parenting

Dear Non-Bereaved Parent

January 8, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

grief quote by nathalie himmelrich — Handlettered Quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

I know you care for me and am so glad you’re reading this. I know that you can’t fully comprehend, nor would you want to, what it means to be a bereaved parent. Honestly, I’m still finding out for myself.

To live without my child is not something I ever wanted to learn and yet it’s what I have to. I see that you want me to feel better. Let me assure you, you’re doing the best you can to soothe my pain, yet it is here and will be here… until it lessens.

It won’t ever go away completely and this is ok. Can you be ok about it with me?

Remember my child with me

I hope you will have the courage to remember my child with me until we part. Please remember this: You may speak her (or his or their) name, you may remember her birthday or anniversary with me, whether that is by sending me a text message, card or flowers – it doesn’t matter, it’s the thought that counts.

Please do not fear my tears or my sadness, it means that I’m thinking of her or missing her. It’s not that I am permanently broken or sick, just broken-hearted and grieving.

Please have the courage to sit with me and my pain, without needing to fix it. At times I might say “I need some time to myself” but more often, I do appreciate you being here, even without any words, keeping me company or doing something with me. Other times I might need a distraction and I might even laugh and experience some joy and then feel guilty again and cry in the next moment.

It’s ok, this is life and death: complex and paradoxical and not always to be understood.

The old me is gone

You probably feel that I have changed. You might even hope and wait for me to return to the ‘old me’ again. I’m sorry but that won’t happen. I’m forever changed.

Losing a child is like losing a limb. Even though the scars of the amputation will heal, it’s a permanent change and as much as it sucks, it is what is.

I have to get used to it.

Will you bear the chance to get to know me as your ‘new normal friend’?

I’ve chosen you as my friend because you have a big compassionate heart, yet I know it’s (almost) impossible to understand the unimaginable.

Don’t say things like: “Wouldn’t it be time to move on?” or “At least you have…”

I know you might say those kinds of things in an attempt to support me.

I know you’re well-meaning yet I’ve become sensitive and certain sentences are like shards of glass on an already wounded heart.

Even if you don’t understand, would you allow your heart to reach out and trust the sensitivity of my broken heart? (For examples on what to say instead, click here.)

I might not be up to celebrating pregnancy news, I might even feel jealous of those lucky mothers who are joyously carrying their children.

It’s not that I’m mean, it’s because my heart longs for my child and seeing those mothers with their children is a reminder of what I don’t have.

With time and healing, I will be sad less often or cry less often as at the beginning.

This does not mean I’m ‘over it’.

My child lives on in my heart and I will never get over the fact that I’m never to hold her hand in life.

Please do not confuse my healing with ‘been there, done that’.

My child might have gone with the wind, yet I’m still searching the world for signs of its fleeting presence.

Thank you for being here for me and with me.

Thank you for being my friend and having remained my friend through this.

Thank you for creating a new friendship with my ‘new normal’ self even though we wanted everything to remain as it was…

Thank you for remembering my child and therefore honouring me as her mother.

Wishing you peace,
The bereaved Mother

This article was first published August 3, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

My Dear ‘Would –Be’ Child

September 7, 2016 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Handlettered quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

You are my ‘would-be’ child, you who would have turned five (four | three) last week. The children from Kindergarten would have celebrated with you in the morning. The rest of our family would have visited in the afternoon. We would be singing Happy Birthday to you and you would have impatiently ripped open your presents and whooped in joy.

Excitement would be here, given that you just started Kindergarten two weeks ago. You would say ‘I’m a big girl now’. I would walk with you and your sister to Kindergarten every day and I’d pick you up before lunch. Your sister would fight with you over the toys you both want to play with at the very same time. Your Kindergarten teacher would have two sets of identical twins in her class this year! You and your sister would each talk to one of the twin boys that live just a few doors down our street, and soon you would walk to Kindergarten with them, holding hands. There would not be one Kindergarten child missing this year.

Both of you would want my attention, often probably at the same time. It wouldn’t always be easy. Both of you talking at the same time would fry my brain. Your sister would have someone to play with and talk to, someone to stay awake with or wake up in the morning. You would share your toys and books and – of course – also fight over them and throw them around in anger.

