How easy it for those who have been richly
blessed to cast a critical eye upon
my grief and say, "Count your blessings."
Dear Well Meaning Person,
Please do not tell me you understand if you have not walked this bumpy, pock-marked road that I must navigate. My faith journey has brought me here and that is that.
And yes...I AM GRATEFUL FOR MY STEPSONS! They mean the world to me and I would give my life for them. But they are not responsible for alleviating the grief and pain I experience as a result of 3 miscarriages. Grieving those losses does not mean I don't every day thank God for the gift of M and G in my life. I cherish every second I have with them the same way I would have cherished any of my 3 babies I carried in my womb, had they lived.
Please, unless I ask you for it, please keep your advice, warnings, and suggestions to yourself. Just "relaxing" won't fix my problems and allow me to magically get pregnant and give birth sans any problems. And I already know about the "adoption option." Truly, I am not ignorant. And some days I am incredibly sad, this does not mean I think my whole life sucks, so stop telling me to find the silver lining. If you have lost a child or experienced a pregnancy loss, you would not say such things and further shred the already fragile, torn apart heart of a grieving mother. And yes, I'm old enough to know that death is a part of life. I don't need to hear your cliches and you don't have the magical words to make me snap out it. And despite what you may see or think you see, I don't need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get on with it.
This isn't some silly, arbitrary, no-biggie type of thing.
3 of my children are dead!
That will always be with me. Some days it is huge. Some days not so much. But it will never leave me and I will never forget and pretending like it doesn't hurt so you don't have to be uncomfortable around me will only make matters worse.
If it is okay by you, I would like to just be me. I would like to be Jenny with all the good and bad that entails. Today I grieve, tomorrow I may be fine. Now I'm in a time of darkness, but for the next few days or weeks I may be all sunshine and giggles. I do sometimes have a respite from my pain.
If you can't handle me when I'm down, I can respect that. But then...I don't need fair weathered friends either. Love me or don't. Your choice. But don't place your expectations upon me then feel gipped when I don't take your pontificating advice.
You be who you are, the mother of a beautiful child, and I will be who I am - jenjen, Super stepmom...and mom to 3 angel babies who are never forgotten and never far from my heart.
Jenny
Super Stepmom
Dear Jenny SS:
ReplyDeleteThanks for this letter! This is exactly how I feel sometimes. Why can't people just read our minds? Sometimes it's hard to give people grace & I know that others just haven't had the taste of grief to know what to say or what not too. I count my blessings too {3 living children}, but they will never erase the hole in my heart that only my Olivia in heaven can fill. I hope that as my grief wears on, people can continue to love me for me as well, the good, the bad & the ugly.