The Bereaved Mother

1/31/2012        10:34 a.m

Don't judge the bereaved mother...

Do not judge the bereaved mother.

She comes in many forms.

She is breathing, but she is dying.

She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.

She smiles, but her heart sobs.

She walks, she talks, she cooks,

she cleans, she works, she IS

but she IS NOT all at once.

She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity.

A child that loses a parent is an orphan.

A husband that loses his wife is a widower.

A wife who loses her husband is a widow.

However, there is no word for a parent that loses a child.

For there is no word to describe such pain.

-author unknown

*(I found this poem on a blog and I feel it hits the nail on the head.  This is how I feel all day, every day.  Also, every time it says the word “mother”, we can surely substitute “father” because Steven feels it too.  It sucks, this life of being a bereaved parent)*

Steven and I went to a Tears meeting last week (or the week before, I can’t remember).  It’s a group for parents who have lost a baby.  So far, we have attended 2 Compassionate Friends meetings, 1 Bridges meeting and 1 Tears meeting.  We seem to be support group junkies.  :O/

The Tears meeting was by far the one that hit closest to home.  These people “really get it”.  The loss of a child is horrible regardless of age and circumstance, but each grief is a bit different.  The grief of losing a child to prolonged illness is different than the grief of losing a child to traumatic accident, is different still than the grief of losing a baby.  And the couples at the Tears meeting can meet us exactly where we are in this process.  There is just a little less we have to explain to them because they understand. 

We look forward to going back at the end of February. 

I have also been looking at more blogs written by bereaved mothers and fathers.  It is enough to rip a person’s heart out, but again, it is more reassurance that we are not walking this terribly sad road alone.  Even though it is dark and horribly uncertain, I am seeing that there are people all around us walking it as well.  

3 Months Out

1/31/2012          10:14 a.m

My Dear Sweet Brynna,

You are three months old now.  If you were here with us, you would be smiling and working on rolling over.  We would do tummy time every day on your pink baby floor gym.  We would be preparing to start introducing you to baby foods probably next month.  Which would be your favorite?  Your brothers all loved their sweet potatoes.  Would you be the same?  What would you love, sweetheart?  God, I wish you were here so Daddy and I could find out.

Three months already.  I can’t believe it.  The thought of you being here and already being three months old seems impossible.  Then, on the other hand, the thought that we have been grieving your loss for three months seems like a lifetime.  Time is truly a messed up thing.  When life is happy, it flies, and when life is full of sorrow and pain, it slows to a crawl.

I went to Portland with Grandma last week to get my hair done.  The last time I had it done, I was pregnant with you and so excited.  At that time we didn’t know you were a girl yet, just that we were going to have a baby and we just prayed for “healthy” everyday.  Anyway, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the lady that did my hair that time, because I didn’t want to have to explain everything to her, and end up spending an hour and a half crying in her chair.  So I went to Portland to Grandma’s lady.  She already knew everything that happened so there wasn’t any pressure to explain.  It was nice spending the day with Grandma.  She misses you so much too.  We talk about you and cry together.  She thinks about you every day and loves you so much.  We all do.

I miss you, little girl.  I miss you so, so much.  I look at your pictures all the time and I listen to your music.  I go into your room and hold your blanket and your nightgown.  It is the only way I feel closer to you.  I hang on for my life, sometimes. 

Are you there listening and watching all this?  Are you safe?  Do you feel how much we love you? I hope so.  They say one day we’ll see you again, and I hold tight to that possibility.  I hold tight to the idea that one day, I will be able to hold you and tell you all the things I am feeling right now.  All the ways I love you.  All the ways I need you.  I don’t have the right words.  There are no big enough, “right” enough words to explain my love for you.

This hurts so much.  Too much.  It hurts so much because we love you so much.  We miss you so much.  We think about you every moment.  You are always with us.  Always in our hearts.  I just wish you were in our arms instead.  There will not be a day for the rest of my life that I don’t think about you and miss you.  I love you Brynna.  I love you so much it hurts.

