We will #NeverForget
As we enter my favorite time of year–Fall/Winter, my heart is torn, as it always is. I love this time of year. I love the colors of fall and then all the colors of Christmas and winter. It’s so beautiful. God truly knows how to paint a canvas and this is the time of year that I, personally, believe that He shows off best. It’s difficult for me to drive because I’m admiring His canvas so much! Pictures don’t do justice to what He creates, but I sure do try to capture it when I can!
But fall is difficult for me because all my struggles, all my sorrows have happened in the fall of the year. In November, actually. Well, not ALL, but a large number of them, enough to make this time of year super difficult:
- I learned that I had a cyst growing on my left ovary and ultimately had to have surgery during my 20th week of pregnancy with J. Isaac (who was born still just 18 weeks later) to remove my left ovary and fallopian tube just before Christmas
- I miscarried Panya Ruth on November 10, 1999
- I miscarried Anna Rose on November 22, 2005
- I had my diverticulitis surgery in late November of 2009–where I had to have an ostomy [bag]
- I had my uterine ablation in November of 2010
- I threatened my husband in October 2012
Loss and Infancy Loss Awareness Month. It is difficult for me to talk about my losses for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is because talking about losing a child makes people uncomfortable. They simply don’t know what to say to someone who has lost a child. And quite often if they do say something, they say something hurtful. And friendships are broken. So people end up just not talking about child loss at all. And the grieving mother–or father–suffers alone. In silence. For years.
- Tell your story if you want. You’re welcome to share it here. I’d love to hear it. If not to me, share it with someone you trust. Write it down for yourself if not for anyone else.
- Look at your Memory Box that you got from the hospital.
- This is Shoebox season for Samaritan’s Purse; donate a box in memory of your baby.
- Join a GriefShare group if you need to.
- Find a group online and just “listen” to their conversations to see if they have similar stories.
- Find a pen pal (I have 2).
- Start your own organization.
- Plant a tree in memory.
- Make a scrapbook–if you don’t have pictures, use poems, images and/or quotes that are meaningful to you.
- Write a letter to your Precious.
- Get a tattoo. If that’s not your style, you could always get a temporary one. 🙂
- Make a list of all the hurtful things people have said to you. Journal why their words hurt so much. Get your hurt off your heart and out of your system, on paper–or on the computer.
- Write a letter/note of forgiveness to someone who said or did something to hurt you, whether you mean it or not. You don’t have to send it right now if you’d rather not. Just write it. Or go ahead and send it. You never know….
- If you know or hear of someone who suffers the loss of a child, do something for that couple that you wish had been done for you.
- Cry. Allow yourself a good cry. It really and truly is ok to FEEL whatever you feel.
- Have a celebration in honor of your Precious. Whatever that celebration looks like for you is what you should have.
- Create a Playlist.
- Get alone and spend some special time just Remembering.
- Laugh. Sometimes a good laugh is just the right thing.