Elisa Hirsch is celebrating her book launch with the giveaway of an iPad2. The details of that giveaway is here.
As part of the launch, she’s also hosting a blogfest where participants write about the death of a loved one. Today wasn’t a great day for me, work pressure and all, plus I had to rewrite this post, but since I committed, I didn’t feel I could do anything other than honor the promise I made to participate.
That said, I’m grateful to Elisa for giving me the opportunity to reflect on my losses, as well as all the things for which I should be thankful. I don’t think I’m ever grateful enough for all that I enjoy, so this is a good time to look back at the journey I’ve taken over the last dozen or so years.
I decided to wait to have children, so when I got pregnant, I was ecstatic and looking forward to the young man that would be part of our family. That was not to be as I lost my son at four months. He would have been eleven this year. I told myself a lot of things during that time, but as I’m a believer, I still cling to the fact that a part of me lives in heaven. That, and all of Job’s struggles, helped me put things in perspective and get on the road to healing.
I lost my mother two months after my second son was born. That period was filled with grief, regrets, plus the stress of making arrangements for the care of my baby as I had to go back to work after three months.
Things worked out, as they always do.
Losses have a way of teaching us what’s important. When I’m under a lot of stress, I try to remember that what I’m angry about won’t be important in a day, month, week or year. I also remind myself that half the things I worry about never happen. I’ve also discovered that for every bad thing that happens in our lives, we’re rewarded with many other good things. We just need to get on with the business of living. Again, many thanks to Elisa and I’ve wishing her every success with this celebration in honour of Zeke, the child she lost. I hope sales of the book outweigh her expectations.
