"As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us." ~Sascha
It's been just over a thousand days since Peyton left this world.
Just over a thousand days since I held her in my arms that last time as the sun broke through the clouds, and cast white light across her small body.
It's been just over a thousand days...
God I miss her.
I spent the better part of the first year without Peyton being furious.
At God mostly.
It hit me tonight, as I looked at my two beautiful blessings, that it may be time to start working on toning down that fury
It may be time to start feeling Thankful rather than Spiteful when I think of Him.
It may be time, but that is a post for another day.
In that first year after Peyton's death I saw very little hope in the future and no joy in the day to day. Even to think about feeling joy felt like some sort of betrayal, and yet when people tried to remind me that living was not a betrayal, I hated them for it.
People would see me spending all day every day at her grave that first year, and they would say, "Peyton wouldn't want to see you like this" and I would think, "what the hell do you know anyway? Was your child born unexpectedly with cancer? Did your child die in your arms? Do you live with the aching arms? And the nightmares? And the daytime ones?"
I was hurting.
Everything was darkness.
Telling me that I was disappointing Peyton in my grieving just added to my fury.
To my fury, and to my guilt.
In that first year people told me I would survive.
They were right.
I did.
Every second of every minute was agony, but somehow, some way, I came through it, even if only by the skin of my teeth.
The second year without Peyton I lived on Pause.
Every day was Groundhog's day.
The sun rose.
My child was dead.
The sun set.
My child was dead.
Families around us grew.
My child was dead.
Children conceived after Peyton died had now outlived her, and yet, my child was still dead.
It is still hard for me to believe, sometimes, that I no longer live in that long gray fog that consumed the second year. At that time the world around me seemed to be moving at lightning speed, while our world, our tiny little corner of the universe, sat immobile - seemingly stuck on its axis unable to turn towards the sun.
And then, just like that, one day it did.
One day there was forward momentum, a feeling that had become so foreign a concept to me that I didn't know what to do with it.
In that moment we were afforded a new lease on life, and the blessing that this is has not been lost on me.
Peyton's third birthday is just a few mere months away, and I feel something shifting in me once again. For the first time, in a very long time, maybe ever, I find myself thinking of Peyton and smiling.
Not all the time of course, many memories of her still stir feelings of being robbed, scared, and heartbroken, but every once in a while an image of that little girl - so tiny, so brave - pops into my mind and I can see her lifting her sweet, perfectly round little head up off of my chest when we did skin to skin, and the corners of my lips turn upward in gratitude.
Yes, you read that right. Gratitude.
Peyton did something no one else in this world can ever undo.
She made me a mother, and through the aching, I can't help but to feel grateful for that.
She came into this broken world, loved me with a pure heart, and left so many gifts for me that I am still discovering them day by day.
Some have been easy to see - the friendships I have made within the BLM community. The connection I have been able to feel with my writing. The deep sense of empathy I feel for those who are hurting - and others have taken more time to fully grasp - like realizing how important it is to truly appreciate each and every day.
Even the tough days, because a tough day is just another chance to overcome something difficult, and discover something beautiful in its wake.
That little girl has enriched my world.
She has made colors crisper.
Experiences richer.
Meanings deeper.
Because of Peyton I appreciate what a gift it is to wake up each morning.
Because of Peyton I can feel the wind on my cheek and know that somewhere, somehow, in some way that I am too human to understand, we are sharing that moment.
Because of Peyton I truly, TRULY, know how lucky I am to be a mother.
I know what a gift it is to be exhausted from a sleepless night with the babies.
I know not to take for granted any moments with my children, even the challenging ones like those that I have faced in breastfeeding the twins.
That's not to say I don't ever moan or groan or feel sorry for myself about this or that, because I do, I am human, but usually, a beat or two behind whatever gripe I may be airing, I stop, think of that little girl and all that she has taught me, and that quickly puts things back into perspective.
Maybe everyone goes through this?
Maybe this, this feeling that I owe it to Peyton to live the life she wasn't afforded, is just another stage of grieving.
I don't know.
What I do know is that she can't laugh, so I feel that I owe it to her to fill my life with laughter
She can't have a family of her own, so I owe it to her to love mine with all of my heart.
She can't chase her dreams, so I owe it to her to never stop believing in mine.
As the poet Sascha says, I owe it to Peyton to do all these things "for the both of us."
I miss my daughter.
Nothing will ever, nothing can ever, change that.
I still have days where the tears come calling, but something inside of me is shifting.
