Our lives go on. We smile more. We laugh more. We love more. But we never stop missing. We never stop loving. ♥ Peyton ♥
Looking forward to a day of peace, healing and remembrance as I celebrate International Bereaved Mother's Day with Janessa's Mommy, who I've spent every IBMD with since losing Peyton, and Stella's Mommy, who I look forward to meeting.
I pray that on this beautiful Sunday, you all feel your child(ren)'s presence with you more strongly, and a sense of peace in your hearts.
xoxo
Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Friday, May 18, 2012
It's My Blogoversary... Well Sort Of!
"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!" -- The Rabbit from Disney's Alice in Wonderland
Monday (5/14) was my three year blogoversary. Three years of sharing and crying and laughing and writing and blog blog blogging along this little thing I call life.
My first post, (5/14/09) was this poem:
(Mother's) Day
Where I had imagined breakfast in bed,I found only tears on my pillow.Where I had imagined flowers and a card,I found only flowers on her grave.Where I had imagined a home of happy chaos and noise,I found only weeping through silence.Where I had imagined my child at my chest,I found only emptiness and aching. Where I had imagined Motherhood celebrated,I found only another painful reminder of loss.~<3~Needless to say, I have looked forward (LOOKED FORWARD!) to writing a new post this year. I was going to write a poem to follow up this one, a poem that touted the joys of Mother's Day with my rainbows here... but then vertigo hit.
It started out of the blue on Sunday morning. Well, that's not entirely true. I have been struggling with some lightheadedness issues the past few weeks. But Sunday morning it struck with a vengeance.The room was spinning. I vomited every time I so much as moved my eyes, or tilted my head. Except for breastfeeding, I don't think I got to hold my babies but for two minutes this Mother's Day which was, to say the least, a bummer.
Still feeling rather spinny nearly a week later (so please excuse any typos in this post) but it's my third blogoversary and I can't allow this milestone to pass without truly reflecting on how much has happened, how much my life has changed and evolved and progressed over the past three years and four Mother's Days.
Mother's Day used to taunt me. It was this cruel joke, this universal date of celebration that seemingly everyone got to attend but me. It made me think of a passage in Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet says:
20 Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, 21 Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, 22 Take him and cut him out in little stars, 23 And he will make the face of heaven so fine 24 That all the world will be in love with night 25 And pay no worship to the garish sun. 26 O, I have bought the mansion of a love, 27 But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, 28 Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day 29 As is the night before some festival 30 To an impatient child that hath new robes 31 And may not wear them.
I have always loved that sentiment--picturing my beautiful Peyton as stars in the sky--but really the bit of this passage that most speaks, or I should say spoke to me about Mother's Day, was that of having bought the mansion but not possessed it. I was a Mother. I had carried Peyton. Formed her within me. I had birthed my child and yet Mother's Day felt like a joke. Like trying to get into a club and the doorman telling me my name wasn't on the list, or worse, that it had been crossed off.
When I wrote that poem up there, so much felt impossible to me. Heck, even the Mother's Day and year of blogging that followed that one felt like being stuck in some foreign land where the inhabitants used words I could only sort of make out, like "baby-wearing and weaning and teething." I knew what those words meant, of course, but without having experienced them--was I still a mother?
We were in the thick of infertility that year. Our first IVF had failed, and with it went two more promises at motherhood to add to my list. Everything,then, felt completely impossible to me, but time ticked on, and my Snowflakes set up shop in my womb, and one short (okay - long, anxious, bed-rested) year later, I greeted Mother's Day and another blogoversary with two babies in my arms and one in my heart. I tried to document what I could over the next year here, but failed fairly miserably due to sleep deprivation, and extended breastfeeding, and mommy-brain.
This past Sunday marked my fourth Mother's Day without Peyton, and though I was so sick, so, so, so sick, I kept saying to myself, "well, this is certainly not the worst Mother's Day I have ever experienced" because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the pain would pass, and the vertigo would pass. I knew I would once again feel well and find my joy.
I didn't know that the first two Mother's Days after Peyton died. I didn't know that joy was even possible, or what it was to feel hopeful and excited about the future. Back then I just kept trucking along because that's what we bereaved mommas do, we breathe-in and breathe-out and put one foot in front of the other until one day we look at the path behind us and say, "Holy shit--I survived!"
Mother's Day for me (and actually my life in general come to think of it) will likely never be a Hallmark Card Moment. Three years into this journey I am realizing I am okay with that. Hallmark Card Moments happen to the unbroken, the innocent. They happen to women who don't know that this side of the universe exists and only know Mother's Day to be a happy one of flowers and candy and joy and you know what I say to that--good for them. Good for those blessed by experiences that can be summed up in a few words written by another in a folded card. Good for them. I don't begrudge them-- but they are not me.
