As I was getting ready today, a thought occurred to me, rare I know :). I was pondering the $500 someone stole out of my account (who know how), or the bad hair day I had, or the hand mold that broke, or the fact that I am having a girl and not a boy, and thought if only Daxton were alive I would be happy about all of these things and they wouldn't seem like that big of a deal, but they would because I wouldn't have the death of a child to put it all into perspective. These things in the long run, don't really matter...
Then I remembered that even when I had Daxton all of these things were a big deal. I didn't have anything to compare them to as far as "what could be worse." It was interesting to have this thought. I yelled at my kids, thought a clean house was number one on my list, ran errands like a crazy woman, and day to day things became monotonous before Daxton died.
Now that I am 3 months out I can see the changes in my life since Daxton's passing. I yell at my kids less, my house isn't always clean (but I have more time to do it) but it isn't number one, I don't run as many errands, and the day to day things are more precious to me. I have more compassion for those who are suffering from any trial or circumstance in their life. While I didn't consider myself less than compassionate, I now have a new understanding of grief, trials, growing, and increasing faith from life changing events or just the "average" trial in a person't life.
I admit that these things might have taken a lifetime for me to learn rather than in the passed 4 months. While this was not a welcome trial, I have sure learned so much from it. I still think that "if Daxton was alive, I would be so much more happy." Yes I might be, but I wouldn't know the sorrow of missing him and the pure love I have for him that he is gone. The unending sorrow would be taken away, but I would still find things to make me unhappy I am sure. I don't know if any of this makes sense. I have a hard time expressing myself sometimes.
Loves to all. I will be out of town until Sat afternoon, but will post when I get back. :)
12 comments:
It makes perfect since. I like to call those 'lost and found blessings.' Blessings, that aren't blessings, but are blessings. Amazing when we sit down and think about them.
Lots of love.
I hope you have fun on your trip!
So true! Thanks for sharing.
Just so you know, I do check in every now and again, even though I am not a blogger myself. Where are you going on vacation stranger? Miss you. Meg
Thank you for that post! I have been having some trials lately and it seems they are never ending! Then I read your post and I thought about it a lot! love and family is more omportant than temporal things. You are an inspiration!
Britt, thanks for your post. they are inspirational. Love you!
Britt,
It makes sense. They say oppostion in all things. You can't know true happiness unless you know sorrow. You don't appreciate being healthy until you're sick. I remember sitting on the plane to come home for my sister's funeral and hearing everyone complain about their lives and thinking how caught up we get in stuff that DOESN'T MATTER! Hope you have a good trip.
You and Doug are just the best! I'm grateful for all of your blogs. Know your precious family is often on my mind. Thanks for all your love!
Hi Britt, I just read your post and relate completely to every single word you said. I used to be a cleaning freak and I was always yelling I think, but I now know that life is just too precious. What an inspiring girl you are. You give me hope to know that things will get better over time. I bet Daxton and Jackson friends.
I'm coming out of lurking mode.
I have to say I read your blog for the simple inspirations that you offer.
I have three kids. They are my entire world. I'm so guilty of letting everyday things become routine, but after reading your blog I'm slapped into reality and am aware that each day is a gift. I do stop and listen to my kids more, snuggle my baby...and as hard as it is...I've even tried to let the small things go (a messy house)
I am so sorry for your loss, but please know you have many people praying for you and your family and little Daxton has touched the lives of strangers everywhere!
Sometimes it is so hard to take a trial, especially one as hard as you have had and turn it into a positive. I think sometimes, we have to do it day by day, but you have and that is such an inspiration to me. You are one of the most incredibly strong people I know. Thank you for the reminder!
I saw this & thought of you...(sorry it's a long one).
The Gap
Our daughter, Alexis, died 6 months ago, at the age of 9. A rare medical anomaly, in a heart-rending wrench of our innermost spirit, stole her from us in barely more than a moment. Recently, I was at the beach near our home with what remains of my soul - my son, Ethan. Our new puppy romped with us. Beautiful weather, fresh salt air, gentle clear water and sea lions barking in the distance. Perfect. Walking back, I saw a sharp, rusted metal rod and thought to get it out of the way. As I tossed it aside, it caught my thumb and cut me. Perfect. Every moment of peace we have, cuts. Everything that is, hones what is not.
The gap between those who have lost children and those who have not is profoundly difficult to bridge. No one, whose children are well and intact, can be expected to understand what parents who have lost children have absorbed, what they bear. Our daughter now comes to us through every blade of grass, every crack in the sidewalk, every bowl of breakfast cereal, every kid on a scooter. We seek contact with her atoms - her hairbrush, her toothbrush, her clothing. We reach for what was integrally woven into the fabric of our lives, now torn and shredded. What we had wanted, when she so suddenly took ill, was for her to be treated. We wanted her to be annoyed that her head had been shaved for surgery. We would have shaved ours and then watched her smile as we recovered together, whatever the nature of that recovery. Recover is no longer a part of our vocabulary. Now we simply walk through the noise and debris of our personal ground zero.
