growingwithout-blog

[growingwithout-blog]

I am love

I am love.

I am warmth of embrace wrapped around you my darling

I am pride of your presence in my arms

I am joy in bright smiles of your days

I am hope of a thousand dreams for you precious child.

I am love.

I am everything I ever felt for you

I am all that I feel now.

I am love.

Warmed by holding you still in my life

Proud to call you my son today

Happy to mother you still dearest one

Hopeful for all our tomorrows changed by you.

I am love.

.....

So proud that my poem was read aloud at Nottinghamshire Sands' Light of Love service, so grateful to Leah & Emma for reading it, on my boy's birthday x

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So full of love & pride for our family, for our son Zephyr, and all the ways he continues to shape & change our lives... x

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Dusty sunlight

(Re-visiting again, a writing prompt from Writing Your Grief, using Rosie Scanlan’s phrase ‘dusty sunlight’ as a starting point...) Dusty sunlight settled specks of grief, driven into my being by time Pendulum of life swings carrying me ever onwards from your death away from you into you Dusty sunlight fallen clusters of yesterday's pains I wind the cogs (you wind the cogs) they continue ticking, moving me away from your life away from the weight of you within my arms yet always with you, within my breath Dusty sunlight catches on falling shafts sadness crisp and floating haze of mourning, three years on ache of absence acceptance of presence. Dusty sunlight Every molecule altered by you.

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Zephyr’s opening - an article

I well understand that baby loss isn’t a favoured theme for antenatal materials, but really feel it’s so very important that it’s spoken about. So I’m really pleased to share here, an article that’s been published in the local Nottingham NCT magazine ‘Inform’...    -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -

’Stillbirth', 'Pregnancy loss' & 'neonatal death' weren't phrases I was aware of in the spring of 2013, when we were delighted to find out that I was pregnant with our first child. Instead my mind was excitedly filled with thoughts of a family, our expectant future & motherhood – these joyful dreams of a new adventure were on my horizon (along with nappies, blanket knitting and baby clothes!) But sadly it's baby-loss, rather than baby-grows, that this article is about, and here is your gentle warning, that if you feel sensitive to this, then you may want to turn the page... But I hope you don't. I hope you're still reading.

Although pregnancy loss is a bleak & tough subject, deeply taboo, it affects so many of us, and is something that must not be silenced. When it hits, it strikes real hard, a tornado of love & a grief so deep and strong that it rips everything apart, scattering fragments of a shredded life, leaving behind an isolating and very lonely kind of parenthood to try to navigate. When our baby boy Zephyr died, we set out on a very different path to the one we'd spent nine months expecting. I bid farewell to all but one of our antenatal companions, adiós to the many pregnant friends that I'd imagined would become stalwart play session buddies, and I wondered “Where are the people like me? Where will I ever fit in or feel safe?” I certainly didn't find comfort within the walls of the maternity building, where a busy waiting room bustled full of expecting couples, marvelling at their scan photos. I desperately needed counselling, but the act of getting to the sessions on the ward was too tough to handle. We returned to the hospital hoping to learn the answers to our son's death, only to be met with happy women, rotund bellies, and the piercing cries of newborn children; the void of our dead boy only amplified by these visits. Broken and devastated, yet in need of support, I spent a lot of time alone and in darkness. Online I unearthed a whole realm of other mums like me – wonderful women, beautiful families who previously I never knew existed – those living beyond the life of their child, and keeping the light of their love burning so fiercely. The need for human connection, and our sense that the loving and vital support we needed was being offered in utterly the wrong place, is what set the seed of a dream. Let me just be clear – the personal care really is amazing, so tender and true: The midwives who looked after us during Zephyr's labour and birth came to his funeral, they helped us bury him, and they are now friends and 'aunties' to our second son. But it takes more than people alone to provide support strong enough to hold grieving families. We realised just how important the environment around grief is, and felt deeply then that things had to change. How, we wondered, can healing happen inside sick buildings? So it is, that this spring, four years since discovering new life within my body, a new centre will begin - “Zephyr's” will open at Nottingham City Hospital. A loving refuge for anyone in Nottingham affected by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby or child, a sanctuary away from clinical wards, that offers a light. A place to remember and honour those young ones who have died, a place to be with others who understand: Somewhere to speak and be heard, to share and create, to heal the deepest wounds together. Zephyr's will house all the appointments that happen in the wrong place. It will be home to a library of books & resources, donated and recommended by grieving families. The centre will support parents, siblings, grandparents & bereavement staff too. It will encircle all those who enter within with love, for it was born out of love. - - - - - - - - - - - If you've been affected by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby or child, you are so very welcome to come along to our family open day, Saturday 1st April, between 12 - 4pm, to see what the new centre is all about, and how it might support you. Please come along, have a look, and some tea & cake! Zephyr's is a charitable fund set up with Nottingham Hospitals Charity, and the support of hospital staff & other bereaved families. None of this would be happening without our steering group, without the families & others we've met since Zephyr's birth. We are so very grateful to all who have given their heartfelt support.... To find out more, to be supported, or to support us please visit facebook.com/ZephyrsNottingham or email us contact@zephyrsnottingham.org.uk

