Table Runners

(Topic: Sewing)

Hi Friends!

This has actually been (and still is) an ongoing project: a friend has a sideboard top that she needs table runners for, but because it has a ledge, the table runners need to fit within the edges.

She also wants them for nearly every holiday and season :)

So I have the dimensions she needs, and create a rectangle with wide hems that will fit.

Some of them I do with a full length piece of fabric, but that means that I'm not using nearly all the width, so it is more efficient (and affordable) to make the runners with a center seam halfway along the length, which means I can use half the length and just use two pieces of the width.

After that is just a matter of making sure that the corners are properly square and the dimensions match!

Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

The Math of Grief

(Topic: Infant loss, grief, math)

Image credit: http://aetherforce.com/fibonacci/

Dear Friends,

I have friends with all sorts of backgrounds, and all sorts of experience. A friend of mine just went through a grief event, so we have been talking, and both of us try to find analogies to help put grief into perspective, or to make it more accessible to people who have not gone through an intense grief event. She and I chatted about analogies from math, which she studied, and she and I tutored math in the same program in college. She allowed me to share with you the following math/grief analogies, which I thought hit the nail on the head.


Prime Number Frequency
 
One of the analogies she said a friend came up with, was using prime numbers as an example. Prime numbers are divisible by the number 1, and by the number itself, but nothing else (example: 13 is divisible by 13 and by 1, but nothing else). So a prime number has only 2 factors: 1 and itself. These numbers happen pretty frequently at first (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13...) but then start spacing themselves out more and happening less often. They still sometimes happen near each other in clumps, but over all, the higher you count, the less often prime numbers happen.

Grief, then, is kind of like that: the intense days or moments, and the triggers, happen all the time at first. Then, as time goes on and you work on healing, and life keeps happening, the moments that are hard and the triggers that can cause them will start to come less often. Sometimes they still come in clusters, sometimes there are several in a row, but overall they come less often. And while my experience is limited to 2 years, I can say that this seems to be true for me so far.




Step Functions

Another analogy we talked about was step-type functions. A step-wise function is not a curvy line like many functions. Instead, it bumps up in steps. For instance, age is a step function: you keep getting older, but it is called one age for an entire year, and then you move up to the next number as your age... but you still keep adding days for the whole next year without changing your age number.

The function itself, depending on how it's defined, can have flat lines - as if you didn't age at all during the year, and you aged all at once on your birthday. When you have a function like this, each new level has a completely new value from the prior "step".

Image Credit: link to original image

Grief can feel like this, too: For instance, I feel like I was in a fog for the first 6 months after Charlie died. After that, I thought I was doing a lot better (and I was), but in hindsight, the remainder of the first year was yet another step on the journey of coming to a place where I was more functional. For me, I noticed these phases or steps in hindsight, but for some people, there can truly be a day where you feel like you "wake up" and realize how badly you were dealing with the rest of life. And at that point you move to the next phase of how well you are doing.



All of these are analogies, which of course means they aren't a perfect description of how life and grief works. They are just a way to explain and help people understand. I hope these - which I find to be a neat way to gain a new perspective - are helpful to you too.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

NILMDTS Walk

(Topic: Grief, Remembrance Walk)

Dear Friends,

Yesterday we went for a walk in Columbus, as participants in the NILMDTS Remembrance Walk, which I have periodically been telling you about as I asked for donations to sponsor our walk. Well, it finally happened!

We drove down to Columbus early in the morning, which takes about 2 and a half hours. Despite some rain at the beginning, some construction, and watching the NILMDTS Facebook page closely in case of a cancellation, the drive went smoothly. I am not used to being up as early as that, so I was having trouble waking up, but I think part of that was also nerves. One of my general personality traits is to be a bit more anxious, and grief magnifies that majorly, so being around large groups of people who I don't know can make me very cranky or even upset, depending on what else is going on.

That said, we found it easily enough, and checked in at their registration booth and got our cool event shirts, and found a place to sit. The park it was happening in has amphitheater-style seating built into the hill leading toward the river, and the event tents were at the base of that. People were gathering, so it didn't feel like too big a crowd yet, which was nice, and hubby and I met up with my dad and one of my sisters, who joined our team for the walk! It was super nice to have them there as support, but they also lost Charlie, just with a different relationship, so I hope they also felt loved and supported at this event.

View from our seat (3/4 of the way up the hill), looking down the amphitheater seating. The tent in the center has the stage with the speaker, MC, musician, and readers.

When it got close to time for the ceremony to start, we used our butterfly ticket - and the surprise extra tickets from my dad! - to pick up the butterflies to release in Charlie's memory, once they got to his name in the readings. So we had little butterfly triangles, and as they warmed up in our hands while we listened to the ceremony, we could hear the butterflies start to try to flutter and move in their little boxes.

