Tag: grief

Posted on

Mother’s Day & Liam

The birth/death of Liam Andrew — my stillborn son who would have turned twenty-nine today — occurred three days before Mother’s Day. And my mother had passed away two years before that.

I still remember how the combination of shock, grief, and hormonal changes left me feeling completely dazed and confused as I negotiated those first days. And Mother’s Day cards had me reeling.

After all, I no longer had a mother and all of a sudden I wasn’t going to be a mother either. It was a very surreal time.

Twenty-nine years later the grief and the wounds have healed. But there’s always a few moments in the lead-up to Mother’s Day when I have to pause and reflect and give thanks for my mother and for the experience of being Liam’s mother for even a short while.

Posted on

A quarter of a century

Today I’m remembering being twenty-five years old and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I had been alive for a quarter of a century! It felt like such a milestone.

A quarter of a century…!

Well, twenty-five years ago today, I gave birth to a stillborn baby boy — Liam Andrew Brooks O’Donnell. And I find myself reflecting on the fact that, if he had lived, he would be the one trying to wrap his mind around having reached that milestone.

A quarter of a century…!

I’m also reflecting on the saying, “time heals”, which I have found to be true. It takes years and years, but the gut wrenching anguish does lessen and the apparently random breakdowns come less and less frequently. Life really does go on, despite your conviction that it couldn’t possibly.

True, there may always be a little something — a wistfulness, a hint of sadness — but a whole lot of other experiences — painful, joyful, and everything in-between — tend to pile up in twenty-five years of living. Until, in my experience at least, you can hardly remember who that person was that you were.

A quarter of a century…indeed!

Posted on

Wrung out

A day spent tackling complicated, bureaucratic-type projects; following up on performance commitments; grieving the loss of a dear member of the community; and manifesting a choral expression of our love for that friend.

A full day which has left me feeling equal parts good about what I accomplished and wrung out from all that I accomplished!

Duality.

Posted on

Unbreakable and whole

About a month ago a friend reached out to her larger community on Facebook, sharing her feelings of brokenness and grief, and asking for help. My heart went out to her and I felt to share a poem that meant a lot to me; a poem that resonated deeply many years ago when I was going through an extended period of profound loss. Just today I learned that it resonated for her as well, for which I am sooo grateful!

Now I’m feeling to share the poem here, in case there’s anyone else out there who needs the comfort it offers. I’ve been reading it for going on thirty years and it still teaches me and moves me to tears. And, thanks to the miracle of the internet, I was finally able to find out who wrote it! Her name is Rashani and she seems to be quite an amazing, inspiring woman.

The Unbroken
There is a broken-ness
Out of which comes the unbroken
A shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
And a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
Through which we pass with each loss
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open
to the place inside us
which is unbreakable and whole.
All the while learning to sing.
—Rashani