Express Your Heart

After you lose a child there is a time where every post on Facebook and Twitter will drive you nuts.  They will make you angry, frustrated, and want to unfriend your childbearing aged friends.  They are the posts about daily frustrations, badly behaved kids, lack of sleep, achy bodies, heartburn hate, and any other tough situation parents sometimes go through as we raise children.

It is hard not to get caught up in these posts.  We want to share how lucky those parents are.  We want to tell them that we would trade anything to have another day like that.  Once in a while we do share our hurt feelings with the world.

While these feelings are true to our hearts we have to remember to see it from the other side.  We HAVE to be careful not to hurt others in our own hurt.  As bereaved parents we ask others not to judge us, to allow us to share our thoughts as we walk our path.  In that same way we need to afford others the ability to share their thoughts without judgement.

We all have frustrating days.  As you can see from the image I chose, it was an interesting February 2013 day for me.  I didn’t post this image on Facebook to make someone feel bad, sad, or inspire anger.  I simply wanted to say, “Here was my rough moment today.”  In no way does this mean that my moment was worse than the loss of a child.  It simply means that in my journey, in my day, this was my moment of wanting a do-over.

It is okay to vent our bad days once in a while.  It isn’t okay for us to judge each other.  We are all at different places in our lives.  I spent part of my afternoon asking a few mom’s, who haven’t lost an infant, about their online posts.  Not a single mom purposely aired frustrating days or “kids for sale, cheep.” posts to upset anyone.  They are simply saying… I need a do-over.

I spent several years getting angry over these types of posts.  I refrained from posting them myself.  Through time I have come to understand that those feelings are a part of my grieving process.  Today I look at them and giggle because I too have had those crazy days where I wonder, what I am doing.  Some of them are even a little bittersweet as I wonder how I would have handled them with little Clara.

As we walk through our grief just remember that these posts are not meant to harm.  Parents really don’t want to sell their child.  They aren’t ungrateful for the gift of their children.  They simply are having a bad day.  A different bad day than you.  Please don’t be angry at their memory they shared today, be grateful that they are not walking the path of grief that we wouldn’t wish even on our worst enemy.

#WhatHealsYou
#MyHeartToHeart