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A kiss goodnight

A kiss for Daddy, one for Mummy & a kiss for Zephyr too... A little over a week ago Zeph, your brother asked to include you in our bedtime routine He asked to kiss you goodnight. We brought your photo to him & he kissed it. (Showering you with the same love & enthusiasm that he shares with us before bed.) He loves you Zephyr. Then he kissed the back of your photo too! Most evenings now, you're with us as he prepares to sleep. I love that you are a part of his life big brother Zeph, I love that he loves you... Goodnight x

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Grief is everywhere

(Revisiting some of my old writing prompts from Megan Devine’s writing your grief course.)

Grief is everywhere in fallen in empty branches.

Grief is everywhere in dropping stems in vacant pods and dark soils.

Grief is everywhere and so too, love.

Love is everywhere in sodden leaves as they bow to spring in branches budding for another tomorrow.

Love is everywhere in stems, stooped aside for fresh shoots in wind scattered seeds, sprouting forth from black earth.

Love is everywhere Grief is everywhere and so love grows.

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Tumbleweed

There it was, the silence, the awkward eyes-averted pause… I could almost reach out & touch the crusty (all too familiar) tumbleweed as it rolled past, splitting her smile as it went, dividing us across a sandy desert of difference, so vast & disparate our experience.

Dusty barren landscape of my son’s untold death. Conversation stopped by my honest response, to her simple question “do you have other children?“ Her first child lay before us, mine long dead & buried. “Yes I do” I said as I looked towards my living son. “He has a brother” I spoke proudly yet in a tone that I’m certain will help to prepare her for the rest. “His big brother died.”

And there it was, the silence, the awkward eyes-averted pause… the tumbleweed.

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Feet

Sometimes, when your brother's feet rest upon me, it brings you so clearly to my mind Zephyr. I remember so vividly how your soft toes nestled gently on my skin, so perfect, yet so vacant. Your brother's feet, are so full of life. His feet that have widened and grown. Toes that wriggle, as I wash between them and gather colourful sock fluff. Nails that always need trimming. Skin that wrinkles in our splashy splashy baths. Feet that stamp. Feet that scrabble about in the park. Feet that splash in puddles. Feet that stomp in mud. Feet that run and walk, that play and kick. The pitter patter of feet. Feet that so joyfully and wonderfully fill our lives with love and happiness. Feet that do all those things that you will never do.

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Still...

I don't write so much to you anymore Zeph...

Sometimes I think it's because of your brother, his vivid spirit, his bright eyes and his enormous all-encompassing love for life, his every smile, his every need, it fills my heart, and my time, so that in the quiet moments of his napping, or his sleep at night before I too go to bed, I don't always find the time. But I still have so much to say. And that reasoning shifts the blame. There is time. I still have so much to say, but sometimes it is easier not to say, not to bring it to my mind, to speak my truth, and feel so broken open and shattered by the gravity of how I live; of the weighty truth of living as a mother who will never see her son grow up. A mother who does not know what her three year old boy looks like, sounds like, is interested in. She does not know. I do now know: How he hugs, or smiles, or cries. How he plays with his brother, or digs into the dirty earth – is he clean or messy? Happy and content or nervous and shy? I do not, and will not ever know this of you, not today or any day.   But everyday my son. I love you. I still love you. I still mother you, and still I need to talk of you, and to talk to you - to share with you, and to reflect myself, how I feel. I still need to stop, to pause in this life my darling love, and to think of you, of your life; to think of  you as you are, as you were, as you could have been, as I'd hoped you'd be, then and now; to think of you just exactly as you are today. I still need to do that - to stop off and say hello to you - to plunge back into my heart, rather than stitch up the wound, and feel the sorrow buried within – to delve back, and return to that brightly burning raw red torch of aching longing, and re-live, re-assess, re-feel, just as I did in the earlier days since you left us. Yet, it won't be just exactly as it was. It can't. Because here I stand today more than three years later. The crimson rip of death that tore through my heart is not now, as it was. Physically so much has changed in me. I am able to walk alone, without anxiety. I am able to get out of bed. I am able to be with others.

