Grief and Milestones - Birthdays
Hello all-
I am the founder and President of Laurel's Grief Center. I founded our Grief Center after losing a stillborn daughter Emma in 1993, and the daughter who was my daughter on earth, my terrestrial "angel" Laurel at age 23 to a tragic and unexpected poisoning when she purchased 2 of what she believed were lortabs for pain for an abscessed tooth but they were pure fentanyl and she died in October 2018.
When you lose your only child or any child the pain is beyond description. I began the grief center in her name. My mission is to help and support other grieving people and children with their searing pain as they learn to cope and navigate their own losses.
Today would be Laurel's 30th Birthday. To say that the pain of her loss has lessened would be a lie. My ability to cope and adapt to my grief is surely working but grief and loss take time and energy and every single day I swing my legs over the side of my bed to greet another day, and blow kisses at her photos is another day that I must face with a broken heart, a pain so profound that some find it crippling. That saying 'Time heals all', doesn't resonate well with me.
Time moves forward and me with it. I have developed a great "tool-kit" that helps me cope and navigate this pain I carry everyday but time has not dimmed the pain or made life easier. Every birthday marks another year without her here with us celebrating her special day and all the milestones she has/had achieved. It's a cruel reminder there are no more birthdays with her, presents to open, eat her favorite ice cream cake and light the sparklers in the dark she so loved. I feel robbed of what she might be, of her insights, humor and opinions that were her's alone. Robbed of watching her grow into a adult and all the milestones a parent looks forward to in the life of their child- there was the planned wedding in Spring of 2019 and the joy around that. Perhaps this birthday she and her family including the foster children she planned on adopting would be here to swim, play badminton, and sing Happy Birthday to her.
Every birthday fewer cards arrive to mark this special day. I get it. Everyones life has moved on. Mine has too but these special days it reopens our scabbed over hearts and we are feeling that "grief indescribable" called "vilhoma"(sic) in Sanskit.
To most people I'm 'doing well' and I am, but I carry a heavy burden of longing, mourning, wishing she were here as life feels wrong and incomplete without her presence.
So happy birthday to our "Lolies". We are loving you, celebrating you, and missing you as the years inexplicably roll by. I light a candle for you.
Loving you forever,
Mom
(If you are experiencing the pain and suffering of loss please reach out to friends, family, counselors - don't grieve alone. Laurel's Grief Center is here to comfort you, support you in your grief journey and help you develop your own "tool kit" to help you in you grief journey. We offer peer facilitated support groups and transformative art, music, grief yoga, and classes to help you function with a broken heart and still experience joy and well being. Reach out. Do not suffer alone.