In all the ways I am changed, I honor him

Grief is hard work. I haven't blogged for the lat couple of weeks because I fell off the wagon. I stopped doing grief work. I didn't journal, or blog, or read. I neglected the tools I usually use for mental balance, oh and I was eating like shit. I am doing that seven week course on infant loss and grief, and well I am exhausted from grieving. It is hard work. But ignoring my grief work only made me feel worse. I once read a book about a girl who had Turrets, she described the overwhelming need to shout out and how exhausting it was to feel that way all day. Sometimes she would hold it in, trying to ignore it, but it would just build and build until the point where she literally felt she was going to implode and boom! She would shout at the top of her lungs, wondering why she ever even considered holding it in. Release. Oh yea, she was holding it in because she's exhausted. I have Turrets of the soul. Grief Turrets. And when I hold it in, it just builds and builds. I'm exhausted. Still, this week I decided to return to my practice, that while time consuming and energy consuming also give as much as they take. Consciousness and being present with my pain is not easy. It is so much easier to pretend I'm okay. But inside I am building and building up. Begging for release.

A friend once told me of a study she read where they explained why people slow down to look at car accidents. They mapped the brains of people and found that we don't slow down to stare at accidents on the side of the road because we are nosy or morbid, we have this built in impulse to look because our brains are trying to learn from it. We have this built mechanism to witness tragedy and to protect ourselves from it in the future. I think the need to talk about losing a child works similarly. At support group meetings we witness each other's wreckage, our heartbreaks and life changing accidents. We do this to learn from each other. Not to learn to not lose children in the future, but rather to learn everything we can about it right now so no matter what the future holds, we have learned something. I listen to some stories and think "I could never go through that" the same way I am sure someone thinks it about me. It forces you to unload some of your own pain and witness someone else's. It allows you to find some things to be grateful for in your own story, it teaches to cry with others through theirs. So I am not done retelling my story. I am not done learning from it or teaching from it. I "shouldn't" be over it by now. People who judge the status of my well being by pictures on Facebook, pictures of me smiling, and being a human being who feels a range of emotions, well I wish they would ask me how I am doing. But maybe it's easier to look at the pictures and say, oh good, she's fine, no need to check in with her. There will always be a need to check in with me. My baby died.

This weekend is the March of Dimes Walk. In our grief group we talked about honoring our children. We explored the reality that every time you do something in your life through the lens of your love for your child, your loss, being a parent, being someone who is changed, in those moments you honor your child. There are big public ways of honoring, like this walk. But there are also personal, daily ways. In every way you are changed and the decisions that come from that, you honor child. Wether it's made you a little kinder to your other children, a little more grateful to the people in your life, a little more humble about your place in the universe, a little more faith in your religious beliefs. All of it, any of it. You honor your child. Whenever I reach out and touch someone through the lens of my experience, I honor Mateo. And well in his honor I'd do anything, including keeping up and continuing to share with my grief work.

Heart to Heart Resuscitation and other things I hardly do but want to

"Everything that happens helps you grow, even if it’s hard to see right now. Circumstances will direct you, correct you, and perfect you over time. So whatever you do, hold on to hope. The tiniest thread will twist into an unbreakable cord. Let hope anchor you in the possibility that this is not the end of your story – that the change in the tides will eventually bring you to peaceful shores."

Yesterday I spent some time with a group of powerful women who come together for what they called "heart to heart resuscitation". It was wonderful. It was one of those moments in time when you feel connected to the universe and you know you are right where you should be, in the company of strong women, good food and great conversation.

So this morning when I woke up I did something I hardly ever do, I prayed. I thanked the universe for all of its glory and I asked to be touched by it today. I am in the process of processing my hurt around Mateo's father and creating a path towards forgiveness. I get overwhelmed at the thought of starting that process. I get even more overwhelmed at the thought of never doing it.