With the extra butterflies (beyond the 1 that every remembered baby got), our group had enough for each person, and Pookie got one too!

Me, Pookie, and our butterflies. You can see our team hats :) and Pookie is actually wearing a matching onesie! And since we are team Tiger, I wore my matching earrings and a tiger scarf too.

As we walked back up the steps to our seat, it really hit me: the crowd was large, and every single person either lost a baby or directly knows someone who did... and statistically, this was not even the tip of the iceberg. This is an invisible tragedy.

The keynote speaker was the CEO of NILMDTS, and she is 10 years out from her first loss, and she talked about how she had several subsequent losses, too. She then structured her talk about how each year her grief changed, and it seemed that as time went on she did not forget her children, but the intensity of the grief abated. At least, that is what I got from it, which to me was a promising message, that at some point I can miss Charlie and be sad, but not hurt so much when I remember him. I don't want to make it sound like I was only listening analytically, though. My heart was also listening, and remembering Charlie, and hurting and missing him. I was very glad of the pack of tissues we got in our registration tote bags...

After the speaker and a few songs, the readers began reading out all of the names of the babies being honored at this walk. I didn't count, but dozens and dozens. When each family got to the name of their baby, they could release the butterflies.

Hubby's took a few extra minutes to wake up and figure out what was going on.

After the ceremony concluded, volunteers helped guide everyone onto the walk path, which was over a bridge, along the river, and back over another bridge to make a loop, which was only about a mile and a nice leisurely walk, along which signs were placed with the babies' names. For those who raised at least $125, there were also signs with individual babies. I would like to thank all our supporters, because due to your help, hubby and I got to take home a beautiful sign with Charlie's name and picture on it, along with a verse I picked out from the hymn "When Peace Like A River (It Is Well With My Soul". Not only does this hymn mean a lot to me because Charlie kicked and danced mightily when I was pregnant, but I also learned that it was written by a man who lost children himself, as he sailed past the place where the ship they had been on had sunk.

Hubby taking a picture of the sign Charlie's name appears on.

Me and Pookie on the walk, near a swollen Scioto River in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

 

While there were certainly moments I was sad, remembering Charlie is important and soothing to me, and spending time with family, remembering our WHOLE family, is wonderful.

View of our event tents from across the river.

Here you can see the amphitheater seating.

 In the program book, the reading, and also on the signs with many names, the babies were listed alphabetically by last name. I'm not certain whether or not the signs for the individual babies were or not, but I think so... at least, Charlie came pretty far along. Here's his beautiful sign:

Our family.

Thank you for all of you who contributed to our fundraising, which goes directly to the NILMDTS organization to provide more families with photographers like we had. I'm so glad we had an opportunity to go, to honor Charlie, and to help this great organization.

 Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Charlie's Birthday

(Topic: Grief, Birthday, Anniversaries. Picture-heavy post)

Dear Friends,


Tuesday was my son Charlie's birthday, and if he hadn't died, he would now be 2. Sometimes I tell people that it's the "anniversary of his birthday", or that it "would be his birthday", so they don't expect him to be alive, but for me, it IS his birthday.

We decided to celebrate fairly quietly, but I DID want to celebrate... acknowledging Charlie is extremely important to us.

The day before, I went to buy the last of the decorations, and then on Tuesday our plan was to visit the cemetery in the afternoon, and have a dessert picnic with family and friends in the evening.

Pookie helping bring home the birthday balloons.

Peek-a-Pook!

Pookie was pretty much my constant companion this week. The comfort of holding him really helped, but I was still very tense the whole Father's Day weekend and leading into Charlie's birthday itself. While this year it fell on Tuesday, 2 days after Father's Day, the year Charlie was born they were the same day. So in my mind, the days leading into Father's Day are when I remember Charlie's birth more than the days leading into the actual birthday. I think that's because Father's Day stays on Sunday, so my brain remembers Friday, Saturday, Sunday, rather than 17th, 18th, 19th. On the Friday, I remember how things felt "off". On Saturday, I remember the moment I was told that there was no heartbeat, and how it felt like all the air was ripped away from me and my world was tearing in two. On Sunday it's better: I remember holding Charlie after he was born, and the tender moments we had with him, though I also remember the nurse's turquoise eyes, matching her scrubs, as she cried too while taking Charlie away from us for the funeral home to pick up. For me, Father's Day weekend and the days after leading into Charlie's birthday is probably the hardest week of the year.

To help remember Charlie himself and not just the terror and pain and heartbreak, it is important to me to memorialize Charlie. For me, this includes having family around us, and remembering it as a birthday and not just a death-day, including having birthday decorations and birthday cake.

