The Elephant in the Room

During our 10 weeks at the coping centre for bereaved parents group we sat and talked about our child, our feelings, our fears, our sadness and alot of other things that only this group allowed us to talk about. Going to this group made us feel less alienated as bereaved parents because we found we were not the only ones in the world who had lost a child. Being a bereaved parent puts you in a different world than everyone else, a world that once you are in you can never come out of. And no one understands this world unless they too are a part of it. We shared and listened among 5 other families who lost their precious children. One of the things we all had in common and had to deal with among our outside world of family and friends is people are "afraid" to talk about our child. They are afraid to mention her name or speak of her for fear of upsetting us and making us cry, when little do they already know we are already upset and crying, little do they know that this is now our new life and that it is a daily part of us. It changes nothing, and sometimes if her name is mentioned we might cry out of happiness that someone is remembering her. We want to hear her name, we want people to talk about her or tell a story of her, we want people to talk as though she still exists....because we think she does. Hearing her name is like a beautiful song to my ears. It turns out that people dont speak of your child because its a fear they have of seeing you cry, because they cant imagine your life and they put themselves in your shoes for a minute and want to take them off. They react as they would feel in your situation. Little do they know that it makes them uncomfortable and not us!This is my life, my new life is crying when I wake up because I want to keep dreaming about Keely, my life is throwing things around because I am angry that I can no longer hold my daughter, my new life is tears and crying because I want my daughter back and theres nothing I can do about it! This is my life, it is remembering, talking and everyday fear of forgetting I am going to forget her touch, smell,smile or the feel of her head resting on my shoulder. Please remember my daughter and please speak of her.............
This is a poem we received from our group at the Coping Centre on speaking of our child............

There's and Elephant in the room.
It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it.
Yet we squeeze by with "How are you?" and "I'm Fine"....
And a thousand of trivial chatter.
We talk about the weather.
We talk about work.
We talk about everything else....
Except for the elephant in the room.

Theres and elephant in the room. We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant as we talk.
It is constantly on our minds.
For you see, it is A VERY BIG ELEPHANT
But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.

Oh Please say her name.
Oh Please say her name again.
Oh Please lets talk about the elephant in the room.
For if we talk about her death
Perhaps we can talk about her life.

Can I say her name and not have to look away?

For if I cannot, you are leaving me

Alone....in a room....

With an Elephant


Love you my little Elephant xoxo Mommy