I also did something else I hardly ever do, I cried, with others. I cried with this couple who lost their baby a week a go and shared their story at our support group. I tried to remember what I felt like 4 months ago, a week out of Mateo passing away. I was a zombie. A fucking zombie. I don't know how I made it past the first week, the first month. I am sure at some point I will add the first year, until eventually I stop measuring the time and then it just becomes- I don't know how I made it past the death of my baby, but I did. So I cried with this couple. I shared in their grief, I allowed myself to feel it and to be connected in this way I have not been able to before. When I tell my Mateo story I do not cry. I do not break down in front of people, I often wish I could. I wish the tears would just stream down my face and I could ask someone to hold me, to grieve with me. I may not be ready to be that vulnerable with my grief but I think it was a real breakthrough to share in someone else's today. Maybe the Universe heard my prayer after all.

I feel like the gravity of what it means to lose a child slowly leaks into my consciousness. If I were to feel it all at once, I am sure my heart would explode. Actually I am certain I would have killed myself. If I would have woken up the morning after Mateo and fully felt the magnitude of what it means that your baby is gone, I would have joined him. I think the mind and the body have instinctual ways of self preservation. They want to survive even if your baby didn't. So little by little I come to understand and to really feel what it means to not have Mateo in my arms. I watched his sonogram DVD for the first time recently. I wanted to see him, to hear his heartbeat. I didn't meltdown. Four months since you lost a child is really not a very long time. I don't know if any amount ever will be, but I can feel that four months might as well be 4 days when it comes to missing him. And yet in 4 months I have taught myself to walk into my grief, to not run from it, to be as present as my mind and my body will allow me to be.

You mustn’t befrightened

if a sadness

rises in front of you,

larger than any you’ve ever seen;

if an anxiety,

like light and cloud-shadows,

moves over your hands and over

everything you do.

You must realize that something is

happening to you,

that life has not forgotten you,

that it holds you in its hand

and will not let you fall.

                       Rainer Maria Rilke

My Last Week As The Pregnant Lady That Should

You have your own way. For you, this way of living is the absolute right way. Honor it. One of the most influential sources of peace is simply being comfortable with who you really are.  Not trading your reality for a role, or your truth for an act.  Not giving up your freedom of thought. Not putting on a mask. There cannot be peace in your external life until you are at peace within yourself, being yourself.  It won’t always be easy, but no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning your inner spirit.  

I got back from a work trip to D.C. today. A friend called to catch up just a couple of hours after I got home and told me "I saw all of your pictures, you look like you had a great time" yes, parts of it were great. Most of it was great. But how do I say I was also counting down the seconds until I could crawl into my bed and cry. That I put my grief on pause, moved it to the back for a couple of days so that I could be present at work, productive on my trip, but that I could also feel it building up. Backing up. Growing and Mounting. Like a child throwing a tantrum the longer I ignored it- the louder it kicked and screamed. Unlike a child throwing a tantrum however it never wore itself out and fell asleep.

These couple of days are the days around my due date. It feels like there is this flashing giant sign hanging over me YOU SHOULD BE PREGNANT. This is around the time I should have brought my baby home from the hospital. Instead I brought him home in casket. What a harsh reality. This is the time when I should have brought my baby home. Days feel surreal. I am so tired. It is as though I cannot get enough sleep, I never feel well rested. I think my soul is tired. My cells are tired. Every ounce of my being is tired. This pain is so heavy and exhausting. Rest cannot fix it. Only unloading it can. 

My life right now is a life of grief. There is pain and sadness and pure and utterly unadulterated  exhaustion. I will honor it. I do not pretend to be anything else because I smile in a picture. In that moment when I smiled, I felt like smiling. In the moment I feel like crying, I felt like crying- the difference is I don't take pictures of that moment and put it on Facebook. If people saw me cry more would they believe me when I say " I miss my baby"? Would they stop believing me the next time they saw me laugh? Good thing I am not in the business of convincing people. Too bad I am in the business of grieving and I need people.

A really sweet friend wrote me today and asked to take me out to lunch this week. Another friend asked if we can do dinner- sit and talk. My mom went and left flowers at Mateo's grave today. I am grateful for these moments of love. Thank You. 

These next couple of days I might find myself wanting to be alone more. To spend time with my pain as I figure out how to unload it. Please feel free to reach out to me, I am not so strong that I do not need support and friends and love. This is the week I should have brought my baby home. I never will and it breaks my heart.

*Recommended Read The Untethered Soul.

Birthdays and Goodbyes and Everything In Between

Though nothing compares to the grief of losing Mateo- losing him is not my first experience with grief. In 2009 I lost a very dear college friend- Andre to a tragic car accident. He was my inspiration for applying to the Peace Corps and honoring his memory was often the driving force behind my seeing it through until the end, as hard as it was to do my first trimester in rural Northern Peru it was even harder to feel like I was letting him down by not fulfilling both of our dreams to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers. There is this sweet moment Andre and I shared that I will always hold dear to my heart, we were sitting next to each other, probably studying for a test and he put his head on my shoulder and lovingly asked "When we met did you ever think we would be best friends?" I am not sure what I replied but I remember knowing that the love was mutual. I love Andre. I feel so cheated of not having shared my Peace Corps experience with him, we were supposed to be pen pals. I feel cheated every time I do not get to call him on the phone to share something I know he would have found hilarious. I feel cheated every time Adele releases a new song, he adored Adele. I feel cheated knowing that we can't create new memories, we only live in the ones I have now. A friendship frozen in time, stored in a time vacuum and shelved under those couple of years in college. Our friendship is marked by could haves and would haves and definitely should haves with no potential of will be, can be, or possibly. When someone you love dies your whole experience around that person is preserved in your mind. A clear timeline can be drawn out- this is when we met, this is when we loved each other, this is when you died. I will spend the rest of my life keeping his memory alive, honoring the man I knew and the friend I loved, but our story is told and I absolutely hate the ending.

In about an hour it will be his birthday. His family and friends gathered for a mass and a moment of remembrance today and if you knew Andre you would understand why a shot of patron was in order in order to truly honor him. I did not share in this particular moment of remembering him but I did take time out today to do it in my own way. I am not a person of faith so I will not make any claims to where he resides now and what has been become of his soul. I do know that that soul was so full of life and energy and love and hope that if anyone is going to continue onto a next life and carry out a purpose in another realm it would be him. It should be him. I don't know if there is a heaven. I do not know if he is there or if Mateo is there. Honestly it isn't as comforting for me to believe there is as it is for others in my life because I want them here, in this world, with the bodies I got to touch and the hearts I got to witness. If they are not here, where they are now doesn't matter so much as where I am now and my grief over them. I am still here. And I miss my friend. And I miss my baby.

From now on life will be marked with those I have loved, the time I got to love them and the time that I lost them. and you will lose everyone in your life. And when you no longer notice that you are losing people, it is because someone has just lost you. You are now a part of someone's grief journey. Year after year candles will be lit and tears will be shed, shots of patron will be taken and funds will be raised in the name of our loved ones. This is my life now. Life and death intertwined, inseparable, cut from the same cloth, weaving in and out of my memories leaving fingerprints on birthdays, goodbyes and everything in between.

“The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears til later:
But my grief will never go.”
― Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsinger

Sometimes there are no words. Sometimes there are six.

Legend has it that one day Ernest Hemingway was lunching at the Algonquin, sitting at the famous "round table" with several writers, claiming he could write a six-word-long short story. He believed any real write could tell a compelling story with the right six words. The other writers balked. Hemingway told them to ante up ten dollars each. If he was wrong, he would match it; if he was right, he would keep the pot. He quickly wrote six words on a napkin and passed it around. The words were: For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.

What a story that tells. Hemingway told My story. The story of so many in just six words. If you had to capture one of the narratives that has shaped your life in 6 words what would that story be? When it comes to Mateo mine would be something like "The smallest footprints left biggest impact". Sometimes there are no words, sometimes there are six.

The Five Things Continued: Thing Number Four "I Forgive You"

Dear Mateo,

I forgive you. I forgive you for coming into my life so unexpectedly. I was caught off guard by your determination to become. I forgive you for leaving just as unexpectedly. I forgive you for making me love you. You are just so easy to love. I forgive you for changing my life. I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant that my life would never be the same. Life is now divided into everything before I carried you inside and every minute after. I forgive you for connecting me to your co-creator, your father. Just because you died and he isn't a part of my life doesn't mean he is no longer a part of me. He through you will alway be a part of me. Some day Ill have to forgive him also. I forgive you for pushing me to my limits of my convictions. I made some very hard decisions because of you, from choosing to bring you into this world to choosing to comfort you on your way out of it. Loving you has changed me in this way I could never describe. Not in six words, not in a million. I forgive you for leaving me behind and going on without me. On some days I wish it had been me instead, on other days I wish I had gone with you. I always wish that you were still here. I love you.

Check out this link to this mother's story. She was recently on the Today show sharing her story and promoting her new book that she wrote as her son was dying from a rare disease over the last three years. It is a touching story and she has great advice, watch this interview if you get a chance!

http://t.today.com/moms/grieving-moms-advice-rest-us-love-purely-take-it-easy-1C8709317

These Five Things

The last two nights have been interesting, for the first time since Mateo passed away he has been in my dreams. I dream of a baby boy in different scenarios. This baby boy is mine, and I am his and we interact. That is how I know it is a dream. For the last two mornings after shaking off the sleep I have recalled the dreams, I wish I couldn't. Sometimes I tell myself that parallel universes exist and that in another reality that mirrors this one Mateo never died. There is a version of me that gets to raise her son and they are happy together. I just happen to be in the other reality. This is my reality and in this one, I only see him in my dreams.

After losing Mateo I went to Barnes&Nobles and bought a couple of grief books. Then I went on amazon and bought baby loss books. Then I went through baby loss blogs trolling for any recommended books, podcasts, websites, whatever anyone ever in the history of loss and grief had ever done and found useful. As I read through the different resources I collected, I give myself the freedom to sort through and feel what is right for me. Not everything I read is meant for me at this time. Some books I will go back to at a later point in my process, some I will re-read, some I will give away. I am grateful for the access to these books, to the combination of tools that I have. Between the books, therapy, meditation, friends, journaling,blogging, and some awareness work that I have done years leading up to this, I do more than make it through the day- I continue to live my life.

One of the books I am reading is about grief and consciousness. I am at a chapter that suggests working through 5 different topics in order to facilitate healing. With each topic it is suggested you create artwork, write a letter, come up with some sort of visualization about the topic addressed to the person you are grieving. I am going to blog mine out one at a time. I will continue the 4 other topics in future blogs.

Number One: I'm Sorry

Dear Mateo,

I am sorry. I am sorry our time together was so short. Around 24 weeks inside of me and 3 days in the hospital just wasn't enough. No amount of time would have ever been since mothers shouldn't bury their children. I am sorry that we got off to a rough start. I am sorry I didn't know from day one to not take you for granted. I was scared. I was alone and I was scared. I am sorry if for even a moment of your existence you didn't feel loved by me. I knew that I would love you with such devotion that It scared me to jump right in. I am sorry that I didn't sing to you more, that I didn't read to you more, that I didn't know to do more, to be more. I am sorry that I didn't know that our whole relationship would be tied to this short span of time, I would have spent every second holding my belly and praying, and talking to you. I am sorry that I didn't know I was sick. I am sorry that my body failed you. My only job in life was to protect you and I couldn't even protect you from myself. I am sorry that I couldn't save you. In the hospital when they were giving you blood transfusions I asked if I could donate my blood and was told that's actually worse for the babies. I couldn't do anything for you medically. I am sorry if I made any wrong choices around your birth. I am sorry if you felt any pain in the NICU. On your last day, when they told me you were at the point of no return and were starting to feel discomfort, they gave you pain medicine. That is when I asked to hold you and say goodbye. I think some people would say holding your baby as he passes away and saying goodbye seems like too much for a mother to handle, knowing you were in pain was too much for me to handle. I couldn't let you hurt, and I am sorry that you did for even a second. I am sorry you never got to meet your family. I told you goodbye from your grandma, and auntie, and all the people sending love, I even told you goodbye from your father in case he would have wanted it said or will some day. I am sorry none of them got to hold you. I am sorry my little guy for all the places and spaces where I fell short and was less than. You were perfect. I was not and could have never been. You are the love of my life and I am sorry I do not get to share this life with you.

