a letter as my first assignment.

I recently started an online course about photography through grieving.  Now I am getting started a little late, because I have just been way too busy.  But the first assignment so to speak is to write a letter to your child telling them how you got where you are.  And to take a few self portraits.  So here we go...

Dear Virginia,

I love you.

I think I start every letter I write to you that way, because it's true.  So how did I get here?

Well first off, I'll pinpoint "here".  It has been 39 weeks and 4 days since the day you were born, and the day you died.  I carried you for 39 weeks and 4 days.  So really "here" is a very fragile place, where I am on the brink of the day you will have been gone longer than you were here.

I have dreaded that day for a very long time.  I can't imagine what it will bring with it.  20 weeks since your death was a very hard day, as was 39 weeks this past Tuesday.  So I can't imagine what tomorrow will be like, but I know it won't be easy.

Let's go back to your beginning, the beginning of the only story I have worth telling...yours.

I graduated high school in 2008.  I was in love with acting...with theatre.  I lived it, breathed it, ate it, drank it, loved it with all my soul.  I wanted to act forever.  I knew I couldn't have a family or a normal life, because I would never have a steady job, and I did not care in the least.  I wanted to act.  After I graduated high school I went to a university to study acting.  I was there for one semester, and suddenly I knew it wasn't right.  I knew I couldn't act professionally, I couldn't give up a normal life and a normal family.  I felt like acting wasn't right anymore and I wasn't quite sure why at the time. But I knew there was something more I wanted.  I wanted you.  I wanted to be a mother.  I figured that out a little later, while I was still in school trying to figure out what to study.

I started planning everything around kids.  What I could do that would be best for them.  And I wasn't married, or planning for kids right away, but it inspired every decision I made...what would be best for my future children.

Becoming a mother became the only goal that mattered, I truly believed, and still do, that I could never achieve anything greater than my children.

In 2012 I married your father.  On February 19th 2013 we found out I was pregnant.  At about 10:20 in the morning.  When I told him, your Daddy couldn't wait to tell everyone.  He was kind of freaking out.  We were in love with you from that day forward.

I was convinced you were a boy.  I just knew it.  In May, we found out I was wrong.  It was you, the most beautiful little girl that has ever graced this earth with her presence...you.  We knew Virginia was the perfect name, after his grandmother.  Jane and John have the same meaning, so Jane it was.  Virginia Jane.  Perfect.

It really has turned out to be just what you should have been named.  Jane, "God's gracious gift."  You are the best gift I could have ever asked for.  The best part of my life, my whole world.  And Virginia, well I see that name all the time, and for that I am so thankful.  I see a "Virginia" license plate just when I miss you the most.  I drive past "Virginia St", I see "V"s in the sky.  It could not have been more perfect for you.

I was blessed with carrying you for those 39 weeks and 4 days.  Blessed with your life, with watching you grow, with becoming your mother.

Gorgeous child I will never understand why you couldn't stay with us.  You would have wanted for nothing, not things, not love, not attention.  You are my greatest accomplishment, and the only thing that could ever be as great may be the brothers and sisters that might come after you.

Your journey on earth ended in October, but your journey still continues.  You live OH how you live on in all of our hearts, you have changed every part of me, every molecule of my body is different because of you.  You will never be forgotten.  You will never be pushed aside.  You will be spoken of and loved always always always.

You teach me, you inspire me.  I love you.  I miss you, every second of every day.  This is not where your story ends sweet, perfect Virginia Jane.  I love you.

So how did I get where I am right now?  I got here because of you.  Because you lived, and because you died.  Because I love you.  I am here because I wanted you more than anything, because I still do.  Because I grieve for you as deeply as I love you.  That is why I am here now, that is how I got here.

Love always,
Mommy





I will be posting the self portraits at the end of the week, after I have taken some and can choose a few to post.  If you have read this, or any part of this blog, thank you.  It is so so helpful to healing.

9 months, 39 weeks.

9 months.
39 weeks.
Today.

I have been dreading 39 weeks.  Very much.  I carried her for 39 weeks and 4 days.  At 39 weeks and 5 days my gorgeous daughter will have been gone longer than she was here.

I cannot handle that thought.  It overwhelms me, but it is here and there's nothing I can do about it but get through it.

At 39 weeks of pregnancy, it was a Friday.  I was getting a membrane sweep at the doctors.  She was close, so so close.  The doctor told me that it can help get labor started, hopefully within 48 hours.  She told me to walk a lot.  I did.  I walked around the neighborhood over and over.  I was so so ready to meet her.  And so was John.  At 39 weeks.

I miss her always, but these days are harder somehow.

I should be writing more.  Healing is a choice.  Writing for me is very healing.  But I'm so busy these days, and I have to make time for it.  I'm not really sure that I'm ready to choose healing.  It's hard to explain, but if it didn't hurt so much, it feels like it would mean I don't care.  I think it's something everyone who grieves goes through, when to really choose to heal.

Either way, I've got to find more time to write, because I really need it.  Especially on days like today.

how I feel now.

I have just been working on some things for the bake sale we are having for the fundraiser.  I am really excited to be doing it. 

I started thinking about how little time I have had to write, and then I thought about why I started writing in the first place.  It was because I found so much comfort in reading things written by other bereaved parents.  Just knowing that I was not the only one feeling such things in this situation.

So how do I feel eight months in?

Really, not much different.

