The Tightrope

The wind is cold and biting so high above the earth.  The tightrope walker steadies herself against the chilly rush.   She bends and flexes her toes inside her leather shoes, curling her aching feet around the bundle of wires.   As her hands begin to sweat, she grips the pole a little tighter, it's heaviness spread out on either side of her weary body.  She is exhausted, having to balance for this long.  The canyon below her sprawls out from a dark and jagged crevice in dusty orange fingers, and the other side is so far away she can't even see it.   As she steps forward, her balance shifts too far to one side.  She pitches and wobbles, her heart jumping into her throat in a panic before she centers herself.  Careful.  Steady.  She takes a deep breath in, her knuckles white and her knees screaming for rest.  But there will be no rest.   There is no stopping and there is no going back.   She can only go forward.  One foot in front of the other.  One step at a time, she will cross this canyon, balancing everything she is with everything she has.   That's the key - balance.   She has to keep herself in line.  From her own posture to the position of her feet on the wire to the steadiness of the pole in her hands - it all contributes to keeping her from plummeting into the darkness below.  And it requires her complete and utter attention at all times.  The average bystander does not realize the amount of concentration it takes to stay balanced - or the amount of balance it takes to stay upright.  To her credit, she makes it look so easy.   She is graceful and poised, keeping the chaos of her racing thoughts hidden beneath her collected demeanor.  But underneath, she is terrified.  Not necessarily of falling, but of tipping.  Of giving too much attention to one side and not the other.  It is in that moment of tipping - that moment before the fall - that the terror is real.  It's not the fall itself, but the reason for it that is so upsetting.   The knowledge that she allowed herself to lean too far to one side.  That she allowed the other side to be neglected.  If she falls, it will be because she was unable to maintain equality.  If she falls, she is a failure.   She braces against the wind as it bites through the thin material of her leotard.  She takes a step.  And another.  And another.   Forward and balanced, she continues her journey across the canyon.  Head high.  Heart steady.  

Shifting

My grief is changing.  I can feel it.  It's shifting and transforming.  It's settling in.

At the beginning, everything is so raw and open.  Sorrow and rage and shock join forces in the dark and rush at you full force.  Grief stabs you repeatedly in the heart with the sharpest knives imaginable.  Blood pours, thick and metallic, from your wounds.  It bubbles up and out, choking your screams back into your throat.  The beginning is flashes of pain, thunderous screams, and gnashing teeth.   You lay on the floor, weak and beaten, helpless to do anything about the fact that all the light and goodness that once filled your soul is seeping out onto the cold tile.   You wait to die.  You are pretty sure that you will.  After all, what else could you really expect?  You have just been torn open like a gutted fish.   But, you don't.

As you lay there, bloody and broken, expecting the darkness to just take you away, you realize it's not going to.  You don't get to escape.   This is the first shift of grief.   The shift from painful chaos to sorrowed silence.  In this stage, you don't really do much of anything.  You've been ravaged by wolves and you're really too weak to even move.  So, you lie there.  Drained.  Empty.  Full of nothing but an echo of what once was but is no longer.   You wonder how you will ever get the strength to move, let alone stand.   Eventually, you do.  You wiggle your fingers and your toes.  You bend your knees and your elbows.  Slowly, slowly, slowly, you manage to pull yourself upright.  You are still a bloody mess, bits of you still raw and hanging.

This is the third shift of grief.  This is the part where you attempt to put yourself back together.  All of the pieces ripped away and torn apart - you gather them up and you try to shove them back where they belong.  Only, they don't really fit.  Some been stretched out and ripped to shreds. Other parts of you are lost forever, and you will never have them back.   So, you do the best you can with what you have left to make yourself resemble a human again.  This stage is never really, truly done.  Throughout the rest of your life, you will always have to rearrange your pieces.  Tuck things in, pull things out, move things over.  Nothing fits right, but it's what you've got.

Then comes the settling in.  Once you've figured out the basic mechanics of keeping yourself in place, you have one more thing to do.  You have to make room for your grief.  You can't leave that behind.  It's a part of you now.  It's a hard, lumpy boulder that you must fit into yourself somewhere.  You nestle it in among your soft insides, the weight of it crushing the air from your lungs.  It's heavy and cumbersome.  It makes you hunch over with effort.  Maybe one day, your muscles will gain enough strength to straighten up, but not yet.  For now, you are Quasimodo (which in Latin means almost, merely), misshapen and malformed.  You limp through your life, weary and burdened.

This is where I am now.  Carrying my grief inside like a rock.  Hard and unyielding - and as much a part of me as Kenley ever was.  It's exhausting.  Day in.  Day out.  Heaving this load around inside me.  I can't set it down.  I can't let it go.  I don't know what else to do except live with it.  So, that's what I do.  What I will continue to do until it shifts again.  

Five Months

Today, it has been five months since Kenley left this world.   150 days.   150 times I have woken up to a world without her.  150 mornings that have greeted me with a harsh and bitter reality I would give anything to change.

According to a study I found, it takes people on average 66 days of doing something repetitively before it becomes a habit.  66 times for a behavior to become automatic.  I can feel the truth in that.  66 days is just over two months.   For the first two months, waking up in the morning was excruciating because I had to relive her death as soon as my eyes opened.  I had to pull myself from the foggy haze of sleep and into the sharp and piercing reality of the day.  My daughter was gone and was not coming back.   Every day, the shock of it was a little bit less.  The disbelief drifted further and further away from me.  After the first few months, I no longer woke up in a state of denial. My habit had formed.   I woke up knowing.  I woke up accepting.   She is gone.   I am no longer stabbed in the heart anew.  I wake up with the knife permanently embedded into my chest. 

