It was a year before I found the confidence and recognized my need to share my twins publicly with the world.
I’d spent the first year after their death tiptoeing around people, wondering if they’d think I needed therapy if I talked about my two dead babies in a public way, forcing people’s acknowledgment of their existence.
I’d cautiously posted on FB when we passed their expected due date but that was about it. It had been suggested by someone who loves me that I “pretend it never happened” and I could always tell when members of my family were giving each other “knowing” glances behind my back when I brought them or the pregnancy up. I got the message. Don’t talk about it and it will disappear.
And as time passed and I got pregnant with my rainbow, I know people were breathing a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, when this new baby comes Tova will be able to put that whole thing behind her and move on.”
And for a while, part of me even thought they were right. But as the one year anniversary of their death approached, followed less than three weeks later by the expected delivery of our rainbow, I knew I needed to do something.
I needed to make sure they wouldn’t be forgotten.
For the first time in almost a year, I sat down and opened up Sunshine & Daisy’s memory box and I photographed all the contents inside. My husband wanted to know why and I told him, I was going to make a memorial video.
Who was I going to send it to? He wanted to know… he too was worried that people might think I’d lost it.
“No-one” I replied… “well, maybe just our moms… that’s it, I just want it for me.”
I sat down and started creating the video. I spent days at the computer, listening to the heartbreaking background song over and over, looking at their pictures, photoshopping, finding images that represented how I feel and then timing them exactly to fit with the music in a way that flowed and meshed.
The process was like its own form of therapy, and when it was done I showed it to my husband, and I could tell he was moved.
“What are you going to do with it now?” he asked.
“I’m going to send it to a few people, just a few,” I promised.
And I started assembling a list. And I put in every person that knew I’d been pregnant. Every person that had acknowledged my loss. Every person that meant something to me at all. Almost 70 people in total.
And I not only sent it to them, I asked them to reply. I forced their acknowledgment because it was important to me. Because I’d finally found the strength to stand up and say “These are my daughters. To know them is to know me because they have rewritten who I am.”
It was the true beginning of my healing journey.
According to the Jewish Calendar, we said goodbye to our girls during the especially the meaningful and holy days between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. That was exactly 4 years ago today.
Every year for the last three I’ve shared this video on my blog and on Facebook. I’m honored to now be able to share it here as well.
Post by Tova Gold of Finding My Muchness
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
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