A lot has changed in how I handle everything.  I get up and go everyday unlike at first when I couldn’t move.  I am able to bear the weight of the pain better now, I am able to have conversations and work and do many of the normal things I just could not do at first.

But it does not, in any way, hurt any less that I still wake up every day without her.  That pain is no less.  100 lbs doesn’t get lighter cause you train to lift it, you just lift it better.

I feel the need to say this though, I will never not want to talk about Virginia.  It is never easy to say to someone that she has died, but I would never want to hide her or shy away from her because it is difficult.  I don’t just blurt out my child is dead to everyone who walks by, but if someone asks me who Virginia is I will gladly tell anyone who is willing to listen anything and everything about her.   I will never not want to talk about my daughter.  She is my child, alive or dead.

But, how I feel at eight months in…

I’m still really angry much of the time.  Not so much now at everyone with a living child or everyone who is pregnant, just pretty much at life and the world in general.  I’m still really really angry, because it will never make sense to me that a child born into so much love didn’t get to live out her life with us.  It will never make any sense, and I will always be angry about it.  Angry that I don’t get to watch her grow up.  Angry about a million other things.  I am still angry.

And sad of course, although I would say I am a little healthier, I can at least eat on a regular basis.

I still can’t sleep though, not without some kind of guided meditation to put me to sleep or medicine on the really bad nights.

Grief is still just very heavy and exhausting.  It clouds everything.  I still just want to lay in bed all day.  I still know I can't.  I suppose some could say it's time to lighten up a little and learn to love to live.  I don't really care if some think that.  I feel what I feel, I'm still sad, I'll make no apologies. 

I am determined to leave a legacy of love for my beautiful daughter though.  I know she can make a difference in this world.  I know that she can. 

legacy

I still write to her. Everyday.  I still write about how beautiful she is, how much I miss her.  I love her so very much.

It's amazing how you can think you know what love is, and then when you really have it you realize you knew nothing.  I knew nothing of love before her.  Absolutely nothing.  Now it's just a matter of turning it into action.  Taking love and making it compassion and patience and all sorts of other things.  Using love to heal pain, and fear, and everything.  I am just now learning what love really is, what pure boundless love from your soul truly is.

I'm still so angry so much of the time.  Or down and sad about what we've been through.  About why her, why us, what would have changed everything and why can't we go back and do it differently.  If I can find a way I most certainly will.  I will fix it when the day comes.

But until then it seems it is only darkness.  So I gotta learn how to let love come in. And sprout out in all sorts of ways.

I need more time to really sit and write.  I just have been so busy.  I'm going to have to make time to just be alone, write to Virginia, write here, write anything.

OOHhhh this pain does not end.  It gets easier to carry, easier to face and deal with.  But it never hurts any less.  All I can do for her is give her a legacy of love.

Just like donations.  Like the donation of my hair.  Hopefully it was used and is now a wig for a child who needed it.  But who gave that gift?  Because it came from my body, but it was inspired by my perfect child.  Virginia is the one who got that hair to those children.  Virginia did that.  Things like that are her legacy.  What we can be inspired to do for her, that is her legacy.  I want it to be a legacy of pure love.  Because she gave me the strongest love in the world: the bond of a child and her parent.

Her's will be a legacy of love.  She will spread her little light.  Because she will.  Because I will never stop fighting for her.  Because she will not be forgotten.  She will be as big a part of this family as everyone here right now.  She will do amazing things through us, all of us.  Through all of the people she teaches.  She will spread her little magenta light everywhere.

I love her more than words.  Just more than I can say.

when nothing works out like it should.

It seems just when you think you've got life figured out and everything might be almost okay and you've been brave enough to actually come up with a new plan, life throws a curve ball and your plan goes to shit.

I don't plan like I used to, but I guess I still plan a little.  I'll just never learn to stop that completely because it is 100%  pointless.

In a book I love about Taoism it says that you should have no wants or desires or plans.  You should just live.  Just go with it and chill out.

I wish.

I am trying to live on a smaller scale though, one day at a time.  What do I feel like I should do today?  What can I do today?  In this one day?  Because this day is really all you've got.  You could be dead five minutes from now.  And then all that worrying is for nothing.

It's a hard concept...to just live a day at a time and not plan, or worry.  But it's just the way you have to live if you ever want to make it through tragedy.  You just have to focus on this moment and what you can do with it.  Making plans means disappointment when they don't work out.  Thinking of the whole future is just too overwhelming.  Just focus on one day at a time.  This day is all there is.

Father's Day

Father's Day is this weekend.  I really thought it was next weekend.  But it's coming up fast.

Just as bereaved mothers shouldn't be forgotten on Mother's Day, bereaved fathers shouldn't be forgotten on Father's Day.

They are sometimes forgotten in general, because everyone focuses on how the mother is doing.  But those Daddy's lost the same thing the Mommy's lost, and it is just as hard for them to face days like this without their children.

I wanted to do whatever would bring me the most peace on Mother's Day, and I hope that's what the father's missing their children will decide to do this Sunday.

Virginia's father and I can't be together this Father's Day, but my whole heart is with him.  He's a grieving dad, but mostly importantly he is a dad, her dad, and he deserves to be celebrated this weekend for loving her and missing her the way only a Daddy can.

(in case the video doesn't work in this post, it's here)

never, ever alone.

I saw this postcard tonight on postsecret.

It just breaks my heart.  There are so many Mama's and Daddy's out there missing their babies.  Just know you aren't alone.  I wish none of us were bereaved, but just know, you are never alone.