Having Peyton and struggling with infertility has brought me to a point where I don't need those Hallmark Card Moments to show me how lucky I am. I don't take anything for granted.
So here is to three years as the girl who lost her child, then her fertility, and somehow, in this mess we call life, found happiness. To three years that brought me so far down to rock bottom that I know what a gift I have been given in clawing my way back out again. To three years and surviving -- I'd be lying if I didn't say I was proud of myself for that.
And here is to all of you. To those whose stories pushed me forward when I thought there was nowhere else to go. To those who told me to keep trying because trying is never done. Who encouraged us to explore all of our options to parenthood--what a gift you have given me in walking this road with me. And to those of you who found your way here because you are fresh in your own grief, or infertility--here is to knowing the joy that lies ahead for you, too.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Commonalities of Grief
I went up to Peyton's Hill the morning of Mother's Day. I needed to be near her. I needed to tell her how much I love her, and miss her. How grateful I am to her for giving me the gift of motherhood. I feel the need to do this every day, but Mother's Day makes missing her especially hard.
I walked up to her grave and commented on the weather. I apologized for the sad state of her site, and remarked about the newest pinwheel we had placed up there, which had already gone missing. It gets very windy on Peyton's Hill, so I imagine a good gust came along and was just too much for it.
I stood for a while, breathing the place in. I watched birds in the trees, closed my eyes, and tapped my chest in the spot where her back used to be when she fell asleep against my chest. In the silence of her Hill, I began singing "Smile Awhile," one of the songs from my repertoire when I had rocked her in the hospital.
It's a World War I song about loss.
Most of the songs I sang Peyton were about loss.
Maybe I just knew.
Smile awhile and kiss me sad adieu
when the clouds roll by I'll come to you
then the skies will seem more blue
down in lover's lane my deary
wedding bells will ring so merrily
every tear will hold a memory
so wait and pray each night for me
till we meet again
Halfway through my song I was approached by an older woman. She looked disheveled, as if the day had snuck up on her somehow, and was covered in dirt from flower pots that she held in her hands. I recognized something in her. Something I had seen in myself so many times before. She looked neither present, nor lost. She just was.
We got to talking and she pointed out her son's grave. I knew her son. His name was Mike. He was paralyzed, wheelchair bound after a freak construction accident, and used to walk his dog around the path at the cemetery each afternoon. Mike, G, and I were a sort of lonely hearts club. Three outsiders with broken hearts who had nowhere else to turn for relief but a cemetery. Mike died suddenly last year. He got the flu and aspirated when he vomited in his sleep. Mike wasn't even forty years old.
His mother told me she had come up to plant some flowers around a bench she had placed on the Hill.
"It was your idea you know," she said, "I hope you don't mind."
I didn't.
The idea to get a bench up on the Hill was one that came to hubs and I early on, but the months had passed, and then the years, and the truth is I didn't know when we were going to get around to placing one up there. We had mentioned the idea to G who had mentioned it to Mike's mom, and when I came up last fall to find her bench placed, I was happy to see it.
I told Mike's mom how sorry I was for her loss. We got to talking, and talking led to crying. She was really suffering through facing Mother's Day without her son.
"I can't make it through a ride in the car," she told me, "without breaking down. I cry all the time. I feel his loss all the time."
I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. So many car rides these past two and a half years had been spent crying tears of sorrow and loss for my little girl. So many songs on the radio had triggered emotions in me, or felt as if they had been somehow sent directly from her.
"And I know I sound crazy," she continued, "but sometimes I get little signs from him."
"Funny things happening with lights?" I asked.
She looked at me, mouth agape. "How did you know?"
"It always seems to have something to do with lights," I smiled. "If you feel something happening, and you think it is Mike, cherish that. Who is to say it isn't him?"
We exchanged stories about funny little occurances that we felt were gifts from our children. Flickering flashlights at my house. A solar light that suddenly became aglow on her birthday at hers.
"Was Mike your only child?" I asked.
"My only son."
"I'm so sorry."
She looked at his grave and let out a deep sigh. "I am just so afraid people will forget about him."
"I won't forget him." I offered, knowing this feeling too well, this fear that my child will be forgotten. That there will come a day where this earth rotates as if she had never even existed.
Talking with Mike's mom showed me how many commonalities there are in the grief of one's child. It doesn't matter how old they were when they passed, though losing a baby is certainly different than losing a teenager and that is certainly different than losing an adult child, there are certain common threads to the grief of a mother.
