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Sitting by her bedside in the NICU, hour after hour, day after day, I realized it was going to be a nonstop roller coaster and phone call parade if we didn’t find some other way to communicate with the outside world on her latest updates.
The idea of a blog instantly came to mind. I remembered seeing a blog for the first time from my friend who documented her mission trip to China a few months prior. The idea seemed reasonable enough so I tried my hand at opening a blog, but was quickly flustered.
I gave up, and soon after found CarePages to be the ultimate – perfect solution – at the time.
When she died I didn’t know what to do with her CarePages. I left it a few weeks after our loss, and pretty much abandoned it since then. It didn’t feel right to keep writing there when CarePages seems to be mostly designed for living children. (Oddly enough, if I ever click on her CarePages site – which happens about once a year now – people still read her story)
Regardless – I knew I needed to write.
I opened up a journal and wrote as much as I could there. I wrote on my computer program at the time, Notes, for a while.
About a month or so after her death I got something in the mail from my Aunt. It was the beginning of something beautiful.
I carefully cut open the yellow 8 1/2 x 11 envelope and slipped open this incredible photograph. A photograph with her name written on this epic beach sunset. I think you all know who I’m talking about now – but at the time I had no idea who had done this.
I emailed my Aunt, thankful, but curious. She sent me Carly’s blog and from there I think I could smile for the first time since our loss.
I devoured every post up. I clicked on all her links and all her pages. I remember even clicking on the faces of her enormous Google followers gadget, trying to see if these people had also lost a child. Most of them had.
I decided I not only had the time to figure out how to open up a blog, it was something that I needed to do. Blogging became a double portion of healing. Releasing my emotions, and connecting with a community that seemed to just get it.
I wrote on my first blog for almost two years. Raw, unadulterated, grief-stricken, unapologetic posts of how this grief was rocking my world.
I made it private for personal reasons, but every now and then I’ll take a trip down memory lane. Where I was a year ago, especially around the holidays. I remember getting emails and messages from my blog friends, asking for my address. That first year I had so many people send me cards and ornaments with her name on them. For October 15th, my blog friends remembered her in their candle lightings and balloon releases. I cannot tell you how much that meant to me. To see her name.
If you ask me why I think my blog friends are rockstars, I can send you a photo album full of photos I’ve been given over the years with her name… remembered.
And if you ask me why I think blogging was vital to my healing, I’d tell you because it’s the best (and free!) kind of therapy there is.
If you are thinking about opening up a blog, below are some ideas and tips you might find helpful:
- WordPress.com and Blogger.com are two places you can sign up for FREE to get started on your own blog.
- If you are thinking about opening up a blog, but hesitating because of who might find it (trust me, we all have these ‘who’s’ in our lives) you can set yours to private and give access to only those you want reading – if anyone.
- If you are artsy, fartsy like me and like the idea of customizing your blog to suit your taste, check out some free blog tutorials here, here and here.
- I do blog design as a side job, and have had so many bereaved parents tell me over the years that getting to order a custom design for their blog was therapeutic, because it was something they could to honor their child, a way to create a space for just their lost child. I also offer discounts on blog designs for the bereaved community.
- If you have a blog, please be sure to add it to this page, where almost 400 blogs are listed – all written by bereaved parents.
- The great thing about blogging is you can turn it into a real, tangible book.
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Have you found writing to be a source of release and/ or healing for you? Do you blog? Feel free to share it in a comment.
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About Franchesca
I was surprised how therapeutic it really was. Getting all that in your head stuff out on paper, even virtual, helps to work through emotions and grieve “better”. Your’s was one of the first I found when I started in the BL community on FB. Thanks for that!
So true Stephanie! I am so glad you have found therapy in writing, I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you friend
xo
I have found that it helped to let friends and family know what is happening in my life when I was not ready (did I say was? I’m STILL not ready!) to talk to anyone on the phone or face-to-face. It also helped for so many other reasons like the ones you listed – connecting with other bereaved parents, and people living with a form of the disease that my son had. Reading posts like this one helps me feel strong in keeping up my blog – some days, I wonder if I’ve said enough, but clearly, I haven’t. Thank you for this article and keeping us all connected!
Big hugs Mel!! Keep writing, blogging and spilling your heart. xoxo
It is no coincidence that I am reading this lovely article in a moment of space and clarity. At times, it can be such effort to find down time for the “right” use of technology. Writing in any fashion is, by far, so utterly therapeutic. Since losing my twins last winter (2 months apart), the need for connection has been overwhelming, perhaps a form of maternal instinct preservation. The connection with me, my little and not so little angels, and other “like-minded” individuals has grown exponentially. I have stopped *resisting* the need to find more time to write and express myself creatively. Rather, I have chosen to just *accept* those free moments of time that I do create to write. Just as I have accepted the physical time I had with my children, so will I, time and time again, accept that my limited writing time is simply the best I can do…. at this time.
I prefer typing over paper writing in the interest of speed of transferring the thoughts to paper, but my computer time can be limited. There is a certain beauty in the feel of a Cross pen in my right hand, gliding across the smooth texture of paper. I prefer the inconsistencies of recycled “not so white” paper. The imperfections of the paper remind me of the imperfect translucencies of my newborns skin. There is a gift in not going back and editing our choice of words, our spelling, the rawness of the expression. But, Oh, how I would love to go back to my pregnancy and shift my fear based thought process….. to just trust in the process that what sadly happened….. needed to happen. It was a karmic process that my limited brain will never understand. I am just physically too close to it….someday I will be at deaths door and STILL not understand it. Losing Andrew and Jackie (and littlest and tiniest Baby Gauthier) were my most profound life lessons in understanding impermanence and the concept of unconditional love.
I suppose my writing is a way of preserving memories; my egos attempt to capture a moment, to freeze the words in time, such that they will not be forgotten. My heart will not forget; their memories will live on….maybe truly only in the hearts of there mother and father. But there is the connection. So many little ones gone to soon, so many mothers and fathers with unyielding maternal and paternal instincts. This is where the memory of ALL of those little lost lives will live on. The pay-it-forwards. The remembrance walks, The October 15ths, the scrolls of blogs and memorials………
May writing, in whatever form, continue to serve our soul, continue to move forward… we shall still write, still stand.
Oh Jean, I am so so sorry for the loss of your twins. I love how you put it — “I have stopped *resisting* the need to find more time to write and express myself creatively. Rather, I have chosen to just *accept* those free moments of time that I do create to write…” So beautiful. I also love your description of writing on paper… reminds me of my first daughter as well. Sending big love to you, and yes – may writing continue to bring healing in this bittersweet journey. xoxo