I have been told that when you are getting a tattoo, at first, it hurts a great deal, but after a while, you become numb to the needle jabbing into your flesh.  Aware of the pain, but recoiling less from it.   I feel that is an accurate comparison to what I have become.  After 150 times of waking up as a mother without her child, my pain is no longer foreign to me.   It is not surprising or shocking.   It is familiar.   After 150 mornings, I know exactly what I am opening my eyes to.   An ache that my body and soul automatically shift themselves around.   An emptiness that is just as much a part of me now as she used to be.  

Every morning, I open my eyes and, by habit, I brace myself for the pain.  I am prepared for the catch in my chest, the deep breath of sadness that shudders through me, the heaviness that wraps itself around me like a wet blanket.   Every morning, I settle myself around the jagged pieces of my shattered heart like someone with too many packages may arrange themselves into a too-small subway seat.   I wiggle myself into place, pushing the broken pieces automatically into a manageable location, and I get up and face my day.  150 times I have done this, some days more successfully than others.   I will do it an estimated 21,900 more times if I live to be 95.   21,900 times (give or take) of waking up every morning without her.   

And I will always have to do this.  I will never again wake up and just face the world.  I will always have to play this game of Tetris - arranging myself into someone that most closely resembles a whole person.   The more I do it, the more efficient I will be.   As time goes on, it will take me less time and effort to do it, but I will still have to do it.  I am slowly coming to terms with this fact.   

I miss her.  Five months...150 days...3,600 hours....216,000 minutes....time does not change that.  It never will.  

Time Heals All Wounds

Yet another quote that is untrue.  I hate it when people say this to me.   It makes me feel like my pain is being dismissed.  "I know you are hurting right now, but one day you won't, so that makes it okay."  It's not okay.  It will never be okay.  No amount of time could pass to ever make it okay.  You could travel in your TARDIS to the origin of the universe and back again and it still would not be okay.  

Time heals nothing.   Time fixes nothing.  Time cannot make things better simply by passing.  What time does is give you the tools you need to make your pain more bearable.   Time allows you to work through your grief - to take tiny bites, to chew, to swallow, to digest, and then discard what you can't hold onto. 

A year from now, I will not feel better because a year has passed.   I will feel better because I have been able to learn how to better manage my pain.  If a person is in a severe car accident and shatters their leg, it is not time that heals them.   It is surgery and physical therapy.  It is their body creating platelets and reconstructing bone and fighting infection.  If they received no medical attention and their body shut down and was unable to do what it needed to do to heal, no amount of time would fix their injury.  Their leg would still hang useless and they would still be tormented by pain.   Mental anguish is the same.  Time does nothing but to provide the vehicle for change.   It won't take us anywhere unless we fill up the tank.  And even then, some things will always hurt.

With time, we learn how to manage our pain.  We learn how to shift our insides around the shards of glass wedged in our heart so they only poke instead of slice.  We learn how to control the deluge of tears that seem to always be on the edge of our eyes.  We learn how to move that river further down - how to shift its course.  Time allows us to figure out how our brain responds to triggers and how our emotions can be affected by the outside world.   We begin to understand how we need to approach our lives in order to function with greater purpose and less impulsiveness.  We learn how to walk again after being cut off at the knees.    Time doesn't do all of this.  We do.   Time just gives us the opportunity to do it.

So, no, time does not heal all wounds.  Some wounds do not heal.   Never.  I know people say "Never say never."  Well, I'm saying it.  Some wounds never heal, and this is one of them.  Time will let me discover how best to live with this wound, but it will not heal it.  It will not make it better.  It will not make it okay.  Nothing will make it okay.   But, with time's help, I can learn how to make it bearable.  



 

Ups and Downs

Sometimes, I feel like my life is someone else's EKG printout.

I think I'm moving forward.  I think I am making progress.  Up.  Up.  Up.  "I only cried once today," I think to myself.  Only twice yesterday.  Maybe tomorrow, I won't cry at all.  And then, in an instant, I lose my footing and I plummet back down.  Splat.   And, once again, I am right where I started.  It's a constant cycle of upswings and downward spirals.  Chasing a carrot I can't seem to catch.   

I'm a child building sandcastles too close to the ocean.   I scurry around in the wet, slippery sand to build the sturdiest structure I can before the waves rush in and pull it back to sea.  I rebuild.  It is pulled under.  Over and over and over.  

It is exhausting to work so hard to hold on, knowing it is only a matter of time before I lose my grip again.  I don't know if I am getting stronger or getting weaker or not getting anything at all.  Sometimes, I feel determined to fight with everything I have.  Sometimes, I feel I can't possibly do this another second.  And then, other times, I feel nothing at all.  

I am sure my blog posts reflect this irregularity.  The post you read on any given day is only a glimpse into the moment at hand. Some posts portray my life as healing, progressing, and feeling positive.  Others talk about how I have lost hope, how much I miss her, how much this hurts.  Maybe you don't know which posts to believe.   Believe them all.  I am doing all of it all at once, and it is utter insanity.  





   

Hope

I am a member of a few message boards and online groups, and something about them all completely and utterly terrifies me.   Women several years out from their loss post about how meaningless and empty their lives still are.   They post about tears that won't sop flowing, hearts that won't stop breaking, and lives that can't move forward.   They post about how terrible their pain is.  How broken they are.   Years from their loss.  What am I supposed to do with this information?  Does this not get any better?  Does it hurt like this forever?    

What if this never gets better?  What if, in twenty years, my heart still gapes open like a gunshot wound?   What if, after trying so hard to climb this cliff face, I discover there isn't anything at the top?   Just a tiny plateau and another cliff to climb?  

