The Ripple Effect

The days of normalcy are gone. The trance like motions of life have taken their place. I can't remember a time when I was truly happy, and there have been things happen this year that should have given me those feelings of happiness.

I have a book that I bought in a coffee shop in Denton, Texas about 18 years ago... it is called 10,000 Things To Be Happy About. I remember thinking that I HAD to buy this book. It was so interesting to see that someone had actually published something like this. I used to look through that little book and put pencil marks on the things that I had experienced... the things that also made me happy. I should do that again. Surely among those pages are more experiences that I have encountered in my adult life that should make me happy.

I often wonder what is normal. Is it normal to loathe certain tasks? To not want to answer the phone? To cry for no reason? Is it normal to feel guilt because you can't get to the cemetery enough to put flowers out at your daughters grave? It's just up the road. I should be able to go every day and yet I put it off because of the emotion that it brings.

No one really understands how it changes you. You just can't enjoy things any longer. I wonder if the joys of life ever come back? Am I forever jaded because my daughter died? I laugh but it's not the same. I cry but it's not the same. I love but it's not the same.

Things don't matter as much and yet other things matter even more. There is this ripple effect that grieving leaves you with. It is often noticed that people who lose spouses go on to lead very different lives. They sometimes become more open, more adventurous, more fun. Were they scared to be that way when their spouse was with them? Were they not allowed to be their true self? Or were they just too busy pouring all of their energy into that other person that they forgot themselves?

I think it happens to everyone. You pour your heart and soul into a relationship or a friendship. You put all of your focus on your children and not your marriage, or vice versa. Someone always loses out. You miss paying attention to someone. Do we know that we do this? Do we understand that sometimes we need to stop and reevaluate where are energy lies?

I feel stretched in too many directions. Work, home, kids, business, personal. Then some days I feel like I don't do enough. Some days I do too much and my mind is still racing. Since losing Zoe I can't concentrate as well. I don't care as much and I think that everyone around me suffers... but how do you fix it? Is it time? Does time fix this? I have spoken to people who lost children years and years ago and they say the hurt never goes away... it just takes on a different form.

So I just go on.. one day at a time, letting this ripple flow through me and hoping that I can get through one more day without someone noticing how disjointed my life has become. There has to be peace somewhere. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Someday I will find it. One day things will be different.

To Be or Not To Be....A Mother

The past week has been filled with activity. What started out as a lost filling turned into a broken tooth and then an abscess. The pain was awful, and never having had a toothache in my life... I was a baby about it. Thanks to a really great friend in the dental field I made it through the weekend with medication and rest and then had surgery on Tuesday.

My recovery time is not as it used to be back in my younger days... and I say that as a 36 year old who still thinks about all the time that I wasted in my younger days. Today I was able to get out of the house a little and then had to return because I overdid it... trying to do too much and getting over something as simple as oral surgery can wear a person out. I missed a lot of work at the restaurant and floral shop and I have a great husband and staff who handled things for me.

So I sat in bed with my laptop and did paperwork for the business and returned e-mails. Later in the day I received a text from someone who wanted to discuss a situation... and the conversation turned to her feelings as a mother and how "if one day you ever become a mother then you will understand where I am coming from."

Rage. Seeing Red. Tears Falling Freely Soon Commence.

How dare this person stoop to this level and say that I am not a mother? This person who claims to be a supermom? This person who knows the hurt that resides within me? This person who is intentionally saying hateful things to me?

I was pregnant, I was in labor, I delivered a baby girl. She just wasn't breathing. I held her, I love her. She was here and I saw her.... She just wasn't breathing. Do you know what that does to your heart and soul? It literally rips into. The pieces never fit together just right again. There are gaps and crooked lines and places that don't match up.

This ever mending heart that I now have in no way means that I am not a mother. I wanted to be a mother to this beautiful little girl that was not breathing. People have no idea. I will never see her smile or dance or hear her laugh. I will never know what she looks like, how she talks. I will never feel her arms around my neck or hear her say that she loves me.

A Mother. How dare someone say that I am not a mother?

As a mother I have endured pain that others never have. I have grieved like some never will. I have prayed and hoped and cried buckets of tears for answers as to why I wasn't allowed to be a mother to a living child. I have worked hard to be a better person, I have seen what truly matters in life.I have made changes.

Just because my baby died doesn't mean that I didn't bond with her. It doesn't mean that I didn't talk and sing to her and dream big dreams for her. It certainly doesn't mean that I am not a mother.

I will say this. I am Zoe's mother. I would have been a great mother to Zoe Jane. She would have been a wonderful child. The only thing that gives me an ounce of peace is knowing that she is in Heaven and she is perfect. She is beautiful. She will never feel the hurt or anger that I felt today after being told that I was not a mother. She will never have to hear the hateful things that people say to one another on this Earth and she will never cry. She is forever happy with Our Father.

I have to forgive this person of their ignorant comment. It was meant to hurt me and they did a good job of it. I do know that Zoe watches us, she is here with us always and SHE knows that I am her mother. I may belong to a motherhood of women who still dream about the "what ifs," but I can tell you that we are a strong band of women who love our angels just as much as those mothers with living children.