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Words

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

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

Captured Moments

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

Moments, captured, kept, protected.

I always liked taking pictures but didn’t really take many. About 10 months after Tapio died, I learned that taking pictures eases my anxiety, so this is one of my go to activities on those days. I go out and take photos intentionally when I need a relief and I take them randomly, almost instinctively when, the now familiar, pressure and fidgeting starts to build up.

I never really thought much about it, I always felt like I was just taking pictures of what catches my eye. I am focused on beauty, beauty the way I see it, the way it looks for me.

I started thinking about the captured moments a few days ago when a familiar voice called my name in a shopping center. I wasn’t there to socialize, I had no meeting planned and it is quite unusual that I run into people in the middle of the day like that. We work together and used to spend quite a bit of time together, she was having coffee with a mutual friend. Did I see the baby yet, was the question. I don’t go just “see” babies. It takes preparation, focus, breathing exercises… and I only saw one so far in the last two and a half years. Babies make me feel I need to run and take photographs or do something else that eases my anxiety. I know it is hard for people to understand and they feel it is personal, and it is, but personal for me.

I went and I saw my beautiful friend and her second baby after my son died. See, she is especially hard for me. She was one of the first people I told I was pregnant, she was jumping up and down of excitement when I told her and didn’t stop for several weeks until she was ready to tell me, she too was pregnant and how exciting she has been all this time looking forward to tell me her news. Months later, on her birthday, I found out my boy was no longer alive. She was away, our communication was poor. Our bond broke for many reasons, we tried for a while, me pretending she was not pregnant, she pretending she was not pregnant. She had her son, a beautiful, curly, sweet two year old now. I see her at work, we ended up working in the same team this fall. We don’t really talk much, but I couldn’t miss another growing life on her.

She is now a few months old and is beautiful, I saw her sleeping in the pram, I touched her soft skin. I didn’t freak out, anxiety did not consume me, I felt calm and composed and I did not feel the need to run. I have been in contact with this friend quite a bit lately, it is strange how life connects. She is moving to my hometown and I have offered to help her with information so we have been talking a bit, never about the babies though.

I was thinking about our meeting while I was taking pictures on the weekend. Am I captured in the moment, while her life has continued? It sure looks that way. Of course my life is moving, the children are growing, I am too, but I am also captured in the world where he is a part of, where he is. With all the beauty. My captured moments are my pictures of my boy. In the the sunset, glistening snow, calm water, sunlit forest, rainy day. The beauty in life’s moments.

With Love, Tina

Lesson 10: Healing is Private, Not Secret

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Healing is Private, Not Secret

I am pretty transparent about my healing journey yet there are parts of it I choose not to make public. Privacy is an important part of the healing process. Although I keep some details private, I no longer keep anything secret. Secrets harm. I kept secrets for a long time. I didn’t want to expose my fear, the poor choices I made in my pain, how much I blamed myself, and my deep, exhausting anger. My secrets undermined my healing for years. When I couldn’t shoulder the burden any longer I found the safest people in my life and told them all my secrets. When I was done my only regret was that I didn’t do it sooner. I could have saved myself so much unnecessary pain.

His ~Magic~

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

There are so many things that I don’t remember.

I don’t remember how it felt before grief took over; how relationships and life in general influenced my emotional and mental state then. Was I always happy and content? Was my mind not as occupied? I honestly don’t remember. It is probably more the idea of the life lived out that plays in my mind. It must have been different, better, happier… I mean, we had it all, nobody died yet.

I didn’t think I was ever going to reach this moment. When things would transform from the early grief days. But in a way, Now is all I know. Now is also where he exists and I don’t really remember my life before and without him in it. I remember it in chunks; the joys of two babies before him, how it felt like to grow a family, how joyful it was to anticipate again. In what I remember and keep, he has always been here. He is such a big part of my family and me, his presence always so prominent and real.

I am aware that in general, families don’t usually talk about babies that are no longer alive, that it is not a part of their conversation, but it is in our house and because he is such a big part, everyone that visits us goes home with a bit of our story, a sprinkle of his magic. His name is a beautiful melody that bounces from the walls in our home, the wish for his presence echoes everywhere, the love for this little boy is in every sentence spoken.

