Today I woke up with the thought that one thing in life could make me feel better. Only one thing could help ease the pain, anger, and sorrow that I am feeling after a really rough day yesterday. The one thing that I wanted was a hug from my sweet Adeline. Her hugs were the tightest and best hugs I have ever felt...they were hugs that made you feel as though you were completely wrapped in love and that nothing in the world mattered more than you. I need that right now. I need her and I need to feel her love with the intensity that I felt it each time that she reached out and hugged me.
So many things in life make us struggle. There are little set backs along the way when you are dealing with big things in life. For me, the loss of Adeline has been the biggest thing that I have ever had to deal with and honestly I hope that it is always the biggest thing that I have to deal with. My little girl was special. She was an amazing soul and being able to celebrate who she was as a person is very important to me.
Lately I have become aware that not everyone agrees with these decisions, that people do not think that we should be celebrating her life and sitting around talking about who she was. I am NEVER going to apologize for talking about my child or for sharing about her. To me when someone acts like I should just move on, I am filled with anger and rage. I can't help it. She was my child. She was a part of my very soul and every fiber of my being. Moving on is just not something that happens. I will NEVER move on. This is now me. This is who I am.
For me talking about Adeline is no different than talking about Huxley, Althea, or Andrew. When someone acts like I shouldn't be talking about her, then starts talking about their kids, I want to scream. Do you realize that the last thing that I want to hear is how you don't want to hear my daughter's name when you are saying the names of your children?
So, let me be very clear in may things.
**If you don't want to hear about Adeline, don't talk to me.
**Don't pretend that you are what you are not. Don't be showy and offer large gifts to my children, only to threaten me demanding that I pay you back money that you gave to my children after our fire when you are called out for being cruel and unkind. Keep your money. Keep your things. Just don't brag to everyone that you gave me money for my kids to have iPads. Be sure and call everyone you bragged to and tell them how you threatened me and demanded that I give you money back within one week. (This shows nothing of my character and everything of yours.)
I had considered myself lucky when I was going through the loss of Adeline. Shane and I sat at our couple's grief retreat and listened to stories about splintered families and people who faced others telling them that they should move on, focus on their other children, or get over it. At this time, we had never heard these words from anyone in our circle (except a few times to focus on the other kids to keep us going, which was good advice and not because you didn't want us to remember Adeline). We had not seen anything but good in those who were around us and we were so very grateful and thankful.
Well, it happened. We finally are seeing these sides of people...and to be frank and honest, it sucks!
I am a grieving mother. I lost my child. I am NEVER going to get over that. (I am stating this again for those who did not get it the first time that I said it.)
This weekend we will have a celebration of life for our girl. We will gather with family and friends and share about her beautiful life that came to an end much too soon. We will share stories, talk about the funny things she said, ask people to write down their favorite memory in a book that we purchased for the event, create rocks for our rock garden, send flying wishes in a flying wish ceremony (a safe and environmentally friendly alternative to balloon launches or Chinese lanterns), dedicate a stone to her that is next to her grandpa's headstone, and most importantly remember her.
It has been brought to my attention that some people don't understand why I would want to celebrate the life of my sweet Adeline. This makes me physically sick. To hear from someone that this is not something that I should want or that it's not important to them knowing that Adeline loved them breaks me. I could care less if they choose not to participate in the event. This isn't about that or about me. However, I hate that I had my precious angel around anyone who would say these things, that she wasted one ounce of her precious love on a person who would say these things is disgusting to me. However, it is making it really easy to know exactly who needs to be cut from our lives. Family does not have to be the people that you were born related to, family can be the amazing people who you choose to spend your time with and who you choose to have in your life.
So, to you....and you most definitely know who you are....screw you! Parting ways was made completely easy by the horrible things that you had to say. I like to live life with no regrets and I am over putting myself through unnecessary stress for anyone. Life is just too short to deal with these types of things.
To all of my fellow grieving parents, I am so sorry. I am sorry that people do not realize how immature and selfish that they sound when they can't cherish the memories of your child. I am sorry for the rude things that get said to you on a regular basis. I am sorry for the things that people do that cut like a knife to the core of your soul. I am sorry if you have ever had to experience family behave in this manner towards you. Your child deserves better and so do you. Cut the toxic people out of your life and cherish those who are there for you, those who would drop anything and run to your side if they knew that you needed comforted, those who are always the ones to offer a shoulder to cry on, those who truly care. Quit wasting your time and energy on those who never will.
Until the day that I die, I will shout from the rooftops what an amazing little girl Adeline was. I will share her dreams, her stories, her talents with you. I will aways cherish each and every memory that I have with her so if you hear a repeat memory, it might not always be that I have forgotten that I have shared that with you, it is simply that these repeat memories are all that I have. They are all that I will ever have. I got just 9 years and 15 days of memories with my baby girl. There will never be more than that. This does not make her any less a part of our lives, any less important to us than our other three children who have gotten far more time on earth. She will forever be ours. She will forever be alive in our memories and she will never be forgotten.
If you want to forget her. If you want to not hear about her. Then please just stay away from me. Go on your own way and leave me alone. To be honest, I am barely holding on by a thread. Sometimes that thread is pulled so tight that even I fear that it might snap, that I might not be able to continue living, that I might not be able to go on for the other kids. Putting me through unnecessary stress because of your own issues is not helpful. It is not something that I can handle. Please, just leave me alone.
Being a bereaved mom is literally the worst thing that anyone can have happen. There is nothing in the world that I could imagine hurting more than losing a child. If you have never lost a child, no matter how much empathy you have, you will never understand this pain. You can continue to support someone who does, show empathy, and try to understand what they are going through, but it is incomprehensible to you what this pain is like unless you have been there. I think that the reason that you can't imagine what this is like is that it is the brain's way of protecting you from a pain that is so close to being too much...a pain that pushes you too close to the edge...a pain that is just too unbearable that your brain can't even fathom it without you experiencing it.