I am able to be with children. Emotionally too, I don't only cry for you - I speak of you with love and pride. I don't wish to die for you - I wish to live to carry you with me to keep you living on in our lives as they are now. Still though dear Zephyr boy, I need to write, I need to speak, I need to share with you, of you, for you, and about you. I need others to know of our relationship, to know that I mother you too, still today and everyday.   I still have so much to say, still so many words, still so much love.

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The festive season sits heavily with me this year, like a too-full stomach, over-stuffed with Christmas dinner! Just like the meal, my life is full of deliciousness, I am thankful, grateful & satisfied in so many ways. But, there is simply nothing that will fill the hole left by my beautiful and much missed first son. Nothing fills his place, and somehow, all the sparkling lights & joys at this time, make his absence all the more painful... I love you and miss you my dear boy Zeph. X x x

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Happy Birthday my sweet son. I love you so so much, today & everyday x x x

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Three years

Three years since last your heart did beat, three years my love, my baby boy. Today, the weight of you, missing from me, prays heavily on my beating heart. Muscle of life, pulsing absence around my aching hollowed out self. Sweet son what would you be today, if not dead?

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Last night your brother spoke your name... in my arms he took me over to the heart-shaped carving that your dad made shortly after you were born. He said "Zephyr... love." We love you Zeph, we all love you x

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Your brother delights in the fruits, of the garden grown of your death. Darling Zephyr, this is bitter sweet; our days abundantly full of his sunlight, soured by your absence. My beautiful boys, you co-exist, in a way that only you can because you died. X

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30

Thirty. Three.Zero. 30 months without you.

Is it the rounded-shape of the number that weilds gravity? The zero that hits me in the stomach? Is it the length of time of the life that ‘could have been’?

30 months without you, my darling boy; Though your absence is less of a burden, though your presence (such as it is) is more settled within me, still I miss you. Still I love you, each and every day dear Zephyr. x

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9 months

(a gentle warning to readers, that this is about my living child...) Dear Zephyr Nine months ago today we brought your brother home. In our arms, not in a box. Nine months ago today, we held him close to us here. And he’s still here... still here. Nine months of growth, laughter, hope, happiness and love. We had that with you baby boy. But... we had only that, only in pregnancy. Nine months of growth, laughter, hope, happiness and love. Nine months of anticipating a future that never came to be... After nine months, we brought you home in your coffin. In a box not in our arms. You stayed with us here for that one precious night, before we said goodbye, and buried your fresh, perfect little body underground, in dirty earth. Swallowed below, swallowed hope. Today, I remember the day we brought your brother home, as if only yesterday. His birth followed nine months of disbelief, that it could be possible to bring a living baby home. But he’s here Zeph, he’s still here, and I love him, just as I love you. I have treasured these months with him, just as I do my time with you... We’ve reached 9 months. Symbollic, poignant, wonderful and painful, all in one breath. Your life is paused in those nine months, frozen in time, Your brother’s keeps on expanding. It hurts, yet it fills me up with such happiness too. I will never forget our nine months of love, nine months of motherhood growing, nine months of pride. Your nine months of live Zephyr my darling. Thank you son. I love you x

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My darling Zephyr, Three years ago today you turned our lives upside down, we tumbled in wonderful somersaults. I did a wee on a stick and it told us of you! Nervous & giddily excited, your Dad & I began to imagine together. We dreamt and we marvelled, but never could we have imagined what would happen. Never could we have imagined that you’d die before you took a breath. Everything changed with you son. Everything continues to change with you... even though we’re without you. But Zephyr; Although my heart tore apart, although your death turned us upside down. although we spiralled in an uncontrollable, terrible way, although we tumbled down, we fell, and we shattered, into a thousand unfixable pieces, although we won’t ever find which way is up ever again, I would not change you for the world. Despite all it all, I would not undo your life, however short.

On this day, three years ago, I loved you, embryonic love that grew with you, cellular & pure, love so fierce, so strong and so unfaltering... I will love you always Zephyr, with that same true love. Thank you for being my son x