I might put on a good front - a brave face - but underneath it all, I am still sad and broken and scared.  I have learned to live in this new life, but that doesn't mean I am accepting of it.  Every day, I shake my fists in anger.  Every day, I wipe away tears I can't keep in.  I keep hoping that the sharp edges of my pain will dull.  After all, I am working so hard to make that happen.  But, it hasn't yet.  And what if it never does?  

The thought of that terrifies me more than anything I can imagine.  A lifetime of this?  Could you do it?  Could you wake up every day with a part of you missing, knowing it will never be filled?  Could you walk around with daggers in your heart, knowing they will only keep slicing you deeper and deeper?  Maybe if you had a glimmer of hope.  A speck of a promise that it won't always hurt so bad.  It won't always be so hard.  

I cling to hope.   Hope that this pain will ease.   Hope that I will regain my footing.   Hope that my life will one day have color and light again.  Hope that moving forward is possible, that finding joy is possible, that I won't be stuck in heartbreak forever.   Hope is all I have.   And I am terrified that hope is a lie.   A soft, warm lie we tell ourselves so that we don't give up.  So, we keep fighting.  

But, what happens if there is no hope?  What then?

Saturday Spotlight #13

This week's photography project was 100 Steps.   My assignment was to walk 100 steps from a starting point and take some pictures.  The point of this particular assignment is to get us out of the house at a time it may be difficult to do so.  Had I started this project in March, this would have been helpful.  When you are first fighting grief, the outside world is terrifying.  100 steps doesn't sound so bad.  It's doable.  While this summer has not been at all what I had planned or even wanted, it has taken me all across the country.    For my 100 Steps project, I picked a few starting points during my trip to Boston and I took pictures where I ended up.   (The journal assignment to accompany these photos was to write about what I am grateful for.  I decided to do that as a separate post.  It's entitled Gratitude and should be posted at the same time as this one.)

My sister is training to run her first marathon in October, so she was starstruck by the Boston Marathon course.  One of her goals for our time there was to walk up Heartbreak Hill.  So, we took the T to Boston College armed with our smartphones.  Using a clever mixture of Wikipedia, Google Maps, and some helpful locals, we were able to find the start of the hill, at mile marker 20 of the marathon's course - and three miles from our train stop.  I thought it fitting that my 100 steps begin at the bottom of a hill named after the moment someone's heart was broken.   I snapped a picture of Kenley's Boston K at the bottom of the hill and then began to walk as I counted to 100.

100 steps isn't really all that far.  It was just enough to get about four houses up the hill.   In the corner of the yard where we stopped, there was an old, gnarled tree stump.  It reminded me of the trees I pictured while writing this post.  The only difference is the trees in that post were looming over me and this one had been cut down to a stump.  A stump is a defeated tree.  To me, this stump meant more to me than just a tree that once was.  It was a symbol of my grief.  Cut down to size by all of my efforts to heal.   I used black and white for this picture for the obvious reasons of how sometimes the world seems gray and colorless, and no matter how hard I might work to chop this forest down, the stumps will always remain.  For the rest of my life, all of my victories will always be bittersweet.  

Across the sidewalk from the stump was a round traffic mirror attached to a tree.  There are so many different ways I could take this symbolism, but I have chosen to look at it like this: the mirror is a reflection of myself and how I have changed in this journey.   It reflects down to the bottom of Heartbreak Hill.   It shows me where I have been, the path I have taken to get here.  The reflection is distorted, like memories are distorted with grief and pain.   I can look in that mirror all I want.  I can focus in on where I have been and how much it hurts - or I can turn away and focus on the road ahead.  I choose to move forward.

I took a few other pictures at this location, but they weren't all that exciting.  I do, however, want to tell you about a few pictures I took several hundred steps later.  At the very top of Heartbreak Hill.  The trek down to the base from our train was rainy and gray.  The mugginess of the air rivaled Florida on it's worst days.  It was oppressive and heavy.  As we crossed the street to begin the 100 steps, the air started to clear a little bit.  The thick cloud cover began to break apart like a crumbling cookie, and a cool breeze managed to find its way through the sticky stillness.   Walking uphill somehow seemed easier than walking down in the first place.  The top of Heartbreak Hill is crowned by Boston College.  Obviously, I needed to get a picture of Kenley here, so I did.  

But, the remarkable part of this trek up the hill was the sky when I reached the top.   The clouds had parted.  The threatening storm dissipated.  The weight of air lightened.   At the top of the hill, directly above me, was this sky. 

A parting grief to make way for the sunlight of days to come.  I am not finished with this journey.  I have reluctantly realized I will never be.  Heartbreak Hill is here to stay.  So, I'll lace up my sneakers and pound that pavement. I will walk this path until the day I die.  The road may smooth a bit.  The clouds may drift away.  But, I will still be here.  Walking.  Fighting.  Living.  

Worn Out

I scheduled posts through yesterday because I figured, surely I'll have some time before Friday to get something written.  I am exhausted.  Mentally and physically.   I have been running all over this nation for the last month and I need a nap.  

While I have had a wonderful time seeing friends and family, I also have been very painfully aware that none of these trips should have occurred.  Instead of traipsing through Seattle, I should have been nursing my baby.   Instead of taking a ghost tour in New Orleans, I should have been changing her diapers. And, instead of eating delicious lobster with my sister in Boston, I should have been rocking Kenley to sleep.  It is so hard to reconcile the life I am leading with the life I should have had.  How can I enjoy anything when it comes to me so tainted?  

I am tired of feeling I have to justify my actions to myself.  I am tired of living a life that shouldn't be mine - yet so cruelly is.  

I'll get there.  I am sure one day, way down this twisting path, there is a point where the life that has been forced upon me is the one I finally have made my own.   But, not yet.  Not today.  I still wake up every day with a feeling in my gut that this is not supposed to be the way it is.   I still feel empty and incomplete.  My eyes focus on a world where I don't belong - and I ache everyday to return to the one where I do.   This is not my life.