A black hole has been blown through our souls and, indeed, it often does not allow the light to escape. It is a difficult place. For us to enter there is to be cut deeply, and torn anew, each time we go there, by the jagged edges of our loss. Yet we return, again and again, for that is where she now resides. This will be so for years to come and it will change us, profoundly. At some point in the distant future, the edges of that hole will have tempered and softened but the empty space will remain - a life sentence. It is not unlike a dog who, suddenly hit by a car, survives. The impact is devastating and leaves the animal in shock, confusion and despair. In time the animal recovers adequately to spend the remainder of its life on three legs. It is not that he is unable, eventually, to function or even to laugh and play. The reality, however, is that, on three legs from here on, every step he takes, every action, virtually every breath reminds him of what he has lost. We are that animal.
Our community of friends will change through this. There is no avoiding it. We grieve for our daughter, in part, through talking about her and our feelings for having lost her. Some go there with us, others cannot and, through their denial add a further measure, however unwitting, to an already heavy burden. This was not a sprained ankle or major surgery that we suffered. Assuming that we may be feeling “better” 6 months later is simply “to not get it”. The excruciating and isolating reality that bereaved parents feel is hermetically sealed from the nature of any other human experience. Thus it is a trap - those whose compassion and insight we most need are those for whom we abhor the experience that would allow them that sensitivity and capacity. And, yet, somehow, there are those, each in their own fashion, who have found a way to reach us and stay, to our immeasurable comfort. They have understood, again each in their own way, that Alexis remains our daughter through our memory of her. Her memory is sustained through speaking about her and our feelings about her death. Deny this and you deny her life. Deny her life and you have no place in ours. That’s the equation. How different people have responded to our loss, or not, transcends a range of attitudes and personal histories. It is teaching us much about human capacity and experience, albeit at a searing price. Parents’ memories of a lost child sustain that life. It should be the other way around.
We recognize that we have removed to an emotional place where it is often very difficult to reach us. Our attempts to be normal are painful and the day to day carries a silent, screaming anguish that accompanies us, sometimes from moment to moment. Were we to give it it’s own voice we fear we would become truly unreachable and so we remain “strong” for a host of reasons even as the strength saps our energy and drains our will. Were we to act out our true feelings we would be impossible to be with. We resent having to act normal, yet we dare not do otherwise. People who understand this dynamic are our gold standard. Working our way through this over the years will change us as does every experience - and extreme experience changes one extremely. We know we will have actually managed to survive when, as we have read, it is no longer so painful to be normal. We do not know who we will be at that point nor who will still be with us.
There will come a time, quite some number of years down the road, when the balance between the desperate awareness of what we have lost when our daughter died will be somewhat balanced by the warm and joyful memories of what we had with her when she lived. I neither long for nor cringe from that time. It will simply come. We will recognize it - though now it is far beyond us.
So, yes, our beloved daughter is gone - a light in our lives gone out leaving blackness for us, left behind, to stumble through. And, while we understand and deeply feel the meaning of our phrase “Now we are lit by her only from within”, we hope, desperately, that she is wherever the light is. We are trying to understand what this means, as we seek our own way, for the remainder of our lives, to some kind of light. We love our son and are trying to breath.
We have read that the gap is so difficult that, often, bereaved parents must attempt to reach out to friends and relatives or risk losing them. This is our attempt. For those, untarnished by such events, who wish to know in some way what they, thankfully, do not know, read this. It may provide a window that is helpful for both sides of the gap.
This was written by Michael Crelinsten in 2002.
Brittney,
I'm a fellow "angle mother" My 2 1/2 year old was hit by a car on June 22. She was #9 child of nine. Truly a gift and a blessing. After #8 child I was told I couldn't have anymore children.4 1/2 yrs later along came Holly. We loved her and cherished her. We ache for her now. We know there is a plan, we just don't know the plan. I guess I probably agreed to this in the pre existance (I don't know what I was thinking) when I could see the "big picture". Thinking af the "big picture" is the only way I can get through most days.I can't go to "If Holly were still alive". It is much too painful, this should be our time together reading and playing, shopping or playing at the park.I was reading on Stephanies blog "alone time". That is me now. all the kids are at school, work or on a mission. I cry, pray, read the scriptures and try to make sense of each day. Life comes back when the kids start comming home and I can feel their sweet spirits. My heart goes out to you. I'm so happy you are having another baby. Perhaps she will help to fill some of the emptieness. I would like to have another, but my husband doesn't think we should. He says grand kids will be coming in 5 or 6 years. That seems so long away. Until I blog again or actually get a site set up for me. Jeanenne from sacramento area.
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