Sunday, March 19, 2017

Beautifully broken, life after death. Stillbirth trigger warning

Yesterday I took on the difficult task of answering questions about the sleeping baby in the picture and why she never came home.  You would think that after my third time, I would have been an old pro.  Well, child number four asked and I answered.  It was the same as before.  I smiled, sucked it up, swallowed the lump in my throat, and addressed the questions. 

Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, I realized that this was the last time I would have to explain her death to one of her siblings.  "She couldn't stay", "She had to go", "You have the same eye color", "She looked like your big brother", "Her hair was longer than yours and she was bigger than you were when you were born", "I don't know why, because".

Because.......

Because life was too good. 
Because things were too easy. 
Because I wasn't good enough. 
Because my body betrayed us.
Because God....
Just because. 

It's almost what would be her 13th birthday.  A teenager, we have a teenager. WE HAVE A TEENAGER!  No, we don't.   

No boy drama, no first dance, and no clothing choice disagreements.  No friends that we can question or shopping trips to spoil her.  Nothing.  Emptiness.  A beautiful black granite headstone coated in pink tulips is all that's left.  I think of her tiny coffin under the dirt and I can't speak or breath. 

Everyone hits road bumps, but most would choose a different one. 

This sort of pain is dark and goes against the natural order of things.  It makes people uncomfortable.  It changes who you are in every fiber of your being.  It is exhausting to be broken, but that is what we are left with.

Metaphorically speaking.

Recently I watched a crystal vase, a wedding gift, fall from the counter onto the hard tile.  The crystal was delicate and shattered across the floor.  I felt like that vase.  Wholeness broken into a million pieces in a single moment.  It happened in 2 words,  "I'm sorry".  I ask myself if I will lie down in the shards and continue to bleed.

Can something beautiful come from the shattered mess?

It's tedious and debilitating.  I miss the pureness of not picking up the pieces, but this is reality.  The pieces can't be put back together again.  Nothing can ever fix this.  It's something you live with for a day, 13 years, and a lifetime.

I promise myself I will be ok for my family.  My children don't need a broken mother and my husband deserves a strong wife.

We rebuild, even if we feel a little behind everyone else.  Grief takes your will and you lose precious years of your life to it.

I am a good mother, an entrepreneur, and a person who loves her life.  These qualities are the qualities our little girl deserved in a mother.  Our other children have the benefit of parents who understand how very precious they are and life is.

The light slowly filters through and its brilliant. It reflects in a million different directions and is completely unpredictable. Its beautiful in its own way.  It is beautifully broken.

I recently read some motivational swag that said, "we are all broken and that is how the light gets in".  I believe that in finding a way to create some sort of brilliance of what is left, we can not only let the light in, but encourage it to shine through us.