Under The Tree / March

"Under the Tree" 

Do you have a special place in your home for your baby/ies?  What is it like?  Do you have any rituals that you perform in memory of your baby/ies?

We have a couple...the main one being in our living room where we have her ashes, a stuffed animal and some other small mementos that we have gotten in the last year.  It was Viviana's first birthday this past weekend...I did not know what I wanted to do for her but I ended up painting her a picture which was so healing.  Once framed, it will go in our bedroom and be another thing, visual place that will remind us of her.  We want to plant a flowering tree one day for her, but since we are renters, have not done this. I love the idea of a tree and or garden where we can go, sit and just be.  I have also been making her baby book which will have many of the things we got while we were with her, foot prints, hair, pictures.....  I picture all of these things being close together one day when we are in a house that is our own and can create a more specific place.

Rituals: We lit a candle for her after we lost her for many days and nights.  We did again the past couple of days during her birthday.  Another ritual has been to buy helium balloons, write messages on them and send them up to her on Vivi's Bluff.  (A place over looking the water near where we live)  Purple has also been in some way a ritual for us...this color just seems to suit her and since her birth...I have been buying everything purple, clothes, flowers, scarves, bed spread......  sounds a bit much but it too has been very healing.  Helps me to feel I can continue to be close to her and honor her.

If you believe in an afterlife, do you receive signs from your baby/ies?  Have you ever felt their presence?  Do you find them in nature?  Do they visit you in your dreams?

I have always believed in an afterlife....but since losing her....I have struggled to know or picture where she is.  If I force it, I can do it, but then it does not feel real.  Right after we lost her, we kept smelling her. Occasionally I still can smell her and it feels like she is visiting me or close by.  I want to believe I can feel her presence at times, but again, I just don't know.  I can't believe what a disbeliever I have become....  I definitely find her in nature.  Especially water.  I feel her in the waves and we talk to her at her bluff, overlooking the calm blue/green water.  I have always found healing and even God in nature.... Sometimes if there is a lady bug I think of her....  

I had a dream about her soon before she died.  It was even before I knew I was having a girl...

but I have not dreamt about her since...only about telling the story over and over and sobbing. I do dream about another baby now that we are pregnant...but in my dream, I know it is this pregnancy.  I hope one day to dream about her again.

Do you have a special poem, song, prayer or quote in memory of your baby/ies?

We have many songs that we consider Viviana songs.  I had made a playlist for my birth since we were planning to have her at home...little did I know these would be the songs that would somewhat sooth our broken hearts after she died.  Others that are very difficult to listen to now (Dearly Departed by Devotchka and Long Nights by Eddie Vedder, so beautiful but haunting)  but there are a few that inspire and bring me joy, where I can picture her dancing and twirling.  Of course, many of them are on this blog.  I have read many poems that I feel very connected to...my husband wrote a few that I love as well.  Hopefully he will let me post one or 2....

I have found that many of these things, mementos, rituals, music, nature, creating art and writing to her have given me life during a lifeless year.  They all somehow bring me closer to her...allow me to experience her in some small way since I can't experience her the way I had hoped and pictured and still want to today.