The choice to give up on gratitude or not, to be in or out, is a daily choice for me. Everything seems to balance on small things that can go right or wrong daily.
Things that help are:
Things that help are:
- If my living child eats well
- If I manage to complete some sort of self-care ritual
- If my husband is home for supper or lunch or five minutes
Things that destroy me are:
- My daughter throwing tantrums
- Seeing new born babies (especially boys)
- Seeing pregnant women
- Having my husband have to go to deliver another woman’s living child
- Hearing about newborn babies
- Having people tell me that “everything happens for a reason” *
* Everything happens because of something BUT everything does not happen to fulfill some greater purpose. Reasons vary in their degree of contributing to some great plan. The biggest question that occupies the conscious of most people is “Why?”
· Why everything? Why anything? If we believe that everything has a reason we lull ourselves into a false sense of security. Eg. Some one dies – “their mission must have been fulfilled.” Furthermore “The Lord will save me because I have not fulfilled my mission in life.”
· I believe without this security people would cease to function because they would be so scared of what could possibly happen to them.
· I have difficultly with the notion that there is a plan for each person’s individual life.
The bad things seem to come in waves. I can be okay for a few days and then……..
It has been four months today that I lost him. I lost part of me that day. I lost my ability to be objective or detached. My sensitivity grew exponentially.
So, regarding the daily choice not to slip into oblivion. I think grief commonly pushes people to seek escape. The problem is unless an anesthetic is used or amnesia takes place there is no way to escape your head.
I am sure that I am not so different from many other people – bereaved parents in particular. I wake up every morning and I think about my son. He is my first thought of the day. He is probably in my head eighty percent of the time.
He died the same day he was born- before he was born –stillbirth.
The word Stillborn really does not sound as terrible as it is. An outsider may say why morn someone you never knew?
I think part of the reason people who haven't experienced it don't understand completely is that they don't think about the moment the doctor tells you your baby isn't alive, and how you're in labour for how ever many hours to push out your non-living baby. That first cry that they experience, we don't. They don't realize that they leave with a baby, and we leave with a box.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great idea that you're writing this blog. Some people might better understand what it's like because of this.
oh! I also wanted to say I think that's a really cute picture of baby Steve.
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