griffin’s story

 

day 14: the purpose of life

We published this quote in Griffin’s obituary, and it was read out at his memorial.  Author is unknown. 

On the days where my heart is heavy with the gravity of our loss, these words help me to remember that his impact on the world will probably be far greater than mine can ever be. 

There is some solace in that.

" The amount of time on earth matters very little: A man can live in greed and pride for 90 years and never find God, know him or accomplish His Plan. A baby born sleeping on the other hand, teaches people to love, brings people to the Lord, teaches us the tenuous nature of life and teaches us a faith that those who have not suffered loss can never know. A child not even breathing for an hour, can have an impact greater than a famous preacher. The purpose of life is not ours to decide nor in our hands: it is brought about by God." ~ Author Unknown~

day 13: trust.

Some days, this road is not so easy.

I hope there soon comes a day when I don’t cry a little (or a lot) when I hear of a new baby born breathing into this world.

I don’t begrudge anyone their perfect, healthy new babies, and I wouldn’t wish anything else for them, but it always reminds Craig and I of how unfair life is.

We tried to do everything right and we still lost.

Even still, my God is the still same as He was before August 8th, and He will be the same tomorrow.

But it’s not easy.

Daily, I have to put my trust in Him that He sees the bigger picture even when I can’t.

That He has our best interests at heart, even when my interest lies anywhere but here.

I know that His love for me has never wavered. I’ve felt that.  So I just keep returning to the fact that Heaven is waiting.  Griffin is waiting.

And my job now, is to be the best I can be. To make the most of every heartbeat I have left.  A better wife and mother.  A better friend.  Someone who gives more and complains less.

day 11: watercolor finger paint

 

As time moves on, I’ve been looking for ways to include Griffin in our daily lives.  For me, this means having photos of him in various rooms we frequent, as well as more subtle nods, like handmade art and inspiring phrases.

I found a recipe for finger paint in an old church cookbook, and decided to try it out with Emily.  This finger paint has laundry detergent in it, and even the most vibrant of colours seemed easy to wash off, probably because there’s already soap in it!  We did our painting in the bath tub, so I was also able to use the shower head to just rinse off the walls afterwards.  Also, this recipe seems to create a more watercolor look, so it might not work as well with stamping.

Easy Clean-Up Finger Paint

1 cup liquid detergent
1 cup flour
1 cup water
Food colouring

Mix the flour and water together until smooth, and then slowly stir in the liquid detergent.  You don’t want the soap to suds up.  It makes a big batch, so divide it up into smaller containers before adding food colouring.  You can also keep a pre-mixed batch in the fridge so that it’s easy to pull out small amounts and tint it as the need arises!

   I taped off my lovelies’ letters on a couple pieces of paper, and then let Emily go crazy painting on them however she wants.  I gave her a foam brush as well, which she seemed to prefer.  She didn’t really get the idea of finger painting at first (she touched the paint with her fingertip then immediately asked to wash her hands), but I dipped my fingers in and showed her how on the extra piece of paper and she jumped right in.

The paints QUICKLY became mixed and changed colour a bit, but we weren’t aiming for perfection!

We even did a little bit of painting on her tummy and arms, but I didn’t know how her skin would react to the detergent (we use the Ecos detergent from Costco, so it IS plant based) so we quickly moved on to the clean up stage.  I think Emily loved helping clean up more than she loved painting!

day 10: words to live by

I’ve been pinning all sorts of things since Griffin died, finding inspiration and hopeful words everywhere.

Here are a few of my favourites!

Source: dictoot.com via Jen on Pinterest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: sawdustcityllc.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: myhappilyeverafteragain.blogspot.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: jesustotheworld.tumblr.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: kellyadkins.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: positivelypositive.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: lightoverleiden.tumblr.com via Jen on Pinterest

day 9:

There was no denying Griffin’s time here on earth.

Not that we would ever want to, but there was no way that we could have avoided letting everyone in after losing him.  Everyone knew our pain and tried to walk alongside us.

And suddenly, everyone was sharing their story with us. Stories of miscarriage, of stillbirth.  The pain of losing and the hope of Heaven.  I’ve had people I’ve never met sending me emails and messages and sharing their story.  Sharing the life of their child.

I read somewhere that 1 in 4 women will lose a child before 1 year of age.  From conception to that first birthday cake, life steals one quarter of our children.

Do you know the 25% of your friends and family that have suffered a loss? Are you among them?

I didn’t know many of these stories before losing Griffin, and Craig and I have said again and again how sad we are for those people, because we know now.  The sharp pain of losing someone you love before really getting to know them. We know the harsh reality of giving up all expectations you have for a life.

Why do we build community, seeking connection, seeking to be known, but share only the good times?

Why are we so afraid to let people in when we’re hurting?  I can’t say I understand losing a child to miscarriage, but I do know the benefit of sharing the grief.  Of course there have been people who have said the wrong thing (telling someone who has lost a child they can/will have more children is NOT helpful), it is overshadowed by the kindness that has been poured out for us. We’ve been carried much of the way by our friends and family, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

8: time moves forward

It’s been 2 whole months. 

Since I carried him inside me.