Saturday Spotlight #12

                                 Light

I am in the second week of my photography course.  This week asked me to focus on light - in my pictures and in my life.  What does light mean to me?  My photos also were to focus around one object that means something to me.  A few weeks ago, an old friend was able to get me a ticket to Disney World and we went for the day.  While we were in EPCOT, we came across a collection of various colored owl figurines in Japan - much like those Lucky Cat figurines, where each color represents luck in a different aspect of life.  Red symbolized good fortune in heath and children.  Obviously, I needed that one.  So, my pictures this week contain that figurine in different lighting scenarios.  

      Flat Light  / Natural Light

There are days when my life seems gray and flat.  Where there aren't true shadows, but there isn't really any true color either.  I feel a blanket of dullness wrapped around me.  Not sharp, jagged pain or profuse bleeding of my soul - but a steady sense of sadness.   Heavy.  Unyielding.  All encompassing.  I search for joy in these days and I come up empty handed.  These are the days where I am the least productive.  These are the days where I can't write or paint or create at all.     

These are the days when I feel truly stuck in my grief.  Bogged down by a feeling of nothingness, these are the days when my stare is empty and my mind is blank.  These are the days when I am truly just a shell.  Human on the outside, hollow on the inside.  Sometimes, I feel like these are the worst days.  Even when I am in my greatest anguish, at least I am feeling something.   These flat days of gray are the most frightening to me.  Where I haven't only lost my daughter, but also myself.  

                                                                 Backlight                                                                   

  I often feel pigeon-holed in my grief process.  I feel like some people think I should be in one place, when I am in another.  I feel trapped inside a cage I made myself.  That's what happens when you are so vocal with your journey - people start paying close attention to your steps - and often wonder why you are taking them.  The light in this picture is harsh and glaring.  Scrutinizing.  Part of the anxiety I am beginning to feel about going back to work is a result of feeling watched.  

There is a spotlight on me now:  Mother of  Loss.  I lost my baby.  I am grieving.  How am I dealing with it?  Can I do a good job handling my grief and teaching my class at the same time?   I dread the sad eyes of well-meaning people.  I dread having to say "I'm ok" when I'm really not.  Or "No, seriously, I'm ok", when I actually am.   I hate feeling like I have to explain myself all the time.  I wish I could just magically beam how I am directly into the brains of other people.  That would solve so many problems.                                                                                                      

    Shadow

When I took this picture, this entire branch was in direct sunlight.  The shadow is my arm and hand blocking the sun.  This picture is one of protection.   I am very protective of Kenely's memory.  I want to shield her from harsh words or misconceptions.  But, at the same time, I want to share her with the world.  That is a really hard balance to achieve.    I hear other mothers of loss talk about being reluctant to share pictures of their babies - to talk about their babies - and I totally get that.  
The world does not understand that babies die.  Our grief is often swept under the rug.  People get shifty when we talk about our children, or when we are visibly upset about our loss.  So, sometimes, we hold back.  We shield ourselves and our babies by staying silent because seeing someone cringe at our grief breaks our heart almost as much as the loss itself.  I try to be as honest as I can in this blog, but I will admit, you don't read everything.  There are some things I don't share because I just can't.  It's too much for me to process - and I fear if I write it down, it won't be taken the way I intend it to be.  So, I protect her and I protect myself from the harsh glare of a world that doesn't understand.

                                          

                                                                             Low Light

In this picture, the owl can barely be seen.  She is surrounded by blur and dark.  Even though there are patches of light near her, she is not in them. She is lost.  She sees the light, but isn't sure how to step into it.  And when she does, it is still too dim.  She still can't really see in the darkness.  
This picture is the best representation of where I am right now.  I am trying so hard to work through this tangled mess that my life has become.  With all honesty, I can say that I have never worked so hard at anything in my entire life.  This is the most difficult thing I have ever done, and I imagine it will be the most difficult thing I will ever do. 
It's hard to search for light when your life is so dark.   It's hard to accept that finding light and joy will not negate your feelings of loss.   I think so many people stay in the darkness because they feel that being happy again is betraying their child's memory.  How dare I be happy again?  How dare I try to find hope and joy and light?   The only way to show my love is to commit to suffer.   It's a huge hurdle to overcome, but I am trying my best.  I want to step into that light, while still remembering the dark.  I am working on honoring her memory through things that bring me joy.  I am trying to hold on to that joy for as long as I can.  For now, light is short lived.  I am in the dark a lot.  But, every day, I try again.  Every day, I reach for the light.   One day, I will hold on to it.  One day, it won't slip through my fingers.  


In my life, light means many things.  It is a spotlight for scrutiny, but it is also a feeling of hope and joy.  Like everything in life, it has more than one aspect.  Right now, my journey is walking that tightrope between light and shadow, publicity and privacy, hope and despair.  Like always, I do my best with what I have.  Day in.  Day out.  All day long.  

What You Don't Know

You might think you know what my life has become.    You might imagine some residual heartbreak on the edges of my days...but hey...I'm going on vacation.   I'm posting fun pictures from my trip.   I'm making jokes and witty comments on status updates. I'm spending time with friends.   Things must be getting better.   I'm back to my old self again, right?    No.  

 My old self is dead.   

 I said goodbye to her when I said goodbye to my daughter.   I will never be back to my old self because there is no "old self" anymore.   Nothing remains of her.   Nothing.   

When Kenley died, everything I was imploded and then turned to dust.  That dust scattered into the winds and is irrevocably gone.    What remained was a hollowed shell, the insides charred and scarred, the outside blank and vacant.   And so, I was left to rebuild.  Everything.   Everyone who has walked in these shoes knows that rebuilding yourself after the death of your child starts from the outside first.   We learn to appear normal again.   

