Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Today I am honored to introduce you to Angie from the Still With Circles blog. Today she share with us the story of her daughter Lucia, and her healing through careful scheduling of writing and art time into each and every day.  For more ideas and inspiration with Angie be sure to visit her blog and check out my favorite projects from her:  Right Where I Am & the Spoken Word blog round up. xo. ~Beryl

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I always admired people who followed their passions. Before my daughter died, I suffered from terminal self-consciousness and an acute case of perfectionitis. If I couldn’t master something immediately, I abandoned it. I loved art and painting, but I didn’t want anyone to pick out my flaws, notice my mistakes, laugh at my shaky lines, or comprehend the depth of my insecurity. Art felt like vulnerability to me, because I was so earnest in my love and passion for it. Even though as a child, I went to art school, repeatedly told I was a talented painter and a creative soul, sharing my art felt something akin to walking through town naked.

Lucia Paz, my second daughter, died on Winter Solstice in 2008. The grief overwhelmed me. I thought I understood suffering and grief and pain before her death, but I knew nothing. I began writing as a way to navigate the labyrinth of grief. When my husband was slated to return to work, I scrambled again. What was I going to do with myself and my twenty-month old daughter Beatrice? I couldn’t write during the day. Writing is a solitary, isolating experience. I felt lost. I felt I would never be whole again.

I decided the best thing to do for Beatrice and myself was to create a schedule for our day. From this time to this time, we would brush our teeth. From this time to this time, we would walk. From this time to this time, we would eat. It seemed the only way to find some path to normalcy. And in that schedule, I wrote this:

1p-2p Art Hour.

It had been years since I had consistently done art just for myself. I traded an hour of grieving for an hour of painting. I bought some watercolors and a book that read, “How To Do Watercolor.” I bought washable paints for Beatrice and set her easel up next to my own. We painted. When Beatrice painted the wall. I made the decision not to clean up her mess, or teach her how to paint. I just let both of us paint without limitations or rules or self-consciousness. When I stopped focusing on either of us painting “correctly,” I found the first moments of peace since Lucia’s death. The first painting I did was of an apple. It wasn’t miraculous in terms of technique or talent, but it was the most beautiful painting I had created. It represented an hour of peace–something that seemed impossible to me even three hours earlier.  Painting, and later craft and sculpture, were my way to meditate, to pray, to remain present in the moment, to sit still. Painting helped me feel human again, maybe even a little normal.

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Today you get to meet Jenn and her incredible work. She is the artist behind My Tangible Peace and she creates amazing lifelike sculptures in honor of angel babies. I think the most fascinating thing behind her work is the detail. She pays such close attention to the details of our little ones and it shows in her craftsmanship. Her post is her heartfelt of the inspiration her daughter left her to create and she is giving away one of her pieces here today too. ~Beryl

When it comes to grieving there are no rules, guidelines or handbook that will fully prepare you for the complete emotional devastation that rips through your soul after you are informed that you most precious and priceless asset, your child, has just died. My daughter was 16 months old when she was discovered “blue” and “not breathing” during her afternoon nap.

The weeks following her death are still very much a blur to me. We had the fortune, if you can call it that considering the circumstances, to be able to have her wake and funeral services at our family home. The funeral director that we used encouraged us to take her home. I remember him looking me directly in the eye and saying, “You can do this. It wasn’t very long ago that we used to take care of our own. You brought her into the world, now you need to see her out.” At that moment my maternal mama bear found the strength to follow his advice and we left, together. As I look back on that moment today, 11 years later, I whole heartedly believe that I did the right thing. Instead of leaving her in the care of strangers, and to only be allowed to see her body at specific calling hours, I took her home to where our memories of her radiated off of the walls. I brought her home to a warm and loving shelter that smelled of her and felt safe. I took the time to be alone with her and inspect every inch of her perfect little body. I traced my fingers over the sewn up violations from the medical examiner. I took in this unbelievable reality that was dream-like and quite surreal. We laid her out in the Moses basket that she slept in as an infant and placed her surrounded by daisies on our family table. The very same table that we, to this day, share holiday and birthday meals on. We kept her body with us for two days. Over that time I talked to her, I cried over her, and I stroked her hair. I kept her body in my room during the nighttime hours part for comfort because I wasn’t ready to let her go, and just in the slight chance that this whole thing was a just a horrific nightmare and once I woke up I would find her giggling and chatting and the experiences from the previous two days would melt away with the sunrise. It was on the morning of the second day that I knew that this wasn’t a dream and that it was time to let her go. I could see the changes that death had brought to her body. It wasn’t scary or gross, but it was time. We made that breathless call to the funeral home informing them that it was time and they gave us the okay to bring her to the crematorium. I really don’t remember much of the car ride, I just remember her face. Handing her over to the caring hands of the funeral director left me dizzy and gasping. This was real. My daughter was dead. And this was the end. No more pictures. No more holidays. No more books, or dolls, or shoes (she loved shoes). My world as I knew it just slammed on it’s breaks and didn’t care that I wasn’t buckled in.

