My friend said it right, when she was talking about what it is like to grieve (she was talking about her late husband). Although my loss will never be the same as hers and can never be compared...this is what she said about dealing with the constant thoughts of her late husband,
"It has been so long for everyone else that I mostly keep you to myself now. To bring you up, to speak of you, to relive our life garners strange looks, tilts of the head, and awkward escapes from my presence. I am the only one who remembers. I have no choice. You haunt me........ It is like we have our own secret life that nobody knows. This secret is the heaviest burden I have ever had to bear. It is like scrambling up a mountainside with a boulder strapped to you, dragging it slowly, painfully through the mud. While everyone else takes an escalator." {http://emilygarvinonedayatatime.blogspot.com/}
The way she is able to draw a picture with words is so amazing. She puts into words, the emotions that I find impossible to really convey (often she can do it with humor too and still get her point across).
The gravity of pain I am going through, I am incapable of expressing so others can really understand.
Instead people tell me I should be "moving on", stop thinking about it (after all it is over now, the miscarriages have come and gone), or just forget about it and let it go.
But I cannot.
Obviously, these people have never experienced this kind of pain or they would keep those thoughts to themselves. If this pain was something I could just turn off, trust me I would!
It is a never ending onslaught of an aching heart and painful reminders. Every pregnant belly that I see, or child kickstarts my memories.
The best way I can explain it to you, is that at any point I can think about our kids and think of where they would be in their milestones now.
Our first would be celebrating their second birthday this november.
Our second and third, I never remembered their exact birthdays (we didn't talk about it much and no one else wanted to talk about it either. That was when I was first told I didn't know what I was talking about, that I couldn't be infertile by... "friends"). All I remember is the overwhelming grief and coming to the terms with lost friendships (most of them believing that I hated them for having kids).
Our fourth would be about 3 months now and starting to pull themselves up.
Our fifth (the ectopic) would be due next month.
Our last pregnancy (which may have been twins), I would be about 4 months pregnant and able to see them clearly on the ultrasound. We would be painting their room and starting to build the crib. Instead, what would have been their birthdays is either my birthday or the anniversary of our ectopic. Either date will be rough.
Obviously I wouldn't have been able to have all these kids if we hadn't lost some of them, but nontheless I do think about them. They are all precious and ours, and will remain a lasting memory.
A family member gave us the book Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo after our ectopic in September. I read it in 2 days, and every word I zipped through to see if the child who saw heaven heard anything about unborn children while he was in heaven...and he did.
In the book the child says that his sibling was there, and said she had no name (since her parents hadn't named her yet).
Which means that Jesus tells them about what their parents named them or thought of them. I want Jesus to tell all our children that each one of them holds that special place in our heart and that we long for the day we too can hold them in our arms.
Those few words about what he learned is what also helps me through this...knowing that our children are in the presence of Jesus awaiting our arrival. Even more now I long to be in the presence of the Lord, where my most precious treasures dwell. :)
What I am saying is, so many people mistake someones grief for a lack of hope or trust in God.
Or for their inability to cope with or that they are depressed.
People often forget that the memory of a person does not die with them. It doesn't matter if you held that little person in your arms or if they died in the womb. The hopes, dreams and plans you had for them and your family are real and will never be forgotten. The unborn have two days that will always remind you of them, all the days you walk this earth and right into the next - angelverssaries and birthdays).
I am not depressed, crazy or obsessed...I'm grieving. God puts it into the best words to describe it.
Someone else whose blog I follow, had the perfect scripture that described the gravity of pain one experiences with this kind of loss.
It is Lamentations 3:13, 19-22
"He shot his arrows deep into my heart. The thought of my suffering and hopelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing Love of the Lord never ends! By His mercies we have been kept from complete destruction."
AMEN!
