Celebrating and Smiling

Looking at them makes me want to celebrate and smile. So many times I felt like I see other families that have a child and have a new pregnancy and they either totally disappear from social media or they only talk about the new baby.

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Allison is struggling with not being the only kid in the house and is learning how to navigate this sisterhood she never knew in this way with Logan.

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It’s a hard place to be to celebrate the new and the gifts that have taken literal years to create and mountains that we’re moved. But I also have to celebrate what brought me here. Without losing Logan baby Love we wouldn’t be holding Jojo.

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So how do you celebrate both? It’s a hard place to be this Mother’s Day. It’s not easy to describe this confusion of joy and sorrow over having and missing it all.

To my fellow moms who know this, know I feel you and I’m sure I’m not alone. Tell me all your beautiful children (on earth and heaven!) and I’d love to pray for them as we go into this hard weekend!

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A Birthday Lost in Neverland

Happy Birthday Logan boy. I can hardly believe it’s been 2 years since I was clinging to you in my arms wishing for a miracle that would selfishly keep you with me. I know we made the right decision to not let you suffer, but I still wish you hadn’t had to go before me on your journey to heaven. It’s just against every pattern our lives are supposed to follow.

I’ve heard your in a better place at least 1,000 times and I’ve rejoiced at least this many times for you. But I still just feel homesick longing for you. I just feel out of place on days like today. Torn between heaven and Earth and not being able to be seeing your face on days like this.

I have no idea what being a boy mom is like. Would your party have been all about dinosaurs or construction stuff like your daddy? Instead of opening new toys to celebrate you we open messages of remembering you. I have so been wondering what you would be looking like at 2. Would have lost your baby fat by now, how many words would you be able to say? What would you have thought of me if you’d been able to open your eyes? Would you have said this family is crazy and loud and been the quiet introvert or been screaming with the craziness of your big sister?

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t absolutely ache for you little boy. I wish I had some great silver lining to make anyone reading this feel better, but really losing someone this close to you and changing the life plans you thought you had isn’t a silver lining. It’s just hard.

You learn to still breathe and somehow figure out how to do things like pay bills and feed the 4 year old. You do learn to laugh again. But I will always have a moment of looking at the moments of happiness and seeing one face missing. Seeing one little blonde boy with chubby cheeks who should be grinning with me.

I’m going to celebrate today and the 15 hours you were here where you touched so many. You’ve taught us big grown ups way more than we thought we’d ever learn from a guy who’d just gotten here.

So though you’re not going to get the chance to grow up and are forever staying a lost boy like Peter Pan I’m sure you’re still going to wait for me. Logan know your mommy and daddy always have a place for you in our hearts. You are forever loved and forever missed. Especially on days like this. We love you to the moon, the sun and all the stars.

Wave of lightning

Today is a nationally recognized day of remembrance for pregnancy and infant loss of those lives gone far too soon. 

This month:

We remember the babies born sleeping. Those we’ve carried and never met. Those we’ve held but couldn’t take home. The ones who came home, but couldn’t stay. 

Help break the silence and remember with us by lightning a candle at 7 pm for remembrance. Unfortunately our family is not alone in this unimaginable pain. No matter how small they mattered and are always a mystery of who they would’ve been. They matter because they were here, if only for a moment.

No Ruler to Measure Grief

So many people who have contacted me since I started writing with their own stories. These are stories of old wounds, vulnerability and reopened scars and the memories that haunt us at night. They usually start with a disclaimer “it doesn’t compare to what has happened to you” or “I wasn’t as far as you were.”

These disclaimers make me think that at some point our society decided that we need to rank measures of loss. That for some reason some hurt was worth more than another hurt. We try to minimize our hurt and be a martyr. I’ve learned that to rank a loss is just cruel. The worst thing that could happen did and that’s all that matters. The weight of your loss is not transferrable and not measurable. If it’s heavy for you it should be acknowledged and that’s really all that matters.

I want to thank the many people who have opened up and shared stories of their scars. They are all special and unique and part of what bind us together. We all have struggles and are all trying to persevere.

There is enough suffering to go around and it can be overwhelming. We don’t need to put comparisons or disclaimers on our emotions.

Some of best advice in those darkest first months was to try to talk to myself like I was talking to my best friend. She let me acknowledge I was in the trenches and to remind myself to be kind while I was trying to fight a war with myself.

If your waiting for a permission slip to feel complicated things all at once here it goes. Remember your allowed to be happy about good things while your sad about good things. Your allowed to be proud of every mountain you have climbed. You are not obligated to justify your feelings. Especially feelings of grief. You are not obligated to minimize your loss.

We are all here to bear witness to one another. To lend a hand when we see someone slipping. I hope that you know this is not a competition of who has it worse. No one really wants to win that competition.

Remember to be to yourself. To talk to yourself as if you were your own best friend and not the guilt tripping enemy you maybe listening to in your head. I’ve found that grief is a complication of emotions of sadness mixed with happy mixed with another sadness about feeling happy. Remember your not crazy, it’s just grief. And anyone who thinks grief is a smooth transition of checkmarks is probably living in some crazy sub-universe!

Why I Write

If we haven’t already met, hi I’m Sara! I’m writing this blog for my son Logan. His time in this world was a brief 14 1/2 hours, but so much love was shared during his short time here. I write to families who have experienced grief, and to those who support them on their journeys.

I write about what has brought me joy and what I wish others would understand about the complexities in my mind as I navigate new normal. Ideally, I’m writing in this public manner because I was tired of whining in my journal about wishing more people would understand my thoughts after. I want people to not walk on egg shells around me. I want people to know what has helped and what still hurts. Some of my writings are for me to get the day off my chest. While others come after I think now I have the perfect thing I wish I would’ve said at the time. There are many times where it’s easier to write it down and send it into cyberspace than to try to think of the right words in the moment.

I hope that you feel free to share any of my writings if they are helpful to you. I want to thank each of you for taking the time to read any of my posts and getting to know me and my family.

Sara