You would love sweets, especially lollies and Gummibears. I would hear you scream for ice cream and say ‘mmmmh’ when eating homemade chocolate cake. Your favorite meal would be spaghetti. If you could, you would start the day eating an ice cream and drinking cordial. On special occasions you’d be equally happy if Daddy would make you banana pancakes. At any chance you would want to lick the bowl when I was preparing a cake. But then you would dislike brushing teeth not matter the time of the day.

Mostly I would hug and kiss you, my child, I would hold your hand and feel your soft skin. I would brush your curly locks and bear your screams for me to stop because the brush pulls on the knots. You would want me to braid your hair or make pony or piggy tails.

OH, MY DEAR ‘WOULD-BE’ CHILD…

I would do anything to have sleepless nights, difficult discussions or an angry face telling me to go away if I could…
Anything to have you kick me at night sleeping in the same bed when you’re sick or scared of the monsters under your bed…
Anything to see you learn to ride your bike, even if it meant you’d fall and many times I’d pick you up and I’d sooth your bruises…

Sadly you’re my would-be child, the one that lives in my heart.
The would-be five year old but forever three days old.
Even if you’re not seen by the world out there, you are with me every day, in my heart, in my thoughts, in my dreams, in my sleepless nights, in my quite moments.

You belong to me as I belong to you.
You are part of me and I am part of you.

Your Mama, always.

NOTE:

* I’ve previously heard that some psychologists recommend bereaved parents ‘do not grow up your child in your imagination’. My personal experience and that as a grief counsellor is that it is absolutely normal and common to do so. As painful as those ‘would-be’ thoughts can be, they are also a normal way for parents to live out their dreams and hopes of a life that was cut short, the would-be life of their child.
“It is normal for parents to report that they having an ongoing relationship with their child through their memories and mental life.” (Worden J.W. 2002)

This article was first published September 7, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

Stop That Grieving!

January 7, 2015 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

NICU — Image from Nathalie Himmelrich’s personal archives (Photo by Cassandra Deep)

Many times during the dark periods of my grieving I wished for it to stop. “I can’t take any more!”; “I hate my life,” and “I don’t want to be like that.”

In one specifically dark moment I remember telling my husband: “You have the luxury to decide whether you want to stay with me or not, I don’t have that option.”

There were so many times I wanted the whole thing to just be a story or a film that would end, preferably with a happy ending. And neither did I want to become friends with my New Normal self, nor with my New Normal life. Why was it called ‘normal’ at all?

In a conversation I had with my mother after her first suicide attempt I urged her to think about and consider what it would mean to me, being pregnant with HER twin granddaughters and having to deal with the grief of losing MY mother. She said: “I know it would be hard, but with time, you’ll see, it will get easier.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

This conversation occurred eight months before she died and four months before Amya died.

This January, it will be three years since my mother left and I finally know what she meant. I feel that it is due to my extensive personal grief work and my process of writing my book Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple that I have come to find myself in a good place with what concerns grief.

“With time, you’ll see, it will get easier…” applies to grief. It does however not apply to loss. Since my latest article ‘Being a Better Parent After Loss?’ and some interesting experiences I have had with certain people’s apparent discomfort with my outspokenness about ‘grief matters’, I realised that there is a huge lack of understanding of the difference between grief and loss.

Loss is a permanent, non-changing reality for a parent who has lost their child.

Grief is a process that is different for any parent and changing and evolving over time.

Loss will never ‘stop’.

Loss can not be ‘let go of’ or ‘moved on’ from.

The fact that I have a daughter who died is part of my history.

And even though it’s in the past, it’s also here with me.
It is not something I will or can forget about.

Grief, on the other hand, is a process.

It changed me and my outlook on life.

Grief will ebb and flow, it comes and goes.
With time, it comes less frequently and is less intense.

I won’t get lost in grief.
I resolve to let go and process grief, every day.
But I will grieve the loss
when needed and as long as needed.
And I resolve to remember Amya.
One thing I cannot lose is her memory.
“With time, you’ll see, it will get easier…”

~~~

THE GRIEF GETS EASIER.

THE LOSS JUST IS.

