Some thoughts from Carol…
Several years ago, I was chatting after a fourth Wednesday support group meeting with a mother whose loss had occurred several months prior. It was a warm evening, with a sweet smelling spring breeze and a clear sky full of stars. The meeting had been full of heavy moments, but rather than producing a feeling of sadness upon leaving we felt lightened. Being surrounded by the familiarity of loss can be so comforting, when we’re used to being the only person in the room who knows that this feels like. This wise, tender mom, who was herself still in the trenches, regarded me and asked, “Who supports you, Carol? Do you have people who are further down the road, like you are?” I looked at her with amazement, feeling honored and blessed that in her most tender moment, as raw as the days still were for her, she had the ability to wonder about me. I answered her honestly. “There is no one,” I said, but I gain so much from all of you. And it’s true. But I’ve come back to this again and again: what is it like to be so far away from my daughter’s birth and death? Where does she live in my heart, and in my world, right now? These are questions I often ponder on my own, but every now and then I read something that helps to ground me in the place where I now stand.
For the past few days, my mind has wandered continually to an article I read on Huffington Post entitled, “The Other Quiet Mom“. The author, Nancy Davis Johnson, beautifully captures what grief has felt like over a decade down the road for me. Charlotte appears to me every day, with the sound of my own breath, with a familiar scent, with the sound of a child’s laughter. She is all around me in the life I’ve built since she came and went. She is the foundation of the family I have built since she died. She was the child who made me a mother, yet I only mother other children in her wake: four beautiful souls I am so blessed to have. Yet, every day, there are moments where I am “the quiet mom”. The moments where I have to calculate how to answer someone’s question, where I have to consider whether or not to weigh my opinion. As my children grow older I feel connections to their world and disconnections, as I am still forever changed by Charlotte’s passing.
I am a “regular” mom now, no longer defined by my grief. There was a long period of time– perhaps five, or six, or even seven years for which I truly believed that my grief would always define me. It doesn’t anymore, but I still feel how it affects me. Grief isn’t a living creature inside me anymore. Instead, it’s just left footprints, and scars. I can feel how it has changed me as a person. I can remember its intensity, its ferocity, its anger. I can remember the nights where I wanted to throw open the front door and run away from this life, but I don’t feel that desperation anymore. I can live in a settled place, understanding that while my life unfolded in a way I would never have chosen, I have only the future ahead. I am the “quiet” mom at times, but behind that veil, I feel blessed by the ways in which I’ve been forced to consider the exquisite value of my living children’s lives. I may not always feel like the other moms across the table, because I am grateful for my child’s very life in a way that thankfully most of them cannot understand.
As a mom nearly 8 years out, I can so relate to your last paragraph! No longer defined by the grief, but definitely still living her presence everyday–even when people don’t know it, or don’t think I "should" be. Carol, you are such a powerful spirit and I can’t imagine my life had you not come along when you did! Keep doing what you are doing!!