not forgotten

what is it about infant death that makes it seem like some people go "oh, yeh, that's why are you said..."

when one loses a spouse or an older child, the void left is HUGE and irreplaceable of course. i wonder if people, not all, but most, don't think of tiny babies leaving so much of the same size void. is it because some of them never breathed here on earth, or some never left the hospital to their homes...some never got past the 20month gestation mark to be considered something different by the medical field, or maybe some died before the parents were able to know the gender....

somehow, these little lives seem forgotten so easily for some reason by so many...i don't know why though.....parent's who have lost children like this understand, but most that don't ever walk this path just forget. they think that in 4-5 months, you are suppose to be smiling and grateful and stop whining and crying all the damn time....folks like me start thinning out the masses who can't deal with the on going dilemma of uncomfortable grief.....oh, she is crying in church again, gosh-when will THAT stop some may think or like yesterday when we were doing the floors at amy/kenny's house and the guys took a rest at the end and grabbed some beers to relax and talk...i walked into a room with kenny holding his baby, amy's brother holding his and there was ian on the other couch holding his beer, it took my breath away and socked me in the stomach...no sydney in sight...ian's arms looked so empty to me...than i started crying..i turned quickly and tried to catch my breath, dry my eyes and "get it together" for the public's sake, but why...why did i act so embarrassed like that as a reflex.... amy caught me and asked me what was wrong...i told her, she said she was sorry that it hurt like that and she hugged me....but i suddenly felt like a total downer for "crashing" the joyful festivities with my "moment of weakness" and hurt....like i should have been past it all and not brought it up like that but i could NOT help it...it just comes when it comes....i don't have a valve with which to regulate the painful moments and the tears....it's like a dam that gets built over a couple days or weeks and then, something huge or even something very simple like 3 men sitting on a couch can break me into a mess....

i felt guilty and sad for taking attention away from the fun project we were working on and i honestly feared like people were looking at me (they weren't) like i was weird or overly dramatic or ugh- bringing up the "dead baby" stuff again..c'mon, alyssa. no one said any of this, but for some reason i felt it..."satan, have i told you lately that i hate you? you tell me lies and i believe them and feel so awful..." why do i hear lies over what i know is TRUTH....think on these things, think on these things...i need to memorize that verse...

amy is the only one of my friends, besides my immediate family, who met our daughter...held our baby girl and cried sweet tears over her body...she saw sydney's lips and smelled her skin, she cradled her in her arms and felt the weight, all almost 4 pounds of weight mind you, of syndey's body in her arms...she cried with me as we looked at my precious baby together, the weight of the grief was undeniable for amy to walk away from...sometimes, since no one saw our daughter, except for family and amy, i feel like for so many she never existed...that maybe if they had seen her sweet face, it would cement an image in their minds that she was REAL, she was HERE and she was AMAZINGLY whole and beautiful....

maybe that is why is it so important for me to share pictures when i can with others, why i pray for ian to let me share them with you soon, that i want everyone to know that our daughter was here and she was real and THAT IS WHY we grieve so damn hard because if you saw her, you would know you can't deny her...you would know what exactly we are missing each day....

even many of my sweet friends who have lost their little ones who didn't get to meet them face to face, may not have pictures, but they have ultrasounds and they have memories of kicks and feeling them inside them growing....

i wish our sydney wasn't so easy for some to forget about, that our current state of minds and circumstance were more understood by some and that people didn't have to go "oh yeh, that's why you are upset.." even if just with their body language, most don't even know they do it ....i read that grieving a loss will take at the minimum 2-4 years to get a grasp on...the sadness doesn't get better but the acute grief does....we are only in the 5 month....gosh, friends and family are gonna have to learn patience if they haven't already....and i am going to have to learn to be kinder to myself, less harsh with expectations in public and stop believing the lies satan tells me over and over....we have still have a long ways to go.....but i have to feed myself TRUTH and God's word so that i don't feel like this all the time....

i need to put down a disclaimer that this is not towards any one person and it doesn't even reflect just me but other women too that i know who struggle with grieving in public...it is just a general feeling that i sometimes get and no one should question that they have hurt me personally...this is not a passive aggressive attack on any single individual, just a rant of how i feel some days when i grieve in public. i have very supportive close friends and family, so please don't read too much into this any other way....