25 Days of Giveaways - Day 17

CONGRATULATIONS to Sara (I drew your name for Prize #1) and to Susi (I drew your name for Prize #2). I've contacted the winners! Thank you everyone for visiting and taking the time to enter. May the Christmas season treat you all well.

P.S. Someone wanted to know where I purchased the quote plaques, and I bought them from a Hallmark Gold Crown store.


I wanted to start off again by thanking Tina for executing this great little idea of hers. This is my 2nd year hosting a giveaway, and I've visited the blogs of all the people who've hosted thus far. It's bittersweet, knowing that our beautiful babies are not here to spend Christmas with us but that we can somehow honor and remember them in our own little ways. It breaks my heart to think that I should be getting toys for a 3-and-a-half year old. Wow, just wow!

Anyway, I pray for your babies and that we can somehow find a little peace this holiday season. Sometimes, all we need is that one word or quote or statement to get us through the day. That is why when I saw these, I bought two! They are wooden wall/desk plaques:

Prize #1
(this one is the larger of the two, I would guestimate around a 5x7 size, Quote is from Winnie the Pooh: "Promise me you'll always remember ... You're BRAVER than you believe, and STRONGER than you seem, and SMARTER than you think.")

Prize #2
(this one is the smaller of the two [4x6 would be my guess], so I'm adding a sweet amethyst/sterling silver "Faith" bracelet to go along with this one, Quote is: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass ... It's learning to dance in the rain ...")

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post -- maybe your favorite message (or even a single word) that has gotten you through your darkest days, maybe who your greatest support system has been throughout? If you prefer one prize over the other let me know, so I can do my best to get that one out to you. I will leave the comments open through the weekend and draw winners on Monday.

Feel free to follow my blog, if you don't already. At 3+ years since Dylan's death, the frequency of posts aren't as often as they used to be but that doesn't make them any less meaningful. 1 extra entry for following (leave a 2nd comment).

P.S. It's quite special to me that my husband helped picked these out. He thought the quotes were perfect, especially on the Pooh plaque. And after all we've survived together, he's been my lifeline, my greatest support throughout. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas everyone!

Love Songs as Loss Songs

Funny how break-up songs and songs about unrequited love speak to me sometimes:

"Dreams, that's where I have to go
To see your beautiful face anymore
I stare at a picture of you, and listen to the radio . . .

If you ask me how I'm doing,
I would say I'm doing just fine.
I would lie and say that you're not on my mind.
But I go out, and I sit down at a table set for two
And finally, I'm forced to face the truth.
No matter what I say, I'm not over you."
-Gavin DeGraw
"Not Over You"

It's not always verbatim or even a direct correlation, but I get it. I get the emotion behind it. I get what losing a great love feels like.

Reunion in Heaven

I hope this is what every reunion in Heaven is like (beautiful, just beautiful):

Just for Fun

"Is there such a thing as good grief?
Ask Charlie Brown."
-Michael Scott, The Office

Right Where I Am: Three Years

First and foremost, I wanted to wish Dylan a very HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY! I love you and miss you so much, my sweet son! And I continue to be amazed and inspired by those around us who remembered with sweet texts, flowers, cards, and donations to the children's hospital.


This is my attempt at joining Angie from Still Life With Circles in sharing where I am in my grief journey: "just talk about where you are right now in your grief, and the daily ways in which grief rears its head, the things you can do now that seemed impossible, the obstacles you are facing".

I'm a little late in joining the boat on this, but since Saturday was Dylan's 3rd birthday, I thought that I would wait and write closer to then. The emotions are fresh and brought back to the surface every year at this time. It's such a cliche to say that it never really goes away. I guess that I can compare my grief journey to a scar. When it first happened, the wound was so raw and ever-present. It was something that was so unbearably painful that you couldn't ignore it. Over time, though, it begins to heal itself. Now, you just have the scar. It's a reminder of the pain you endured and will never really go away. And, in alot of ways, it's a badge of honor.

"Look at how strong I am. Look at what I had to overcome."

Admittedly, this excercise is more difficult to write than I'd anticipated. The old saying "opening up old wounds" seems to be coming to mind. It's not that I don't think about Dylan often. I do, on a daily basis. We look at his pictures with fondness and remember the days that we were blessed with. It's just that, on his birthday (moreso that any other time of the year), the pangs of all the negative feelings re-surface: the anger, the hate, the frustration, the anxiety.

We went to church on Saturday, and I felt the uncontrallable onslaught of tears. I didn't stop them. It was a good release. I sat in the church and remembered sitting there for the memorial. There are just moments like that, where you have to cry remembering what you went through. And it's okay to. There's no point in trying to stop myself from feeling what I feel. I think the emotions are healthy, and I think that I might be more upset at myself if I didn't feel that way.

