Not like the others

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Not like the others

You can see swimmers behind the people being interviewed—some in bikinis, some in tankinis, some in burkinis, not to mention swim trunks of all imaginable cuts and lengths—you get to understand their confusion. I wished that our world would become a bit more like that beach—that it would be ok to be as we are, that it would phase no one to see each other the way we are each comfortable being seen.

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Surviving

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Surviving

Every day, I get out of bed and pretend that I am okay. That it is okay. But the truth is, it still devastates me, three+ years out. Not a day goes by. Starting kindergarten (and milestones) or even when we're just laughing with our kids, I think of all she is missing out on and all the milestones that should have come between birth and death. I know how quickly bad news can happen and shift everything to black. Sometimes I read other stories here and I think, I could not survive that. And then I remember, I did.

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Stray cat sings back

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Stray cat sings back

Nine years later, there’s peace. There really is. People say Time heals and you fantasize about Wile E. Coyote anvils dropping from the sky. What’s-her-name and her however-many Stages of Grief. Denial, begging, anger, acceptance, a neat bow, something-something whatever. Screw you, what’s-your-name. My grief is not linear. But here’s the thing. From a long way up—I’m whispering now—it is, sort of. Grief is not linear. Time doesn’t heal. Not at all. Until it does.

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Expectations

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Expectations

Jo-Anne, our forum moderator, is writing for us today. Her daughter Zia was stillborn on July 16, 2013. She says, "The years have passed and they will continue to do so. The sadness and initial rawness of grief has slowly subsided but there is still sadness there. It comes and it goes. Sometimes its a gentle breeze at other times a tornado ripping my insides. Explaining that isn't difficult, making people understand is. Opinions do not matter so much but how do we change the way society supports newly grieving parents if we cease the fight for significance of life. There truly is no footprint too small."

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