I am coming to see that honoring Peyton is not equivalent to spending all of my life longing only for what I can never have.
I am coming to see that it honors her memory more to embrace and rejoice in all that I do.
Showing posts with label Bereaved Parent. Show all posts
"As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us." ~Sascha
It's been just over a thousand days since Peyton left this world.
Just over a thousand days since I held her in my arms that last time as the sun broke through the clouds, and cast white light across her small body.
It's been just over a thousand days...
God I miss her.
I spent the better part of the first year without Peyton being furious.
At God mostly.
It hit me tonight, as I looked at my two beautiful blessings, that it may be time to start working on toning down that fury
It may be time to start feeling Thankful rather than Spiteful when I think of Him.
It may be time, but that is a post for another day.
In that first year after Peyton's death I saw very little hope in the future and no joy in the day to day. Even to think about feeling joy felt like some sort of betrayal, and yet when people tried to remind me that living was not a betrayal, I hated them for it.
People would see me spending all day every day at her grave that first year, and they would say, "Peyton wouldn't want to see you like this" and I would think, "what the hell do you know anyway? Was your child born unexpectedly with cancer? Did your child die in your arms? Do you live with the aching arms? And the nightmares? And the daytime ones?"
I was hurting.
Everything was darkness.
Telling me that I was disappointing Peyton in my grieving just added to my fury.
To my fury, and to my guilt.
In that first year people told me I would survive.
They were right.
I did.
Every second of every minute was agony, but somehow, some way, I came through it, even if only by the skin of my teeth.
The second year without Peyton I lived on Pause.
Every day was Groundhog's day.
The sun rose.
My child was dead.
The sun set.
My child was dead.
Families around us grew.
My child was dead.
Children conceived after Peyton died had now outlived her, and yet, my child was still dead.
It is still hard for me to believe, sometimes, that I no longer live in that long gray fog that consumed the second year. At that time the world around me seemed to be moving at lightning speed, while our world, our tiny little corner of the universe, sat immobile - seemingly stuck on its axis unable to turn towards the sun.
And then, just like that, one day it did.
One day there was forward momentum, a feeling that had become so foreign a concept to me that I didn't know what to do with it.
In that moment we were afforded a new lease on life, and the blessing that this is has not been lost on me.
Peyton's third birthday is just a few mere months away, and I feel something shifting in me once again. For the first time, in a very long time, maybe ever, I find myself thinking of Peyton and smiling.
Not all the time of course, many memories of her still stir feelings of being robbed, scared, and heartbroken, but every once in a while an image of that little girl - so tiny, so brave - pops into my mind and I can see her lifting her sweet, perfectly round little head up off of my chest when we did skin to skin, and the corners of my lips turn upward in gratitude.
Yes, you read that right. Gratitude.
Peyton did something no one else in this world can ever undo.
She made me a mother, and through the aching, I can't help but to feel grateful for that.
She came into this broken world, loved me with a pure heart, and left so many gifts for me that I am still discovering them day by day.
Some have been easy to see - the friendships I have made within the BLM community. The connection I have been able to feel with my writing. The deep sense of empathy I feel for those who are hurting - and others have taken more time to fully grasp - like realizing how important it is to truly appreciate each and every day.
Even the tough days, because a tough day is just another chance to overcome something difficult, and discover something beautiful in its wake.
That little girl has enriched my world.
She has made colors crisper.
Experiences richer.
Meanings deeper.
Because of Peyton I appreciate what a gift it is to wake up each morning.
Because of Peyton I can feel the wind on my cheek and know that somewhere, somehow, in some way that I am too human to understand, we are sharing that moment.
Because of Peyton I truly, TRULY, know how lucky I am to be a mother.
I know what a gift it is to be exhausted from a sleepless night with the babies.
I know not to take for granted any moments with my children, even the challenging ones like those that I have faced in breastfeeding the twins.
That's not to say I don't ever moan or groan or feel sorry for myself about this or that, because I do, I am human, but usually, a beat or two behind whatever gripe I may be airing, I stop, think of that little girl and all that she has taught me, and that quickly puts things back into perspective.
Maybe everyone goes through this?
Maybe this, this feeling that I owe it to Peyton to live the life she wasn't afforded, is just another stage of grieving.
I don't know.
What I do know is that she can't laugh, so I feel that I owe it to her to fill my life with laughter
She can't have a family of her own, so I owe it to her to love mine with all of my heart.
She can't chase her dreams, so I owe it to her to never stop believing in mine.