Since I felt the first pangs of contractions.

Since we welcomed him wholeheartedly, though we were overwhelmed with grief.

People told me it could be difficult when people stopped asking about him, stopped coming around as time moved on.  As a mother, who is so so proud of the life she helped create and most afraid of that life being forgotten, it has been harder than I’d like to admit.

But time also makes things easier.  The way we miss him in the everyday and ache to share our life with him doesn’t seem to dim or change, but our broken hearts and the shock and pain of the sudden and unwanted separation is slowly being healed {by hands that have been broken themselves}.

I still have bad days. Bad hours.  I wonder on days like today what he would have been like, looked like.  We’d have added  a couple more dozen photos of him to the growing collection and spent time at the doctors getting his first shots. 

Instead we just remember him. Pray for him. Love him from afar.

And on a day that families gather with thankfulness on our minds, we are truly thankful to have had even a short glimpse at his life.

day 4: i’m the lucky one

I know it may seem strange to hear that coming from someone who lost their baby, but I do consider myself lucky.

Soon after Griffin was born, I will guiltily admit that one of my first thoughts was, “why couldn’t I have had a miscarriage – it would have been so much easier to handle if I had of never carried him this long and grown to love him so much”. 

But as much as there are some things about this that are probably harder (having to physically release Griffin from my arms after I saw him and fell in love with everything about him being the biggest one), I’ve come to see how so much of it can be counted blessing instead.

I got 40 weeks with him. And if time doesn’t matter as much as the impact we leave, he lived a great life.  I am so glad I got extra time with him, even if it made the loss harder because my love grew with each day that passed.

I’m also so thankful for all of the pictures we have of him, and all of the other little mementos we have.  My heart aches for those mourning babies they have never met, who may only have a positive pregnancy test to prove the heart that beat within them.

A life short-lived is not any less meaningful, but would soon be forgotten if those who witnessed it didn’t share the story.

 

*We’re going away camping this Thanksgiving weekend, and as much as I knew we were camping and knew I was blogging for 31 days straight, I forgot I couldn’t do both at once.  So I’ll catch up where I left off when I get back on Monday.  Sorry!*

day 3: brokenness

I wasn’t sure what to write today, but this story by Jill Briscoe always gives me comfort.

He put the lamb down in the long grass to rest.  I hadn’t noticed the bird in His lap.  It had a broken wing.
"There are so many things that are broken in this world.”  The Bird Maker took hold of the little creature and it fluttered and squawked and tried to escape.
“She will have to lie still if she wants Me to mend her,” He said.
"How silly the bird is,” I murmured.
He looked at me. Just once.  Then I knew I had been silly too.
"If I lie still in Your hands and stop squawking, will you heal my broken wing?” I whispered, not daring to look at Him.
There was silence. Then, “Will you lie still in My hands whether I heal you or not?” He asked me very gently.
"I’ll try to,” I said after a long pause.
Then, “Come here, little girl,” He said, and I don’t know how it happened, but I was in His arms feeling the beat of His broken heart.  I understood at last.  Only someone with a broken heart would want to mend broken legs and wings.

I’ve cried out to God many times the past two months.  My pleas haven’t always been filled with faith and trust.

Heal him.
Make this all a bad dream.
Why did You let me get pregnant if You knew he would never make it? {*see below}
Please let me see what the point of all this is!
Why my baby?
Why me?

But through all of this, I have continually had the reassurance – a nudging in my soul – that we are so, so cared for. That even though we aren’t living the life we wanted, God has been pouring out His love on us, even if I can’t see it all yet.

I think sometimes, we pray for God’s protection over us, and when something bad happens we say, “Why weren’t you there?”.  But we forget. About all of the days when nothing bad happened.  We feel so deep in our pain, so alone, that we don’t look outward to see how much worse it could have been. 

Losing Griffin was by far, the hardest road I am {still} walking, but I think it could have been much worse.  God has kept away any depression.  Our marriage is strong{er}.  He has surrounded us with friends and family who continue to comfort and walk beside us.  He took Griffin to the most beautiful place imaginable, to wait for us.  He will never feel pain, never cry a tear, and as a mother there is some comfort in that, even though I would rather it be wiping those tears and kissing those scraped knees.

Regardless, God is asking me {all of us} to trust that He has everything in His control.  He is gathering up all of the broken pieces, and only He can make something beautiful out of them.

Until then. I need to wait on Him.

 

*Maybe someone much wiser than I am can give me some answers on this.  Did God know before we ever conceived that Griffin wouldn’t make it? Why would He ever do that?  Or did He see something shift along the way and know it was coming?  Or was He as surprised as we were when something happened inside to make Griffin’s heart stop beating? Does He weep over the ways our broken, flawed world changes His perfect plans?

day 2: the goodbye

Last night, I tried to sit down a create some sort of schedule for the next 30 days.  What I would talk about, things I needed to share, etc.  And I couldn’t do it.  Apparently, this series is going to follow the same jumbled, all-over-the-place, pattern my mind and life has been following lately.

So today, I’m going back. Back to what was most likely the hardest thing I will ever have to experience while on this earth.

Saying Goodbye.

