I'm not sure.....

If I'm stronger, healing or turning into a robot or to stone from all this fucked up shit life brings to me. I just don't know. But deep I side I'm still hurting. It feels like their is this thick inpenatratable  barrier that surrounds my heart and its growing around my soul too. Protecting me from this mean world.  It's really quite sad. I remember being so open to this life, to all around me. But it hurt. It was nothing but disappointment and hurt.  I miss the feeling of being light and carefree, open and accepting to all that came. Now I accept the mess with a nod. The familiar unrelenting evil that dwells to eat up my happiness. No dreams for you. No no no.  Just work and serve others around you who care none to appreciate that. They eat it up like monsters devouring my heart. And since I love them, I give. I bend and bend with no support or tenderness.
O'well.

If grief had a road map.

Being 2 years out from the fall of life itself, I stop and look back. I see the bits and pieces of what I had hoped and dreamed of scatted along the road of life. Things I was holding on to, things I let go.
I see my hands, wore and calloused from gripping these very dreams and aspirations I had for my life and Stella's, as well as ours together so tightly. Her life with B, B's life with her. Her having an older sister and B having a younger one. The life with E and E's chance at being the big brother he is. Caring, compassionate, giving, protective. Her life with me. Our lives together.....
Bit by bit I place these dreams along the road of my grief, of my life that essentially became nothing but my grief. Did I take a wrong turn?  I wonder to myself often how I ended up on this road. After living on streets I knew and loved and was quite satisfied with, especially on the upcoming view..... Or at least what I had thought and dreamed it would be. I thought I had seen it clearly, but it must have been a mirage. Because I am here now and I have walked this new and difficult path for 2 and a half years.
Grief feels different after 2 and a half years.
The road looks different or maybe I am creating a new one to add to this map of my life.
I'm learning to put down the dreams I had and carry forth with what can become of my life from here.
Sometimes the weight I carry feels like a giant magnet that keeps pulling me back to that road, the dark one, the one that was once so bright and lovely, that turned on me. That became a pit of burining hell.
Maybe what I am trying to hold on to doesn't belong on this new road and I just have to learn how to leave it all behind before I travel foreword.
Its difficult putting down things you love and wanted and even more so, to walk away from it. It takes time and is a learned ability. every.single.time. you place something down, every.single.piece.
There is no map for this. As much as I wish there were, there isn't.
Were creating it.
As we are presented with life's uncertainties, we decide which way we want to travel in this. And those decisions take time.
I sat on the side of my road wrapped in my grief, consumed, for over 2 years. And that is OK.
I honestly feel like just recently, with in the last couple of months decided to get my ass up and decide on a new path. Which was presented to me as a new job. I have to put down may past (NEVER forgetting) and walk foreword, because if I don't just let it go, I cant get through that door and into the new. Take a picture of what you loved, about what you had and carry that in your heart. because if you take along the things you hated, the things that hurt, the ones that anger, they seem to grow. Like a poisonous parasite sucking the energy and life from you, which leaves you with no stamina to continue.
Walk by faith, not by sight.
Because we cant see where we are going, its nothing but a mirage our minds have created in the likeliness of what we desire and want. Which leads to nothing but disappointment when it falls.
That is why living in the present, which is always a gift, is so important.
Everything sounds so cliche, but it couldn't be truer.
In the early days of my grief, I couldn't stand hearing all the "Inspirational Quotes" coming from people who didn't know how it felt for their child to die. It felt mocking and crude. And I was ANGRY.  There is NO arguing with a sick mind. And my heart and mind were broken and ill.
So I rested in my grief until I healed some.
It takes time. NO FRIGGN JOKE. Time. As if you were healing from bring burned from head to toe, or in a horrific car accident and every bone was broken. Rest in the lord and he shall be with you and heal you. One.Day.At.A.Time.
I don't have many answers and really nothing I have are answers. I have nothing but experience in what I have endured. I hope that what I have learned and found on this path I walked, may help others on theirs by giving hope that someday..... somehow you can find a way to let go or set down whatever it is that holds you where ever you are and walk to where ever it is you may find. I pray what you find when you do walk is something healing and beautiful, enchanting and filled with compassion and hope, something that makes this world brighter in your heart and soul. I hope you find love after love had once died, in what ever it may be. Even if its just inside you and your able to project that outward to everyone you meet. A beacon of light in this dark world.
Love everyone fully, at all times, that's all we have is the present and all we can do is make the best of it. Nothing is promised but death and life eternally with God if that is what we chose to recieve. A gift is only good if you take accept it and recieve it.
As we are being conditioned here, we can be Gods voice on Earth and until our time, we shall remain his "soulders".
Blessings to you all.

