Is there anything that especially speaks to you that you read now? Or that you turned to? What about music? Are there songs that especially touch you or are more poignant? Are there songs that you associate with your lost one?

Oh that is so weird. I was going to start the music part of this topic tonight.

PJ Harvey - the albums White Chalk (especially When Under Ether - which seems to be about a miscarriage or abortion, so could be helpful to others or could be upsetting) and To Bring You My Love (especially Down By the Water). I'm also listening to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea but that's not speaking to me as much.

Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Hearted (Raise it up) and Cosmic Love especially but also Blinding. (F+TM - UK singer/band - well worth checking out in my opinion) Florence says that all her songs are pretty much about breakups but I suspect there has been a pregnancy loss in there somewhere.
Cosmic Love:
The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day
I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart.

Blinding:
No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl, so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl, so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl - so in love with the wrong world.

They are pretty much all I'm listening to.

I would have thought I would listen a lot to Tori Amos - for those who don't know, her album From the Choirgirl Hotel was made after three miscarriages, one especially of which she found incredibly traumatic - but for some reason the album leaves me cold. But one of the songs that is explicitly about the miscarriage has the reference '6.58' in and the day before I found out the baby had died I spotted '6.58' somewhere. I wonder now if it registered because somehow my subconscious knew what had happened.

Having said that, it's the songs on that album that I've never really liked before that have helped (Cruel, Liquid Diamonds, iieee).

And a bit of the Cure, for no reason that makes sense to me.

as far as reading goes, I'm getting through my to be read pile at a rate of knots, but nothing has really spoken to me.

I'm really looking forward to hearing what others are listening to. Thanks for starting this eliza.

I got caught up and didn't respond myself.

I listen primarily to country music, so that certainly sways things. Not exclusively, but that's most of it.

Songs that speak to me right now:
Long Trip Alone - Dierks Bentley
Life Ain't Always Beautiful - Gary Allan
Run to You - Lady Antebellum
Mad, Mad World - the Gary Jules version
The Space Between - Dave Mathews Band

There is especially a line in the first one that plays to me in the chorus - "So maybe you could walk with me awhile; maybe I could rest beneath your smile. Everybody stumbles sometimes and needs a hand to hold, because it's a long trip alone." It just speaks so much to how I perceive Gabriel these days, how he appears to us.

I think the second song (written about how the singer was coping with his wife's suicide) speaks a lot to healing. It wasn't something I could have listened to right away without wanting to scream and throw things, but it's something I find comforting now. Just, always perfect, every line. "You think you're on your way, but it's just a dead end road at the end of the day." "And I wish for just one minute I could see your pretty face. Yes, I can dream but life don't work that way." "But the struggles make you stronger, and the changes make you wise, and happiness has its own way of taking its sweet time. Life ain't always beautiful, tears will fall sometime. No, life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride."

Run to You isn't about Gabe so much as about the relationship between my husband and I.

Mad, Mad World. Well, it just speaks for itself sometimes. I rarely feel that bad anymore, but I can definitely state there are times when that line "I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad, but the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had." were so very true. Early on, that song might have been my anthem.

There's just a lot about The Space Between that hits me as metaphorically right. The last bit - "The space between what's wrong and right is where you'll find me, hiding, waiting for you. The space between your heart and mine . . . is space we fill with time." That hits me where I am when I think of Gabe these days.

As for reading, I do more escapist reading than anything, stuff I read before. I love love love Elizabeth McCracken's books "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination" which is about the death and stillbirth of her first child, written weeks after the first anniversary, with her new baby boy in her lap. A different set of circumstances from my own, but yet, so much where I just nodded my head and said, "Yep, like that. That's it."

I do have to be a little careful, in that there (now) seems to be a good deal of miscarriage and infertility or infant death in some of the stuff I read and it can catch me unaware and hurt.

Thanks for listing those songs eliza.
Funny mine are all female singers and yours are mostly (all?) male. I've been wanting to get a little bit of balance in there.

Eliza, I am obsessed with "An Exact Replica of A Figment of My Imagination." It has been my bible.

The song that has most spoken to me is Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe"

Yes, I understand that every life must end, uh-huh
As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, uh-huh
Oh I'm a lucky man, to count on both hands the ones I love
Some folks just have one, yeah, others, they've got none

Stay with me...
Let's just breathe...

