Healing Therapies

Today I think the quote I placed on my image captures things better than my own words.  My healing has almost aways come in some for of expression.  Through the past few years, I have felt my healing therapies change. I think that is partially due to moving to another state. I do a little less with connecting with grieving families and more sharing with all. Today feel as though a lot of me healing things are found in this project and cakes.

With each blog post, there is a need to be open and honest.  Honest with myself and with others who read.  Each time I write, I am opening some of these wounds I have kept sealed all year.  There are often topics I have never or would never talk about and yet I find the courage to share them.  For me, it helps to be able to sit down and really dig into my heart for the message I want to share.  Somedays the words just pour out, other days it is a struggle but each year I look forward to 31 days dedicated to sharing a piece of me that would otherwise just be buried.

The second part of my healing happens in creating cakes. Cakes remind me of something I have missed or will miss in Clara’s life.  Sometimes that pill is easier to swallow than others.  I often feel like the are super healing because I can celebrate another life moving forward. The most healing for me is to meet these families and share in the delight when they see their cake.  That part will forever make my heart smile.

My kids eat just about anything you put in front of them, except for my 3 year old.  He is a no vegetable kind of kid.  Once in a while I can get him to eat a canned bean or two.  No matter how I try to hide them he seems to find them.  He is the only kid I know that can pick out the tiniest bit of vegetable while in his mouth full of other food!  I had to come up with a way to get him to consume them unknowingly. What better way than in his favorite food spaghetti!

Veggie Spaghetti Sauce idea came about last year when my garden produced so many yellow squash we couldn’t keep up eating them.  Well, my husband and I couldn’t anyway.  So one afternoon while I was getting a batch of sauce ready I decided to cut up my yellow crookneck squash and add it to the pot.  Then I looked around the fridge to see what else I had.  That is when I noticed a small bag of dried out baby carrots and a few wrinkly peppers.  I added those to the mix too.

This year I added Roma tomatoes, Big Boy tomatoes, Yellow Pear tomatoes, bell peppers, yellow crookneck squash, carrots, and onions to my pot.  Tasted so good!!!!

After simmering until the carrots were soft, I cooled my pot and added it to my blender. My blender holds about 6 cups so I have to have a large bowl to put the pureed mix into so that I can keep emptying the pot.  It usually takes about 3-4 blender jars full before I have emptied my pot.  My family has nothing against seeds in our sauce so I completely skip any steps that involved removing them from the tomatoes or squash.

Once the mix is well blended I add it back into my large pot and bring to simmer.  I add salt and Italian Seasoning mix and let it simmer until an inch or so has been removed.  I would say it is roughly 30-45 minutes.  Then I pour it into a couple jelly roll pans to cool.  The sauce cools much more quickly that way.  Then I bag it, 3-4 cups per bag, and stack in the freezer.

When I add the sauce to the hamburger I find it best to simmer with the meat for 15 minutes to help reduce it further and give it a thicker consistency.

I have used this recipe, minus the Italian Seasoning, to make tomato sauce.  Then I add any seasoning when I make the meal.  This works great if you plan to use the sauce in things like Chili.  I like to add Jalopenoes and chili seasoning to the plain sauce.  So it is really up to each person on how one may want to make and freeze the sauce.

Veggie Filled Spaghetti Sauce

• 2 gallons tomatoes. skins removed
• 2 yellow crookneck squash
• 1 small bag baby carrots
• 2 small or 1 medium bell pepper
• 1 medium onion, I prefer white but you can use yellow too
• 2 TBSP canning salt, or add to taste
• 3 TBSP Italian seasoning mix, or add to taste

I recently came across this article on Facebook.  http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/abusive-theology-piper-mahaney  Reading it made me really think about things people said to me after Clara passed.

I felt like her death was somehow a punishment for things I had done in the past.   Could it??

While my anger toward God was far less than it could have been and less than what others have shared with me, I found myself in constant battle with the punishment aspect.  I have made some pretty bad choices in my past, did they finally catch up to me??  Did I have this coming?  Did I ruin my husbands relationship with his daughter because of my mistakes??  The list could keep going.  Does God really punish us?  I really had to search for answers.  I finally came to the conclusion that if you truly ask for forgiveness then the slate is clean.  But is it??  That thought lingered in my mind for a long time.

