Today
I feel like someone has ripped out my heart and smashed it into a million pieces
Today
I feel like I am staring at the tiny pieces of my heart and trying to recognise something that is mine
Today
I feel like I am picking up the fragments and letting them slip back through my fingers
Today
I am feeling confusion as my brain cannot comprehend how to even start to fix my heart
Today
I am feeling clumsy that my body cannot collect those little pieces and make them into a whole
Today
I am feeling so lonely that no one else seems to see the shards of my heart as they pierce me
Today
I am feeling angry that I should have to begin to know what to do with fragile fragments of my heart
Today
I am feeling lost as I cannot find the way to piece my heart back together
Today
I am feeling empty as my shattered heart has fallen far beyond my reach
Today
I am feeling cold
Today
I am feeling abandoned in my misery and I am hurting as I try to work out how to heal my heart
Today
I am trying to feel hope that as Esther and William are so very good at jigsaws, perhaps they can help me to mend my heart?
But today I cannot even begin to feel hope
Today I am feeling so low
How are you feeling today?
Before my heart was broken …
I am feeling very sorry that anyone has to go through this pain, particularly someone so loving and positive and always concerned with giving back. I really, really hope that you feel better soon, find something to cling on to that will give you back even the tiniest semblance of normality, if nothing else. Always thinking of you xxx
Today I am feeling sorry and sad and wishing that our support could pick up every single shard of you and make you whole again.
One day those pieces will all be together. The cracks where you rebuilt yourself will always show, they will be part of you, but one day you will be able to move and breathe and dance and laugh and the cracks will sparkle in the sun when you do – Tilda is never going to be forgotten, and you healing cannot make that so.
I wish I could help you xxx
Jennie – I’m not very good with words. My loss was nowhere near on the scale of yours (a missed miscarriage discovered at my 12 week scan) so I’m not going to compare the two except to say that it took me much longer than 6 weeks after that to even begin to feel normal. I cannot comprehend the heartache you must be feeling and the grieving process must be so, so difficult. I’m sure at times it feels really surreal and hard to believe that it really has happened. Since coming across your blog and reading the news about Matilda I have thought about you every day. Please don’t try and rush your grieving – they always say there are 7 stages of grief and you will probably go back and forth between each one – you will never ‘get over’ this but I sincerely hope that in time, when you are ready, it will become easier for you. Just know that Matilda, with her beautiful smile and gorgeous long eyelashes framing her twinkling eyes, has touched the hearts of many strangers. xx
I am feeling so desperately sad that there is nothing I can say or do that will help you feel any better. I know that a broken heart nevers fully heals as there is always that one small but very important part missing but things do get easier. Please remember that even when you don’t think about Tilda every minute of the day she will never be forgotten because there will always someone else thinking about her xxxx
reading this I’m thinking about U and trying to send good thoughts to make you feel better x
Today I am feeling so angry at the injustice of this. I am feeling angry that YOU have had to go through this. That baby Tilda is not in your arms where she belongs. I am feeling so so outraged that this can happen to ANY baby, let alone your precious girl. I am also so so so sorry that you are suffering so much. And helpless. I am feeling helpless; wanting to do so much but not being able to.
xxxxxxx
I always read your posts but don’t always comment as I know there is little I can say that will be of any comfort & I don’t alway know what to write. I am wishing you strength to get through this. I will be attending Matilda’s walk & will see if I can get others to attend. Keep focused on the event & know that all the money raised will help to research & bring some positive from such a terrible tragedy. Thinking of you & sending you strength & hugs. Please try & stay strong for your children. Matilda would not want to see you upset & I’m sure she is with you in sprit. xx
My heart breaks for you Jennie, nothing anyone says will make things better or lessen your pain but please take solace in knowing that you are in so many people’s hearts and minds and that you even though you feel abandoned you are not alone xXx
To piece together a whole heart is a HUGE task! Especially as you know there will always be a piece missing… forever … till you meet again.
You indeed have some brilliant helpers who will help, but even with their help it will take time. Do it a tiny bit at a time and try to find comfort that you will eventually have it almost whole. Whole with a special nook especially left for Tilda to shine in there and for you to carry her with you till the end of your days.
You have lost someone very precious, who you have yearned for, carried, birthed and nutured for a lot longer than her short stay. Give yourself time and space to grieve, to remember, to celebrate and through your words and deeds support those who follow in your path.
I hope writing and expressing helps you find your way back to a new normal, and I trust the words of those commenting and those just reading and wishing you better give you the crutches to carry on too. Lots of love to you!
