I found you here after following your other blog and Instagram. I lost a child 14 years ago. 14. Sometimes it feels like one minute and sometimes a lifetime but your words take me right back whether I’d like them to or not. I know the raw wide open place of grief you are in. It is not in moments where it comes and then goes. It is the atmosphere around you…. There is no getting away from atmosphere, it just is. I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to write except that. The aching that you feel. I feel it with you. Xo
What a succinct way to put it, Heather. "Atmosphere". Wow, yes. That's it.
I am so sorry that you lost a child as well. What a thing. A horrible, unearthly pain we, and so many other parents, have been asked to bear. I know there will be no getting through this. It just is.
There is so much comfort in hearing from other parents, like you, in just knowing that we are not alone even when it feels like it. Of course, I wish I didn't have to hear from you at all. Thank you for reading and thank you for sharing that with me. I am so touched by your words.
Isn’t it a funny thing that once we experience something we are then made aware of all the many others who have experienced it as well. It was a world I never really knew was so vast…. Mothers without their children…. In the beginning I just wanted to ask them all how they were still existing? How are you still here? In my family, my mom lost my brother when he was 25. My grandma lost my uncle at 22, and then I lost my son. I have watched generations of mothers navigate this grief and so there are some things I know…. Closure is not a thing… and we don’t want it to be. There will never be closure as long as we are here and our children are “there”… and words, stories, memories, they are everything. Your writing here is how you will heal while also keeping her with you. Talking about them and remembering them is a gift. It is acknowledgment that they were, they are, they existed, they are so loved.
Thank you for exposing the vulnerability of your heart. There are way too many of us who feel these words to the core. You are definitely not alone. Your daughter is loved. Your broken heart is shared by many. This loss is one of the cruelest that can come in this life. Sending all the love I can muster.
Closure is such a dumb word. You put it all into words so eloquently. I sometimes go to bereavement meetings and groups and sit there wondering how these people are still here nine years, nineteen years, however many years after their children have died and they are laughing in one minute and full of tears the next.
It is so utterly exhausting to carry such sorrow, isn't it? Does that go somewhere, I wonder?
Thank you for the love. I accept it with a grateful heart and return mine to you.
Thank you, Tara. It IS exhausting. For me everything is before and after. Before I lost a child, and after. Like you, I had a family… a husband and other children I needed to push on for. But, I will never be the same. Life is heavier. Some things mean much more, many things much less. I want to echo what I know others have said, which is that the stabbing ever-present grief you walk in now does lessen. You are in the thick of it and it will not always be so acute. Grief is such a shape-shifter and, while always with you, the intensity that sucks the life from you in the beginning, does fade. Thankfully. I could not have always lived like that.
I also just want to say that I honor the vulnerability of your writing here and I apologize for jumping right into this space. I don’t want to be intrusive. I know you need space and privacy and freedom to be honest and I want to be respectful of that. So…. For what it is worth, please know that when I read here It is with a sense of deep empathy and reverence and a shared sadness as well. I did not immediately heal or process well myself and your words touch on those places in me that still feel deeply broken.
There is nothing intrusive about you being here, it is a gift. I read and reread your comment. I have faith in what you say. It feels like a small lifeline, to know this pain can lessen somewhat. That's important to me to hear from people that know.
I share what I've written from the beginning (although I'm not far from that time). I certainly never had the intention to openly put it out there, but I kept feeling poked to. Maybe someone will find some piece some day that makes them feel less alone. Maybe in time, the evolution of anguish will be reflected in what I write. I don't know. I know it is raw, but I don't want to change that, but I also know that it can be far too much depending on where anyone finds themselves. That's ok, too.
Thank you for sharing in my sadness. I'm so sorry you know it.
Your daughter's Story and your Newsletter were highlighted in one of my favorite Substack Newsletters by Heather Heying: Natural Selections.
Mila's biography touched me deeply and my heart and mind felt sad that the world has lost such a beautiful young soul who, no doubt, was intended to continue touching the world in important ways, had she lived.
I, too, have been touched by suicide in my family but for starkly different reasons to do with genetics and our ignorance as a family.
As you told the uplifting and beautiful stories about her depth of feeling and emotion toward people and animals, the beauty of nature and the importance of connection, my heart was pained by both the beauty and hurt of what I know she must have often felt.
