Patterns of Love

I have not been able to write about Lindsey since Mother’s day.  Experiencing the pain of mother’s day and then facing her upcoming birthday on May 25^th, I didn’t think I was going to get through those two weeks let alone write about them. During that time I began to understand that we were approaching the most difficult memories to cope with and I remembered that these dates marked the beginning of the end with Lindsey. I do appreciate your patience as I have been working through my grief.

It was my personal goal to blog about this first year with Lindsey being gone, as a way to document what happened and also to give my feelings a voice. So today being August 20, 2012 I plan to complete the experiences I still have planned to share in the next four days. On August 24, 2012 we will be gathering at the cemetery at 7:30 with friends and family to celebrate the life of Lindsey Robinson Karr, exactly 1 year from the day of her passing.

This blog entry will be in honor of Lindsey’s birthday and writing about what it feels like as a Mother to celebrate your child’s birth and not have him/her be present in their physical form.

l know there are many mothers who have gone before me and many mothers yet to come who have had to celebrate their child’s birthday without them. These mothers have lost children either at birth or because of war or through abortion, or adoption, or through accidents or illness. These mothers have lost their children to immediate death or death by suffering.

There are also mothers who have lost their children to abuse, to drugs, to disabilities, disappointments or to a diagnosis or a condition. Mothers have grieved for their children through the tragedy of divorce and blended families and abandonment and poverty. There are mother’s who have gone through the pain of infertility and not been able to have a child. To all the mothers who have experienced the loss of a child my heart aches with you. I know you have the capacity to tap into what that pain feels like because of your own experiences. I have truly appreciated those mothers who have been reading this blog who have felt my pain and can relate to my own personal loss.

Lindsey’s birthday triggered the loss of my baby. A mother’s fear is that her child will have to suffer pain and that as a mother she won’t be able to comfort her child. When our children are hurting there can be feelings of powerlessness for the mother in not being able to fix the child’s suffering. I am just barely being able to express what I have been learning through all this.

It seems simple but, I have been trying to wrap my heart around the fact that Lindsey isn’t suffering any more and that the suffering I am feeling is my own. My memories are so linked to her suffering that I forget that she is actually in a joyful place and that she isn’t suffering anymore. I try and try to celebrate for her and yet the pain in my heart is so real, it feels like it is going to rip me a part. I am suffering because I am still here and sometimes I can hardly breathe because we are a part. My grieving and all grieving is the process of “letting go” and I am finding that I have not been so good at this.

I have also come to understand my need to cling to her and her memories, her laugh, her voice, and how she smelled, and how she slept on her side and cling to her personal things, it makes me feel that I am with her again and if I close my eyes she will be in my arms, but it is all a game in my mind. This need to cling to her in every form is so deeply human that to not have any part of her with me makes me feel like I will die without her. It is so amazing to have the spiritual understanding and knowledge about life after death and yet experience the human bonding that takes place between a mother and a child on a physical level. I never realized the power of love between mother and child nor could I have ever imagined how strong that bonding connection can be.

To support the mind, heart and body in “letting go” of that bond is a process, and must take time because we must replace the physical bond now with a spiritual bond. That’s what I have been working on this past three months, connecting to Lindsey in a spiritual way.

This first year I have been working through post traumatic stress symptoms, letting go of old bonding patterns and creating new memories to connect with that can stimulate life.

The memories of Lindsey keep patterns of love alive even in the memory of the suffering. And when those patterns of love cannot be replaced with new ways to love her there is a great deal of pain. She is not there to nurture so the heart plays out all the ways that I nurtured her in her suffering and clings to that, thus the old patterns of bonding.

New ways of communicating with her and expressing love to her need to be created, so we had a birthday party for Lindsey. We were looking for a way to honor her and her birth into our family. We get to create new patterns of love. We wanted to bring what we loved about her into present time to help our hearts heal and to celebrate her release from this world. So we celebrated her birth into the spirit world.

Lindsey loved birthdays! Every year she celebrated all week long and hinted and teased about what she wanted and reminded us to make sure she got to be the “birthday girl” all week long.

She had a charming and giddy sense of humor and everyone knew she loved parties, she was the party!!  On May 25, 2010 her last birthday party with us here on earth, we took her in a wheelchair to a local park for a barbecue/picnic. We invited friends and family and fed the ducks at the pond, roasted marshmallows, sang while she played the guitar, and watched her blow out her candles. She was still witty, even clever in her conversation and with her jokes. She was mentally present even though her body showed signs of failing.

This year’s birthday party included friends and family gathered at our house in honor of Lindsey, a birthday cake, balloons, presents for her dearest friends and sisters (bracelets to all of them from Lindsey) laughing and telling stories about her and her antics. It was a great birthday party and a new way to honor her and remember her in a joyful state of light and peace without suffering.

Yes I am finding my way through all of these new experiences and being able to find joy and connection to Lindsey, even bonding to her with new patterns/experiences of love. And as each new experience brings a new way to connect to Lindsey my heart is made lighter and I can see her in her joy, her hand reaching for mine and the two of us together, not separated, but bonded and living love in a new way.