Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Welcome to the third installment of my new blog hop/writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday here on Four of a Kind!
In case you missed my original post about this, here is the background of how and why I came up with the idea. If you are here to participate and link up your post, you can do so with the Linky Tools at the end of this post (or if you have any difficulty using it, you can share the link to your post in the comment section here).
The gist of Time Warp Tuesday is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives and reflect on our journeys since we wrote them.
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The theme for this week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Song Lyrics
In my post last week I encouraged participants to choose a post from your archives in which you included song lyrics. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happened in your life since. For this Time Warp theme/prompt I talked about how music plays a significant role in so many of our lives. During happy moments and milestones we celebrate good times by listening to, singing along with and dancing to our favorite songs. When we find ourselves facing challenges and uncertainty in our life we often turn to music and lyrics to find comfort, peace and inspiration.
Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might have needed some help and inspiration to get started, I shared some questions to consider:
Why did you pick this post? What was it about the particular song and/or lyrics that moved you to include them in your blog entry? Is this a song you still listen to during happy or difficult times in your life? What memories does the song call to mind for you? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post? If so, how? Do you think you would still feel the same way now if you were writing it today? Would you still include this song? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?
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Time Warp Tuesday: Song Lyrics
I wrote the post that I chose for this week on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in October 2008. I find it a welcome coincidence that I happened to choose this topic/writing prompt to explore the same week three years later. I did not have this post (or the song lyrics that I shared in it) in mind when I thought of this topic.
The Remembrance Day this year falls on this coming Saturday (October 15). The “Walk to Remember” that I talk about in this post we have participated in every year since. We did so earlier this month, for the fourth time, on October 2, which was also Sean’s 8th Birthday. He was a very good sport about spending some of his special day walking to remember his baby sister Molly and the other babies that we have lost over the years.
Here is the link to my post called: Who You’d Be Today
Please go and read the post that I am reflecting on today (and comment if you choose), if you haven’t already, and then come back here to see what I have to say about my journey since then.
***Here is where you left off before you stopped to read my old post.***
So much has happened since I wrote that post. A few months later somehow we were able to conceive again on our own, sustain the pregnancy and almost a year later give birth to our daughter Abigail. However bringing Abby into this world and our family was in no way a “replacement” for what we lost. Rather she is a wonderful addition to our family, including those of us here on Earth and those watching over us from Heaven.
To this day when I hear this song I tear up. It captures so well the way a parent feels when they lose a child. We never get over it and so often find ourselves wondering and imagining who our children would be today. As I shared in the post that I chose to revisit and reflect on today, I often think about who our angel babies would be today, had they lived and been born around the time they were due…
A 6 year old (who would have started first grade this year, possibly at the same school as his or her older brother), a 5 1/2 year old or a 5 year old (either of whom would be in kindergarten and would surely have their own interests and unique personalities by now) and a 3 1/2 year old baby girl (who would be in preschool and doing many of the things that I see her cousin, and other of our friends’ children that age, doing at this stage of their lives). Though I try not to dwell too long in the fantasy of would they could be today, I do find it therapeutic to allow myself to imagine and wonder now and then…
This year’s “Walk to Remember” was again a very moving experience for me. For the first time we attended just the four of us. In past years Bob’s mom attended and last year my parents also joined us. Though our family members are always welcome to be with us at “the walk,” it was actually nice this time to have it be “just us.”
Sean has grown to appreciate and look forward to the event, especially the time when we do the balloon release and watch the multi-colored balloons float away into the sky. It is bittersweet to realize that each one represents a baby or babies that one of the families present at “the walk” has lost. Sean even asked us this year if we really thought that Molly and Babies Benson would be receiving the balloons that we “sent to them” in Heaven that day. I replied by asking him what he thought. He said he wasn’t sure, but he liked the idea that they might get them and I agreed. This was also the first year that Abby seemed to grasp some of what we were doing. She was fascinated by the balloons and when we let go and watched them fly up into the sky, she kept saying “balloons, fly away, sky!”
There is a time during the “Walk to Remember” each year when bereaved parents, family members and other loved ones are invited to speak, share a poem and/or something they have written. After four years of considering doing so, this time I finally chose to volunteer to speak and to share a story that has helped me to makes some sense of our loss, especially the short life and death of our daughter Molly. It is called The Brave Little Soul and was written by John Alessi.
