Fate….

Fate….

Fate is a definition that poses much questioning in our modern day lives, fate; the power that predetermines the course of events that will inevitably happen.

Do I believe fate was to blame for taking my precious and so wanted babies away?

If I believe this, then on the flip side equally I should believe fate was to thank for granting me the chance to be mother?

So let’s say fate is behind all evil but then if that resonates true surely that means fate is equally behind all good?

Such power that tiny word contains, the power to even allow us to consider this could be true. I guess when faced with tragedy, loss, pain or a series of bad luck it’s only obvious to search for answer. To search to point blame and relieve our selves from self persecution.

I’ve been reading a lot of inspiring quotes since the passing of my sons and many of them spur on this belief of fate but equally do help to restore some faith in life and humanity, for life does feel empty, useless and often pointless after loss. Here are just a few that I have come across and there are so so many more – share them with me if you wish.

“Just because fate doesn’t deal you the right cards, it doesn’t mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.”

“It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”

“What’s meant to be will always find a way”

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”

“Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you’ll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it, and you’ll survive”

“Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by un-tasted.”

“…sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.”

I believe there are things beyond our control, but; do I believe that our lives are pathed out before us and we merely walk this path unknowingly of what happiness or what pain lies before us?

There will be times that you will be faced with decisions and the answers to these will allow you to walk the path of life, the answers may be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, some decisions may involve a far more in-depth answer but the question is, was that decision already fated or was the journey that followed your answer predestined by the power of fate?

I guess this question will remain one of life’s unanswered and I don’t think we will ever be able to answer this conclusively while we live this life. But if belief is what we need in these times of hardship and if you take comfort from believing this could be a true force of nature than I guess that’s the only answer you need….

Couldn’t put this better myself… 🙂 smiling because this has happened to me lol

Fifty Shades of Grief

50 Shades of Grief ….

Excuse the title but humour is a huge part of how I get through my life on a day to day basis. Although the title may be a little humorous; beneath the humour there is a serious point I want to make about grief…

Am I jealous? Because I feel resentful of someone’s joy!

Am I bitter? Because I hold negative emotion, resulting from severe grief, anguish, and disappointment

I am neither of the above, I am a grieving mother.

Elliot was the perfect addition to our family, he was the icing on the cake, he was wanted and needed so so much, not just by me but by his brother and sisters, his daddy and aunties and uncles.

I would not wish the losses I have endured upon my worst enemy and I am not wishful of pain, loss and grief upon other people but I fail to relish in their up and coming happiness.

Smiling so soon after burying a child is like being unfaithful to their memory the guilt is another shade of pain that lies heavy on your heart, so to joke and share laughter with friends and family seems like ‘moving on’. I’m in a monochrome world of grief where right now for the first time in my life everything is ‘black and white’

After the loss of Louis back on 5th September 2005 I felt bitterly sad, my first born son, as soon as he was given life something far stronger than me took that gift away, I was bereft, lonely, abandoned by my child. Rob and I are very intune with each other but equally on this day I remember feeling so alone.

I felt after his passing a sudden strength to battle on for my little Corey, so much smaller but such a fighter, I desperately needed him to survive for my survival, metaphorically speaking of course. This term of ‘survival’ I use because at the beginning of my journey to motherhood my heart was full to the brim with love, and with life, my heart skipped a beat when I was elated, and I lived my life with the ruling of my heart. Louis died, and he took some of my heart with him, he took some of the existence of my being.

I continue to live or exist in spite of this ordeal but with a little less ‘heart’, so survival of the rest of what made me, ‘me’ was imperative. Corey died on the 7th September 2005 and my heart did break in two, I’m not taking Louis loss lightly but the prognosis was never a positive one where my first born was concerned, so ‘dare I say it’ I was slightly prepared to an extent when Louis passed.

When Corey died, initially I felt anger more than sadness I felt a strong hatred to the world we live in, HOW? WHY? IF THERE IS A GOD, WHY? A thousand questions and no answers infuriated me; I remember stomping out the hospital minutes after Corey’s passing and there I sat, tears rolling down my cheeks but with no sound, my body wanted to cry but I was so angry I would not allow the convulsions of sadness out, I wasn’t ready to address that. I sat out side the Hospitals maternity unit emotionless tears streaming, alone in the brisk cold early hours of the morning. The hot air from my breath leaving a cloudy trail in the dim early morning light and there next to me was a girl, a stranger, she was young, late teens I guess? But I instantly noticed she was heavily pregnant and holding on to a drip feeding her some obvious required medicine intravenously and there it was, her baby bump blooming. Whilst she caresses her tummy with one hand she smokes a cigarette with the other, and the cloudy trail leaving her mouth was one that made me wince, I was thinking of what I had lost in the last couple of days and looking at her growing what I need and what I would care for with every part of my being. I was angered and felt immediately sorry for the baby within her body breathing in the contamination.

