My fellow mamas...

I wanted to write an ode to the beautiful women who have helped me through this process of healing. They are in my most favorite group of people in the world and I love them all so much. I am touched every day that they are there with me in spirit as I heal, and that they honor me by allowing me to be there with them as they too, heal.

To go through something like this is, as someone I know once put it "the most difficult thing a parent will ever have to go through". Absolutely true. Losing a child is not something that one can ever plan for, not even if that child is diagnosed with a life threatening or terminal illness. At the end of it all, there is that silence, no matter what - when a moment before, a child's heart was beating, and then it stopped. It's that finality that is the edge of the cliff into nothing, and really, there's nothing that can stop you from falling, bleeding from the heart, into the void that is below.

Now when you're falling, you can fall alone into this dark blue, cold, endless abyss. It is so deeply frightening, and you cry so much you can barely stand to breathe any more. It's amazing really, that you even can go on living. I think many of us were astonished that our own hearts continued to beat as those of our children were so still.

But, if we're lucky, we have support when we fall from other, wise people, who will fall with us and join hands. Falling all together like that, we form a giant parachute of people and drift through the seemingly endless void of nothingness, until one day, we see a ground below, and brightness coming out of the darkness. Like parachutists coming out of the sky, we can support each other until we come to land in the new world. Depending on the support, we can land in a far better place than someone who fell alone.

I think of us, myself and the wonderful fellow mamas and other amazing people who have helped me and our little family cope through this as many versions of Icarus, who tumbled from the sky when his wings melted. Angels all shot through the heart by their tragedies and their empathies, but who are luckier than the legendary Icarus in that they found others like themselves to create a substitute for wings by which they could travel down safely to earth again. I don't subscribe to the Christian version of an angel, since I am of a more pagan heart, but I can call people angels nevertheless!

So, there is a thank you so far to all of those who have been there and who continue to be there. You are truly wonderful, worthwhile, brave, strong and valuable people.