Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Sunset

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief. It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 31: Sunset 

I'm currently in North Carolina, but this sunset is one I photographed in 2010, in Texas. With all of the negative things that I associate with Texas and my grief journey, this sunset is one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. Just like grief, sometimes the most beautiful things come out of the most terrible ones.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Reflection

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief. It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 30: Reflection

Another picture from Texas. It was easily the worst time of my life, grief-wise, and sanity-wise. I spent a lot of time outside, taking long walks to avoid talking to people.
I like to think I've come a long way from those days.
The grief isn't that bitter, angry gnawing emotion like it was back then.
I'm much more likely to forgive an ignorant remark, instead of taking it as a personal attack as I did 5 years ago.
I've learned that I can't and won't grieve by anyone else's standards.
If I want to cry, I'll cry.
If I want to talk about her, I'll talk about her.
She's my daughter.
And there is no "wrong" way to grieve.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: What Heals You

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief. It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 29: What Heals You 

For a long time after coming to grips with the fact that she was really gone, and even after having Ella, I would feel the overwhelming need to go outside and just GO somewhere. Somewhere quiet, where trees outnumber people.
In the summer, I go to the river and take my shoes off and walk along the shoreline and look for pretty pebbles.
In the spring, I go and look at flowering trees and close my eyes and breathe in their scent.
In the fall, I crunch through leaves and admire the foliage.
In the winter, I wait until it's dark out and walk quietly along the snow-lined roads.
Nature heals me. Prayer heals me. Helping others remember heals me.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Self-Portrait

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief. It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 27: Self Portrait

I think, pre-loss my "self-portrait" would have looked much differently. It may have been a photograph, but post-loss...

no photograph could include everything. no photograph could include my firstborn. 

This is the only way to do it. 

I'll take what I can get. 

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Gratitude

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 26: Gratitude 

Grief and gratitude don't seem like they should go together, do they?
And for me, for a long time, they didn't.
It's taken years to where I can say I'm grateful.
I'm grateful for Riley Grace, for her all-too-brief life, because she changed mine for the better.
I'm grateful for the new person I became because of her.
I'm grateful for the people I've met because of her.
I'm grateful for quiet moments with mountains in the distance.
Mostly, I'm grateful God allows me to see past the pain and to help others heal.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Earth Remembrance

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 25: Earth Remembrance

I thought long and hard about what to plant or do for Earth Remembrance. At first, I wanted to plant peonies, but I wasn't sure how they would do...and then I had my heart set on a little tree...
And I started thinking about the significance of plants and herbs...and I read somewhere about rosemary being the herb of love and remembrance...and I wanted a rosemary tree.
And then I couldn't find one anywhere....and I prayed for one.
And my beautiful friend Bethany showed up with one.
When I was a younger mom, I couldn't cook with rosemary. The smell alone used to remind me of the apartment we lived in when Ella was a year old and my failed cooking experiments.
About a year ago, I attempted cooking with rosemary...I think it was chicken. It was one of the first things I'd made with rosemary to ever turn out.
As it was simmering on the stove, I left the house and went across the yard to the woods to sit and pray and print names on leaves. An emotional moment caught me with my  head in my hands...and then the smell of rosemary had a new meaning...
healing.
How far God has brought me.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Choose Your Breath

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 24: Choose Your Breath 

Today's topic is about where I am in my grief journey.
Well, I'm almost 10.5 years out, time-wise. This picture was over five years ago, when I was at my worst...I was in Texas, miserable...nobody understood the way I felt and why I was so miserable and why I wasn't "over it" yet.
There was so much anger in my heart then. So much resentment. I was dealing with grief in the most unhealthy way possible. My heart was broken. My marriage very nearly was.
I still  have days that find me melted against a wall in the kitchen, quietly crying, after everyone goes to bed. I still have days where that anger rears its ugly head, and I let it.
But...
So much healing has taken place since that picture was taken, and especially since we moved to North Carolina.
I'm no longer afraid of my grief. I'm no longer afraid to speak her name. I'm no longer afraid to reach out to someone who is grieving and offer a helping hand.
I can pour out all of that sadness, and all of that grief, and all of that anger into beautiful things. I can put that energy into helping others heal.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Love Letter

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 23: Love Letter

Dear Husband,

These are your hands. Hands I've loved for the past 11 years. Hands that have held mine. Hands that placed a wedding ring on my finger one August day.
On October 15th, you used your hands, along with your God-given talent for photography to help me with a project that I was unable to do myself.
Even though you and I grieve our daughter very differently, and even though you may not always understand the WHYs of why I do what I do, you have been so very supportive.
This year, with me doing the Remembrance Leaves, you've cooked dinners, you've taken care of our living daughter, you've helped to pick up the pieces of my broken heart more times than I can count.

