Grief Class Week 40

Wow 60 Weeks later and I have finally reached week 40 and the end of the Grief Class.  It was a week I was looking forward to and dreading when I first started this workshop.  Looking forward to it because it was symbolically a way for me to finally finish all 40 weeks of this "pretended" grief pregnancy, something that I was unable to do with Janessa's 36 weeks, Hope's 10 weeks, Jason's 12 weeks, and Rae Anne's 6 weeks.  I was dreading it because for the first 30 weeks of this workshop it gave me a reason to get up in the morning and face each new week because I knew there would be a new workshop in my email to challenge me and help me face some of my grief challenges.  As we got to week 30 and the workshop emails became more and more sporadic until they finally just disappeared and ended at week 37 this workshop became more and more of a frustration and disappointment to me.  So now, I'm just grateful to finally have it end and that I was able to come up with my own classes for the last 3 weeks.  I wish that things had turned out differently and that this workshop hadn't ended in disappointment to me too, but, in a way I am glad that I was able to design these last 3 classes on topics that I needed most in my life.  So now, I say goodbye Grief Class you helped me and challenged me and disappointed me like so many other things in my life since grief entered the stage, but, I have overcome you too and I can stand on my own now without your help.

The topic I chose for Week 40 is "Moving Forward and Learning to Live Again" not getting over grief, not moving beyond grief, not pretending that grief never happened, but, moving forward with grief as a part of my life now and accepting it as my new normal.

Moving forward and learning to live again is hard!!  It is safe in my grief cave and at times I wish to just linger there and never try to merge my two worlds of grief and life together.  But I can not live my life split into 2 different worlds anymore--I am not 2 different people like I sometimes pretend to be.  

This is me grief stricken and sometimes broken, trying to endure each day and find some sort of little joy along the way.  Some times I am happy and can take on life, other times I have ptsd trigger attacks and hide in a corner trembling and crying.  Some times I feel grateful for all the children I've been blessed with no matter how long I've had them in my life, and other times I am jealous and angry that life is so unfair to steal 4 of my babies away.  Accepting all of me and my emotions is complicated but worth it.

For my project I chose to make a Grief/Life Quilt.  This idea is based on a sympathy card I received after Janessa died.  I loved the verses on this card and how it talked about how our lives are like these big quilts that we are weaving, but, how we are unable to see the finished project with our limited view, but, how God can see it all.

Each of the pieces in my Grief/Life Quilt stands for different areas of my life, past, present, grief, marriage, children, future and how they are all connected and weaved together to make a beautiful quilt.  I love how it turned out, I just wish I had left one of the ends open to represent that my Grief/Life Quilt is still very much a work in progress and won't be finished until I take my last breathe and finally am reunited with my angel babies. <3