It was therapeutic for me to do this and I got choked up as I read. I was very moved as I would look up at times, while reading, and see the faces of many bereaved families and hospital staff members (nurses, chaplains, etc.) that have been a part of my journey through grief and loss since I first began attending “Caring Connections” (the perinatal bereavement support group at our local hospital) five years ago this Fall. When I first began going to the meetings regularly in September 2006, I was still processing our interstitial ectopic pregnancy the previous year (in November 2005) and the two early miscarriages that had preceded it in December 2004 and August 2005, which if you have already gone back and read, you know that I shared about in more detail in the post I chose for Time Warp today.
In my post last week, I talked about how grateful I am to be a part of this awesome community of bloggers who are here to support and encourage each other during the best and worst moments of our lives.” Likewise, I feel blessed and lucky to be a part of a group of families who live in the Chicago area and Southwest suburbs who choose to gather monthly to support each other as we continue to process our grief and our loss (whether our babies died last month, last year or many years ago), as well as those who come together annually in October to honor the lives and memories of our babies who have gone to soon.
Though we will never get the chance to know who the children we have lost would be today, I do find peace, comfort and strength in realizing how Molly and Babies Benson have impacted my life, as well as the lives of their daddy, big brother Sean, little sister Abby and other loved ones. I believe that most of us that were touched by Molly and our other three “angel babies” have become more sensitive and compassionate people for having had them in our lives (even for such a short while) or in Abby’s case for having the opportunity to learn about them as she grows up.
Thank you for reading and for doing the Time Warp with me this week. I look forward to your feedback about this post, as well as reading and commenting on all of yours. Please feel free to comment even if you didn’t write your own Time Warp Tuesday post this week. It is not too late to participate if you are interested, click here for the details.
This is such an overwhelmingly busy time in my family and my life right now. For me it is in part because I am still working on my witness for the women’s retreat that I am helping to plan for and host next month at our parish, along with other retreat preparations. In some ways the experience of writing my witness has been like composing a really long blog post. During this “crunch time,” if it weren’t for this blog hop/writing exercise, I probably would not have posted a blog entry at all this week and may not do so again until this time next week, but it has been nice to take a break from all the other things on my “to do list,” to write here and prepare for this week’s Time Warp Tuesday, as well as to choose the theme for our next round.
Updated to add: For those who are interested, here is a You Tube video that includes the song and lyrics for Who You’d Be Today.
Below you will find next week’s topic and I hope that you will join me back here on Tuesday when we “do the Time Warp again!”
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The topic for next week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Heroes
Mel from Stirrup Queen’s (yes, I get a lot of inspiration from her and reading her blog) wrote a truly awesome post last week on the day that Steve Jobs passed away. If you haven’t read it, you can do so here. It may be my favorite post that she has ever written. It moved me that much. The blog entry is about Mel and her husband’s experience telling their son that his hero had died. It is a moving tribute to the visionary who brought so many wonderful ideas to our world and inspired this week’s topic.
Choose a post from your archives where you wrote about one of your heroes, someone that has inspired you and/or a person that made a significant difference in your life. It can be someone that you knew personally or someone that you admired from a far. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happen in your life since.
Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might need some help and inspiration to get started, here are some questions to consider:
Why did you pick this post? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post? Do you still consider this person to be one of your heroes? Why or why not? If you know your hero personally, how has your relationship changed or evolved since you wrote your original post? If you don’t have a personal relationship with your hero, have you ever met them or would you want to spend time with them, if given the chance? Do you think you would still feel the same way now if you were writing it today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?
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For those new to Time Warp Tuesday, here is a quick recap of how it works:
1) Browse through your old blog entries to find one that fits the topic for the given week. The topic is shared at the end of the previous week’s “Time Warp Tuesday” post here on my blog (see above for next week’s topic).
2) Write a new blog post in which you introduce, link to and then reflect on your journey since you wrote the older blog post and put it up on your blog on Tuesday. Please include this link http://chicagobensons.blogspot.com/search/label/Time%20Warp%20Tuesdays in your blog entry, so your readers can find their way to my post with the list of other participants, in case they would like to read more or participate themselves.
3) Share the link to your new post here on Tuesday and then visit, read and comment on the other blogs.
4) After you have done all of these things, you are welcome to grab the code for the the Time Warp Tuesday button by clicking here and put it on your blog. The link will take you to a Google Doc where you can copy the code. If your browser does not allow access to your computer’s clipboard, you can use Ctrl-C for Copy and Ctrl-V for Paste, or use your browser’s Edit menu.
