Forgiveness

I honestly feel there should be another step in the whole Grief Process model. You can learn to accept what happened, how it may have happened, those who were involved in what happened etc. But being able to FORGIVE yourself, those involved, those who hurt you in this process, God. Now that is an entirely different step all together.
One I've been teetering on for quite awhile actually. I'm  not sure if I am even ready to forgive. I honestly don't even know HOW!
Can I forgive myself for the choices Id made that set this entire sequence of events up to produce the "perfect storm" that took Stella's life? The choices I continually make to keep me in this life that will never change because I make no changes. I cant even bring myself to confidentially make ANY choices, because I feel they are all wrong. I don't trust myself anymore, at all. I feel like everything I do, every choice I make is just the wrong one or will lead to more wretched things to occur. I don't even feel comfortable in my own damn skin, or head, or heart for that matter. It hurts, all of it hurts.
I hear stories of those around me, stories that endured to be good ones. They have good endings. Unlike my own.
The neighbors had their son last Thursday. He was 2 weeks early. As Stella was. She had went in because he wasn't moving and she was scared because of my story. Good for her to make the right choice. She had an infection that had reached her son and he was taken via emergency Csection. His vitals were bad and he is in the NICU. She was put on antibiotics and is doing well. He will be released Sunday. Her RIGHT choices saved his life.  As I am SO happy for them, I am beating myself up all over again. I am a fucking idiot and I make the wrong choices and it all leads to misery. I don't know how to forgive myself or even trust myself. I don't know what to do and I HATE that.  I came from confidence, in myself, God, the world. All of that is gone.

Trusting others is also difficult. Forgiving others and learning to trust again.

After Stella died, I put it all out there. I blogged and purged my deepest feelings.
I was rejected, scorned, criticized and treated like shit for feeling the pain and sharing the pain of losing Stella and by those who are closest to me. Those who I love and trust the MOST. They said insanely mean things to me, yelled at me. Told me I was wrong, I wasn't "faithful enough" If I had felt the way I did, told me I was a failure and failing my other children because of my deep painful feelings of loss. Told me I was hiding behind my grief, told me they "didn't like me this way" and asked when I was going to just get over it all already. They told me she wasn't even a real baby because she didn't live outside my womb.
Yelled at for crying. Told I was NEVER going to have another child, I was denied because I am a failure.
I was ditched in the hardest of times. by my MW who PROMISED to be there NO MATTER WHAT. And she wasn't. She failed too and it cost ME. Not her. she just bailed like we had never existed in her life and carried on making bad decisions and putting others lives in jeopardy like they just don't matter.
Can I ever forgive them? Her?
Why didn't God save Stella? I trusted 100% going into surgery. That God and my Dr's had this. If I was to endure a Csect I would if that meant she lived. I had accepted that as much as I wanted a peaceful home birth. I would do anything to get her here safe.
not so much.
Talk about a slap in the face.

All of this.

How can I trust others not to condone me for my feelings like they once did, so harshly? NOW they want me to tell them how I feel? Why now? Why do you care now? Not that they actually DO. I cant even go there anymore. I don't want to talk to them and tell them how I feel now. Why should I trust someone so careless with something so fragile? Last time they threw it on the ground and shattered it into a million pieces that I had to clean up and try to put together?

Fuck you Krystal. That is all I hear from this world it seems most of the time. ESPECIALLY when it has to do with my grief.

Where do you even begin to reconnect?
With yourself or others? In forgiveness or trust?

I have NO IDEA. Its sad, a sad story with a sad ending. but the end just never comes. Its the never ending sad story. That what I feel I live in.

I feel like running away from all of this. It just hurts too much.

I also wanted to add why this feels so hard for me. To forgive. It feels like condoning those actions. Simply saying "it's ok what you did" and then they continue doing so to everyone around them and to you, continually.  To keep letting others do what they do, even though you know how bad it hurts, even though you know it's wrong. You continue to let them hurt and just forgive, pay no mind. 

Seems stupid to me. I don't understand it.

Where I am: 2 years 7 months 1 week 1 day

For the last, now few years, I've been joining in on a blog round up called "where I am now", this was started by Angie, over at Still Life with Circles. I love reading her blog. Not only is she an amazing writer, but her words seem to bring out the more poetic side of child loss. I know, my blog isn't the easiest to read, it's usually frank and full of negative emotion. But for me, this place has been a tool for my grief, a way to get the ugly out. And believe me, there is a lot of ugly coming from losing your child. Its obvious there is for me anyways.
Emotions and experiences I really wish I had never had to endure, a side of people I really wish never existed, including myself, words I thought I would never hear from people I love and thought supported me, choices I wish I never had to make, selling things I never got to use and fully expected to.
People tell me often how negative I am bout Stella's death. And I really wish I could find a positive about it, but I have yet to even see a glimpse of one single positive that comes out of her death. For myself anyways. Sure, for her, she gets heaven, she was nothing but loved and held right next to my heart her whole life. She will never have to endure even one of these God awful emotions or burdens life brings, she will never get sick, or feel heart broken. She gets more love then I probably could have even given her, and that's what she deserves. It's a very sacrificial position, being a mother of a heaven baby.

