Words Can Express

Shores

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to spend a night on Mackinac Island. For those of you not familiar with this location, it’s an island off the northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula, with Lake Huron lapping it’s shores. We arrived in a small town at the edge of the Mackinac Bridge. Parking our car, we left our luggage with the porters and waited to board the ferry. The waters were a cold steel gray topped with fast moving whitecaps. I was scared. I’ve never been to the island, ridden the ferry, or been on one of the great lakes when the waves were so large.

Traveling with another bereaved mother, who’d been to the island many times, we boarded the boat. This trip was a sort of pilgrimage for her. Anxious about going somewhere she’d last been with her deceased child, she settled into her seat and looked out the foggy window. I ran my sleeve across the glass . . . trying to clear it enough to see outside. The ferry started to move and the swell of the waves grew larger as we pulled into open water.

My friend told me where the life vests and exits were “just in case”. Then, thinking it was funny, started to sing lyrics from “The Edmund Fitzgerald”. I looked at her with horror and she said “it’s a nurse’s sense of humor, dark”. Not long after that we hit a huge wave that lifted the boat about five feet into the air. Now, you have to know this boat seats nearly a hundred people and has two decks. Being tossed that high means the water was rough! For a moment, we hovered in the air as the boat fell. Then we slammed down into our seats. And I thought, if I die, I’ll see Becca. I think we lose our fear of death when we have a child that’s gone before us.

Either the captain slowed down or the waves calmed down as we approached shallower water, I don’t know which. I was then able to concentrate on the hazy shapes in the distance. I asked if the shape I saw was Mackinac Island. My friend said no, it was another island, but we were almost there.

My mind starting thinking about how grief is often times described as waves. How we are fighting the currents and just trying to stay afloat. I agree with this description. Then, a thought flashed into my head. She’d been here before. She knew what the islands looked like when the weather was sunny and the waters a clear blue calm. She’d never been here when the weather was as it was that day. But she knew that the mist covered shape in the distance was solid ground. Even though, at the moment, she couldn’t see it. The trip across this stretch of the lake wouldn’t last forever. She KNEW there was land.

Our ground was solid when our children were alive. When our child died, a tsunami swept across our land and wiped much of what we know away. On our good days, we stand on that ground, looking at the drastically changed landscape surrounding us. On the bad, the waters rise and sweep us to sea.

During these moments, the ones when we think of how easy it might be to slip below the surface and give in, we have to look across the water and find a familiar shape. We know there is land. Reaching it might be difficult . . . but it’s there! The waves rise and fall. When they carry you to their crest, find the land and swim towards it. Keep doing this, over and over. Until you make it to shore.

I think my friend was calmer than me on the ferry because she knew what lay ahead. I didn’t, therefore I was more anxious. We can help ourselves, and each other, by remembering what we stood on before our child died. Reminding each other that the maelstrom won’t last forever.

As we drew closer to the island, the soft shapes started to come into sharp focus. My friend pointed out a white church very close to the shore. She told me that her daughter, Mckenna, wanted to get married there some day. Now, she wouldn’t have the chance. Her mom was going to leave a rock, with her daughter’s name on it, outside of the church. Her pilgrimage.

The ferry slowed, we floated on the waves, and I took a picture of the church through a foggy window. A picture taken for a grieving mom, a daughter who’s future was stolen by someone else’s hand, and for me. Someone who didn’t know this shore existed, but felt blessed to visit it.

I don’t always know where my journey will take me. I do know that the journey can be better if you don’t always do it alone.

A Mother’s Loss

The above photograph is of a rock I found while walking on the shore of Lake Huron on Mackinac Island. To me, it shows how a grieving mother’s heart can contain a hole, yet be as strong as stone.

With this post, I am going to start a habit of sharing other grieving mothers’ writing about child loss. I’m honored to start this with the sharing of a piece of writing by Crystal Silveous. A mother, who lost her child, and shares her journey on her blog site “Living Through Our Loss”. Thank you so very much, Crystal. You are courageous in the sharing of such a personal journey. The following words are hers:

There is nothing quite like the ache you feel after you lose a child. It’s been over two years since I lost my first born, a beautiful little girl, but that ache is still very much there. Days after losing her my arms empty, my breasts hard from my milk coming in but no baby to feed, my heart broken. These tragedies happen to other people, you never think they will happen to you. I always wonder why me? I still wake up and think this can’t be reality. Is this really my life? Instead of raising a two year old I am reaching out to other Mothers that have lost babies, to comfort one another, share our stories, keep the memory of our babies alive.

She should be here though. She should be playing in the backyard not in an urn on a table. I sometimes close my eyes and picture a world with her still in it. I can feel her little hugs, her kisses. I imagine her sweet little voice and the pitter patter of her feet. She will forever be a part of my imagination. A part of my life I was unable to live.

Some people think that “you can just have another one”. Like children are like puppies, replaceable. I wanted her though. I still want her even though I’ve had another baby. Some may think the pain subsides when you have another child. It doesn’t. It still hurts, and sometimes more because of the constant reminders of what we missed out on with the child we’ve lost. Some wonder how we can miss and grieve someone that we didn’t know. I knew her. I grew her inside me for 8 months. I knew what foods she liked, I knew she loved Daddy’s voice, and which side of my belly she preferred. I didn’t get to raise her, but isn’t that what hurts the most? The what could have been? We miss the lost moments, the memories we will never have, the pictures never taken, the child we will never see grow.

Seeing children that are the same age my daughter would have been hurts. You would think it was something I would get used to but I don’t. I find myself asking why my child? What did this child do to deserve to live? It sounds so horrible but it’s the thoughts of a loss Mom.

When a women complains about her pregnancy or isn’t happy with the sex of the child she is carrying, it bothers me like nothing else. So many women lose pregnancies, babies, or struggle to get pregnant at all. I’m sorry your back hurts but be mindful of the fact that you will most likely go on to deliver a healthy baby that is alive all while another women somewhere cries in despair over the one she has lost.

I will not tell you that my child died for a reason because I don’t truly believe that. Or maybe it’s not that I don’t believe it or do not want to believe my daughter’s life was taken for any type of purpose. I will tell you though that losing her has ignited something inside of me all while extinguishing other parts. Things I thought mattered before don’t anymore. I try not to sweat the small stuff anymore. I appreciate moments more and live to be more mindful. My purpose in life has changed. I strive to be more kind, live each moment to the fullest. I live for her.

I am not 100% certain that I will see her again, though I hope with all my heart that I do. And if I get to, I imagine our reunion, and it brings the biggest smile to my face. I love you my sweet girl.

Mother’s Days After

I haven’t written a blog entry in a while. I’d have to check to see just how many days it’s been. The exact number isn’t important, but the reason I haven’t written is. To me. Mother’s Day just hits me like a punch in the stomach. The days leading up to it are full of anxiety, the day of is difficult, and the days following are full of sadness.

This past Sunday marked the tenth time the day of celebration for mothers passed without my daughter. As I’ve done since the first one, I pulled out a few things I have from past holidays, that she gave me. I ran my fingers over the paper of homemade cards as if they were made of precious materials. To me, they are. These things are irreplaceable. Let me take a moment to give you some advice: save it. Save it all. One day you might be happy you did.

Though this holiday is difficult for me . . . I know it’s harder, in a different way, for newly bereaved mothers. The first one is full of moments of denial. This can’t be real, you tell yourself. Images of last Mother’s Day flash into your mind as you line up the time, to a year before, and think about what you were doing with your child. Every piece of your soul aches to travel back to that day. Any day before your child died, really. Then the weight of the new reality crushes those memories with it’s truth.

On Sunday, I sat at a small Mother’s Day celebration that my friend’s family had. As we chatted, sitting in a circle in the shady backyard, I couldn’t help but notice the four kids sitting across the expanse of grass. Cousins, laughing with each other. Except, one of them was missing. You see, there used to be five. Until one was killed. Her mother, my friend, sat next to me, quiet. Curled into herself.

