Category: Tributes & Remembrance

The back story on this song is about a miscarriage my ex and I went through before I got sober. The loss of our son Jude after 7 months of pregnancy was so devastating it sent me into an alcoholic & drug spiral that lasted a year ending with an overdose and me finally getting help from 12 step anonymous programs. For many years I carried the guilt and remorse wondering if I had done thing differently would the outcome had changed. Eventually through recovery and therapy I came to accept and make peace with the loss. Many times when late term miscarriages occur we rightfully attend to the mothers & pour over them all the compassion and care we have to offer. My story is one of the devastated father. The men who lose their son’s & daughters before they ever get to know them. My prayers are with anyone who is has or will experience this soul crushing loss. It does gets better. When we share our pain we divide it. When we share our joy it multiplies.

(Tommy Vext)

Indeed, it’s true, my dear Tommy V, that when we share our pain, we divide it, and when we share our joy, we multiply it:

Ten minutes later, and not less than two minutes before I delivered her, my mother found her way to my room. There she stood holding my right hand, while Pete was holding my left, when Gina Marie, our precious baby girl graced us with her brief but powerful presence. She was 9 inches long and weighed just over a pound. The few hours she lived were the longest of my life, and there are no words to describe my anguish. The baby I had prayed desperately for on my literal hands and knees had been cruelly ripped from my womb and now I held her broken little body in my arms. She kept trying to hold on to my finger, but her tiny hand was too small to grasp it. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as I helplessly watched her gasping for air and struggling to live, then watched her take her very last breath. I struggled for so long to find a single good thing that came from all that heartache and trauma, as it is something I will truly never understand, but what I can tell you is that there in that otherwise frigid hospital room, racked with grief and agony in my very darkest of hours, I had never felt so truly loved. How blessed was I to be surrounded by all the people I loved and cared for the most and who loved me in all the best ways they knew how? My husband, who after all he went through to bring that little girl into my life, and who despite my best efforts to push him away never once in our lifetime together at that point had ever physically left my side. My father, who despite his shortcomings, seemed to love me in the best way he knew how, and despite our many battles, I know would have traded his life for my daughter’s in that moment. My sister and one true and unconditional rock, there at the foot of my bed on her hands and knees sobbing inconsolably for the indescribable pain that I was in, that if she could have, I know she would have taken from me. And, of course, my beautiful mother who has loved me all the days of my life and I was blessed to have standing beside me when each of my children came into this world, and then again when one of them left it.

(“Hello, Goodbye“)

So, here’s me doing some nonsensical calculations of the soul by sharing, dividing, and multiplying one of my most bittersweet, twisted, and beautiful boxes of pain from 21 years ago today:

It’s called “The Mathematics Of Faith”, and it’s factored by strength, fortitude, and resilience … the total sum of which is always “LOVE” … be it love for one another or the love we’re commanded to have for ourselves by the God that gifted us to one another in the first place, no matter how short or long our seasons. Perhaps the best part of this ‘lil quotient is that you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out! As a matter of fact, as far as faith and most matters of the heart are concerned, the deafer and dumber you are, the better!

Fast-forward to today and everything I’m feeling as I revel in the victory of powering through what would have been her 21st birthday had she not moved on to The Brighter Side Of Grey so quickly. Grieving not just my tiny angel, but my husband and so many others I’ve lost along the way has been difficult, of course, but even more than that, it has been the utmost and highest privilege of my life. Why is that, you ask? Because it means I “got” to love them in the first place. Their deaths remain “nothing at all“.

My prayer for all of you beautiful warriors out there is to keep on carrying on and let nothing and no one take that crown from your head or steal your faith. As for me? Although losing a child of my own flesh and blood (no matter her age or how fleeting the hours I had with her) is something I would never wish upon another parent, what I can tell you is this …

You have to let go of the need for black and white proof, walk through all the grey and fear blindly, and trust the process. It’s scary, I know, but the fruits of the immense amount of courage it takes to stop trying to make sense of certain things are infinite. I PROMISE!