All posts tagged: grief

Blizzard :: Blogging

Published by BleuBird Mama

You should see the blizzard conditions outside the windows of this old farmhouse. Fields and fields of white! It’s a pretty impressive whiteout right now. Well, maybe you’re like me, cozied up in a nordic knit with a side of bacon and a hot drink. (Don’t add too much rum to it, now? 😉 I have some time to think and to write. Unlike recently. I can’t remember when I last posted something. To be honest – which I assume is what you expect as the reader of a blog – I’ve hit a whole new level of grief. The truth is – which you can’t relate to unless you’ve experienced some level of grief in your life – I’ve been locked up in my own fears and doubts and anger. I’ve been trapped in my fear of the next worst possible scenario, trapped in my doubt that God isn’t compassionate, trapped in my anger that Heidi isn’t here. That’s the gist of it. There’s a whole lot more ugly, but I’m sparing you and …

Tomorrow :: Hope

Published by BleuBird Mama

Here I sit late at night, when I should be in bed, by the native pine that’s now drooping with the weight of homemade, wooden and yarn ornaments of memories from the past four Christmases. In the dim light of the twinkling tree I hear the quiet of the countryside and the chimes from the wind blowing by. And I’m thinking about “2016”, “Happy New Year, ” and “Hope for Tomorrow”…. You may say, “2014 was horrible because your daughter died. But 2015 was beautiful because your second daughter lived.” And then you might wonder, “So aren’t you happy about the future?” It’s difficult to explain, and if you’ve never lost like I have, you just won’t understand. But try to understand, just a little. We who suffer every day the devastating truth that our loved one is gone and is not coming back to us here look on to the future in a very different light. We are hopeful yet burdened, we are grateful yet bitter, we are healing yet wounded, we are blooming …

Giving: Gifts for the Grieving

Published by BleuBird Mama

My love language is certainly gift giving; I find much joy in receiving a simple well intentioned gift from a loved one, and I thrill in thinking up what sorts of gifts to give someone for any occasion. Naturally, it meant a great deal to receive meaningful gifts our first Christmas without our daughter Heidi. Since she was born in November and we had anticipated sharing those nostalgic winter holidays with her, we barely made it through the season. But many friends, and others we don’t even know, reached out to us with presents for our pain. We’ve decided to use Heidi’s stocking to fill each Christmas with gifts for those we know are suffering. Since we’re in the midst of the twelve days of Christmas, here’s a list of twelve gift ideas for the grieving: I received a crocheted purple prayer shawl, which I loved curling up with while reading and contemplating on those dark somber winter days. Obviously I love to read and a childhood friend saw that I was pinning many books …

Sunset: Intuitive Art

Published by BleuBird Mama

This evening we were cruising along the country hill roads to a friend’s house for dinner, and I sat in the back with Everley since we didn’t bring her apnea monitor (for longer drives we feel safer keeping her hooked up if she’s slumped or sleeping in the carseat). As the sun was setting behind those blue hued mountains, the low clouds had that slight mauve, lavender gray shade, which always makes me think of my Heidi girl. Her nursery was a woodsy lavender theme (see here: Sneak Peek: Nursery Picks). While staring at the clouds, thinking of Heidi and how much I miss her, I felt a tightening grip on my finger; my girl Everley had taken hold of my finger and would not let go. I suddenly had a flashback to holding Heidi in my arms and feeling her firm grasp of my shirt while nursing, and then I remembered a powerful moment after she was gone of staring at those same mountains with those same clouds and hearing in my mind as if …

First Birthday: a Letter

Published by BleuBird Mama

Dear Heidi, This day last year I was nursing you, snuggling you, praying over you, smelling you, kissing you. It’s hard to believe an entire year has passed in between that moment and now. An entire year of not being with you. 361 days without you in my arms. I miss you, Heidi girl. You know what? Your arrival into this world was just so crazy! You totally caught me by surprise, girlfriend. You’d been a bun in the oven for 38 weeks, and I thought we still had some bake time left. But, nope, you up and decided that since mom had too many brownies on Halloween the caffeine would help you out on the descent. And sure enough did you descend! I knew my body was in the process of preparing to bring you into the world, but I didn’t know you’d come flying. Do you remember that? The truth is, we here on Earth don’t remember those kinds of things, but somehow I suspect that you understand or know a lot of …