The Secret Garden Meeting-October

This month's Secret Garden Meeting poses the following questions.

Where are you at in your grief. Has it been years or just weeks since you lost your baby. How are you feeling. How do you hope you will feel in the future. Have you found any peace at all?

In the beginning the grief was a constant nightmare. For whatever reason, that phase, the phase where each breath is more painful than the last, and just thinking about the next day would bring tears, ceased around eight months. I don't know what the significance of that time was, but I welcomed the way it allowed a little reprieve. Since then, I have remained where I am now, in this stagnant place of frustration, anger, disbelief and exhaustion. I feel totally stuck in the tears and wonder at what could have been. Every once in a while I get this sense like maybe there is some fresh air coming into my life, and then the reality of the situation comes calling again, and I remain chained in place.

There are, of course, breaks in the clouds... moments to get lost in, some that even bring laughter and smiles, but with their highs tend to come fresh lows and I end up smacked back to reality by reminders. My child is gone. They tell me. She is never coming back. Grief can be cruel that way... as much as you might like to, it never allows you to forget. 


It has been thirteen months since Peyton fought her last fight for life in my arms, and I knew at the moment she left that there was no going back to the way life had been. I felt a piece of me die with her. I know that other mothers who have suffered child loss are probably the only ones who can completely understand the depth of meaning in that statement: "I felt a piece of me die." For me, what left was that beautiful, optimistic, naive and hopeful piece. The piece that believed that prayers could bring miracles, and that God would take pity on a defenseless little baby. With my child struggling in my arms, that piece left, and took with it any and all expectations and beliefs that I had placed on the future. It is hard to find peace without that piece.

Often times I find myself in the company of people who tell me they had a sister/friend/cousin/college roommate/acquaintance/co-worker/neighbor etc who went through this type of loss and went on to have 2, 3, 4 healthy children. They were able to find their "happy" again. My greatest hope for the future is to look back on this period with my husband and say,

"Do you remember that, how scared we were, how hopeless it all felt? Look at how far we have come. Look at the joy in our lives. Look at our healthy children. Look at how blessed we are."

In that respect, I guess my hope for the future really is to just be a normal mom.

To visit the Secret Garden and read how other Babylost Mommas have answered this question, please click here.