Despite My Broken Heart...

"I find it amusing. Men are supposed to be made out

of steel or something. I just sat there. I just held Shelby's hand.

There was no noise, no tremble, just peace. Oh God, I

realize as a woman how lucky I am. I was there

when that wonderful creature drifted into my life and

I was there when she drifted out. It was the most 

precious moment of my life."

M'Lynn~Steal Magnolias

I very seldom read books..I can read, I just don't care to. I like to listen to book on CD. When I say I am reading a book, it usually means I am listening to it. This time...I am reading a book in my hands called the Grieving Garden. I only read bits and pieces and then come back to it. The book is 22 different parents sharing their stories of grieving the loss of their child. It is the best book on the market I think to really hit the truth of how I feel. Mostly because they have have been where I am right now. I say it over and over but unless you have lost a child you cannot know the ins and outs of this process. I would like to share a portion of the book. I changed the name to Heather. These are not my words but they are my feelings to a T. Bill actually found this part and read them to me the other night and I cried. It was the exact same feelings in my heart put in a book...

Momy with Heather~2nd birthday~1989

Kathleen Weed from The Grieving Garden: "Although I haven't discovered a truth about life or death or grief that can somehow shift the universe back into place, I do know that if I could have selected from every child in all the world just one to be my daughter, I would have picked Heather. Even though she died before me, even though I suffer every day for the loss of her--no matter, I would choose her.  It is a profound truth; we the unluckiest of all parents, would not replace our children for other children who might have outlived us, nor would we choose that they had never lived.

Momy with Heather~Christmas 2004

Despite my broken heart, I believe, I know, it was good fortune that allowed me to love and be loved by this child. She died before me. So living without her is the price. So be it. I grieve for her every day. Some days are harder than others. Still, I would pay any price to have had Heather as my daughter. Remembering this helps me to feel less of a victim. It helps me balance light and dark.

Momy with Heather~Disneyland 2007

And when I acknowledge that I haven't been singled out for pain, I am more willing to embrace the world, just as it is. My grief mingles with the countless afflictions humans endure, and have endured before me. My loss is personal and irrevocable, but choosing to view it in a wider reality heartens me. Authorities on grief often rank death of a child as the greatest loss. But it seems true that pain is a condition of human existence, and loss shapes us all.

Queen Momy with Duchess Heather~Nov 2008

Nothing will ever fill the gap that Heather's death brought into my life. I am not looking for anything to fill it. Some say we are here to learn to love. Heather taught me more about love in her short time on this earth than I could have learned in a hundred lifetimes.Those of us who have lost children experience the ferocity of what it means to love--the ever-present depth of love--the whole of it. We are the parents who can say with certainty, " I would choose this child again. Again and again. Whatever the outcome".