reflections

This has been a difficult week for many people.  The tragedy in Connecticut, so many little lives gone so quickly.   It is sad.  Very sad.  And, for many loss moms, it seems like we have been transported back to a place in our grief which many of us had moved from.  A place where it was really hard not to cry all the time, where songs made us cry, where it all seemed very new and very terrible.  A place  where the stories of the little children and those who died trying to save them and those who came to try to help, and their parents, friends, and community make us hurt in a really raw way.

I've come to understand that our reactions, my reaction, as a mom and as a loss mom, to this horrible tragedy is entirely normal.  We all lost something, as a nation, last week.  As parents with living children, we can only imagine how absolutely heartwrenching it must be for those moms and dads who lost their child.  We hold ours a little closer and a little tighter. 

As loss moms, we remember our pain over losing someone we loved dearly and who was a part of us.  We know pain.  We know heartbreak.  We know the pain of having someone we loved taken from us.  We understand and share a commonality of sudden and unexpected loss.

Yet, I know that every loss is different.  I didn't get time to know my child.  I didn't hear her laugh, or cry, or do any of the things that the parents and families in Connecticut did with the people they lost.  I don't pretend to understand the depths of their grief and pain, because no one can.  Grief is entirely personal.  It just is.

I wish there was something that any of us could do to help with that pain, that grief.  But there isn't anything we can do to take it away.  All we can do, as loss moms, as parents, as humans, is offer to carry a piece of their burden for them, and to walk along side them on this path.  Life gets better in time.  It really does.  It is never the same, but you continue to move forward, because that is what we do.  It is what we have to do.

But a loss never really goes away.  Sometimes the grief hits you, like the big wave that it is, and drags you backwards to a place you thought you left behind.  Holidays, anniversaries, birthdays.  Due dates.  Milestones.  They are always there.  There will always be reminders of the person who has left us.   But reminders can be good things too.  Because they remind us that we have loved, and we love, and we are loved by our child.  Love is always a risk.  But with great risk comes great reward.  And, sometimes, great pain.  But it is always worth it.

I send my deepest sympathies, love, peace and healing to the newest people joining us on our path.  You will never be alone on this road.