Rainbow Babies

When parents who have lost a child have children after that child, they call those children rainbow babies. I see it in baby loss blogs and hear it mentioned at support group meetings. " ...is having a little girl, this is their rainbow baby". I can see why the rainbow would be the symbol chosen. Evidence of the calm after the storm. In the bible a rainbow appeared to Moses and the survivors of the end of the world as proof that life would continue on, that the earth would replenish itself. It was a symbol of hope from God to man. If religion isn't your thing then rainbows are refractions of light. Rainbows are simply a different way of seeing light- light that you couldn't see before is now visible. God, science or both- rainbows symbolize change and in the case of rainbow babies hope.

Whenever I hear of someone having a rainbow baby I say a personal prayer of hope. I know what it is like to lose a child. Sadly I do not know what it is like to keep one. To take one home alive and have that amazing experience of raising one. It seems like I am at a place where even all the people who understand my pain now also will get to understand the joy I have not been privy to.

From what I can gather trying to have another child within a year of losing one is pretty common. It seems as though most couples I encounter start trying as soon as they get the medical green light. Why wouldn't they? These are people who wanted children and life kicked them in the teeth. If they are brave enough to try again, I am brave enough to support them. But the thing is- I don't get to try again. At least not anytime soon. I don't get to announce my rainbow baby at support group meetings and I don't know if I ever will. Often it is only mothers who come to group meetings but every now and then couples come. A man at the last meeting made a comment along the lines of " I have to be there for my wife, we have to be there for each other, we are the only two people who will ever really understand what it means to lose our baby" I have no one to understand that with- not in that sense. I made the decision to be a single parent and so I have turned into the single parent of a deceased child. A single griever. Without the option of a rainbow baby even. I feel as though life is very cruel with me at times like this. I am not taking away from all the kindness and love that those in my life have shown me or all the strength that I have found within me. Appreciating this does not take away from the fact that I do not have a partner to share in my grief, and not just a partner, but the person who helped create him. Whose DNA he shared, features, blood in his veins- biologically he wasn't only mine. In every other sense he was. I have reached out to Mateo's father and have been made to understand that this is my son and my grief and mine alone.

There is no way to know if life will align in such a way that I find someone I love and trust and decide to have rainbow babies with. If that doesn't happen do I decide to have rainbow babies on my own? People were so supportive when I had an unplanned pregnancy and decided to be a single parent- it is hard to picture that level of support if I actually planned a pregnancy knowing I'd be a single parent. A mistake seems admirable, when its planned it gets called selfish. I just want the experience of being a mom. How long do I have to wait before people are like- oh yea- she's not married, she is not getting any younger, she lost a child and still really wants one- so now it is ok that she does it on her own? 5 years?10? The couples I know having rainbow babies wait around 3 months. I understand their urgency- it isn't about replacing the child they lost, it is about making their dreams to bring a healthy beautiful baby home come true. They don't know how long it will take them to get pregnant, or how many more miscarriages it might take before that happens. They want to know that they can do this- that they can have this. You don't stop wanting to be a mother because you stop being pregnant. Your body changed its mind- not you. Of course you want to try again- you never stopped being ready. I wish that all of these rules applied to me. I can deal with being a single parent. I can deal with single grief. I can't deal with never having a rainbow baby. I can't deal with the timeline restrictions- what is normal for a couple to want is not normal for me as a young single woman to want. Tell that to my heart. I want share the same dreams but without restrictions on my timeline. I have to wait for either the person to do this with or the courage to do it on my own knowing that the support might just not be there.