2 1/2 years.....

Well, in 20 days it will be 2 1/2 years since Stella was born and died.
As much as I wish I had a curly haired toddler running around, I have to settle for a toddler of grief.
And oh how grief changes and grows. Its a series of ebb and flow of emotions. An ever changing path or much like the weather, the air, sky, water, or fire. Its always there, moving around inside and out. Making itself known in various ways. A little girl, a pregnant woman, a new born, pink hats, stars, a breath....death.
You learn how to adapt after time. To the triggers, to the pain, to the sheer existence of it all.
Shortly after Stella died I closed up tight from just about everything around me. Like a clam gnawing on this shred of glass somehow trying to make a pearl of it.
Shrouded in pure grief and loss. I wrapped it around me like a thick blanket and let it consume me. As I would've done in life consumed with breastfeeding, diaper changing & sleep deprivation had she lived. I didn't know how to even BE in this new and different terrain of life. It was NOTHING I was hoping and expecting.  I also was very good at beating myself up about the Ifs, Whys, What ifs, Hows, why why why....... I had lost control and had to learn how to live a life I didn't want.
I am stubborn as hell too, so it hasn't been easy.
Ive been walking this road for awhile, and for a long while of that it was quite dark and stormy. The sun chose to peek though every once in awhile, but for the most part it was me and my blanket huddled in the ditch on the side of this road. I took my time there, as many times as people tried pushing me forward, pulling out of it, or ripping my blanket off noting got me away from that spot. I owned it and nothing but me could get me out of it. In many ways it was comforting. Grief reminded me of Stella, it made me feel like she was still alive somehow. Actively in my life. I didn't want to let her go.
As time ticked on and people stopped trying to "fix me" and faltered off, the ones who just wanted to support me let me be and would drop reminders that they were there for me and let me take my time. I thank them so very much.
Its OK to grieve and take your time. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
As long as your not physically harming yourself or others and it isn't becoming destructive.
Crying is a good thing, a VERY good thing. I notice even now, if I haven't cried in awhile my mood will spiral and eventually I will wrap that blanket around me and wallow until I do cry. I can feel it in me, like a hole that burns my very heart and it grows and grows. Sucking the breath out of my lungs like a heavy weight laid upon my chest.
 This is usually the time I end up drinking too much trying to get that release from the pain, but really the only thing that works is giving my grief a little time and crying.
I will miss her FOREVER. I may not cry everyday like I once had, but believe me, I still do.
I feel closer to her when I do. Its not the deep wailing heart wrenching cries I had often, but those feel good to get out too.
I just wanted to drop a few lines as an update of sorts.
I'm doing OK. Grief isn't as RAW as it was. The sky doesn't storm constantly as it once did.
It may be over cast every once in awhile but the sun does peek through.
It just takes time.
Time to grieve.
Time to learn.
Time to adjust.
Time to pick up the pieces, to change, to morph, to cry, to re-evaluate, to love.
Take your time. As much as I didn't believe it, there comes a time to let go too.
To accept.
To carry on.
To live again.
I keep that blanket folded nicely and when I feel the need to put it on, I do. And I spend my time with Stella and I cry for her, for me, for what we never got to share. For our love.
Then I take it off, fold it back up and place it tenderly in my heart right where she belongs.


I am sending prayers to a couple people I know and love. One couple just recently lost their 14 month old. A couple I care for deeply. I pray their love can help pull each other through on this road of grief and that God will hold tight on their hearts as they heal.
Also to a close relative of mine who is carrying her terminal son to term or natural death. May God grant her some loving time with her son and lead her down this road with faith and joy in the moments she shares with him.

God Bless.