The Secret Garden's First Guest Writer

A man who's lost his wife is called widower.
A child without parents is called orphan.
But what of a woman whose only child has passed?
What am I to be called?

- Once A Mother

The Secret Garden Meeting is honoured to have Kristin from Once A Mother as our first guest writer.

Her post titled Sea Glass is beautifully written and and incredibly heartfelt. Please visit Kristin's blog and learn about her precious daughter Peyton Elizabeth who's beautiful life was like all our children's too short.

Thank you Kristin for allowing us to share your words.

SEA GLASS

It was recommended months ago that I find a journaling through grief group to help me process some of the emotions that came with losing Peyton. I was lucky to find a group to meet with on a near weekly basis, and the support from these women over the last several months has meant more than any words that I could write. This weekend I went on a retreat with them to the Mercy Center in Madison. I walked along the shoreline, combing the sand for something to bring back to Peyton that was representative of my experience with the group. I found three beautiful shells; one yellow, one orange, and one brown and white, that looked like the face of an eagle. I also found three beautiful pieces of seaglass; blue/green, clear, and brown. When I went for my daily visit with Peyton on the top of the hill where she is buried, I shared with her my experience from the weekend and what I had found for her. I described to her what shells were, how they ended up on the beach and what they looked like. I told her why I had chosen the ones I had, and detailed the vibrance of their colors. Then, placing them near her picture, I moved on to tell her about the three pieces of seaglass that I was holding in my hands; and in starting to speak about them, realized just how much their experience mirrored mine.

I told Peyton how most people find seaglass on the beach and admire its beauty, without giving much thought to all it has endured to wash up there. Like the bottle that these smooth pieces of glass came from, at first I was shiny and full and had purpose; but then she passed and it shattered me. Sharp and broken, I cut out in every direction, the pain so overwhelming that it hurt those who reached out to hold me. The grief and the anger dulled my spirit, and the waves of emotions pounded me relentlessly. The reminders of losing her were everywhere, crashing down on me without reprieve. As I entered Peyton's bedroom - crash. As I passed happy mothers on the street - crash. As I felt the emptiness she left in my arms - crash. I tossed and turned in that current, and was left disoriented by its attack. My sense of direction gone, I just prayed to safely reach the shore. In an instant, I , like the broken bottle, lost my ability to hold, support and protect what had come from within me. The tears washed over me, leaving only dullness where there had once been shine, and yet through it all, like the sea glass, I am still here.

This beach is certainly not what I had expected, and sometimes when the tide comes in real high, I can feel the waves coming back for me, but I won't give in. I know that no matter how safely I land in the sand, the rhythm of those waves will always be close enough to feel, but I am staking my claim on this piece of shoreline, and in doing so, know that I will be left standing. I am forever changed. My life had been clear and transparent, each step seemingly planned out for me before I reached it, my purpose well defined. Life has deepened me, washed a different perspective over me that I could never have imagined, and left me worn. I, like the blue/green, clear and brown shards of glass that I found this weekend, have stood in the path of the universe, feeling each blow in its efforts to pound me out of existence, and like the shards of glass, have not been lost to the sea.

People walk the beach and see pieces of seaglass, something tangible to take home as a reminder of a trip, but I know that there is so much more to their story. I know that these smooth little stones hold a special kind of beauty and wisdom, one that can only be attained by surviving the journey.

October Meeting

Welcome everyone. If this is your first time here at The Secret Garden Meeting we hope that you find this place comforting. We apologize for the late meeting this month, time ran away with us all.

If you would like to take part in the meeting all you have to do is copy and paste the questions onto your own blog, answer them and then come back in here and leave a link to your Secret Garden post in the Mr Linky below. We would encourage you to visit other people who have left their links as that is the main purpose of this writing exercise to share and send your love and support with those who understand.


It is with so much love and happiness that I would like to mention here that Sophie had her precious little Jasper. He is beautiful and you can meet him on her blog. For obvious reasons Sophie will not be joining in this month.

