Coping With the Holidays While Grieving

Christmas has always been a time for family. But when you feel like a part of your family is missing, it can be a particularly difficult time of year. Although it has been thirteen years now, I vividly remember our first Christmas after Bret died. He was born with angel wings in August 1995, but his original due date was November 30. Therefore, we had planned on having a new baby with whom to celebrate Christmas with that year. That Christmas, I worried that my emptiness would swallow me.
In the past, I relished our tradition of opening up a nice bottle of wine, cranking up the Christmas carols on the stereo, and helping our son put as many lights and ornaments on the tree as we could without toppling it over. That Christmas, we continued our tradition for our son's sake, but my heart just wasn't in it. Everything took on new meaning that year. Remembering that it was baby Jesus' birthday just reminded me of the baby I lost. The angel we always put on top of the tree gained new significance—I prayed an angel like that one would be watching over my baby. Shortly after Bret died, we were touched to find a teddy angel ornament that was dressed in blue. That Christmas, it was the last ornament we put on the tree, and many tears flowed that night as we ached for our baby boy to be with us. I dreaded Christmas day, not wanting to revisit my pain.
But like most other anxious experiences, the time leading up to the event was worse than the day itself. On Christmas morning, I began to find solace in the symbolism of the season, and I found a lot of comfort in our little blue teddy angel. I felt as though Bret was there with us. Losing Bret made me cherish my son and husband even more. It turned out to be one of the most meaningful Christmas seasons I had ever experienced.
The most important tip for handling the holidays after a major loss is to be gentle with yourself, and do what feels the most comfortable. Here are some other suggestions:
-Acknowledge that Christmas is coming. As much as you may want to avoid it, you can't.
-Try not to “float” into Christmas. Be deliberate in choosing what you would like to do.
-Avoid thinking about what you “should” do. You need to do what is right for you instead of feeling obligated. Decide to do what you can manage and let your friends and family know. There are no “right” or “wrong” ways to celebrate the holidays.

Click here to read the article in it's entirety: http://nationalshare.blogspot.com/2011/12/coping-with-holidays-while-grieving.html.

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When A Baby Dies

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Symptoms Of Grief

Physical
1. Hyperactive or under active
2. Feelings of unreality
3. Physical distress such as chest pains, abdominal pains, headaches, nausea
4. Change in appetite
5. Weight change
6. Fatigue
7. Sleeping problems
8. Restlessness
9. Crying and sighing
10. Feelings of emptiness
11. Shortness of breath
12. Tightness in the throat

Emotional
1. Numbness
2. Sadness
3. Anger
4. Fear
5. Relief
6. Irritability
7. Guilt
8. Loneliness
9. Longing
10. Anxiety
11. Meaninglessness
12. Apathy
13. Vulnerability
14. Abandonment

Social
1. Overly sensitive
2. Dependent
3. Withdrawn
4. Avoid others
5. Lack of initiative
6. Lack of interest

Behavioral
1. Forgetfulness
2. Searching for the deceased
3. Slowed thinking
4. Dreams of the deceased
5. Sense the loved one’s presence
6. Wandering aimlessly
7. Trying not to talk about loss in order to help others feel comfortable around them
8. Needing to retell the story of the loved one’s death

Help through Grief
1. Be patient with yourself. Do not compare yourself to others. Go through mourning at your own pace.
2. Admit you are hurting and go with the pain
3. Apply cold or heat to your body, whichever feels best.
4. Ask for and accept help.
5. Talk to others
6. Face the loss
7. Stop asking “Why?” and ask “What will I do now?”
8. Recognize that a bad day does not mean that all is lost.
9. Rest.
10. Exercise.
11. Keep to a routine.
12. Introduce pleasant changes into your life.
13. Know that you will survive.
14. Take care of something alive, such as a plant or a pet
15. Schedule activities to help yourself get through weekends and holidays.
16. Find someone who needs your help.
17. Accept your feelings as part of the normal grief reaction.
18. Postpone major decisions whenever possible
19. Do something you enjoy doing.
20. Write in a journal.
21. Be around people.
22. Schedule time alone.
23. Do not overdo.
24. Eat regularly.

