My Dark Period...

I found this image (below) and it speaks so strongly to my heart.  I see myself as this woman, holding an image of a child she has lost.  This is all she has to hold onto...This is all I have left to hold onto.  

February is almost upon us.  My body starts to react to this upcoming period in my life, Maddux's birth and death, around mid January.  And, this overwhelming sense of dread and grief will not leave me until early March.  I was talking to my friend Ali, a few weeks ago, I called her crying, all depressed (she said she was talking me off the ledge...) and I really didn't realize what was going on. What was happening to me...I cried?  She calls this my 'Dark Period.' She could not have said it better. 

I feel so empty inside, void of any feeling except grief.  If I didn't have drive and pick up the kids from school, I could probably spend the entire day in bed.  Honestly, sometimes I do.    

I write this for you, the bereaved parent.  The parent that walks in my same shoes.  I will have my up days, but then, there will be days or weeks, when I am at the deepest, most darkest spot of 'the pit.'  You will be too.  And what can we do about it?  Nothing.  Hope that we surrounded ourselves with people who understand what we are feeling.  People who care about us, people who don't just want to wait at the top of the pit for us to emerge, but people who will jump in with us, and help us climb out.  I sit here in tears, writing this knowing there is really nothing anybody can do to help me out of this darkness.  I know I will see the light again, I know it!  I will live with this pain for the rest of my life.  Sometimes I wish I had never known this pain, but not knowing or feeling this pain, would mean that I never would have known or loved Maddux.   Remembering can be painful, but forgetting would be unimaginable.  Are there days when I want to forget?  Have the life that I used to have back, before Maddux?  Ask me that question in a month and I will say no, ask me now, and I might say yes...and that brings me to a whole new set of tears.  

I wish I was planning a little 4year old boys birthday party. 

I could go back and forth, telling you about my pain, but at the same time, how grateful I am for the people in my life right now.  How grateful I am that I feel this pain...how I wish I didn't feel this pain.  There is no happy medium.  And I know I will probably not make much sense to most of you, but for some of you, you know exactly what I am saying...

Man, my week has sucked!

A child that loses his parents is called an orphan.

A man that loses his wife is called a widower.

A woman that loses her husband is called a widow.

What do you call a parent that loses a child?

Coming up blank? 

There is no name for a parent that loses a child,

because there is no word to describe this pain.