Hubby took the day off work, and we had a leisurely morning, spending time with each other and not rushing. We decided to eat lunch out, and then drove to the cemetery, which is unfortunately about a 45 minute drive from home.  It's a lovely historic cemetery with many former mayors and other big families from the town I grew up in, and the front half of the cemetery has many graves from the 1800s. Charlie is further back in the cemetery, actually in a section with many people I grew up with in my church, scouts, and community. I feel like Charlie is with friends and family. He is also close to the river that flows along the back of the cemetery, which is lovely.

Me decorating. There is a sash that says "It's My Birthday", and pinwheels, and I'm hanging up some ribbon that says "Happy Birthday". You can see Pookie sitting on the blanket with the presents, and the cooler has flowers.

The decorations from our perspective on the blanket. When I bought the sash, the sales lady asked, "there's a birthday coming up?" I just said, "yes."

After I finished all the decorating, including some roses. The rest of the flowers were for later.

The flowers for later.

This was Pookie's outfit :) He's sort of Charlie's avatar, so despite the fact that we didn't get Pookie till months later, we consider this to be Pookie's birthday too.

The next thing we did once we got the decorations up, was to settle down on our picnic blanket and start opening some presents. We get Charlie one (though it ended up being two...), and we also had a package from my aunt and a package from my best friend. While the presents usually in effect are for us, or for Pookie, they represent Charlie and that is the point.

No name yet, this is Charlie's brand new tiger! From Etsy, and I was super lucky that when I contacted the owner of that store, she only had 2 tigers left, so I snatched it up. She then personalized it for us. There's a message embroidered underneath, too, that says, "In our hearts forever. Love, Mommy and Daddy".

A beautiful art print from my best friend. She understands how Charlie will always be a part of our life. I cried....

A lovely tiger's eye necklace made by my aunt! She remembered that tigers are our symbol for Charlie.

A new pendant for Charlie's beaded name banner, from my sister.

Here's a picture from after I put the new "feather" on.

Here's a picture Hubby took of me, as we hung out with Charlie.

A visitor. The year we buried Charlie we saw many little blue dragonflies, so the dragonfly is a secondary symbol of Charlie, for us. This guy was a little bigger, but it still reminded us of Charlie and made us smile.

Pookie hanging out with us, after unpacking gifts.

Pookie and the new tiger getting to know each other.

The flowers were for an idea I had. Many people like to do a "release" in memory of a deceased loved one. While I like the idea, a balloon release is terrible for the environment, and butterfly releases are not cheap. But, with the river so close by, I thought of getting some relatively cheap bouquets of flowers, and we broke off the blooms and tossed them in the water, and watched them drift downstream. It was lovely, and I'm happy with how it went.

See the little blooms drifting?

The flowers drifting downstream. We weren't sure if they would get caught along the bank, but most of them did manage to get to the current.

Packing up. We had to be careful with timing, to fit in dinner and be on time to the park where we were planning a birthday picnic.

Pookie helping pack up! He's guarding all the presents in the basket.

Having the lunch and then the dinner on our own, which was not specifically planned, actually was really helpful, and allowed some of the tension to ease. Tension that only I was feeling: I desperately want everything to go smoothly for Charlie's birthday. To have a moment with hubby to just eat and talk and relax was very nice.

We then went to the local park, and expected a few family members and a friend or two.

Pookie claiming a table.

He decided to hold the balloon for us.

Our cake. Almost forgot to get a picture!

This cake is extremely important to me. I bought one just like it (without the writing) when I was full term, and put it in the freezer with the plan to get it out when I went into labor, so that when we had a baby, the birthday cake would be ready. Since that never happened, we served the cake at the funeral reception. Last year, though, I got this cake again, with the message on it, and this year my mom helped me get it again.

Birthday table!

Everyone seemed to have a good time talking. I think every family finds their own way to honor their babies, and for us, a birthday picnic worked well both last year and this year.

Pookie after we got home. I was super tired by this point - emotion, mostly.

I also want to share 2 pictures of a memorial garden from where I once worked. A person from there shared these pictures with me, and remembered that tigers were our thing: the little tiger hung out at the memorial garden for Charlie's whole birthday:

The other new tiger we got :)

Thank you for everyone who emailed us, messaged us on Facebook or texted us, replied to one of our Facebook or Instagram posts about Charlie's birthday, or liked one of those posts. With a few repeats, I think about 70 people let us know that they were thinking of Charlie. And as a mommy, I feel my job is to make sure Charlie isn't lost to time... so just letting us know you remember him means so much to us. THANK YOU.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss