For a moment imagine yourself sitting at an easel, with paints in hand, ready to paint a dreamy multicoloured landscape. But with each brush stroke the clouds roll closer and rain drops begin to fall onto your page. You move your paint around to try to mask the water drops but the more you paint the harder it rains.
That is how I would describe grieving. At least mine. At least in this moment.
Although I think of Reece all the time. I can keep the moments of complete and overwhelming despair away for days at a time. But when that grief creeps up it is all-encompassing and cannot be ignored. It's like you are at day one again. The pain is as deep as the moment we were told she was not coming back.
Thanks to the new baby I can try to focus 'the now' and on happy times ahead. But unfortunately when imagining those happy memories we will make in future, I think of Reece and what she is missing, and what we are missing not having her here. I guess that is what makes the loss of a child so hard. You also grieve what would have been.
When we were picking names for the new baby the popular choice by all family and friends was "Grace" (we knew we were having a girl). It seemed fitting, but I was not sold on it.
A day or so before the baby made her debut the name 'Gabrielle' popped into my head. Grant seemed to like it so we added it to the running list.
After the baby was born, Grant and I had a brief moment alone in the surgery recovery room. I said "We need to name this baby!". We both thought quietly for a moment, and I said, 'Gabrielle'. And Grant looked at me and said he had been thinking the same thing. I said to him, that I didn't 'know why, but something about it sounded stronger than Grace'. I suppose with her being early and the possibility of the hospital sending her to Calgary without us for a NICU placement, I guess subconsciously I figured she needed all the strength she could get...
What is eery about this, is although we took much time and research naming our first 2 girls, we were stuck for a name this time and all I knew was that Gabrielle was the feminie form of Gabriel.
My mother-in-law, Isabelle, looked up the meaning, and fantasticly enough Gabrielle meant 'valiant warrior' or something close to that. I just recently looked it up and a common meaning is "hero of God" and "God's messenger".
After being home with baby a couple weeks I heard another eerie story about her name. I had met Grant at the mall, he walked me to the car and told me a story he heard that day from a friend and co-worker at the school. It was a story of loss, this friend had lost their mother. Afterwards I guess they had done some reading about angels etc, because she told Grant that when she heard we named the new baby Gabrielle she cried, because the archangel Gabriel, is the angel that helps children into heaven. She may have thought we knew this previously but we didn't!! Needless to say as soon as those words came out of Grant's mouth I broke down crying in the parking lot. It was so amazing and almost supernatural.
Some people may not think there is a connection between your name and who you are in personality etc. But for us we've seen a connection for all our girls. First after having a scary medical emergency during my pregnancy with Aiden we knew her name meaning 'little fire' would suit her well, as she was always strong and unwavering during the emergency. She was perfectly healthy and now as an older kid, is very stubborn and independent.
Reece means 'enthusiastic' and anyone that knew her can tell you that is the best way to describe her, as she was always friendly, interested, and would try to find ways to entertain herself and others one her own.
So when we picked Gabrielle, we were hoping that the sense of 'strength' I felt in that name would help Gabrielle overcome her 'preemie issues', it did... and finding out the connection to the archangel Gabriel and his connection to children (and therefore Reece) hints to me that there are other 'forces' at work in this world.
At least I hope there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel
http://www.luckymojo.com/archangelgabriel.html
http://www.sarahsarchangels.com/gabriel.html
