Post by Stephanie Dyer
We sat on the couch after almost two weeks of being just slightly east of ‘civil’ to one another.
It was time to have a reckoning of one issue we didn’t seem to agree upon…
grieving.
Of course, he grieved each of our daughters in his way, but ultimately, he realized that he and I were in different places.
He stated that he would never feel the way I did because he didn’t carry either of our children.
He didn’t feel them move or experience birth.
He would never truly understand my pain.
He realized that it had forever changed me and wished that there was a way to connect again.
So, I pulled out the lawn chairs and said, “Stand here with me and imagine every occasion and event that we will celebrate in our living children’s lives.
Picture birthday parties, cookouts, soccer games, Christmas dinners, graduations, weddings…
and now look at these two empty chairs.
There will always be two empty chairs where our daughters should be.”
And he finally understood.
Diana Stone is the Editor-in-Chief and owner of Still Standing Magazine, as well as a loss mom to three boys, twins born in 2012 and another son in 2013. She also has two (living) daughters. Currently, Diana teachers first grade for a Reggio-Emilia inspired school and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
Her journey with writing online started after the birth of her first daughter in 2009. You can read Diana’s work on World Vision, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Christianity Today, Babble, Liberating Working Moms, Simple Homeschool, Mom.me, She Reads Truth, Still Standing Magazine, Yahoo, Military Family, Attachment Parenting International, and her own site Diana Wrote.
She’s spoken at the Influence Conference, on several podcasts like Happy, Healthy You and The Morning (episode 51), and a live panel with HuffPo. She’s also traveled alongside World Vision USA to both Zimbabwe and Ecuador to learn about maternal and infant mortality rates in 2015 and to help launch their Chosen program in 2019.
Her passion is advocating for women’s physical and mental health rights during and after the loss of a child at any stage. Contact her at editorial@stillstandingmag.com
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