James: Grief, The Bully

James writes on his own blog www.fathersgrief.com following the stillbirth of his son Ethan on New Year's Day 2012. Father's Grief is a beautiful, poignant blog that documents the journey of a bereaved parent following the death of a much-wanted child.

Not being content with taking your child, Death leaves behind grief to bully the bereaved. He continually marvels at the crown of sorrow and despair that he fashioned and exchanged for your child; this crown is grief.

Like all bullies, grief has a weakness. Death arrogantly assumes that bereaved parents will continue to wear his crown and suffer grief for the rest of their days. Bullies hate it when their victim doesn't react to provocation and they eventually give up.

Personally, I lost patience with grief some months ago whilst struggling through its stages. I gradually recognised which triggers I found particularly upsetting; many events that once triggered sorrowful regret no longer upset me.

New born baby boys will always remind me that Ethan died. We continue to hoard the baby clothes that our two eldest sons wore. The sight of these clothes that should have been Ethan's remind me that the only clothes he wore became his shroud.  I continue to recognise and acknowledge such triggers, though they now spark acceptance rather than despair.

I remain continually surprised at grief’s inventiveness as it attempts to embrace in the most unlikely of places, in a bid to reopen the wounds which he inflicted. One of grief’s sporadic appearances came on a Glasgow bus that I take daily, without incident; perhaps that is why grief decided to use this vehicle to creep up. A woman entered the bus. She was holding an empty baby car seat.

There was a time that I couldn't have coped with the sight of a vacant baby car seat, let alone have one placed beside me. I would have regarded this as a personal assault on my fragile emotions. I would have thought the woman was using the car seat to a remind me that Ethan did not leave the hospital in the family car; he only ever rode around the streets of Glasgow in a hearse.

However, on this day, I recognised the situation for what it was. A woman simply got on the bus with a car seat; it was not my business to know why.

Despite this personal victory, the war against grief is never truly won. Several victories can be recorded, but the inventiveness of grief is immeasurable. Like most bullies who have been vanquished, the fear of its return to reopen healed wounds can continue to haunt the bereaved.

Moving through the various stages of grief, triggers that instil sorrow can be recognised and conquered.  Eventually the bereaved begin to recognise grief’s continual mocking and choose their own path. When this happens, grief eventually fades to a scar that is bearable and can be worn with a quiet determination - a determination that a life can be rebuilt after the loss of a child. You never forget your child, you never stop loving them, but you learn to accept that they are no longer with you until you meet again.

Claire: Guilt

Yesterday I sat and chatted with a dear family friend who suffered the loss of twins more than 45 years ago. As we chatted about our losses, it occurred to me that parents of lost babies suffer from a huge amount of guilt.

We both talked about how we had, at times, questioned whether something we had done had caused the death of our babies. She told me that the day before she had given birth to her twins she had stood on a low stool while her husband pinned up a maternity dress in readiness for alteration. After her babies had died a week later, and despite not even falling or stumbling off the stool a week prior, she had wondered whether this action could have led to their premature birth. I was saddened to see her eyes well with tears as she recalled her losses all these years on.

I remember accepting gifts for my Laura before she was born and irrationally wondered after she died had I jinxed her by doing so. The weeks after she died as we packed away all the baby clothes we had prepared for her, I wondered whether we had been too sure that she would have been fine, whether we had somehow been overconfident of her arrival. Ultimately, I wondered whether, in some way, I had let her down.

My daughter Laura was born with a congenital defect that would have been caused in around week 5 of pregnancy, in all likelihood before I even knew I was pregnant. I’m not a smoker, not a heavy drinker or drug user. I eat well and am pretty healthy and I’m in a good strong and happy relationship. I’ve been assured that nothing I could have done or not done could have influenced how this defect formed. Medical professionals still don’t know why this anomaly (present in approximately 1 in every 3500 babies) happens. Yet, still I wonder whether it was something I did wrong.

We torture ourselves with guilt, possibly because we care so much about our responsibility at becoming parents. Being an older mum, I worried a lot. I worried from before I did the pregnancy test. I worried through all the horrendous sickness. I worried right up to the 12 week scan. I worried all the way through the 20 week anomaly scan (and afterwards) and right up until my daughter was found to be breech. I worried about having a C section, I worried about everything, but in the end all my worrying could not alter what eventually happened to my beautiful little baby, who died aged 2 days old on the operating table during surgery to correct her oesophageal atresia.

My husband is thankfully a very rational, practical and positive man. Without his reassurance I am sure I could easily descend into a pit of guilt, which is such an unhealthy emotion. When I begin to head down that road again he pulls me up (sometimes harshly), and reminds me that “it just happened”. I guess this is part of acceptance. I truly struggle with accepting that Laura is gone, but I have to admit that it is true. The best thing that I can do for Laura now is to talk about her as my much loved daughter and keep her memory alive.

Dr Joanne Cacciatore: Bereaved Mothers: The hardest job of all

With Mother's Day on 10th March (UK) just past us, Dr Joanne Cacciatore of the Centre for Loss and Trauma has kindly allowed us to publish the following post from her blog, which was written just prior to Mother's Day 2012. Thank you Joanne for allowing us to publish such a beautiful post. I am sure it is one with which many bereaved parents will identify. We hope you all had a peaceful and gentle Mother's Day.

