These days I find myself giving myself permission to do or not do a lot of things as it relates to my relationship with Jude and my grief. Allowing yourself permission is not an easy task. It often involves several hours (maybe days) of battles in your mind leading to countless sleepless hours before a final winner is declared. Sometimes I win, sometimes I loose.

I’m giving myself permission to temporarily excuse myself from certain elements of parenting a child you physically don’t have in order to parent the basics to a child I physically do have.

I see this as a way of making room in my heart for both of my children, which is proving to be a difficult task. Up until this point, I have only known one way of parenting – parenting with grief. I have had to find creative ways to honour and parent Jude in my heart in ways that are completely different then parenting a physical child. I have had to parent from the inside out – from deep within my heart in a way that ensures my love for Jude is somehow made visible. Grief woven parenting takes resources, physical energy and copious amounts of emotional energy.

Parenting a physical child takes mainly physical energy – except when you’re a bereaved parent. As a bereaved parent, parenting a physical child not only drains you physically, it also drains you emotionally. Largely because parenting your physical child(ren) is a constant reminder to your heart of all of the physical moments you are missing out on with the child you lost. Every milestone, every baby step, every everyday normal minute is a reminder to your heart of what should have been, what could have been, what you’ve missed. All of these trigger reminders are mentally and emotionally draining, leaving you spent, and if you’re like me, guilt ridden.

The guilt is triggered by so many elements. Guilt from not being able to physically carry out the small rituals to honour the child you loss. Guilt from not physically visiting their resting place as often as you did before. Guilt from realizing the child you lost is not occupying all of your mindfulness space. Guilt from feeling the love your physical child is bringing to you. Guilt from enjoying the tiny moments of joy with your physical child. Guilt from not being in the deepest depths of grief.

Balancing the guilt is what has made parenting between heaven and earth so challenging for me. The challenge is a result of all of these emotions, thoughts and feelings colliding at the centre of my heart and dispersing throughout, leaving me simply emotionally spent. Ironically, that same collision at the centre of my heart is what fuels the parenting I’m seeing to here on earth. It provides a source of nourishment for all of the characteristics that I know I didn’t embody before having Jude but am embodying now. My invisible parenting to Jude, has enabled me to now parent his younger sibling who is physically with me.

Jude taught me patience. He showed me how to be humble and appreciate the tiniest of moments and things. Jude taught me how to love unconditionally. He taught me kindness. All characteristics that I’m drawing on day in and day out as I parent his younger sibling.

Parenting between heaven and earth is complex, emotionally charged and beautiful. It forces emotions together in a perfectly balanced dance showing up in the most unconventional moments. Joy and sorrow, happiness and sadness, excitement and despair, all intertwined together twirling and shuffling within the borders of your heart. It does so, so swiftly that it makes you feel like you’re no longer parenting between heaven and earth – but simply parenting.