Grief Can Open Your Eyes and Your Heart

While grief can be confining and close you off from the world for a while, it can also be quite enlightening to many things in this life. Some that you didn't want to experience or think about at all and wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Having to sign a non resuscitate order for my one day old daughter would be at the top of my list. Horrifying as this was, it definitely opened my eyes to what is important in this life and what should and shouldn't matter. I have never been one to say one thing and act another way when no one was looking, but I learned to say what you mean and mean what you say. If you love someone tell them, if something is bothering you say so, if you are scared admit it, if you can change something do it and if you can't change something don't dwell on it. It has also opened my heart to people and situations I would have avoided before. Although I haven't gotten to one of the best parts of our story, most of you know about the adoption of our twin girls the same year that we lost our second daughter. Twins born with cocaine in their system to a mother that had been incarcerated for the majority of the pregnancy would have had most people running the opposite direction, but I had lost two very sick little girls and wanted nothing more than to care for those twins...sick or not. It was the grief that opened my heart to be able to let them in however, I know that now. I wouldn't be the person I am today and in the position to be of some real help to others without my grief. You can't teach this in any school, learn it from any book or absorb it from any online search engine. It comes from my soul, is intertwined in every muscle fiber and can never be stripped from me. I am not saying that this is what I had planned or wanted, but I wouldn't change it. It has given me strength, given me courage I didn't know I had, brought me closer to my husband and family and blessed me with three of the most beautiful children. If you can climb out of the rubble and blow all the ashes out, you will be better than you were before. You will embrace your grief and one of these days be thankful for your experiences. Use them to grow and help others find their purpose, because we all have one. Some of us have to endure a little more pain than others, but that is ok. I realize that God must have a great deal of faith in ME and he deserves to have that faith returned. He moves in me to be able to inspire you.

My Friend and My Mother

I remember you there with a shoulder to loan I remember you there making our house a home Your strength and your love in my heart stayed for good Your gift to us was do as I do and not as you should Laughter through grief and courage through tears Your love and your guidance for all of my years I am only the person I am because of your love for me I am only the mother I am because you taught me to be Forget the past and all of the strife Forget the mistakes made in this life Thank you for all that you are and who I've become My journey's been long and my pain more than some As a daughter and friend, my cup runneth over The Lord filled it with you, my friend and my Mother Love, Your Favorite

Mother's Day - A love/hate holiday

I know that I am breaking the momentum of my building story, but I feel like I need to spend a little time on this holiday that is so hard for so many. Whether you have lost a Mother or are a Mother who has lost, it is hard. You remember the good and the happy, but the fact that they aren't here is painfully obvious and hard to ignore. Loss in any form will not be ignored. It may wait patiently for a while and it is happy to stand in line behind all the other trials of life, BUT it will be there at exactly the wrong time and the most perfectly horrible place just when you don't need it. Have no fear of that, you will break down and you will perform the ugly cry but it's ok and it's cleansing and it will pass. If it needs to be on this day then so be it, but welcome it and the reason that it has arrived because if we had never experienced a love so wonderful and pure it wouldn't hurt so damn bad. Please, please, please feel blessed that you were gifted with that love that so many in this world never get to have and so few really cherish. Be one of the few and spread that love as far and wide as you can because you never know who is hurting and may need some bright and good in their life. Things in this life don't happen by accident, and though the path chosen may not be your choice, it isn't always about you. Scars are made because the wound has healed and that place is strengthened and fortified by new flesh so that the coming cuts don't get through as easily. You are stronger for what you have endured and someone else needs that strength and that is why you are on path that you see before you. The sun will shine and you will feel it's warmth on those scars.