5) Check back here every Tuesday to find out the new topic, theme or question for the following week (I welcome your ideas and suggestions) and then return to Step 1 of this recap to participate.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see you back here on next Tuesday when we’ll “do the time warp again!”
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Thank you again for reading, commenting and participating in my Time Warp Tuesday blog hop. Link up below and click through to visit others who are doing the Time Warp! (If you have any trouble with Linky Tools, please share the link to your blog entry in the comment section.). Also, please don’t forget to comment on my post here, as I do not have a link to this (my own) post below, but I would still really appreciate your feedback. xoxo
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This is my first time participating in a blog hop! I'm glad I found yours. It sounds like you are in a good place now, remembering your lost babies but also happy with what you have. I'm glad that imagining them now gives you comfort.
Welcome Deborah! I am so glad that you found my blog hop too and I am excited that you are "doing the Time Warp" with us this week!
I am in a good place now, but really appreciated reading your posts today, as they were a healthy (and needed) reminder for me of the importance of trying to focusing more on being grateful for what we have in our lives, instead of dreaming of what we wish we had.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
"Happy people don't necessarily have everything… They just make the most of everything they have."
Thanks again for your kind words and for participating! I hope you will join us again next week or another Tuesday in the future.
Kathy, This is such a beautiful post. I'm so glad that you have found a community where your hurts are heard and understood.
I'm hoping to participate soon!
This is a beautiful post, Kathy. And I love all the pictures of the balloons soaring off into the sky.
Suzy – Thank you for your kind words. xoxo I would love for you to participate soon! Please join us anytime. 🙂
Jen – Thank you and I love them too! It is so bittersweet and cathartic to watch them fly away. So glad that you are doing the Time Warp with us again this week! Heading over to read your posts now… 🙂
Wow, so much to respond to here. First of all, what a beautiful thing the Walk to Remember is. I wonder if something like that takes place here. I wish it did. I'll have to look into it. I'd love to release balloons for all the lost babies of friends and family.
One thing that really hit me about your linked post, was the family you expected to have, four-six kids all two years apart. It reminds me of the family my mother hoped to have (four kids, two years apart). Instead she got me and my sister and seven years of loss. I always wonder if she still sees what she doesn't have between us. Especially my other sister, who died in the NICU when she was 3 months old. I'm so sorry you did not get to have the family you'd always hoped for. Everyone should be able to build the family of their dreams. Everyone.
The lyrics of that song made me cry. I definitely need to find it and listen to it. In a way, I'm kind of lucky because my first loss was so close to my successful pregnancy that I rarely wonder what my life would be like with that baby, because if he or she existed, my daughter wouldn't, and the idea of that is too much for me to bear. I'm actively grateful for that because I think it helps me not re-open old wounds. At the same time, I understand that imagining your family as it would have been without loss, could be therapeutic.
Thank you so much for creating this blog hop. I'm so enjoying revisiting old parts of myself and seeing how I've grown. Reading back on my old posts and journal entries, I just wish I could take my past self and hug her and tell her that things would get better, eventually. I think knowing that I want to do that now is helping me find more peace in the present moment, because I wonder what future me will think as she reads back on the posts I'm currently writing. Would she tell me don't worry about #2, he or she will make it without much trouble? Or will she want me to cherish my current happiness before the really bad stuff happens. Either way, I think she'd want me to be happy right now in spite of however it might work out. That has been an unexpectedly positive outcome of this project and I can't thank you enough for that.
I look forward to reflecting on my hero for next week's post.
The photoessay of the balloons is so poignant. Add in that song and you've got to send tissues.
Lori – Thank you for taking time to read and comment on both my old and new posts this week — your words really mean a lot to me. xoxo
Esperanza – Thank you so much for your comment and for participating in Time Warp again this week! I really appreciate the time you take to think through and share your thoughts on my (and others') words.
I would imagine that there is some kind of “walk to remember” in your area, you could try looking on the Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support website (http://www.nationalshare.org/) or check with your local hospital to see if they have a perinatal bereavement program and/or support group for those who have lost babies.
If not, there is likely a Candle Lighting Remembrance program, sponsored by Compassionate Friends that will be held on December 11 this year, for all those who have lost children. It is a worldwide event. In past years I have lit a candle in our home on the night of the Worldwide Candle Lighting, to remember our babies, but I plan to attend a local program being held in our area this year with a friend.