Today I wish I had a magic wand. I wish I could undo it all. Or if that wasn’t possible then I wish I could fast forward through time. I hope that time can heal you a little and above all else I wish you and David the brightest future with your twins.
I wish I could fix it. I wish that wishes could be real. I’m sorry Jennie xxx
When I was first grieving, I started to read ‘A Grief Observed’ by CS Lewis (I had to give up & come back to it 2 years later) – he uses an analogy that helped me, of having one’s leg cut off:
“After the operation either the wounded leg heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain with stop. Presently he’ll get his strength back and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it’. But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be different. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.”
Don’t expect too much of yourself, grief is a journey and you’re at the very worst bit. It doesn’t end but you honestly do find a way of living with it so that the person who’s gone becomes so much a part of the way you see the world that they haven’t really left.
Wishing you more peaceful times xx
If ‘love’ was sellotape, ‘in my thoughts’ was glue & ‘caring’ was staples – i would help you fix that broken heart in no time Jennie. I think about you every day, i too feel anger that such a wonderful person should have to go through this pain – no one deserves that. You write beautifully through your grief, i am always here with many listening xxx
Today I feel numb, like I have done every day since I heard the news. I feel angry that this has happened to you Jennie. Someone so loving, so beautiful, so caring and such a perfect mummy. I feel at a loss because of your loss and the many other mothers who have had to go through this. No parent should have to go through this. It’s just not fair. I wish I could scoop you up in my arms and take the pain away xx
Jennie, I read all of your posts and this one is particularly shattering. A piece of all your readers’ hearts are broken for you, and only time will mend yours but never fix it completely. I really do think of you often, despite us never having met, and I really do feel your pain. Hopefully writing it down gives you a small feeling of release. Sending you strength and courage and warmth to get you through these dark days.
Dear Jennie,
Today
I feel sad and reminiscent as I am reminded of when I had two toddlers and my beautiful, adorable, loving, warm, kindred spirit brother suddenly died.
I am remembering trying to get though each half an hour of each day without crying whilst I looked after my little toddlers.
I am remembering how hard it was also for my amazing, beautiful husband who was my brother’s best friend and how he helped us through those darkest days with his ability to get on with things while I fell apart.
I am remembering how painful it was seeing my husband feeling so sad, too.
I am remembering how I thought there was something wrong with my heart because I was having pain in my chest from crying so much. I am remembering asking my GP how long it normally took for most grieving people, for the pain and heartache to stop being so intense!
I am remembering how worried I felt about how it was affecting my little ones to see their Mummy sad and not her happy-go-lucky self anymore.
I am remembering how ripped-off I felt for them that they would eventually not remember much about their awesome uncle.
I am remembering that in between times of crying, I wanted to get in my car and drive with all my windows up so that no-one could hear me yell as loud as I could.
I am remembering that I had sudden desires to throw eggs and smash them against something!
I am remembering that I suddenly felt so old and that I’d never feel young again.
I am remembering that I didn’t understand what my grief counsellor meant when she said, “One day, when you think of your brother it will no longer hurt but it will feel like you are getting a warm hug from him”.
I am remembering that one day exactly 3 months after he died, I noticed that I only cried once ALL day! And that about a week after that, I noticed that I had a day where I didn’t cry at all in ONE WHOLE DAY!
I am remembering that I started noticing, just a little while after that, that I had more good days in a week than bad days. I am remembering that I had such anxiety about certain days such as his birthday, etc, and though they were miserable, those certain days were not so unbearable as I imagined they would be and that I got through them and that the anxiety leading up to them was worse than the actual day!
I am remembering how I would sometimes have a dream about him that was so vivid it was like I really felt his presence when I woke up and how I’d desperately try to fall back to sleep to see him again.
I am remembering how my toddlers then became 3 and 4 year olds who would sometimes ask me to tell them more about their uncle and how I would tell them funny things and they would smile or giggle and I would laugh too (and then sometimes have a little cry after I turned off the light-but not always).
I am remembering that then sometimes when I thought about him, I’d feel a comforting warmth around me.
I am remembering that I started to understand what the grief counsellor meant.
I am remembering that it one day dawned on me that it had taken a long time for my heart and mind and body to adjust that my brother wasn’t physically in the world with me anymore but that he still was with me spiritually, every day of my life, and that I would really be with him again one day.
I am remembering that eventually I was able to laugh and sing and play and hope and goof around and be me again.
