100 Days of Grief

"Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive." -Thich Nhat Hanh Today the clouds weren't so thick.  I found myself laughing with Hannah.  I even spent thirty minutes reading a book.  It was on my to do list but still.  Before whenever I tried to read I couldn't sit.  And today I sat.  The guilt was still there but I kept telling myself to enjoy the book and there was nothing more pressing that I needed to do.  So Hannah and I sat for a good thirty minutes reading our books.  It was kind of nice.   Today I sat and tried to remember what it was like two months ago.  It's funny how my mind has kind of put a shield up.  There are even times that I forgot that I miscarried.  And then I feel terrible.  But there are other times that it's always in my thoughts.  Today it felt like it never happened.   I was feeling pretty good today thinking maybe the cloud had lifted....

"Tears have a wisdom all their own.  They come when a person has relaxed enough to let go and to work through his sorrow.  They are the natural bleeding of an emotional wound, carrying the poison out of the system.  Here lies the road to recovery." -F. Alexander Magoun I think tonight I'm going to jump right into what this chapter is about because it relates to how today went.  The heading is "cry".  Today I woke up feeling that heaviness still.  It seems like since last Thursday the heaviness gets heavier every day.  I'm not sure what happened that day but I feel like a cloud just surrounds me.  I tried everything to get rid of it.  Again I went through the things, exercise, eat well, sleep, serve others, write what you're grateful for.  I added to the list, take medicine.  That was the key missing piece last time but now I have it and I still feel this dark cloud around me. I woke up this morning exhausted.  ...

"I slide to my knees and say, 'Please let this be over.' Then I'm not ready for it to be over." -Andre Agassi This quote really resonates with me today.  I feel like I'm so tired of the 'hardness' of life right now but at the same time I feel like I cling to it.  If I don't then it means that I move on from my loss and I don't want to do that.  I want to bring her with me in the future but lose the pain of her loss.  I've been thinking about if there is something I can do that will bring her with me in the future without bringing a lot of pain with it.   Did you know that I would have been 20 weeks this week?  I would have been half way there.  I would have had my ultrasound to find out if she were a girl or a boy.  I'm still sure she would have been a girl.  I would have probably started feeling her move too.  I loved feeling my babies move.  It was the strangest feeling in the world but it was wonderful....

"How much tragedy has to happen before I split wide open?" -Alisa Mullen Three miscarriages and a really difficult first part of pregnancy has split me open.  It has broken me into a million peaces and I feel like I'm looking around in the wreckage that is me and not recognizing what parts are me and what's not.  It's like I don't recognize the old parts of me. I visited with a friend this weekend and she was saying that you become a completely new person person after a miscarriage.  The person you were before it is gone and people don't understand that you aren't that person anymore.  My hope is that as I put the pieces back together my person will be better than one before. I was reading a talk by Neil L. Andersen this morning and he was talking about trials being a refiners fire.  I've heard that phrase a lot before but I feel like this is the first time I understand what it means to be put in a refiners fire.  I've had ...

"When it's dark enough, you can see the stars." -Ralph Waldo Emerson It's Sunday.  Need I say more.  Actually last week wasn't so hard.  I thought that maybe I was learning how to cope but apparently not.  I couldn't seem to keep my emotions in check today.  I'm all about feeling the emotions but it's hard when it's in a public place.  Today I just tried to quietly cry to let out some of the emotion but in the middle of the sacrament Hannah said "Why are you crying mom?" Right at the quietest point.  So much for crying in discreet. In only got harder from there.  I couldn't stop crying.  I tried to avoid people but it was impossible.  I tried sitting alone in the back but someone sat by me.  I tried to not look at people in the halls but people stopped me.  Each time they asked how I was doing and the tears would just stream.  I couldn't even talk.  It was humiliating.  I know everyone was being ...

"There is something you must always remember.  You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." -Winnie the Pooh Today's actual prompt since I'm doing two in one days is about your other children and their grief.  The heading says "be loving toward your children".  When I first lost Hope I was so lost in my own mind that I didn't think of others grief.  I didn't think that this was affecting more than just me.  I figured the kids wouldn't understand.  We talked to them about her dying but they didn't really seem to understand.  It didn't really phase them.  Hannah cried but I thought it was more because she was tired. Now as I look back I wish I had been more compassionate and understanding with both of them.  Henry was still in school at that time and I remember getting an email from his teacher about a week later.  She told me that Henry was struggling at school and she took him aside...

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy practice compassion." -Dalai Lama I skipped yesterdays blog.  I was just at the end of what I had to give.  I didn't do much yesterday but the constant moving and doing from the rest of the week caught up to me.  I can't sit without feeling guilty now.  I feel like this week has ben filled with guilt.  Guilt that I'm not helping others.  Guilt that I haven't been a great mom to my kids.  Guilt that I didn't do my blog last night.  I know in this blog it keeps saying to have compassion towards yourself but I feel guilty.  I can't seem to shake the guilt.  It's like this bag of heavy rocks that I'm carrying with me through the days.  I tell myself that I've been through hard things and that I'm doing the best I can but it hasn't seemed to help.  I've been trying to change my thoughts but when I get so tired it's very hard to do that...