I might have to stop going to support group meetings when the faces stop being familiar, when everyone I know has stopped coming because they are pregnant with a rainbow baby and no longer pregnant with grief. I've already noticed some of the moms who were actively trying to get pregnant stopped coming. No one has to announce it- Rainbow Babies. Maybe by the time it is all new faces, I will be in a place in my healing process where leaving the group feels natural to me also even if it isn't due to pregnancy. I am not ready to have a baby tomorrow, next month or even by the end of this year. I just want to feel that when I am ready single or not- I can and everyone will still love me for it.

Grief Talk

I sat and talked grief today with a friend. We talked about life, forgiveness, personal growth and grief. We talked about feelings while commenting that no one talks about feelings, at least not really.

I know of this man who was a college professor. Smart guy they say. He made some choices in life and in consequence life made choices for him and at the end of it all he lost everything. Hi career, his family, his reputation, his lover, all of it. He is now known to wander around the streets of downtown pushing a grocery cart while reciting some of the most beautiful literature those within ear shot will probably hear that day. Homeless.

After Mateo died I pictured myself with a similar fate. I envisioned what it would be like to fully give into my grief and then fall apart and then never come back to sanity. I misdiagnosed grief in that situation. Grief is the process- and if you make it so, a teacher. Grief is not the reason one ends up losing their life while still alive. A handful or two of feelings are. Depression, anxiety, despair and so on. That's how you end up giving up by giving in.

I sit with my grief now. A witness. It introduces me to different parts of me. Shows me where I am strong, where I am quiet, where I am restless, where I am lonely. I do not plan on carrying it around forever but our time together is no where near done. Grief is doesn't take time- grief is time. Grief minutes pass by every hour and in that hour I will feel any number of emotions. Grief is the time it takes for you to feel through something, be present with it and create ways to cope and to heal. Then your time is no longer counted by a grief clock. You are in a different place. I do not know what this next place looks like because I am still grieving. I know what grieving is to me. And so I am learning to sit with it. Be with it. Learn from it so that then I can let it go.

I don't know if everyone else knows all this about grief. I didn't. I didn't know what it meant to grieve- it was an abstract commandment. Thou shall now grieve. I did not understand what that meant. I am figuring it now. So far I can say I have sat with some of the deepest darkest corners of my pain and have not ended up coming so far apart that I could not come together again. I come back different- better or worse is relative- but I always come back.

Here is a great TedTalk on grief from a woman who lost her baby around the time in her pregnancy I did. Her words really resonated with me- maybe they will touch you also

http://youtu.be/gqX3Ygy8NOo

The Elite Women of the Strongest Club on Earth

A couple of days ago someone very close to me had a miscarriage. It was extraordinarily traumatic for a situation that's synonymous with tragedy to start with. Life required me to reach beyond myself, my pain, my grief and be there for someone else's. And so in under three months time I have held not one, but two dead babies in my arms. A couple of months ago my therapist shared a scripture with me along the lines of " How you are comforted, you will comfort" I found myself doing the things that I knew helped me when I delivered and lost Mateo. I took the stories of the women in my support group, the things they regretted not doing when they were in the hospital and I advocated for my loved ones sake. I made sure she had some time with her baby to say goodbye, that she took pictures, said yes to the memory box the hospital offered. In the moment you just want to move past the experience just as quickly as you were thrust into it but I know that for healing's sake even that moment must be honored- the moment you lose your child. So we held him and talked to him and she got to say goodbye. You are never ready to say goodbye but somehow you do. And you leave the hospital with a handful of mementos instead of a baby. Moms should always leave hospitals with their babies. And you go home and you put the mementos away, and you minimize the pain and let the world convince you that it was just a miscarriage and not to worry you'll have more children. But you can't just do that when you have held your baby, when you studied the smallest hands you've ever seen and held close this little person you gave life to and then felt life go out of. So that's when you look for the mementos, and the pictures you didn't feel like taking at the time and you sit with them, grateful you have these tangible things, proof that your baby once lived in more than just your memories and for a little while you have peace despite your pain. That moment of peace is what I advocated for. So I took pictures of her and her baby, and I examined the littlest toes I have ever seen, and I spoke to him and loved him and said goodbye. I did this so his mother knew it was okay for her to. I comforted as I was comforted or as many women wish they would have been.