In Memory of Madison my family and friends raised money to build a playground in the same college housing that we used to live in, and we also started a scholarship for single parents. For the first three years, although I missed her greatly, I felt satisfied that we did all that we could do to Honor her Memory. It wasn’t until her 5th birthday that I started struggling with my grief again. Once again the tidal waves of loss came crashing down on my soul and I was instantly time-warped back to the day that she died. I was wrecked with emotions and once again raw with her loss. Then her 6th birthday came, and I felt as if I needed to do more, but what? Then the 5th aniversary of her death came and went and my heart ached for something that brough a piece of her back to me. I started reading books and doing some research on parental berievement, but that only soothed my ache for a short time.

As silly as this may sound I found my inspiration in an email forward. Some of you may be familiar with it, and for those of you who are not may I suggest looking it up, Camille Allen’s ‘Marzipan Babies”. The email stated that these tiny, palm sized, sculptures of these sweet little babies were sculpture out of a pastry dough called marzipan. In truth they were actually sculpted out of a polymer clay but regardless something about them spoke to my heart and I remember saying to myself, “I can do that”. You see I’ve been playing around with sculpey, which is a polymer clay that you can find in any craft/hobby store, for years. I loved the stuff. Now, up until that point I had only ever made more cartoony funny characters never something as realistic as these tiny baby sculptures, but I had to try. Within a day I had sculpted my first baby. It was rough, but there was something energizing, powerful and yet very peaceful about forming this newborn form out of a blob of clay, and I was hooked. In the summer of 2006 I was asked to create my first Memorial sculpture in Honor of a beautiful little girl who was born an angel, and from that moment on my work has found a second purpose.

My heart and soul belong to my Memorial pieces. I have mastered the art of ‘likeness’ and have used that mastery to create portrait pieces for families who have lost children in pregnancy, birth, to SIDS, or other illness. In all actuality 85% of my work falls into this realm because this is where my passion lies, my motivation behind my creations. It fills me with so much joy to know that I can share this, fairly new discovered talent with those who are still trying to find their tangible peace. Even if what I have created only fills the void for a brief moment, I’m forever glad that I was able to help with that solace for the road of grief is not mapped out very well.

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If you haven’t taken some time to get to know Fran at Small Bird Studios, you need to. I love how she describes her art and her grief in the post below. I think we can all relate to our need for a community of women who understand this road we walk and I hope you’ll take some time to see what a ray of sunshine Fran is in this community. ~Beryl

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Hi there, I’m Fran – baby lost mama to Jenna Belle Cox whom we said goodbye to after 13 days in the NICU in May of 2009. Our story and grief journey are documented at Small Bird Studios, where I like to share the beautiful mess she left behind.

Since losing Jenna it feels like I have been chasing the wind. Trying to take hold of something. Something tangible, to make the world see, just how beautiful she was.

I started blogging two months after her death, and slowly got back into my art. It has been *the* best therapy a girl could ask for. I cringed at the thought that anyone would have to go this alone. That is what the blog was for me – a sense of community. A real group of women from all over the world that understood. They got it. They hurt like I did. The bond has been unbreakable.

Everything took on new meaning when we lost our little girl. Things that I would have overlooked became little miracles. Like butterflies, small birds and dragonflies.

One project especially close to my heart is one that I share with the beautiful Carly Marie, Lost for Words. It is a card line specializing in child loss, miscarriage and infertility. Please click on the button if you wish to learn more about it. We also have designed two calendars with beautiful quotes and photographs to inspire healing.