It's almost Mother's Day of 2012.

A day for mothers. Tall mothers, short mothers, dark-skinned mothers, fair-skinned mothers, funny mothers, serious mothers, mothers with blonde hair and dark hair, curly and straight. Mothers who are emotional and nurturing and mothers who are an Aurelian-brand of stoic.

Mothers of living children and mothers of dead children.

There is nothing more painful in this world than facing day after endless day without your child in it. What could possibly be harder? Everything is changed- colors, textures, sounds, feelings. Us. We are changed.

Bereaved mothers look into the mirror and face a stranger. Who is this woman now? This woman without her child? How will she make it through this day, this hour, this moment?

The truth about being a bereaved mother is that it is exhausting. We cry until our tears become leather. Night after night, we beg God or Jehovah or Yahweh or Allah or Mother Earth for just one more day with our children. We cannot find our keys or our toothbrush or our parked car or our hearts. We strive to uncover the "why" but there are no good answers to those countless questions which taunt us and eventually collect webs in the backs of our minds.

And bereaved motherhood comes with many more sleepless nights than one could imagine as our arms burn to hold our children, our eyes cry out to see them, our ears mislead us toward voices which do not exist, and our legs carry us, repeatedly, toward their empty, lonely rooms.

No, being a mother to a child who died is no easy burden. It is the hardest job of all.

Our lives are a unique juxtaposition between two worlds, life and death and between two states of being: incredible, immeasurable sadness balanced against the will and pressure to live again and find joy.

It is a world where we often have to defend the dignity of our dead, protect their memory, and advocate for our right to feel…

It is a world where we go to bed at night secretly wishing we wouldn't awaken. It is a world where primal mourning takes over our bodies and our hearts feel as if they've been systematically excavated leaving a gaping, open wound in our core. It is a world where we are judged for our tears, and where we fear for the lives of those we love with an unfamiliar panic. It is a world of searching and yearning and pining for far longer than the world would allow, and incessantly seeking reminders of our children in the eyes of other children for a glimpse into what-should-have-been.

It's a wretched and indescribable longing which so many cannot begin to comprehend because they tuck their own children into bed at night, and they hug all their children on Mother's Day, and they are utterly, thankfully ignorant of this experience.

Nothing quenches the longing in our hearts for our children who died. Nothing. And this is how it should be. The place in our hearts- the one which belongs to our beloved child- is theirs and theirs alone. Our duty is to honor that place, to keep it free from detritus and from absorbing the hate of the world.  Our duty is to remember them so their place in our lives is one of beauty, a beauty beyond the material.

Our duty is to love them boldly, wildly, with every part of our being, and to carry their spirit into the world.

This Sunday is a day for mothers. All mothers. So please, this year, remember that bereaved mothers are part of the Mother's Day club.  Please, reach out to one or two and see their child, always loved, always missed.

They have a much harder job than the mothers who do homework, and dishes, and driving, and all-nighters, and cleaning, and laundry, and cooking- and one which will last until they take their final breath on earth. Perhaps, they are, as mothers go, the most important and hardest working of all.

Your name is upon my lips

your image is in my eye;

the memory of you is in my heart...

-Rumi

This post is dedicated to the many brave and tireless mothers and families of the MISS Foundation I know, admire, and love. Happy and Gentle Mother's Day from my heart to yours.

Steven: The Mask

My little princess, Mia Rose Greenall, was born on 4th June 2012 via caesarean section due to a huge placental abruption. She was born terribly ill because of this and we had to say goodbye to her the following day. This short piece is about how I deal with day to day life since my life was shattered. I have my own blog where I talk about all of my experiences and feelings, please visit and share it:

Mia's Memory: A Dad's View

When I returned home from the hospital the day after saying goodbye to Mia, I was surprised to see something at the side of my bed. It wasn't there when I left 2 days before and I wasn't completely sure what it was for. I left it where it was for a while, still unsure if I should use it or not.

I finally decided to use it when I went back to work, this was a month after we said goodbye to Mia. I put it over my head and there it was, it was a mask that had been left by my bed. Only you can't see it when its on.

It's not easy wearing the mask, it takes a lot of effort but it protects me from the outside world, I feel safe when I've got it on. I put it on when I leave the house and keep it on until I return back home, it's not safe to take it off anywhere else. The mask is making every effort to free itself from my head, but I can't let it go. Its keeping my feelings in check, the world isn't ready to hear my feelings face to face yet, and I don't think I'm ready to share them yet.

The mask does have a weakness though. It doesn't cover my eyes. If I drop my guard for a second at all and you manage to make eye contact, you'll see. You'll see the pain, deep in my eyes. You'll be able to see how deep it goes, deep into my core, you'll see that there's something missing inside me. You'll see that there's a piece of my heart that's gone, my precious little Mia took it with her. I don't begrudge her that, she needs a piece of her daddy with her. This explains the emptiness I feel, but it also means that I'll feel the emptiness forever. The emptiness will only disappear when we meet again.

Until that day Mia, look after that piece of my heart, because I do want it back. But I know when I get it back, I get you back. So just remember this princess, your daddy loves you very much and is so proud of you so until we meet again, look down on us all and keep us all safe.