My daughter in her Grief Girl mask. Her mask gives her as much solace and comfort as it does power. She takes it on and off, in need and when playing. It is a place for her, a place to create; a whole new person, a dance, images like this one. She has been grieving almost as long as I have, 3 days less. She was 4 when her life turned upside down, 4 when the mother she knew before no longer existed, 4 when the baby sibling she has been wanting for long no longer was.

We went to see the baby cemetery 3 days after he was born, we didn’t know anything about death in this country we live in. I got an address and a map upon release from the hospital. A piece of paper with an address that was not ours, with one that would forever be his. 

My son, then almost 7, thought it was strange that we were at a cemetery. My children have seen different cemeteries for different reasons and generally there was no reason he could think of why we would be there. “We don’t have anyone here”, he said. And we didn’t, not then, we were there for the purpose of a decision.

We reached the baby section, it was painfully perfect. I remember kneeling down and taking each of them into embrace when I told them about the brother they will never play with. My son moved away and my daughter cried. They both got their grief masks right there, right then. A grief mask in exchange for innocence.

We all wear them, the bereaved. Some more permanent then others, some lighter to wear, some hidden. Masks.

With Love, Tina

Sometimes I don’t have the words. They are heavy to form, heavy to come by, heavy to express. I feel like I am under water, trying to speak and undefined sounds come out. They don’t even form in my brain.

Grief has had this effect on me. Whenever my life becomes griefheavy, I shut down on some levels. When there is additional life messiness added on, my brain shuts down completely. I cannot really explain, but in a way it feels like I get the rest from overthinking and overworking my mind. It is the time when the heart takes over and does all the heavy lifting. No words, just feelings. The last few weeks have been intense in that respect, I did not know how to express what I was feeling because the words did not form.

My life is somehow balanced out a little again. Everything is falling back into place. The place that is my life now. The place of shuffling mind and heart. The place of multiple worlds existing in one. The place where I am him and he is me. The place of now.

I want to become more intentional in certain ways and work on my focus, try to find a way so these transitions are not so heavy. In many ways this is what time does for me. Time, moving further from the fresh grief, time that has passed since my boy was still kicking, time that has been 2 years and 7 months now. Time gives me the opportunity to try new approaches, to keep finding what works for me, to adopt new ideas, to develop myself, to grow, to add on, to share more of myself, to tackle each hard thing at a time.

As the load feels lighter than it has felt for the last few weeks I find myself relaxing into life again. The tension letting go a bit and the physical pain pulling back. And this is how it goes, every single time the heavy hits hard. New lessons learned. No fighting, just surrender and new experience made. This beautiful messy life.

With Love, Tina