Musings on Grief

This is my bedroom, and the place I choose to sit when I feel any kind of low creeping in. This is the place in our home where I feel closest to Lochlan, where I have chosen to gather his things and words that help me crack open when I need to. There is a door I can close so my feelings can be true, away from the other kids who don’t understand, yet. I fuss over the dresser next to my bed, constantly rearranging where things go, changing the photo in the white frame and the flowers that always sit there. It’s important work for me to care, nurture and pour love into this tiny space - this plot that I’ve given to my boy. I choose to have him with me, and will mostly likely always do so. .

When I was younger, in my early twenties, a friend of mine and his wife had lost two children mid-pregnancy. I didn’t understand it, I didn’t understand the loss, and when I saw they kept two urns on their mantel I distinctly remember thinking how weird that was. I thought it was wrong, I thought it went against what you were supposed to do, to deal with death - box it up, and put it away. I will ALWAYS remember the way I felt looking at those two urns, and I will always make space for anyone who hasn’t lost a child, and can’t understand why that child remains at home. It’s something inexplainable, but a simple fact that I simply can’t live without my child. .

So today I am working in my bedroom, writing words onto paper that might one day be in a book. But if not, they are words that help me heal, and healing takes on all different sizes and shapes throughout grief. Be gentle with yourself, be gentle to your friend who is suffering... even years later, with the empty arms of child loss.