I'm not ashamed to admit it: I love Bon Jovi. Always have. From his big haired 80s days to his short 90s do and even his indoor football love (okay, so not that or the most recent album, which I listened to yesterday and remembered why I didnt love so much...). Seriously. I like Bon Jovi. I had records and tapes in my younger days and I have CDs now, and there's something about his voice and some of his lyrics that just hit me where it hurts.
It's October 15th... So there's a lot of hurting. Why, you might ask? It's National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. While most people are wearing pink and touting Breast Cancer Awareness Month, others of us are holding onto blue and pink ribbons and remembering all of the babies that have died too soon at any age of gestation up through their first year of life. While our campaign may be one that is whispered, it impacts 25% of parents. That's huge. 1 in 4 women will lose a child (at least, some suspect those numbers may be higher). For the parents who mourn their children day after day, one day in the mix isn't anything more than a typical day in the life. But it's a day for advocacy and awareness nonetheless.
For the last few years, Bon Jovi slips into my mind on this day... (I know- you're thinking "Man, that woman has issues..." and truly, I do, but Bon Jovi is the least of them!) If you've never heard this song, then head over for a listen because just reading the lyrics doesnt do it justice.
It ain't no fun lying down to sleep and there ain't no secrets left for me to keep. I wish the stars up in the sky would all just call in sick and the clouds would take the moon out on some one-way trip...
I drove all night down streets that wouldn't bend but somehow they drove me back here once again: to the place I lost at love, and the place I lost my soul. I wish I'd just burn down this place that we called home. It would all have been so easy if you'd only made me cry and told me how you're leaving me to some organ grinder's lullaby...
It's hard, so hard - it's tearing out my heart. It's hard letting you go...
Now the sky, it shines a different kind of blue and the neighbor's dog don't bark like he used to. Well - me, these days I just miss you - it's the nights that I go insane, and unless you're coming back for me that's one thing I know that won't change...
It's hard, so hard - it's tearing out my heart. It's hard letting you go...
Now some tarot card shark said I'll draw you a heart and we'll find you somebody else new but I've made my last trip to those carnival lips when I bet all that I had on you. It's hard, so hard - it's tearing out my heart. It's hard letting you go...
(In case you are interested, it's from the "These Days" album, which may be one of my favorites of theirs. And, as a side, was that really 1995? Damn... That's almost 20 years ago. The XC kids are right- I am getting old!)
***
I was talking with a newly bereaved mother the other day and she asked me "When do you stop missing them?" As I told her "You don't" and heard her tears beging anew, it struck me that, although my heart doesnt break with every thud and while I'm able to breathe in air without my lungs wanting to collapse, the hurt doesnt miraculously heal and the emptiness never goes away. You learn to exist in the new world you are thrust into... You learn to cope with not having your child or children with you... You learn to deal with the sorrow and find hope and joy in your life and in the gifts that your child/ren was/were and continue to be. But the missing them never goes away. It hasnt for me and it hasnt for those I know who have been on this journey a hell of a lot longer than I have. Just the other day, as I was picking up a dear friend's son from school (he'd missed the bus) and we were discussing his recent birthday (13), that ache of realizing that, had our first baby not been miscarried, I, too, would have an almost 13 year old... That maybe the two of them would have been friends or been in the same classroom... It was a fleeting thought but still one that made my chest heavy with the ache.
Watching the youngest of my XC team run around the track and having the parents comment that, in a few years, Bobby and Maya will join me, make me wonder if Nicholas and Sophia would be on the team now, with their kindergarten classmates... if Alexander would hang out with the little 4 year old brother who longs to run with us (and will hit to the track for fun, even though he cant compete until next year)... Would they have run like Mama? Would they be more than happy to hang out on the sidelines, watching the high school football team practice? Would they long to join the cheerleaders, practicing on the field beside us? And that familiar ache... It's there, just behind the smile and the nodding that yes, I hope one day Bobby and Maya will be out here practicing with me and with the team...
Another October 15th... Another wave of light... Another hoping that the spirits of those precious little ones will visit while we sleep and continue their lives of peace in the Otherworld. Another prayer to the Blessed Mother that she will hold them all until I can- until we all can- again...
Another song of praise that I have Bobby and Maya here with me, and that this isnt a day I remember them along with their brothers and sisters...
Another day of loving and remembering and missing...
And never, ever, letting go.
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