 We learn to smile, not just with our mouths, but with our eyes.  That's what makes it believable.   We learn to convey some sort of spark of life behind our eyes, even if its not really there.   We learn to recreate realistic laughter.   The kind that comes from the gut and not the throat. It involves more air and effort, but the results are worth it in the long run.   We are conscious of where we put our hands...keep them away from the belly and keep them steady so that no one asks questions.   We learn how to interact with people again.   Make eye contact, keep them wide and bright.   Turn up the corners of your mouth, just slightly, so your features look softened and relaxed.  Try to make light physical contact if appropriate.  Don't cringe when someone touches you uninvited.   Turn toward and not away when in conversation.   Ask questions about their life and respond in kind.   (Remember...everyone means well.  No matter what they say or what they do...everyone means well. )

Everything that used to be routine is now calculated and rehearsed.  What would a non-grieving person do in this situation?  How would they react?  We think about it and then we do it.  Carefully.  Methodically. To the very best of our ability.  We assess all situations before allowing ourselves to get fully involved - to make sure it won't be too much for us to handle.   You can imagine the amount of effort it takes to live life like this.  It's enormous.  

Then, you might want to say to us, "Hey...you don't have to pretend.  You can just act the way you feel.  We will all understand."   The fact that you think to say this shows that you, indeed, do not understand.  We DO have to put on this mask.  We DO have to work hard at showing the world that we aren't dying inside, when we are.   If we allowed ourselves to act the way we feel, we would be coming apart at the seams.  All the time.  We force ourselves to look normal so we can feel normal - so we can have some sort of order to the chaos our insides have become.   

So, yes, I am going out with friends.  I am taking trips and standing behind causes.   I talk.  I smile.  I hug.   And it is all very, very hard work.   I work hard at functioning just so I can continue to function.  Every.  Single.  Day.

Maternity Pictures

In the immediate days and weeks following Kenley's death, I couldn't look at pictures taken of me before we lost her.  I couldn't stand to see a picture of my swollen belly, of my smiling face, of happier times.  When scrolling through photos on my phone or tagged pictures on facebook, I knew exactly which picture marked the point of no return - the picture I could not swipe past unless I wanted to unleash the deluge of tears that was always perched so precariously behind my eyes.   That boundary was hard and fast and I didn't dare test it.   I knew what would happen.  I knew seeing a photo from my baby shower would send me into a downward spiral.   A snapshot of me eating spaghetti from a bowl on my stomach would rip my heart in half.  But, my maternity pictures were the worst.  Those were the ones that really unraveled me to the core.  

When you take maternity pictures, you plan for weeks what outfit you are going to wear.  You think about what will showcase your silhouette in the most flattering way.  If you pick an outfit out today - are you sure it will still fit that way when the photo shoot comes around?  You want to look adorable and pregnant, but not fat.   (My legs and ankles were so freakishly swollen, I made my photographer shoot from the knees up for most pictures)  Once you have your outfit(s) picked out, then you have to think of your husband's.  He should coordinate, but not match.  When you ask him what he wants to wear, he shrugs and says he doesn't know..he'll figure it out.   You think about all the maternity pictures you have ever seen in your life and make a list in your mind about the ones you loved and the ones that made you cringe.  You go to your photographer with your ideas.   You bring props.   It's a big deal.   At least it was for me.

To me, my maternity pictures remind me not only of the daughter I lost, but of the care and time and effort I put into making my first photos of her special.   Seeing them make me remember my excitement and anticipation over becoming a mother.   They make me remember the joy I felt in being so close  - yet so far away.   Looking at those pictures, I don't just think of losing Kenley, I think of losing the woman I was in those photos.   The happy, carefree mother -to -be whom I can never be again.  The innocence captured in those pictures is precious and fragile.   It would be shattered less than a month later - and it will never be recovered.   That's a hard thing to accept.  It's a little like a Titanic survivor looking at a photo of the mighty ship docked at port.  How grand!  How majestic!  How could we have known it was doomed?

Today, looking at pictures from my maternity shoot is a little less painful than it was at the beginning.   Not much, but still some.   Part of what I am trying to do to heal is to remember the joy simply for what it was - joy.  I can't dwell on the fact that it was shattered - that I was shattered.  My pregnancy is the only thing I have to remember her.  I have no other memories - and I am determined to salvage the joy within them.  If I let myself get caught up in the dark side of remembering, then I will never be able to find happiness when I think of my daughter.   I refuse to let myself get bogged down in that swamp - to let her memory, her light and wonderful memory, be soiled by sadness.   So, now, when I look at my maternity pictures, I push away the sorrow as hard as I can.   It's still there, but not as thick.  It doesn't cloud the entire picture.  I look at myself smiling and I remember her kicking inside.  I remember her alive.  My baby - alive.   That is how I want to think of her.  As a swirling ball of arms and legs inside my belly - a kicking and punching ninja who made me beam with joy simply because she was alive.  I will remember her.  I will remember being happy.   And I will smile because I had that time with her.   It's not easy.  It's a very conscious effort - but I am doing it.  

 Just because a story ends in tears, it doesn't mean we forget about the middle, where there was joy.
I will remember her with joy because that's who I am - and that's what she deserves.  

Brave

In the three months since my life split into two, I have met several completely amazing women.  All of them at different points in their journey.  All of them hurting with the same pain.  A wonderful thing about human nature is that we come together in times of trouble.   Heartbreak unites us.  Those who share a common thread are tied together.   When I know another woman has experienced this tragedy, I immediately want to reach out my hand to her.  I want to give her hugs and be her friend.   I am not the only one.  This seems like a very common attitude.   We hold each other very dear.    All of us.  All the time.  I've called it a Sisterhood before and it is.  We are sisters, walking this path hand in hand in hand, pulling each other forward, holding each other up, allowing each other to rest.