~~~

This article was first published January 7, 2015 in Still Standing Magazine

Being A Better Parent After Loss?

December 3, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

mother and child — Image from Nathalie Himmelrich’s personal archive (Photo by Tina Steinauer)

Not me.

I became a mother and then a bereaved mother 3 days later. Raising a twinless twin meant ‘learning to be a new mother’ at the same time as ‘learning to be the mother of a dead child’.

Motherhood came with sleepless nights, challenging start with breastfeeding, organizing a funeral, and turned into a constant feeling of overwhelm, anxiety and restlessness, mixed with overflowing love, cuddles and giggles.

Now, three years later I am parenting a strong-willed toddler, which brings me to the edge of patience on an hourly basis. She’s challenging me with the reoccurring, “No,” not wanting to brush teeth, put on jackets on cold winter mornings or get dressed at all. These scenarios, for the bereaved mother without children, might be met with statements like “I wish if only I had those challenges…”

Having held my 3-days-old daughter in my arms as she drew her last breath, I know what it means to lose her. I know what it means to stand in the fire of heart-breaking grief. The missing of my child is etched in my bare skin.

Grief scratched my soul so deeply, it left me wounded in a way that hasn’t just left a permanent scar, but a permanent sore wound which impacts my relationship with my living daughter. Even though her humour showers me with healing light, I am fearful something might happen to her. I jump when I see as much as an appearance of a potential dangerous situation, even when there isn’t really something to fear.

I do enjoy motherhood and I love my living daughter to bits. It does not need much imagination to get a sense of what her identical twin sister would have looked like. I am totally aware of what I don’t have and I do appreciate what I have.

I savour the moments I have and tell my daughter how much I love her every day, uncountable times. She might get therapy later for being smothered with love. I see twin parents being challenged with the load of two and I know what it means not having what they have, even if it’s dealing with the challenges. But knowing something they are not aware of does not make me a better mother.

The potential of loss is something I’m painfully aware of, in every waking moment. I am definitely experiencing motherhood deeply and consciously. I love smelling Ananda Mae’s hair and study her ringlets as she sits in deep concentration of Barney. Having said all of that, I’d rather be blissfully unaware and have two heads with ringlets to smell and comb through in the bath at night, even with the double crying of water and soap in their eyes.

I feel self-judgment as I lose patience in the moments of an extroverted 3-year old testing the boundaries. “No wonder… you wouldn’t have been able to handle twins” do I hear the haunting critical narrator in the cinema of my mind. The expectation to be always calm and poised is far-fetched and totally surreal, I know. And still: “I have experienced my daughter dying in my arms, sure enough, I should make sure I enjoy EVERY moment I have with her sister…”

And yes, I’m a master at being hard on myself.

I don’t have any comparison to being a mother without the experience of the loss. So really, who am I to say I would have been a better mother before or without the loss? It’s just a feeling, one that I can never get proof for.

There are no ‘Sliding Doors’…

Loss has made me acutely aware of the fragility of life. I don’t take things for granted. I enjoy deeply. I’ve seen eye to eye with death. I know what my purpose is with my daughter. Having said all of this, I’m human. I lose my temper. I scream when it all gets too much. That threshold of what I can bear has moved closer since I’ve wrapped my lifeless daughter on a bed of roses for her last journey.

I am just a mother.
Like you.
Happy and elated in one moment.
Lost and helpless at what how to react to my child in another moment.

Simply human – but not simple.

This article was first published December 3, 2014 in Still Standing Magazine.

It’s 3 Years Today That I Held You In My Arms: The First, The Last, The Only Time

September 3, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

grief quote — Grief Quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

At the beginning of this week I noticed the date of my article for Still Standing Magazine: September 3^rd. This day, 3 years ago, I held my twin girls in my arms for the first, last and only time – together, alive and in my arms, where they belonged. Holding them together was my vision all the along the pregnancy.

Holding her as she passed away, was not.

Today, September 1^st, as I’m writing this, it is their birthday. It is a day with mixed feelings for me. My husband and I went into Ananda Mae’s bedroom this morning and sang ‘Happy Birthday to you’ with both their names. My daughter said: “No, it’s MY birthday.”
Understanding the self-focused world of a 3-year-old toddler I replied: “Oh, yes, sweetie, and it’s also Amya’s birthday but you get all the presents.”

