October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

I don't need a special day to remember... I never forget.

I remember the times that the pregnancy tests turned positive... the joy, the elation, the fear, the disappointment, the ups and downs. 11 sets of pregnancy tests.

I remember how I felt when I looked down at that positive test the very first time. I was 17 years old. I was taking all precautions and we'd talked through how we felt. I was sure I knew how I would feel. I was wrong. That positive test changed everything for me. I sobbed and sobbed and threw up and sobbed some more. I had twelve roller coaster days of emotion. Twelve days. At the time it stretched out and each day seemed a lifetime. And then it was over. I was bleeding and losing something I had been sure before it all happened that I didn't even want. I felt empty and broken and alone in grief. I was not grateful. I was hurting. I was not relieved. I was broken. I was not comforted by those who told me I was young and it was for the best. I was angry.

Everything about my pregnancies has shaped who I am and how I react to situations. Three times I've carried beautiful babies to term. Eight more times I've had my body fail me. My babies lost.

I am lucky enough to be able to share my stories with some people in my life. I'm lucky enough when I see a positive test to be able to share it with some of those who love me. Sadly there are those people in my life who I am always hesitant to share the news with. When I've been pregnant I want to celebrate that for as long as I get to. When a woman has a miscarriage the last thing you should say is that it is for the best and yet  too many times that's exactly what I've heard. I've heard a variety of reasons why it's best that I not have that baby. It was never for the best. Two out of three of my living children came at so called bad times. I would not trade them for the world and they are WORTH it. Today in this day of remembrance I will talk about my babies with those who will listen. J and I will remember together. We will light candles with the kids later tonight again.

Today is a day of remembrance. I remember my babies and I remember the babies of my friends and family who didn't get to stay with us. I remember and I grieve with you all. I will never forget.

No One is an Island

My heart is heavy tonight as I ponder many things. This blog post has been brewing inside of me for some time but I havn't known exactly what I was trying to say. I'm going to try tonight.

Tomorrow is the first international Ice Cream for Breakfast celebration. If you don't know what I'm talking about go here. It was conceived by Bruce Rosenberg after he found out that he had stage four metastatic melanoma. He wanted everyone to celebrate life and go on living it... whatever yesterday gave because today is what we have to work with now, and without worrying too much about tomorrow, because after all, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

This was a man who died eight days ago, surrounded in person and beyond, by people who loved him. Who were inspired by him. Who were praying every single day of the previous year that he get to continue this journey with us all longer.

As I was thinking about Bruce tonight, and what I did and did not know about him, and all of the people all over the world who rallied around him and his wife and their beautiful girls, I realized that it was likely that someone didn't like Bruce. It seems almost inconceivable to me, for this was a man of formidable character, and yet, I know life being what it is that someone must not have seen him like we did. It got me thinking a lot about myself, and the people I love, and how people see other people.

As I pondered these things I realized that we tend to view people in vacuums. Not as persons who are walking around with a million different life experiences that may or may not be the same as our own, but rather as mirrors of our own reality, who either measure up or do not to our own standards. For those who don't some of us are open minded enough to find out why, but even with that we judge those reasons against our own set of beliefs, morals, and life experiences and decide whether or not that person is worthy of our friendship, our love, our compassion even.

I've been told I'm amazing. That I am so strong. I've had many many wonderful things said about me, and I do not doubt that those people who said them believed them. Heck, I'm not even saying they were wrong. But really if you measure me just by what I have accomplished than depending on what period you look at you would see very different people. If you look at me as the sum total of all of my life experiences, right now, you'll come up with an assessment of me that will vary depending on your own outlook and life experiences.

Not a single one of us exists in a vacuum, or as an island. Every single one of us has made mistakes, and been forgiven by someone. Likely by many someones. No one becomes great without someone else whispering words or actions of encouragement to get us there. It could be simple or it could be large, but in the end, those of us who have no one else in the world to smile at us, encourage us, love us, whither and die.

