We had just finished lunch and I was cleaning up the kitchen. I noticed the vase full of dead flowers still on the counter.
Without a second thought, I walked over to the vase and pulled out the lifeless flowers.
As I was pulling them out, I heard my four year old rainbow daughter ask in a panicked voice,
“What are you doing?”
Already half way to the garbage, I nonchalantly replied “I’m throwing out the flowers, they died”
As I dropped the wilted petals and broken stems into the garbage, I heard my daughter let out a loud cry.
Confused, I ran back into the kitchen to see what had happened.
She was crying so hard, I thought she got hurt.
Surely, this had nothing to do with the flowers…
Between gasping breaths, she finally spoke:
“You threw away the flowers before I could say bye! They were so beautiful. I loved them”
I was in shock. I don’t know how many times in my life I have thrown away flowers that had died without a second thought.
But this time, I felt horrible. And insensitive.
I scooped her up into my lap, I told her that I was sorry, and asked what I could do to help.
She sat silently, and then requested I bring the flowers back in so she could have a ceremony (her exact word!) to say bye.
I came back in with the flowers and watched as my daughter lovingly and gently touched the broken petals. I listened as she said thank you to the flowers for bringing beauty into our home.
She then whispered, “I love you”.
As somebody looking in from the outside, I did not understand her attachment to those flowers. I did not even realize she had a profound connection to them.
But just because I didn’t understand the attachment, the connection or the love….was her grief not real?
Did she not deserve the time and space to honour her grief?
When I had my first pregnancy loss, a first trimester ectopic pregnancy, I felt just like my daughter did with those flowers.
No one could feel or understand the beauty, the joy and the love that pregnancy brought me. No one could see or feel the connection….but it was there.
I did not receive the opportunity to say good bye. I did not have the chance to express the beauty that I had seen, or the gratitude that I had felt.
I did not get to openly grieve.
For weeks after my loss there was a profound and deep sadness around me.
The outside world likely thought….
Surely, this has nothing to do with the loss of such an early pregnancy….
My daughter has since requested “bye-bye ceremonies” for many things that she has held dear to her heart. Like the mosquito I killed yesterday, who she honoured wholeheartedly before she let it go.
She has shown me, that no matter how small, or seemingly “insignificant” a life is, if it was held close to you, you deserve to say good bye.
No matter if people understand, or see the connection, you deserve to thank it for its beauty. And you deserve to reminisce about the joy.
You deserve to ritualize the loss of something, or someone, you once loved; no matter how brief.
So to you, momma who has had an early pregnancy loss but who doesn’t feel like it is okay to “say goodbye” or to cry…
Please do.
Honour your attachment, honour your connection.
Most importantly, honour you and honour your grief.
Guest article by Aditi Loveridge from PregnancyLossHealing.com
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