My sweet Peter should be turning 4 months old today, but instead it’s been 5 months since we buried him. At 35 weeks he got entangled in his cord, otherwise he was perfectly healthy.

I hate this reality that we are living, this life without him. Why can’t he just be here like we had hoped and dreamed for months?? Instead I’m drying my tears on the pajamas he should be wearing.

Many are kind in words and deeds but no one really gets it, the living hell that it is to bury your child and all your dreams with them.

Pete should be 4 months today, picture with a cute chalkboard and designated stuffed animal, but instead it’s been 5 months since I kissed him goodbye.

Dear Rachel,


It is so very unfair. I am so sorry for your loss of your Peter. Sending you love and strength. No one will ever get it, but I hope you will find support however you can. This place was the only place I felt truly understood in the early days..... People still don't really get it, but they try and the close people are still here for me when I need them. Sometimes I see it as a super strength to know a love this profound. Sometimes though we just want it to go away and be the way we really want it.

HUGS

danielle

I’m so very sorry for your loss. I lost my son at 33 weeks to a cord accident almost six years ago. I remember the first few months. Somehow I’ve survived this long. Eventually it got easier to breathe, but of course the pain never goes away. I don’t come here much anymore but have been feeling really heavy as my son’s birthday nears. I’m sending you strength for the dark days ahead.

Danielle and Marie,

Thank you both for sharing, and I am so sorry for each of your losses. How I wish we were meeting each other under very different circumstances. I appreciate your perspective as mother’s a few years ahead of me. It is comforting to know I will still think of and love my baby inspire of time marching on.

Can I ask, what is it like the day you don’t cry? I’ve had 5 straight months of tears and almost fear the day I don’t cry. Like it means I don’t miss him as much or I’m not sad about it. I hate the notion that some would think I am “better” just because I am showing up to things or talking about other things for a while. I know it’s pointless but I often worry about how I am going to feel in the future. It drives my husband crazy but I do, I find words like “healed” and “better” to just be completely off putting. Not that I want to stay miserable, but really how does one “get better from the death of their child? I thinks it’s more like learning to live with it, an incoherent ramble, but is all so perplexing. I guess I can’t know how things will be until later.
-Pete’s mom
Rachel

Everything has been such a blur. I don’t know if I remember the first day I stopped crying. I know it came sometime after a year, though it’s different for everyone. I remember making an agreement with myself not to analyze such things. Like I told myself it wasn’t significant or indicative of my love for my son, which it isn’t. And I remember having so much guilt and despair that I didn’t put much emphasis on whether I happened to go a whole 24 hours without feeling those things as intensely. I do remember some events where I’d have fun, and then feel guilty for having fun, and then cry because of that.

I remember not wanting certain people to see me smile. They needed to know how painful this was and I’d be damned if I were the one who let them forget. If I knew someone knew my grief I could let them see me in a moment of levity, because I knew they wouldn’t misinterpret it. I remember my two best friends at work one day- after my son died I turned my office light off and worked in the dark for my remaining time there... It was just one of my things... I had to be in the darkness, I dyed my hair very dark, etc. I think it was two years later (right before I left) someone approached my friends and looked toward my office and said they felt so bad for me. My friends replied, “oh don’t - she’s okay now. She’s doing great.” I was so annoyed, mad even. It wasn’t that I wanted people to feel sorry for me forever. It was more of a “how dare they think I’m okay. It will NEVER be okay that my son is dead.”

I’m not like this now... so looking back I wonder, why was I then? I think I had such this need to “be understood,” which is a very powerful need for all humans. I’ve heard people say that the only certainty in life is that things get different, and I’ve found this to be so true with my grief and my expression of it. Now I don’t really care what other people think. If they ask me, I’m honest in my responses, but I’m no longer demanding to be understood rather I’ve accepted very few understand, so I’ll grieve alone. I have supportive family and a supportive husband, who remember Matthew. But I’m not sure even they can understand my grief, as his mother. They don’t know how often I think of him and when and what triggers that and how that makes me feel and why, or that I’ve returned to this place because I’m feeling extra sad. It’s not a secret- just an indication of a shift, a lessening need to be understood...

No matter how your grief changes and manifests and how people interpret it.... It doesn’t matter. Your love for Peter won’t change and isn’t going anywhere. You’ll always think of him, and maybe for short moments you won’t, and that is okay too, because later you will again. I find it comforting to hear stories from old women who lost children- they can be 96 and have dementia and will still remember that baby they buried so many decades ago. My neighbor is 85 and lost a two year old. We sit and talk about our children sometimes and cry.

Be gentle with yourself. It’s okay when you’re not okay. And it’s okay when the waves break, and for a short time you are.

I had so much intense guilt and despair

***last sentence fragment should have been deleted. I think it was something I’d written above.

Marie,

Thank you so much for your response, many many things resonated with me, some in a way I had not been able to put word to yet. Yes there is such a profound need to be understood, I hadn’t named it like that, but yes, I get so agitated at the idea of others perceiving me as “ok” or “better” because I laugh or am social, as if me being “ok” is synonymous with me being ok with Pete’s death. And you’re right, that is something that I will NEVER be ok with.

I so appreciated hearing that just because my grief changes or even how people interpret it doesn’t change any amount of love for Pete. So true, and I needed to hear it. I too find it so comforting that there are mothers decades ahead of me in their grief walk who still miss, love and even cry for their baby lost so long ago.

I will be thinking of you and your precious Matthew as you near his birthday.
Hugs,
Rachel

Hi Rachel,

I wish we lived near each other because it sounds like we could both use a hug today. I lost my baby girl James two months ago at 37 weeks. I had a sudden placental abruption and she didn't survive. I relate so much to everything you wrote. I have been wanting to post for awhile but just haven't known where to begin. But I have found solace and strength from knowing that there are other strong women like yourself out there who can understand what I'm feeling. It makes me feel less alone. I'm sending love to you and holding Peter in my heart.

Meg

Dear Meg,

Words are not enough to say how sorry I am at the sudden loss of your precious James. Loss is never easy, but being so close to the finish line feels like extra torture I am sure. Oh how I wish we were all meeting one another under different circumstances. But yes it is comforting to know there are others (unfortunately) who are walking through this and can relate, and can even shed some light in the dark. My email is dancerachel@hotmail.com if you would like any one to write to/vent to/or share James story with, I'd love to correspond.

Big hugs,
Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I also don’t remember the exact day the crying subsided but I do remember that after the first year things started to feel easier. And with that ease came guilt ...and it was hard to feel truly Happy with no strings attached for a long time. I still feel that way when I really stop to think about it. But we have to allow ourselves breaks. My mom said to me “life is for the living” and I suppose that became a mantra. We are alive and here now, with heartbreak and all. We must live our lives, in the moment with joy and sadness and heartbreak and love ... each day is different. You will feel guilty because you are a loving mother, but you have a life to live despite this terrible loss. It will grow and change with you. I’m still learning three years out. I know this, I love my son and I would do anything to change what happened. But I’ve learned to live with that truth and to find space for happiness alongside a broken heart. I hope you will too, but know each journey is individual. I wish you so much bravery on these uncharted paths.

❤️