I know that there are times when I'm simply watching tv, and I see something that sets me off, makes me stop in my tracks, and take a minute to remember our experience. Or listening to the radio and hearing a song that we played at the memorial. Or reading someone else's blog and feeling that emotion just flow for what somebody else is going through. Or finding out that there's someone in our daughter's class named "Dylan". Wow, it's flooring. Sometimes everything is a reminder in some way, shape or form.

Outside of Dylan's birthday, though, the rest of the year is much more manageable. When we took Faith for her 2-year pedicatrician appointment back in May, the nurse asked us if this was our first. I politely said, "No, she's our 2nd. Our first passed away." In the very beginning, I couldn't answer questions about kids without completely losing it. Questions like that don't bother me anymore. I am able to be candid and composed and even have entire conversations about Dylan like any proud mother would. We got pregnant with Faith just 3 months after Dylan died. Honestly, I think that I was still numb from everything that we'd been through. But that numb feeling might've single-handedly been what got me through that pregnancy, what helped me overcome the fears and anxiety.

I say that now because, as we begin to talk about getting pregnant again, I feel like I'm more scared now than I was immediately after the loss. In terms of the obstacles that I'm facing, the fear can be debilitating at times. Yes, we've had a healthy baby since Dylan, but when you know everything that can happen during pregnancy and when you spend your time reading babyloss blogs, you begin to get blown away at the odds as they stack against you. I pray daily to find the strength, physically and emotionally, to put myself through this again.

Random

"What the hell is going on? What's the point? Is there a reason for this? Because if you could think of a reason, any reason at all, why the universe is so screwed up and random and mean, now would be an amazingly good time to tell me because I really need some answers."

-Meredith "Grey's Anatomy"

***
If roses are meant to be red
and violets to be blue,
why isn't my heart
meant for you?

My hands longing to touch you
I can barely breathe
Starry eyes that make me melt
Right in front of me.

-Anouk "Lost"


***
Just some randoms things for you. Just because. They remind me of Dylan. :)

A Tree and a Rabbit Hole

I just want to give a quick thanks to The Wishing Tree blog for adding Dylan and to Holly for introducing me to the blog. You can check out Dylan's name on the tree here. Or feel free to have your own angel(s) added to the tree:

What a neat idea! I bet that tree is both awe-inspiring and gut-wrenching at the same time.

********

I just happened to be up late last night watching one of the late night talk shows, and they were interviewing Sandra Oh (from Grey's Anatomy). I'm not usually up this late, but I had a difficult time falling asleep or maybe I just needed to see her talk about the new movie she's in. It's called "Rabbit Hole". [Here's the blurb from IMDB: Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident. Based on a play by David Lindsay-Abaire.] Here's the trailer:

"Does it ever go away?"

"No, but sometimes it becomes bearable."

I feel like I just had that conversation. It looks like a really good movie, and even if it isn't, props to the actors and actresses and producers and directors who "went there" and took on such a project. Alot of us know firsthand just how taboo babyloss and childloss topics are and to make a feature film out of it (even an indie film) . . . props, just props to you.

Be Kind 2011

It's better, you know, being without our son. Yes, it still sucks not to have him here. Yes, I still find myself caught off-guard by the sudden on-set of tears sometimes. But, it's better. It's not like in the first few days when I couldn't find a reason to get out of bed. It's not like that at all.

I just finished a Year In Review post for my daughter's blog, and the dichotomy in my heart is ever-present. I see how much she's grown in the past year, both physically and developmentally, and yet there's that unrelenting curiosity that my brain just has to visit: what would Dylan be like now? What are 2 1/2 year-olds into? It sucks that I don't know because I should. But these are the cards that we've been dealt. We're very hopeful for the New Year though, that our hearts will continue to be on the mend. Very hopeful that the missing never goes away but that it never becomes paralyzing again either (not only for our daughter's sake, but for Dylan's sake as well).

Anywho, to ring in the New Year as we did last year, we made our requisite donation to the children's hospital:I hope that 2011 is kind to you as well. I hope that those waiting on their "rainbows" have all their heart's desires met. And I hope that those still working on mending their broken hearts find some sort of peace and joy in this coming year.

I never got around to posting our Christmas Card this year, but here it is (had to include Dylan, of course ;)And finally (since this post is already so random to begin with), I never got around to thanking sweet, sweet Carly for sending along this beautiful picture of Christian's beach. She told me, "I was thinking of Dylan when I drew this latest butterfly :)" THANKS SO MUCH CARLY!