Capture Your Grief Day 7, What TO say

Capture Your Grief Day 7, What TO say

Capture Your Grief Day 6, What NOT to say.

Capture Your Grief Day 6, What NOT to say.

Capture Your Grief Day 5 Memorial

I'm SO exhausted from the MISS Foundation conference 2012 that I don't have much to say today but I wanted to get Day 5 of Capture Your Grief up before I crash for the night. This is Jack's plaque at the Phoenix Angel of Hope. It's "Our Place" outside of our house to go and Be With Jack on his Birthday, Angelversary or whenever we want. It's the closest thing to a grave site we can get since we cremated Jack so he would always be With Us where ever we are.

Capture Your Grief Day 5 Memorial

Capture Your Grief Day 4 Treasured Gift

What I treasure the most I can't capture in a photo, at least not one I am willing to share on the Internet. Jack made me a Mother, it's the only thing I ever wanted, it was my dream come true. A picture of me holding Jack would have been today's picture however, those pictures and his ashes are all I have left of my son and still 6 years later, I'm not willing to share them with just anyone, let alone the world. So instead I'll share my most Treasured Gift(literal).

The nurses at Banner Desert Hospital made this plaster mold of Jack's hands and feet, it's the only proof that Jack existed that I'll share with extended family, friends and strangers on the Internet.

Thank you Jack for making my dreams come true! I'm so proud to be your Mama! Love you to the Moon and Back!



Day 4 Treasured Gift

CYG Day 3 After Loss self portrait

 No words are really necessary with these self portraits of a Bereaved Mother. I'm pretty sure the insanity I felt and still feel since Jack died is clear.

Day 3 After Loss self portrait

CYG Day 2 Before Loss Self Portrait

When I saw the subject for Day 2, Before Loss Self Portrait, I was a little worried I wouldn't find a picture of me pregnant with Jack. It's ridiculous to think that you can be pregnant for 5 months and not have one picture taken, especially since we went on vacation to Utah a month before Jack was born! But that is my reality. I took all the pictures so I'm not in any of them. I can't explain how depressed I am to know there is no photographic record of my pregnancy!

WAIT! Hold ON! Hold the fuck on.....We also went to Moab in May 2006 for Jory's Birthday, I didn't know I was pregnant yet but there must be ONE photo...Hold Please!

PRAISE THE FUCKING CAMERA GAWDS...I found two!

At least I have TWO pictures of me pregnant with Jack! Of course I didn't know I was pregnant then and this photo pretty much sucks, but at least I have it. I took this sad excuse for a self portrait in the mirror at the hotel room the night we arrived in Moab.

 No I'm not retarded...I was teasing our cute little friend Leslie because she took at least 3128 MYSPACE style (including quite a few Duck Face) self portraits during the sunset. So I held up the camera in front of myself and pulled this face and asked her if that is how it was done. She laughed.

However I'm not using either of those for my Before Loss picture, only you that took that time to come to my blog actually get to see those, Lucky You!

This photo taken in April 2006(we conceived mid to late April), I think really captures our happiness, love and innocence to the emotional roller coaster we were about to get on. We found out we were pregnant May 28th, 2006, 8 years of trying, 5 of those with fertility treatments. It was our first attempt after my first surgery and the stick said PREGNANT seconds after I sat it on the counter. Jory saw it first and grinned, I thought No Way and I looked to see for myself and Oh My Hell, Finally, Life was Good to us. No...it was Unbelievable! There are no words to describe how happy, excited, relieved, blissful we were after so many years of trying. Cloud 9 shit...Indescribable Ecstasy!

We had no idea.

Day 2 Before Loss Self Portrait

Capture Your Grief

CarlyMarie, the Awesome Aussie who draws Beautiful Butterflies at "Christian's beach" for bereaved parents over at Names in the sand. She's started a new project called "Capture Your Grief" that starts today and runs through October for Pregnancy and Infant loss awareness month.

Capture Your Grief is a 31 day photograph challenge. All you will need is the internet and a camera. It doesn’t have to be some big fancy DSLR – a phone camera or a pocket digital camera will be perfect. And if your camera is broken – you can still take part as in this project you are not required to take a new photo everyday.

You can join in this project through your own blog or website, your favourite social media website like facebook or twitter or any photo sharing website like pinterest or instagram. This is an opportunity for you to document your grief and your healing for a month and to share it with the world through your own eyes. You can be as creative with your photographs as you please. The event on my facebook page so that everyone can come to one place to share their images! If you can just make sure that the beginning of your photo caption is titled with the day number and subject, for example: “Day 1. Sunrise” If you are joining from twitter or instagram you can use the hash tag #captureyourgrief  http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/

So of course I'm participating! I've been trying to convince myself to get back to blogging/writing for A VERY LONG TIME now. I feel like I lost my Mojo a long time ago and I need my Mojo BACK!

Sometimes I'll follow Carly's Subjects, sometimes I won't and sometimes I might do BOTH! Look at me breaking the rules already! That's just who I am. Today I couldn't follow the Subject because I slept through the sunrise. As I layed in bed wondering what my Day 1 photo would be, I figured I would stay within the subject matter and imagined what life would've been like if Jack were here right this minute. I imagined he would've woke up, stumbled out of bed and wanderd into the hall, peaking around the corner into our room, found me awake, laying in bed being a lazy pants. And assuming Jack would be very much like me(truly bipolar), he would have immediately run and jumped up on our bed, really obnoxiously singing "Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning, it's time to rise and shine..." and just as abruptly, stopped the song there and climbed into my space, resting his head just beneath mine, his little hands grabbing my wrist and wrapping my arms around his bony body for some serious cuddle time.

That is not my reality though. Instead, I lay in bed alone, no pitter patters of feet in the hallway, no living room TV on cartoons with the volume up too high. Nope, Just quiet, absolute silence. So I grab Jack's elephant and snuggle it just as I would love to snuggle Jack and SNAP take a picture.

Day 1 Waking up well after the Sunrise

Mesa, AZ