A very beautiful baby girl, just a couple weeks older than Evie, left this world Tuesday. I did not know her or her family personally, but little Maggie Amelia Rose touched my life none the less.
Starting sometime in early 2008 her mother, Kelli, and I joined a group of pregnant women expecting to be mothers in August later that year. We shared, as a group through the virtual world, the ups and downs of pregnancy together. We anxiously worried about passing through the first trimester, analyzing symptoms only in ways paranoid pregnant women can do. We comforted each other that each twinge and worry was normal. We whined about the symptoms we least liked: morning sickness, restlessness, insomnia, and other TMI topics. And we counted down the days until the magical second trimester.
As a group we celebrated our milestones of the second trimester. Like the spring in full bloom around us, we blossomed. We started showing, prompting the sharing of belly photos. Imagine?! Posting photos of your bare, growing belly with a group of women you barely know online. Only this group of women would recognize that barely-there-bump so early in the second trimester. During this time we connected even deeper with our growing babies through finally feeling them move inside us. We ooh'd and ahh'd over the tiny kicks and bumps we'd feel. Sharing each sensation with the women online we grew closer to everyday. As we learned the sexes of our babies we celebrated with each other and shared our names for the babies we would soon hold in our arms.
As mild spring turned into hot summer (especially hot due to all our extra hormones!) we entered our third trimester. The panic and worry of the first trimester was long gone. Ah, but panic and worry never truly leave a mother. Now that we felt the kicks, we timed them. Were they happening often enough? While some women turned to their OBs to calm their fears, we turned to each other. Who needs a doctor to tell you not to worry when there's a group of women you have been growing close to who are going through the exact same thing. There was comfort in our numbers. When our fears turned towards our upcoming birthing days, again we turned to our other August moms. The experienced moms soothing the newer moms with stories of their past. Everyone pitched in ideas, books, resources, or simply a computer screen of a hundred different faces to vent to.
Then the babies started coming. Some early, some on time, and others chose to hang out a while longer. We analyzed labor signs, received updates from labor buddies, shared our birthing stories, and posted pictures. We lived every experience of our pregnancies together. Through it all we helped each other with the ups and downs in any way we could, in any way our new sisters-in-motherhood needed.
We had no plans to change this now that our little ones were on the outside. Having a baby meant that we had a whole new world of questions, thoughts, ideas, fears, and worries that demanded the open discussion of the group of women we had to bonded with. We knew, and still know, that this group of August moms is a place to turn to.
Throughout all of this I don't remember what posts were uniquely Kelli's or about Maggie, wish I could say I did. I just don't have a memory for those kinds of specifics. But I do know how important each of these women and children I have never met helped shape who I am over the past year and a half.
It wasn't until mid-morning on Wednesday that I logged onto the group and saw the tragic news that Maggie had passed away the day before. Shock, disbelief and fear were the instant reactions. Shock that someone I *knew* had suffered such a loss, Disbelief that it could actually happen, and an overwhelming Fear that it could happen to my baby. I cried throughout the day, reading every post written to, or about, Kelli and Maggie. I expressed my feelings once again with my fellow August moms.
Since then I've been so confused. I feel grief, and I feel guilty about that. What right do I have to feel so sad, so empty, when I still have my baby girl. I feel like I'm imposing on Kelli and her family to feel even 1/1000th of what they must be feeling.
On the other hand, I have a strong instinct of self-preservation that keeps screaming at me to stop reading about it, to stop going to Kelli's facebook page, to try to push it all out of my mind, to make myself happy. But I feel guilty about that too. Why is it fair that I can push my emotions away, that I can stop reading about it, that I can go home and hug and kiss my baby girl, that I can stop this from being my reality...when all of this is Kelli's reality against her wishes? I feel like I should be grieving with her.
So I'm torn, and unsure of what to do. Writing about it all seems to help. I can make what I feel real, even if I can't make sense of it. I can, and will, be avoiding my online oasis for a little while, but that doesn't mean I feel any less for Ryan, Kelli, Piper, and Maggie. It also doesn't mean I need to stop thinking about them, because I won't.
Thanks for letting me share with you. I urge you to join in on sending thoughts and prayers to Maggie's family as they celebrate her life today: http://www.funeralquestions.com/obits/lensing/memorial.asp?listing_id=131630
2 comments:
this is beautifully written Danielle. It is always sad when a child dies. More of the world should grieve when children are lost. This is truly a sad story and the fact that you empathize with this poor family's grief is amazing.
I agree, it is a beautifully written piece. There are so many complex emotions when someone dies, especially a child. Sharing in their grief, even though you don't know them, may not comfort them, but they know then they are not alone. It turns my stomach and I don't have a child or know the family..
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