I Am Fragile, but I Have Places too Strong to Ever Break

I Am Not a Hero

I Am Not a Saint

I am the mother of a dead child.

I am the mother of a dead child.

I am not a hero.

I am not a saint.

It doesn’t matter if I’m doing well at this life

Or whether I’ve chosen to stare out a window for years,

Tears rolling down my face.

I am the mother of a dead child.

It is okay if I wear my heart on my sleeve

Or tuck it deep in the coin pocket of my jeans.

I am the mother of a dead child.

It is okay if I carry my grief with Atlas-like arms

Or if I am stooped and bent with the weight I carry.

I am the mother of a dead child.

That experience defines many things I do.

That experience defines few things I do.

I am not the artesian well that holds an endless supply of tears.

But I often dip from that well, drink from it, and then replenish it with tears of my own.

I am the mother of a dead child.

It doesn’t mean that I am strong.

It doesn’t mean that I am weak.

It means only that I carry what I can and put down what I must.

I am the mother of a dead child.

I am fragile.

I also have places that are much too strong to ever break.

I struggle to balance those aspects of my life and would do so,

Even if I weren’t the mother of a dead child.

I am the mother of a dead child.

I approach life with courage.

I approach life with fear and trembling.

Each day, each situation, demands and deserves its own response.

I am the mother of a dead child.

Memories sustain me.

Memories also pierce me.

At times, I must choose between sustenance and pain.

I am the mother of a dead child.

I am different from mothers whose children are all alive.

I am the same as mothers of living children.

I love without qualification or condition.

I am the mother of a dead child.

I am not on a pedestal of my choosing for living this life.

I resist the efforts of some to put me there.

Yes, it’s difficult to mother in this fashion, but it’s not worthy of praise.

I am the mother of a dead child.

Like most women who walk this path,

I stumble on the stones of grief, regret, and wishing things were not as they are.

I am the mother of a dead child.

Like most women who walk this path,

I often walk and do not stumble.

I hold my head high and move around and onward, forward into life.

I step away from grief.

Because of the choice to take those steps onward, forward,

I am more, much more than the mother of a dead child.

I continue to be alive. 

Finding the Common Ground of Love

An article shared recently on social media about being the mother of a dead child made it seem like it’s a heroic act to get up every day and just breathe and live. Some days, it does feel that way, especially early on when the vice-grip of grief squeezes every drop of joy from being alive. But grief changes, life changes, even for mothers of children who have died. We get up, we move, we live, we love, we laugh again—with out loud peals bringing us to tears, but not tears of sadness.

The article also attempted to dispel any blame we mothers feel. It proclaimed that it is “not your fault.” That’s a worthy aim, certainly, but it goes against almost every facet of what defines women as mothers, whether their children live and breathe or whether they must experience life after a child takes his or her final breath. The blame, even self-blame, the regret, is part of most mothering. It is a part of how we loved and continue to love those children who are no longer with us as well as how we love and continue to love any of our surviving children.

As mothers, we second-guess, we what-if, we retrace our steps, we remake the past because we want a different present; we want a different future. Someone loudly proclaiming it’s not our fault changes nothing. Rather, I believe it is more constructive to acknowledge the guilt, the blame, the second-guessing, the what-ifs. They don’t go away. Yes, they can be transformed, but those feelings are mother feelings. We live with them, regardless of whether our children are living or not.

The story also made it seem as if women who have experienced this loss are a breed apart from other mothers. I don’t think that’s true in many respects. I believe that mothers of living and dead children have more in common that most would like to believe. Yes, this loss is an agony, one that surpasses the threshold of any woman’s pain. Yet, the love that makes it such a loss is the common thread of being a mother. It is that love on which we find our common ground.