As you know, this journey is not an easy one.   It's an uphill battle every day, but we do it.  Sometimes because we want to - but mostly because we have to.   Move forward or die trying.  Every day, each one of us wakes up and faces her day without her child.   Every day, each one of us goes through hundreds of mundane tasks that should be easy, but are not because nothing is routine anymore.  Every day, each one of us pulls herself up by her bootstraps and goes out into a world that doesn't understand her.  Every day, each one of us has so much to say, but can't always say it because not everyone wants to hear it.

Let me tell you, it takes courage to live a life like this. When our children died, our lives lost all meaning.  We felt we had no purpose, no direction, no future.  We had to rebuild from the ground up.  Everything.  All of it.  We want to live our lives the same way everyone else does, but our perspective has completely shifted and we see the world in a totally different light.   And we know that the world sees us differently too.   We see the look in your eyes when we talk about our children.  We see you flinch when we bring up our pregnancy or a memory we have of our life just before loss.   We see you waiting in shifty uneasiness to see if we are going to make it through this conversation with you without tears.  We are well aware of our scarlet letter, and we are all doing the very best we can each and every day to wear it with dignity and pride, despite the various attitudes toward it.    We face the world with deep breaths, with our shoulders squared, and our heart on our sleeve.

To my sisters in loss, to the proud mothers of Hunter, Avery, Keelin, Josie, Brooke, Tyler, Matthew, Zoe, Ava, Gabriel, Joseph, Jack, Olivia, Janessa, and Declan,  I'd like to say you are my hope.   You help me see that life without my daughter is hard, but not impossible.   You inspire me to continue with my efforts to find meaning in the meaningless.   To those I have met and those I have yet to meet, you are so brave, whether you think you are or not.   Just the fact that you are here, reading this, living without your baby, proves it.

On a day when you don't want to get out of bed because it's too much, think about the rest of us who are fighting the same fight.   You are our sister and we love you, whether we've met you or not.  We fight with you.  When you feel you can't walk, we will hoist you on our shoulders.  When you feel lost and alone, we will hold your hand in the dark.   When you can't find your voice, we will speak for you, and we will say what you need us to say.   So, get up, put on your gloves, and show the world how brave you really are!

Brave

by, 

Sara Bareilles

You can be amazing

You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug

You can be the outcast

Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love

Or you can start speaking up

Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do

And they settle ‘neath your skin

Kept on the inside and no sunlight

Sometimes a shadow wins

But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I wanna see you be brave

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down

By the enemy

Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing

Bow down to the mighty

Don’t run, stop holding your tongue

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence

Won’t do you any good

Did you think it would?

Let your words be anything but empty

Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say

And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I just wanna see you

I wanna see you be brave

Transition

It happens slowly, like a plant bending and curling its leaves toward the sun.   You don't notice it happening, you just notice that is has. The slow crawl from dream-like denial to an unwelcome acceptance.  My life has transitioned.  Not really forward or backward - really more to the side.   But, it is different from the first days.  Not better or worse.  Not lighter or darker.   Different.

I have transitioned from the chaos of pain and disbelief into the recognition of reality.  This reality.  My reality.   The reality that exists without my daughter.
It still hurts.  It still feels as if I am missing an important part of myself - which I am - but I no longer wake up in the morning thinking she will be here. That little glimmer of misguided hope is now completely extinguished.  I didn't really notice it was fading, but it was.   And now, it's gone.   This is my life.  This is where I am.  This is who I am because of it.   There is no return. No magic potion.   No miraculous machine.   This is it.

As a result of this transition, my life is in limbo.  I hover in the grayness between death and life.  The death of my daughter and the life I still have to lead.   I know she is gone and she is not coming back.   I have accepted my fate as a mother without her child.  This loss will always, always, always be a part of who I am.   From now on, everything that happens will do so as a ripple from that heavy stone cast into the water.   But, I am not entirely sure how to live my life without her.   There are so many things I should be doing right now that I am not, so many things I will never do until there is another baby. I should be changing diapers and wiping up spit up.   I should be washing onesies and fastening car seats.   But, I am not - and I will not for at least another year.  So, I wait.   

I have transitioned into waiting.  I am still mourning.  I am still hurting.  I am still shaking my fist in anger.  But, now I am also waiting.   Waiting for my life as a mother to resume.  Waiting for a part of me to feel whole again.

Even when there are more children - even when my daily life is full of what it should be - there will always be a part missing.  That is what I have come to accept.   The hole in my heart will never heal.  It will become less jagged around the edges, but it will always be open and weak.  I will always ache for her.  The joy I find in life from now on will always be tinged with a little bit of sorrow - because she is not here to share it with me.   

That is the transition.   The movement from "Dear God, why?!" to "So, that's how it is."   This is it.   She is gone.  I am here.  And life goes on.  Day after day after day.  I will wake up without her.  I don't really know how to do that - but I do it anyway.  And I will for the rest of my life.

Packing Up

Unless you are a teacher - or married to one - you might not know that we have to pack up our rooms at the end of every school year.   We can't just leave all the desks in their locations, the pencils on the counters, and the books on the shelves.   We have to put things in bins or cabinets.  We have to stack the desks and chairs.  Everything is tucked away and secured.  This is so the custodians can use the summer to deep clean the classrooms.  This is what I have to go do today - and I probably couldn't want to do anything less.
Wednesday was the last day for students.  Thursday was the teachers' last day.   For that exact reason, I told my principal I would be in on Friday. Not that I don't want to see anyone - but I don't want to see anyone.