As the poet Sascha says, I owe it to Peyton to do all these things "for the both of us."
I miss my daughter.
Nothing will ever, nothing can ever, change that.
I still have days where the tears come calling, but something inside of me is shifting.
I am coming to see that honoring Peyton is not equivalent to spending all of my life longing only for what I can never have.
I am coming to see that it honors her memory more to embrace and rejoice in all that I do.
I went up to Peyton's Hill the morning of Mother's Day. I needed to be near her. I needed to tell her how much I love her, and miss her. How grateful I am to her for giving me the gift of motherhood. I feel the need to do this every day, but Mother's Day makes missing her especially hard.
I walked up to her grave and commented on the weather. I apologized for the sad state of her site, and remarked about the newest pinwheel we had placed up there, which had already gone missing. It gets very windy on Peyton's Hill, so I imagine a good gust came along and was just too much for it.
I stood for a while, breathing the place in. I watched birds in the trees, closed my eyes, and tapped my chest in the spot where her back used to be when she fell asleep against my chest. In the silence of her Hill, I began singing "Smile Awhile," one of the songs from my repertoire when I had rocked her in the hospital.
It's a World War I song about loss.
Most of the songs I sang Peyton were about loss.
Maybe I just knew.
Smile awhile and kiss me sad adieu
when the clouds roll by I'll come to you
then the skies will seem more blue
down in lover's lane my deary
wedding bells will ring so merrily
every tear will hold a memory
so wait and pray each night for me
till we meet again
Halfway through my song I was approached by an older woman. She looked disheveled, as if the day had snuck up on her somehow, and was covered in dirt from flower pots that she held in her hands. I recognized something in her. Something I had seen in myself so many times before. She looked neither present, nor lost. She just was.
We got to talking and she pointed out her son's grave. I knew her son. His name was Mike. He was paralyzed, wheelchair bound after a freak construction accident, and used to walk his dog around the path at the cemetery each afternoon. Mike, G, and I were a sort of lonely hearts club. Three outsiders with broken hearts who had nowhere else to turn for relief but a cemetery. Mike died suddenly last year. He got the flu and aspirated when he vomited in his sleep. Mike wasn't even forty years old.
His mother told me she had come up to plant some flowers around a bench she had placed on the Hill.
"It was your idea you know," she said, "I hope you don't mind."
I didn't.
The idea to get a bench up on the Hill was one that came to hubs and I early on, but the months had passed, and then the years, and the truth is I didn't know when we were going to get around to placing one up there. We had mentioned the idea to G who had mentioned it to Mike's mom, and when I came up last fall to find her bench placed, I was happy to see it.
I told Mike's mom how sorry I was for her loss. We got to talking, and talking led to crying. She was really suffering through facing Mother's Day without her son.
"I can't make it through a ride in the car," she told me, "without breaking down. I cry all the time. I feel his loss all the time."
I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. So many car rides these past two and a half years had been spent crying tears of sorrow and loss for my little girl. So many songs on the radio had triggered emotions in me, or felt as if they had been somehow sent directly from her.
"And I know I sound crazy," she continued, "but sometimes I get little signs from him."
"Funny things happening with lights?" I asked.
She looked at me, mouth agape. "How did you know?"
"It always seems to have something to do with lights," I smiled. "If you feel something happening, and you think it is Mike, cherish that. Who is to say it isn't him?"
We exchanged stories about funny little occurances that we felt were gifts from our children. Flickering flashlights at my house. A solar light that suddenly became aglow on her birthday at hers.
"Was Mike your only child?" I asked.
"My only son."
"I'm so sorry."
She looked at his grave and let out a deep sigh. "I am just so afraid people will forget about him."
"I won't forget him." I offered, knowing this feeling too well, this fear that my child will be forgotten. That there will come a day where this earth rotates as if she had never even existed.
Talking with Mike's mom showed me how many commonalities there are in the grief of one's child. It doesn't matter how old they were when they passed, though losing a baby is certainly different than losing a teenager and that is certainly different than losing an adult child, there are certain common threads to the grief of a mother.
Mothers cannot let go.
Mothers always hurt.
Mothers feel the absence of the child they have lost all the time, and strive to feel their presence in whatever ways we can.
Mothers all share the great fear that our children, their lives, and their impact on this great wide world, will be forgotten.
To lose your child is to forever lose a piece of your own soul.
As mothers we need to protect our children.
As bereaved mothers we need to protect their memories.
