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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Sometimes the Universe speaks to us, ya know?  After my night and talking with my girl this morning, I settled into checking my email and enjoying the many responses to both of my Thursday Thirteen posts, both here and at my new blog, The Eclectic Witch.

I answered one comment by email.  One of my most favoritest bloggers, Janet, had commented over at the new blog, so I fired off an email to her, never thinking for a second that she didn’t know it was me.  We had a good laugh, but the comment got me thinking, and inspired me (in combination with my experiences of the previous night), to write a new post there, entitled  Creating an Ancestor Altar or Altar of Your Dead.

I’ve been recreating this altar recently, and making some small shrines and decorations for it, and had, for some reason, stopped.  I don’t know if it got to be a little overwhelming, or if life-stuff got in the way, or both.  But somebody’s talkin’ and I’m listening.  It’s time for me to finish creating and decorating my new home for my many departed ones, and to celebrate their lives with color and light, with mementos and candles and incense.

I’d love for you to stop by over there.  Not just because I shall supposedly get paid per click in some way that I don’t really understand, but because I’d love to share this with you, my friends, if you’d care to join me.

I posted this image over there, but I just can’t get enough of his sweet face right now, so I’m going to post it here, too.  The image has been transferred onto polymer clay and then surrounded by colorful bits on a candle glass.  I still have to finish polishing it.  But he’s so beautiful… my angel grandson… our Lil Pharaoh.

Peace, out!

Remember that movie?  With Robin Williams.  Man, that movie kicked my emotional ass.  It came out within a year or so of my Jerry’s passing.  My Soulmale; my husband.  Well, anyway.  Last night and early this morning was a time like that.

I couldn’t sleep, but I was emotionally fine.  Bloghopping and playing computer games while watching Gorilla’s in the Mist (another great movie!).  Before I knew it, it was 3 AM and I knew if I didn’t get a lil sleep I’d be fucked today.  So, wide awake, I whined a lil as I shut down my Mac, turned the light off and tried to get comfy for sleep.

Bam!

It was like a light switch turned on in my head!  All of a sudden it was as if every one of the recent horrible moments of my life began playing like a video loop in my head.  I saw myself at the Integratron the moment my daughter called and told me our Lil Pharoah had stopped breathing… felt myself driving 120 miles an hour over a winding desert highway, with my mouth so dry I felt like I was choking on dust and a knot in my stomach that felt like ten tons of radioactive waste.

Flash forward to my baby… my precious daughter on her knees retching and dry heaving and crying and screaming “Noooo…. I want my son back.  Give him back to me”, while we knelt beside her, her husband and I stroking her hair and sobbing.

To his tiny cremains…

To my daughter’s beautiful face that now wears the shadow of this loss.

Fuck!  I was like, what the fuck is going on?  Where did this come from?  I struggled with my mind and heart, tried to divert myself with meditation, with to-do lists for today, with what I would make for dinner, the next blog post I would write…

It was no good.  My head just kept playing those awful tapes, along with a couple more that are too awful to even write.  Playing them over and over and over.

This used to happen to me after Jerry died, too.  But somehow last night, and my daughter’s pain, made it so much worse.

The last time I looked at the clock it was about 4:30, so I finally went to sleep.  I awakened this morning around 9AM, with echoes of the nights visions, but they were distant and foggy; much more like the memories of those awful days that I have been accustomed to living with.

At 10AM my daughter called me on her break.  “Mom, me n A. had a hella night!” she said. “We went to bed early but we tossed and turned, both of us, all night.  When we woke up this morning we both felt like we hadn’t slept at all- like we’d had bad dreams all night but couldn’t remember them”.

I’m so fucking grateful that they couldn’t remember them.