-taken from Grief Watch

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Tonight

As I sit here tonight, listening to this beautiful music, watching little Liv's slideshow, crying my heart out, I am filled with utter and seemingly endless grief. But I know that's okay. Evey now and then it needs to be so. I will be okay. She will be mine forever. I will see her again one day. But for now someday isn't soon enough. I want it to be today. Tonight. In my arms being rocked. Little three year old curly headed princess. I love you.

Acceptably Painful

Last month was the first time I haven't been to Livy's grave at least once a month. She had no flowers or figurines or anything at her place last month. I thought about it every couple of days. I never planned on going though. Each time I'd think about it it felt acceptably painful. I no longer had to go. I wanted to go. But I'd let the idea of going sit in my brain for a minute or two and the thought passed. October came so so quickly. Before I knew it it had been a whole month and I had not driven that drive up the hill. I was a little shocked. A whole month. I do feel guilty because our little Olivia's place had no flowers for a whole month, but as far as how I feel just about the fact that I didn't go to "see" her, it feels acceptably painful. No longer a dire need. There is no longer an insurmountable urging force. And I think that's okay. Maybe.

You Don't Have To

"You don't have to be strong for others. You are not obligated to get back to normal so that others are comfortable around you. Grief is a sign that you are healing and growing as a person. Let it happen." -Unknown

A Day, A Month

A day of grief lasts longer than a month of joy.

-Chinese Proverb

Still

Please don't tell me not to cry.
Please don't say there's a reason why.

You don't know what I am feeling,
Or how mush I hurt.
The wet spots are from tears,
On the collar of this shirt.

You think I should go on with life-
Forget about it and be strong.
But deep down I am sad,
And I don't want to go along.

I don't expect you to understand why
For no apparent reason I break down and start to cry.

My life has changed forever, you see.
And that is why I'm not the same ol' me.

So please don't try to act like nothing happened
Because it's changed my life forever..
I will never be the same again-
Not today, not tomorrow, but never.

The best thing you can do for me is just be there-
Just like always, my friend.
My broken heart is hurting bad
And it will never mend.

-Unknown

It's Personal

Some gals who check this blog regularly ask why I never post anything personal. I'm really not sure why. It's not that I don't still grieve a little every day. It's not that I'm worried that friends and family will read it and judge me. I don't know why. Lately I've been wanting to post something personal. It's some feelings and thoughts I've been having. I've been thinking it over in my mind for about a week now and had all the perfectly formed sentences in my brain to correctly express what I wanted to convey. Now it's all left me. However, it seems important to me so I'll press on.

Olivia's third angel day or birthday, or whatever you'd like to call it was May 1st. It's never overwhelmingly depressing. Actually a little bittersweet. The reason for the bitter is obvious, but the sweet seems surprising. Just now I'm wondering where that comes into play and I think it must come from the knowledge I have of where she's at and that we are an eternal family and that I will see her again one day. Point is that it wasn't a horrible day/week. Of course I was sad and cried and had a tough time, but it wasn't horrible...until the next weekend.

The little boy across the street was born a week after Livy. I remember being pregnant right along with his mom and chatting a couple of times about the babies. And about a month after Liv was born, on my first venture to the mailbox, her husband asked if we had our baby early because I was obviously not pregnant any more, I said we did, and because of the smile on his face that told me he was going to say congratulations or something of the sort I immediately spat out that "she didn't make it". For some reason I remember the exact words I used. Which somehow reminds me of how the cleaning ladies at the hospital the day after Olivia was born and we were in a postpartum room told us congratulations and I somehow smiled and said thank you.

Anyway, every time I see this precious little boy playing in the yard I remember Olivia. Every time he falls I want to run to his rescue. Every time he does something big for his age I feel a little proud. It is odd. It feels odd to me. But it just happens.

Well, this little fella had a huge third birthday party in his front yard with balloons, decorations, a big bounce house, lots of family, and tons of presents. That was a horrible day. I couldn't tear my eyes away. I sat just inside a front window in the shadow and balled. I tried to move. Then I walked away a few times, but I always came right back. I watched this family celebrate the third anniversary of this precious boy's birth and grieved at the emptiness of our home. Yes, we have been blessed with a rainbow baby. But that rainbow baby should have an older sister. There should be half deflated balloons in our home from the previous weekend when we had his sister's third birthday party. There should be a room downstairs painted pink with lacy curtains. I should have been telling her to hush as not to wake baby brother from his nap. It was the worst day I've had in a long time.