Thank you for being you. Thank you for being understanding even when it is something you tell me you don't understand.

Love,

Your Wife

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Rituals and Dreams

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I'm participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 22: Rituals and Dreams 

My rainbow came a year after her sister died. Their birthdays are on the same day, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it...because the day itself isn't all happy or all sad, it's a strange mix of both.
I guess I would say one of "rituals" is to have Ella blow out the candles on both cakes. She's done this since she was 4 years old, since her sister would have been 5. It was Ella's idea, and I was hesitant at first. I had no idea how much healing this would bring...
Yes, I have a hard time baking two cakes. Yes, sometimes the tears fall while I'm decorating. But...every year, we acknowledge the fact that BOTH girls are part of our little family. Every year, we acknowledge both sisters.
As far as dreams...oh, just one.
I just want to use what I've learned to help others. To make sure no one ever feels as alone as I did on the day Riley Grace died.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Sacred Space

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 21: Sacred Space

When I was 7 years old, my class took a field trip to the cemetery. No, I'm not kidding. It was May and we were placing flowers on the graves of men who had died in WWII. I guess at some point, I got separated from my class. I don't remember "being lost", I do remember my teacher in tears because I guess she had spent about an hour looking for me.
"Weren't you scared?" my classmates asked.
No.
I've never been scared of cemeteries, and aside from the year after Riley died, I've never been scared to go to them, or to stay in them for long periods of time.
For years, Ella and I would go to the cemetery on Fridays or Saturdays, and spend time making her sister's spot pretty. I think it helped us both feel close to Riley.
The week before we moved to North Carolina, I spent many, many hours at Riley's cemetery, as that was the place where I felt the safest.
This is not Riley's cemetery. I'm 700-something miles away right now. This is one of the cemeteries that is relatively near me. I go to the cemeteries here...sometimes alone, sometimes with Ella. We'll buy flowers and put them on the forgotten graves...so they're not forgotten. At the cemetery in town, we found a little girl who shares a birth day (though not a birth year) with my girls.
I don't know what it is about the cemetery. The quiet, the peace. I just feel safe and peaceful.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Forgiveness and Humanity

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 20: Forgiveness and Humanity 

If you were to ask me if my heart's grown warmer or colder since I lost Riley, I would say "both."
Forgiveness has never been one of my strong points...not even as a kid. I can hold a mean grudge. I'm talking years and years. I also have one heck of a temper. It takes a lot to bring it out, and that's probably for the best.
A few years ago, Ella bought a lamb to leave for her sister at the cemetery. She went to a lot of trouble to pick out the lamb, and for a 2 year old to do that on her own was a big deal. She carried on for a long while about how much Riley would like the lamb because it's soft and warm. One cold November evening, we secured the lamb to a metal vase and went home, Ella talking excitedly about how sweet and pretty Riley's lamb was. A few days later, we returned, during the day to find the lamb gone from its spot in front of the vase. At first I thought the wind had merely blown it away...but then I found it, a few graves over.
My blood boiled.
I'm pretty sure I saw red. WHO WOULD DO THAT?
I was so close to marching down to the main office there and screaming at someone, when Ella tugged on my sleeve.
"Mama. It's okay. Maybe they didn't have money for a lamb."
She was right, of course. Maybe they couldn't afford a lamb for their baby. We left it there.
I'm that much more likely these days to forgive things because I don't know what someone's been through...especially another loss parent. Loss hits us all so differently.
And then there are the things which I'm almost positive I can not forgive, as un-Christian as that sounds.
I bought an ivy plant for the cemetery once. I babied that ivy for an entire spring, and an entire summer. It grew big and beautiful. One Saturday, I went to water it...and it was gone.
And then I did flip out. I asked every single worker I could find if they'd taken the plant or seen anyone who could have. I asked a fellow loss Mom if she had taken it (the one instance in which the plant being gone would have been OK) and she hadn't.
I never did find the plant...but a few weeks later, I heard of a story from a friend where someone was stealing the flowers from baby graves and selling them at the flea market...and that sent me over the edge.
Why would someone steal flowers from a baby's grave? Don't they know that this is ALL THE PARENTS HAVE OF THEIR CHILD ON THIS EARTH? Don't they know how much that hurts?
I know everyone is human, and imperfect. I'm willing to forgive imperfections...when someone harms the innocent...that's something I have a harder time forgiving.
I'm still working on forgiveness.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Music