It is with great hope that I would like to wish Sally a beautiful birth experience of her little boy. He will be born with in the next two weeks, so please stop by her blog and send her all your love and well wishes as she faces these last couple of weeks, possibly only days now. Sally will be away from the meeting too this month.

So this meeting we would like to talk about where you are. Where are you at in your grief. Has it been years or just weeks since you lost your baby. How are you feeling. How do you hope you will feel in the future. Have you found any peace at all?

Carly:

Right now I feel a lot of wonder. I am coming up to 3 years in January since we lost Christian. I feel as though I have felt so many different emotions since that day. Hate. Love. Envy. Hope. Intense sadness. Bitterness. I guess they are just a few of what have felt.

There is no feelings of hate or bitterness anymore. I do feel the sadness every now and then but more often than not I feel wonder. I wonder if Christian met River before I did. I wonder if Scarlett met Christian before she was born. Did they all hang out together before they knew my womb. I wonder if Christian's spirit is surrounding my new baby girl. Will he help her to be born into this world. Was he the one who sent the dolphins to me at his beach on that week that this little baby was conceived. I wonder if he sent me the love heart in the sky. How does he spend his day? What about night time? Does he sleep in like his lazy sister's? Is River's adventuress side really a part of his personality inside her?

I have so many questions that I will never know the answers to. I feel as though something big is missing and I know this new little girl will not fill Christian's spot at the dinner table. There will always be an empty seat no matter how big our family grows. We will always be a family of 6 with 1 absent member, is he really absent though? Or can we just not see him?

I will never know.

September Meeting

Welcome everyone. If this is your first time here at The Secret Garden Meeting we hope that you find this place comforting. If you would like to take part in the meeting all you have to do is copy and paste the questions onto your own blog, answer them and then come back in here and leave a link to your Secret Garden post in the Mr Linky below. We would encourage you to visit other people who have left their links as that is the main purpose of this writing exercise to share and send your love and support with those who understand.

In the next two weeks we will be featuring our first guest writer. Please be sure to stop in and read.

This month we feel that we need to focus on the positive things that have helped us in this journey so far. We know that for some of you it is still very early days and that you may not be able to see any light right now, so that is why we are sharing about things that have helped us the most in the hope that you may see something that has helped someone else that could possibly benefit you.

What has helped you through out this new life the most. Is it your family? your faith? Support groups? A ritual? Music? Physical activity? A new interest? It could be anything. Tell us about how whatever it is has helped you. Please feel free to share photo's,videos, websites, support group information and so on.


Sophie:

I think music has been particularly beneficial to me in this last year. When I am feeling my worst I listen to songs about love and loss; songs I associate with my little girl. The music allows the tears to fall more freely and it releases the pressure. Sometimes it allows me to tap into her when I need to feel her close to me. Music has also been good for me on my strong days. I have many playlists and some are all sad and then I have others that are energetic, hopeful and inspiring. Some music is new stuff I have found since my loss and much of it is older stuff that I was already familiar with but that took on a new meaning after I lost my little girl. There were days when I just needed to shut everything and everyone else out and I would put on my headphones and listen to my mp3 player as I folded clothes or vacuumed. Often I cry and sing along. I like being able to tune out (or in) now and then and just flow with the music and let it speak to me.

Other things that have helped is our ritual we now have about lighting candles. In my loungeroom we have a massive television cabinet and on top of it sits many, many tealight holders, candles and pictures. Some weeks we light the candles every night and other weeks maybe once or twice. Whenever we feel the need to think about her, or feel like we need to do something for her, we light the candles and turn the lights off.