I, too, have a depth of sensitivity, (empathy, which Mila clearly had ❤️), which amplifies the highs and the lows and know how challenging it can be to live in a world that seems to lack the same level of sensitivity around the more important elements of life. Life's demands often dampen ones ability to see clearly the beauty that always surrounds us and is available should we be strong enough to pursue it.
As a grandmother (Nonna) to 5 children, aged 8-16 years, I am thankful for your telling of Mila's experiences as a young person in this time of COVID. As an adult, it is easy to forget what it is like to be young with the excitement of your whole life ahead of you. COVID, along with the terrible political divisions we have seen in our U.S.of A., (as well as other parts of the world) have put an unfair burden on the generations intended to inherit and carry on after us.
Some of the examples being set for them seem terribly lacking in encouragement for those who will be tasked with the future of our world. How have we come to be so selfish as adults tasked with lighting the way for the younger generations? 😔
My 15 year old granddaughter just had an incident at school which will serve as a hard, but hopefully deeply informative, lesson. In another time, with a different political climate, this would have been a non-incident considered just normal kid stuff. But identity politics have brought a grave imbalance into several different spheres, schools being a fertile breeding ground for gotcha' judgement of, what was once considered, typical teenage behavior (although I still didn't necessarily agree with it!). I have heartfelt concerns for the impact this will have as she has been suspended from school and will have five days at home to consider the situation and how to relate to it. A short recording already posted to Instagram has put her in the crosshairs for misjudgment and mean and cruel treatment. Often suffering with anxiety, I pray that this will not bring adverse consequences.
Mila's story has called my attention to how often we can be unaware of just how deeply the emotional storms raging within a young person's mind and heart can go. Mila's ultimate turn to a method of escape, which ultimately impacted and helped to end her life, is a harsh reminder of the reality that most human beings have a "drug of choice" to help them through the hard times.
Thank you, again, for sharing your broken heart and personal experience. It heightens my need for attention to and empathy with our young people.
May God bless you with peace of heart and mind as you continue to miss your precious child and all the beauty she added to your lives and to all who she impacted. My the most beautiful memories of her sustain you.🙏🏻💕
I found you here after following your other blog and Instagram. I lost a child 14 years ago. 14. Sometimes it feels like one minute and sometimes a lifetime but your words take me right back whether I’d like them to or not. I know the raw wide open place of grief you are in. It is not in moments where it comes and then goes. It is the atmosphere around you…. There is no getting away from atmosphere, it just is. I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to write except that. The aching that you feel. I feel it with you. Xo
What a succinct way to put it, Heather. "Atmosphere". Wow, yes. That's it.
I am so sorry that you lost a child as well. What a thing. A horrible, unearthly pain we, and so many other parents, have been asked to bear. I know there will be no getting through this. It just is.
There is so much comfort in hearing from other parents, like you, in just knowing that we are not alone even when it feels like it. Of course, I wish I didn't have to hear from you at all. Thank you for reading and thank you for sharing that with me. I am so touched by your words.
xo Tara
Isn’t it a funny thing that once we experience something we are then made aware of all the many others who have experienced it as well. It was a world I never really knew was so vast…. Mothers without their children…. In the beginning I just wanted to ask them all how they were still existing? How are you still here? In my family, my mom lost my brother when he was 25. My grandma lost my uncle at 22, and then I lost my son. I have watched generations of mothers navigate this grief and so there are some things I know…. Closure is not a thing… and we don’t want it to be. There will never be closure as long as we are here and our children are “there”… and words, stories, memories, they are everything. Your writing here is how you will heal while also keeping her with you. Talking about them and remembering them is a gift. It is acknowledgment that they were, they are, they existed, they are so loved.
Thank you for exposing the vulnerability of your heart. There are way too many of us who feel these words to the core. You are definitely not alone. Your daughter is loved. Your broken heart is shared by many. This loss is one of the cruelest that can come in this life. Sending all the love I can muster.
Closure is such a dumb word. You put it all into words so eloquently. I sometimes go to bereavement meetings and groups and sit there wondering how these people are still here nine years, nineteen years, however many years after their children have died and they are laughing in one minute and full of tears the next.
It is so utterly exhausting to carry such sorrow, isn't it? Does that go somewhere, I wonder?
Thank you for the love. I accept it with a grateful heart and return mine to you.
