It Still Hurts, Like the Day You Died.

It hurts now seven months after Rosie died and then was born just as much as it did when I found out she had gone.
I still have that heart wrenching pain, the panic, the nervous tapping and sweaty palms. I still have moments where I say “my baby is dead” because it hasn’t sunk into my head. I still have the hormones, the nurture, the motherly feelings that you get when you have your baby but mine are wasted. I hear a baby cry and my body yearns to protect my baby when my head is telling me that my baby isn’t here to protect or mother. It hurts all over again. Every day I wake up to an empty crib next to my bed and I remember I am not pregnant, I am not excited for our baby to arrive for ours was born in heaven. I remember my baby is dead. The world doesn’t. The world forgets about us and our pain. Even friends and family forget about us. Forget that we relive this pain every day. When you give birth to your baby you count the days until their birthday, for us Rosie’s birth was the reinforcement of her death. We won’t celebrate her first birthday on the 12th January next year, we’ll be mourning her death on the day she was born.

You have your baby and send us pictures or tell people how happy you are. You forget that we have lost the future we planned, we have lost a part of ourselves before we had a chance to know it. You forget that we still live this pain. We always will live this pain but now as we need and ask for love and support, we ask you to remember Rosie and our loss but you forget. When you hand your baby to my mum, the woman who lost her only grandchild, you only think that you need a break from your tired arms. I see you replacing our daughter who should be held in her grandmothers arms with yours. I see the pictures of your baby as the thing I am missing. I hear those cries and break again.

I can choose to be around you and your lovely living baby but I can’t choose how you send your happiness my way. Some times I can do it if you need a friend, some times I can say hello to your baby because I have worked myself up for days and hours to be strong and do that, I wish I could choose for the world to remember our baby and our pain but I cannot so I write to you here because today I am not strong enough to smile at you and pretend I’m okay.

I still break down and cry in public, I went to the hospital last week trying not to let the pain attack me, I lasted until I stepped out of hospital and its bad memories, I cried walking to the bus, I cried asking the driver for my fare, I sat on the twenty minute bus journey and cried in front of all those people. They didn’t know why I cried nor did they ask. At every stop I looked at the doors praying for someone I know to get on and hold my hand, ask me if I’m okay. I’m not okay. Life isn’t okay. I am strong and I am an inspiration but I am still human and I still hurt.

Do you still hurt from that messy divorce? Do you still hurt from your parents death? Does it still hurt you when you remember how a friend upset you?

I can’t control my pain, there are no pills, no operations, just pain.

If I reach out to you, could you reach back?
If I can remember your pain can you remember our pain?

Has Something Good Happened to You Today?

Have a think, think about today, what good can you get from it? Did you get less headaches than usual? Did you get something for free? Did someone smile at you when you were on the edge of tears? Have you looked at the people that love you and forgotten about those who despise you?

What have you done to bless someone today? Have you made your loved one a drink just because you love them? Have you smiled at a stranger because maybe they need it today? Have you paid for the person behind you in the coffee queue? Have you asked someone who’s hurting how they are? Have you text a friend letting them know you’re thinking about them?

Often I forget to think about my blessings and concentrate on the pain I have. I have a lot more to deal with than most of the people I know but does that mean that their worries mean less than mine? Does that mean that they hurt any less? Perhaps, perhaps not. You see I often hear about friends and family who have lost a job or are looking for a job or feel insecure about their abilities and I think to myself, yep I know how hard that is. I then list my problems in my head. I know how it feels to be out of work and desperately searching for a job I’m in that, I know how it feels to live with others because you can’t afford your own place I’m in that, I know how it feels to be insecure in your abilities I’m low on that, I know how it feels to worry about health I’m in that, I know how it feels to be without my daughter because she died I’m living that for eternity. I feel exactly what you feel because I’m in it or have been in it or are going to be in it for life but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know about your situation. Share with me your worries, tell me about your pain. It’ll help me more than it’ll help you but at least you’ll be doing good for someone today. If you share your pains maybe you won’t feel so bad about not feeling the best parent because you can still show your children you love them, perhaps if you read about my mother in law yours won’t feel as bad. Perhaps if you are worried about finding your job lets search together. Don’t leave people in space, let them in on your troubles, let them listen and help, let them pick you up when you need it so that you can pick me up when I need it. Its far easier to think about others problems than it is our own. Maybe that one good thing you could do today is to lean on a parent with no baby, help take their mind off their emptiness, share as we’d like to share with you.

Space is something that you can have too much of, it feels overwhelming, vast, empty. Maybe text or call the mother whose baby died because she has no baby to care for, no job to earn, no friends to call on, she has too much time on her hands and no one to share it with. Sometimes she’ll be too afraid, too insecure, too upset to be with you but at least she’ll know that you care and you can share with her.