Going back to school stresses me out.  I have actually had several nightmares about going back.  In them, I am surrounded by sad eyes and condolences, and when I try to get up and teach, I can't because I am so overwhelmed.  My school family surrounded me with love when Kenley died.   They sent cards and food.   They sent money to help with our expenses.   Some people stopped by to see how we were.    They are all wonderful, wonderful people, but I'm not ready.   I'm not ready to be back there and see everyone all at once.  Hopefully, today, the halls will be mostly empty.  Only a few people might still be there finishing up their rooms.  

Besides my own home, school is where I spent a majority of my pregnancy.  I walked those halls from the very first day of school with Kenley in my belly.  As time went on, I waddled them.   From day one, I was pregnant.   From the beginning of August till the end of February, Kenley and I went to school every day together.   Today is my first day going without her.  And I am scared.   I am scared I will walk into my classroom - the room I left that fateful day thinking I'd be back the next - and just lose it.   I am scared everything I have to organize and sort and put away will bring back memories of my students, to whom I never got to say goodbye.  I am scared that it will all be too overwhelming and I will just fall apart in the middle of the room, surrounded by piles of things I haven't seen in three months.

I don't want to go.   I want it to just magically organize and pack itself.  I'm just not ready.  But, it has to be done.  And I am a grown up, and I do what I am supposed to do.   So, here goes nothing.

Pink Part One

I have always been a fan of Pink - the musician, not the color.  Her songs usually fall into one of two categories:  Badass Attitude or Meaningful Melody.   Songs like So What, Stupid Girls and Don't Let Me Get Me are anthems to individuality with an upbeat bass.  They are songs to dance to - to jog to (if you're into that sort of thing) - to clean your house to.   Some of her songs are filled with anger and rage.  Others are simple determination.   Pink has always refused to pigeon hole herself into the female pop star role, and I admire that about her.  I always have.

Her new album has spoken to me more than any other though.  It's partially because of what I am going through - and partially because she's just basically amazingly talented.  Not all of her songs are rock beats that may or may not drop the F-bomb.  Many of them are stunningly beautiful, soul-bearing, and heart-breaking.  The raw vulnerability she shows in her songs has always spoken to me - as a writer, as a woman, and as someone who knows what it's like to feel so violently.   There are a lot of her songs that apply to my life these days and those will be coming up in some future posts.   This one though, is about her single "Just Give Me a Reason", which is a duet with Nate Ruess, the lead singer of Fun.  To sum up the song, it's about a couple who has experienced some hard times in their relationship and are trying to figure things out again.  The song begins with these words: 

Right from the start

You were a thief

You stole my heart

And I your willing victim

I let you see the parts of me

That weren't all that pretty

And with every touch 

you fixed them

If those aren't the perfect words to describe my relationship with Mike, I don't know what is.   In the first 30 years of my life, I kept guys at arm's reach.  I never let them get too close.   When I met Mike, everything changed.  Suddenly and completely.   He is my other half - there is no question.

The song continues with Pink being concerned that something has changed in their relationship and she is afraid he is pulling away.   At the same time, Nate begins to sing his part and tells her that she is making things up.  He loves her just as much as always.  She's not interpreting things the way they truly are.   He doesn't understand what she's feeling.  She doesn't understand what he's feeling.   

This is what it is like to lose your child.   Men and women grieve so differently, it is so easy to misinterpret your spouse's actions and intentions.  Men are able to compartmentalize their emotions and deal with them in a more matter of factly kind of way.   To their wives, this seems callous and cold.   A woman fears he isn't grieving or that he doesn't understand  the complexity of her grief.  She is falling apart, why isn't he?   The poor man doesn't understand why his wife is having so much trouble with her emotions. Why can't she sort through them rationally?  Why is everything spilling out of her all the time?  The thing is - both of them are grieving.  Both of them are doing things correctly and the way they need to - it's just lost in translation.  This is where communication is so important.

In the song, the two are trying to communicate with each other.  They are trying to tell the other one what they need and how they feel.  They sing the chorus together:

Just give me a reason

Just a little bits enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent

And we can learn to love again

It's in the starsIt's been written in the scars on our heartsThat we're not broken just bentAnd we can learn to love again
Just give me a reasonJust a little bit's enoughJust a second we're not broken just bentAnd we can learn to love again

Statistically, 16% of marriages do not survive the loss of a child. Objectively, I can see why. Loss changes you. When you build a relationship on who you are, when you change, the relationship also changes. If you're not willing to work on staying together - you won't. The loss will divide you. Personally, though, I am not worried.


When your heart is broken in the same places as the one you love, you have to relearn how to make it beat again. Even if you have no idea what the other person is talking about, you try your best to understand. You make yourself realize that this person is in just as much pain and needs just as much support as you do. You look at your life together as more than what it once was. Before, you loved each other with a carefree innocence - skipping through a meadow of lavender. But now, you are both hobbled by this loss and you aren't really sure how to pick yourselves up and walk on your splintered legs. So, you lean on each other. You bind your broken bones to theirs, you wrap your arms around them, and you limp forward. Slowly. Painfully. But together. And we are doing that.


That's what Pink's song says to me. Life is so much harder than it used to be. We are different. Who we are is different. How we react to things is different. But our love is the same. We don't love each other any less. We don't value each other any less. In fact, I think we value each other more.
The scars on our hearts are healing together. And even though this tragedy has covered us in dirt and muck and pain, "we'll come clean".

                                    



 

Forward

Over the last few months, I have met many women who have experienced the loss of their baby.  Through Cherishing the Journey, message boards, and facebook, I have come to learn of many heartbreaks as we walk together in this journey.   One of my closest confidantes right now is a woman I have never met who lives in what I like to call the Great, White North, but what is really just Massachusetts.    We chat on facebook all the time and sometimes text.   She lost her son only a few months before we lost Kenley for very similar reasons, so we have that in common.   Over the last few months, she has become not only someone I can vent to about random feelings and irritating issues, but someone who I enjoy talking to, and who's friendship I greatly treasure.  It's wonderful to have someone who truly understands what I am going through.  I like to think that I am as helpful and supportive to her as she has been for me.  We were chatting recently about various issues and I said something to the effect of moving forward instead of moving on.  I know she knows what I mean by that, but I figured I would tell you.