"There are no good-byes, where ever you'll be, you'll be in my heart." – Ghandi

Goodbyes are never easy.  Whether you’re parting ways with a spouse for the day, dropping a child off at camp (or at university), or even saying good bye to a person you used to be, it always requires steeling yourself a little bit. The goodbyes get harder though, when they’re going away for a longer while or when you know there’s a chance you won’t be seeing them again.

And when you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you will never see that person again, that all of those expectations of the future you had built up will never be met, it’s difficult to let go.

Every second you spend with them is a second that the pain of separation is held off, but in your heart you know it’s coming.  You fear it’s coming.   Even though you want to make the most of the time you have, it’s hard not to let your thoughts be consumed by your anxieties about that moment when you must release them from your arms.

There is obviously something very wrong with handing your son over to someone, knowing they will never return to your arms, never live the life you had dreamed for them. 

I remember that time. I can run the entire night over in my head, but one of the feelings I remember the most is the desperation I felt when we were getting ready to leave the hospital.  We knew, from the second he was born up into my arms, that there would come a time that we would have to leave him, even though every instinct we have in us as parents rebelled against it. 

No parent will ever say “I had enough time”.  It doesn’t matter if you lose a baby at 8 weeks gestation, or you lose them at a year old, you will always feel robbed.  Focussing on the time you DID have with them, the blessing of even carrying and loving a child, can help ease the pain some, but you will never willingly accept the fact that you had to say goodbye.

You have allowed me to suffer much hardship,
but you will restore me to life again
and lift me up from the depths of the earth.
You will restore me to even greater honour
and comfort me once again.
Psalm 71:20-21

Our last photo (although we said our goodbyes a couple of hours later after just cuddling and loving on him some more).

 

Go check out the other 31 Day links!

31 days: the in-between

40 weeks I carried him.

40 weeks.  Of dreams.

Of expectations.

Of taking it for granted.

Of naive belief that we were guaranteed a happy ending.

The first 12 or so weeks of pregnancy, we’re all told that we should wait to share our news because of the risk of miscarriage (although few of us wait that long), but despite that, we start making plans, buying tiny new clothes, and get excited about the pregnancy and the possibility of new life.

Once we’ve passed through that first trimester, we think we’re in the clear so we start making bigger plans: picking names, planning a nursery, and telling your employer you’ll be off on maternity leave. It’s not just a new pregnancy you’re excited about now. It’s the unique little boy or girl that is growing inside of you that reminds you of their presence with kicks and rolls and the occasional hiccup.

And at the end? A beautiful baby that will keep you up at night,

But not always.

I didn’t have a miscarriage. I lost a full term, perfectly developed little boy who’s heart just stopped beating and we don’t (yet) know why. We made it past the first trimester and the 28 week ‘viability’ point, a point where anyone would feel safe enough to start to practically prepare for the baby: painting a nursery, stocking up on diapers, folding sweet little sleepers. We came home that night and had to look at an empty bassinet by our bed, a silent swing in our living room, and a lovingly prepared nursery at the end of the hall that was empty of joy.

We also didn’t lose a child after they had worked their way into every moment of our every day lives – we lost him without ever really getting to know him (although I feel like I know him very well just by his ‘personality’ while inside me). We’ve settled back into the day to day life that we’ve lived from the moment Emily came home and it was just the 3 of us, and that leaves me feeling unsettled much of the time - looking for ways to keep Griffin included in our lives, even though our time with him was short and our memories too few.

Does that all make sense? I mentioned in my intro post that one of the things that losing Griffin has brought into my life is a feeling of isolation that I can’t shake some days. In many ways, the isolation is self-induced because I have the bad habit of comparing myself to others, and wondering if I’m grieving in the right way or if my daily activities should look different than they do.  It’s not that experiencing a full term stillbirth is easier or harder than either of those other experiences, it just leaves me walking the gap between those more ‘normal’ experiences, and in a place where there aren’t many answers as to how you should feel and when things will be ‘normal’.

No one really can tell you how YOU should be feeling, or when you’ll be ready to try again. And no one should.

But maybe if I write about my experience and how I am navigating everything it will validate someone else’s experience and help them feel normal.

31 days

I’ve been trying for about a week to come up with a topic to blog about for 30 straight days without repeating myself or boring the heck out of everyone.  I wanted to participate last year too, but had the same problem.  What do I know enough about to come up with that much original material?

And then it hit me. Lately, I've been feeling really isolated because I’m walking this journey that (thankfully) not many will have to walk.  Or at least if feels that way, though I’m sure there are many parents out there feeling the same way after losing a child. 

So maybe - if I blog each day about how I’m feeling and where I’m finding healing - maybe just one person may stumble upon it one day and feel less alone.

Later today I’ll post a little more about why this experience is so isolating for me (despite an outpouring of love and support from family and friends, near and far) and it will be focussed on stillbirth, but for the rest of the month, I hope those who have said goodbye to a child at any stage will find comfort and inspiration.

day 1: the in-between
day 2: the goodbye
day 3: brokenness
day 4: I’m the lucky one
day 8: time moves forward
day 9: the need for community
day 10: words to live by
day 11: watercolor finger paints (making memorial art)