Thank you for sharing about your experience being an adult child of a bereaved mother. This part of your comment especially moved me, "I always wonder if she still sees what she doesn't have between us." I am not sure if you meant it this way, but it reminds me that though it is important to honor the life and memory of our daughter Molly and our other angel babies, that it is important for our living children to know how much we love and are extremely grateful for them. I don't want them to feel like I spend too much time grieving over what we lost and not enough time celebrating their living presence in our life. Though I do not believe they feel this way. I think they know how much I adore and care about them.
Another interesting thing that has come from reflecting on my journey through secondary infertility and loss is coming to a point where I am able to find peace and acceptance in "what is," vs. "what could have been" and/or "what I dreamed of." Yes, in someways I still wish that we would have been able to have that big family that I hoped for and imagined, but I am also able to see now the benefits in our family being who and what we are now.
Having grown up as a family of four, there were certainly things that I liked about it *just* being my parents, my sister and me and if going forward we do not choose to try and/or are unable to add to our family (which we have made a "soft decision" about — being done), I think with each passing day I am more and more comfortable with that vision for our future.
That said, I do agree that those who struggle with IF and loss should have the opportunity to build the family that they want and dream of, though they may need to be open to getting there in ways that they had not have originally realized might be paths for them to parenthood (such as ART and/or adoption).
I updated this post with an embedded link to a You Tube video that includes the song, as hearing it sung adds so much to the lyrics. I also appreciate what you shared about if you had the baby you lost that it wouldn’t be possible to have your daughter now. Those are mind-bending things to contemplate and work through. I often think about if it weren’t for Molly, it is likely Abby wouldn’t be in our life and that is hard to wrap my brain around. Another bereaved mother who lost a daughter to stillbirth and then went on to have a son wrote a very moving blog post awhile back about wishing that her two children could coexist.
I am so glad that participating in this blog hop has been such a wonderful experience for you! I am really getting a lot out of it too, but it makes it even more special to me that others, like you, appreciate this blog hop/writing exercise. It is extremely validating for me to hear your positive feedback and what you are learning about yourself through this process! xoxo
A very nice post and a great topic. I have so many songs and lyrics that just touch my heart. But alas, I was not in the writing mood this week, so no blog hop post for me. Another week…
I just linked up but my post won't be live until 9am tomorrow (Thursday). Kathy, both of these posts are so moving and important. I can literally name at least 6 bloggers who have experienced pregnancy loss in just the past month. I haven't known what to say – for all the writing and supposed eloquence, I never do well when it comes to any type of loss.
If you don't mind, I'd like to feature and link this post up for this year's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day at my blog.
Heather – Thank you! I am glad that there are so many songs and lyrics that touch your heart and I understand that you weren't feelin' it this week. You are welcome to do the Time Warp with us anytime. xoxo
Keiko – Thank you for joining in and for your kind words! I purposely keep Linky Tools open until Sunday evening, as I don't want people to feel they can only participate if they get their posts up and linked on Tuesdays.
I don't mind at all if you feature and link to this post on Saturday, in fact I would be honored. xoxo
Its so hard to know what to say to those who are dealing with loss. I think most people just really appreciate knowing that you care and that you are thinking of and abiding with them during such a difficult time in their life.
Heading over to read and comment on your Time Warp reflections on Song Lyrics. Knowing you, I bet this will be a good one (not that anything you write is ever anything less than awesome and inspiring)! 🙂
What a beautiful post, Kathy. I'm proud of you for doing a reading: that must have been nerve wracking but rewarding.
Reading that song's lyrics again made we wonder about who wrote them and want to thank them for putting into words how so very, very many people have felt. According to google, there were two songwriters who wrote it: Bill Luther and Aimee Mayo. I'm so happy they did.
Jjiraffe – Thank you for your kind words and thank you also for looking into who wrote "Who You'd Be Today." I am not sure if I had looked into that in the past, but I really appreciate knowing now. So often we (or at least I) attribute such songs to those who sing them and and don't always stop to consider who actually wrote them. Thank you for doing the Time Warp again with us this week! I love reading your posts and reflections and really appreciate your support and feedback.
a great article
Heroes song lyrics – https://sglyric.com/songs/117078/David-bowie-heroes-lyrics
Thank you for sharing this song lyrics. I love this song.
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