Begin today by putting your attention on your heart. Take time to connect with and feel how much your soul wants you to know that you are loved and appreciated. Look into your own eyes and see your timelessness. See everything—the joy, sadness, compassion, playfulness, and wisdom. You contain everything. You are whole. Each time you find yourself in front of a mirror today take a moment to witness yourself. As you look deeply into your own eyes, hold all aspects of yourself in loving awareness, silently repeat these words three times, “I see you, I accept you, I love you.” Carry this practice through your day and witness your heart gently open to yourself and others. https://chopracentermeditation.com
Most pregnant women have a partner to go with them to appointments, they have a person that checks in on them and takes care of them and overall sees over their well being. I had a Dr. Carmen. She was my Peace Corps doctor. She was also my friend. And she held my hand through my ultrasounds, she let me cry when I was scared and celebrated with me when I was happy. When I left to the U.S. she gave me gifts and promised to come hold my baby boy in Orlando.A couple of weeks a go, Peace Corps held their Doctors' conference at a resort near Disney. Dr. Carmen reached out to me and asked if she could still come and meet my baby boy, she wanted to visit his grave while here. It was a heartbreaking reunion for me. It was so good to see her and so sad all at the same time. Instead of going to the grave site, I asked if I could share my Mateo box with her instead. We sat and looked through his pictures, we held his little things, smelled his baby blanket. One by one we marveled over how little he was, how cute he was, never having to say but wishing that he still were here. She cried and I cried and it felt so good to cry with somebody. She apologized for crying, people always do. If you only knew how much it means to me to share in that human moment. People are comfortable sharing in your happiness, no one wants to share in your pain, but as a human, I need both. Because she was there from the beginning, because she knew how hard this choice was and the depths of depression I had to wade through. Because she knew how happy I was those last two months, especially that last month. Because as she cried she just kept saying over and over " It's not fair", the most comforting words anyone can share with me. Not that there is a plan, not that I will have more children, not that I will see him in heaven- but "It's not fair". Because it isn't. Because it's random and science and nature and God all in one. And it's hard. I am so grateful to have gotten the chance to see her and cry and laugh and spend time with my Mateo's other momma.
I have been thinking about identity . When loss of this magnitude happens in your life obviously you are changed but it is up to you how you are defined. One of the things I used to struggle with when I was pregnant was my identity and trying to understand how mother's find a balance between being their own person and being a mother. I didn't just want want to be Mateo's mother and give up on my hopes and my dreams. I know that I am meant to play many roles and be many things and while I want mother to be one of them, I don't want it to be the only role. Now I am faced with a similar identity challenge, for while I am a grieving mother, this is not my only role. I still have hopes and dreams for myself that are now intertwined with the shattered hopes and dreams of being Mateo's mother. My identity now runs parallel to itself, split into the person I am and the person I want to be. I want to be the mother of a Mateo who is alive and that can never be and so that identity hangs above me. It is the morning dew, the light mist that touches all things at the beginning of the day blessing it with its presence. It is ever present, this ache, this want, but I am finally starting to allow it to be a part of me instead of all of me. I am a grieving mother. It is one of the many layers to the person I become every day. Some days I am more of a grieving mother than I am anything else. Some days I am more of a daughter, other days I am mostly an activist but on all days I am all things. I give myself permission to be a multidimensional human being, one allowed to be all things when need be and nothing when it is called for.
I feel myself getting stronger but I am not yet strong. Not like before. I know I can never go back but I can become a new kind of strong. Still, I am not there yet. My scars are still too fresh, my pain still too exposed. I am at a transitional place in my life and I have some important decisions to make about my future. I used to be brave. I used to be fearless. Now I revel in caution, I give gold medals to security, I function in familiarity. How long is it okay for me to stand still before I have to take a leap of faith? I do not trust life. How can I? Life does not guarantee that things will work out and I understand this in an intimate way. My cells can testify. Life is random and good things happen and bad things happen and some things just happen with no value at all and you cannot control any of it. You can control your reaction, some of the causes and effects, become an outlier to circumstances. You can create your life to the best of your ability to maximize your level of happiness but always, and I do mean always working within the confines of the reality that all the things you work so hard to control are subject to randomness of life with every passing moment. That life happens to you while you create life and like those Russian dolls that fit inside each other your reality fits inside your circumstances fits inside your perception fits inside karma fits inside whatever. All of it. One inside of the other. And that you control everything while at the same time not controlling anything at all. So I do not trust life because it is not reliable. It is not predictable. It follows no rules. It does not care about fair or right or wrong. It doesn't care that I do not trust it, it owes me nothing and does not aim to win me over. It does what it is created to do, exist. All of the other things just fit inside each other.