Why does all of this matter? It matters because life matters. Because as I sit here looking at my self and my own relationships I realize that by looking at others through who I wanted them to be rather than who they are, I set myself up for disappointment, and I set our relationship up for failure. Whether it was a Mom I met at the playground with her kids, a friend, a family member, or a stranger on the street, I've fallen short of loving people where they are. Not always, but far too many times.

I am who I am because of the people who loved me. Who smiled at me on the street when I was having a bad day. Who had a friendly word when I ordered my coffee every morning. Who joked with me as they held the crosswalk sign to help me cross the street. Who held my hair as a puked and my hand as I cried. I am who I am because of those people far more than I am because of those who judged me harshly, spat cruel words or unkind stares at me, used me and abused me. Those actions against me broke me down and shaped me, no doubt, but without the uplifting experiences in my life I guarantee I wouldn't be alive right now.

Life matters. Loving isn't easy but it's powerful. We all judge, but just as it is important to check our Priviledge not so we can make it go away (we can't) but so that we can live our lives with it in mind, it is also important to remember that every person who we meet and judge has a different sum total of their life experiences. That doesn't make them wrong, or bad, just different. And as much as we all tote the line of "difference being good" we don't embrace it in many ways, especially I've noticed in how we try and make others fit our own worldview.

I've seen the other side. I watched my three year old befriend an unshaven, unwashed man with a long ponytail in the grocery store the other day. While I was busy judging, he was busy chatting with the man about Ice Cream and Batman. When we left he told me "That man is my friend Mama. That man had sparkly eyes and he was really nice. Can he come to our house sometime do you think Mama?" That man, who I was busy judging for life experiences that may or may not have been his choice, was radiating a common compassion and human love for my boy, and he saw it, and shined it right back. When I thought about the man some more I realized how many different possibilities there could have been for why he acted why he acted, and how quickly I was willing to dismiss them all as unimportant.

I'm guilty of it not only with strangers but with the people I love the most. The unbelievable loss I've felt this past year has made me rethink and reexamine many areas of my life and relationships are among the most important. To those who read this I offer an apology if I've judged you out of hand. I offer an explanation of only that my life experiences led me to believe what I believed was right. And I offer an open offer to try again, if you'll let me. I think that this world needs more compassion and love and less judging and closing ourselves off from each other.

Thank you Bruce for bringing an amazing network of people together from across the world. Thank you for the lessons you taught us. In your memory I'm ready to love like I've never loved before. Thank you family and friends and even strangers who have loved me to this point. Without you, well, without you I'd be withered away on an island instead of living life to its fullest.

A Year of Pain and Loss

On this, the last day of 2011, I find myself thinking back over the events and emotions of the whole year. Unfortunately if I had to sum up the year it would be a year of pain and of loss. Not all of the year was negative of course, but the recurring theme was loss and the pain that comes with it.

As I face the new year I have decided that after spending the better part of the year avoiding the emotions of the last year, as they threatened to overwhelm me if I looked them in the face, that I would give myself permission to vent and let some of those feelings come up and hopefully be released so that I can carry less of the weight into 2012.

I came into 2011 saddled with the weight of postpartum depression and was still finding my footing after a legal separation from my husband a few months before. To say I was emotionally fragile would likely be true although I was doing my very best to refind myself and rebuild myself.

I can't promise this blog post will make sense, and I'm sure it will be long, and I've chosen to divide it by the various events or people that were major points in this year. They may or may not be in chronological order.

Grandpa
One of the greatest losses of my whole life. On the last Monday in March a part of my world went dark when I found out that you had died. A heart attack. Of course. Although, I say of course but I think those of us who loved you thought that after multiple heart attacks, more than one heart surgery (including quadruple bypass surgery over twenty years earlier), a major stroke, and a TIA, that you would just keep on surviving forever. It was unimaginable that the man who was so full of life and right down on the floor playing with my three babies on Sunday night could possibly be dead Monday at lunchtime. Thank you for loving me so completely. Thank you for your physical and emotional support my whole life. Thank you for stepping up to be a father figure to me as well as a grandfather. Thank you for loving my own babies and being so much more involved in their lives than most great grandparents ever get to be. When I woke up on the morning after your death I couldn't believe the world kept on going without you in it. I couldn't believe I could still breathe, and yet even now, nine months later, somehow I am. You've left a hole that will never be filled. I love you.
Love, Your Girl

