On my Instagram Page, someone messaged me and asked, “I’m confused….are you about food or about miscarriage?” I simply stated that while I was feeling my grief, I’ve learned to feed my soul.
Ask yourself, when someone dies, what do people usually offer? …. food.
OF course, sometimes it’s flowers, cards, gifts, but almost always people love to give food. I have found that food is a way of evoking sympathy and emotion without having to speak a word.
The History of giving food when someone dies
In the time of the Egyptians, when a loved one died, family members and friends offered bread, beer, and the deceased’s favourite meals to the tomb in which the person was being placed in. It was thought that even after death, the spirit needed to be nourished. In other traditions, bringing food to the grieving would ward off evil spirits and allow the deceased to rest in eternal peace. However, it began, it seems to be somewhat customary to show love and affection to a bereaved person when you bring them food.
What happened to me during my grief.
Cooking started to be a creative way that didn’t require me to be physically or emotionally present or have to bring my family into my dark place. I was able to nourish my family, show them my love, and bring my emotion for that day into my cooking. For example, a good day would be a fun meal like homemade pizza, chili dogs, chicken picatta. Whereas, a difficult day might look like a quick soup and grilled cheese, which is a tad less exciting for my family. During this time, I began to heal and take time for me.
Grief can mess with more than your emotions, it can also affect your appetite and your hormones.
According to Dr.Wendy Trubow, the stress of grief can have differing affects on your appetite. Grief can either increase your appetite or shut it down temporarily. This has to do with the fight or flight internal response. This affects not only your adrenals, but can alter emotional response as well. So often when someone is offering your food, they are taking from their own emotional space of grief, while offering you a space to nourish your soul.
Food can remind you of grief.
On the day of my D&C, my parents came to take care of me, and my husband. My dad doesn’t say much. I didn’t realize that I am more like him than I thought. Like me, he shows emotion through cooking.
I remember after my surgery, coming in and out of the anesthesia, he was busy in my kitchen. Finally, he came to me. He brought me a bowl of homemade Italian Wedding soup. As I think about this now, his offering of soup was like a warm hug. A place of refuge. Someway to take my pain away by filling my belly. It was a way for him to make me feel better. It was his way of offering me his sympathy. Now, Italian Wedding soup is my go-to when I am missing my babies, or when I need a warm hug from my daddy. I will be sharing his recipe with you soon.
After their death, my closest girlfriend brought me a meal of stuffed pasta shells. I remember when she dropped this off, my security doorbell camera notified me that someone was at the door. When I looked, she had dropped off the meal and ran away. Not a word. I knew that she didn’t want to see me in pain. Or maybe didn’t know what to say, but this meal was like a big “I love you” without the words. I knew what she needed me to feel.
Since their death, I have spent so many hours in the kitchen. Sometimes with my children and there are times where no one is allowed in that space with me. Depending on the day, this is what I need. In the kitchen, I am always in my thoughts where I can address my anxieties. It’s where I mourn my babies and count my blessings. I continue to process my grief and nourish my soul while I feed my family. This is a journey, and I am in it for the long haul.
I feel that anniversaries are important, but they can also be so hard! Most anniversaries celebrate a life. Sometimes, an anniversary can celebrate a death. When you lose someone or a part of you, it is crushing. It never leaves you. The deep pain that never seems to subside, the self-doubt that something could have been done, or the regret that the moments during that time weren’t appreciated. These all haunt me. As time goes forward, sometimes I am brought back to those days when I am least prepared. I’ve learned through several years of therapy and self-awareness that anticipating the days of grief can be changed to days to celebrate. It takes a lot of mental capacity and preparedness, but as a family, we stand together in the days remembering the life and death of our twins.
The Anniversaries of Their Life
I choose to recognize and celebrate the magical day that I found out that I was pregnant. In fact, I do this with all my children, living or not. My reasoning, I want to go back to that part of my memory and remember how happy I was in that moment. That day. And the days following. The feeling of being on cloud 9 and just in a space of hope and excitement. The days of having an inclining that I had human life growing in me and a future that I was going to help shape to be. Planning, I’m a planner…. after I saw that + I immediately went into planning mode. I was planning the future of our family. I was planning a life, only to later realize I couldn’t grasp the inability to be prepared for something that is unimaginable, like death.
Their “Could-Have-Been” Birthday
I choose to recognize and celebrate their “could-have-been” birthday. Despite not having a specific day, I chose their due date and we celebrate them. We choose to have a mini party. Typically, we have a fun meal together as a family. My husband and I will share a special bottle of wine. We talk about them as a family. We light their candles and my eldest son will talk to the flame as if they were alive. It is something that continues to bring on pain, but at the same moment, it brings us some peace. We choose to celebrate their short life and not focus on their death.
The Anniversary of their Death
I also choose to acknowledge the days that they left us. This may not be a conventional choice. There is also some discrepancy in it. In fact, we didn’t know exactly when our first baby died. As well, when I had my D&C procedure, our second baby was dying and hadn’t actually passed away. This is always a hard day. This is the day that I have to relive the trauma. It is a day that will be forever etched into my mind and a day that cannot be ignored. I will forever grieve on this day.
..But Their Death is Not in Vain
But there is something special to the anniversary of their death… on the one-year anniversary of my miscarriage, my babies gave me the best and most brightest gift of all. They whispered to me that I should take a pregnancy test.
On that morning as I mourned them, I was blessed with growing another life. Did this make the day any less painful? I am not sure. But what I do know is on that morning, I woke unusually early, I was given a push, and felt a strong urge to take that test, and it was positive. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, it wasn’t what I had planned. That morning, I cried in the bathroom by myself, feeling their love wrapped around me, missing them more than ever. I needed that time alone to thank them. That time to embrace their memory and to gather my gratitude for the gift I know they had a part in. Because without their life and without their death, I wouldn’t have my fierce, loving, strong-willed, son, whom I am forever grateful for.
So, this is why I choose to celebrate all the anniversaries, even when they are hard.
If you need further or specialized support, reach out to The Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network through Sunnybrook Hospital. They have so many great resources and support options for you.