Practiced all my sins, never gonna let me win, uh-huh
Under everything, just another human being, uh-huh
I don't wanna hurt, there's so much in this world to make me believe

Stay with me
You're all I see...

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me

As I come clean...
I wonder everyday, as I look upon your face, uh-huh
Everything you gave
And nothing you would save, oh no

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave...

Did I say that I need you?
Oh, did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
And I come clean, ah...

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me til I die
Meet you on the other side...

My husband always loved the song. It makes me thinking of us holding Juliet for the hour we shared with her. "Stay with me, let's just breathe." It makes me think of everything she gave to us in her moment of life. It reminds me that we are guaranteed nothing in life. We may need or want something, but there are no assurances that it will be ours in the way we had hoped. And, finally, it gives me peace to know that I'll meet Juliet on the other side.

The only thing I've read since Micah died is "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination". When UPS brought it, I sat on the floor by my front door with the box on the floor next to me and read it cover to cover. I could not stop reading it - it felt like one of the first times someone else actually understood. Otherwise, my horribly overdue library books are just collecting dust fines - I just can't interest myself in the escapist fluff I had checked out before he died.

I've had music on a lot of the time - anything to avoid a quiet house. I tend to just let my ipod shuffle through my music, but there's a couple of lyrics that have caught me lately -

Lucy Kaplansky's "This is Home" is really about adopting her daughter, but there's a bit that makes my breath catch in my throat:

Now I'm heading east on 80
Wishing I could sleep
I see you lying in our bed, you're waiting up for me
And while I'm taking in the view
I'm wishing I could give you, what I wanted to
You know I wanted to

Also, a few Weepies songs:

from "All That I Want"
And when the night is falling
Down the sky at midnight
Another year is stalling
Far away a good bye, good night
All that I want., all that I want, all that I want

and from "Just Blue"
I'm missing you and there's not a thing to do
I'm blue, just blue, just blue

I think even more than these songs being especially appropriate, my mind is just tuned now - everything makes me think of Micah, of what could have been, of how wrong the world is for us right now, so I find bits of lyric everywhere to make me cry.

Music got me through the first 6 months. I have some- but they are like Billie Holiday always has been for me when I'm blue: an expression of exactly where I am and this is pretty deep in grief sometimes. I like the have the company of music there- just be prepared.

You're beautiful: James Blunt going to the NICU to see Will.
Godspeed (sweet dreams): Dixie Chicks (for you mothers of boys- when you really want to cry) this is the only DC song I know and I love it.
You are my sunshine (second verse especially) I like the Elizabeth Mitchell version
Over the Rainbow: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Carry You Home- James Blunt (one line especially for mothers of girls)
I be Your Water: Sweet Honey in the Rock
Where Am I Now- Shelby Lynne (self indulgence)
Let it Be - Beatles (of course- a little added Blackbird doesn't hurt)

I couldn't read the direct stuff.... but I found
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion to really aid me in grief (I have a lot of magical thinking now).

Mostly I read all of your posts and stories. I go back to the book that people signed at Will's memorial service.

Thanks so much for this post- I'm so interested in what everyone else has found.

hope you find some comfort in the words and sounds.

I find that I just dont listen to music much anymore, except in the car and then it just makes me cry hard and I cant see to drive so I keep it low. Reading for me in the beginning was essential, I ate up everything to do with babyloss. Now I dont want to read anything but happy stories, things that make me get outside of this grief. I re-read Twilight (cheesy I know, Im a grown woman), and now I'm starting a book from the Outlander Series that I so enjoyed a few years back. I'm searching for comfort in words, but mostly the comfort I get is from my own.

Ditto what Mindy said about music making me cry. There's a new radio station around here playing a lot of grunge-post/grunge type music (haha, music from my college years...I'm old). This stuff is fairly safe for me to listen to and doesn't bring about instant tears, plus it reminds me of happier times....so I keep the radio tuned there at home sometimes and definitely in the car. I usually tend to listen to Contemporary Christian, but those songs right now are a field full of landmines for me.

I find I have a lot of songs going through my mind, and though I've 'heard' them in my head, I haven't had the wish to really listen to them yet, as I know they'll bring deep hurt:

Eva Cassidy (Fields of Gold, Over the Rainbow)
Ginny Owens (If You Want Me To)
Mercy Me (I Can Only Imagine)
Natalie Grant (Held...about infant loss...my dh plays this song beautifully on the piano, and I love to sing to it...but it's off the playlist)
Mark Schultz (He's My Son....about a father praying to God to save his sick son...it runs through my head nearly every day)

I started reading 'Cold Mountain' today at my glucose tolerance test. It seems safe enough right now at least. I really, really like anything written by Nick Hornby (wrote About a Boy, High Fidelity)...but haven't gotten to a bookstore in ages.

