Embrace

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.
-Kenji Miyazawa

A Day, A Month

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

-Chinese Proverb

No One

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal."

-from a headstone in Ireland

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

Too Full

"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."
-Jan Glidewell

Turkish Proverb

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

Difficult Times

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."
-Isak Dinesen

Pain

"Pain is only bearable if we know it will end,
not if we deny it exists."

-Viktor Frankl

My Garden

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.

-Unknown

A Moment Is

"Sometimes love is for a moment.
Sometimes love is for a lifetime.
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime."

-Martin Luther King

Closer

You are closer to me than ever before, and the only difference is that instead of opening my eyes to see you, now I must open my heart.

-unknown

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.

The Time

"You don't heal from the loss because time passes, you heal because of what you do with the time." -Carol Crandall

I totally believe this. I went back to work too soon after we lost our Livy. I threw myself back into a normal routine, gave the same old answers as to what happened when I was asked, and didn't really focus on healing. Months later I was no better. I was almost as raw as the week she was born. I crashed. Hubby and I had a sit-down and discussed it. We decided I needed to quit my job and focus on healing for Olivia, for me, for us, and for our future family. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone who's experienced a loss should quit their job. It just seemed like a good time with the business I worked for being sold to new owners and me crashing all around the same time. Since then I have been able to look at her baby book, scrapbook, and memory box whenever I feel that I need to. I can visit her grave whenever I feel that I need to. I can talk to her without others hearing. I have more time for PAIL meetings if I feel I need outside support. I've finally faced and dealt with the grief and pain, and have come out much the better for it. I headed up a memorial fundraiser for NSS on her first heavenly birthday. I browse the internet looking for other mothers I can help. I've learned how to make this blog more accessible and have tried to chock it full of helpful information for any mother who has experienced a loss who might come across it. (Still need to work a little more on that, I think.) I have prayed... and prayed... and prayed. Then one day I realized that I found peace with what happened to our daughter. I still have sad days, of course, and I still get misty-eyed or cry out of missing her, but for the most part, when I think of her, I feel blessed for being given such a perfect little daughter who was too good for this world. Sometimes I think she was just needed elsewhere and was sent to us for that brief time because she belongs to us, but had very important things to do. I know she is eternally a member of our family, and I can't wait to give her the biggest hug and kiss. I am proud of my daughter, and not ashamed to mention her in day-to-day conversation. She's the best daughter a couple could ever ask for, and we are thankful for her.

Time

"Time didn't heal, it numbed. Like a good anesthetic, it made the pain more bearable but it never went away." -C. Kelly

Letting Go

To let go isn't to forget, not to think about or ignore. It doesn't leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret. Letting go isn't winning and it isn't losing. It's not about pride and it's not about how you appear and it's not about obsessing or dwelling on the past. Letting go isn't blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts and doesn't leave emptiness, hurt, or madness. It's not giving in or giving up. Letting go isn't about loss and it's not defeat. To let go is to cherish memories but to overcome and to move on. It is having an open mind and confidence in the future. Letting go is accepting. It is learning and experiencing and growing. To let go is to be thankful for the experiences that made you laugh, made you cry and made you grow. It's about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will have soon again. Letting go is having the courage to accept change and the strength to keep moving. Letting go is growing up. It is realizing that the heart can sometimes be the most potent remedy. To let go is to open a door and to clear a path and to set yourself free.

-Gloria Abraham

All We Have To Do

My favorite movies are "The Lord of The Ring" movies. In the first movie Frodo, the hero, gets stuck with the very unfortunate and grueling task of destroying a very evil ring. With tears streaming down his face Frodo says, "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened." Frodo's close friend and mentor, Gandalf, replies, "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Every time I hear these quotes tears stream down my face. I think, "I wish this pain had never come to me. I wish little Liv would have never died." Gandalf's reply always hits me. "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." For a long while time stood still for me. Yet at the same time it was passing too quickly. These conflicting feelings created a pause in my life where I just stopped. I stumbled around without a reason or cause forgetting things that were once important to me. I am just now starting to "play" again. Slowly I am learning to move on while at the same time carry this, carry her with me. Though Gandalf's words always struck me I am just now beginning to follow them. Sometimes I thought I was following them. I'd have little spurts. It no longer feels like spurts. I am deciding.

Tiny Feet

One Small Child

"And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one small child makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!"
-Charles Dickens

To Live

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

-Thomas Campbell

Stars

"Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost loved ones pour through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

-Unknown