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I am always looking for ways to share how healing photography was for me after the loss of our first daughter Bella Rose in 2009. A few months ago, as I prepped the post you’ll see below to be shared with the Faces of Loss family, I realized how many of us there are using our own combination of art, creativity, and writing on our own healing journey. And so this January series of posts was born. We are just over half way through the month and it’s my hope that you’ve been inspired by one of the lovely ladies feautured here thus far. We have many more wonderful baby loss moms still to come, but today I am honored to be the one to share the story of our Bella and the birth of her Illuminate e-course with all of you. xo. ~beryl

3 years ago I picked up a camera with one goal in mind. We were starting a family and I didn’t want to pay a professional photographer to take photos that I thought I could learn to achieve on on my own. I was quickly bitten by the photography bug and when we fell pregnant on Mother’s Day 2009 everything seemed to be falling into place. I was gifted a brand new camera and upon the baby’s arrival I was confident I’d be able to capture beautiful newborn portraits of our bundle of joy.

I never expected that things were going to go terribly wrong.

At our 20 week sonogram a few defects were discovered and we were alarmingly referred to a high risk practice to have them investigated. The vivid memories of our trip to that high risk office will haunt me until the day I die.  I sat in that waiting room pondering what a terrible job it must be working there. I wondered how many times in a day they had to deliver bad news to expecting parents. I wondered if we’d be their next ‘victim’ but hoped (and ironically expected) that things would be fine. The technician called us back and rushed us through a series of sonogram photos. She was rough on my belly, she pressed a little to intensely, I could feel our baby kick her back as if staying “Stop!”. I wanted the technician to stop too. Finally she left.  Minutes dragged on like hours.

Then, the doctor finally walked in and broke the silence with 5 little words that would change our world forever: “Your baby has multiple problems”.

Without stopping for air, he continued to spout out medical jargon about this syndrome, or that syndrome. Things we had never even heard of before.  He listed off the numerous organs you were missing one by one.  So cold. So heartless. We were just another number to him.  Pretty soon, I felt like I was in a Peanuts episode where the teacher is speaking but the words come out as gibberish. He rushed us into an amnio and sent us away with orders to return to his office in 2 weeks. I was numb but held it together in that office, I didn’t want that doctor seeing me cry. My husband almost fainted on the way out. He didn’t want to believe what he was hearing. That evening, as I googled every little snippet of medical jargon that doctor threw around at us that day I completely fell apart in my husband’s arms.

We sought a 2nd opinion at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC where a fatal diagnosis was confirmed. Our daughter Bella’s defects were 1 in 20,000. No expects to be the 1 in 20,000. But somehow the devastating baby loss lottery struck us. And our lives were forever changed.

Bella was stillborn on September 11th, 2009. When we arrived home from the hospital empty handed and broken hearted the emails, calls, and cards came rolling in. Flowers began to arrive in mass quantities and I wanted a way to collect their beauty and preserve them for when I might be able to truly be enjoy them.  That’s when I remembered I had her camera. The one intended to be used to to take beautiful images of newborn Bella to fill the walls with canvas and framed prints in our home.

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Today we welcome Casey Wiegand who is sharing the raw perspective of her own loss as it unfolded only days after occurring. Pieces of this post are excerpts from those difficult first days and the roller coaster of feelings and emotions we encounter. I am sure you will all be able to relate to her familiar perspective and find comfort in her ability to find healing through art, writing, and painting. ~beryl

My name is Casey Wiegand, I am a freelance artist, wife and mama.

I love painting and sharing our life through my blog…where you can expect pieces of my perspective on life, faith, kids, marriage, with touches of art, creative inspiration, projects and things I love along the way. I have two little ones in the hopes of lots more and am married to the love of my life .

I lost my baby in september.

Being honest, at first, even with some tears I felt like I needed to be strong. I thought I can’t be sad…I have so much to be thankful for and people have suffered many losses like this before…Casey be strong. My mind is able to have good perspective, I know that I am blessed with 2 beautiful babies, I know we have never suffered a miscarriage before or dealt with any kind of infertility but the truth is…

But the truth is…I am hurt, heartbroken, sad, empty.

I decided though that I dont care if anyone out there in the world thinks it is silly that I am sad, devastated, heartbroken over this loss- because I need to be real about how I feel.

I am an artist and painting was a big part of my healing process, my outlet. Being outside and being able to express my feelings onto a canvas was huge for me.  But above all, I also think it’s important to talk about it…if it’s too hard to talk then express those feelings/ that hurt in some way, like painting. It’s a healthy release.

I looked at a baby that looked just like my Aiden and Ainseigh at 3 months…and I know it would have grown up to look just like them and love me the way they do….and that little person is gone. It’s strange having a loss after having two children because I naturally imagine it looking and acting very similar to them…

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