A few times, I asked her if she was alright. She said yes. We always say yes. The rest of the family, though aware of the huge hole that was left by murder, had all of their children around them. I know they carry immense and indescribable sadness but they can’t experience the pain that my fried carries for the loss of her daughter. I know they understand that holidays will be difficult . . . but I am not sure others can truly understand the depth of our pain on such days. Seeing my friend steeped in her pain, pain that was so real it flowed off of her in waves, broke my heart. I wish I could make it better for her. That I could make it better for all the bereaved moms I know. But I can’t. I can barely make it better for myself.

The Saturday night before Mother’s Day, my friend and I accompanied another mom to the site where her child died last year. She’d spread out a blanket under a huge pine tree, a tree that must have been over a hundred years old, and talked about her son’s last day. We listened to her as she shared her son’s death story. We all need to share the death story of our child. The creek slipped quietly by below us as tears fell upon our cheeks. There is sacredness in these moments. A connection to each other and to life. And death. It’s an honor when mothers share these stories with us . . . let us into their very small and intimate circle of pain.

Being a mother is a sacred act. Raising a child, caring for them, loving them, protecting them, teaching them . . . it’s the most important thing we can do with our lives. Both joy filled and heartbreaking.

The days that led up to Mother’s Day were filled with apprehension for me. I know it’s going to be hard . . . I just don’t know how hard. So I worry I might not make it through. The day of, though it’s been a decade, still brings memories from previous celebrations into my mind. I wonder if she knew how much I love her. If she knows the cards her little hands made were among the most precious gifts I ever could have received. Does she see me get them out every year and cry as I read them over and over. I hesitate as I look at the gifts from my sons, wondering if I should save them “just in case” and then think I am courting death if I do.
The days after are hollow and painful. There is a type of re-realization that Becca is gone for good. She’s not coming back. Even if I cry to the heavens that it’s been too long since I’ve seen her so she should be sent back. It’s a kind of bottoming out . . . again.

I’ve traveled far upon the path in my grief journey. I learn new things every day. But Mother’s Day will forever be one of things I circle back to again and again. One of the many times each year that I need to enter a space I’ve been in before, and work through it again.

Then I can use the knowledge I’ve gained to help the moms who are new to the grief of child loss. Next year, if you know someone who is a bereaved mother, please reach out to her. You will add some happiness to a sometimes very dark day by letting her know she is still a mom. And is remembered as one.

What I Do

A few days ago, a friend reached out to me for advice about grief. One of her friends lost her child, suddenly, earlier this month. My friend’s friend is lost and hurting. I was asked if I could talk to her. Of course, I said without hesitation. I never hesitate.

One of the bereaved moms I am close to said something when we were talking a few months ago. There is a “bat signal” that seems to always be in the dark sky. A signal we can’t see until our eyes are covered with the haze of grief. Or maybe uncovered when we lose trust in the life. I’m not sure.

Somehow, though, we seem to find each other more easily. Is it because before our own loss we didn’t spend much time thinking about the grieving mom? To immerse ourselves, willingly, into the reality of it would make us realize it can happen to anyone. We see how easily death could visit us one day. So, we don’t stay in that “space” for very long. If we give it too much thought, will our energy make it come true? Prayer is energy. Could acknowledging these types of thoughts give them life, too? Why risk it. Fortunately, if you haven’t lost a child, it’s easy to leave that “space”.

The longer I walk this path . . . the more I realize how many others are traveling on a parallel course. Every week or two, it seems, I learn of another newly bereaved mom who has just set a foot on her own path of loss. When we are standing there, at the beginning, we are at a crossroads. One we didn’t choose to stand in willingly. But here we find ourselves.

Two paths “Y” off before us. We desperately want to take the one on which we live our lives with our child. But that path is no longer available to us. It lays in ruin. Blown apart. Lost in the rubble that was our life, before. Life forces us to move. So we do. Hesitating as we turn toward the other arm of the “Y” which leads to a life we never considered.

Never have I seen a more broken being than a newly bereaved mother. Confused, numb, half alive. Her heart in her hands. Eyes full of anguish. And anger. Fleeting moments of hope that it isn’t true. Moments of clarity in which the blinding truth stops her from breathing. Physical collapse because any ability to hold herself up has drained from her body.