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief. It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 19: Music 

These are some of the lyrics to Celine Dion's "Fly"...
You can find the video here .
When I was a kid, my Dad had a silly nickname for me. It was something he claimed he would have preferred my name to be, and sometimes he still calls me that. I have a silly nickname for Ella: Owls. I called her that because when she was a baby and she yawned, she looked like a little owl. It's translated to her kid-hood because she absolutely LOVES owls.
I have absolutely no idea what I would have called Riley Grace had I been able to carry to term and deliver her alive. It would probably have been something silly...I'll never know now.
Since I heard the song "Fly", I've always thought of Riley as "little wing." (The first words to this song are Fly, fly little wing)....
I have many many songs that are my "Riley" songs, but literally every word of this song fits. Especially the lyrics above. No matter how many moonrises and sunsets I see in my lifetime, I will never forget my little wing.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Seasons and Symbols

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 18: Seasons and Symbols 

When I lived in Chicago, I used to have a hard time with Spring, because that's when I lost her. The day she died, it was bright and sunny, and I remember thinking "That's not how this should be. It should be storming and horrible outside" because that's how I felt inside. Instead, I left the hospital to find bright sunshine and blue skies.
I think every spring thereafter that we lived in Chicago, I had a hard time. I couldn't walk down certain ways from the hospital to either where our apartment was or to my Mom and Dad's. I couldn't walk past certain houses, or even see the flowers that were in their flower gardens. I was relieved when we moved to the next town over and I could always find a shortcut (or a longcut) to get to where I needed to go that would not take me past any of those "bad" places.
I have a hard time in the Fall, too. They take everything out of the cemetery there. All the decorations, all of the flowers. It's just leaves and grass, and after a while everything starts to look...well, dead. And it's a reminder...and I just don't deal with that well.
One summer, I was at the cemetery with Ella...I think maybe she was 3. It was early evening and she said, "Mom! Look at all the dragonflies." And there they were. Dragonflies everywhere. The air was thick with them.
Someone once said to me that they had heard a legend where the dragonflies were the souls of babies and children, and I drew a lot of comfort from that.
Dragonflies have always been my Riley symbol. They never fail to make me smile. They're not afraid of me, and I'm not afraid of them...and I'm not even a big fan of insects/bugs/crawly things. I've been known to scream if an inchworm drops down on me. But, a dragonfly can sit on my hand and it just makes me so calm.
This summer, Gabe thought one of our cats had swatted at this dragonfly on our deck. I went outside and picked it up. It stayed on my hand long enough for me to take tons of photos and to walk it across the street to the wetlands. I saw it fly away into the evening sky. Dragonflies remind me that every moment is precious...every moment I had with Riley was precious, and the moments now where I think of her are precious as well.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Secondary Losses

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 17: Secondary Losses

I think, when we lose our baby or child, we lose so much in addition to that initial heartwrenching loss. We lose our innocence. We lose every semblance of who we were before that loss. We lose our child, over and over and over.
We lose him or her in that moment. We lose them every moment thereafter.
When I lost Riley Grace, I didn't just lose that tiny baby. I lost the one year old, the two year old, the ten year old I would have now.
A few months ago, I bought Ella this dollhouse, for a fantastic deal. It's mostly been an outdoor toy, I'll have to clean it up of grass clippings, etc. before I bring it inside. This  morning, after I read my Bible on my front porch, I looked at it and thought "Riley will never play with this awesome toy."
I remember, when Ella was two, we lived near a CVS store. Ella and I would go there and buy 99 cent nail polish and give ourselves crazy manicures on the weekends. We befriended a cashier, and one day, she said, "You know, you're such a good Mommy, it's a pity you don't have another girl."
And I thought "I do...but she'll never get to do this with me."
As loss parents, I think we sometimes keep a morbid list of things that our child will never get to do. The fun "to do" list for that child is yet another secondary loss.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Creative Grief

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 16: Creative Grief 

Since I decided to stop living in denial, I've always tried to do things in her memory, and I've always tried to include the other babies who have made an impact on my post-loss life.
Last year, I started printing names on leaves. Anything artistic is therapy for me. Anything that I can do to include others and honor Riley's name is therapy as well.
I just always feel like I'm not doing enough. Do you ever have that feeling?

