In this journey of life after loss, if we allow it, we have the opportunity to connect with beautiful souls across the planet who are on a similar journey and we form relationships that become a powerful form of continued healing, for each person. A dear friend of mine recently (virtually) introduced me to a mama who lost her baby this year, and I’ve gone on to exchange some emails with this amazing soul. It’s eery to read her blog sometimes—it’s a different story, yet her words feel so familiar to my own. (You can find her blog here.)
I was writing Miriam an email this morning and took pause. I found myself spilling out words that needed to come out on “paper”—this process of writing, yet again, ended up being therapeutic for my own needs. I’ve lost touch with my writing lately, especially in the context of grief/loss/healing, and when I find the space to invite it back, it just feels good.
(I should note: Although I haven’t been writing much this year, I am still doing the work. This year it’s taken more of a verbal form. Our family has embarked on full-time vanlife and one thing I’ve been doing is with John is what we call “DIY Therapy.” It started as a means to work through some rough patches we were facing as a couple, and in particular as a way to avoid any further arguing. The deeper we dig the more powerful it became. We committed to 2 x 30min a week, when Cora’s napping, and often we go beyond the 30min if we’re in a good state of flow. We have some boundaries established (aka rules) so it never becomes another fight or fuel to lash out on the other person. Shitty tone isn’t welcome. And the conversation never escalates into a heated battle. We’ve been incredibly mature at adhering to these rules, despite having no official mediator/therapist to guide us through, and it’s honestly been one of the smartest things we’ve ever done for the health of our relationship and for our individual growth and healing. It’s just this form of pure, authentic, non-confrontational, empathetic communication. A safe place to lay it all out while the other person listens and vice versa. And while it started out as something for “us” it’s also been helpful for me with my individual things.)
Anyway back to this mama who’s been on my mind. I’ve been reading her blogs, her process. The story of what happened to her and her sweet baby girl is totally different than ours, but the process—the process we go through as helpless grieving moms—it’s virtually the same! I used to “complain” to my grief therapist that I wished Whitney’s death had been something like a stillbirth because in my mind that would have somehow made it easier than the unusual circumstances that we actually faced. But my therapist told me that no matter how a baby dies, all moms (and likely dads too) have the same feelings of sadness, guilt, anger, confusion, and so much more. That guilt—it stems from not being able to save your child despite loving that child and wanting that child more than anything. It’s this heart-wrenching feeling that we failed our baby and it torments us to no end. Of course, all this is in addition to the obvious grief. And now I get it. My therapist was right. No matter how it happens, we go back and we rip ourselves apart. We find a way to blame ourselves for not having the instinct to step in before the catastrophe happened (even if there’s clearly someone else that’s to blame, we can’t help but feel responsible at some point, it was our kid after all). No matter how the death happens we mothers agonize endlessly that we should have been able to do something to save our baby. That somehow we failed. Even though it was entirely, utterly and completely out of our control, it’s hard for us to accept that. People say, “Sometimes these things just happen.” Yet, we think, “But why me? Why my baby? Why couldn’t I save him/her? I did everything right. Everything was perfect. How can I ever live with ‘these things happen’ especially when I had zero warning signs?! I should have been able to prevent this!”
If Whitney had been a stillbirth, I am now certain that I would have beaten myself up equally just as much or more so.
And it’s not just this one mama who’s made me realize this. I have many baby loss moms in my circle now, and I follow baby loss accounts on social media—it’s nearly the same for all of us (despite no two stories/circumstances being quite the same).
So anyway, I thought I’d share that email I wrote to Miriam. It’s a brief glimpse at where I am at close to three years later. On that note, quite frankly, when I think about writing a blog post these days, I end up getting overwhelmed with ideas and thoughts and so much that I want to share. I overthink it all and it ends up feeling like I’m about to write a novel. I become paralyzed with an inability to figure out where to start… so I walk away.. thankfully the organic nature of this email was a good catalyst to get a new post up. (Note to self: STOP OVERTHINKING IT!)
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I think about you often. Truthfully, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in day-to-day life stuff, but Whitney taught me an important lesson—to remember to slow down and just be. And when I do that, what a gift it is. I feel like my most authentic self comes forth… and it’s also a time that I connect in a more spiritual sense with so much—those who’ve passed, other mamas who are walking this same path, like you, etc.
How is your body healing? Physically speaking?
I’ve read some of your blogs. I cannot emphasize enough the similarities of thoughts, feelings and emotions—and just the overall process of it all (for lack of a better term). Things like having a thousand questions, agonizing over the how/why (and why as her mom did I not have the power to save her!), why did our bodies “fail” us/her?!, I couldn’t keep her alive, the torture of being the <1%, the things you’ll never really know (despite having somewhat of an idea of what happened), going over everything again and again and again in this cycle that feels endless at times, reliving it and trying to understand WHY. The harsh acceptance of being a <1% and now having to live with that forever. Talking to a therapist and accepting that it’s ok to feel sad and not be ok…. but also the never-ending torture of feeling like you, as a mom, didn’t do enough, and then again you find yourself going back and thinking about all the things you could have/should have done differently.
I’m almost three years in, and I am still working through these things. It’s not as intense and constant as it was in the beginning—time/therapy/and doing the work (like you are now!) does help—but it all is certainly still part of my ongoing healing/grief journey. Even though I’ve addressed all these things a million times, it’s like I have to go back to do more work at times—I think part of it is that, at my core, I’m a perfectionist and I want to research + fix things, to have control, but those things don’t work here, with baby loss!
Often in the van on long drives, John and I will have what we call our “DIY therapy” sessions and almost inevitably it turns into me crying about something Whitney-related. I’ll grapple with the acceptance and peace I’ve gained with still those feelings of guilt, shame, fear, anger, frustration, and just the mental torture those memories bring up. Though I’ve made progress, there’s still a lack of self-forgiveness within me and I’ll beat myself up—it’s a cycle I’m working hard to end. It’s weird, I feel like I can live with the grief, but some of those other feelings are the ones that rip away at me. It’s a process. One thing that has helped me more and more in recent times is treating myself (and talking to myself) as I would another baby loss mama, and learning to be kinder in my self-talk. If my story were someone else’s story, I would never look at that mom and think that it was her fault or that she fucked it up, rather, I’d look at that mom and think what a warrior she was and that all she wanted was the best for her baby. Nothing is more obvious than the pure love she had(has) for her child; a child that she’d never put in harm’s way. And that’s how I see you, and your story! YOU ARE A GOOD MOM, THE BEST MOM!
There’s nothing more clear to me than this: us baby loss mamas, all we wanted was the best for our babies, and nothing could be more genuine than that pure love a mother has for her child.
All the hugs.
xoxoxoxo
Life After Whitney 