Capture your grief, day 28

28. SELF COMPASSION | Self Compassion is integral to healing your broken heart. You can start to practice more self compassion by showing yourself a little more love and care. Do you have any self-care practices? What are your thoughts on taking care of yourself.


I can be pretty hard on myself, my own worst enemy sometimes.  But one thing I am learning is that I don't have to be the perfect mother, I don't have to be the perfect wife.  If I want to spend a day snuggling with Emily and watching cartoons with her, then I should and will do that.  The laundry, dishes, and whatever else will still be there tomorrow.  Losing Kayla has taught me that life is short, so short in fact that some don't even get a chance to start it.  Hopefully Emily lives to be an old lady, but even still, she will not be little forever.  One of my babies is gone, and the other will be grown up before I know it.  I take care of myself and cherish the seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years with her because you never know when the last one will be, and the relationships with those we love is what is important every day.  Emily will never look back and say, "mom wasn't a very good housekeeper", but she can look back and say, "I had the best childhood being home with my mom; we had so much fun together and we snuggled a lot".

I am also trying to take care of myself by letting some of the guilt go surrounding Kayla.  I am not sure I'll ever let all of it go...she was my sweet baby and I will never be able to feel like I did all I could to protect her.  But I often feel guilty for loving Emily as much as I do, or telling a stranger that I only have one child because I just cannot deal with telling this person at Target today that my other daughter died, or not getting to the cemetery on an important day, or not putting a pumpkin at her grave for Halloween, or fresh flowers in the spring.  Kayla doesn't love me because I put flowers on her grave, or because I divulge my most painful memory to a complete stranger.  She loves me because I am her mama and I would have done anything to save her.  There is no guidebook for how to act as a bereaved mother and I am doing the best I can.