Month: April 2016

Forever in My Heart Friday. FIMHF. Week 40. There is no glue for my broken heart, no elixir for my pain, no going back in time. For as long as I breathe, I will grieve and ache and love my daughter with all my heart and soul. This week proved to be a pivotal one for me as I watched things unfold around me that I couldn’t control, that being the weather. I slowly endured the state of anxiety and panic as Tuesday came and we were under a tornado watch. In the past, I have always been that person that was not afraid of the storms. My grandfather was a storm chaser and the thrill of storms and the possibility of tornados always excited me, as I have seen many in my life. I always took the necessary precautions with supplies in the basement. Kids and I ready to retreat if needed into safety. I have always been one to say that everything is materialistic and as long as I have my children safe with me, everything else could be replaced. You can’t replace the lives of the ones you love. But now my perspective on all of that has been altered drastically. Now all I have left of my daughter, who died, is materialistic items. I cling to those. I cherish each drawing she did in pre-school, her baby book, her school papers that I kept over the years, the pieces of hair I took from her head as I unbraided it in that hospital room after she passed away. That is all I have, memories and materialistic treasures. As the storm clouds moved in I was consumed with unbelievable panic and apprehension. I felt as if I was going crazy, losing control of myself.  Of course I couldn’t tell anyone I felt as if I was going crazy. I’m supposed to be the strong one right? But my situation began to feel hopeless and my thoughts were jumbled.   I rushed around the house and started to rip her pictures down that were framed on the walls.  Grabbing bags and filling them with anything and everything I could find around the house that was hers.  I packed up the curio cabinet filled with her ashes, candles, gifts that people sent, pictures that her brother and sister have made in grief counseling, everything from the funeral, the white dress that was cut in half by the mortician that I wanted her to wear that was sent back, the hospital bag of her belongings that included the clothes she wore last when she was alive, Barney slippers, personal hygiene items, her Zumba jacket that she loved so much, that was all I was left to walk out of that hospital that horrible night without her. These are the items that I keep in my room so that I can on occasion, pull down out of the closet and hold to my face, to press against my nose and breathe her in, to feel her with me.  Items that I keep tightly wrapped in that hospital bag because I fear one day, they will no longer smell like her.  I watched as her brother and sister do the same, filled with the same panic and anxiety as me.  They begin to run around the house in panic and gather up items as well that mean the most to them.  Corban has 2 stuffed animals, both rabbits that he received in grief counselling.  One is “Cuddles Myesha”; the other is “Little Myesha”.  As we all carry bag after bag down to the basement in hopes that if the inevitable strikes we won’t lose what little we have left of Myesha, the materialistic stuff that never would have mattered until now.  But the storms passed.  Or have they?  I have now been confronted in an extremely painful and stressful paradox; faced with a situation in which I must deal both with the grief caused by Myesha’s death and now with the inherent need to continue to hold on to as much of her as possible. Then the next day, to only be recon fronted with the pain of putting everything back in its proper place, my grief likened to a raw open wound. I know that with great care it eventually will heal but there will always be a scar. It often seems as if I’m taking one step forward and two back. Grief has its common and its unique sides.  Like a snowflake or a fingerprint, each person’s grief has characteristics all its own.  I find it’s more helpful to remind myself that I do not have to have a timetable of how I should feel, or when I will get better. All I can do is take one day at a time, or half a day, or one hour at a time is sometimes more realistic. It may take much longer than I would like before my zest in life returns. Undoubtedly there are no rules, no boundaries, and no protocols for grieving.  Mommy loves you Myesha. FIM <3 F.

Forever in My Heart Friday. FIMHF. Week 40. What did I do to deserve this life? Why me?  Thoughts that can’t be avoided when suffering strikes. As a result, I am left to live a life of unanswered questions. Unanswered questions that impact the way we feel about God and his mercy. I constantly search my conscience for some sin in my life that God must be punishing for. The constant questioning of “What is God trying to tell me through all my pain?” It leaves me feeling numb. Questions unanswered that often make me question God’s fairness. If, in fact, God is all-competent and all-powerful, doesn’t that imply God controls every detail of life? Why doesn’t God intercede on a more regular basis to save us from an endless ocean of grief that accompanies events like the death of a child? The Bible says God sometimes chooses to use the worst human suffering imaginable in order to achieve his great purposes, his pre-designed purposes if you will. To change us for our own good. God allows suffering to occur because he is actively involved in bringing redemption through our sufferings. That’s why we must live in faith, trusting that there is significantly more going on in our lives than what we can see. That’s why we must believe and trust that everything that is happening, everything that we are going through at this very moment is all a part of a greater plan. A plan that he has predestined that again will bring us into a state of happiness and joy. Holding onto my faith has been a struggle, but to live without it, is unthinkable.

But because I grieve, and I know deep sorrow, I also know unspeakable joy. I’ve clawed my way from the depth of unimaginable pain and suffering. So when joy does come, it reverberates through every pore of my skin and warms my soul. I feel all of it, and deeply at that.  I grasp on and love inequitably, without regrets. Because there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, I take for granted. Living life in this way gives me greater joy than I’ve ever known possible. The joy I experience now is far deeper and more intense than the joy I experienced before my daughter died. Such is the alchemy of grief I guess. I do believe God gives use “signs” if you will as to His greater purpose. But in the mean time I have no other choice but to become accustomed in learning to live in that “state of grace”. That transient encouragement from above that eventually I will discover my true purpose in life. Mommy loves you Myesha. FIM <3 F

Forever in My Heart Friday. FIMHF. Week 39. When I blog about Myesha, it’s not to get sympathy, but to keep her memory alive. When you are able to speak of your child after death it keeps their presence with you from far across the boundaries of the point where life meets death. It is a way to honor them, and a way to honor your own personal feelings. It gives them back a voice in a world hell-bent on forgetting. When you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you slowly realize you are indeed healing. I wish I could tell you that grief gets easier. That the terrible ache to just see your child one more time will become less with time, but I can’t. All too often you feel empty on the inside, but not in your mind. You simply learn to live with it, walk with it, and carry it. It becomes part of who you now are as a person, a friend, as a mother. I’ve learned that it’s okay to mourn and to be sad, disappointed and even angry. The permanence of losing a child shatters the core of your very being. You learn to accept that it’s okay to feel many different emotions all at the same time. Some of those emotions may even contradict themselves and that’s okay too. There are so many moments when I wish I could bring her down from Heaven and spend the day with her just one more time. One more hug. One more kiss. One more song together. One more chance to say “I love you”. This is what hurts the most. So to make the memories last, I need to hear the stories. The tales of days that forever more will now be nothing more than cherished memories. It’s often hard to sub come to the fact that I will never be able to make more memories together with her like the ones I did when she was alive, therefore, it’s important to make the memories last. Speaking her name, hearing her name, is like music to my ears. But for all the time I did have with Myesha, I am grateful. I would have rather had her as my daughter for 18 years then to never have had her at all. Yes, I say that a lot. Regardless of the sorrow, the sleepless nights, I would rather her be my daughter and I be her mother always. While most women will say there is not greater pain than to bear a child, I say there is no greater pain to lose one to death. I have become someone I never thought I would be. A Grieving Mother. FIM <3 F. Mommy love you Myesha!