Bereaved Mother's Day - 2015

Bereaved Mother's Day

I wasn't even aware that there was a 'Bereaved Mother's Day' until a dear friend of mine

tagged me in a post on facebook. It was very weird to think of myself as a "bereaved mother". For some reason that word 'bereaved' just sat funny with me. I know that I am a mother who has buried a child, yet I never thought of myself as a 'bereaved mother'. 

I was reading over the post and a story about another mother who lost their baby girl within days of having her due to complications. Of course it brought up some real and raw emotions. Not just because it's a sad story, regardless of my own experiences, but more so because I can remember what the unimaginable and unexplainable pain feels like. I feel like it brought back 

a wave of emotions, that quit honestly, I haven't felt for awhile. 

I think about Liam everyday but I am not always profoundly sad. I miss him all the time and wish he was here, but my days are also filled with laughter, the beautiful laughter, smiles, and hugs of Izzy.

We just had the "March for Babies" walk and I cried when we released our balloons in honor of those that we have lost. Sad as I thought about missing Liam, but even then I wasn't sad like I am sad reading this women's story of loss. "Why is that?" I ask myself.

 

I miss Liam everyday but the depth of that loss ebbs and flows. Not that his loss isn't always of equal meaning to me each day, but the sadness of my loss is over ridden at times with the joys of the 

here and now (and I thank God for that). It's the depth of the sadness that seams to ebb and flow. 

I know that miss Liam everyday but when I read the story of someone else s loss it just dredged up so much pain for me. I think, because I am taken back to when those emotions were real to me, real in a way that some (I pray) will never know. More real than any normal human being who is sad for someone would feel. It's like for a split second I forgot that Liam was so real too me, in an actual physical and tangible way. I know that I miss everything that he was suppose to be all the time, but it's like it hits be again how close we were to having a baby boy. So close, that we DID have a baby boy, just not in the sense that we got to take him home and have a living baby boy with us. 

When I think back to the moments before we knew he was gone and the joy and nervous excitment there was at the thought of Liam and getting to meet and see him for the first time and FINALLY hold him. When I think back to birthing him and holding him, giving him away to the nurse that final time, and his funeral. Those moments, those memories are so raw, real, and painfully sad. You can't help but read someone else s story and think about those moments yourself. 

I miss Liam everyday, but right now, in this moment I REALLY miss him. I miss touching his soft skin, and feeling his hair. I miss rubbing his really long feet and nu sling my nose against his face. I miss starring at him in awe that he was finally there, I was seeing him for the first time. I miss his wide hands, I miss all the blue. I miss his name and saying it all the time. I miss his nursery, the blue animals and leaves on the wall. I miss the joy, the untainted joy of our first baby. Joy untainted by loss and sadness. I miss the joy my family had untainted by loss and sadness. I miss the hopes and dreams we had for Liam. I miss the blissful naivety that came with not knowing all the things that could go wrong. I miss the moment when his future on this earth was still laid out before him and I was going to know what his personality was like, who he would be, what it would be like parenting a boy.

I miss it all! Right now I miss it all, every detail, I am aware of every heart wrenching detail. 

I just want to grab Izzy and run, run back to that happy place before it all unraveled. I want the perfect world where I have Liam and Isabel...next time, in the new Jerusalem. 

This picture is of Isabel and Liam Bear. A bear that some people donated money to have made

for us after Liam was born, it is the exact length and weight of Liam.