Then came Mother's Day. I didn't go to the first hour of church because our rainbow baby was napping, but I doubt I would have went anyway. I have gone every Mother's Day in years past, but because of that birthday party this Mother's Day was harder somehow. All in all it turned out to be another bittersweet but not horrible day.

Then there was Memorial Day. This day has never really gotten to me. I think I recall in a past post saying the same thing. Where I grew up, in the South, Memorial Day was a day to honor the deceased military. Not until I moved to the West did I learn that people used it as a day to remember all their beloved dead. My first Memorial Day after losing Olivia was spent in frustration at all the children at the cemetery who trampled the lawn and played with all the flowers, wind chimes, and toys left at the angel's graves. The next year I bought and put up a picket fence around Liv's grave to keep the kids away. It actually worked. It's been more of a day to protect "her" than to remember her/grieve for her. When I went the day before Memorial Day this year to put up her fence it was dusk. As I started to push the stakes of the fence into the ground tears started to fall. Angry tears. Anger from having a daughter's grave to have to protect. Angry that she wasn't here and I had to care for her grave instead of her. Then they turned to tears of sadness and I wept. I got all the fencing put down except for the piece at the bottom of her headstone. Though there were people around I knelt down, laid my head on her headstone, and wept. I felt I had no strength to do anything but that. No strength left to hold back the tears. No strength left to pick myself up and walk away. It just happened. And gratefully the few people there just let it happen. It didn't take too long for me to use the happy thoughts of where she is and how I'll see her again one day to drive the sadness away and dry up those tears. I suppose it was a needed cry. Well, anyway aren't all cries needed cries? I drove home sane again, for every mother of an angel goes through seconds of insanity during these brief and intense grieving moments.

The next day we visited her grave. The cemetery was absolutely gorgeous. It seemed every grave was decorated with flowers and/or balloons. Driving to "Baby Land" Liv's place was easy to see thanks to the pretty, white fencing. Our earthly family of three got out and placed our gifts there for her. Sometimes my visits are unfeeling, like I just haven't got the energy to let myself feel anything. This was one of those times. We took our pictures and left.

Just now while typing this I realize how the fencing is the only way I can show my motherly protection for her. I've always realized how the flowers, ribbons around the top of the vase, dolls with bottles, figurines and trinkets are the only gifts I can give her, but just now realized what that fence truly means to me.

So, it's been a tough month or so, on and off. I do feel. I do grieve. Though I don't post it often here I am experiencing these things right along with you angel mothers, and I wanted to share this most recent span of grief with you. You are not alone. All my love.

The Price

"To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes that ability to experience happiness."
-Erich Fromm

Turkish Proverb

"He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it."

Normal

Normal is having tears behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life. Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for birthdays, Christmas', Thanksgivings, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th, and Easter. Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or birthday party, yet feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket. Normal is feeling you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming because you just don't like to sit through anything. Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what ifs and why didn't Is go through your head constantly. Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away. Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house because the silence is deafening. Normal is staring at every baby who looks like she is my baby's age, and then thinking of the age she would be now and not being able to imagine it, then wondering why it is even important to imagine it because it will never happen. Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of the hole in my heart. Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday commonplace activity and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds and yet realizing it has become a part of my normal. Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and her birthday and survive these days, and trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion. Happy birthday? Not really. Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my baby loved. Thinking how she would love it, but how she is not here to enjoy it. Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby. Normal is making sure that others remember her. Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever. Normal is not listening to people compare anything to this loss. Unless they too have lost a child NOTHING, even if your child is in the remotest part of the Earth away from you, compares. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural. Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day because I know my mental health depends on it. Normal is realizing I do cry every day. Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as a "fetal demise" or a "product of conception" when you know they once were someone's loved one. normal is being impatient with everything and everyone but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child. normals is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child. normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and all over the USA, but never having met any of them face to face. Normals is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives. Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God, "God may have done this because...". I love God. I know my baby is up in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were taken from Earth is not appreciated and makes no sense to this grieving mother. Normals is avoiding McDonald's and Burger King playgrounds because of small happy children that break your heart when you see them. Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there is even a God. Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years. And last of all, normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal". This "normal" is torture.
-Unknown

A Holy Response

Special Handling Please

I was handed a package the other day.
It was wrapped securely to be mailed away.
Attached to the outside as plain as could be
Was a simple note for all to see.

