My Sacred Place

Day 7 of the Capture the Grief project: SACRED PLACE

Today Carly asks - "Do you have a special place that you visit to be with your children?"

At first, I say no, sadly I don't. Or really I haven't thought about a special place. I asked myself, why don't I? It would make sense to have a place to be with my angel. Then I remembered that I do. I do have a place where I spend time with angel baby.

I take angel baby on my runs.

Surprise, surprise. I bet no one saw that coming, huh?

Yes, I take her on my runs. Sometimes I take Alexa on my runs too, and then we are all together. It's nice to be able to say that I am able to run with them both even though only one is riding in the stroller.

Running is a way for me to cope, to release feelings, to let go. But it's also a way for me to be more present with certain thoughts. So it's no shocker that angel baby joins me on my runs. It's not every run, and it doesn't really happen with any regularity... just sometimes a thought, or an object, or the way the breeze feels, or maybe an animal will remind me of her. Or a song will cause me to feel that she is there with me, pushing me to do my best. The song doesn't always relate to loss or love or hurt or pain (although usually it does) but something about it will bring me to a moment of calm. Suddenly I don't feel alone. Suddenly I feel surrounded by something that is hard to explain. I'm not even talking about a religious experience - more spiritual than anything else. Occasionally this feeling will bring me to tears (good, happy, and refreshing tears) but most of the time I just get this sense of peace. For a moment, or many moments, that hole in my heart as a result of the miscarriage seems to be all patched up and filled with love again. For a moment, it does not ache or cause me pain or make me feel weak. For a moment, I am whole again. It reminds me that this process, this healing, will eventually help me to become stronger... and angel baby will always be a part of me as the patchwork covering my wound.

"Our sorrows and our wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion." - Buddha

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." - Khalil Gibran

"Scars have a strange power to remind us that are past is real." - Cormac McCarty, All the Pretty Horses