Empathy is a skill that requires maturity, wisdom and compassion. Empathy requires a conscious effort. It requires vulnerability, risk and stepping into potential discomfort for the sake of another person's well-being. Sympathy is easy, it's easy to understand that someone else's circumstances are less-than-desirable. Pity is a lot like sympathy but implies that you are above undergoing such circumstances yourself. To believe that miserable things won't happen to you is insanity. So there is likely going to come a day when your world comes crashing in around you and you find yourself in the position of desperately needing empathy and community to help lift you up. There will be days when you can hardly put one foot in front of the other, therefore when you, yourself, can really step into the shoes of what that devastation, despair, loneliness and confusion can feel like, then you achieve empathy. In those moments you can meet the hurting person right where they are, not forcing them to behave a certain way and not forcing undue expectations on them, but recognizing that this moment in their life is HARD. You allow that person the freedom to be honest with their own sorrow while also becoming a source of encouragement for them to continue to move through their pain and not remain stuck in it. Pain like this is debilitating, it can literally cause a person to stop functioning properly. Your empathy helps draw them a trail that can lead them towards movement in a forward direction.
~Day 23: Mortality~
I have no fear of dying. When my daughter was born I learned how to have true faith in God and in those moments felt secure that the heaven I had always known about, does in fact exist. I didn't know then just how soon my heart was going to be split between heaven and earth. After Millie passed I was no longer afraid of death and frankly there were many days where I would have gladly welcomed it. I was not suicidal but the pain was unrelenting and the release of my pain could come from leaving this secular world and joining my daughter and grandparents in heaven. I was desperate for that comfort. In longing for that comfort I was ultimately longing for a deeper relationship with God and in the years since I have developed a very intimate relationship with God where He is my comfort, my rock and my salvation. I am confident that I have a place in heaven and that my home is there. I have every desire to be here to be the mother to my son and the wife to my husband that they both need. I have a calling to provide healing to others and I am honored to be able to provide that gift without question. I do get very tired of the pain I am enduring here and would like to be freed from it by going home but I know that my trials here are important and that my life is already planned for me and that my life is blessed and that it is good. My prayer is that my loved ones know the God that I know, that they too learn to trust Him as I do because I long to spend eternity together.
~Day 24: Courage~
I guess I have a lot of courage. It's not something I worked at developing or am egotistical enough to believe I cultivated on my own. My courage comes from a place that I cannot easily explain and does not seem to make logical sense. I know that my courage comes from God. He speaks to me (not in a direct voice but in instinctual connections) and He gives me the direction I should go. I have will-power and the ability to make decisions that follow God's direction despite the current pain, despite the underlying weakness, despite the anxious-ridden unknown. I guess my greatest source of courage comes from knowing that I alone am not the most important thing. My well-being and my self-preservation does not trump the people around me. I can heal others, I can encourage others, I can love others, I can provide for others. It is walking my path in order to speak into the lives of those around me that gives me courage to continue to move through my pain and torture.
~Day 25: Who~
Who has been here for me through this? The number of people who have come alongside me is hard to put into words. My immediate family, my extended family, my husband's family, my friends have all been so supportive and empathetic. I have made incredible connections with so many other parents of childloss. I have also made connections with relative strangers, people who came into my life via circumstance not connection and yet we have created incredible connections through my willingness to speak openly about my daughter and their amazing ability to lean into my hurts in a compassionate way. I know not every parent of loss experiences that kind of community so I am forever grateful to every person who has chosen to lean into meeting me where I am in my journey and providing compassionate support to a situation that can be rather uncomfortable.
~Day 26: Beauty~
This moment right here will always be my definition of beauty. The incredible moment when my fears were set aside because our gorgeous daughter was born whole and perfect. I did not have anything but relief, love and hope in my heart at this moment when the baby I had been protecting on the inside met me for the first time on the outside. For this moment in time all her health concerns were cast aside and my heart was overwhelmed with love by feeling her warm skin against my cheek.
~Day 27: Memory~
In 23 days of life (and 9 months of pregnancy) I actually do have enough memories to fill a lifetime. I have to say that my most fond memories are from the night we gave Millie her first bath. It was one of the only moments where we got to engage in a first time parent bonding experience with our daughter. It was only 2 days before she passed away and her body was beginning to fail but during that bath she was vibrant and we got to hear her sweet little voice while she experienced her first bath. It was a joyous moment, plain and simple.
~Day 28: Shadow + Light~
Are there healthy and unhealthy ways to grieve? Yes, I do believe that there are levels of unhealthy and healthy grieving. I believe unhealthy ways include avoidance, normalizing too quickly and victimization for example. This grief cannot be buried, it cannot be packaged up with a neat little bow and tucked away forever, and it cannot be the standard by which your life has been forever ruined. There is a tremendous amount of dichotomy that exists in grief and all of it needs to be acknowledged and lived out in all of its perfect presence. For example, it is good to feel joy over the birth of another child but equally important to acknowledge the fear and anxiety that comes with this experience. For example, it is perfectly healthy to list all of your children when asked how many you have and be able to explain that your child has passed without feeling guilty or awkward for mentioning it. However, acknowledging a child that has passed should not be a moment to garner sympathy but rather create connection. By sharing about your child you may open up communication with someone else who went through a similar experience or at minimum create awareness that your child existed and shapes who you are. Avoiding the topic denies the essence of who you are and putting our grief into a box that needs to be buried causes us to bury a piece of ourselves, whether we impose that box on ourselves or the society we live in causes that reaction.
~Day 29: Release~
Release is a constant evolution for me personally. Release comes in waves and ebbs and flows depending on life's circumstances. It's easy to believe I have dealt with most of my grief and have come to rest in a good place over the loss of my daughter but that is never a closed and shut door. Just recently events in my life have erupted tremendous amounts of grief and confusion triggers based on circumstances that are completely out of my control. I have to live in that pain and move through that pain yet again. I have to work towards the goal of establishing peace around my circumstances that emit so much pain and unfairness over the loss of my daughter. These are real emotions that I have to let myself have but I also know that I cannot remain in this sorrow and self-pity because it will never serve me any goodness to remain in this pit of pain. I cannot predict how many other times I will be triggered in my life, nor can I predict what events are yet to come that will cause those types of reactions. But I have developed coping skills along the way and they help me manage my triggers in a way that is healthy for me to process and release again.
~Day 30: Gift of Life~
How would Millie want me to live? I believe the responsibilities of parenthood are tremendous. I think it is a calling in life where we learn to turn the focus from self to others. I believe it is the evolution of placing your needs behind the needs of others and sacrificing for the wellness of others. So whether Millie is still living or not she made me a mother and she evoked this desire for me to be a better version of myself. I feel called to ensure that my hurts and my needs do not interfere with my children's potential. Millie still has tremendous impact on people in this world and I want to make sure that I am encouraging that. Bodey is here and he forces me to face those challenges every single day but every single day I am striving to make sure that my own pain, fears and anxieties are not irrationally inhibiting his growth and potential.
~Day 31: Sunset~
I haven't taken time to stop and enjoy the beauty of a sunset in a very long time. The same thing happens with Millie's presence in my life. She is there every, single day just like the sunset. Some days I pause and take greater note of the sunset than other days but rarely do I stop all other activity to just sit and relish in the beauty of the God-given moment. This month of reflection has given me just that, the reason to stop and relish in my memories of Millie and the impact she continues to have on my life. I am grateful to those of you that choose to continue to follow along in my journey. I write to bring me peace and often forget that anyone else is paying attention but I choose to share publicly because she matters to me and I want her to continue to be acknowledged in my life.
