Two Mothers, One Journey: Closer To Christmas

Monday, November 28, 2011

Closer To Christmas

Well another day, closer to Christmas. Finding it hard to get the Christmas spirit. Bogged down by all the things I have'nt done that I need to. I realized that the year is almost over. I will be bringing in 2007 in a little over a week. Then I realized that this year was all about you. I found out you were coming at the first of the year and then spent the rest of year preparing and waiting on you. Then you came in September and we lost you in November. 2006 The Year of Nay. One short year I gave you. One year you got.

In ten years or twenty years will this still be for me what it is today? I feel like by ending this year I am putting you away somehow. Like you will be less real. Like the chapter of the book is closed. I know that logically it makes no sense but by ending 2006 it is like I am ending you. I only had one year for you. Kinsley has had three years for her, and Kirsten ten. You got one. You came and left in the same year. I guess that is it. It fell just so perfectly that you never overlapped. We got pregnant at the first of the year. We lost you by the end. Makes it seem very small.

And what should my resolutions be? Not to have another baby die in 2007? Lose weight? Stop smoking? Kind of pointless right? I suppose I will resolve to savor those moments that are okay and savor those that aren't either. I guess I will resolve to stay connected to you throughout the year. To not get back on that busy track that my life was. I will resolve to not let your name die with you. To make sure that your sisters know you were real and perfect and a part of our family. To survive this with your Daddy. To be a better person for having known you.

I love you Naylen. I ache for you. The moments of peace seem few and far between. I don't know how move forward and I am reasonably sure that I don't want to. I don't know where to put this in my life or where to put you. All I know is that I feel so broken and hurt. What I wouldn't give....Pointless though. The what if's.
You are my baby girl, always. The child I didn't love enough, the child I lost, the child I struggled to have. The child I wish I had saved. I want you back. I want to smell you. I want to watch you giggle. I want to give you a bath and rub lavendar lotion all over.
I want things I can never have. At least not here. Please help me to remember who I am supposed to be and what my purpose here is so that we will meet again.
I love you Baby Nay. I miss you. I hurt and I am still surviving. I will meet you there.

Love,
Mommy

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About Jennell

My name is Jennell. I am a chronically ADD mother of four, long term shacking up with the man of my dreams (really ten years in and I still love the way he smells), have some furbabies and four babies of my own. My oldest daughter Kirsten is 13 (going on twenty one!). Kinsley is my second daughter and the sweetest 6 year old ever! Teague is my three year old son. I also have a daughter, Naylen, who would be five years old now. We lost her to SIDS in 2006.
I am not the kind of person who can find the tape and the last pair of scissors I located I tripped over. I have never made it home from the grocery without the bread getting squished. I love to make lists I never complete, chalkboard paint addict, future Country Living feature (I live in a decrepit old, drafty house that I am s...l...o...w...l...y... remodeling, big fan of run on sentences and fragments, have poor punctuation and am pretty repetitive, left handed, live in the South and hate sweet tea (yes I am a traitor), and when I follow politics I am a liberal Democrat with enough parental sense to wish I was a Republican.
I am starting school to pursue my nursing degree. I hope to use my career platform to share safe sleep strategies more successfully. I currently run a small non-profit called Naylen's Hope. We offer baby beds for families in need of one and safe sleep seminars for interested groups.

About Stacey

My name is Stacey and I live in Maine with my wonderful husband Jason, for three years. I have three children Michaela who is a hormonal 13 year old and my son Nick who is a mathematical wizard. I also have another baby Jaleel who was born May 18, 2006 and tragically died June 13, 2006 at 26 days old due to a bed sharing accident.

It has been over five years since my son died and now I educate people on safe sleep and in Jan I will be going to school to work towards my MSW (Masters in social work). I love educating the public on safe sleep and want to do it as my career.

Two Journeys...A Common Path

This is two stories really. Two different women from different places, in different life situations who ended up living through the same nightmare of child loss. This is a compilation of the private journal writings from two different women as they struggled through the loss of their infant children. Naylen and Jaleel were both born and died in 2006. Almost immediately we, Jennell and Stacey, began writing, chronicling our grief journey. We didn't know each other when we lost our children. We met later, crossing paths because of our shared loss. We have both decided to share our private writings in hopes that other people grieving can see that some aspects of grief are universal. Perhaps you can identify with something from our journeys. There is comfort in community and with grief there is nothing off limits, no uncharted territory, and anything goes.