Mothers cannot let go.
Mothers always hurt.
Mothers feel the absence of the child they have lost all the time, and strive to feel their presence in whatever ways we can.
Mothers all share the great fear that our children, their lives, and their impact on this great wide world, will be forgotten.
To lose your child is to forever lose a piece of your own soul.
As mothers we need to protect our children.
As bereaved mothers we need to protect their memories.
I walked up to her grave and commented on the weather. I apologized for the sad state of her site, and remarked about the newest pinwheel we had placed up there, which had already gone missing. It gets very windy on Peyton's Hill, so I imagine a good gust came along and was just too much for it.
I stood for a while, breathing the place in. I watched birds in the trees, closed my eyes, and tapped my chest in the spot where her back used to be when she fell asleep against my chest. In the silence of her Hill, I began singing "Smile Awhile," one of the songs from my repertoire when I had rocked her in the hospital.
It's a World War I song about loss.
Most of the songs I sang Peyton were about loss.
Maybe I just knew.
Smile awhile and kiss me sad adieu
when the clouds roll by I'll come to you
then the skies will seem more blue
down in lover's lane my deary
wedding bells will ring so merrily
every tear will hold a memory
so wait and pray each night for me
till we meet again
Halfway through my song I was approached by an older woman. She looked disheveled, as if the day had snuck up on her somehow, and was covered in dirt from flower pots that she held in her hands. I recognized something in her. Something I had seen in myself so many times before. She looked neither present, nor lost. She just was.
We got to talking and she pointed out her son's grave. I knew her son. His name was Mike. He was paralyzed, wheelchair bound after a freak construction accident, and used to walk his dog around the path at the cemetery each afternoon. Mike, G, and I were a sort of lonely hearts club. Three outsiders with broken hearts who had nowhere else to turn for relief but a cemetery. Mike died suddenly last year. He got the flu and aspirated when he vomited in his sleep. Mike wasn't even forty years old.
His mother told me she had come up to plant some flowers around a bench she had placed on the Hill.
"It was your idea you know," she said, "I hope you don't mind."
I didn't.
The idea to get a bench up on the Hill was one that came to hubs and I early on, but the months had passed, and then the years, and the truth is I didn't know when we were going to get around to placing one up there. We had mentioned the idea to G who had mentioned it to Mike's mom, and when I came up last fall to find her bench placed, I was happy to see it.
I told Mike's mom how sorry I was for her loss. We got to talking, and talking led to crying. She was really suffering through facing Mother's Day without her son.
"I can't make it through a ride in the car," she told me, "without breaking down. I cry all the time. I feel his loss all the time."
I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. So many car rides these past two and a half years had been spent crying tears of sorrow and loss for my little girl. So many songs on the radio had triggered emotions in me, or felt as if they had been somehow sent directly from her.
"And I know I sound crazy," she continued, "but sometimes I get little signs from him."
"Funny things happening with lights?" I asked.
She looked at me, mouth agape. "How did you know?"
"It always seems to have something to do with lights," I smiled. "If you feel something happening, and you think it is Mike, cherish that. Who is to say it isn't him?"
We exchanged stories about funny little occurances that we felt were gifts from our children. Flickering flashlights at my house. A solar light that suddenly became aglow on her birthday at hers.
"Was Mike your only child?" I asked.
"My only son."
"I'm so sorry."
She looked at his grave and let out a deep sigh. "I am just so afraid people will forget about him."
"I won't forget him." I offered, knowing this feeling too well, this fear that my child will be forgotten. That there will come a day where this earth rotates as if she had never even existed.
Talking with Mike's mom showed me how many commonalities there are in the grief of one's child. It doesn't matter how old they were when they passed, though losing a baby is certainly different than losing a teenager and that is certainly different than losing an adult child, there are certain common threads to the grief of a mother.
Mothers cannot let go.
Mothers always hurt.
Mothers feel the absence of the child they have lost all the time, and strive to feel their presence in whatever ways we can.
Mothers all share the great fear that our children, their lives, and their impact on this great wide world, will be forgotten.
To lose your child is to forever lose a piece of your own soul.
As mothers we need to protect our children.
As bereaved mothers we need to protect their memories.
Friday, May 6, 2011
What should be. What WILL be.
What should be:
A day spent admiring my three beautiful children.
A reflection on the joys of the last three years of motherhood.
A giggling little girl playing with her baby brother and sister, showing off her ever expanding vocabulary and doing "big girl things".
What WILL be:
A day spent admiring my three beautiful children.
A reflection of the long road that motherhood has taken me on.
This is the best I can hope for.