I wonder if it would be different, if love for him would be different if he was growing in front of my eyes. All I know is that Now and here, he is a part of every part of me, everything I do and everything I am and I wouldn’t want it any different. Still my heart, my arms and my whole being will always long to hold him.

With Love, Tina

Lesson 9: Healing is Not Betrayal

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Healing is Not Betrayal

In the beginning, my love for Aubrey and Ellie was reflected in my pain. All you had to do was take one look at my tear-covered face and it was clear how much those little girls meant to me. As I made progress in my healing something strange started to happen; healing felt like betrayal. Every time I laughed again or looked forward to the future, it felt like I was leaving them behind. I didn’t know how to love them and heal at the same time. I had to learn that my love for them is reflected in my healing more than it ever could be in my hurting. Healing didn’t mean letting go of them, it just meant letting go of the pain.

I Entered This World

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His brother was six. He had been asking for a sibling for more years than I could count. That year, I finally got to tell him I was pregnant. On New Year’s Eve, we had made a joke about no siblings that year and he had wept. He didn’t yet fully realize the year would be over in four hours.

In Memory of Gabriele Pio

I was under terrible stress. Medical examinations all the time, no answers, and I didn’t even realize I had no period when I should have. Then, out of a joke to my husband, I counted back and it came to me. I had an important delay. 

That pregnancy was like a wonderful dream come true. Unlike his brother, he wasn’t born preterm. I was overdue! My labour was amazing. Wonderful. Painless. I’ve always taken that as a gift for me. A goodbye present, maybe? Then, after a whole wonderful day labouring, I lay down for the doctors to check on the progress. His heartbeats went crazy, c-section, and I entered this world.

  • The world in which a wonderful day discloses into an endless night.
  • A world in which a six-year-old will be told his long wished sibling won’t go home to play with him.
  • A world in which people stop you on the street to ask about the birth and get what happened with a glance.
  • A world in which people insist on saying you have only one child, though you gave birth to two.
  • A world in which you have no heart to get into your house while the baby stroller is there, ready for a baby who won’t ever use it.

And I’ve coped with so many comments. Comments from people who never got near this world. Comments from people who never knew such a world could exist. And to this day, after five years, I still talk about him. He will always be my precious second born.

There are people who don’t want to hear about him. People who take it as a personal offence to the world (they live in) if I publish his photo on my social profile. People who get their maths wrong with how many kids I have. But there are also people who watch this world with due respect. People who say his name with no fear. People who don’t take it as a contagious disease if I speak about him.

He lives through me, my every breath, my every heartbeat. He lives through my words and my thoughts. He lives through his brother who is now eleven. He lives through his sister, born exactly three years after he was born. He lives through my laughter and my tears. And he always will. 

Guest Post by Ivone Soares, as part of the series ‘Share Your Story’.
Find out here how you can share your story.

Image: Handlettering and artwork by Nathalie Himmelrich

Lesson 8: Alcohol Stifles Healing

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Alcohol Stifles Healing

After Aubrey and Ellie died I felt for the first time the kind of pain that would make someone want to put a needle in their arm. Although I didn’t, I certainly found other ways to numb the hurt. One of those ways was to drink. Alcohol is highly effective at stifling pain, but it is also highly effective at stifling healing. For a time, I used alcohol to suppress the emotions that seemed to never let up. Becoming aware of the role alcohol was playing in my grief and the obstacle it had become to healing was a turning point. Now I rarely drink and when I do it is for completely different reasons. I still enjoy a glass of wine on occasion but I protect myself more than I used to. I have ways healthier ways to face my emotions now.

“Better”

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

The days are getting longer in the north where I am. Winter filled. Snow, ice, cold.

