Tomorrow my Ma sets foot on the US soil again. She will come to us for a few weeks, in a new town, in a new house, and we will see her more than three years later. Three years since I have hugged and held my mother. Three years since we have wept on each other's shoulders.
Read MoreI didn't need much from you. I simply needed you to walk beside me every now and then. I needed you to spare me a thought even if you didn't know what to say, even if you didn't entirely understand. All I needed was for you to simply acknowledge that my sadness is real, and that I have lost so very much. I never doubted that the sun would shine again. It’s always there beyond the greyness of the clouds. But until then, I would have liked a gentle thoughtfulness. A recognition that my grief mattered, a thought for the loved ones I have said goodbye to, too soon.
Read MoreA lot of who we were is what makes us who we are. It is often what we once shared as a couple, that provides that extra blanket during the coldness of grief. This book spoke to me of the excruciating pain of losing but also of love and romance and living, of everything that existed before and during the sadness.
Read MoreOn the wall in the family room is Lydia’s name—painted, framed and gifted to us—sitting above the small patch of carpet where a little boy eagerly puts on his shoes to go outside, where a little girl shuffles across as she cries out for her mother, and where two parents collapsed nearly two years ago, sitting numbly and staring out into the grey sky of a world that no longer made sense. Above the fireplace mantle, her name carved into stone, her body burned to ash.
Read MoreI was bombarded by hundreds, maybe thousands, of unsolicited perspectives about his death, his worth, my grief and generally how I was perceived to be doing in the aftermath. I was shocked that so many people in my life felt they had a right to press their opinions upon me—in regard to my dead son! I resented that amidst learning to cope with my loss, I was forced to explain myself, and defend my grief, over and over again.
Read MoreNo one can live in heightened grief forever but I never expected to find that happiness was possible again. You wouldn't know to look at me now, save for the look in my eyes that I often see in pictures of bereaved mothers, that look you can always glimpse, even when they smile. He changed the ground beneath my feet, my first and beloved little boy.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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