Congratulations

We decided to go to the gym everyday this week. Do it together while my hubby has a week off, get into a routine. Got to the gym, everything is great. Of course, the guy taking us through the tour and the sell was our neighbour from before we were even married. Nice guy, we had a pleasant conversation. At some point Amelia came up. We received a nice big round of Congratulations from all sides of the room. We thanked them. Then answered all following questions honestly, but briefly: we had a baby girl, she was over 7lb, that was seven months ago.

The guy obviously assumed she is alive. I mean, that's what most babies do. And we didn't bring it up, we were there for a workout, not a deep sharing session.



It felt good. The idea our baby girl is alive and well. We had a few other times like this, where we left the conversation without telling complete strangers our daughter died. I think it's fair enough. Those moments are so bittersweet. But there is still more sweet in those that the ones where we tell the whole story. I hate those moments, as I usually the one who tries to console others.


So here I am, wondering what my next visit to the gym will be like. And how long can Amelia be alive in that reality.

Lightbulb

I was laying in bed, thinking. Thinking about us, the humans. The way we live, the things we love. I feel that as a whole, as all people together, we are travelling on the wrong track. With all the greed in the world, all the indifference, egoism, consumerism we cultivate, we are forgetting what is really important: each other. How can we not realize that no other physical creation has true value, life value, other than a human. We are the ones who give meaning to things, be it cars, jobs, houses. But we are the only ones carrying real meaning.

While I was thinking these deep thoughts, a lightbulb exploded above my head. I mean I really saw an explosion in front of me, above the nightlight. It lit up the room, just for a few seconds, and it made a sound, but only I heard it. Only I saw it. It freaked me out, enough that I can't sleep now.

I think it was Amelia telling me something. At first I worried, is it something good, or is it something bad? I think it's good. As the thought going through my head at the moment was good, I think it was a sign to say it out loud. So, here it is.

I believe that we, the global society, need to have an Ethical Pact with each other. It is time to take an oath to be true and honest with each other, as we are with ourselves, making sure that all decisions we make are ethical.

I know it sounds hippy, but why not? Why not value a life of a person across the world more than a purse in my hand? Don;t get me wrong, I am all for comfortable living and all for toys and things, but there is no need for extremes. I wonder if this is what the 99% want, a simple Ethical Law that we all must follow so that everyone has enough. So that no-one throws out food while another dies from hunger.

 Think about it...

On this sunny day

I f'n miss my girl. Pardon the language, but I miss her so much, words can't describe it. Every inch of my heart aches for her, ever cell in my body cries for her, every little bit of energy in my soul lives for her.

I have no choice, I must carry on. I smile and live my life, but it's not the same, never will be. A big part of me is missing, I am not the same. So much I, I, I. Sometimes it feels like it's more about me than her. Well, it is. She is too dead to care right now, I'm still alive.

A daughter to be proud of

Amelia turns seven months old today. What a big girl she would have been. Instead, she is even bigger, and better to some degree. As I was driving over for a visit this morning, I realised that instead of twenty or so years, it took just nine months for my baby to reach independence. She is, after all, a land owner and is very self-sufficient. She is mature beyond her years, for she knows what very few of us only suspect. She is as beautiful as an angel can be, even more so in my eyes.

You might think it's just my imagination, but I have been getting to know my daughter for the last seven months, and she is as real as you and I.  She is stronger, smarter, and kinder than anyone else I know. She makes flowers bloom (like a single bloom on her lilac tree in late August), she opens up the clouds so that the sun shines on me when I visit her. She even made the rain stop on a few occasions. And she saved my life, twice, in the last seven months. I know it, as I was there. So, compared to an average seven month old, she is a genius. And I love her more each day.

Those who don't have children in heaven, or whatever you call it, think it's magical thinking. Still, every bereaved parent I met told me they feel their children, they communicate with them. We don't call gravity "magic" anymore, do we?