I finally got past this roadblock in my grief after working with several other mom’s who have also lost a child.  God isn’t punishing me or punishing my daycare provider.  It was simply her time to leave.  Whenever people say “what did I do to deserve this” after the death of a child I try to remind them, and myself, God isn’t punishing them…that isn’t what He does.  He isn’t punishing the child that has left either.  I think this explanation works well… god is not like an abusive father, filled with unpredictable rage. Who’s family must walk on eggshells, afraid of suddenly enraging him and should he be provoked, lash out. My God forgives and holds me…not cruelly punish me by taking my child or allowing my child to suffer.  I don’t think anyone should ever, ever say someone deserved to lose a child or that the loss was punishment.  EVER.  It leaves way too many questions and too much anger in ones heart and leaves little room for faith.

Someone once told me that everything, all the loss of life, I had experienced in my teens was preparing me for something big.  I couldn’t help but wonder if that was really true.

In high school I lost several classmates, friends, and family members.  By the time I started college I had been to 4 kids funerals and several relative’s.  I was always told God had something big planned for me, that I needed to get through these for something bigger.  What could be that big that I needed all this pain???  Was I really being prepped for something because if so I wanted to skip it, let someone else handle it.

Whenever something big did happen, I would wonder is this it??  Then after only a few short years of meeting my little brother I was hit with what I thought was the “something really big”.  My brother took his own life just 3 short weeks before Clara was born.  I will never forget reading “I will miss you” text message that night after work.  I drove home thinking he sent that message to me by mistake, maybe he broke up with a girl.  Little did I know that waiting at home was my husband with terrible news.  That would be  the last message I would get.  I watched my dad and step mom go through the most painful thing ever.  I will never forget the sound of a mother’s pain.  It is gut wrenching.  Someone said to me, “you are being prepared for something”.  Then 4 1/2 months later my baby died.

Does God groom us?  I don’t know.  I can say that my life experiences did help me with how I deal with her loss.  But did I have to endure each loss to be able to handle my own?  Maybe not, I know others who haven’t dealt with near as much death and they have made it through their grief just fine.

I think it is less about preparing and more about having faith through your grief.

For me, it’s about keeping faith that I am not being punished or that I somehow deserved this.  It is knowing and remembering that my child isn’t being punished.  It takes faith to know that  my child knows no more pain, no more suffering.  That she will always be smiling, skipping, playing.  That never more will she shed a tear.  It is with faith that I am reminded that we will someday we will meet her again.

If you ask any mom who has lost a child, Mother’s Day can be very hard.

How do you celebrate when a part of you, a piece that made you a mom, is missing?  In the years since Clara passed I have found ways to make Mother’s Day special and a celebration.  This year feels different though.  I think because for the first time I have to share my special day with the anniversary of Clara’s death (May 12th).  This will be the first of several Mother’s Days I will share with this sad anniversary.

How do I celebrate Mother’s Day without feeling guilty?

Should I feel sad or guilty that I am less sad than I used to be??  Losing her doesn’t make me less of a mom but then losing her makes it hard to feel like a complete mom.  My husband keeps asking me what I want to do for Mother’s Day and I still have no ideas for him.   I thought about making a trip to visit another mom who is also sharing her special day and hosting a SIDS walk but this year it isn’t in the cards.  So I will settle for a trip to visit Clara, which will also be Haleigh’s first trip to visit her sister.  Bittersweet I guess.

On the bright side I have many good memories of sharing a single Mother’s Day with Clara.  Her smiles that day were giant!   She was loving her new found chew toy…her dress.  She was all cuddles and a snuggly little girl that day.  I also got to enjoy a cute gift her and her older brothers made at daycare….a gift I still enjoy and look at often.  Today I have 5 little blessings with me to share my day with and an angel looking down on me.  One could definitely say I am very blessed.  With them, and my wonderful husband, Mother’s Day will be a good day.

Today I got a card in the mail remembering Clara’s passing…

The words that were shared will make sharing my day with Clara’s day a little easier.

“The tide recedes but leaves behind bright seashells on the sand, and the sun goes down but gentle warmth still lingers on the land.  The music stops and yet it echoes on in sweet refrains… for every joy that passes, something beautiful remains.” M.D. Hughes.

There are many beautiful things that remain and that is part of what keeps a smile on my face and in my heart.

It will be what helps get me through my shared Mother’s Day.  Besides who could look at this beautiful girl and not love to remember her?!  She will always be a part of this mom and her memory a part many other moms out there.