42 sentiments shared

Exhale.

Write. Ponder. Fear. Share. Inhale.
Exhale.

To all who’ve commented here & at FB and emailed this past weekend, thank you.  I have read each and every one of your beautiful words.  One by one..all your kind, gentle replies.  They’ve helped me believe that this is okay.   And with pondering my words, and yours,  I’ve spent time with Ava.  For three days, I’ve thought so much of her and we’ve talked so much of her and I’ve cried for her.  It isn’t enough, but it never has been.    The day after she was gone..with her towel still hanging to dry and her shoes at the door, with pen to paper and a thousand memories flooding in, it wasn’t enough.

When I look back at that first year I think of the panic..a constant and all consuming fear that it could not be undone.  The feeling of forever, the knowing I would never have her by my side again.  At least not in this lifetime.    Sometimes it would bring me to my knees,  literally.   Little by little though, I formed a new relationship with Ava.  One based in honoring her and creating beauty in her name and sharing her.   It was a poor substitute, but all I had and it helped fade the fear.   If I could stay there I would but alas,  nothing does remain the same.  Except of course, my love for her.

Today I feel light-hearted and less afraid.    I’ve not reached up to the top shelf holding my grief yet but I have stepped back far enough to see it again.   I know there will be different ways to spend time with Ava, perhaps different paths to that place in my heart.   In the soft sunlight, in the laughter of her siblings, in the start of a new day..I will seek her.  To feel peace with the ebb and the flow is such a relief.    For listening, for caring..thank you.

And thank you to Kristen, who shared this with me. It speaks loudly.

“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs on his vacant garments with his form:
Then have a reason to be fond of grief.”

– William Shakespeare, King John

xx

Tucked Away Under // Ava, Family

74 sentiments shared

Dissipate.

I’m asked quite often why I don’t post anymore.   In the normal World of a normal family, that would barely be worth mentioning.  After all, it’s just a blog.  To me though, this place is so much more.   So much that I can’t even really explain and when you ask why I don’t spend time here now, I can’t really answer.  I don’t know why.  Or maybe there’s just lots of why’s and when I try to come up with one it all becomes a big jumble of something. Or other.   So, here goes.

When I started blogging, back in the days of four children here with me, it was easy.   For the three people who read my posts, I was perfectly happy sharing tidbits from otherwise unremarkable days..parenting stuff, cooking stuff, shopping stuff.   Complaints about lack of sleep and juggling business with babies and yearning after Alannah Hill frocks.  I never gave it any thought.

Then life..that uncomplicated, regular run of the mill life, turned upside down and for a very long time blogging was where I chose to pour out my aching soul.  Sharing Ava, and sharing the sorrow, became so important to my grief process and the support of so many along the way made a difference.  On my bad and badder days, I would put pen to paper, so to speak, and bare the brutality of a most unexpected life in the new Universe.  Somehow, it helped.  All that missing and yearning and endless wishing hung out for all to see.  I never gave it any thought.

Then that life became familiar.  A place where I have three children beside me and one in the Otherwhere.  Five years.  Tomorrow, it will be five years.  We struggle to fathom.   And you know, they were wrong.  Time did make a difference.  The unbearable suffering eased.  The wailing quietened and then the tears fell softly.    And, just as I’d feared, the tears stopped.  I closed the door to her room.  It’s still shut now.

I cannot explain the intense feeling of disconnection I’ve had from not just grief, but Ava too, over the last year.  It’s so hard to admit that but it is the truth.   And I hate it.  For the longest time, I’ve been aware of my grief tucked up on the top shelf.  I can’t even see it, but I know it’s there.  I wish I could reach it.  I just don’t know how.

The logical part of me knows this could be ‘normal’.  Maybe the book says it’s what happens at four years.  And five.  And the rest.  But what if I don’t want that?    I miss my time with her.  I miss the days she was here and I miss the days I lay on her bed sobbing with the wanting, the desperate wanting, for her to be by my side.  I don’t feel I have a place for her anymore.  Yes, her physical things are here.  Her bed is still here.  Her books and her clips and her shoes..they are here.  But the space in my heart where I promised she’d stay?  I’ve lost the way to it.

So if you ask me to share my thoughts,  I feel afraid.  How do I say my grief feels distant?  That she feels faraway?  To admit she’s not right here, front and center, every day.  From a place of such pain and suffocating sorrow, how can that be?

For now, I will shake my head in disbelief, still.
I will know that some things can not be explained.
I will know that I could have done better.
I will know that it wasn’t my fault.
I will know that some days, it will all be my fault.
I will keep her pictures on the wall.
I will speak her name.
I will wait to dream of her.
I will try to write of her.
And I will keep searching for a way back to my darling Ava.

xx

Tucked Away Under // Ava, Family

8 sentiments shared

A week out from Christmas already? Wow! An enormous thank you to every person who has contributed to a wonderful year for Eye Candy.  Fran and I have had the busiest twelve months with back to back workshops, including the introduction of our new Enhance Post Processing Workshop.  Our lovely Eye Candy Community has continued to grow and we’ve spent time with some truly beautiful people..we feel very lucky indeed :)

We’ve had numerous emails asking for gift vouchers for actions and online workshops and I’ve added them to the store today.  For those looking for last minute gift ideas, these may just be the easy answer!  You can download a gift certificate for Our next Explore Workshop (Beginners) runs from Feb 01, 2012 and Evolve (Intermediate – Advanced) starts on March 12, 2012.  Please email Fran at info@eyecandworkshops.com for further information.

Finally, a small gift by way of $15 discount off any single or duo action set or workshop registration from now thru December 26.  Please enter the code joy-11 at checkout!

Wishing every one of you a peaceful holiday with your loves..

Sheye xx

Tucked Away Under // Eye Candy, Photography