Thursdays

I'm up again, crying. You see it is Thursday and on this Thursday last year I gave birth to my daughter. For some reason the day of the week has always been particularly hard. At first it was every Thrusday, than it was the last Thursday of each month. Now as her birthday approaches, where does my Thursday fit in?

This week has been filled with tears, multiple times a day. Late nights, no sleep, waking and crying. It is Summer here and our lavender colored crape mertle tree is in bloom once again. I remember last year watching as the tiny pink blossoms would flutter to the ground, thinking how it seemed fitting that it was the earth's form of pink baby tears. It is 12:30am and I went outside to sit and listen to our fountain, the mocking birds that don't know it's time for sleep and be out in the cool air. I had this urge to walk down the street in my nightgown, bare footed in the halfmoon light looking for my daughter. I still feel like I've lost her somewhere, she just needs to be found.

I was thinking about chimpanzees and how grieving mothers keep their dead babies with them...here is an excerpt from Science Now:
"In a second example of chimpanzee grieving, a research group led by Dora Biro, a zoologist at the University of Oxford in the U.K., observed two chimp mothers carrying the remains of their dead infants for weeks. The observations were made in the forests of Bossou, Guinea, where primatologists have been studying wild chimps for 3 decades. In 2003, an epidemic of respiratory disease broke out at Bossou, killing five chimps. Two were infants, 1-year-old Jimato and 2-year-old Veve. The mothers of the infants carried their dead bodies around on their backs for 68 and 19 days, respectively, even as they dried out and became mummified. They brushed flies away from the babies, groomed them regularly, and allowed other chimps—including other young animals—to poke at the bodies, lift their limbs, and even carry them around for short distances."

This makes TOTAL sense to me. Holding my daughter and kissing her soft skin and telling her how much I love her for that evening and half of the next day are all I will ever get to have. I remember knowing it was time to let her go...but I would have felt much better about taking her home with me and carrying her around. Once they are gone, it is forever. I will not be able to touch her, kiss her, stroke her soft pale skin, ever again.

When Kai and I meditate we say that all the sadness, madness and badness that we breathe out turns itno bright white sparkling light and goes out into the universe, leaving room inside of us for more love, peace and joy. I wish I could breathe all this sadness out but my breath feels stiffled and caught in my throat with a sob and short inhalations.

Grief is so convoluted, sometimes it is anger or physical pain, sometimes it is disbelief, sadness, despair, sometimes it is about trying to find hope as we muddle through the thickness of loss....but in the end it all comes back to love. I miss my daughter so much. I could say it a thousand times over but it does not seem to encompase the ache and longing that my soul feels. My tears seem hardly enough for the magnitude of loss. I love and so I am broken. I love and so I am sad. I will always love Camille with all of my heart and I just miss her so incredibly much.

And so it is Thursday. Was she dead already at this time? I didn't know until 3:00am that I couldn't feel movement. It had been 5 hours since I last felt her move, at 10pm before I went to sleep. I hope she felt my love. I hope somehow, in someway that she knew the extent of my love was and is beyond measure. I miss Camille with every fiber of my being and today, this Thursday morning., it is particularly present.

June Funk

It's been a while. It's not that I don't have anything to say...there is plenty going on, I just feel frozen. Frozen with sadness that Camille should be1 year old next weekend. I have been a bundle of tears these past couple of weeks. Crying easily, sleepless nights...back in the pit of easy grief and Camille on my mind constantly.

I've been trying to keep busy. I have been organizing a card to send out for Camille's birthday, every time I would work on it I would freeze but I got it done. I couldn't get through it because nothing felt "good enough". I wish I wasn't sending out remembrance cards but was sending out birthday invitations....it's just supposed to be different.

Another thing I have been doing is painting rocks. I spoke with Angie over at Still Life with Circles...It was a huge challenge for me to reach out and make a phone call to another BLM but she was amazing and she told me that something that helped her deal with her grief was doing artwork. I do a lot of artwork with Kai, but not a lot myself, for myself. So...I went out and bought some paint and river rocks and started to do some art. It has been relaxing.

I don't watch a lot of TV. Right now I watch No TV...So I bought the first two seasons of Downton Abby and LOVE IT! When I can't sleep at night, which has been often, I will watch the show instead of crying in bed with my head running a million miles per hour. I only wish there were 15 more seasons.

I started going back to my grief counselor because I just couldn't do it on my own anymore. With the stress and anxiety of this pregnancy combined with my grief and Camille's birthday coming up, I just needed someone to talk to. I am so glad to be going again. I also signed up for a pregnancy after loss support group led by my therapist. It starts the Monday after Camille's birthday.  I am hoping that this support group is better than the grief support group I went to previously which I dropped out of.

We have been busy with T-ball and swimming lessons for Kai and he just had his first golf lesson on Friday. Last week I covered a couple days for 2 of the other PT's I work with. Of course my belly and pregnancy and children come up in conversation a lot...it is hard because I am so emotional lately and Camille is on my mind constantly....She always is, but lately it is this heavy feeling. Trying to figure out how to acknowledge her and not open my heart for wounding words and comments is a tricky path to navigate.

I have gotten some emails because I haven't posted and I want everyone to know that even though I am in the thick of my grief again, I have not forgotten about yours. I think about writing all the time. More profound things than updates on my craft projects, but right now trying to articulate the tumultuous feelings swirling in my head and heart is very difficult.

I also really want to write a right where I am post but that will come soon.
If you would like me to include you in the mailing for Camille's birthday please email me your address.