Friends

I just read a wonderful post by stilllifewithcircles called a Brave New World. It was so wonderfully written about who our friends are and who we are after a devastating loss. It was about having some friends who simply are either too anxious about their own stressful lives to act compassionately towards a friend, or are not compassionate at all, and ultimately letting those friends out of our lives. It was about having really good friends who acted appropriately after our babies died. They were the ones who were wonderful and compassionate and said, "I'm sorry." I think most people just fit into the too lazy or preoccupied by their own lives to recognize another person's pain, or they are too saddened by terrible news they don't know how to respond. So, I try not to take it serious when a friend behaves in a bizarre way towards me after the loss of Jolene. But, as with many devastating life altering events, I became a new person. I changed. I know who my friends are, I know who I want to be around, I know who I think maybe its best that we're not friends and I also know that there are some people who cannot imagine that bad things happen to good people every day all the time.
Just the other day, a mother of one of my child's friends in school saw me and came up to me to give me a hug and say how sorry she was, she even cried with me. It was so nice of her. I thought that she either did not know about our baby or did not know what to say because this was the first time she has said a word to me in months. I was a bit baffled by her behavior at first, but then a light came on for me that she understood, she had compassion for me and my family, she just did not know how/what to say.

My wish and hope for today is that I choose compassion and joy and light.

Who I am

In addition to being a mama and wife, I am also an avid animal lover and rancher. We breed and raise gorgeous quarter horses in Colorado. We have 7 chickens and had three dogs, our dog Jesse died a couple of months ago. I love getting my fresh eggs everyday and feeding my horses, it takes a lot to go out in the middle of a blizzard and freezing temps to feed animals, but I do it because they depend on me. I love them all. Animals have really helped me throughout this period of grieving my baby. Even a couple of days after my c-section, I continued their care, with the help of a lot of people. But, cleaning stalls, throwing hay, and riding have been my therapy.

I tried breeding my mare Josie a few years ago, and she lost her filly at 10 months, a beautiful red dun filly. A horse is pregnant for 11 months, so her filly was born early and was stillborn. She was gorgeous, a perfect little horse with a beautiful head and good conformation. We did a necropsy that very day with our vet, we cut her open and looked at her insides, her umbilical cord was twisted and had fluid in between the twists and knots in the cord. Other than her liver looking odd and her lower intestines looking odd, they looked congested, she looked perfect. The results came back a week later and they concluded that the baby filly died due to a twisted cord a "cord accident."

Josie, my mare had birthed her dead baby by herself in a snowy field and stood over her lifeless body and protected her, that was how I found them together, there was the afterbirth still hanging from Josie and her sweet baby in the icy ground. I burst into tears for her and what I remember from that day was how her whole herd grieved for the baby when we took her away to be examined and buried, all their heads hang low and I remember how Josie called to her baby the entire night, none of them ate their hay and they just looked sad. My heart broke open for her that day, she will always be with me.
Fast forward a couple years and now its me who had the baby die, and now my mare Josie is helping me through grieving my baby.


This is Josie.

2010

Happy New Year! Goodbye 2009, hello 2010.

Maybe a baby
maybe not
all I know is love
all I know is change

I miss you baby, I miss you little Jolene, you've inspired me to grow, to change, to live, I just wish you were here.

The River of Life

Poem from native american- I will correctly reference this poem later
"The river of life. It is great
It is swift
There are those who will be afraid
They will try to hold on to the shore
and they may be torn apart
and suffer greatly. Know the river has a destination.
What you resist can cause more suffering.
We must let go of the shore, push
off into the middle of the river
Keep our eyes open and heads
above the water.
Take nothing personally, least of all ourselves"

I love this poem, I love it. Life is beautiful in all that it is. I am here for the ride.
It was just the place to put some of my baby's ashes, up in the Big Wood River in Idaho. I heard her there laughing. It was the perfect place for her because I am too riding on the river of life. I heard you baby, and I am here for you. I love you.

Christmas Eve

I miss you Jolene Marie Grace. I wish I was watching you grow today instead of decorating around your ashes on the fireplace mantle. I love you my baby. We all miss you.

I have thought about my last post, I have decided, I can shut people out who say insensitive things, because I lost my baby and comments and words hurt me. I am tired of being the perpetual people pleaser and I am ready to say that hurt and take some time for my grieving. Grief is a bitch, I wish she would go away for a few days, but not forever because I would miss the feeling of missing my baby. God, please let me be ok.

Guilt

Since my last post, so much has changed. Impermanence? Yes, well. Now then, I first wanted to say hello blog, and hello out there. I also first wanted to say how much I love and am thankful for my life. It sounded as if I felt my life was pretty horrendous, but it is not. I am married, I have two gorgeous and healthy children. I have friends and family who love me.

Now that that's there, since it has been 6 months since I lost my baby and apparently my "lightness." I really want to ask is it full of malice and contempt to shut out a person from your life who said after your loss this...? "My doctor was just so conservative, I wonder why you were not on bed rest and monitored more closely?"

This question came from well someone close to me, who is like a sister, that close. She had to go on bed rest during her pregnancy and her baby came at 37 weeks, a healthy 6 lb. baby girl. I don't know all the issues she experienced in her pregnancy, but she sounded high-risk to me, she was on hospital bed rest. For the record, I was quite low-risk, and my baby was low-risk. All the testing and monitoring came out pretty perfect every appoinment, until the day I heard them say and saw her body lifeless on the monitor, "This baby does not have heartbeat," I was sure I was bringing home a healthy baby.

So, let me ask, is it full of malice and contempt to shut out someone from your life when they make the comment that she was glad her doctors were more conservative than mine? Is it just selfish, what is it? Is it my own guilt that shut her out, then is that selfish?
I am pondering this today and probably tomorrow, do we act compassionately when we feel someone says something insensitive after our loss?

Impermanence

Hello blog and anyone who is reading. I am writing today of impermanence. This word is so key to my survival right now. I get that impermanence and change is inevitable, it is life, it is suffering, it is joy, it is love. Pema Chodron has so brilliantly written on impermanence in many of her writings, I am referring to When Things Fall Apart. Impermanence is the idea that things change inevitably, babies are born, death happens, spring becomes summer, meeting and falling in love are impermanent. These lessons of impermanence are all around me lately, so what am I supposed to do with it? I f-ing get it universe, impermanence exits.

About a month ago, my beloved dog, a gorgeous black lab, Jesse, was killed in front of our home by a couple of cars. Impermanence.

My family and I went to Mexico with my husband's parents who did not one time acknowledge our lost baby Jolene. Not once did they mention her name. Impermanence. And then, when I asked them about it, all I got was, "it was difficult to talk to you, you don't seem like your light self, like the K we used to know, you seemed so serious, we dont' want to talk about death and bad things all the time." it was a punch in the gut. for me.

Impermanence.

My Dad committed suicide a month before I married my soul mate, my best friend, 10 and a half years ago, on June 9, the same day my Jolene was born. Impermanence.

Suffering. What the hell is next? How much can I take? please universe I have learned that it can all be gone tomorrow, please know that I know now. I know impermanence.

Lastly, I missed my baby while being around my sweet little nephew in Mexico, what a lovely child. He was born 3 days before my Jolene, he is gorgeous and I love him. But, it was so hard to hold him and watch his Mom nurse him. I miss my baby, I miss my sweet girl.

Impermanence.