Literature

Reading seemed to be the only thing that could calm my mind tonight. I love receiving packages and cards in the mail so even though I could easily go out and buy books, I opt to order them from Amazon just to have something to look forward to in the mail, something to look forward to at all. Within the past week I have received 3 books, two of which I ordered on nights I ached beyond relief for my baby.
"Grieving the Child I Never Knew" is a Christian devotional aimed to help one journal through their grief. "Empty Arms" is another Christian book written by a professional counselor and pastors wife. Her words are uplifting and help to put to rest some of the very pressing questions I have had for God.
I have also been working on finishing another baby loss book that I ordered shortly after losing Dash; "An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination." I decided to finish up the last few chapters in this book tonight after devouring about 150 pages in my "Empty Arms" book. I forgot that back in May when I had finished the majority of the "figment" book, I had highlighted helpful and all too true lines. Reading back on these tonight made me cry, for the things I related with then are still all too true today. I guess I hoped there would be some sort of significant change, that my pain and bitterness would morph into something less depressing. But here I am still crying into my books and wishing things were different...

"The love for the first magnifies the love for the second and visa versa."

"Lighter things will happen to you, birds will steal your husbands sandwich on the beach, and your child will still be dead."

"I felt a strange responsibility to sound as though I were not going mad with sorrow."

"I want a book that acknowledges that life goes on but that death goes on, too, that a person who is dead is a long, long story. You move on from it, but the death will never disappear from view. Your friends may say, Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn't, but eventually you'll feel better. You'll be yourself again, Your child will still be dead."

"A stillborn child is really only ever his death. He didn't live: that's how he's defined. Once he fades from memory there's little evidence at all, nothing that could turn up, for instance, at a French flea market, or be handed down through the family"

"It was very strange to have been so happy so recently, and I felt that if I puzzled it over enough I might be able to find my way back-not to experience it again, of course, but to conjure up the smell on the hem of an article of clothing, to touch in some abstract way something that had innocently, casually touched my happiness, since there would be nothing literal for me to touch."

"After the baby died, I told Edward over and over again that I didn't want to forget any of it: the happiness was real, as real as the baby himself, and it would be terrible, unforgivable, to forget it."

"I missed the child we lost and I wanted another and these seemed like two absolutely separate aches."

"To know that other people were sad made Pudding more real."

"But my grief was still fresh, grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving."

"It happened to me, too, meant: It's not your fault. And You are not a freak of nature. And This does not have to be a secret."

I hope to read this book again a few months from now, then maybe a year from now to see if I have changed, if anything has changed.

Hate

My life pretty much sucks right now, I am such a bitter and resentful person now and I hate myself for it. I have some good moments but most are not, I'm someone I never thought I would be. I just want to crawl into a hole and stay there until I get my baby back...

Christmas List

A very accurate Christmas Wishlist written by a fellow baby loss mommy (with a few of my own modifications)...


1. Kleenex, for all the crying I'll surely be doing. If you want to make it really special, you can get me a couple boxes of that expensive 8-ply stuff that is super thick and smells like fancy lotion. A few travel packs for my purse would be nice, too, so the next time I'm in the middle of Target and see a 'baby's first Christmas' ornament, I have something to sob into (other than my poor jacket sleeve).

2. Noise-canceling headphones, to drown out all the happy Christmas music playing everywhere I go. Seriously, if I have to hear the phrase 'it's the most wonderful time of the year' one more time, I'm going to freak. More like 'it's the most depressing, heartbreaking time of the year,' if you ask me.

3. White wine. Lots of it. Seriously, how else am I supposed to get through this month??

4. A concussion. A little bit of memory loss would be nice, so I can stop thinking about how wonderful my life was this month a year ago.

5. A vacation. A completely isolated tropical island would be ideal.

6. My baby boy back.

Grief Stricken

Today I feel like everything is unfair. Maybe it's the holiday season or maybe I'm just jaded but I feel bitter and just plain sad. Each day I feel the physical pain of what is missing from my life, from my family. I'm stuck between stages 3 and 4 of grief; Anger and Depression. Most days I feel these emotions simultaneously and it just compounds until I'm just incapacitated, wanting to hibernate for weeks. I feel bad for my husband and my daughter, they deserve the mommy and wife that I was, not this shell of a person I've become after losing Dash.
And the waiting game of "when will things get better" continues.