Lil Pharaoh Birthday Altar

Yesterday my lil Pharoah would have been 2 years old had we not lost him to SIDS on October 18, 2007.

When I spoke with my friend Shelly on the phone yesterday morning we chatted about this and that until finally, just as we were saying goodbye, I blurted out that it was Bishop’s birthday and I was having some trouble finding any good to write about for Only the Good Friday. That lovely woman and wonderful friend ordered me to forget about OtGF. In fact, she told me to shut of my computer and grieve. All it took was the concern and empathy in her voice to open the floodgates in me and once my tears began I thought they would never stop.

I took her advice and shut off my Mac for the day and spent the day with my loss, with my pain and grief.

As I decorated my Ancestor Altar, my altar dedicated to my beloved dead, to celebrate the day of his birth I sobbed and screamed and couldn’t seem to stop thinking that I should have been filling the house with balloons and streamers and making sure there was film and batteries in the camera while his birthday cake baked. That I should have been putting the final touches on numerous gaily wrapped presents bought by his doting grandmas with the sole intent of his delight.

Instead I was cleaning and anointing this altar; my altar of the dead. I was scouring the house for 13 candles, placing the tiny silver cup with water and the small plate of salt. I was burning the sacred kyphi incense- “Isis” and “Horus” blends that my friend Carolina sent me, little knowing (yet knowing, all the same), how perfect her gift, how appropriate an offering for my Lil Pharaoh.

altar greif greiving

I grieved my own loss, and I grieved my precious daughter’s loss. I grieved for the death of babies. I grieved with a raw depth that my numbing depression last year seemed to have covered in a muffling layer of cotton batting. I grieved and gave my grief a voice that I never allowed it to have out of love and respect for my daughter’s grief. I grieved the loss of my daughter’s innocence, and perhaps the loss of her faith.

Bishop and young Fawn

And as I grieved- as I cried and sobbed, as I screamed and cursed the Gods I began to connect with some small good that could come out of my grief.

Last week for Only the Good Fridays, Candid Karina wrote about a couple of events that she is participating in and one of them is a March of Dimes Walk, March for Babies. The March of Dimes uses 77 cents of every dollar raised in March for Babies to support research and programs that help moms have full-term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives and to bring comfort and information to families whose baby was born too soon, or sick. Karina’s sponsorship goal is a modest one, only $150. She’s only gotten $20 so far and I offered $10 of that. I’d love to help her make her goal, so if you can find it in your hearts and pockets, why not head over and sponsor her for a dollar or two? If you can’t contribute, why not go to Karina’s and tweet her post or give her a shout out on your own blog?

bishop wildflower offerings

First Candle is an organization that promotes education and research of SIDS as well as grief and loss support of parents, grandparents and family members. They even have information for friends and family on how to help; what to say and not to say for folks who are unsure of how to best express their condolences in the face of such an heartrending tragedy as the loss of a baby.

I turned to First Candle often in the early stages of my grief. Their information on the “double grief” that Grandparents experiece; not only the loss of your Grandbaby, but the overwhelming powerlessness of not being able to make it all better for your own child- helped me to understand the scope of my grief and reminded me that no matter how it felt, I wasn’t really alone. First Candle is another incredible organization that can use your support in whatever way you can offer it, but in the very least bookmark it. I hope from the bottom of my heart you will never need it yourselves, any of you reading this, but do have it saved to share with anyone who does need it.

death SIDS baby grandson

And finally my grief yesterday brought me to one more small good. It reminded me that I have decided that Thorne’s World is a place of honesty and reality. That although I would love to suppliment my income with my blog, my first and formost desire and goal is to speak to you from my heart and to be true to my life, philosophy and beliefs.

Perhaps some lost sojourner on the interwebz will find this when she needs to know she is not alone.

So be it.

Peace, out.