I guess on reflection we've made everything we do for Jordan since her death beautiful. Whether it be releasing balloons, planting a weeping cherry tree in her garden, filling our house with beautiful and colourful images of her, collecting tealight candles that remind us of her, collecting dragonfly and butterfly ornaments... Gosh I guess it really only just dawns on me now how much we've done to make her continue to be such a beautiful part of our lives. I can remember feeling so dark at first... like it was silly because it was all still so painful and by making it beautiful we were lying about the sad and painful torturous parts of our experience... But a year on (year and half since her birth) the horror is fading. It's still there but I have to work at bringing that stuff up and if I do, I get nowhere with it. But now, yes, I guess these beautiful things have become such a big part of our lives and I can't see myself stopping. Jordan was born on Christmas day in '07' and I did not know how I could ever get through another Christmas happily. I didn't want my son to lose Christmas so we made our first Christmas without Jordan as beautiful as we could. For some reason that year dragonfly and butterfly tree ornaments were everywhere and we snapped them up as soon as we found them. People gifted them to us too. I found fairy ornaments to put on there as well. By the time Christmas came our tree was just a stunning, beautiful tribute to Jordan. It felt so special. We didn't know how we'd be on the day, but once we were there we coped, we made it the best we could. Now that our year of 'firsts' are all done, it is easier and we know that we will always make Christmas special and that Jordan will always have a beautiful presence in our house with her symbols, candles and music.

Sally:

For me, not going back to work was the key. And I know this is not an option for everybody. But I'd spent nine months preparing for my baby girl and had always intended taking 12 months off to raise her before returning to my job. Just because she died, I didn't see any reason why that should change. In a way, I still have to raise her, I still have to be her mother. My role of motherhood, although I have no living children, has been tiring and demanding. I have had to learn the absolute hard way, and that has been to parent a child who lives only in my heart and memories. I just found I was able to give myself over to the grief - fully. I have nurtured my grief, if you like, given it all the time and space it needed. Not rushed anything. I know had I done things too quickly or moved in directions I wasn't comfortable with, I would have paid for it later.

Blogging has also been my saviour. It took me a long time to find my voice in this community, but once I did, I didn't look back. I read about women at various stages of their grief and from all sorts of backgrounds and I draw strength from their experiences and wisdom. I am so moved by so much of what I read in these beautiful spaces and feel so lucky to have made so many wonderful friends. Friends in real life still find it hard to relate to me. Many still have no idea what to say or do. But there is an absolute comfortableness that comes with talking to a fellow bereaved mother. I was starved of people who understood me in those early days. Now I crave these deep connections.

My immediate family and husband have also picked me up on days when I thought I'd never walk again. They have shown me the way and showered me with love when darkness was starting to swallow me whole. I know babyloss can often drive a wedge in families (and in parts of my extended family, that has happened) and can tear married couples apart, but for me the experience has been the opposite. We are all so much stronger and connected coming out of our tragedy, although we'd go back to how it was in a heartbeat to have her back.

And my new baby boy has also been a wonderful help. Many struggle with the question of whether to try again but for us it was a no-brainer. We lost our first baby. We came home to an empty house with shattered dreams of parenthood swept away before us. We are constantly reminded of our parenthood, but truth be told most of the time we feel like parenthood for us got placed on hold. We didn't want to wait a day longer than we had to before conceiving again. Thankfully it happened relatively quickly, and now we are 31 weeks into a pregnancy with a brand new little baby boy. He has lifted our spirits and made us smile again. We fall more in love the more my belly grows and can't wait until the day we (hopefully) come home with him from hospital. His presence in our home will be the greatest help for us.

Carly:

My girls are my life line. I am lucky to have them.

For me it would have to also be friendships I have made over the internet. Women I have met that understand the pain I have felt.

Music has played a huge role in healing for me. I love so many different types. My all time favourite though would have to be score music. I have a huge collection of score music soundtracks. I usually have to order them in from the US. I listen to it loud and I really feel it. My skin tingles and the tears seem to come so easily.

Physical exercise has helped me probably more than I realize. Writing names at the beach in the heat of the Summer really does keep me fit and breathing in all that salt sea air has done me wonders.

