Whack to the Head

Grief. I don't want to talk about it here anymore. This blog should be about Gwenyth and (it feels all wrong typing this because I don't think of her as really gone yet) her Aunt Marie, whom for some reason, we also had to say goodbye to on the exact same day.

This blog space need not be about my decomposing mental sate as I fumble through this loss. I'll find somewhere else to unleash all that... (and I mean another blog, no one in my household is at risk. :) )

So, for here, on this blog, in the next what, months? I guess...I would like to post the final details that we will learn in the coming weeks. (Yes, we still have one more doctors meeting... big ugly thing looming. However we don't expect to learn anything new. Just confirmation of the preliminary "results" from the UVA doctors. No date set yet. But we'll get that call soon enough, I expect.)

At some point, I'll write the details of May 14 and the days leading. (I figure I ought to do that, if nothing else, just to make sure we don't leave questions should other "heart baby" parents wander here and loose hope.)

I want to post some of details of the service we held to celebrate her life among other things.

For now, I'm going to quiet down my "voice" a little here...on this site. Oh this blog, this place where such a wild, unbelievable and sad story found itself displayed. That "story" right now, is something we live somewhat parallel to - and at some point, we have to fully step into. But, somehow it helps me to "keep" it all here and not be alone in the words.

On that note, let me say, I humbly thank those who followed us here and loved our Gwen with us and cared for our loss of Marie. I implore you to know that there are so, so many who struggle right next to me. They are Gwen's "buddies." Other "Heart babies" and all the kids in these Children's Hospitals. The parents of these children, what is asked of their heart and soul on a daily basis...words fail me, really. The demands on their heart and soul is almost cruel. And, children die. Babies die. Teenagers die. So, I'm just one tiny little person with my own personal situation and point of view and reaction to it all.

So, just know, there are other children and their parents who are struggling and still here. There are many parents lonely for their child. If you find yourself with a moment, I hope you will maybe say a prayer, for them - the parents of sick children and of eternity's. Maybe even donate to your local Children's Hospital on a yearly basis or find a way to support a local parents bereavement group. What a way to honor Gwen and anytime spent here, following her little tiny story.

She was one of many babies that die. One of thousands of children that die. Myers and I and my mother-in-law are three of more parents than I care to think. It helps when others who may not have been here, at least, just spend a moment to listen, cry with us, and/or acknowledge that "we did have a child named..." it helps because we do, we really do want to join the ranks of the living again, but we carry our children with us, and we just need the world to tell us they are okay with that.

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"I hold within my hands grains of the golden sands"

Even as we talk to sweet Gwen's doctors in person one last time, our experience of this loss will go on for sometime. I wish it wasn't that way. But I seem to be human. And this is not a TV drama. Believe me, even reality TV can't touch reality. It doesn't just "wrap up" and fade to music once we get our "final" explanation from the doctors. And believe me, no one would choose to "wallow" here. Believe me. I wish I could cue the music.

When it comes to my child, I'm all heart. I will miss her everyday - without effort. And in time, I suppose I'll be tempered to the horror of how we lost her. In time, with effort. And somehow in that, I'll eventually come around to that fact that something else, so far out of left field, some other sudden tragedy really did whisk away another person we loved so, so deeply. We were left so stunned and helpless, both arms reaching in both directions looking back and forth, back and forth, saying "what the hell just happened"? It is something we still kinda mumble in present tense. It takes a while.

The simple obligation I have to my daughter Lil, a niece and big-sister, is probably my most sobering whack to the head. Her sweet little soul needs us to love and nurture it well... she is another of God's children "on loan" and all 100% blessing.

I will speak with cynicism and hopelessness and tell them that they really can't stay, because I can't raise a child while hanging out with them. Furthermore, I can't honor the love for two people, now gone, by lending time and energy to these self-serving predators I meet the dark. Of course, I can't not have dark moments. That's not in my power. Again, I'm human and believe me, it is our innate tendency, like a moth to a black hole. Then mix Grief into your life. But, thank God as humans we can keep trying to hold our grip on Love, and by the Grace of God, we won't ever loose that opportunity.

So, yes, eventually, somehow I'll settle the crazy person in me screaming (maybe she'll just wear herself out). Eventually, I'll even probably get tired of the dark.

In time. With effort. Grace from God, deep breaths, and Time.

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Dream within a Dream
- E. A. Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


(It is weird to me now that I memorized this poem back in high school, on my own volition. Something about it, I really felt I "got it" back then. If only that were true. Oh for a simpler mind.)
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Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,
smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,
sweeps you up into its darkness,
where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,
only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...

Grief will make a new person out of you,
if it doesn't kill you in the making.

- Stephanie Ericsson