For the first time since becoming a mother, I am not dreading Mother's Day. I am looking forward to celebrating these three amazing little beings, and all the ways that they have changed me, but as with all milestone dates, the countdown to Mother's Day brings with it a mix of emotions.
The joy over all I have,
As Sunday approaches, Peyton feels that much further from me.
I want to hold her again. I want to feel her nuzzle against my chest. I want to breathe in the sweet minty smell of the hair on her head.
Each day I tell her brother and sister about the amazing things that she did. How strong she was. The way she would stare into our eyes for hours and rarely complained despite the trials she was put through. I tell them how at just a few minutes old, Peyton reached out and grabbed her pacifier, sticking it into her own mouth - a feat that at nine weeks old, neither of her siblings have yet managed to figure out.
I tell them these things because it is all I can do.
It is the only way they will ever know her.
Through me.
Through my telling.
What should be will always haunt me.
She was here.
She was perfect.
She was mine and she is gone.
Still gone.
Despite two and a half years of prayers to the contrary.
My daughter Peyton is gone and the permanence of that is something I will struggle through all the days of my life.
What will be is beautiful,
but what should have been can never be forgotten.
***
Whether TTC, giving up on conceiving at all, waiting for a rainbow, carrying your rainbow, holding your rainbow in your arms, facing your first Mother's Day without the child you have lost, facing the tenth Mother's Day without the child you have lost, facing countless Mother's Days without ever having a child - regardless of where you are in your given journey, I know that Mother's Day can be the cruelest day on the calendar.
Please know I am keeping you all in my heart this Sunday.
A day spent admiring my three beautiful children.
A reflection on the joys of the last three years of motherhood.
A giggling little girl playing with her baby brother and sister, showing off her ever expanding vocabulary and doing "big girl things".
What WILL be:
A day spent admiring my three beautiful children.
Two in my arms, one only in my memory.
A reflection of the long road that motherhood has taken me on.
A road filled with tears of joy and sorrow.
With obstacles overcome, and those that never can be.
An ache for my giggling little girl who never lived to learn to giggle.
The pain of her absence ever present,
regardless of the other joys in my life.
This is the best I can hope for.
For this Mother's Day,
or any others to follow.
For the first time since becoming a mother, I am not dreading Mother's Day. I am looking forward to celebrating these three amazing little beings, and all the ways that they have changed me, but as with all milestone dates, the countdown to Mother's Day brings with it a mix of emotions.
The joy over all I have,
and the pain over all I can't.
As Sunday approaches, Peyton feels that much further from me.
Not from my soul of course.
But physically. Just so very far.
I want to hold her again. I want to feel her nuzzle against my chest. I want to breathe in the sweet minty smell of the hair on her head.
Each day I tell her brother and sister about the amazing things that she did. How strong she was. The way she would stare into our eyes for hours and rarely complained despite the trials she was put through. I tell them how at just a few minutes old, Peyton reached out and grabbed her pacifier, sticking it into her own mouth - a feat that at nine weeks old, neither of her siblings have yet managed to figure out.
I tell them these things because it is all I can do.
It is the only way they will ever know her.
Through me.
Through my telling.
What should be will always haunt me.
She was here.
She was perfect.
She was mine and she is gone.
Still gone.
Despite two and a half years of prayers to the contrary.
My daughter Peyton is gone and the permanence of that is something I will struggle through all the days of my life.
What will be is beautiful,
but what should have been can never be forgotten.
***
Whether TTC, giving up on conceiving at all, waiting for a rainbow, carrying your rainbow, holding your rainbow in your arms, facing your first Mother's Day without the child you have lost, facing the tenth Mother's Day without the child you have lost, facing countless Mother's Days without ever having a child - regardless of where you are in your given journey, I know that Mother's Day can be the cruelest day on the calendar.
Please know I am keeping you all in my heart this Sunday.
Monday, May 3, 2010
International Babylost Mother's Day 2010
How did you spend Sunday May 2nd?
This year, women who have lost their children came together in their own special ways to celebrate International Babylost Mother's Day, a day created by Carly Dudley to honor the never-ending bond between a babylost mother and her child.
IBMD was an incredible experience for me, and I was fortunate to spend it with two amazing fellow babylost blog mommas.
Our day started over brunch, where we met and exchanged Mother's Day gifts. The irony was that this wasn't discussed ahead of time, and yet we each felt compelled to bring something to the celebration that would honor our roles as babylost mommas, as well as to brighten each other's day.
Stephanie brought gift cards with personalized tags, and a beautiful mix CD of songs that were helping her through her grief. Malory honored each little girl with an angel bearing their birthstone. She also created the "beautiful mother" cards that you see on the table. I brought a candle with each girls' initials on them, to illuminate their pictures as we talked.