I will leave you with one of my favourite pieces of music. It is from the movie Gladiator and is sung by Lisa Gerrard.

August Meeting

Welcome everyone. If this is your first time here at The Secret Garden Meeting we hope that you find this place comforting. If you would like to take part in the meeting all you have to do is copy and paste the questions onto your own blog, answer them and then come back in here and leave a link to your Secret Garden post in the Mr Linky below. We would encourage you to visit other people who have left their links as that is the main purpose of this writing exercise to share and send your love and support with those who understand.

Please check out the post below here to see all the wonderful ladies who were nominated for our Secret Garden Blogger Award and read about the post we chose.

This month we are talking about our babies bedrooms and their belongings. There are a few questions all with in the same topic and because all of our stories differ some questions may not apply to you. If you would like you can just write about your experience or you can answer the questions individually. Of course you do not have to answer them all they are just simply there for you to share your experience so please just answer what you feel comfortable with.

Here they are:

If you created a bedroom for your baby tell us what it was like.
Did you have it ready for them before they were born?
If so how did you cope coming home to it without your baby?
Did you pack it all away?
What is your baby's room now?
If you lost your baby after they had come home what is it like going into there room now?
If you are trying to conceive again, or are pregnant again how do you feel about setting up another room before your baby is born?

Please feel welcome to share photo's if you would like too.

Carly:

We didn't have a bedroom ready for Christian. I am a terribly disorganized type of girl and at that time of my life when Christian died I think being disorganized really was a blessing. I did not have to come home to a bedroom full of baby things only to have to pack it all away. I had a few things out here and there like his bassinet and some little newborn nappies but other than that there was nothing.

When I fell pregnant after loosing Christian I created a room for River. I wanted this experience to be different. I wanted her to know that we were ready for her. We were never ready for Christian. Her bedroom ended up being the room that we had planned for her older brother. This time I feel differently. I am paranoid about actually bringing home a healthy live baby as I have done it once since I lost Christian and I guess I feel like something bad will happen this time because I had my turn last time. Silly really. At the moment there is no room in our house for a new baby and that is such an uneasy feeling. The girls share a bedroom. We have a play room and what should be this new baby's room is a room full of junk. I am going to make an effort to clean it out in the coming weeks as I want this baby to know that she has a place in our home. She is already such a big part of our family.

We will buy a new single bed for her room so that I can sleep in there and be close to her while she is so little. All of her things will be from her sisters. She will sleep in the same cot, with the same blankets. I will feed her in the same chair. We will buy her a few little things of her own. But only when she comes home. And she will come home with us.

Sophie:

For Jordan's room we had a white tallboy, a second hand change table, an unpainted bookshelf and Caelan's old cot. I hadn't really decorated it yet before she came. Things had been really busy with Christmas coming and we were going to do this stuff after that. Jordan arrived early though on Christmas morning and from that point on our focus was on her well-being, getting a diagnosis... just riding that NICU wave of unknowns. At three and a half months Jordan was going to come home. I had much to do. We were being trained how to cope with her condition (she has spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy... of the worst kind) and when we weren't at the hospital we were madly painting her furniture and shopping for those extras for her room. I nearly killed myself painting the change table and the bookshelf white to match her tallboy. We put beautiful pink curtains in her room... covered in butterflies... All the gifts that people bought us, the teddies and what not, lined her bookshelves. Her clothes filled the tallboy. She had dragonfly sheets in her cot. I bought Jordan a pink little stereo so that I could play her music therapy tapes on it and I also bought her a pink lamp. It was a real girly room... fairies hung from the ceiling... Little white bears in pink ballerina tutus and slippers danced from a mobile about her cot... We also bought a single bed to keep in her room, thinking that there would be definite nights when one of us would be staying with her.

Then after two weeks of sweet calmness she was suddenly back in the hospital after having had a seizure and then aspirating. We were on the ICU roller coaster this time... And then the paeds one. From paeds she went to palliative care. She never came home again.

