A window to a soul

Being A Bereaved Parent

Before Alex, my first baby, died, I never imagined that one little boy, who never cried, would change my life as much as he did. I cried a million tears during the year that followed, I consider that the worse year of my life, and sometimes I feel as if I've "lost" that entire year, because all I did was cry and grieve. It took a long, long time to learn to accept his death and move on. I went through many stages before I came to that point, and a lot of people helped me along the way. I read somewhere that acceptance of grief is like having a pebble in your shoe. You just work it and work it until it's at its most uncomfortable spot... and you keep walking. How true! Acceptance does not mean that you 'forget', but, rather, that you find it a place in your heart, that you no longer wonder of the whys and the ifs and that it enriches and becomes part of you. He will always be part of me. I will always think of him as one of my children.

During that first year I lost count of all the times I started crying when a certain song came on the radio or when I saw other women with babies. I was told to go ahead and cry as much as I wanted/needed to, to let it all out. That if I didn't allow myself to grieve right then, I would grieve later on, and it would be harder. So I sobbed and sobbed until it seemed there were no more tears to be shed. I am not afraid of crying for him anymore, and I know that, as time goes by, I still have some crying to do. It used to be that not a day would go by without me crying. Then...it was every other day, then a couple of times a week and so on. Talking with people that went through the same experience was my life saver, because it made me feel less alone. Just when I thought I was getting better I miscarried, and that threw me in a worse place than I was before. Sometimes I've described those times as being suicidal, but I would never take my own life. Rather, I now know why people do, and that is a really scary thought. It is the most hopeless state I've ever been in.

One of the things that helped me is making his scrapbook, full of photos and mementos, then I bought anything that reminded me of him, like angels, little boys on a cloud, angels sleeping etceteras. It gives me a sense of peace to look at these things. I dedicated a bookcase in my house only for Alex's things. And, throughout the house I have pictures of him...in the hallway, in Nicky's room, in my bedroom, in the living room. He is and will always be part of the family.

Not only he changed my life by him not being here, and therefore allowing his little brother to be born, but he changed my views on many different things: friendships, pregnancy/childbirth, religion, abortion/adoption and coping/compassion. See the links below for more on these subjects.

If you are content, you have enough to live comfortably.
-Titus Maccius Plautus

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