Written by Bereaved mother to Forest - Elizabeth Monaghan
Today is one of those days. You know the ones, I think. They hit you like a truck. Even though you knew it was coming. Even though the world around keeps turning. The day arrives and floors you all the same.
This one is always the worst. Technically it's a nothing day. The 7th of July had no significance to us, until it did.
And the weird thing is, nobody else really knows about this day. A few good friends, they remember when it's his deathday/birthday, our mums do. His due date, July 15th, only meant anything the same year he died, but then the 7th of July came and we knew..
This is when he would have chosen to be born. In the parallel universe where that was possible, where that was a choice that was ours to take. I got my period, that's how we knew. The first one since we lost him, and we felt it, so clearly. He would have been born today.
So here I am. Floored by a migraine, one day after an amazing massage where we talked a lot about Forest and his wisdom, and my grief. I opened to this, I'm trying to remember and let it be. It really hurts though. And it's helped me cry more than usual, but the deficit is such perhaps, that even a month of duvet days couldn't wipe the slate clean. I don't get to be alone very much anymore, and it shows.
My head is pounding, I feel sick, pain in my neck, jaw, hips, lower back. My mum took our toddler for a bit, but I feel it's just getting worse. How what how am I gonna cope when she gets back?
Been trying to sleep but drinking water feels like the lifeline so I gotta pee all the time and each nap feels further away.
So I thought I'd write, 3 years on, to mark this nothing everything day. 7 things I've learned since my son died:
1. Grief can leave a chasm between even the closest of friends. At 35 years old I was fairly confident of who I could trust to be there for me, who had my back, who wouldn't turn away. And was left dumbfounded when some of the most intimate oldest friendships spluttered and stalled.
2. In grief you can forge new connections at an unprecedented rate. Some of my closest relationships now, are new since I became a mother, and a bereaved one all at once. I didn't want to make new friends, I had no social energy whatsoever, but it happened on a trajectory not entirely our own. Those people are my sanctuary.
3. I can wear an entirely new skin, and still remain grounded in the self that others might perceive to have died with him. It's quite frustrating to loved ones when after months, a year, more, you don't bounce back to your pre-loss, pre-motherhood ways. Integration is carrying all of it, what came before and what emerged after. I lost Forest, but he didn't take anything from me.
4. Catharsis requires just one intentional breath. Better still, a string of them. Better still, an hour of them, alone with pen and paper. Breathing, mindfulness, and writing got me through and will get me through anything.
5. You can survive this pain. You can live with it and you will continue to be taught by it. The pain I am feeling today is the pain of my heart made manifest. Grief exhausts, 1, 3, 10 years later. A lifetime later. There will be times when you need more rest, more stillness. That's hard in a culture so dependent on the go go go. The pain is there to remind us.
6. Death IS the mystery and there is nothing you cannot believe in, if it helps you to carry on afterwards. Nothing. If it keeps you going, if it helps you breathe, if it gives you connection or a guiding light, go ahead and believe.
7. When a baby is born, a family is born, or grows. Even if that baby dies. The parents are left to represent this existence in their child's absence, to bring the picture into wholeness, in a world that has little interest in their pain, their loss or their love. Those parents are heroes. I can say that as I lay here, greasy from yesterday's massage because I still haven't showered. Writhing in pain on my bed. Red faced bloodshot eyes from crying and lack of sleep. A hero, to carry on. A hero, to make Forest real in this world.
A hero, and just a mother, a person in pain, a person learning every day how to love a baby, a life, that existed only inside my body. When these days engulf me I feel the anger come through again. This isn't fair. I can't take it!
But I do. Forest's sister will be home soon, and I'll just keep moving through. I always do.
Elizabeth Monaghan
Crazy Recipe Ltd
+351 967 492 005