Today
I am feeling sad that I can’t fast-track you, Jennie to that place where I now am but I am also feeling hope, that by sharing my story and my experience, that you will have a little hope, today, that one day you will get to that place. And that little bit of hope will give you a little bit of warmth and peace
Today. xx
Thank you x With all my heart, thank you x
You are very welcome x
I have never read anything so beautiful in my life. I follow Jennie’s journey as we all do, feeling her pain, wishing her well, but unable to express in words anything helpful to help get her through the unimaginable.
This is just perfect xxx
what a beautiful reply and a wonderful thing to share.
Jennie It is so awful that this has happened. Although I don’t know you I sort of feel like I do from reading your blog. When I was 22 I lost my partner in an accident – what I went through cannot even be compared to what you are feeling noone should lose a child so please don’t think I am comparing the two. However just afterwards my auntie sent me a card as she had lost her father in a very similar way and she wanted to offer some comfort. In the card she wrote that although I would never get over what had happened, one day given time I would learn to live around it, that I would find a new path and that was ok it wasn’t forgetting. It’s something that I clung too and for me it was true. At the moment your heart is broken and I’m sure you don’t want to hear people ask are you ok or say that horrible phrase of it takes time. I always wanted to ask ‘what takes time? Because it will never be ok’. You are so strong probably much more so that you realise. I hope I haven’t offended you by saying this in anyway. It probably doesn’t read as I want it to! Lots of love xxxx
Jenni,
I came across your blog about a month ago, and since then not a day has gone by when I haven’t thought of you, and your beautiful family, and most especially of Matilda Mae. Your posts have moved me so much, they are so full of your overwhelming love for your baby, I think one day Esther and William will be able to read them and it will help them understand the terrible loss you’ve all suffered.
I don’t know what it is to be a mother, or to lose a child, but I do have some experience of what it is to be a child of a grieving parent. Hearing your fears about juggling your role as mummy to your beautiful twins with the all-consuming grief I can’t begin to understand, I hope to be able to give you a bit of an insight from the other perspective, everything I write seems so inadequate, but I wanted so much to try.
My father died when I was 13 months old, and my brother was 4. I can’t imagine how my mum must have struggled, trying to be the mummy she’d always wanted to be in circumstances she’d never dreamed of, but she devoted herself body and soul to us, for which I will always be grateful. In her natural focus on her children though, she neglected herself, and in later years her unhappiness affected us all very much.
Remember that Esther and William need their mummy, of course they do, they always will, but by taking time as you need it, and looking after yourself, you’ll be helping them as much as yourself, give yourself permission to grieve.
As a baby when my father died I grew up, not remembering him, feeling left out of everybody else’s memories and recollections of their time together. My most treasured possessions are a copy of the few minutes of film we have of the two of us together, and photos which contain just the two of us, anything which shows that once we lived in the same world. I hope that one day Esther and William will be able to take comfort in these things too.
Thinking of you all my mind is filled with heart wrenching images of the terrible suffering you are all going through. But I can also imagine days exploring new places, and revisiting old, ice creams in the sun and autumn walks in the leaves. future Christmases of joy and love, and special memories, with a very special star at the top of the tree, overlooking it all.
I hope the light of Matilda Mae’s star, brightest of all, and of Esther and William and your family and friends, and everyone who has shed tears for you and felt their hearts open for you, will help to illuminate your darkness with a tiny ray of hope.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a beautiful comment x Thank you x
You are more than welcome, I wish that I could do more x
Have you ever considered grief counselling? It may give you the head-space and the objectivity to assist you with finding a way to let the pain go while keeping the memories alive.
sorry all I can add is (((((hugs)))) for you all. I have no words, no writing skills but like other people I think of you every day.
Today Jennie, I am sad, I am angry, I am heartbroken, I am all of those things. But I am also grateful to you for your compassion in hearing of my story and taking the time to share it. Like others here I know there are no words to ease your pain. But I would like you to know that I am sending all the love I can through a computer screen and that if I met you I’d want to hold your hand, how weird that must sound, I can’t presume for one second to understand how you are feeling but with hand on heart I want to say to you, please don’t spend too much of your energy too much thinking about anyone except you and those closest to you. I just read on Twitter how sorry you felt for another mum who learned about your beautiful girl being taken from you, and that is only natural, but please also take time to think about what you would say to you if you were a friend, I know you are surrounded by love and I wish you all the love in the world xxxxxx
Today is a different day, but I know those feelings won’t have gone far, I am so very sorry and wish that there was more we could do Jennie, but know that everyone is still thinking about Matilda Mae xx