Natural order

Haven't seen one of these in a while-a story from the #OCA series. This one is title "Surviving and Living as a Bereaved Mother" and is by Katie Teutsch. She lost her daughter when she was 13 days old. Here are some excerpts:

You see, as human beings there is a natural order in life. You expect things to follow in a certain precise way. When that order is broken, the entire world is (wrong). You could never imagine the pain. However, we are here. We are breathing. We are carrying on with life and hanging onto one thing-hope.

I could go on for days, months and possibly years about...along with the life and death of our sweet (Hayden). Instead, in honor of (Hayden), we choose to focus on love. We focus on all (he) left us. We focus on good. We focus on finding happiness, joy and hope in our sorrows and grief. We focus on (Hayden's) love in the air and all around us.

I am honored to be (his) mom. I wouldn't trade this heartache for one second if that meant not knowing (Hayden) or ever getting to feel (his) presence.

(He) set my soul on fire. (He) taught me more about life in (his) precious (17 years, 10 months and 3 days), than I will probably ever learn in an entire lifetime. (Hayden) taught me unconditional, unwavering, unstoppable and never ending love. (His) sweet little spirit lives on in all of us.

I couldn't think of a better way to honor (Hayden's) life, than to live ours the best way possible and continuing to spread our story of what (he) has taught, along with our experience and what we have learned thus far.

Which is this:

I wish I had the ability for other people to view the world thru my eyes, without having to experience this horrible, gut-wrenching heartache, sadness, unique and lifelong grief. So the next best thing for me is to try to explain it, in hopes that anyone reading this will soak some of it in.

1.) There is nothing more important than life and love. NOTHING. Material things, possessions, vacations, property, concerts, homes, clothes, cars, etc. etc. I promise everyone-you would trade it all in a split second to get a loved one back. You would live in a box naked if you had to. Once you lose your child, even if you had everything you could ever want-the pain will never leave. It is then you will truly understand the meaning behind the quote, "Money can't buy happiness."

2.) What and who matters. You will find yourself intolerant to almost everything. It is a blessing and a curse all at the same time. A curse because you will lose people in your life that threaten your happiness in any way, shape or form. This is not only necessary, it's survival. A blessing because you then make room for effortless love and unconditional support-it's enough effort to even have to breathe after loss. You're not a bad person. You are choosing to live. You truly don't have to go through child loss to apply this to your life. Go where the love is. (I emphasized this).

3.) Don't sweat the small stuff. I used to stress about the most trivial things. Little did I know, that stress was nothing compared to what (we) would endure. My car always had to be perfectly clean, my home perfectly clean, all the laundry done. I had to be on top of everything 100% of the time. While I don't consider this to be a bad thing, after losing (Hayden) it definitely didn't come first. If dishes are in the sink, but the sun is setting and I want to (do something), I go. Whereas before, I had to do the dishes first. Sounds silly, but my point is this: don't miss time with your loved ones over things that can truly wait an hour, a day, or even a week. You'll get it done, but we all aren't promised tomorrow. Those moments are so precious and sometimes you don't realize how precious they are until they're gone forever.

I've had people make comments about how calm (we) were in the (ICU), when they would have been falling apart. No one would ever want to see those moments when they told us...No one would ever want to see the moment they told us out of nowhere that our (son) wasn't going to make it. Trust me when I say it would haunt you forever, because it haunts us daily.

We had two choices after that. Wallow in self-pity? Cry, scream, and go crazy for the next ten days? ...Or show (him) all our love?

(Hayden)-my darling...We miss you. We love you. You, my love, are permanently in our hearts. You have enriched our lives. We will find you one day in heaven, and we will never let you go. Until then, thank you for the love you left in the air.