Thank you, Tara. It IS exhausting. For me everything is before and after. Before I lost a child, and after. Like you, I had a family… a husband and other children I needed to push on for. But, I will never be the same. Life is heavier. Some things mean much more, many things much less. I want to echo what I know others have said, which is that the stabbing ever-present grief you walk in now does lessen. You are in the thick of it and it will not always be so acute. Grief is such a shape-shifter and, while always with you, the intensity that sucks the life from you in the beginning, does fade. Thankfully. I could not have always lived like that.
I also just want to say that I honor the vulnerability of your writing here and I apologize for jumping right into this space. I don’t want to be intrusive. I know you need space and privacy and freedom to be honest and I want to be respectful of that. So…. For what it is worth, please know that when I read here It is with a sense of deep empathy and reverence and a shared sadness as well. I did not immediately heal or process well myself and your words touch on those places in me that still feel deeply broken.
Xo
There is nothing intrusive about you being here, it is a gift. I read and reread your comment. I have faith in what you say. It feels like a small lifeline, to know this pain can lessen somewhat. That's important to me to hear from people that know.
I share what I've written from the beginning (although I'm not far from that time). I certainly never had the intention to openly put it out there, but I kept feeling poked to. Maybe someone will find some piece some day that makes them feel less alone. Maybe in time, the evolution of anguish will be reflected in what I write. I don't know. I know it is raw, but I don't want to change that, but I also know that it can be far too much depending on where anyone finds themselves. That's ok, too.
Thank you for sharing in my sadness. I'm so sorry you know it.
xo
Dear Tara,
Your daughter's Story and your Newsletter were highlighted in one of my favorite Substack Newsletters by Heather Heying: Natural Selections.
Mila's biography touched me deeply and my heart and mind felt sad that the world has lost such a beautiful young soul who, no doubt, was intended to continue touching the world in important ways, had she lived.
I, too, have been touched by suicide in my family but for starkly different reasons to do with genetics and our ignorance as a family.
As you told the uplifting and beautiful stories about her depth of feeling and emotion toward people and animals, the beauty of nature and the importance of connection, my heart was pained by both the beauty and hurt of what I know she must have often felt.
I, too, have a depth of sensitivity, (empathy, which Mila clearly had ❤️), which amplifies the highs and the lows and know how challenging it can be to live in a world that seems to lack the same level of sensitivity around the more important elements of life. Life's demands often dampen ones ability to see clearly the beauty that always surrounds us and is available should we be strong enough to pursue it.
As a grandmother (Nonna) to 5 children, aged 8-16 years, I am thankful for your telling of Mila's experiences as a young person in this time of COVID. As an adult, it is easy to forget what it is like to be young with the excitement of your whole life ahead of you. COVID, along with the terrible political divisions we have seen in our U.S.of A., (as well as other parts of the world) have put an unfair burden on the generations intended to inherit and carry on after us.
Some of the examples being set for them seem terribly lacking in encouragement for those who will be tasked with the future of our world. How have we come to be so selfish as adults tasked with lighting the way for the younger generations? 😔
My 15 year old granddaughter just had an incident at school which will serve as a hard, but hopefully deeply informative, lesson. In another time, with a different political climate, this would have been a non-incident considered just normal kid stuff. But identity politics have brought a grave imbalance into several different spheres, schools being a fertile breeding ground for gotcha' judgement of, what was once considered, typical teenage behavior (although I still didn't necessarily agree with it!). I have heartfelt concerns for the impact this will have as she has been suspended from school and will have five days at home to consider the situation and how to relate to it. A short recording already posted to Instagram has put her in the crosshairs for misjudgment and mean and cruel treatment. Often suffering with anxiety, I pray that this will not bring adverse consequences.
Mila's story has called my attention to how often we can be unaware of just how deeply the emotional storms raging within a young person's mind and heart can go. Mila's ultimate turn to a method of escape, which ultimately impacted and helped to end her life, is a harsh reminder of the reality that most human beings have a "drug of choice" to help them through the hard times.
Thank you, again, for sharing your broken heart and personal experience. It heightens my need for attention to and empathy with our young people.
May God bless you with peace of heart and mind as you continue to miss your precious child and all the beauty she added to your lives and to all who she impacted. My the most beautiful memories of her sustain you.🙏🏻💕