I Will Never Get Over "This"
by Heather Sawyer
"It has been two years."
"These things happen, we deal with them and move on."
"At least you are young and can have more kids."
"Oh, a baby. A good thing you didn't get too attached."
These statements and others like them are old now; I don't even acknowledge them when they are said to me. I have heard them since my daughter's funeral, and they have never ceased.
On September 16, 1998 I came home from a long night at work and discovered my 10-1/2 month old daughter Gabriella dead. She had slipped between the bed and the wall and had suffocated. I pulled her out, I attempted CPR, and prayed to whoever or whatever might have been listening, but it was too late. I knew it was too late from the moment I saw her, but I didn't want to accept that.
I had her buried three days later, and just a few months after she died, I moved 1,000 miles away. Away from the apartment in which she died, away from the town in which I was referred to as "the one with the baby", away from the gravesite that was taking over my free time.
It wasn't until 10-1/2 months after her death that the grief truly hit me. And hit me it did: I went absolutely insane. For some reason it finally dawned on me that my child was dead. She was never coming back. I got angry; life is so unfair, how can people abuse and neglect their children and mine gets taken away. God? What God? You are going to try to tell me some loving God took my child from me? I quit my job and took a break from life. I saw no one, I stayed shut up in my apartment with my son and my husband (the two reasons I am still here today). When I thought I was better, I decided to get a part time job at the mall. Big Mistake: I became a magnet for pregnant women and babies; they were everywhere. I would come home every night crying. The final straw came when a woman whom I had told about my daughter said to me, "Your daughter died because you do not pray for your children enough and the devil came and took her away." I could never face her again.
I have gotten further along in my journey known as grief. I not only have days where I do not cry, but they outnumber the days that I do cry. I no longer am angry at the world, although I do still have my moments. I go to church, although I am not sure what I truly believe sometimes. Most of all, I have grown up. I look at life from a whole new perspective, after having a child die, other things just aren't as bad.
Please don't diagnose me with anything. I am not depressed, I do not need medication. I am just a mother whose heart has been eternally scarred. Please don't offer the words of advice that opened this opinion. Gabriella will always be my daughter, be it two years or twenty down the road, and I will never forget her. Please don't refer to her death as this, it, or that. Her death marked the passing of a beautiful spirit and deserves dignity. Don't remind me of the other children I can and will have; those children would never be Gabriella. Finally, don't minimize her short life here on earth. She may have been a baby, but she was my baby. She laughed, smiled, and even started a couple of words. Most of all, she was my little girl, a part of me, and a very special person to everyone who met her.
There is no way to describe this pain. I just hope that anyone reading this never understands how a mourning parent feels.
"When we lose a parent we lose the past, when we lose a child we lose the future" - Anonymous
You may reach Heather at hsawyer00@home.com for comments.
© October 2000 by Heather Sawyer. This work is protected by copyright and may be distributed or published only with the express written permission from its author. You may, without permission, publish or otherwise provide the URL (web address) of this page.
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