I feel I have been doing better, whatever better means. I take better with some reservation, because every day is still hard and painful. Better is hard making itself comfortable. Hard being the new adopted normal. I felt proud of myself about a year after he died that there was a day I didn’t cry. Then I felt guilty. Was the memory fading, was love fading? The questions that are always present somewhere and resurface every now and then. There is no weakness in feeling guilty, no weakness in questioning, no weakness in anxiety that is the source of both – guilt and questions. These feelings just exist, within. The further he is away the more harder becomes normal. I am not always sure if I am doing enough, if I talk about him enough, if I mention him enough, if I think about him enough. My life is so different from what I had pictured, before, during and after. I find it hard to find balance where I feel fine with how much/little I share about my boy, my family and myself. Is there too much or too little? I feel like a broken record sometimes, but the truth is, my truth, that I feel the same, I miss him, I love him, I long for him, for his hugs, his kisses, his voice, laughter. I miss him being a present part of our family, a play partner to his siblings, dad’s little helper, my sweet boy… all of it. That has not changed, that has not become better or worse. That is. My memories of his death, birth, him are changing, the little details transform as the time passes, not so detailed, a little bit blur, reshaped. This is where time and I will always have a conflict.

With Love, Tina

The Shadows

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

This morning I woke up with a scream that woke my husband. I couldn’t breathe. I got up and I found my spot in my daughter’s bed. It was not enough for me to feel her warmth or hear her breathing, I needed to hold her and I needed her to know I was there and react. I woke her up so she recognized I was there, she turned towards me and asked me if I came to hold her. Yes, that was why I was there.

I was also there because bad dreams have power, they play with my mind, a moment is enough. No matter how realistic or not, the fear is real and this fear was enough for me to go and check on my daughter’s breathing, her reaction if she was alive.

Early grief was constant controlling, checking, making sure… they are warm, they are breathing, they are alive. Holding hands, co-sleeping, never leaving.

With time, this changed for me… I don’t check many times at night anymore, once before I go to bed and I listen in if I am the first one up in the morning. I let go a bit. I let go of expectations, anticipation… with that, I got calmer and present. And as much as this makes my life quality way better it is always a shock when the wind hits the wall again. Like this morning, when she died in my dream and my breath was taken from me again.

No matter how much time I am living without one of my children, no matter how comfortable life seems to get, or how much calmer or happier I am, the hurricane of grief seems to be luring in the shadows.

It is evening where I am, I got through this hard day, let her very capable daycare teachers take care of my daughter, let her go to a birthday party of her best friend and held her, laughed with her and talked to her in the time between. And somehow survived the shadows of today.

With Love, Tina

The Love and Grief Conversations

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Image Credit: Tina’s personal archive

My daughter is 6. She loves babies. She talks a lot. She also talks a lot about her brother. The three listed are her favorites, talking about her baby brother. Many of our conversations end up talking about him and I love it. She is my buddy.

K: Mami, now that M (my sister) has had her baby, maybe S (my cousin) will have her baby.

T: S will not have a baby.

K: Why not, doesn’t she like babies?

T: She does, she loved you when you were a baby. She is now too old to have a baby. I am also too old to have a baby.

K: Why did she not have a baby before, when she was not too old? Don’t all girls have babies?

T: No, not all women have babies, some decide not to, some want to, but are unable.

K: I love babies, I would love to have babies, but I don’t want to.

T: What do you mean?

K: Well, I would want to have many babies, but I don’t want my tummy to hurt.

T: I promise that all the pain is forgotten in an instant once you hold your healthy baby. This is how it was for me when you and J were born.

K: What if something happens, what if it happens to me, the same as it was with Tapio, what if that happens?

T: I don’t know, I just hope this does not happen to you. I do not want this for you.

K: Mami, did everyone in the hospital know Tapio was the cutest and the tiniest baby?

T: Yes, they knew he was tiny. If he had the time to grow, he would not be so small.

K: Yes but he was, he is the sweetest baby.

T: Yes, he is.

K: I miss him, I wish he was here, alive.

T: I wish that too.

This is how it goes. So often. And my heart swells of pride, cracks of hurt and screams in pain, all at the same time. She doesn’t question the tears anymore, she knows why they come. I hope we never stop with these conversations.

With Love, Tina

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