Amelia's Garden

The Week We Eat Cake

It is that time of the month. It is the week we eat chocolate cake. Feeling the dates creep up on us, it usually starts on the 21st, we go to our local grocery store for a specific cake: same one my mom bought seven months ago tomorrow for Amelia's birthday. We eat it every month. This is one of the little things we do to cope with the crushing pain in our hearts. Same way as we drink beer or wine, cry, etc.

Some people, upon hearing that we eat chocolate cake every month without any concern for our figures and diets, have expressed feelings of jealousy and called us lucky. I am always shocked to hear such a response. Does it really take a death of our own child to let us eat cake without guilt? Maybe for me it did. But I wouldn't call myself lucky for that. I'd rather have Amelia in my arms, and leave the cake at the grocery store for someone else to eat. But I can't, so instead I drown my sorrow with chocolate. So I wonder, don't these people realize it? Do they really think we are lucky because we let ourselves eat cake?  I'm really trying to get my head around the way our life events shape our perceptions. I mean, would you really want to be me? Even if that means you can eat as much cake as you want? I doubt it. So why get jealous?

Just saw this on failblog.org. How perfect is this!

Argh! Time for me to get another slice :)

Thankful for the Love

Amelia and I made a Love cake today. I made the hearts when I was 7-8 months pregnant and she stayed really quiet the whole time, which was very unusual!

It is sometimes hard to find things to be thankful for. When there is too much stress in our lives, our vision becomes clouded. As I stopped to think about gratitude this weekend, at first I felt that I had nothing be grateful for. My heart was hurting, mind racing from a cocktail of emotions. How can I be grateful when my would-be six-month old is buried at our local cemetery?

When I thought about the cemetery, I remembered how we had to pick out Amelia's spot the day after she was born; so beautiful, weighing almost eight pounds. I remembered our family and friends who hugged us as our baby's "treasure chest" was covered with earth, on the spot we picked a week earlier.  

 I realised I have a lot to be grateful for:

I am so grateful for every person who stood by us on that day and the many days that followed. 

I am grateful for the meals, gifts, flowers, cards, walks in the park and everything else that so many people generously gave us. I remember a moment when I was looking around our home, seeing the tiniest details in the beautiful blooms, smelling the scents of the ripe fruit basket, smiling at Amelia's changing table that was overflowing with gentle and supportive cards; I realised that our home was full of love and support, we were not alone. I really mean it when I say Thank you to all of you who made it happen.

I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for my friends. I am grateful for my pets. I am grateful for my life. To me, this is all that really matters.  A bereaved mom once said that you really value life only after you lose life. How true. Another bereaved mom said that losing your child is like receiving a "sick gift." It now makes sense. I am grateful for the way I appreciate life now. Little things don't matter anymore, and it feels good. It gives me more time to appreciate the big, the important moments, people, places.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

 Love & Light
~A~

Every day

Every day I live without Amelia, I try to understand what happened and learn how to live with it. It's hard to describe the grief of loosing my daughter, but let me try: I'm missing every day of her life that should have been, that could have been, but is definitely not. 

When I saw this video, I realized that I'm really missing Every Day without my daughter.

Understanding each other

I've been thinking a lot about what you, my reader, get from my writing, how do you understand and interpret it? I wonder how do I sound to a person who never walked in my shoes? How can a few words, selected either in the heat of the moment, or after long and careful consideration, convey the reality I live in?

First of all, I hope you understand that what makes it onto this blog is such a small piece of the puzzle. My postings are missing many thoughts, events, and ideas I omit for the sake of saving time, space, and heartache (except for that rambling post about "bad apples," that felt good! :) I rarely mention all the little things that hurt me or give me strength every day. It is hard to keep up with the pace of life as it is right now, the littlest things like house chores can be exhausting. Mostly because of constant reminders of what we lost, like a coffee shop full of babies and toddlers I walked into today. The lady behind the counter proudly told me they hold mom and toddler groups on Tuesday mornings, the ones I was supposed to be a part of. Instead, I told her my daughter passed away. She either didn't hear me or pretended that she didn't. I walked out with a crappy coffee and a heavy heart.