This is not just for me, those people that lose their children will always remember and will sometimes want you to make them feel wanted, loved, good about themselves.

Let blessings come looking for you, open up to someone who needs you to. Smile at the stranger in line who could have lost a baby themselves. Give an enemy a good gesture. Strengthen your good side so that you feel better about yourself, you have worries and pain but like me try and count the blessings of which sometimes you don’t always see. I’m glad some of you reading this have not lost a child, I’m happy for you but you may not even be able to feel that happiness. Let me point out that I have lots of blessings and one very big negative. How many blessings can you count in your life and can you bless someone else in theirs.

Expect blessings. They are coming to me, so if you expect them they’ll be coming to you too.

Are you my blessing today? Am I yours?

Let me tell you that I have been very negative since Rosie died but also amazingly positive. I thank the Lord my husband is with me because I feel that I could never cope without him, if he’d have died instead of Rosie I would not be on Earth. Does that make me wrong for seeing that I am still alive after Rosie’s death a blessing? Does it make me bad for carrying on?
I haven’t got a home of my own but I have shelter, I have a place to stay, my mum loves me and Andrew so much she has opened up her home to us for as long as we need it.
I do not see or hear from friends very often and family never but when I asked Daddy God to bring me people he brought me two amazing ladies I met at the gym. They told me how horrible I was to my husband, how awful I was telling him I wanted to die and be with Rosie, how he has twice as much pain because his daughter died and now his wife wants to leave him. These people shared their worries with me, ask me about Rosie and in turn I have been blessed by sharing my relationship with God with them. I have brought two people to Christ. I have had two blessings brought to me and created more blessings for them, when I thought I couldn’t give any more I gave more than I ever thought of myself. I now teach them as they teach me.
I have also found a passion for yoga. It makes me feel like I’m ready for the world. I cry in every single yoga session but it builds me up even stronger. Crying is not weakness, showing your pain to others makes you stronger and I am strong as I show you my pain.

So these negatives in your life, could they be blessings as well?

Family and their selfishness

So for the past few weeks I’ve been really asking for love and support from friends and family, the royal baby, a nations happiness forcing its way through to my sadness. I’ve been asking people I have let into my life since Rosie died to show me they care, to be there to try and love me.

This week I have been shown that those who once shared our loss of our daughter no longer share it with us but are now jealous that we have had this tragedy happen to us and not them. Some people just can’t see others pain because all they have to worry about is small in comparison to truly tragic circumstances. I have been shocked that some people have turned out to be so selfish they tell me they can’t love me, such as my mother in law. I begged her to show me love and support, she couldn’t. She told me that I don’t love my husband because I don’t have a job, she told me I control my mum whom I look after because I don’t let her grieve because I live with her. She told me that she had more of a right to grieve over my daughter than me. This is the woman who tried to break mine and Andrew’s wedding up, got me in a room surrounded by her family when I was five months pregnant so they could tell me how horrible I was and how I’d never be good enough for their family, this is the woman who let her other son come at me in a rage to be stopped by my husband. This is the woman whom let her husband square up to and threaten me whilst pregnant. This pathetic excuse for a woman also text my husband several times asking if he was dead… I guess she must be happy now she got her wish and someone died. This woman shouted at and belittled me on my wedding day and asked nothing about our pregnancy with Rosie after that. She didn’t know Rosie, she didn’t care about her or Andrew and I so she must have felt guilty when Rosie died. I blessed this awful human by letting her say goodbye to my daughter when she was stillborn. I blessed this woman by telling her I loved her and calling her mum. I showed her grace and favour after all she had done and let her family do to me, Andrew and Rosie. Six months after Rosie’s death she has told me I shouldn’t grieve any longer, she has told me I am lazy and don’t work hard, she has told me I am selfish myself for grieving and asking for support and love. This woman also told me how a few days after Rosie died she took lots of tablets and tried to kill herself. What a selfish person to try and make me, the mother of, the woman who went through labour knowing my baby died and gave birth to. She is so black hearted and jealous that she wanted this tragedy to happen to her so that she could have the attention, the sympathy, the love. Very sick minded for someone to think only of themselves. My mother in law monster in law’s husband even agreed with me that she can’t love, she doesn’t know how to show it. She thrives off attention, jealousy and selfishness.

There are people that will, believe it or not, be jealous that your baby died. There are people that are so selfish they cannot put anyone before themselves, these people have a black heart which you won’t be able to heal. As much as I tried to bless this woman and her family it didn’t work, they couldn’t handle my strength and love so I bless them now by letting them fester together alone. This light is no longer in their lives but shines for her own family. The future me and my amazing rock of a husband have together. Do not try and change those selfish and jealous people just cut them out of your life like the cancer they are.

Blessings are coming.