Never Prepared

As the days get darker,
So does my heart.
From feeling all alone
To falling apart.

The Holidays bring about in
Me a bittersweet feeling.
The excitement all around
Can be so appealing.

How I would love to have
No concerns or bad memories.
To just sit back and be
Carefree in the festivities.

More often than not I
ruin a perfectly good dinner.
All because it seems the
Air I breathe is much thinner.

When the table is set for
The people who "are" there.
I can't help but wonder;
Which daughter would occupy which chair.

So as I mentally prepare
For the Holidays ahead.
I continue to try to delete
The mental delusions from my head.

Alone and afraid of
How I will make a mistake.
Sometimes I wonder if
I just shouldn't partake.

Thankful for a lot in my life
Of course I am.
But How do I forget
My Halle & Emma?

Forget I can not, but I
Will keep on trying.
Trying to make it through
A Holiday without crying.

Grief is a journey of which no one can prepare. And if you have never been on it please don't pretend "You've been there."

~by Amanda Marie Mitchell

Releasing

Beginning today I am releasing my fears and all of my doubt.
I am going to take one day at a time with or without.
Rising above the storm and hoping to make it out alive.
Working on restoring my faith before I take a dive.

Alone and hopeless I have felt way too many days and nights.
Like someone stuck me in a hole and turned off the lights.
No room to breathe and no room to be myself at all.
It isn't surprising that I would eventually fall.

Hiding from the pain seems at times to be the way.
But most the time the nightmares find me in the day.
Death is not so easy to forget about and overcome.
Knowing the door has been shut and you aren't welcome.

Being a person who is not afraid to die anymore.
I still often wonder what we are here for?
I hope I can make a difference in the next few years.
Then at least I will know the meaning of the tears.

Life After Death

Life after death, has new meaning to me. I'm not talking about where our spirits go after we die, but about how we go about living life after we bury our loved ones. As most of you know the last couple of years have been very challenging for me. I buried two daughters within 8 months of each other, and thought life could not go on quite the same again. While this is partially true, I have realized that life does go on after death.

In the beginning of my grief I felt paralyzed. Like someone should have to pick me up just to get out of bed. I felt panic at the smallest of challenges. Panic attacks came at least twice a day. In the grocery store, at work, even with family and especially when someone asked how my daughters were. It felt like the days were weeks and weeks were months. Besides having Cameron, there was no joy, no hope and no excitement left for life. Despair and grief almlost gave me comfort. I felt there was no way I could love my girls and not hurt constantly. Luckily that has changed some.

Forever Changed Part 1

For those of you who don't already know me. I am above all a mother. This role has brought me many wonderful joyous moments. But it has also brought me the greatest pain I hope to ever bear. I became a mother on February 8th, 2004 when Cameron Ashton-Marshall was born at 12:07 am. I had never felt more blessed than the hours and days and weeks after we brought him home from the hospital. I never knew I was capable of loving somebody so much. When Cameron was two weeks old we found out he had a rare cystic adanomoid malformation on one of his lungs. He was scheduled for surgery at Sacred Heart Medical Center only a week later. I was terrified. I held him in my arms and sobbed for hours the night we got that phone call. The fear of the unknown, was overwhelming. We (I say we because I stayed at the hospital with him) were admitted into the hospital the end of Feb. and he would have his surgery on March 5th, 2004. The moments that led up to him being put under were horrifying to a new mother. He couldn't eat for many hours before, when he normally ate every hour or two. He had IVs in places I have never even seen adults have them. He did not cry, but at a mere 3 weeks he looked confused and concerned. He seemed to me the bravest little man ever and handing him to that anesthesiologist was the hardest thing I had ever done to that point. He did amazing though, they removed the lower lobe of his left lung and he recovered so quickly. It was not as hard as first imagined, but the fear of losing something already so precious was unbearable. I saw many children that had worse ailments and sicknesses than my son, and I was grateful for his renewed health. We never took him for granted, never wished he wouldn't cry and never stopped worrying for his safety. He made me happier and more fulfilled as a person than I had ever been before. My role was to nurture and love him with all my heart and I can honestly say I did that, especially as a baby. He is 4 now and it is hard to imagine he was ever sick or had something inside of his little body that was toxic.

Moments that take our breath away..

There are some moments in life that tend to have an impact on us for a long time and sometimes forever. When we remember these moments it is hard to believe that they can still, sometimes years later have the power to take our breath away. From all of the firsts to all of the lasts. Take yourself back to a day when you felt the most raw emotions you have ever felt. Is it Love? Is it Regret? Is it Fear? Is it Joy? Is it Sorrow? Is it Emptiness? Is it Peace? Is it Happiness? or Is it Loneliness? We have all had most of these feelings at some point or another, then why is it so hard to relate with people going through a feeling you are not experiencing? Compassion is a word that I am still trying to define for myself, but for those of you who have given me compassion.. Thank You. It has pulled me through to realize there are still good moments to compensate for all of the bad moments I have had this far in my life.

"Life isn't measured by the amount of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away." -Anonymous

Changing

There are many ways I have changed as my life has taken different courses. Many events that have changed my beliefs and even my values. I have been down many roads that have changed who I am. Sometimes it is for the better and sometimes not. I am becoming a different person than I ever was before. I am more aware of the hurt and pain that this life can bring to so many of us. As well as overwhelming joy and happiness that can be felt within a day or so of having one of the worst days ever.

Birth, death, trials, lost friendships and broken bridges with family have all impacted me tremendously. I wish I could stop reliving the past and live for each day a little more. Then at least I could worry about just what the day at hand was bringing me and not everything else that I can no longer control.

Humans tend to look at the negative aspect in most situations and not the positive. To relive past wrongs done to us, and to not move on. I am determined to become positive about my life and my circumstances, and to deal with only the things that I can control. I know there is a strong woman inside of me, sometimes she just has to fight her way back out. Depression is a hard battle to be fought, and I am doing my best every day to stay focused on working through the darkness and getting back into the light.

Rememberance Tattoo

Today I am going to get the first part of my tattoos symbolizing the birth and death of my daughters. Halle Grace-Marie (3-25-05 to 5-27-05) and Emma Faith-Noelle (12-20-05 to 1-11-06). I will be getting their names one on each foot and a butterfly on the top of each foot as well. I have wanted to do this for some time now, but I finally have the perfect sketch of the butterfly that I had envisioned.

I am not a huge fan of tattooing my body, but the impact my daughters have left a permanent mark on my heart and I want something that represents them to be visible to other people as well. I love them as if they were still here, and I miss them every moment of every day. The emptiness can never be filled but remembering and sharing my story about them helps. I feel that my tattoos will open that door for people to ask, because they are my daughters alive or not.

A New Day

There are days that come and go without any dramatic events. Some days on the other hand will remain in our memories forever. I am beginning this blog to document some of the days that I will never forget. To give people a glimpse inside of my heart through the good days and the bad days. And to remind myself that each morning is the beginning of a new day.