Second, there is each persons' individual life perception. Your lifetime memories, events, trials, and tribulations make you who you are. You might be going through your own heartache right now, or you might be living the happy life (if you are, savour every moment of it!). The joys and sorrows we get to experience help us understand others, be compassionate towards each other.

Third, I wonder at what point do people gain a better, deeper understanding of each other? Until I lost Amelia, I lived in a world of what I now call "regular" life: good and bad relationships, school and work deadlines, family matters, relocation and immigration. You get the idea. I did not have the easiest life, but it was good and I remained optimistic. When I saw people hurting, I genuinely felt for them and tried to help the best I could. I wanted to see everyone healthy and happy. I was not naive, but I was shielded.

Now, I feel like a veil has been lifted. I understand now that it was impossible for me to comprehend and for others to explain the pain they were going through. It saddens me that the sight of me, happily pregnant, made other women hurt. I understand I did nothing wrong then, and now what I feel is not wrong either. It is just life.


So as I try to explain something that can only be understood by being where I am, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, let me ask you this:

How long did it take you to heal from a bad breakup, or a divorce?

How much did you cry when your pet cat or dog die?

How hard was it to pick yourself up when your parent died?


I hope most of you would say you haven't experienced these things. If you did, I'm sorry for your loss. It really sucks.

But to get back to my point, if either of the things I mentioned above is one of your worst points of reference on the $hit-scale (pardon my English), please try to put it into perspective:

People can be hurt for years by a bad break-up, a nasty divorce. How long does it take them to trust again? After being hurt by someone when I was only 17, it took me over 8 years to really trust someone else.

After losing a pet, the emptiness of your house can be unbearable, the atmosphere forever changed. When my mom and I immigrated to Canada, we had to leave our 14 y.o. cat behind. Knowing that she lived the remainder of her life with someone else, not understanding why we left her, not knowing that we still loved her, still saddens me and makes me tear up (thankfully they are great people and I am forever grateful to them for taking care of our kitty!).

I am lucky that my parents are both alive and well, so thankfully I can't compare there. But I know for sure that when you lose a parent, people never say to you: "You're young, you'll have another one."

What I'm trying to say is that please know that I was where most of you are now: I did not know what it was like to lose a child, I never wanted to find out. All I can ask of you is to have an open mind and don't assume anything. Don't assume that your are going to hurt me or help me by doing or not doing something, don't assume that you can imagine how I feel and know how to make it better. I am not saying this in anger or resentment, I am just saying what I hear many bereaved parents repeat over and over: people assume, but they have no idea. That's what makes people the worst and the best part of grief.

I guess the reason I keep putting myself out there, baring my heart and my soul, is to give you some food for thought, an image of a different point of reference, an explanation why a total stranger might run away from you in tears or give you a helping hand.

Celebration of Life

As I went to bed tonight, memories of Amelia's funeral came flooding in. I am still trying to understand how we had to bury our little girl just seven days after she was born. Instead of a lifetime together, we got a lifetime apart. It hurts me how quickly her life ended, how cruel was this dream.

It often feels like a dream, a really scary, surreal dream. But on nights like this they become all too real. I'd say it hurts more now than it did before, because now I understand how "forever" it is. Nothing else is more permanent than death.

The flashbacks that I get are moments in time that my brain simply couldn't handle six months ago. These memories are safely stored in my head and usually come back around the same dates as the events. Like the feeling of leaving the hospital without my baby; the week leading up to her funeral, all the arrangements we had to make instead of staying in bed with our newborn; the day we laid her to rest.

For her, it was the end of her time here on Earth with us. For us, it was the beginning of our lives without her.

I would like to share some pictures with you, although they are not easy to look at. If you are wondering, it really does help me to go through these, look at them, see them, have them. This is just another angle of the same memories my brain throws at me at all times of day and night. This is also a memory of our physical time here with Amelia.

Pictures were kindly taken by Eugenia Filippova