I know smoking is an addiction like any other drug, I appreciate its very hard to give up and I say this knowingly, for I am an ex-smoker, but at that moment, at that moment after my little boys had died I wasn’t rationalising and I wasn’t seeing reason, I was seeing hate, and I could of quite easily took that cigarette and stubbed it out on her immature head.

The weeks passed by and being surrounded by babies was a comfort to me, I longed to feel the happiness what being ‘real’ mother meant. I was not afraid to approach a random stranger and look and touch there newborn. I would ask questions and show interest in their bundle as if I were their friend or a family member.

What I didn’t find comforting was the sight of twins. For some reason there did seem to be everywhere it was an unwelcomed memory which evoked thoughts of a path that was not meant to be and this deeply saddened me. Grocery shopping one day at my local store and I walked straight into a trolley with twin baby boys strapped into the reclined baby carriers in matching baby blue fluffy winter suits, hoods with ears, and they looked every bit how I imagined my little boys to look and I found myself running in the opposite direction, convulsing sobs that failed to surface on THAT DREADED DAY!

With time and with the addition of my other children things got easier, Instead of these emotions being in the forefront of my thinking and encasing my every thought. The overwhelming need to be near a newborn and the fear of twins only surfaced from time to time but I had a certain amount of control over my emotions, and began to reason things out in a rational manner, or so I thought; until the death of Elliot in December 2012.

After many years of attempting to repair my broken heart I realise now it was never repaired, I just masked this gaping hole with the new love I have for my other children, this hole has been re-opened and the hole is deeper and darker than before. Elliot took not only a part of my heart but a part of me, I fear that I will never be the same person again because of loosing Elliot but I live in hope that having lost Elliot it will make me a stronger and wiser person because I have loved. I have loved my babies all so much, and equally and obviously the opposite side of this is when you allow this love into your hearts, you have to prepare yourself for some pain when what you have loved is stolen from your grasp.

Elliot’s passing, was followed by new additions to our family on every side. I felt like I was being tortured and began to question my beliefs all over again. Whilst I was expecting, so were members of my family, a brother and a sister in a law and my own sister too, we had giggled, laughed and chuckled about pregnancy and the ailments it brings from constipation and sickness, to varicose veins and a bladder the size of a pea but none of that deterred from the fact we were all happy to be experiencing this together. My story didn’t have a happily ever after and I had to prepare myself for the pending arrivals of these three bundles of joy.

Two out of three babies that were due, are now here. Healthy and most importantly alive and kicking.

So my message to my family if they happen to be reading my blogs in between nappy changes and sleepless nights, I want to take this moment to let you know that from the bottom of my heart I am elated that my brother in law has another daughter he has longed for ever since my first rainbow daughter was born 6 years ago, and I am so pleased that my sister in law has a son, a brother for her daughter/my niece. I am only sorry that Elliot will not be a cousin to them here on earth and I am sorry that I have yet not found the strength within me to send a card or meet my niece and nephew. I am not bitter nor jealous but quite simply I’m a grieving mother. I don’t want what you have, I want Elliot back!

And to my sister whose bump is still growing, I know you know how I feel, no words required. I have distanced myself so as not to fill you with guilt. I don’t want you to feel guilty for being pregnant but I am not as strong as I wish I was, and watching you with your bump again just reminds me of what I have lost. I am just as exited for you to be given the gift of motherhood for the second time and I wish you get everything you should out of being a mother, empower this, only women can give birth and its amazing, hold your children close and love every second because life is short and all too soon we are faced with questions about our own mortality and this can be terrifying. So relish every cry and nurture every tear for these will create memories which you will hold dear.

So this brings me to the end of this blog about some of the 50 shades of grief I have felt.

So in my opinion there is no right or wrong way to feel after loss and every time you experience grief it will manifest itself in a different way, rearing its ugly head when you least expect it. You will feel, angry, sad, bitter, resentful, hate, love, laughter and pain but guess what THATS ALL OK!!

Some people have no filter….

Grief = The Deep Sorrow caused by the death of someone you love.

