New year’s eve doesn’t bring me excitement or even hope for the upcoming year, at least not like it used to. It’s not that I don’t have anything to look forward to, but it’s that I am one more year further from having my babies with me. I never understood grief to be this way. I had always heard that “time heals all” and it makes me cringe. I don’t believe this. I think it’s what someone with good intentions says when they don’t know what to say. I’m going into my fourth year of grief and I can tell you for certain that grief, trauma, and losing the lives that you love so deeply has not been healed. Walking into a new year doesn’t end the grief.
A little story
When I was a naïve 15 year old teen, my grandmother had passed away. We were close. I admired her. Her death was unexpected and it was the first time that I had anyone close to me die. A month later, brought New Year’s eve 1998, moving into 1999. My extended family always got together over the holidays. We always had too much food, the parents usually had too much “fun” and it was a time to have a fun sleepover with my cousins.
So that year, we went to my grandfather’s home (today he is almost 97!) and I remember when it was close to midnight, we all congregated into the den to ring in the new year. I was excited, “A new year means a new start”. Then I noticed that my aunt was crying. She left the room. Being the empath that I was, I was concerned but mostly confused. So I asked my mom why she was crying. My mom (who is very wise), explained that she is moving into the new year and it’s the first time she is going without her mother.
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt so stupid to not understand what that had meant. A new year doesn’t mean a new start. Grief doesn’t end when a new year begins.
So in further New Years, I was very cognizant of this and it always brought me back to that memory.
“…Then I got it”
I never fully grasped that feeling until the New Year’s 3 months after my babies died. Then, I really got it. I feel like I understand what my aunt could have been going through it. Maybe it wasn’t the same, maybe it was similar, maybe she was in a whole different place than me. But I was in it, I was so deep in my grief that it was consuming my all-being and going into a new year was not going to change that.
I remember that we had all gathered at my parents’ house. My son had not had time to process the grief that a 5-year-old could acted out at the dinner table. My brother-in-law scolded my son, embarrassed him, embarrassed me, and I and I completely lost it. I couldn’t come back from that moment to enjoy myself. It pushed my emotions to places I didn’t know existed. So when we were close to midnight, physically nauseated, I excused myself. I was in the washroom, hyperventilating while crying a deep sorrowful cry. Unsure how I had made it these past few months and unsure how I could make it another year.
My attempts to help people understand my regret for the years past and the creation of anxiety for the future remains difficult to explain and perhaps difficult to understand. Until, perhaps, it’s a lived experience.
Sometimes other grieving mother’s say what you can’t…
Without having the right words, I came across this quote from another grieving mother:
“Some people may not understand why those grieving are reluctant to move into a new year. For them, they see a fresh year, a new season…but for the bereaved, it’s moving into a new calendar year which their loved one will never reside in.” Zoe Clark-Coates
In the years ahead…
Can following years bring joy and excitement? I think so. Can you find happiness after a part of you dies? I still think so. Can you still grieve and miss the future that you could have had? This is it….YES!
If you are reading this and you are the bereaved, I hope you feel understood. If you are reading this and you know someone who is grieving, I hope to bring you some understanding.
As much as we as bereaved mothers and parents want to look at the new year as a new start, we sadly recognize that a new year doesn’t end our grief.
So even though time does not heal all wounds, time just might make the sorrow slightly more bearable.
I wish you peace in your journey. I wish you love in 2021 <3
Death cannot be compared. Grief cannot be compared.
My babies’ death will always be mine. For as long as I am alive, my miscarriage will always be my biggest loss.
The way I see it, grief is like a snowflake. There are similarities but there is no two the same. Grief is a slow descent; it hits the warm ground melting into a water droplet creating space. But sometimes the water freezes making it difficult to move, becoming stuck like ice. So this is my grief , it’s the ice, and it’s stuck.