These beautiful little girls are Janessa to the left, Peyton in the center, and Amelia to the right. They remained the central focus of our table, and our day, and it was truly beautiful to see them there together.
After lunch, we headed to a secluded reservoir for our balloon release. We brought 5 balloons and 1 butterfly balloon for the release. The 5 balloons were sent to heaven, 1 for each of our daughters, 1 for all the other babies lost who had touched our hearts, and 1 sent to heaven in prayer to watch over all the other babylost mommas. Here are some pictures from our balloon release.
(Me working on the Momma's Balloon)
The balloons lingered for a while, dancing above us in a pack, before beginning their graceful journey into the heavens and out of sight.
After our balloon release, we stayed together the remainder of the day, walking along the nearby river. We talked about our lives, our children, and our grief. We may have just met that day, but our connection was like that of three girls who had known each other their whole lives. We had so much fun in fact, that it wasn't until after 8PM that we finally said our goodbyes!
Child loss can feel so isolating at times, but yesterday there was none of that. There was no feeling left out or alone. Yesterday we were three mommas, in love with our daughters, celebrating International Babylost Mother's Day together. It was a day filled with laughter and tears and understanding.
Yesterday was beautiful.
This year, women who have lost their children came together in their own special ways to celebrate International Babylost Mother's Day, a day created by Carly Dudley to honor the never-ending bond between a babylost mother and her child.
IBMD was an incredible experience for me, and I was fortunate to spend it with two amazing fellow babylost blog mommas.
With me were Malory, mother to Janessa Marie, who writes the blogs Every Life Has A Story and Mommy of An Angel
And Stephanie, mother to Amelia Rose, who writes the blogs Carried Through Grief and Beyond Words Designs.
(Stephanie, Me, Malory)
Our day started over brunch, where we met and exchanged Mother's Day gifts. The irony was that this wasn't discussed ahead of time, and yet we each felt compelled to bring something to the celebration that would honor our roles as babylost mommas, as well as to brighten each other's day.
Stephanie brought gift cards with personalized tags, and a beautiful mix CD of songs that were helping her through her grief. Malory honored each little girl with an angel bearing their birthstone. She also created the "beautiful mother" cards that you see on the table. I brought a candle with each girls' initials on them, to illuminate their pictures as we talked.
These beautiful little girls are Janessa to the left, Peyton in the center, and Amelia to the right. They remained the central focus of our table, and our day, and it was truly beautiful to see them there together.
After lunch, we headed to a secluded reservoir for our balloon release. We brought 5 balloons and 1 butterfly balloon for the release. The 5 balloons were sent to heaven, 1 for each of our daughters, 1 for all the other babies lost who had touched our hearts, and 1 sent to heaven in prayer to watch over all the other babylost mommas. Here are some pictures from our balloon release.
(Malory and Stephanie pick out their balloons.)
(Me working on the Momma's Balloon)
(Malory writing a balloon message to all of the babies that have touched our hearts.)
We walked down to the edge of the water and said a few words to honor the significance of the day.
The skies were clear and blue, and the sun was shining as we prepared to let the balloons go.
And when the moment felt right, we watched them float above us.
The balloons lingered for a while, dancing above us in a pack, before beginning their graceful journey into the heavens and out of sight.
After our balloon release, we stayed together the remainder of the day, walking along the nearby river. We talked about our lives, our children, and our grief. We may have just met that day, but our connection was like that of three girls who had known each other their whole lives. We had so much fun in fact, that it wasn't until after 8PM that we finally said our goodbyes!
Child loss can feel so isolating at times, but yesterday there was none of that. There was no feeling left out or alone. Yesterday we were three mommas, in love with our daughters, celebrating International Babylost Mother's Day together. It was a day filled with laughter and tears and understanding.
Yesterday was beautiful.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
(Mother's) Day
Where I had imagined breakfast in bed,
I found only tears on my pillow.
Where I had imagined flowers and a card,
I found only flowers on her grave.
Where I had imagined a home of happy chaos and noise,
I found only weeping through silence.
Where I had imagined my child at my chest,
I found only emptiness and aching.
Where I had imagined Motherhood celebrated,
I found only another painful reminder of loss.
I found only tears on my pillow.
Where I had imagined flowers and a card,
I found only flowers on her grave.
Where I had imagined a home of happy chaos and noise,
I found only weeping through silence.
Where I had imagined my child at my chest,
I found only emptiness and aching.
Where I had imagined Motherhood celebrated,
I found only another painful reminder of loss.
~Kristin Binder
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