When I’m with Ananda Mae, she draws all the attention. Still, there are moments I have time to reminisce what it would be like to have the two girls. It’s not hard to conjure this image with identical twins… I don’t have to think what she would look like, how she would talk, sing, smile or cry. I have a living example right in front of me, every day. I am grateful for what I have, at the same time there is sadness for what is lost.

Now, as I write these words, my thoughts go back in time: when I held her in my arms. She was so tiny, with slender limbs and dark short hair. She had extremely long finger and toes, just like her sister and just like me. She lay there in my right arm and I watched her every breath. Her heart was beating fast. I held her on my bare skin and felt her warm skin on mine. I breathed in her scent and imprinted my memory with her facial features, her long lashes and red lips. She didn’t move much but then she opened her eyes and stretched out her arm as if to touch my face.

It was the first, the last and only time I held her.

I don’t know how mothers experience the loss of one child and return home with empty arms. I can read about it, hear you talk about your experience and empathize with you. The truth however is that the loss of one twin and the two miscarriages is the only personally experienced reference of child loss that I have.

In life I choose my focus.

Sometimes I think: “You should be happy to have one, others have no children.”

I am happy.

I focus on what I have and what I’m grateful for.

Yet, life is a coin with two sides.

Sometimes, the coin flips unexpectedly and there is a sting of sadness as I see a twin stroller coming my way or seeing a mother preparing for the arrival of her baby. The waves of sadness come and go. That is life. With or without loss.

When I can, I choose my time to turn to the coin and spend conscious time in reflection. And that is today, that is now.

Dear Amya,
You are my child.
You are Ananda Mae’s sister and always will be.
For some, you are a memory.
For others, you are just part of a story.
You don’t get any presents or mentions on birthday cards.
But you live in our hearts and memory forevermore.
Happy Birthday – Happy birth-into-the-afterlife Day
My child, I miss your physical presence in our lives.
Mum

This article was first published on September 3, 2014 in Still Standing Magazine.

What Is A Mother To You?

May 7, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

With another Mother’s Day is just around the corner I have been invited to ponder the meaning and definition of Mother.

The Definition of a Mother

There is a distinct difference between mother as a noun, versus the action of mothering in the form of a verb. Reading the definition of a mother it says a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth. The verb ‘to mother’ means to bring up (a child) with care and affection, also referred to as ‘the art of mothering’. In the past to mother meant to give birth.

It is interesting to note that the person giving birth and the person bringing up a child with care and affection may not always be the same person.

Becoming a Mother

Throughout my early adult life I had the distinct feeling I would have two children before I turned thirty. I could imagine being a mother but really, this was just an idea and far from a real image of being a mother.

Later in life, once I decided I actively wanted children, I noticed a shift within me. The mother inside me was giving birth to itself.

Appreciation of my own Mother

Only having a child myself has truly allowed me to appreciate the journey my mother has gone through, enjoying the beautiful aspect as well as dealing with the challenges of having children: the hugs and kisses, as well as the “No!” and “Go away Mummy” comments.

Being a mother is an experience, one that I never could have imagined. People who have children say: “You don’t know what it’s like until you have them.” They are right. I thought I did know but truly had no clue. I’m still finding out day by day what’s next to come in bringing up my daughter.

Yearning to be a Mother

Not every woman can be a mother but every woman has had a mother. Many women would have loved to be a mother but didn’t have or can’t have a child due to various reasons. With my limited experience of yearning for motherhood (before I was a mother) I empathize with these women. I remember the disappointment I felt every month of not being pregnant. I remember the sadness in looking at other pregnant mothers striding along holding their bellies.

The need to be mothered

Many children never have the experience of their birthmother’s love and care. One can only hope that they find another woman to raise them as a mother. We all need to be mothered or cared for, even as adults. We translate it into being loved, understood, heard, seen and felt. It is a basic human need.

I do hope that on this Mother’s Day every woman has someone or something she truly cares for and has someone who truly cares for her, whether she has living children or not.