Please rush through the holiday season,
Too painful to open for any reason.
Contained within find one broken heart -
Fragile, broken, and falling apart.

Tried to go shopping the other day.
The hype of the season blew me away.
Sat down to write cards,
That was insane.
Couldn't find the list
Or think of my name.

People say,
"Come over, be of good cheer," and
"Celebrate the holidays,
Prepare a New Year."

But my grief overwhelms me
Like waves in the sea.
Can they cope with my crying,
and unsettled me?

I don't have any holiday cheer.
Decorations, traditions, big family meal,
I can't do this year.
Do you know how I feel?

Guilty and frustrated!
I've let everyone down!
Our holiday celebrations
Used to be the best in town.

So just ship me away,
Address unknown.
When my grief is better
I might fly home.

-Author Unknown

What If?

I know we've very most likely figured out the things that caused me to lose Olivia and have chemical pregnancies, but what if? Since we buried Olivia I've kept my eye one the plot below her, just in case. It was logical then, but not since we've been blessed with our baby boy. I still kept my eye on it. Recently it has been filled. Every new grave there breaks my heart a little more. But when this particular grave was filled I grieved a little. Weird. Strange. Wrong?

Glory In The Flower

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;

-from "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by William Wordsworth

Eternal

When you accept what has happened, you aren't acknowledging that it is okay, but rather that you know you must find a way to keep growing and living - even if you don't feel like it. [Don't let] grief be your constant companion. Realize that your grief is born out of unconditional love for your child, and rejoice in that love which will never end. Embracing life again is not a sign that you have stopped missing your baby, but an example of a love that is eternal.

-Wisconsin Perspectives Newsletter, Spring 1989

Years of Joy

"Whole years of joy glide unperceived away, while sorrow counts the minutes as they pass." -William Havard



Don't let this happen to you. Yes, grieve, but let the grief lessen and lessen as time goes by. It will not happen without your permission. Then you can feel the joy and happiness of life again. And remember, happiness does not equal forgetfulness.

New Year Wishes for Bereaved Parents

To the newly bereaved: We wish you patience - patience with yourselves in the painful weeks, months, even years ahead.

To the bereaved sibling: We wish you and your parents a new understanding of each others needs and the beginnings of good communication.

To those who are single parents: We wish you the inner resources we know you will need to cope, often alone with your loss.

To those experiencing marital difficulties after the death of your child: We wish you a special willingness and ability to communicate with each other.

To those of you who have experienced the death of more than one child: We wish you the endurance you will need to fight your way back to a meaningful life once again.

To those of you who have experienced the death of an only child or all of your children: We offer you our eternal gratitude for serving as such inspiration to the rest of us.

To those of you who are plagued with guilt: We wish you the reassurances that you did the very best you could under the circumstances, and that your child knew that.

To those of you who are deeply depressed: We wish you the first steps out of the "Valley of the Shadow".

To all fathers and those of you unable to cry: We wish you healing tears and the ability to express your grief.

To those of you who are exhausted from grieving: We wish you the strength to face just one more hour, just one more day.

To all others with special needs we have not mentioned: We wish you the understanding you need and the assurance that you are loved.

-from a speech by former TCF President, Joe Rousseau

Where Are You Christmas?

This song touches my heart every Christmas. I have always loved Christmas, but just couldn't get into the spirit of it the year we lost Olivia. Then I heard this song. It didn't magically make me feel better and make my Christmas perfect, but it did remind me that it's okay to be sad and grieve. There will be many more Christmas' to come, and though she is not there in person Olivia will always be there is spirit. Since then she has become my Christmas spirit. The last verse of the song may not apply now, but I could cling to the hope it inspires that one day it will apply - that one day I will be healed in a way that I am able to be happy knowing she is safe and sound and having a wonderful Christmas right along with us. What a gift a child is, and who better to know this than someone who has lost theirs. Who better knows of the pain our Heavenly Father experienced when He gave His Only Begotten. In time Christmas will take on this new meaning for those who have lost children, and they will see Christmas in a way they never thought they could. When you are ready, and if you let it, you will one day see the gift that Christmas really represents, be filled with the hope of it, and be able to hold your child in your heart with joy.