurt and I have thrown some spectacular temper tantrums as I have raged about the unfairness of my daughter's life curtailed before it had even begun. I suppose I'm scared of depression - I think that's it. I've never experienced depression personally and it frightens me. Anger feels more acceptable to me somehow perhaps because it is "active" - I am doing something with the grief not just being pummelled with it. The inertia I associate with depression frightens me and I've had a taste of it this week when the grief has seemed black and deep and utterly all encompassing - when everything else has been smoke and shadows and my daughter's absence has been the realest and most solid thing I have.
:::
And so to menstrual cycles - which is not such a big leap as it might first appear since my cycle is at least partially implicated in the nasty funk I have found myself in this week. I used Fertility Awareness to help us conceive Emma and I was absolutely fascinated. I loved the knowledge I gained about my body and about the hows and the whys of all the different hormones and their effects. Of course, when that knowledge showed me that my body was functioning as it should and I conceived quickly, it was all brilliant. I restarted charting after Christmas, thinking that it might help in restoring some equlibrium in my relationship with my body. When it revealed that things had not returned to "normal" yet, I started to feel like a hamster in a wheel ... waiting to ovulate, measuring my luteal phase ... waiting to ovulate ... frustration, rather than fascination, has been my primary emotion. This month I conceived very briefly, only for my period to arrive (3 days late on Emma's 6 month day) and quench that tiny spark of hope. I am uncertain of how I feel about this chemical pregnancy. I do feel sad but the sadness is about Emma, about wanting to be caught up in sleeplessness and weaning and chubby thighs not themometers and cycle days and cervical fluid. I'm sad that I'm even trying to get pregnant again when that was never supposed to be part of the plan. I know that if I get pregnant again and if the pregnancy sticks and if I get to bring home a breathing baby, I'll once agan see the wonder and value of having this amount of knowledge about my body and its inner workings. Right now though, I'm sad that I'm back in this particular cycle again.
But it's simmering in my head so here goes ...
Well, as the light nights get longer again, DH has once again raised the possibility of me getting a bike (DD1 insists it must be a purple one). Our eldest two can cycle a fair distance on their own and we have a great cycle track near us - the old disused railway. I have a very poor record with bicycles. My only broken bones? (the tiny ones in my right hand since you ask) - a trip over the handle bars of my first (only) bike. My enduring memory of my German exchange trip? Cycling to my exchange partner's school, applying the break, locking the front wheel and sailing over a 4 foot metal barrier. Yep, me and bikes - it's a fraught relationship.
And yet, it appeals (a bit). Getting out, getting away, doing something *so* different. I feel betrayed by my body on so many levels - it feels saggy and flabby and I cannot help but regard it as the cause of my daughter's death. I have, I think, been essentially punishing it since Emma died and it's definitely showing the strain of too much wine and too many bars of chocolate. Maybe showing it some loving kindness and trying to nurture it for a change might not be such a bad idea.
So, if you spot an overweight women on a purple bicycle this summer, do give me a wave. And if I'm head first in a gorse bush at the time do, please, pull me out.
:::
How do I feel about The Kubler-Ross grief cycle? I think of it a bit like this:
Hard to balance with a blooming uncomfortable saddle.
On the one hand, just as I seek out other babyloss mamas to compare what I am feeling with what they are feeling and so check that I'm "normal" (!?), I also find reassurance that I recognise myself in the dips and peaks of the graph. On the other hand, there is a part of me that screams that my grief is my grief and no-one can quantify it, measure it or label it. How dare anyone assume they can explain or explore this to me. I think I'm bothered by it now because I worry that it is unavoidable - that whether I will it or no, I will encounter ALL of these phases. I know for sure that I've "done" denial and anger ... oh yes, I have done anger. I have screamed until my throat hurt and I have thrown some spectacular temper tantrums as I have raged about the unfairness of my daughter's life curtailed before it had even begun. I suppose I'm scared of depression - I think that's it. I've never experienced depression personally and it frightens me. Anger feels more acceptable to me somehow perhaps because it is "active" - I am doing something with the grief not just being pummelled with it. The inertia I associate with depression frightens me and I've had a taste of it this week when the grief has seemed black and deep and utterly all encompassing - when everything else has been smoke and shadows and my daughter's absence has been the realest and most solid thing I have.