Here's the lyrics to the Ginny Owens song...it's really beautiful:

If You Want Me To...

The pathway is broken
And The signs are unclear
And I don't know the reason why You brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I'm gonna walk through the valley
If You want me to

Chorus:
Cause I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet
so if all of these trials bring me closer to you
Then I will walk through the fire
If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my home
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I'd never go alone

ya oh oh no

So When the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley If You want me to


Night girls.

In re-listening to Long Trip Alone, another line jumped up and grabbed me. 'I don't know where I'd be without you here, cause I'm not really me without you there.'

I think it jumped to me because I was just reading Chris' post on change. And it's true. It's something I've been tossing about in my head lately. I would not be who I am without Gabriel and the price of Gabriel was losing him. It sucks, and I hate it, because I want it all - him, here with us, alive and perfect. But we don't get that, and I'd rather have what we got than nothing. I know not everyone feels the same way, which is ok. I just think that's where I'm at right now.

B - it's funny, they are mostly male. No real reason for it, except we listen to a lot of country and there are more male country singers than female, I guess. Lady Antebellum (and the song I mentioned especially) is a trio - two leads, male and female and another male who does instruments and back up. Some songs feature Charles more or Hillary more, but that's pretty balanced.

The song "Breathe (2 AM)" is a big one for me, especially the line "These words are my diaries..."

A bizarre little indie number (at least that's what I got it as) called "In These Arms" (which I found a way to link to I think.... http://lala.com/zHFV...but I just hope that works) by Swell Season. Here's the lyrics though, think of karma and you'll see why I called my mum almost crying after the post just a little while ago.

Use the truth as a weapon
To beat up all your friends
Every chink in the armor
An excuse to cause offense
And the boys from the hallways
Calling out your name
And true love will find them in the end

You were restless
I was somewhere less secure
So I went running to the road
And so now there's
A long list of places I was
I quit my rambling and I came home

Cause maybe I was born to hold you in these arms
Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms

Use your saints
And your mantra
And your things to keep you calm
If you stay with that ******* (sorry, I'm a self-censor)
He's gonna do you harm
There's a voice singing loudly on the radio
Just for you
And good fortune will find him in the end

Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms
Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms
Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms
Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms

Anyway, that and most of Amy MacDonald's album - which is odd considering when I heard her podcast and what the songs are actually about and one of them she wrote when she was 15 or 16 - but then she also said that she knows people will take the songs and use them for their own lives, insightful of her.

Somehow I hit the button before I meant to. Anyway, the other things are a few that hit me off guard - Okay, I can understand how when I'm listening to Willie Nelson, "Highwayman" and "Gravedigger" lyrics might saying things to me, but one thing that can make me absolutely burst into tears is a bizarre little clip I ran across of him singing "Rainbow Connection." Why? Don't have a clue, maybe because it makes me suddenly flash to this feeling of how my dad would have spoiled a granddaughter like crazy.

Was randomly listening to Barenaked Ladies (who I love and adore forever, whose music has often touched me in a shock to the core because something just resonates so deeply) this morning and damned if it didn't happen again. Listening to 'Lovers in a Dangerous Time' there was a single line that jumped out at me -

"Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight"

Damn, yes. Yes yes yes. Sometimes it really is that kind of down and dirty struggle to make it, to find that sliver of light again. It is such a fight, but the victory. . . so worth it.

James Blunt's "Carry You Home" has really hit home for me and I can't help but cry every time I hear it, especially the following lines:

"Trouble is her only friend and he's back again- makes her body older than it really is" I feel like I've aged 200 years

"If she had wings she would fly away and another day God will give her some"- totally speaks to me right now as so many days I wish I could just be wherever my baby is

The one that zings straight to my heart is "A song for your heart- when it is quiet I know what it means and I'll carry you home"- brings me back to the exact moment I saw that there was no heartbeat in the ultrasound and knew before the doctor could say anything.

Also, not really a Beyonce fan but Halo came on the radio the other day and caught me off guard with it's repeating "Baby I can see your halo"