When you see someone wearing tiny rings around their neck, or on a charm bracelet; I’d be willing to bet they are the victims of Pregnancy/Infant Loss. They do not disburse these rings to people that have delivered perfectly normal and healthy children. I will try to explain this, but it probably won’t make a lot of sense to most of you. Those rings symbolize such a happy time in this persons’ life. It symbolizes that they are a mother. They are a mother to living children, angels or both. Regardless this woman is a mother.
This ring also symbolizes the enormous hole in their heart and soul. Which, you can imagine, is not a happy memory. Regardless, these teeny tiny little rings symbolize so many emotions, memories and feelings just hanging around this mothers neck.
Lets be clear-these rings are not stylish. They are not there to make a statement about any fashion trend. They normally are worn around an old falling apart chain, because that mother just wanted to get those rings as close to her heart as possible, as quickly as possible. I can tell you, my gold rings are on a silver necklace next to a silver box that has the initials ICHIO. My sister bought this necklace for me the week after we came home from the hospital. This was the 1st piece of jewelry I had with all 4 of my kids’ initials on it. There was never 1 doubt in my mind that Ian & Owens’ rings were going around my neck. I do not care that they are different colors. I don’t care that they don’t match. I also do not care that they are not dressy pieces of jewelry that you typically wear with nice clothes, or when you’re all “dolled up”. But, it’s the most important piece that I have left of Ian and Owen. I don’t get to walk into their rooms and pick them up and kiss them and smell their new baby smell. I get to hold their rings as close to me as possible day in and day out-that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.
I’ve made several facebook posts recently about October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month-but that it’s ALSO Pregnancy and Infant Loss awareness month. There are so many important organizations out there, supporting the grief that families, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, dads, moms, etc are enduring daily. Trust me, this time 1 year ago, I probably wouldn’t have thrown a second thought into this. It wouldn’t have been an organization that I would support. Not because I didn’t care, but because it did not directly affect me. As selfish as that sounds, it’s true. I’ve said it before, I am not afraid to show that I am selfish sometimes-it’s honest. But this year, this organization and awareness brings on an entirely new meaning for me. Some may feel that it’s a horrible reminder to wear these items of the boys. They may feel that it’s a bad idea for me to be spreading the work about pregnancy & infant loss to those that haven’t experienced it-but unless you’ve been on this side, and you understand that these things are actually HELPFUL, it’s hard to explain. It’s helpful to constantly remind myself of Ian & Owen. It’s helpful for me to constantly want to tell my story to anyone who will listen. I’m not seeking people’s attention, or people sympathy, but I am seeking peoples understanding that it happens everyday. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, or for our family. I want people to be AWARE that it happens, and be respectful of those that have suffered tragic loss.
I make the comment about “getting peoples attention” because A few years ago, when we moved back to our hometown-a text message was circulating between a few people, and it got sent to me by mistake. You know how sometimes, when you’re talking about someone, you could possibly mistake adding their name into the mix of “sent” mail or text messages? I think this is what happened. Anyway, the text message was extremely hurtful to me. Although I can’t remember what exactly it said, I can still feel how badly it hurt my feelings. We had a bad car wreck in 2009 and after that point; I experienced really severe lower back pain. I had an MRI and it showed a tumor on my spine. BEFORE we found out about the tumor, Person A sent a text to person B saying that they didn’t believe my back hurt as bad as I said it did, that I was being my normal dramatic self. I never did confront the 2 people involved, nor did I ever respond to the text-But, I tell you all of this for a reason-
Do you honestly think, these are things that are important in life? Talking about people and accusing them of being 1 thing or another. It’s such an awful thing to accuse someone of anything unless you’ve walked a day in his or her shoes. I feel that way so often now days, because there are some days that I am in a terrible mood. I do not want to be around anyone, or talk to anyone. I get accused a lot of shutting everyone out. Again, walk a day in my shoes and tell me that it’s not a way of processing? Don’t assume that just because I lost 2 of my children 3 months ago-that I am the same person I was before. Don’t assume that the lady @ the grocery store is being rude to you if she’s standing in the middle of the aisle crying. She might be mourning. She might have just lost something very important to her. She might be going through something we can’t even fathom. My point in all of this is to please-stop wasting time on so many unimportant things. Don’t talk about other people if you don’t know their situation or what they are going through-and most importantly-when you see a other with rings around her neck-a simple smile is fine-you don’t have to stare @ it. =) She sees you staring!!!!!!
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