Shores of Grief ~ 15 Years

15 years ago on April 7th we said goodbye to you beautiful Emersyn. Swimming in the ocean with the kids this week I felt closer to you. In the moments when the breeze hit softly I felt closer  to you. 15 years ago you died and time is no factor in loving and missing you. Losing a child is a different kind of loss. I still have an innate need to parent you by sharing you and your life with others. We are the keepers of your legacy and that is both an honour and the deepest sorrow my heart will ever carry.

Every family holiday we look like a family of four yet we feel like a family of five. As I watched Callum swimming in the ocean at ten years old I wondered just how you missed all of this. Isla the tween growing up so fast yet when she fell asleep on the bus ride to the resort from the airport brought me right back to when you were all babies. Although you have missed all of these years on earth we feel you have been here with us experiencing the nuanced moments that mean the most. It’s not the dinners at the beach but the way the kids hold my hand on our walk back from the beach that I feel most grateful for and connected to you. Cal will take my hand and proudly walk beside me. Isla will subtly lay her head on my shoulder and give me a side eye and laugh which means she still loves me. I weave words of then and now as that is how I’ve coped with and carried your death. Integrating you into my career, my friends, my gratitude for my family and simple things like writing your name in the sand on vacation. Every time we write your name in the sand I feel some peace. It is temporary much like the letters that wash away with the tide and carry your name back to the ocean. So much like the tides of grief that ebb and flow but are a deep part of who I am.

I love that the kids will just pick up a shell or a stick and start writing Emersyn so thoughtfully in the sand. When I need a walk by myself on the beach Dad knows why and when he does the same I get it. The weeks leading up to your angel date are typically harder than the actual day for us. This is the first yeat we have gone away during this time and nature has helped to bring us some comfort in the midst of  sorrow and feelings of angst. People will say I don’t know how you got through losing your child. I could never do that. The truth is you don’t get through it, you carry your child’s legacy everywhere and share it with those you feel a connection with. It is a deep soul exhaustion of love when you carry your child in your heart only. When people see you in me that is my greatest accomplishment just like the joy I feel when others see the magic in Isla and Callum.

I’m thankful for the beach this past week for helping me to carry the weight of grief. Thankful for the rhythm of the waves that soothed my soul, the sand that softened our strides, the beautiful monarch butterfly picture that we noticed at the perfect time, the schools of tropical fish, little curious birds, warm breezes that felt like hugs and much needed moments of laughter and love with the family. Life is not perfect, it is not meant to be. Most of life is hard but the love and hope we feel are gifts that keep us going. You found us like you always do, centered our perspective once again and made sure Mother Nature took care of us as the tides of grief came to shore. We love you Emersyn and miss you within the deepest parts of our hearts and we see you in all things in nature and in the kindness and compassion of others.

I love being your Mom xoxoxoxo

Pieces of You ~ Happy 15th Birthday Emersyn

How did we get to 15? It feels like yesterday I was driving home from lunch with your Dad on September 16th in 2008 waiting for labour to start. Waiting for the moment to meet you, my first child. I will always hold you in that moment in time when you were born on your due date and it felt like no other babies were born that day. Confidence soaring after you were born and I told your Dad to go home and sleep because you and I would be just fine. Almost impossible to get him to agree since he was drawn right in the moment he looked into your beautiful brown eyes. You were his girl and everyone knew it. I said I would protect you forever and that my job would be to make sure you would be ok in this world when I am gone one day. I failed at that not by choice but by genetics and I live with that everyday. SMA, I hate those letters but they never overshone the still evolving love and connection that we have with you. You are 15 and instead of thinking of all of the things that you have missed as I keep those little chapters unopened in my heart everyday, I must think about all of the people you have helped. People tell me when they are going through something really hard they think of you and feel stronger. This does not bring you back to me but it helps me to know that you live on in the good and  the hope in others. 

I picture Isla and Callum reading your blog one day and hopefully getting to know you even better. They talk about you with such ease and they miss you so much yet they never physically met you. This tells me kids need to be exposed to grief in its full journey because grief is love. They are 9 and 12 now and I am in awe of them and feel so lucky to get to know them as they grow up. As I marvel at them it aches to think what you would have done here on this earth. This morning we will head to our usual place to buy your fall planters, flowers for your vase and decorations for your spot at Glen Oaks. We will sing you happy birthday and say hello to the other babies in the Garden of Angels. Dad takes a walk at the cemetery and I need space to sit on your bench in front of your stone just you and I. This is our day the day you were born where I remember feeling sadness that you would no longer be safe within me and so elated to meet you.Tears are notes from the heart and as I sit here in our living room this morning writing this I see sunbeams hitting your picture and cry with both love and grief. Please don’t think this grief takes away from our love. My heart could burst with how much my love for you overflows.

My grief carries me now as much as I carry it. We know each other well. Instead of wishing grief would leave I have made a room for grief that is filled with all of the things I love and all of the comforts needed to catch me when fall. I invite others into that room who need comfort in their grief journey as a rest stop and when they leave they take a piece of you with them. I like to think that there are pieces of you in every human you have helped over the years like seeds growing and making this world better. You put people at ease and awe Emersyn and you inspire them to keep going and take care of others who need it most along the way.

Happy 15th birthday to my first born beautiful child Emersyn Paige. You lived and you live on in your family who will always carry your legacy and recognize the gifts you send at just the right time when we need it most.

With deepest love and gratitude,

Mom xoxo