That room sat empty for some time. Just sitting there. The same. Now and then I would go and sit in there and think about her. Sometimes I would look through her clothes and just hold them. Mostly I would just feel robbed. I wanted to pack it up. I wanted to put it away. The emptiness of that room was just awful. I wanted to put her things away or bring them out into the house and transform that room into something else. I couldn't do it on my own though. No one else wanted to help me. After many months my sister was made redundant at her work. She didn't know how long it would take her to find another job and thus was fearful of paying her rent. (I wasn't. I knew she'd get another job easily.) Anyway we offered her the room. My husband and I have lived with Tania off and on for the last eight years. We saw each other all the time anyway so it seemed easier all round. We were trying to conceive again at this point so we could see the benefit of some extra income. Private cover was killing us. On the weekend that she moved in we found out I was pregnant with Spark. Timing hey?

Anyway, so Jordan's room became Tania's again. She'd lived in this room before on at least two occasions. I felt better. She filled that void up in there completely. Only Jordan's curtains remain, and a butterfly mobile that Tania had made her when she was in NICU. I like that Tania is still in this room and that I haven't been tempted to set it up like a nursery again. My practical nature would have insisted eventually, but I don't really want to do any of that yet.

The other week we brought the change table in because we needed the room in our garage. Soon I will take Jordan's bookshelf, which was being used in Caelan's room, out and put it in my room or living room somewhere. I will place Spark's gifts on this. Spark will be sleeping with us in our room in the cradle we bought for Jordan. His change table will be out in the lounge room. I will no doubt have an expressing machine on the shelves underneath it to use as well.

When I first brought the change table out it was difficult and I did, after fighting it for a few minutes, dissolve into copious tears and sobs. I planned on repainting it... Changing it... I covered it with an old sheet for the time being... Caelan has since pulled the cover off and has been using it to put his Thomas the Tank Engine train tracks on. I have gotten used to its presence and I wont be painting it now... I will just buy a nice new mat cover. A blue one maybe. Something different.

At the moment I am 29 weeks pregnant. Things are moving both incredibly fast and tremendously slow. I want things readied and prepared for this baby and yet I am scared to do it as well. I need to believe all will be well but at the same time it is hard letting go of what happened to Jordan. I need to bring this baby home. Now. I'm not fussed on him having his own room just yet. He wont need it for some time. Hell even Jordan didn't use that room for anything other than storage and nappy changing... Next year sometime will be soon enough. I am only focused on him coming home. The room itself isn't all that important to me now. Just him...home...here... That is all I ask. Playing with the room can come later... Replacing Jordan's curtains can come later.

Today I have been sorting clothes. It is amazing now when I look back on all that has happened in the last year or so... Amazing that I have come this far. I have no idea how I did it.

Sally:

If you created a bedroom for your baby tell us what it was like.

Our room for Hope was completely ready. Second hand white cot and change table, brand new white toy box, lovingly painted by us and a beautiful, brand new cane rocker, where I imagined spending hours feeding my baby. There was no theme as such. We didn't paint the walls or do anything like that, but to offset the white, we filled it with as many bright things as possible. She was going to light up our lives.

Did you have it ready for them before they were born?

It was all ready to go. Cot made with fresh smelling linen. Cloth nappies washed. Clothes washed and put away. Wipes and lotions at the ready. Blankets and and wraps all within reach.

If so how did you cope coming home to it without your baby?

It was horrifying, really. We didn't go in there right away. I feel tormented by it. And like a complete idiot. I felt like the Universe was laughing at me. Why would I be so smug to assume my baby was coming home with us?

Did you pack it all away?

