Mother's Day Musings

When I was a kid and teenager, I never really did the whole Mother's Day thing.  Once I got to college, I at least tried to send my mom a card on Mother's Day.  As I got even older, I started to realize just how much my mom really meant to me and wanted to express that on Mother's Day, so over the last few years, I've sent her flowers.  I also would send flowers to Tim's mom and grandmothers to say "Happy Mother's Day.  We love you."  I realized that it was important to let the moms in our lives know just how much we cared and that you can never say "I Love You" too many times.

Over the two years that we were trying to get pregnant, Mother's Day was just a tad bittersweet.  I still was sending flowers to our moms, but secretly wishing I had my own child so I could be a mother too.  I just wanted so badly to finally belong to the "mommy club".

Last year, I was 12 weeks pregnant with Brianna on Mother's Day.  We had told our families a few weeks before that day that we were finally going to be parents.  So, on that first Sunday in May, while at a Mother's Day lunch at my sister-in-law's house, I was included in the festivities.  Even though I technically wasn't a mom yet, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law both gave me my first Mother's Day cards.  It was wonderful to finally be on the receiving end and to be full of so much joy.  At the time, I was looking forward to the next Mother's Day, when I *would* have a baby in my arms at the family Mother's Day gathering.

Then the unthinkable happened in August and Brianna died, before she was even really born.  Since her death, I've struggled to see where I fit in.  Am I really a mother, since I never got to parent my baby?  How can I be considered a mom when I don't rock a baby to sleep, I don't get up in the middle of the night to give bottles to a screaming baby, I don't have take her to doctor's appointments and have her vaccinated?  I don't do any of the things a mother is supposed to do because I don't have a live child to care for.

Now, as this Mother's Day is fast approaching, I'm wondering, yet again, am I a mother?  I was pregnant on Mother's Day last year and technically wasn't a mother then, but I was still included.  Everyone believed I'd be bringing home a baby at the end of the pregnancy and therefore I was an expectant mom.  But now?  What am I exactly?  What is the word for a woman who was once pregnant but now has no children?  Am I even still considered a mother?  Will my family even acknowledge it this year?  Will I get cards?  Flowers?  Or will they all think it's too painful for me and just not send anything?  Will I be left out?  Should I be?  Am I only just a daughter this Mother's Day?

8 Months

Dear Brianna,

Spring has come to this part of the world again.  The daffodils and forsythias are blooming in abundance, the early trees are blossoming, and it's the Cherry Tree Festival in Washington D.C. this weekend.  This has always been my favorite season of the year, when new life springs from the ground.  I've always loved the cool mornings that grow into balmy afternoons.  I've enjoyed the smell  outside just after a spring rain.


But this year, baby girl, my joy of the spring season is clouded just a bit.  You should be here, enjoying your first spring.  I should be taking you on walks around the neighborhood in the warm evenings.  I should be posing you with all the spring flowers and taking lots of photos to post on FaceBook, just like my friends are starting to do with their kids.  But, I'm not.  Instead, I'll visit your grave today and leave you daffodils and tullips, as my way of sharing this spring with you.  I wonder, does Heaven have spring?  Do you get to enjoy the flowers and spring rain like I do?  I hope so.


Happy 8-month birthday baby.  I love you and always will.


Love,
Mommy  

"I Won't Let Go"

I am a country music fan.  Every day at work, I listen to the "new country" station on Slacker Radio on my Android phone.  Every day on my drive home, I listen to "The Highway" on Sirius/XM.  I can name most current country songs and the artists singing the songs after the first few notes.  I'd do awesome on "Name That Tune" if there was an all-country version.  That being said, it should then come as no surprise that I've heard the new Rascal Flatts song, "I Won't Let Go".  Below, I've included the lyrics to the song for those of you reading who don't want to watch the video (yes, Tim, I'm looking at you...I know how much you hate listening to country).

It's like a storm

That cuts a path

It breaks your will

It feels like that

You think you're lost

But you're not lost on your own,

You're not alone

I will stand by you,

I will help you through

When you've done all you can do

and you can't cope

I will dry your eyes,

I will fight your fight

I will hold you tight

and I won't let go

It hurts my heart to see you cry

I know its dark this part of life

Oh it find us all and we're to small

to stop the rain

Oh but when it rains

I will stand by you,

I will help you through

When you've done all you can do

and you can't cope

I will dry your eyes,

I will fight your fight

I will hold you tight

and I won't let you fall

Don't be afraid to fall

I'm right here to catch you

I won't let you down

It won't get you down

You're gonna make it

I know you can make it

Cause I will stand by you,

I will help you through

When you've done all you can do

and you can't cope

I will dry your eyes,

I will fight your fight

I will hold you tight

and I won't let go

Oh I'm gonna hold you

and I won't let go

Won't let you go

No I won't

The first time I heard this song, I broke down in tears, which probably wasn't the safest thing since I was driving at the time.  And every time since then, when this song comes on the radio, I turn it up and just let it wash over me.  You see, to me, this song is my husband.  When the grief gets to be too much, when I just lose it and start crying, he's the one right beside me, keeping me afloat.  He reminds me that I'm not alone in this hell, that he is right there beside me, holding me up, helping me fight my fight, giving me the support I need.  He is the one who holds me tight and let's me be in the moment, telling me it's ok to cry and miss our daughter.  He makes it ok to wish it was different at the same time acknowledging that it never will be.  He is truly the only other person in the world who knows just how I feel, because he is Brianna's father and he misses her too.  We are on this road together.  So, even though sometimes I feel alone, all I have to do is reach out into the dark and I'll find him there, ready to hold my hand.  And I know that no matter what happens in the future, he will never let me go.