Ack! Someone actually read my blog. Hi.

When I started this blog a little more than two years ago, I was hiding. Purposely, because I felt my raw emotion might be a little too much for some to deal with. I felt strongly though that the thoughts needed to get out of my head and be preserved. I hoped that someday, maybe someone struggling would happen upon my blog and feel some sense of recognition in my words and know that they weren't alone and could find some small comfort in that. I did this soon after my daughter's death because for some reason everything I found on the internet seemed to alienate me more than it helped.

Part of that was my stage of grief. It is true that very very few people experience the death of a child the age that M was when she died. If you read the death statistics, deaths of females aged 5-14 is the second lowest number of deaths on the tables. (Yes, I do read the death statistics tables) Literally less than 3000 girls that age in the whole country die in a year. It just isn't something that most people ever encounter. Because of this I truly felt alone at the beginning of my journey. I found many people whose adult children died and people whose infants died positively came out of the woodwork. But, at the time it was very difficult for me to find commonality with those people.

When your 11 year old daughter dies with absolutely no warning, and in an incredibly strange way, it feels like you are the only person this has ever happened to. You feel like none of those other people whose children have died actually understand - because your child's death was "different." What I know now is that while every death is different and circumstances are different, in the end the feelings of grief and loss are indeed the same at their core. If you are here and your child just died I know you don't believe me, some day you will probably understand better.

I do think that different people suffer differently depending upon their personal psychologies. However, I do still believe that the death of a child that you have not yet launched into the world as a fully functioning adult creates a different psychological process of grief than another death. I am just more able to accept that others who haven't experienced exactly what I have can possibly understand at least to some degree how I am feeling.

Yesterday, I got emails from two people who found/read my blog. It is somewhat satisfying to know that my original intent was finally realized. I'm glad I'm at a place where I can find my common points of grief with these mothers without thinking that their grief is different because of difference in the circumstances of our children's death.