Rose, Ivy, Birds and Lilies

Birds of a feather flock together, or so they say. I've just always wondered how all these like-feathered friends found each other in the first place. Of course, with writers, we meet up at writer's events, poetry/writing forums, etc... But I've been amazed by the number of bereaved mothers and people who have experienced a loss due to CHD that I've come across coincidentally.

Rose is one of those people. We're actually similar in many ways, we both keep a blog that covers various topics, hers however is much more organized! I think I'm safe in saying that we both believe that sex is better than chocolate, we both apparently like wrought iron beds and ivy covered brick, we each write poetry, and we've each lost a daughter to a congenital heart defect. We also both believe it's important to continue talking about our losses as time goes on. She's been dealing with her grief for 14 years, and she still cries. It's good to know that it isn't unusual for the tears to remain so long after the loss, because I cannot imagine, even in 9 more years, that I wouldn't still miss my Alexis. And pardon my saying so, but even moreso with Nova.*

Rose found Poetic Acceptance at Jmom's house. Jmom is a blogger I found while looking for other NC bloggers. She's fairly close to me geographically, and also has a love for lilies and a problem with Japanese Beetles. She followed me back here and linked to me because my babies' stories moved her to do so, and I am grateful for that.

Apparently, these 2 birds flocked together by way of the garden, and I'm extremely happy to have met them both. They've both been wonderful with their comments and Rose and I have had a strikingly open dialogue about the loss of our children. You all know I'm not one to use a lot of religious rhetoric, but I can honestly say I feel blessed to make so many friends of so many people I might never have met if it were not for Nova's influence on my life.

*Now before any of you bite my head off let me explain: Alexis was only here for 12 days. Aside from the fact that I've spent 5 years denying myself permission to grieve her, she never came home from the hospital, and, unfortunately, the fact that we never had her at home creates a different set of circumstances that surround her death, and the way I coped with it. I do not mean to say that Alexis was less important to me, or that I loved her less or miss her less than I do Nova. The difference is in the fact that I had Nova for so much longer, that he came home and influenced me in ways that Alexis never had the chance to. They say that you can't miss what you never had, and that's true, but there is definitely a difference in what you miss about a child that never came home. Because he was so much older than Alexis when he died, we did more with him and for him, and therefore there are more things to miss without him here. I love them both dearly, and miss them horribly, but for Alexis, it is more the absence of the things you expect to do when you have a child. With Nova, I miss not only the things we will never do, but the things that we did.