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Wave of Light

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 15: Wave of Light

I would write more for this, but I am overwhelmed and  tired in every way: physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Tonight is Wave of Light, tomorrow it will be 3 years since my dear Ms. Lora went to heaven. It will be grief upon grief tomorrow...a different kind of grief, but grief nonetheless.

Tonight, my husband did me the honor of taking about half of the pictures, including the one above. He is an incredible photographer, and I feel like he did this remembrance justice.

I am so grateful for him. I am so grateful for the community of other loss mommas who have embraced me and loved me and shared their stories. I am so grateful for the short time I had my daughter. In the midst of all of this grief, I am grateful.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Express Your Heart

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 14: Express Your Heart 

If I could only say one thing to anyone who's dealing with the loss of a baby, or knows someone who is, it would be this.
The people who have gone through it never forget.
Years may pass, memories may get fuzzy, but that baby, that little being is ALWAYS remembered.
Riley will ALWAYS be my firstborn.
She will ALWAYS be in my heart.
I will ALWAYS be her mother.
No matter how many years go by, no matter how many more kids I will have, no matter how long I live.
ALWAYS.

Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Regrets and Triggers

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project in honor of the babies that lost.

Day 13: Regrets and Triggers 

My biggest regret would have to be not grieving right then. Not crying more. I regret not calling off of work in the days that followed. I regret answering "I'm fine" when my co-worker asked if I was all right. I regret pushing myself into the state of denial that lasted years.
I regret not giving her that importance. The one I gave her living sister after she was born. I regret not saying, "No. I'm not okay. I lost my baby."

As far as triggers go, the floor above is honestly my biggest one. Such a silly thing and yet...
When Gabe and I were first looking at apartments, the reason "the rat hole" won out was because of that stupid floor.
"It looks like a checkerboard!!!" I exclaimed and began filling out the lease application.
I imagined chubby little kiddo feet padding across the checkerboard floor.
Instead, a few months later, I found myself sobbing on that same floor, unable to stop my pregnancy from ending. I wiped blood off that floor with a blue towel. After I returned home from the hospital, I found a single bloody handprint (mine) on that floor. The checkered tiles lost their appeal that day.
The library in town here used to have a checkered floor. I used to close my eyes when walking in and then stare at the ceiling because I would literally feel sick to my stomach. I've turned down houses because they've had checkered kitchens or bathrooms. I am reasonably sure I will never live in a home with a checkered floor.
This was a hard post to write. Thank you all for bearing with me. <3

Project Heal Capture Your Grief: Normalizing Grief

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.



Day 12: Normalizing Grief 

It's been nearly 10 and a half years since I lost my first daughter, and sometimes, the quiet mornings send me into a panic attack. I get up earlier than anyone else in the house, and early mornings are the perfect time to read my Bible, to think, and to over-think.
I wonder sometimes, if she'd be an early bird and get up with the sun, and sit with me while I read. I wonder if she'd appreciate the sunrise, or if she'd just want to sleep and sleep, like her Dad and her little sister. Those times are OK.
And then there are times when absolute fear just takes over.
What if something happens to Ella?
What if I have another baby and it dies, too?
And then I relive the morning of May 17, 2005...and then the panic attack is inevitable.
It's been nearly 10 and a half years. I still have panic attacks. I still cry in the early morning, pre-sun rise, pre-everyday-housework hours. I am not crazy. I just miss her.

Project Heal Capture Your Grief: Glow in the Woods

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this Fall, I'm participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a photography/storytelling project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 11: Glow in the Woods 

Glow in the Woods  is a site that parents who have suffered the loss of a child can go and talk to one another and share their stories without being judged.
But, Glow in the Woods can also refer to a person who is there for you when no one else is. The beautiful red-haired lady in the picture with me is Amy.
Amy was one of the first people I reached out to after my loss, because I knew that she had a loss as well.
But...at the time I reached out, Amy was a total stranger. I found Amy on myspace (remember myspace?) through a friend of a friend...or something like that. I gathered from her profile picture that she had also lost a daughter and I think my first message to her went something like this, "I don't know you, and I am so sorry for your loss. I've also lost my daughter."
 I was at work when I wrote the message, and honestly, I expected my friend request to go unanswered, and possibly blocked. Instead, a beautiful friendship blossomed, despite the distance: I was in Chicago and Amy was in California.
Amy ended up coming out to Chicago and we got to see one another. Amy met my living daughter, then two,  and to this day, Ella refers to her as "Auntie Amy with the beautiful red hair."
Because of Amy, I felt brave enough to open up about my loss. I felt brave enough to name her. Amy was and is my glow in the woods of baby loss. I am forever in her debt.