I tried to go back and find times where I blogged about this before...because I know I have. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a specific blog post on this...which I guess means I was supposed to write a new one.
The funny thing about this topic is that I can’t pick just one time that this has been said to me. It gets said over and over again and that’s been happening since before the boys were born and continues to today. ‘Your strength is inspiring/amazing.’ ‘You are so courageous.’ ‘I admire your strength and know I’d never be as strong as you’. It happens all the time and all the time I want to say they are wrong, that I’m not any stronger than anyone else would be.
One of my blog posts from a long time ago where I mentioned strength was written from a bit of a different perspective than I'm at now but it's interesting. I mentioned that people were telling me how strong I was, how they didn't know how I was doing it or how they couldn't have done it themselves. At the time I wrote something along the lines of what other choice did I have? What was I going to do different, it was completely out of my hands. I wrote that then was that I would rather have not been strong and had Cole here then to be strong and live life without him. And while I don't feel the same way or perhaps rather I look at it in a different way, there is a part of me that does still wish I didn't have to have been so strong. It was a strength that was forced on me I guess. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it, but it's mine to own. There are days I don't feel strong at all. This week I definitely didn't feel like I had much strength. There were many moments where it was all I could do to keep tears back. But maybe some people would think that that is showing strength. Being able to go on despite the emotions that are racking your heart could be considered showing strength. And once again I say, what other choice do I have? I can't stop living. I can't stop being a mom, a wife, an employee or a friend. I might need breaks from that to help me get through, I took one on Wednesday. I knew I didn't have the strength to be an employee that day, that mentally I would be checked out, and so I took the day off. I got up early so I could take a break from being ‘strong mommy’ and cried my heart out in the wee hours of the morning while my family slept. I offered no supportive words to any friends or within any of the groups I belong to on Facebook. But even with those breaks in mind many would say I showed strength is just doing what we did that day. Returning to Mt. Sinai and seeing Dr. Ryan isn’t easy and yet it’s a way to bring joy to that day.
In recent years I have had many within the TTTS community tell me they admire my strength, that they admire what I do to help others. Some friends in the loss community tell me I am so strong for continuing to be present in the twin groups as that's not a place they can go, it's not a place they feel comfortable. I've never really thought a lot about it, a lot about it being a sign of strength. It's again, just what I do. I feel drawn to being there and helping; offering information about proper pregnancy care to those pregnant, offering support to the newly diagnosed, providing ears to listen and a shoulder to cry on to those who have suffered a loss.
And I could say I don't know where that strength comes from but that's not entirely true. That strength comes from a desire to make this journey have a purpose. Within a very short time of losing Cole both Geoff and I knew that we wanted help other people through this difficult journey. We wanted others to not experience what we were going through whether that be the loss itself, the feelings of being alone and unsupported or just the general uncertainty of it all. I've always felt very strongly that Cole's life had to mean more than his time alive inside of me. I wanted him to make an impact on the world just like his brothers would. And so I guess my strength comes from him and I love that he's giving that to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment