We Are The Bereaved Mothers

Post by Still Standing Contributor Cheli Blasco

We are the bereaved mothers. We’ve been known to stop conversations and cause all sorts of discomforts.

We have received looks of pity and careless though well-intended words that sting.

We make people uncomfortable because we remind them of death or because we insist on talking about our children who died (but are still our children and are still loved  – and we cannot forget them, even though sometimes some people wish we would just give it a rest).

We point out empty booster seats that should be full, we cry over the one little voice missing from the ruckus.

We are the bereaved mothers.

When you look at us, you may see pain, uncombed hair and a mess of tears.

Look one second more, and you will see a mother. A mother is love- walking, talking, tear kissing love. When you look at us, you will see that.

Though our babies are not here to kiss, we kiss. We kiss all the time. We blow kisses at butterflies and particularly moving sunsets.

We close our eyes, ever so briefly, and blow secret kisses. Sometimes a kiss will be an extra long blink, blinking back tears maybe, or softly remembering our babies.

Like every mother everywhere, our thoughts are always with our kids.

We might not be wondering whether they are warm enough or whether they’ve eaten anything other than pasta for the past few days… but we worry endlessly too.

We want to know our babies are alright, that they are comfy.

They are dead.

Death does not unmake a mother. If anything, we need to be more resourceful in our mothering.

There are no parenting books, no theories on how to parent a dead child.

But we still parent.

We just make it all up, each day, as we go along, hurting and healing.

Parenting is just tailoring maternal love to fit each child.

We do that with our dead babies too.

We wonder which flower would honor their lives, we relish speaking their names.

We collect drawings of butterflies, quotes that touch our hearts, we write their names on the sand and in the snow.

We remember. We remember all the time.

We remember the love.

Also, the pain.

That odd quality we have about us… it’s because we have something special.

We have extra love in our hearts.

Love that can’t translate into choosing the safest rear-facing car seat, so it becomes love that wonders and meanders, most times with nowhere to go.

So this love with no port, it flutters about.

Sometimes it bursts out through tears, stinging sobs.

Other times it makes for a sideways smile when we remember our child. And it always makes us seem just a teeny bit off.

Because we are.

A little person is missing from our arms. But all the love for them is here, inside us, bubbling away in everything we do.

It makes us a little sensitive, sometimes creative, always brimming over with emotion.

When you look at us, I know that sometimes, all you see is love.

You see a mother who is all alone. Alone with her pain and alone with her love.

And who is just trying to figure out how to make it all fit.

You see our strength. You see in us the embodiment of resilience.

And you finally understand that love doesn’t end with death.

And that thought is astounding.

I think that we, the bereaved mothers, stand up for love. I think we personify strength.

I also think we would give up our glow ten times over for an extra day with our babies being alive.

But no one is around to make that trade.

So we just go on, mothering these pure souls.

Thank you for seeing us.

Thank you for knowing, that behind the unexplainable, all there is… is love.