When I meet a grieving mom, especially one who’s loss is recent, I am completely humbled by the invitation (of sorts) I’ve been given to enter the very intimate place she is. The fog, which settles upon us the second we find out our child is dead, parts slightly and I am allowed in. This is a sacred place. A holy place. All of the minutiae of everyday life is gone. None of it matters. We are two injured souls finding comfort in each other. Maybe strength. Most certainly, understanding. When words fail . . . which they sometimes do, tears fill in the space between.

I often wonder if anything I say helps another grieving mom. I so desperately want to say something, anything, that will help ease the pain. Though my early months (years) on this path are hazy, I don’t remember anything anyone said to me making a big difference. I didn’t have another grieving mom to talk to, though. Maybe that would have made a difference?

When I meet a mom, after the loss of her child, I feel a responsibility to her. And to her child. I’ve mentioned before that I believe when we moms meet here on earth, our children meet in heaven. I always ask Becca to go find this new child, explaining the child may be sad or perplexed, and hug them and help them. My daughter has been there for ten years. Her goal in life was to help and educate children. I hope she is doing this up there, comforting the newcomers.

In truth, sometimes the weight of this aspect of life is very heavy to carry. I think of the pain these moms will be experiencing and it breaks my heart. Because I’ve been there. It’s a very solemn and holy task to be a touchstone for someone. I don’t take that responsibility lightly. Though it can be tiring, and I can become overwhelmed, I know I have to use my own experiences to make the way easier for someone else. That is what we are supposed to do . . . I truly believe this. What choice do we have but to do the best we can with what we have been given?

My daughter was amazing. Becca was always the first to jump up and in to whatever she could do to help another. If she saw someone with a need . . . she did what she could to fill it. Without question. And without asking for anything in return. In a lot of ways, my daughter was much wiser than I am. She was a very old soul. I miss her to the depths of everything I am.

Though my hearts grows a bit heavier every time I am asked to help a newly bereaved mom, I will continue to do so. Using my life to make the path easier to travel, for others, also makes my injured soul heal.

Please. We are not very different from each other. One single moment in time could put you right where we are. I truly hope this doesn’t happen to any of you. But it will.

Help who you can, where you can, any way you can. When we get down to the very basics of life . . . being there for each other is what matters most.

We are all one.

In The Understanding

I remember sitting, numb, in the big room inside the funeral parlor. The chair was uncomfortable. There were boxes of tissue on every flat surface. Scattered on the shiny table in front of me were multiple binders. Binders which held images of caskets and linings and flower arrangements. I kept thinking it all was a bad dream. That at any moment, my alarm would go off, and I’d wake up. Of course, this didn’t happen. Instead, I went to the store and wandered around, trying to find something for my daughter to wear at “her visitation”.

There are no words to explain the pain which accompanies a mother choosing her child’s last outfit. Up one aisle, and down the other, I searched for the perfect outfit for Becca. Finally, I found myself in the sleepwear section of the store. I saw a beautiful white silk nightgown with a matching robe. It looked so much like the simple dress she’d worn for her senior prom. This was what I had envisioned her in. Something that made her look like the angel she now was.

With the clothing chosen, I now had to decide how she would “look”. I told them I wanted her to look like the little girl that I had raised. Very little makeup. Her hair simple, in a pony tail, I wanted her to look natural. I needed her to look like herself. Even now, writing this, my heart is torn in two as I remember her laying there . . . covered by the Care Bear blanket she’d had since she was three. I’d always thought that blanket would cover her children someday, not be cremated with her.

Earlier today, I was in a position to hear two people talking about autopsies. Their conversation was light with some laughter. You need to know, one of the participants in this conversation is going to be a doctor. A discussion about viewing an autopsy is not perverse but expected of a medical student. Though this topic isn’t out of the realm of what is talked about . . . it completely ripped apart my insides as the memory of my daughter’s visitation rushed into the middle of my thoughts.

Because Becca’s death was brought on by the actions of another, she was autopsied. My daughter was killed on a Sunday. She was kept in the morgue, in one of those refrigerated drawers, until her autopsy sometime on Monday. I spent that time frantic because I desperately wanted to sit beside her, so she wouldn’t be alone. I wasn’t allowed. In my bedroom I sat, looking out the window into the snow, aching to be with my child.

