Living

I want to live each day to the fullest, laugh every day & love like I have never lost. These were my words when I began this blog. Wishes really and the hopes I had about the future. Getting past the pain and living again were difficult tasks for me. I was lost. I was stuck in the darkest tunnel. Laughing was not something that came naturally anymore. Loving was something my heart couldn't take.

WHAT IF? What if I lost again? What if I never felt real human emotions? What if I lived life without ever being myself & admitting I was different now? The questions about life & love were endless narrowing pathways leading me deeper into the darkness. And although I desperately needed the answers, for the longest time I wasn't willing to face them. Living was an option, at least truly living. I lied to people. I lied to myself. I was either looking back or trying to look forward too far. Nothing in my tormented mind had to do with Today.

Darkness & emptiness surrounded me the night I made my final plea. "Dear God there has got to be more to life than this. I give up." The prayer that would change me forever. The prayer that would really prepare me to let go and let God. I was living a lie. People called me strong, but I wasn't. I put up a wall. A wall I thought would never come down. But in the depths of soul splitting despair. I found a little glimpse of hope. Hope I never thought possible. Imagination would not prepare someone for the door about ready to be opened.

Breathing Deeper

Speechless has a whole new meaning today.
From falling for someone to turning grey.
The tears fall willingly from my eyes.
My heart is open and there are no more lies.

Underneath the layers that make up me.
Was a person inside that wanted to be free.
No more trying to be someone I'm not.
For this moment is why I fought.

There was never a time where I let go.
Afraid of falling deeper.. even further below.
Rock bottom and looking for something.
I stumbled in the darkness wondering.

Wanting to be pulled out of my sorrow.
To give me purpose for tomorrow.
It was a long time before I found hope.
Imagine my surprise to find a rope.

I always wondered if light was at the end.
Now I know what it means to mend.
Regrets I will have no more.
At least not like I had before.

Enjoying every moment I am gifted.
From the deepest of depths I was lifted.
Breathing deeper with each new day.
Maybe there is a reason to pray.

Still Alive

When all hope is gone & you surrender your need to control everything. You find yourself.....

I have given up and given in a thousand times. I know when I lost my second daughter "My Plan" for life was derailed. I couldn't think about the future anymore. I couldn't truly be happy for other people because my focus was solely on myself. Reading book after book didn't help. Although I wanted to believe the words to be true for me, my heart wasn't ready to accept it. I knew I had to believe it was possible to heal before I could ever begin trying. Hope became a foreign word and Faith was just my daughter Emma's middle name.

Brokenness led me down a dark and dangerous path. I tried to numb the pain, hide from it and pretend it wasn't there. At my worst drinking became an everyday thing and along with it more bad decisions and more heartache. Those decisions have forever changed me, but not in the way you would think. I know now who I am more than ever before. I know what I don't want and also what I DO want. Most of all I know what I need and need to give.

Looking back I am sure I had other options, but the hard road turned out to be the road I found myself on. Someone wise once told me "it is not the number of times you fall down, but whether you pick yourself back up again." I have picked myself back up and with the support of a few close people to me.... I am Still Alive.

My heart is full today. Does it still hurt? Yes, but I can smile through the tears. Laugh despite the pain. Love a whole new way. I am alive. And for a change I want to live.

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.