:::
And so to menstrual cycles - which is not such a big leap as it might first appear since my cycle is at least partially implicated in the nasty funk I have found myself in this week. I used Fertility Awareness to help us conceive Emma and I was absolutely fascinated. I loved the knowledge I gained about my body and about the hows and the whys of all the different hormones and their effects. Of course, when that knowledge showed me that my body was functioning as it should and I conceived quickly, it was all brilliant. I restarted charting after Christmas, thinking that it might help in restoring some equlibrium in my relationship with my body. When it revealed that things had not returned to "normal" yet, I started to feel like a hamster in a wheel ... waiting to ovulate, measuring my luteal phase ... waiting to ovulate ... frustration, rather than fascination, has been my primary emotion. This month I conceived very briefly, only for my period to arrive (3 days late on Emma's 6 month day) and quench that tiny spark of hope. I am uncertain of how I feel about this chemical pregnancy. I do feel sad but the sadness is about Emma, about wanting to be caught up in sleeplessness and weaning and chubby thighs not themometers and cycle days and cervical fluid. I'm sad that I'm even trying to get pregnant again when that was never supposed to be part of the plan. I know that if I get pregnant again and if the pregnancy sticks and if I get to bring home a breathing baby, I'll once agan see the wonder and value of having this amount of knowledge about my body and its inner workings. Right now though, I'm sad that I'm back in this particular cycle again.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Wistful & listless.
I was expecting to feel the grief more this week. We all know there's no free pass out of babyloss - the good days have to be paid for. So, I've been relieved that after the wonderful high of our anniversary, what has followed has been wistful sadness and listlessness. Although it doesn't seem much, I was expecting to be plunged back into the very depths of the rawness again. That's how the "good day, bad day" pattern has gone in the past.
This week though I've felt the lack of my Emma all over again but in a subtle way. In the earliest days I felt physically fractured by her death but these last few days it's been a weariness right down to the bone marrow. Daylight saving has brought lighter nights, spring is bringing buds and blossoms. Out in the garden yesterday, I realised that, to an untrained eye, we probably looked pretty good - I was mowing the lawn whilst B. & L. alternatively "helped" or threw grass cuttings at each other whilst we waited for daddy to get back from work. Nobody else would have been able to see the hole. The lighter, brighter days mean too that the sweet little babes born last Autumn are no longer amorphous blobs swaddled in pink. Suddenly they have personalities, they're holding their heads up, dressed oh so beautifully, charming the world around them. I find it even harder to reconcile myself to these perfect little people than I did to the anonymous bundles of blankets in strollers. I want to smile at them and stroke their soft cheeks but I also don't, because they're not Emma.
Daylight saving has also resulted in very tired children who don't fall asleep easily. Their tiredness seems to be exacerbating their longing for their sister too. Our nighttime lullaby (a somewhat tuneless number composed by me during 4am breastfeeds with our firstborn) includes the line "mummy loves you very much, daddy loves you very much, *insert sibling* loves you very much, *insert cuddly toy* loves you too" (I did warn you it was composed at 4 am). At B.'s behest, the cuddly toy has been relegated to the second line of the song and Emma is now included. I love that he asked for this but amsad that this is how it is.
This week though I've felt the lack of my Emma all over again but in a subtle way. In the earliest days I felt physically fractured by her death but these last few days it's been a weariness right down to the bone marrow. Daylight saving has brought lighter nights, spring is bringing buds and blossoms. Out in the garden yesterday, I realised that, to an untrained eye, we probably looked pretty good - I was mowing the lawn whilst B. & L. alternatively "helped" or threw grass cuttings at each other whilst we waited for daddy to get back from work. Nobody else would have been able to see the hole. The lighter, brighter days mean too that the sweet little babes born last Autumn are no longer amorphous blobs swaddled in pink. Suddenly they have personalities, they're holding their heads up, dressed oh so beautifully, charming the world around them. I find it even harder to reconcile myself to these perfect little people than I did to the anonymous bundles of blankets in strollers. I want to smile at them and stroke their soft cheeks but I also don't, because they're not Emma.
Daylight saving has also resulted in very tired children who don't fall asleep easily. Their tiredness seems to be exacerbating their longing for their sister too. Our nighttime lullaby (a somewhat tuneless number composed by me during 4am breastfeeds with our firstborn) includes the line "mummy loves you very much, daddy loves you very much, *insert sibling* loves you very much, *insert cuddly toy* loves you too" (I did warn you it was composed at 4 am). At B.'s behest, the cuddly toy has been relegated to the second line of the song and Emma is now included. I love that he asked for this but amsad that this is how it is.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
A Daddy's Tribute
D. would probably want me to apologize for the sound. He recorded himself playing this on our old, battered digital camera. Nonetheless ... I think it is so very, very beautiful.
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