Poppa
I'll never understand how it is fair that I had to endure the loss of both of my beloved grandfathers within such a short period of time. One thing your deaths coming so close together showed me was the stark difference between losing someone you love unexpectedly and never getting a chance to say goodbye but also never having to see them suffer vs watching them slowly die over days and having time to say goodbye but also having to know that they are in pain. I am grateful that I got to help you in your journey towards death as much as it broke my heart to know you were going there. Holding your hand and getting to tell you how I felt about you in the dark as I held your hand and said goodbye to you and getting to share what would ultimately be some of your last lucid moments before your death will always stay with me. Thank you for unconditionally loving me. For loving me even though I wasn't your blood and never ever ever making me feel anything less than your granddaughter through and through. I am so glad my oldest son shares your name and that of the other giant man in my heart that I lost this year. I hope he carries the best of both of you and indeed if he does he will be unstoppable.
Love, One of your Sweethearts

aka January
My friend, my love, my soul sister. I grieve for the loss of our connection. The loss of what we were. What I never thought could be lost has fractured and it still leaves gaping open in parts. I never ever thought there would be a time when something major in my life would happen and you wouldn't be one of the first to be at my side even if only in spirit. I wish you well. I wish that I could figure out how the wheels went so horribly wrong or indeed if they ever were on right to begin with.
Love, Me

Malachi
My sweet sweet baby it is unthinkable to me how close we came to losing you this year. Thinking back to those days when you couldn't breathe, couldn't eat, couldn't even be touched without your oxygen saturations plummeting. I am so very grateful that I got to keep you. So very grateful that although I lived my life in fear for you a great deal of this year that you are growing and thriving and are still with me every day. I love you so completely my sweet boy.
Love, Mama

Maddie Rose
Oh sweet girl. How loved you were and are by so many people. You were so precious and tiny. You changed lives baby girl in the very short time we got to share this earth. I grieve for your Daddy, my love for him stemming for my love for your Auntie and the bond we share in loving our baby brothers. To watch him lose his baby girl was heartbreaking. I grieve still for the loss that was you for him and for your Mama, for your Auntie and Uncle, for your Nanny and Papa, for your cousins, and indeed for everyone who loved you. For all of us who still love you. Fly high baby girl.
Love, Alison

Baby G
You were the baby I didn't know I wanted. Indeed, learning of you was a loss of it's own as I grieved the loss of my own plans and control over them. Your Daddy and I quickly grieved our loss and adjusted our plans and indeed made new wonderful plans. We wanted you very much. The physical toll that losing you took on my body was nothing compared to the emotional void that came with losing the reality of another precious baby. Another miscarriage. Bleeding not only from my womb but from my very soul. Tears that could have filled a river. I am sorry my body couldn't protect you. I pray you are safe with Jesus and I am glad there is no pain for you.
Love, Mama

Jonathan
Your Mama and I know each other only online. I prayed hard for her and for you during your journey together. Christmas eve was heavy this year with the knowledge that your pain was going to be over but that it came with the price of your leaving this earth far too soon. You touched so many lives sweet boy and you continue to do so. You were such a beautiful boy.
May your peace be deep, TM

James
This year was a year of rebuilding for us. From our refirst date on Valentine's Day we began to rebuild our relationship and indeed succeeded to a level you and I had never achieved together before. How unfair it seems that at the pinnacle of our healing, as we were reaching such a good place both individually and as a couple that the demon that is stroke had to take a chunk of you from us. Living apart for three months and being torn from hospital to our babies at home was an agony that I never want to endure again. You have made such strides my love and I pray you continue to do so. I am angry at the things the stroke took and still has taken from us. It, like so many things this year, was not fair. But then, as we both know, life isn't meant to be fair. It's meant to be lived. I love you.
Love, Ali

2011 was a year of pain and loss, pain and loss, pain and loss. And yet, in the midst of all of that it was also a year for me of growth. I have grown in myself, in my relationships, and in my faith. 2012 looms large on the horizon and I have no idea what is in store for the next year but I have faith that my God is big enough to carry me if I can't walk on my own. I have my faith, my Love, my kids, my family and my friends. Here we go. I'm going to make it great.