We left the nursery as is, but a day or two after we got home, Simon and I walked around the house and got all the other baby related things, put them in there, and shut the door. We folded up the pram and carseat and crammed them in to the wardrobe. We took baby and pregnancy books off the bookshelf, and put them where we could no longer see them. Eventually though, I was able to go in there. And I spent a lot of time lying on the floor in there crying, and a lot more time sitting in the rocker just rocking with my tears. I have since tucked a few bears and other precious mementos in to her cot.

What is your baby's room now?

The baby's room is still pretty much the same. I have collected a few more things along the way, both before I got pregnant again and after and placed them in the room, to add to the brightness. This includes some prayer flags and a new wall hanging. There is also a pile of baby boy clothes that I have been brave enough to buy. I figure I can't really jinx myself. I'm just being silly. Whether I buy clothes or not, or continue to decorate the room or not has no bearing on whether this boy will actually come home with us.

If you are trying to conceive again, or are pregnant again how do you feel about setting up another room before your baby is born?

We are happy to leave the room as is. The room is non-gender specific and always would have been used like it was for the first baby we bought home. We would probably never have had two babies in this house, as it is so small with only two bedrooms, but Hope and her sibling would have always shared things. I just want to use the room. Use all the things. Put a baby to sleep in there. Have a live child in my house to parent.

Secret Garden Blogger Award For July/August 2009

Tonight we are honouring Jess from After Iris for her beautifully haunting post Familiar Halls.

"And, flickering behind my eyelids, my other girl will be there too."

We feel as though we were about to walk those halls with her at such a delicate, emotional time in her life. In her post, Jess describes her day that would follow. Visit her at her blog and be touched by her words and her story.

Thank you Jess for sharing your journey. We will be sending you a To Write Their Names In The Sand and Say It With Flowers special gift pack along with your Secret Garden Blogger Award. We will email you with all the details.

We would love to thank all the women who nominated other women for this award. There really was such a beautiful, heart breaking spectrum of writing.

The following are all the nominees from July and August in no particular order:

Kristin from Once a Mother for A Piano A Pew Me And You

"At first I saw you, at maybe five years old. You had on a white dress and your hair was long and brown and clipped up at the sides. There were no tubes. There was no Leukemia. Just a mother and her daughter and their love."

Laura from Moments Of Pause for Why? But why Not?

"But now ask yourself "why not?" If you're reading this, perhaps there is someone's memory that you're keeping alive, or thinking about- right now. Someone who came into your life for a purpose- Someone who touched your life so that you could touch others."


Jodie from The McGinley Family for her amazing journey so far.

"We did everything right: we finished college & were married, landed our dream jobs, bought a house, and then, we were ready to start our very own family! But that was much more difficult than we ever expected."

Angie from Still Life With Circles for Marriage and Travel

"It is so freaking difficult to maintain a relationship and marriage through the very solitary act of grief. It is so achingly hard to feel alone next to someone you are in love with and like so very much."

Rachel from Waiting For Morning for My Tool Belt

"Last year I was more like a woman lost in the wilderness or stranded at sea. There was no plan. Simply surviving took all the energy I had and I often felt overwhelmingly lost and broken. But I am in a different place now."

Kara from Missing You Always for In life I loved you dearly. In death I love you still

"Giving birth knowing there was nothing that they could do to save your child was traumatizing, But holding him while he died in my arms, knowing there was nothing I could do to save him, was worse."

Kristin again from Once A Mother for August 23rd

"A year ago, life was still "normal". We waited in hopeful anticipation of your arrival, and looked forward to counting your fingers and toes. We sat up at night debating your sex, what names to choose (you were nearly a Finnian or Scarlet), and it was this week last year that we finally set up your nursery."

Christy from A Piece Of The Pearsons for The Struggle, Part 1 of???

"People do not mean to be hurtful. But you can only try so hard to be sensitive to someone's tragedy and when it comes right down to it, unless you've felt what they feel, or know what they know, you just will never understand."

If you would like to nominate a fellow bereaved blogger for our September/October award please visit here.

Thank you.

Love and Peace,

Carly, Sophie and Sally