The Love of a Bereaved Mother

I was inspired to write this post by an article I read earlier today on Still Standing (http://stillstandingmag.com/2015/10/bereaved-mothers-love/).  We all know the power of a mother's love...the power that allows us to get out of bed after being up with a fussy baby all night...the power that allows us to send our babies off to daycare, school, college...the power that allows us to hold our babies' hands when they are sick, have to get shots, get a broken bone fixed, an owie stitched up...the power that keeps us from hurting them when they do something wrong...the power that allows us to hand them off to a husband or wife. The power of a mother's (and father's) love is amazing.

But then there's the power of a bereaved mother's (and father's) love. It's a love that keeps burning even when we have nothing physical to love. It's a love that keeps burning despite the pain...the anguish...the tears. It's a love that grows stronger over time...a love that fills a space in our heart that can no longer be filled with hugs and kisses, trials and celebrations. It's a love that makes living worthwhile, even on the days when living seems like more than we can handle.

This was the sentence that stood out the most to me, "Death does not define me – it is life and this love that defines me." Brady's and Henry's deaths changed my life, and divided my life into before and after. But it's not their deaths that define me. Rather it is the love I have for both of them, their births that made me a mother twice over...that is what defines me. It reaffirms my work on finding the positive...I don't need to focus on the fact that my boys died...I can remember the fact that my boys lived.