Well, we made it through another holiday. The picture I've included in my post today is something that really helped me this year. The day before Christmas Eve, I received this beautiful ornament in the mail. When you hold it up to the light, there he is. My sweet boy. It is incredible and so beautiful. It made me feel like someone remembered. When you're a mommy of a child who is not alive, people tend to not bring them up. They may think that it will just make you sad or maybe it's weird for them. There are tons of reasons but the point is that we get screwed. We don't get to talk about our children without people getting weird or uncomfortable. People forget (or just don't acknowledge) that it's still hard for us and we still need people to listen to us talk about how we're doing. While everyone else has "moved on" and forgotten, we are still struggling to keep our mask up. We are trying to immerse ourselves in the holiday festivities even when we're screaming inside that this isn't fair. Then, as if that is not enough, we have to listen to everyone ask about the other children in the family. How are they doing? What are they learning? Are they walking, talking, crawling? Sometimes as a parent of a child who died, it makes me feel like MY son isn't as important. That he didn't matter. No, the stories will never change and he will never grow up but it doesn't make me want to stop talking about him. If we don't keep our children's memories alive, who will? It most certainly not be any of you, who will not even speak his name. Now, I want to make it clear that we understand that speaking about our children is hard for you to do. Some of you loved him too. But, for just one minute, imagine how hard it must be for us to live with our child's passing EVERY SINGLE DAY. Some of us even still have doubts that we made the right choices or that we were good enough. We see moments on repeat in our heads that no one else was there to witness. We still feel like our hearts our being ripped out every time our minds go back to that moment. A lot of us still remember what it felt like to beg God to let us trade places with our children and praying non stop. We remember what it felt like to realize that we had NO CONTROL over this. We had no CHOICE. So please, next time you think about how hard it is for you, think about how hard it is for us. Next time you're afraid to bring up our child because you might upset us, remember that it upsets us more if you do not mention them. When you think that bringing our child up will just dredge up painful memories, remember that a lot of times those memories run non-stop through our heads already and we never buried them for you to dredge back up. It does not matter how long it has been... days, weeks, months, YEARS.... we are still not "over it". I don't expect will ever will be. We want our children to be remembered. We want to hear you say their names. We love them and we want to know that other people do too. Please, do not think you are sparing us the pain because we feel it constantly.
"I thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new. I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too. I think of you in silence, I often speak your name. All I have are memories and your picture in a frame. Your memory is my keepsake, with which I’ll never part. God has you in his keeping, I have you in my heart! Forever and Always."
~Author Unknown
"I thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new. I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too. I think of you in silence, I often speak your name. All I have are memories and your picture in a frame. Your memory is my keepsake, with which I’ll never part. God has you in his keeping, I have you in my heart! Forever and Always."
~Author Unknown