A

Why Are You Sad Mama?

That was the question my two year old asked me when he came upon me today, tears slipping down my cheeks, lost in my own world.

"I'm remembering baby", I answered him.

"Remembering what?" Those big blue eyes looked up at me and he reached out and placed his hand on my own.

Remembering what? This was a harder question for me to answer completely. At two his heart is big and open and wants to take away everyone else's hurt. I didn't want to burden him with the depth of what I was feeling.

I told him I was remembering Poppa, which was not a lie, although it wasn't really the whole truth either. My four year old piped up with his own memories of Poppa John (his great grandfather).

Poppa John was a veteran of World War II and although he survived the war and came home and went on to be father to eight children, we lost him earlier this year, at the end of June. He was not a perfect man, but he was perfectly what I needed him to be as my grandfather. Fitting then, on this day, for me to be remembering him, along with the other men and women who have served and are serving this country proudly so that me and my children can have our freedom.

This day, in some ways, marked the end of my own freedom several years ago. That pain, those memories, were in fact also bubbling over into my tears when my son found me. I couldn't really explain that to him though, indeed I can't really put into words the depth of my feelings at all. That will be a post for another day. Tomorrow perhaps, or perhaps not.

Right now I will focus my thoughts on gratitude for those men and women, for the ones who came home and the ones who did not, for the ones who fought before and the ones fighting today. For my Poppa. For all the others who were and are spouses, children, parents... loved.

Thank you. I will never forget. May none of us ever ever forget.

Happy Father's Day... to my Dad

Today was a bittersweet day for me...

Father's Day always is. As I celebrate the father of my own babies and am surrounded by friends and family celebrating their own special fathers I feel alone in my grief over not celebrating my own. I can neither join in the celebration of the living, present fathers, nor join in the solemn grief over fathers who were present and have passed away into whatever is waiting for us after this life.

My father is alive. He is well as far as I know. He lives not two hours away from here. He is not a criminal or a violent man. He is not batshit crazy. He lives and works and functions in normal society and has friends and even family in his life.

The last time I saw my father was in October, 2008. Almost three years. He has never met my middle or my youngest sons. Despite living only three streets down from us when my oldest son was born he saw him only a handful of times in his two years of life before the last time I saw him. Even though he regularly came into the city where I live to pick up my much younger sister for weekend visits he has never been to my home.

Two years ago, after over half a year of not seeing my father. After not hearing from him after the birth of my second child. After years of hurt and disappointment had built up, I made the decision I couldn't pursue him anymore. I couldn't put myself, and now my children, into the path of being hurt when we felt like we didn't matter enough to him to warrant his care.

It was, hands down, one of the most painful, heart wrenching decisions I have ever made in my life.

And still, even now... I miss him. I grieve for the relationship I wish we had. Right now, as I sit here typing this I am not a rational, calm, collected almost 25 year old. I am a hurt little girl with tears running down her face desperately missing a man who has always been there... but never really been there.

My Dad is alive. I hope he is well. I hope that today was filled with laughter and life and music, because if there is one thing my Dad loves it is music. Happy Fathers Day to the man who gave me the gift of having music in my soul. Who taught me that having a play list with every type of artist and song and time period on it together (except rap, that was our one agreed on type missing from the list) was the way to express everything in life, all the ups and all the downs to help your soul feel better. Who only yelled when it really mattered (which was less than a handful of times my whole life) and never, ever raised a hand to me, to my siblings, to the woman he loved in our home, or to our animals.

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad who grew up without a Dad, but also without the ability to grieve that Dad because his Dad too was alive. And my Dad never stopped loving him.

With tears on my face and a lump in my throat I wish my Dad a Happy Father's Day. I wish it was different. I miss the good times we've had.

I'm off to soothe my hurt with some music... and while I grieve I'll remember that gift of music in my soul and I'll remember that I'm lucky to have that.