The first opportunity I was able to see her was a few minutes before her visitation began. I was led into a room. In the center of the room, there lay my Becca, her hands crossed atop the Care Bear blanket. She was on a gurney because I couldn’t bear to see her in a coffin. A coffin made it too real somehow.

In a future blog, I’ll share more about the visitation. For now, I’ll talk about her autopsy scars.

I remember, hysterically thinking, why are they called scars?? A scar indicates healing. When I gently parted the robe across her chest, and saw the Y shaped incision, my heart nearly stopped. They were not scars. They were cuts. Cuts that were never supposed to happen to her body. Distraught, I felt wild to know if her organs were put back where they belonged. Was she treated with respect? Oh my God, I pray that she was treated with tender care. She was my baby. She deserved to be cared for, even at the end.

As I stood next to my daughter alone, having asked everyone to leave so I could say good bye, I arranged her robe back over the stitches and kissed her farewell. Turning and walking away from her was so incredibly difficult I couldn’t do it. I had to be forced to leave her side.

I’m writing about this today to convey a very simple truth. The meaning of something to us will rarely be what it is to another person. If I had heard the conversation I shared above, a few years ago, I would have exploded. There is too much raw emotion, for me, around the term autopsy. I am a mother who witnessed the remnants of the procedure on her child. The person who talked about it today is a medical student. Worlds apart. Completely different sides of the same thing.

We bring our own experiences to every situation. The little ones, and the big. In no way did these two people mean for their conversation to raise memories about my daughter. They couldn’t know it would shatter any peace I felt today. If they had, I am certain they would not have talked where I could hear them.

Most people are like this. They can’t know the memories behind every day things because they have not experienced them in the way a grieving mother has. I imagine, most of the time, people don’t realize why what they have said has hurt you. I doubt there is much intent in hurting us, further.

If you need to explode, then do it. Those who are close to you will understand. It took me a very long time to realize what I’ve tried to explain above. If you haven’t realized it yet, that’s ok, you will . . . in your own time. And your time is all that matters.

If you are one of the people who’s been hit by the fallout from just such an explosion . . . thank you for sticking around. We are doing the best we can to come to terms with all that’s changed around us, and within us.

The key is attempting to understand each other, even if we fall short in it’s completion, there is deep connection in the act.

Dark Truths

There are things about grieving the loss of a child that are very ugly. Thoughts we have may seem cruel to outsiders. Honestly, they seem cruel to us, too. You don’t see the world through the shattered glass which covers our view now. The spidery cracks change the image we see. Like a kaleidoscope, when we move just a bit, everything looks different. Before, we knew how things appeared. In the after, we see sides and pieces we hadn’t realized existed.

Yesterday, I was taking a box of pictures out of my car to finally put in the house after my recent move. As moms usually do when photographs are near . . . I started to leaf through a few bunches of them. I came across a photo from the late eighties that started my mind down a very dark road. I’m not happy my thought process took the path it did, in fact, I’m a little ashamed. But pushing the shame aside, and examining the thoughts I had, is more important than any attempt to remain kind in appearance.

One of the biggest questions we have when we lose a child is why. Why? Why my child? Why in this way? Why did this happen? Why am I left living without my baby? Even if we were to be given the answer . . . would it be acceptable enough for us to completely understand and agree with the reason? To be alright with their absence? Never.

Yet we still ask.

The picture I found both instantly made me angry and guilty at the same time. I remember the day it was taken. If I close my eyes, I can hear the delicate laughter of two little girls. Second cousins who had basically grown up together. Both daughters of young single moms. Five year old girls who were more like sisters than anything else. When I read my daughter’s journal, after her death, she had a poem written about her cousin mixed in with those about life. Their relationship shaped them both, almost.

You see, one of the girls took Path A while the other, Path B. The girl who took “A” went to college, worked two jobs, and was building a future for herself. Path “B” led the other girl into a life of young motherhood, drug use, and criminal activity.

In the past, I’ve written about my inability to understand why my daughter died and my uncle who molested a large, unknown, number of young girls, still lives. When I verbalize this thought most people understand. Yes, they say. It’s unthinkable that a young innocent woman should be killed but a pedophile, recently released from prison (who has undoubtedly molested since) remains alive. It’s completely understandable that I think this man should have died long before my child, isn’t it? But what of my dark thoughts that Becca’s cousin should have died before her? Is that as easy for you to understand? Or does it make me a monster in your eyes?

As I held the photograph in my trembling hands, my mind ran a mental checklist and ticked off the accomplishments of both girls. I know both girls. I have loved both of them. Each was a small baby, held in my arms, that I kissed as she slept. So why does my mind keep saying it wishes the other had died in the place of my child?

The night Becca was killed, I sat a mile from the crash scene in my parents red pickup truck, waiting for my friend to come back after seeing my dead daughter. Waiting to hear if the woman that had been killed was really my child. I kept praying, pleading, begging that it not be Becca.

“But there is a dead girl up there. It’s someone’s daughter if it isn’t yours,” a voice in my head told me.

“I don’t want it to be Becca!!” I screamed.

The voice replied, “Then it’s another mother’s child down there.”

“I don’t want it to be anyone’s child,” I wept.

“It’s your child, or it’s the child of someone else. Which would you prefer?” it said to me.

Neither I kept saying to myself. I couldn’t imagine another mother finding out their child was dead. Yet, I can look at the picture of a child I loved, cared for . . . and can say, I wish it had been her, instead. You have no idea how difficult it is to have this thought and to have to admit to it. But there it is. My truth.

I don’t think I am a monster. I certainly don’t wish this young lady dead now. I haven’t talked to her in years. I don’t have much communication with my family so I am unsure as to what her life is like now. I hope she is doing well, I really do, because having a life is an incredible gift to waste. She’s friend requested me a few times on a popular social site but I’ve declined each time. It’s painful to see Becca’s friends attain life goals she’ll never get to . . . somehow, seeing this young woman do so would be utter anguish. Again, I’m not proud of this. It’s just my truth.

My daughter’s poem surfaces as I look at the photograph of two beautiful light haired little girls. Especially this part:

“She was my sister,
not by birth but in my heart.
Our days together consisted of
Play-Doh, swing sets, and Barbies.
And it was like the time would never end.”

Oh my Becca, I miss you so much my beautiful girl.

Healing Places

I’ve always been an artist. Not necessarily a good one, but drawing did something for me that nothing else could do. I was centered and no where else when I had a pencil in my hand and a sketchpad in my lap. After my daughter was killed, I spent hours silently on the couch. Doing drawing after drawing of rocks. My mind was soothed by the sound of the lead on paper. My body, wracked with pain, would turn it’s attention to the fine motor skills needed to draw, and I’d have a period of lessened physical torture. When I draw, or paint, I am nowhere but right there, in that moment. It’s the closest I come to meditating.

When we lose a child, our life is permanently divided into two distinct time frames. Before and After. The letters used to denote periods of time, BC and AD have a new meaning to me. Before Crash and After Death. It’s how our lives are segmented now. We exist in the after but long for the before. Living in this limbo is exhausting. We know we must participate in the life around us but we can’t help letting our minds wander to days long ago. Or maybe not so long ago. Days so close we can almost touch them.

The only place I’ve found, that gives me a reprieve, is in my studio.

Let me say this: writing helps me heal, as well. But, writing is where I purposely access the emotions and examine them. I have to allow them to wash over me and take over my mind so I can write, as truthfully as possible, about my experience. It’s a painful and exhausting activity. Often, I feel completely worn out need to just finish the day by going to bed immediately after I’m finished. I write because I HAVE to. There is a story in me that I need to share, to lighten it’s weight on my soul, and to hopefully help others not feel alone in this. But painting soothes my emotions instead of bringing them to the surface.

As I said above, we live in an world that has been dissected by the death of our child. We are continually assaulted with “used to be” and “should have been”. I know I often feel as if I am talking myself from the edge of a ledge that leads to all engulfing pain. My heart can only take so much, in one day, before all my closely held emotions spill free. The closest I’ve come to that ledge, lately, is when a pregnant girl and her mother stood at the deli counter where I work. They discussed the cravings they had in common during their pregnancies. A special bonding conversation for mother and daughter that nearly caused me to come unhinged. I’ve learned to hide these moments from others. Most don’t understand.

When I get home, after a day like this, I sit down at my easel and can feel a sense of calm enfold me. I’ve read that meditation helps us detach. It reduces stress and alleviates anxiety,but not for me. I have tried numerous times, over the years, to use meditation as a means to mental well being. Not once has it worked for me. My mind races and starts circling unpleasant thoughts. I begin to worry that I can’t do anything right, even meditation, like other people. I end up feeling worse than when I started. Let me add, I do know meditation works for people and I don’t want to sound as if I think it’s a waste of time. It isn’t. Fortunately, I’ve found my meditative activity.

In the past year, I’ve started doing something I never thought I would have, or could have. I lead painting events for groups of people. Some have been for profit, but the ones that mean the most to me are the ones that I donate my time to help raise funds. Because of being a grieving mom, I’ve met other bereaved moms who have foundations to help others, in the memory of their child. Generally, the painting we do is simple, only taking a few hours, but for those hours I am helping others learn about the healing quality to creating.

Creating, for me, isn’t about the end product (unless I am doing a commission for someone else.). It’s about the process. The journey, not the destination. I’m not looking at the two pieces of my life, the before and after, I am existing in the now. My daughter is with me, I haven’t forgotten her,she is happy because I have found a moment of peace.

The smell of the paint, feel of the brush in my hand, and the colors on the palette are all very soothing to me. My two dogs at my feet, the warmth of the cat on my lap, all work together to create harmony in my soul. Though these moments are brief, they can save a very difficult day from complete ruin.

I’m currently working on a series titled “Healing Places”, which for me, are always in nature. The image above is the canvas I am working on currently. Bringing the two types of healing together for me, being in them and painting them, is having a very uplifting effect on my soul. A peace I so very badly want to help other grieving mothers find. Whether it be painting, writing, running, gardening or meditating. Whatever it is. Our souls NEED this in order to heal. To remain strong. You deserve this time for yourself and your soul.

In that spirit, my studio is always open to anyone who feels the need to paint.

Pieces Of Her

In the spring of 2002, my daughter invited me to go on her senior spring break trip with her. It was a trip of a lifetime! While in Los Angeles, we visited the famous stretch of sidewalk outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Becca was beyond thrilled when her feet fit perfectly into the prints made by Marilyn Monroe. She was intrigued by the fact that she occupied the same space, for a moment, that the actress once had by standing in her footprints. My daughter had me take a picture from every angle! For months after that, she would casually throw out the fact that she and Marilyn shared the same shoe size. It was adorable. I’ll never forget that trip.

In a medium sized box covered in pink fabric, with Asian designs, I keep a half dozen very intimate pieces of my daughter’s life. Of those things, there are two that are the most difficult to hold, but give me the feeling of being where she once was. The space she inhabited while alive. Something like the feeling she had standing in those impressions, in the cement, years ago.

The hardest object to hold, I look at a lot, but pick up rarely. They were a part of her every day life. Of school. Her job. Of our hours together watching television. When I pick them up, and fold open the earpieces, I’m doing what she did every morning for years. I place her glasses on my nose, and KNOW, I am occupying the small space I saw her in every day of her last years. My eyes are looking out through the lenses she used to see her world. The tiny arch that rested on the bridge of her nose . . . now rests on mine. My eyes are where her beautiful long lashed ones used to be. And it makes my heart ache. So I don’t wear them often. But when I do . . . I feel closer to where she used to be.

The other object is so small, and seemingly insignificant, that it might surprise some that I cherish it. A simple cream cloth covered rubber band. Caught around the rubber band is some of my daughter’s soft brown hair. I don’t know how many times she used it to throw her long hair up into a ponytail or messy bun. I wish I could ask her. I’ll hold it and stroke the small bit of hair over and over, remembering how it felt to touch her hair when she put her head into my lap. I’m starting to be wary of touching the hair too much. What if it disintegrates from all of the handling and it disappears?? I can’t chance that. But I still need to stroke her hair some days.