I recently wrote her a letter and I wanted to share parts of it. In writing her I realize just how much I have started to heal these last three months. I know I still have a long way to go but I am not quite as fragmented as I once was. I am slowly and painfully starting to be put back together.

" You and I and millions upon millions of women are now part of a very elite and sad club of the strongest women on earth. We know what it is like to create life and we know what is like to lose that life we created. I don't know why this happens to some people, and I don't know why we are the some people this happens to. What I do know is this- it does get easier. You will heal. You will cry, you will mourn, you will grieve and then in time you will let your pain go. Find comfort wherever you can. Pray, read books on child loss, go to group meetings, don't be afraid to talk about your baby and don't ever apologize for wanting to. Cry with your husband. Write in a journal- every day, every hour , your every thought if you need to. Sit with your pain, never run from it. Don't distract yourself with work. Don't minimize the situation. It's okay if this is the end of the world for a little while. That's when you realize your pain won't kill you. That's when you realize you are stronger than you ever imagined. You realize you will never take anyone you love for granted ever again. When you let yourself experience the full extent of your grief that is when you can slowly start to shed it. Piece by piece you let it go all the while exclaiming- I have felt the pain of losing a child and I have survived".

I'm surviving...

Grief and Giving Back

"Growth requires pain. – Be patient and tough, someday this pain will be useful to you. Those with the strength to succeed in the long run are the ones who lay a firm foundation of growth with the bricks that life has thrown at them. So don’t be afraid to fall apart for a little while. Because when it happens, the situation will open an opportunity for you to grow and rebuild yourself into the brilliant person you are capable of being."

I read this somewhere recently and it resonated with me in a very deep way. I feel like I am not just falling apart but also being pulled apart. Stripped and left raw and vulnerable. Then told the only way to come back together to a version of you you can be proud of- is to let people help in the rebuilding of you.

Keeping this in mind I am asking you to join me in creating a grief jar. My due date is a month away and so for the next month I am writing down the things I miss about Mateo, the things I will miss. I'm noting the wishes, desires, the things that break my heart, anything. Everything. I'm putting it in the grief jar and then in a month I am going to read through them. I'm gonna sit with them and consciously cry and feel and experience the grief around my son. And then I am going to put them away. I have a memory box for Mateo and so I will put these in his box. My grief is as much a part of our story as as my pregnancy was, as his birth was. This won't mean I am done grieving. This means I acknowledged that I want to be put back together again. Like a puzzle missing a piece- Ill never be whole again. That doesn't mean I don't get to be again. A grief jar is the tool I have for right now.

I ask you, my support system to consider keeping your own grief jar. If you share grief over Mateo with me then keep a jar with me the next month and on his due date March 25th, take a minute to grieve with me. But don't just grieve with me hat day- help me also give back. I'd like to take that day and give back to the Ronald McDonald House. They were so wonderful to me when Mateo was in the NICU. Their goal is to support families with babies in intensive care or children who need prolonged medical care. These families spend all day in the hospital with their children and volunteers are the ones who make sure these families are fed. Register to feed these families on the 25th (you have to resister ahead of time) or bake some delicious desserts and drop them off or go on their website and make a small donation- any amount will help.

I am not sure which I will do yet, maybe I'll ask some friends to help me prepare the meal and join me in dropping it off. Let people help put me back together. If Mateos grief doesn't touch you personally- make your own grief jar with your loved one you miss and love and grieve. If you aren't grieving as part of your journey right now- borrow some of mine and make sure you give back to the Ronald McDonald House somehow on the 25th.

This week should be a good connecting week. I have a support group meeting, an appointment with my therapist, and some one on ones with close friends coming up. I will rebuild with the bricks life throws at me. And I don't have to do it alone.