I often wish things went differently for me with her. I personally feel it went the worst possible way it could've with out me dying myself. I don't understand why God didn't just take her at 5,10, or 12 weeks. Why at the VERY end? The exact day after her birth was paid for, every.single.little.thing prepped and ready for her arrival? Why a csection? Why couldn't I have just birthed her peacefully at home, even if she was gone?
I thought there was a chance, as did the doctors for her to live, she was alive. Why blow my hopes out of the water. Prayers go unanswered. Why can't we have an explanation to her death? Why did my midwife ditch me? Why were so many people I love so mean to me in my grief? Saying things like "I hate you like this" and " get over yourself" or  "your hiding behind your grief". Why couldn't she have lived for even 10minutes, 5 minutes? Why couldn't I see her eyes? Hear her cry? She wasn't even considered "a real baby" because she didn't take a breath. Why didn't I spend more time with her? Change her clothes or bathe her? Sleep with her in my room? 

Why couldn't I have a rainbow? Support from who I needed it most, and why could'nt they just give to me what I  needed because they loved me that much? Family and friends who could understand that I hurt, and tell me it was ok? 

A job that was compassionate and understanding and not cold and cruel? 

There were people who were loving and understanding, and I did, and still do appreciate that, deeply. I know they all know who they are. But it was honestly few and far between. Many times complete strangers were more compassionate and sensitive then my own family was sometimes. The harshness occured more as time moved past her, like she was some bad disease I needed to just heal from and be over with. I don't feel I ever really dwelled too much on all the horridness of this, I lived my life still, I smiled, laughed, enjoyed things. But like a big empty hole, she was always missing from the picture. She will always have a string tied to my heart that leads to her in heaven. I know I cant tug on it too much, that will only hurt me.
The last week has rehashed many of these feelings I'm writing about too. My husbands cousin ( I personally consider her as mine too, as we are close to her and her family, closer then even I am with my own cousins really) had a little boy Caleb. He was diagnosed with excencephally early in the pregnancy and god bless her heart to carry him to term. She was able to spend 2 hours with him earth side. Honestly, I've been jealous of that. I know it's pretty damn selfish, but it's honest. She was able to make this horrible experience into something beautiful and strong. As for me, I was slapped in the face at the very end and feel robbed and haven't taken any of it gracefully. 

I've learned to live with my angst, this hole, I've picked up the pieces and just learned to live with the mess. What else can you do? On top of that, I've been selling Stella's belongings. This has not been easy to say the least. Especially selling her diaper stash. That is one lot of items I've had a strong attachment to. I spent a lot of money, time and love collecting them, to never use them and sell them off for FAR less then they are worth to me. So a rehash of emotions on that front have also been into play recently. 

It sucks. 

All these things I need to let go of. Emotions, dreams, aspirations, hopes. Poof. Gone. 

As Angie said, it was the worst magic trick anyone or anything could play on me. On us. 

So, here I am, just learning to get over it, to live with it and deal with it. 

I stopped writing here for awhile so others wouldn't know these feelings that still fester with in. 

Not as strong, not as obvious, not as raw.
But it's love, longing and my missing of her that still dwells with in.
It is hard to hold onto someone who is so close to your heart yet so far out of reach. 

It's difficult to let go of the dreams you had, the things or ones you want in your life. The possibilities you sacrifice for the ones you love, just because you love them. Not that they would ever do the same for you, just because you love them. 

You just get over yourself. 

It's a daily task at that.
A choice I have to make every morning. 

And some days I just want to spend a little time with my littlest, my Stella. In my grief blanket, soaked in tears. 

And please don't tell me it's not ok. 

I'm getting there, wherever it is you prefer me to be. Not where I wanted to be. 

It does still rain, even when the sun shines. 

Over 2 1/2 years seems so far away from her, like its expected that I be over her death all together. 100% back to Krystal, who I sued to be before life was blown apart by the atomic bomb.

So, I try and be where everyone else expects me to be. And when I wallow, i wallow alone, just me and Stella wrapped in a blanket woven out of pure love so deep, only her and I could understand. So only her and I are there. 

Then after I've had my time with her, I fold that blanket up, place it in the deepest part of my heart, lock it, and move on until the next time I need a little love from her. 

I miss her and I always will. 

Triggers are not as harsh, although they still are.
Pain is not as raw, but the scar is still there.
There are more good days then bad, but the bad days still exist.

When others join this path

It breaks my heart.
Caleb Matthew 5/28/13
Lived in his mommies arms for 2 hours 24 minutes, lives in Jesus' arms for eternity.

De-stash

I've spent the last 2 weeks rummaging and posting pictures online of all the beauty that I had collected for my little girl and never got the chance to use. Everything from Bassinets to car seats and blankets. Toys, bottles, breast pumps, changing pads and a bounty of beautiful cloth diapers.
As of today I am nearly cleared out of everything. Everything but most of her cloth diapers. These I listed today on 2 different sites and sold 3 items.
I feel the ache in me, deep, but nothing comes to the surface. Maybe its manifesting on irritation?
I guess I feel I have to just let this all go. all of it. Her, her things, what was of her, what I wanted, any chance at a rainbow or being able to really use these items I put so much love into. (and so much money!)
I know I will  never get out of it nearly, not any where near what I have put into it between the love or the $ and that kinda pisses me off too. I feel jipped. Ripped off completely. And I have to work hard as hell taking pics, putting prices on all of this and posting it. Then packaging it all up and shipping it off to living breathing children who get to use it. Its all been a TON of work for nothing but a broken heart and it isn't fair. I wish some one would just buy the whole damn lot and get it all over with. I feel like I'm torturing myself.

sigh..................................................

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.