I have developed an aversion to the phrase "moving on".  It rubs me the wrong way.  Moving on implies that you are leaving something behind.   It implies you are getting away from something.  Heading towards bigger and better things.   When you lose a child, none of that is true, yet you still need to find a way to go on with your life.   You want to heal from your massive wounds.  You want to find a way to not hurt so much.  You want to remove the shackles that tie you to your pain - but you don't want for one second to forget about your child.   It's a very difficult balance.

Because no mother is willing - or able - to give up any pieces of her child for any reason, moving on is impossible.   We will never leave them behind.  We will crawl naked over shards of glass before we would consider going through life without them.   Sadly, Mothers of Loss have little choice.  Our babies are not here, not physically.   They are memories.  Whispers of love on our broken hearts.  Their absence creates giant holes in our lives.  Great, gaping chasms of darkness that can only be filled by our love for them.  So we have the world's greatest dilemma.   How do we release our pain without releasing our love?  Normally, people feel at peace when they have "let go" of what troubles them.  Letting go of our children is impossible for us.  So, we will never move on.   Not in a million lifetimes.  We will carry our children - and our pain - with us wherever we go.

What we will do, though, is move forward.   Before our loss, we were like a car with four fully functional tires and a full tank of gas.  We moved at an appropriate speed, smoothly and gracefully.  However, we hit a stop stick, flipped over a few times, and exploded.  Now, all of our tires are shredded, our body is dented and ripped away, and all of our fuel has detonated.  With all of this damage, you'd think the insurance company would just "total" us, but it doesn't.   The world completely expects us to rebuild ourselves and keep going.   So that's what we do.   We take every piece of ourselves and we keep going.   Every slice of burnt rubber, every shard of glass, every chunk of metal.  We gather it up and piece it back together the best we can.   And we move forward.  We are broken and slow, but we press on.   We have to stop and rest more than we did before - and we definitely can't go on any highways - but we keep going.  And we carry our pain with us.    It hurts to go through life like this, but we aren't about to trade in for a new car.  We aren't going to leave any bit behind.  

We will always hurt.  Always.  We will not leave our children behind - and so we can not leave our pain behind.  We will not move on.  We will not forget our past.  We will not forget what has brought us to where we are.  In order to remember our babies, we have to remember why they aren't here with us.  Our children and our pain are intertwined so we can't let go of either.   But, we can find a way to carry on.  Our love is glue and welded metal.  Our love patches our tires and seals the cracks in our windshield.   Our love cushions the sharp shards of glass we can't fix and fuels the gas tank.  It does everything it can to keep our car on the road.  While we know we are unlike most of the other cars - bright and shiny cars that have no problem keeping up with the speed limit - we are still moving.  Forward - not On. We never learn to move on from it - but we do learn how to live with it.  We carry it all with us.  Our memories. Our pain. Our love.  All equal parts of us.  All part of what pushes us forward. 

For the Rest of my Life

The other day, Mike and I went with some friends to see Oblivion, the new Tom Cruise movie.   As far as futuristic movies go, it was pretty good.  What makes most movies like this good is that one moment - about midway to three quarters of the way through - when the plot takes a completely unexpected turn.   You are so sure you've figured out what's going on and then one scene turns everything on it's ear.  This movie has one of those moments.   Not necessarily the epic "Sixth Sense" kind of twist, but still a pretty good "Whoa, I did not see that one coming!"  I left the theater fairly entertained.   However, something else unexpected happened in this movie.  I cried.  (Although, considering my track record lately, maybe it's not really that unexpected.)   
Here's how tears hijacked my movie experience:
One scene in the movie is a reunion scene (I won't tell you between which characters).  It's a very typical type of reunion scene in that it takes place in an outdoor area near a lot of flowers and a babbling brook.  There's a soft but visible wind blowing through the tall grass and a rising symphony of strings in the background.   As I am enjoying this fairly action driven story line, my mind blissfully empty of active thoughts of my daughter (a very rare moment), what should pop up above the vegetation, but a head of dark hair.  A head of dark hair attached to a toddler.   A toddler with blue eyes.  The movie actually had the gall to go into slow motion at that moment.  The girl turned her head and smiled, her chubby little cheeks crinkling, her blue eyes sparkling like the ocean.  And...BAM!   Tears.   Rising hot from my gut and then streaming down my face.   This wasn't a sad moment of the movie, nor a particularly emotional one for the casual observer.  It was, in reality, a simple resolution of plot. But, for me, it was a broken promise.   A reminder of what isn't and will never be.
For the rest of my life, I will see little girls with dark hair and blue eyes and I will think of Kenley.   (Although, I never actually got to see my daughter's eyes.  They were closed when they brought her to me and to pry them open was unthinkable.  But, Mike has blue eyes.  So, I am going to go ahead and assume she would have too.)  For the rest of my life, I will catch a glimpse of two swinging dark pigtails, and I will wonder...would Kenley have had those pigtails too?   Would she have liked giraffes like the toddler across the restaurant with her stuffed animal? (possibly) Would she have been sassy like the third grader at the park with her hands on her hips?  (most definitely) For the rest of my life, I will watch my little girl grow up in the bodies of other people.  Always wondering, but never knowing, what she really would have been like.  For the rest of my life, I will miss her.  That will never change.  For the rest of my life, she will always be a part of me.  A part of me I reach for, but can't completely grasp.   For the rest of my life...