The times ahead after loss are a dark and lonely place and the mourning process goes on and on long after the black cloaks have been hung back in the wardrobe.

If you have read my blogs, you know of my losses and each one of them felt completely different, still as painful but utterly different, from the death of Louis, the passing of Corey and then the loss of Elliot not one was any easier than the other and each time I felt every teardrop fall down my cheek like acid burning my skin.

Dealing with loss is bad enough but dealing with peoples dumb ass comments afterwards has often left me rendered ‘speechless’ I believe I have heard every stooopid dumb ass comment in the book, I would welcome any additions if you also have met a prat along your path of grief…

May be this is naivity that leads people to say these things, maybe its merely something as simple as not knowing what to say and just putting their foot in it… or maybe people have thicker skin than a rhino and believe its acceptable to ask such rubbish to the bereaved?

So here we have just a few….

1) Did he look like a normal baby? ………….. “As opposed to what? An alien…”
2) What did you do to deserve this?…………… “Errr nothing …. do you really think I’m that evil I would deserve THIS!”
3) It must of been his time?………. “BULLSHIT he had no time, he never even got to see his 1st birthday”
4) How are you doing?…………… “Well its been literally 3 days since my baby died, Im doing fine NOT..”
5) Will you try for another baby?………. “Really? Your asking me this…. I havent even buried my child, nor had the opportunity to talk this out with my husband, so why would I tell you?”
6) He’s in a better place………………. “There is actually NAFF all wrong with this place…”
7) You will get over this in time?………… “‘This’ the term you use so loosely is ‘Death’, I won’t get over ‘This’, it leaves a dark imprint on everyone it touches, ‘This’ is also my CHILD!!!! So Nooooooooooooo I wont get over ‘THIS’ ”
8) Your so lucky you have a loving husband to care for you? …….. “Yes I am lucky I have a loving husband, but don’t pass all this on to him, his heart is as heavy as mine and he needs support to, just because he’s a loving husband it doesn’t make him a counselor!”
9)It wasn’t meant to be?……….. “How the hell do you know? This is such a fatalistic comment”
10) Be thankful you have other children? ……….. “As if I wasn’t thankful for my living children in the first place. My Angels won’t ever be replaced but that doesn’t stop me from having a unique and special place in my heart for each and every single child of mine.”

Here are some things that you can say to me with-out me wanting to smack you in the mouth..
1) I am so sorry for your loss.
2) I just dont have the words.
3) I don’t know how you feel, but I am here to help in anyway I can.

…. and if you can’t say anything, or just don’t want to, please don’t be afraid to shed a tear in sympathy or give me a hug, after all I am the same as you, I’m human with emotions and feelings just like you, the only difference is I’m a ‘Mummy of Three Angels!’

The Up and Coming Post Mortem of Elliot

Will it change things? Will it help me grieve? Will it give me answers? And will those answers help me in anyway?

I went to the cemetry tohis morning and I rested a posy on the cross where Elliot lays, I  took some plastic weather battered cars from the grave of Louis and Corey who rest beside him and again I think this place is bleak and whenever I visit, I feel cold, so cold, shivery cold, no matter what the weather is I guess Im just feeling empty which manifests itself into this coldness I’m feeling. I’m staring at the bleak graves of three little boys and I wonder if actually the post mortem I am so desperatley waiting for will actually do me any good, or help me in anyway?

We often need to identify a ‘scapegoat’ to enable us to fix blame on that in order to relieve tension stress and grief within ourselves . So I wonder if I manage to recieve such answers do I want them for me or for my children, because for me nothing will change, I will still have aching arms, I will still have a broken heart, and it certainly wont bring Elliot back but the answers I get may provide me with a new outlet of ‘blame’ rather than blaming myself.

I think honestly and most importantly I want answers for my children because this tragedy is hard enough for me to understand and I am struggling to find the words to explain my living children why this has happened, I dont know myself, so how do I even start to try and find the words to try and comfort them with their loss. 

How do I answer questions like..

‘Mummy, am I going to die?’

‘Mummy, why did you put my brothers in the ground?’,

‘Mummy, when are you and Daddy going to die?’

‘Mummy, is father christmas going to bring Elliot back?’

When a child’s loved one dies, their lives change forever.  As well as the sadness they feel, they are often left confused and full of fear and anxiety. Maybe answers to this Post Mortem will help to make sense of the hurt and confusion. Above all, help them find ways out of the abyss of grief…

So for me no amount of answers will make me feel better but for three innocent children having ‘facts’ can be easier to explain…