22. PEARLS OF WISDOM | Do you have any words of wisdom to share that you have found helpful? It could be from a writer, speaker, philosopher, maybe even a friend. Feel free to share quotes, poetry, song lyrics or just ideas. I invite you to share a message of hope for all the newly bereaved parents and loved ones out there.
One of the best thing I've heard from fellow loss moms is the idea that "it is ok to not be ok". I think too often we feel like we need to hurry up and grieve whatever our loss is, do our crying, get it out of our system and move on. Especially when it is a loss that is not talked about much in society, and when it was still during pregnancy and loss parents don't feel like they have permission to grieve, because some think "it wasn't a real baby" or you didn't even know the baby so what's to grieve about?
The simple but effective piece of advice is giving that permission, it is validating their loss and their feelings, and it is telling them that you're going to feel like shit, and that's ok. You don't have to be strong for anyone, you don't have to move on. Just take your feelings, your pain, your emptiness and just feel it. When people ask you how you're doing, you don't have to pretend to be ok, just to avoid making them feel uncomfortable.
I also like to tell newly bereaved parents that you will be able to breathe again. I'm honest, I won't say time heals all wounds, or that you'll be ok one day or that the pain will go away. It won't, and not all wounds close up. It just gets different, it becomes your new normal, and you learn to live with it. When Kayla died, I knew the routine. I had been through many losses before, I knew I always somehow made it through them, and was eventually "ok" on a day to day basis. But in those first few weeks and months, when you're at your absolute darkest, it is very hard to believe that. It's hard to see how you will ever make it out of that pitch black tunnel, with not even a hint of light at the end.
I knew I would be ok, I just didn't know how. This was a completely different loss than I had ever been through before. I could find no silver linings. This was not the natural order of life. I couldn't see that I could ever stop feeling the way I was right then. So when you're brand new to it all, right in the very thick of the raw emotions and utter pain, it helped me to talk to people who had been through it, to see that they had not been driven mad (at least not in a noticeable way to strangers) that they had not just crumbled into a million pieces, that they were eventually able to get out of bed and face the world, to move forward, to say their child's name without breaking down before the name even made it past their lips. Telling a bereaved parent that it is ok to not be ok, and that the pain will never go away, but you will some day be able to breathe again, to smile and laugh, is my way of being that light at the end of the tunnel for them. It's my way of showing that someone is waiting for them at the end, to help them out.
And of course, my favorite inspirational writing is by Angela Miller. To this day I still read it when I need a pick me up, and it still makes me cry, and it still speaks to me and it still makes me feel better.
I have to tell you this. You didn't fail. Not even a little.
You are not a horrible mother.
You did not chose this. You didn't want this to happen. You didn't do anything wrong. It just happened. To you. Despite your begging, pleading, praying, hoping against all hope that it would not. Even though everything within you was screaming no no no no no no no no no!!!!!!
God didn't do this to punish you, smite you, or to "teach you a lesson". That is not God's way. You could not have prevented this if you: tried harder, prayed harder, or if you were a "better" person. Nor if you ate better, loved harder, yoga-ed more, did x, y, z to the nth degree or any other way you tried to fill-in-the-blank. You could not have prevented this even if you could have predicted the future like no one can.
Even if you did nothing more, you are already the best mom there is because you would have done absolutely anything to keep your child alive. To breathe your last breath to save theirs. To choose the pain all over again just to spend one more minute with them. That, is the ultimate kind of love. You are the ultimate kind of mother.
So wash your hands of any naysayers, backstabbers, or anyone who sprinted the other direction when you needed them the most. Wash your hands of the people who may have falsely judged you, ostracized you, or stigmatized you because of what happened to you. Wash your hands of anyone who has made you feel less than by questioning everything you did or didn't do. Those whose words or looks have implied that this was somehow your fault.
This was not your fault. This will never be your fault, no matter how many different ways someone tries to tell you it is.
And especially if that someone happens to be you. Sometimes it's not what others are saying that keeps us shackled in shame. Sometimes we adopt others' misguided opinions and assumptions about our situation as our own. Sometimes it's our own inner voice that shoves us into the darkest corners of despair, like an abuser, telling us over and over and over again that we failed as mothers. That if only this and what if that, it would never have happened. That you woulda, shoulda, done this so your child would not have died. This is a lie of the sickest kind. Do not believe it, not even for a second. Do not let it sink into your bones. Do not let is smother that beautiful, beautiful light of yours.
Instead, breathe in this truth with every part of yourself. You are the best damn mother in the entire world.
The kind of mother people write books about. The kind that inspires the world.
No one else could do what you do. No one else could ever be your child's mother as well as you can, as well as you are. No one else could let your child's love and light shine through them the way you do. No one else could mother their dead child as well as you do. No one else could carry this unrelenting burden as courageously. It is the heaviest, most torturous burden there is.
You have within you a sacred strength. You are the mother of all mothers. There is no one, no one, no one that could ever, ever replace you. No one. You were chosen to be their mother. Yes-chosen. And no one could parent them better in life or in death than you do.
So breathe mama, keep breathing. Believe mama, keep believing. Fight mama, keep fighting, for this truth to uproot the lies in your heart-you didn't fail. You are not a failure. Not even a little.
For whatever it's worth, I see you. I hear you guttural sobs. I feel your ache deep inside my bones. And it doesn't make me uncomfortable to put my fingers as a makeshift baind-aid over the gaping hole in your heart until the scabs come, when and if they do.
It takes invincible strength to mother a child you can no longer hold, see, touch, or hear. You are a superhero mama. I see you fall down and get up, fall down and get up, over and over again. I notice the grits and guts it takes to pry yourself out of bed every single day and force your bloodied feet to stand up and keep walking. I see you walking this path of life you've been given where every breath and step apart from your child is a physical, emotional, and spiritual battleground- a fight for your own survival - a fight to quiet the insidious lies.
You are the mother of all mothers.
Truly the most inspiring, courageous, loving mother there is- a warrior mama through and through.
For even in their death you lovingly mother them still.
- June 26th, 2013 by Angela Miller
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