Posts tagged ptsdrecovery
Beauty From Ashes

Six months. Today, we celebrate six months of life. It’s your little brother’s half birthday. As I type this, he’s cuddled close to me, sucking on his pacifier, while his softie is nestled into his neck and lullabies lull him to sleep.  It’s beautiful. But it stings. It’s bittersweet...  I’m overcome with love for him and the joy he brings me to the point that I’m overwhelmed and brought to tears.  His breaths fall heavily on my arm, while you remained so still.  His little life, in my arms, because your life slipped through my hands.  Death literally passed through me, so a new life could be planted. Could grow. Could resurrect from the darkness and bring to fruition a redemption I had not thought possible.  There’s so much guilt.  But there’s so much love.  And grief, it still remains.

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This is Us
Thoughts

There’s a deep ache in me that permeates every fiber of my being. A longing. A stillness. A quiet. It’s incomplete and completely painful. It swallows me whole and consumes my existence. It’s presses hard and captures me. I’m suffocating.

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Assumptions


I guess I just don’t want people to assume that I am okay, that my husband is okay, that we are okay, or that our family is OKAY.  Or to assume that a smile on my face means that I am “better.”  That because I hold a babe in my arms, I am over not holding her.  That because it’s been a year, life is back to “normal.”  We are not fully functioning.  We are just trying to make it through another day. Just as pregnancy after loss was unbearably brutal, parenting after loss has been a beast of its own.  I look around and see all the ways our lives have unraveled over the past thirteen months.  Life still seems so out of control.

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Always Missing

After all, I am trying to mother a child who is always missing...that in itself is exhausting and overwhelming and will be part of me forever.

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A Year in Words

 “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”  (Rose Kennedy)

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Still Your Mother
Your Month Arrived

May is here. And May hurts.  Because May means you will be gone...forever...until we are reunited in heaven.

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Learning to Surrender

Last night while nursing him, he gave a slight resemblance to you, and I remembered staring down at your face in the hospital room in such disbelief.  No matter how much I willed you to breathe or to move, no matter how much I begged God to change the outcome, I couldn’t change a thing.  I was completely powerless.

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11 Months (Revisiting)

I’m a day late, my love. Yesterday, it was 11 months. How have we happened upon one month shy of a full year? 

I know I haven’t written in a while, but so much has been moving and churning within the depths of my heart. It’s almost been too much to articulate admidst the exhaustion of daily life, grief, and pregnancy after loss.  However, I think you know. You’ve witnessed it all.

Eleven months ago, my world came crashing down when I received the most unimaginable news of my life...your heart had stopped beating just two weeks shy of your expected due date.

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Erupting

My anger hasn’t been lying dormant by any means, but recently it has been making its way to the surface in bouts of explosions and eruptions.  And today is no different.  Can I make excuses for myself?

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Divided

That night, at mass, the message of surrender.  Giving it all to God.  Living with open hands.  Wanting God more than anything.  The story of Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son for love of God...I felt ashamed.  Because in the midst of all of this, if I had a choice, if I could go back in time, if I could write this story’s ending...I wouldn’t choose loss.  I wouldn’t choose your death.  I wouldn’t choose sacrifice, or this cross, or this grief.  I would choose to be your Mom this side of heaven.  The words of our pastor carved into me, and I thought I might bleed out, but I didn’t want to release my emotions. I swallowed them down hard and pretended to be unbothered.  I was convicted, but not convinced.  I was divided.

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No Fear in Love

I am learning that your love is molding me and shaping me into someone new.  That the old me is a discarded shell, and that’s simply okay.  I’m learning that loving you came with a cost, but I would never change it. 

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The Secret Place

You know me inside out. You know what I can’t comprehend or articulate.You know me. Let me know who I am. Let me know you. 

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Feeling vs. Wanting

“O soul, steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost.  Come and confide in your God, Who is Love and Mercy.”  (St. Faustina) 

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Eight Months

I do not know where I am going.  But I need to go SOMEWHERE. 

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Litany of Trust

From refusals and reluctances in accepting your will...

From anxiety about the future...

From resentment or excessive preoccupation with the past...

From restless self-seeking in the present moment...

From the fear of being asked to give more than I have...

From the fear of what Love demands...

Deliver me, Jesus.

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New Song

I am learning who I am.  And who I am is new.  And who I am needs change.  Who I am needs “a new song.” 

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The Hall of Shame

I hated that moment of utter shame, and for some reason my heart is revisiting that space of heartbreak tonight when I felt complete despair and profound confusion.  I hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet, I felt like I was being punished.  I wanted to die in that moment.

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