Love,

Momma

Empty Arms

1/18/2012         10:53 a.m

How are we supposed to do this?  One day seems “okay” and the next I am brought to my knees feeling the pain of Brynna’s death like it was yesterday.  There is too much to process.  Way too much.

I go back and forth between sadness and anger to disbelief and despair.  When will this nightmare end?  Everyone says “never” and that is too much to handle.  Way too much.

I need my little girl in my arms.  I need to hold her, to touch her, to smell her, to love her.  I need my daughter.  This is way too much pain.  Too much emptiness.  Too much hurt.  Too much anguish.

I am not used to being a sad person.  With the exception of maybe one or two days, I have cried every day since the day Brynn was born.  There are too many tears.

I am scared because for the first time in my life, I have no idea whatsoever what I believe.  Everything I thought I knew about life has been shaken up and thrown onto the ground in a broken mess.  Why 41 weeks and 3 days of growing a perfect little girl to have this ending?  Why a ruptured uterus and emergency hysterectomy at 32 years old?  Why are good people like Steven and I denied the opportunity to raise our daughter and bear witness to the person she could have become?  There are too many questions.  There are no answers.   

Will I ever feel pure, unaltered joy again?  Will I ever stop being this robot of a person and feel something other than sadness again?  When?  I need a plan, I need some guidance.  I need God to get on his megaphone and say, “Laura, listen up, this is what you’re going to do and this is how you’re going to do it”.  I am lost and afraid.  I need my little girl.  I need Brynna.  Just one more time, I need to see her.   

Piano

1/3/2012        10:04 a.m

Dear Brynna,

Daddy got me a piano for Christmas.  Not just any piano though.  It was Dorothy Hinton’s piano.  Dorothy was the Grandma of some of our closest family friends, John and Nancy Hinton and their kids Jane, Joe, and Andrew.  My brothers (your Uncle Conner and Uncle Trent) and I grew up with the Hinton kids and got to see and be loved by Dorothy for many years.  She was a wonderful woman and I loved her very much.  To have her piano in our house feels wonderful.

I have wanted to learn to play the piano for a long, long time and I think I am finally going to do it.  I have a program on the new computer that helps teach the basics and I think I will also end up taking lessons. 

Anyway, the piano guy is here tuning it right now and as he plays I keep tearing up.  The music makes me think of you. Would you have wanted to play?  You had long fingers like me.  I would have loved to have heard you as you got old enough to climb up on the bench, plunking away making “music”.  I can’t wait to learn to play and then I can sit down and play “your song”.  I’m not sure how it goes yet, but I know it’s in me somewhere waiting to come out. 

For the last couple days I have been really sad.  Down to my core sad and I can’t seem to shake it.  Maybe it’s because the 1^st was 2 months since the day you passed away.  Somehow these anniversaries really have a way of knocking the wind right out of me.  There are times I don’t feel I can get my head off the pillow, and if I manage to, then I just walk around in a daze, unable to commit myself to any one thing.

I don’t know which way is up, Brynna.  I miss you so much more than I know how to relay.  I feel incomplete and my arms ache with emptiness.  I long to hold you, to feed you, to bathe and dress you.  To take care of you.  To love you.

Why did it have to be this way? Why have we been denied our little girl?  I don’t know that I will survive this and be able to be “myself” again.  I feel changed.  I feel cheated.  I feel lost.  I feel sad.

I love you and I miss you.

Love,

Momma

New Year's?

What can I even say today?  It is New Year’s Day. People all around us are wishing us a “happy new year,” but I don’t feel much “happy” at this point. 

Today it is 2 months since our sweet Brynna passed away and I feel like time is a parched, sandy desert stretched out in front of me to infinity.  When will the pain stop? When will the suffering and sadness cease?  When will we feel the refreshment of happiness and true joy again.  At this point it seems like never. 

So what’s so “happy” about that?

I love you, Brynna and I miss you more than is imaginable.