There is one more object that is priceless to me. One afternoon, Becca and I helped the boys make hand prints in plaster of Paris as gifts for family members. There was a bit of it left over, so before it set, she poured it into an aluminum pan and made a print of her hand. I don’t remember how long after her death that I found it, but I am so grateful I did. I’m also grateful, that she decided to make it that day long ago. When I want to hold her hand, I place mine in the print she left. The surface isn’t white anymore. The edges aren’t as sharp. No longer can I see the lines from her skin. But when I place my hand in her’s, I feel a sense of peace. Of connection. This is the closest I will come to actually touching her again until I join her.

These small intimate pieces of her life, our life, will have to do until I hold her again in my arms. I want to cup her face with my hands and place a kiss on her forehead. Hear her laugh and call to me. Just hold my baby in my arms. For now, I have to visit the past to be with her again.

Take notice of the small pieces of each others lives. That’s where the love is. In the intimate moments in the tiniest of places. It really is the small things, I promise.

(W)hole

When I found the foot high statue in the image above . . . I was struck by what it said to me. A perfect depiction of the hole left in a mother’s chest when her child dies. The gaping wound every bereaved mother suffers when her baby is taken from her. You may not be able to see it, but every single one of us has it. And we all protect it, for the rest of our days.

Over the past few years, finally being strong enough to venture out of my safe little world, I’ve met other mothers who have lost children in as many different ways as you can imagine. But don’t imagine them . . . they will break your heart.

One of the often discussed truths is whether it is easier to lose a child when you’ve had the chance to say goodbye before they go, or when their death is sudden, with no preparation or last words. I lost my daughter in an instant. In the time it took for a car to flip and break her neck. She was here, then gone. I didn’t watch her suffer bravely through a long illness. Holding her hand and telling her I love her as she slipped away wasn’t an option for us. On a Thursday I hugged her, not knowing it would be the last time I would touch her while she was alive. The following Sunday, she was dead. I am thankful for the conversation we had Saturday afternoon when we both said we loved each other. At least, I have that.

I know mothers who did spend their child’s last moments with holding their hands. Telling them it was ok to go. Stroking their hair and kissing their foreheads and easing them into what comes next. At times, I envy this seemingly peaceful farewell. Most times, though, I can not imagine having to watch my child circling toward their death. I don’t think I would be strong enough. Would I have been able to tell Becca it was ok to go? I’ll never know.

Then there are those of us who have someone to blame for our child’s death. A person(s) took the life of our precious child by their actions. There is deep rage when our child’s death is the outcome of someone else’s choices. I’ve shared in prior writings the fact that the drunk driver that killed Becca had been arrested just six weeks prior for a second drunk driving offense. His choice to drink enough to show an alcohol level of .28, then drive, took my daughter from me. From the life she was building.

When I wanted to see her, touch her, I was told she was “evidence” of a crime, so I could not. Later, I was informed that the driver would not be charged with vehicular manslaughter because killing someone while driving intoxicated is an intention-less crime. Intention or not, my daughter isn’t any less dead. A law that benefits the guilty. You better believe there is a deep anger inside of me.

Then there is the horrible truth of murder. The person had intent to kill another human being. Someone decided that your child didn’t deserve to live. That they had the right to decide to cause them death. I don’t know how to even begin to wrap my mind around this truth. There is another level of complicated grief when there is an actual person to place blame on for our child no longer being here with us.

What about the soldier killed in war? Who do you place the anger on then? Where do you direct your rage? Toward an entire people? Ideology? I don’t know. I’m not sure there are any adequate answers for these questions.

The one thing all grieving mothers have in common is the hole blown through our chest . . . the space where our heart used to be, whole. Every one of us lives with this state of being. The individual facts that surround each death make our grief journey our own. The smallest truths we have to grapple with, over and over in the still dark of the night, are what we must find a way to heal intimately.

The answers we need to find are most often within ourselves. You can’t give them to us. We need you to help us remain strong enough to keep walking this path. To know that, even as we sit quietly, our minds are racing over the facts that surround our child’s death. Very rarely do we have a waking moment that is not influenced, in some way, by our child being gone.

We all have an empty space and we are trying to repair it as best we can.