Champagne 6 on the 6

Child loss, Grief, Healing, self care, Uncategorized

I suppose champagne birthdays are only really a thing only when you’re an adult – when you can actually drink champagne! By definition, today we could have potentially be celebrating your champagne birthday. You would have been turning 6 on the 6th this year. And even though you’re not here, I’ll still raise a champagne flute to celebrate. Celebrate you. Celebrate me. Celebrate us as a collective family. Celebrate the fact that we have survived 6 years of this balancing act of grief and joy. Love and pain.

6 years in, I still hold this day sacred. And I know that in some shape or form I will continue to hold it sacred until I die. It’s the day I honour you but also honour the person that you made me. Honour the strength, the perspective and the grace that I had anticipated to be born on this day, but never did. Instead, all of those things were born much earlier, in a completely different setting, in the most unexpected way, shaping the person that I have become.

Self care is one of those phrases you hear as a bereaved parent very early on in the grief journey, but holds very little merit. It’s not much, much later in one’s grief journey that you come to recognize the critical role it plays, in not only surviving, but also living through the journey.

Today, on your would have been champagne birthday, I choose self care – even if it comes in the form of a champagne glass.

6

#judedays, Child loss, Grief, Healing, Parenting, Uncategorized

Six. It’s been six year since we’ve lost you and I wonder today how the weight of the grief that I carry compares to weight your little body would be at six. I’m sure your little body would have been 10x lighter without a doubt.

But I guess we’ll never really know.

The on again off again pandemic environment has once again made it challenging to celebrate your birthday in the way that somehow makes my heart feel like it’s enough, so this year, as we celebrate you differently (again), my heart looks for ways to fulfill that feeling of enough. But it has not been successful. In the days leading up to today, I wander in and out of stores looking for things that speak to me. That remind me of you. That make my heart happy. And every single time, I question whether it’s enough.

Many bereaved parents will identify with “signs” as a way to hold on to a glimmer of hope and light that they’re child(ren) continue to be with us in this universe despite not being physically by our side. To the non bereaved, these signs may seem ridiculous, but to us, the bereaved parent, they are all that we have.

And so, this week, as I wandered aimlessly to find what exactly would be considered enough to celebrate and honour you, I came across many of these signs that I know was your way of saying “hello! I’m here. And I’m with you’. From the tiniest white feathers I found every morning this week tangled in your sister’s hair as I brushed it in the morning, to the heart shaped planters and posters in the garden centre, even to the pillow that suggested a coping mechanism to get through yet another year without you, they were all there. Speaking to me. Telling me something — but never enough.

It’s just not enough to not have you here. Not enough to try and celebrate you in every way that I know how. Just not enough.

So, I carry you. I carry you in my heart and feel the weight of the grief against the walls of my heart and know that for now, in this space, this lifetime, that will just have to be enough.

Until we meet again my sweet boy. Happy 6th Birthday!

XOXO mommy

Timeless love

#judedays, Child loss, Healing, Self Growth, Uncategorized

They say time heals. I say time teaches.

Two years, 24 months, 730 days, eight seasons – irrespective of how you measure it – it’s still time.

Time that we would have spent together learning to speak your first words. Learning to master a good run. Learning to play.

Instead, time has taught me to breathe again. Feel again. Love again. Just be again.

It has taught me that the distance between the time you once were and the time now, is non existent. Your love remains deeply rooted in my soul and therefore there is no time in between. It’s always present.

I can validate every thought of you on each one of the 730 days that has passed, because time has taught me that although you are not physically present, you will always find a way to make your presence known. Each butterfly, each song, each gentle breeze of the wind assures me that you are near. Even a silly painting on a store window delivers your message of love.

That is what time has taught me. It has not however, healed me and I am confident that no amount of time ever will.

As we celebrate your 2nd birthday, I am reminded that I have a lifetime of learning ahead of me. That with every passing of a season, time, will certainly teach me something about you, about me, about our love. I don’t like the idea of letting time pass, but I do like the idea of what new learnings it brings. Time has taught me how to live and love in two different worlds. Time has taught me how to adapt and change on this love journey of ours. Time has taught me how to share your love.

In hindsight, I only wish you and I had had more time together. But overtime, I have learned that, our love is not bound by time. It’s not even bound by physical presence. It is the only single thing in this universe that is independently bound – bound by love.

Happy 2nd Birthday Jude!

XO mommy