Since I can remember, my mother walked me to my bedroom at night to put me in bed. I recall asking my mother if she was afraid of the dark. She explained that there is no reason to be fearful and we get anxious because we cannot see in the dark. I understood it for what it meant to me then. As I grew older, I have concluded that my parents did not raise me with a fearful heart, and for this, I am forever grateful, now more than ever before.
I dare to say that I am not a person with an anxious heart, and I do not get scared for any reason, but I experienced real fear for the first time when my precious daughter passed away. I felt uncertain and terrified at the same time. As if there were a landscape of emotions in the unknown since my daughter wasn't here with me. I felt lost and experienced loneliness on another level. What happened to my daughter was wrong in every sense. It had to be me before Melinde'?
What to do next? How do I go on into the unknown, was a thought constantly repeating in my mind? You do your best to act and function as expected by society. But subconsciously you observe your surroundings more intensely, analyse people on another level, and you become selective in the conversations you engage yourself in. I have changed, pain does that to people. I have learnt the hard way to pretend that I am okay, it is easier than having to explain why I am not. If you think seeing your child grow up to fast is hard? Imagine not seeing them grow up at all.
For my son, I had to find a way to keep going, to quit was not an option. Experiencing this lonely, sometimes scary, very unpredictable road, full of trial and error, you have to push forward.
"I have learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't." One of Melinde's quotes to me. Little did I know the impact it would have on my life going forward. To live life is to move with all its joys and sorrows.
I had to find a way to live with Melinde' in my heart instead of in my arms. My daughter's attitude towards life was with great enthusiasm and energy. She was not afraid to take on a new challenge. At the tender age of 13, she had a bucket list. I decided to do my daughter's bucket list, one goal at a time.
We are all getting older, more the reason to do the things that make you feel most alive. Find the things that ignite your soul. Fundamentally, those things need to be present in our lives or else our psychological fabric begins to wear away. Time takes on a new meaning after following the loss of your child. Time often seems to stand still, yet it has been 32 months for me. Time has been divided into a before and after but it is the continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future. To protect myself, I had to obtain a different perspective, I had to use my grief and reflection to re-build my life.
I often hear people say they do not know how I do it. The answer is simple, I was not given a choice. You eliminate everything you ever knew or rather thought you knew about death. Then slowly as time passes, you come to an understanding of what death means to you.
As much as I loved and wanted only the best for my daughter, I know she wants the same for me. So, what better way than to push through and live to honour my precious beautiful Baby Angel, in heaven.
The purpose of life after all is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
Enjoy the change in season and start doing that bucket list.
Because if you believe, signs turn up everywhere.
Kind regards,
Liesel