Pain is not meant to be compared, it’s meant to be shared
-Ashley Stock
I saw a quote from another grieving mother on Instagram, her name is Ashley Stock. She lost her three year old daughter, Stevie to DIPG, a form of relentless cancer. In an Instagram post she writes, “Pain is not meant to be compared, it’s meant to be shared”. This struck a huge chord in me because she’s right! I have a right to be in pain. It’s ok for me to grieve. I don’t need permission to be sad over my twins’ death. I want to share my story. They mattered, so did their deaths. It all matters when we walked down this path of parenthood that didn’t happen on the earthside. We have to stop comparing our grief.
For so long, I had guilt about missing my babies and compared my grief to other stories. I buried it. I always wondered, “how can I hang on to pain for so long when I didn’t feel them?” , “people must think I’m crazy because I talk about them so much”, “maybe they’re right, I am lucky I wasn’t too far along”. But then I come to and realize that thinking that way is crap. Complete and utter crap. We shouldn’t compare our losses because we should be comforting each other. Comparing a loss is just cruel. It’s minimizing life. It’s lessening the importance. Regardless, if your miscarriage happened at 3 weeks or 30 weeks, that child is loved, wished for, dreamed of, and so important.
I have a right to grieve. It’s ok that I will never get over my children dying before me. I should be able to talk about my miscarriage and not worry about comparing another miscarriage and wondering “oh, they had it worse off than me”. It’s this type of thinking that’s toxic and I am over it. I should be able to miss the four hands I never got to hold. The two voices I never heard. The two faces I didn’t get to kiss. This is what I miss. It is what I grieve. This is my loss.
My story is mine. It is unique.
My hope for you is that you give yourself permission to cry and find the opportunities to miss your child or children. I hope that you grieve your loss as long as you need to. I really hope that you stop comparing your grief. Stop comparing your sadness to mine, to someone else’s, or allow anyone to minimize your loss. Your grief and your loss matters. Feel it, embrace it, and heal with it. Use your experience to do some good in our world.
This is your story. It is unique.
Sorry, but I am not loving or even enjoying parenting my kids 24-7 during COVID-19. In fact, it sucks. Everyday, I feel more and more resentful, isolated, and frustrated. I tell my husband, I feel like a zoo animal. I am stuck in a cage and when we do go outside, we walk the same route. Over and over and over….
I see so many people on social media boast about how many lovely memories they are making. They claim that they are having so much fun together. Or How grateful they are to have this time with their kids. Showing off all their crafts and other BS that makes me feel worse….
No! Sit the Efff down, Karen.
Today and yesterday and the day before that and tomorrow, all I am trying to do is survive, while keeping my little people fed and watered. Trying best to not damage my kids and their kindred spirits and salvage my own mental health. I am doing this solo. It has not been fun for me, nor I suspect my kids are loving their crazy-ass mom at the moment.
No way am I looking for a pity party. I am just wanting to share my struggles because I betcha that there is another mom out there who is feeling just like me! Well, you know what sister…embrace the shit out of it because this is right now!
I don’t have the luxury of having my husband at home. He is an essential worker, so he is gone all day, 5 days a week. I bet that there are partners out there that are out of the home longer, with more kids, with worse off circumstances. You probably loathe me right now and my whining. Sorry, I’ll whine with you and we can complain and wallow in this parenting saga together!
I miss my friends. I long for the pretty stores to see the sparkly things I don’t buy and all the smelly candles. Even shopping on-line feels weird and different. And I don’t like it. I feel like I am playing SIMS and I am losing at the game of life!
You are not alone…I repeat, you are not alone with not enjoying parenting right now…
So, if you feel guilty, know you aren’t alone. If you feel like a crappy parent, I’m there with ya. If you aren’t loving every second, samesies. If you secretly wish school were back in session, I feel you, girl! Because I will be the first one packing a lunch and then taking a nap!
If you feel something, just feel it. These are weird times. These times are hard. Don’t let the Karen’s bring you down. Just take a deep breath and make bedtime early…at least that’s what I do. It is really, really, really hard to pour from an empty cup. Do your best, because at the end of the day, our kids (seem to) love us no matter what. Tomorrow is a new day. Fill up that mug with hot sweet bean-juice (or wine…I won’t judge) and take on the day like the queen you are! These times are weird and I think it’s ok to not enjoy parenting during Covid-19…
Boo-yah Mama!
