Rose Brignolio

Rose is the daughter I had that nobody got to meet. She's also the one who taught me how not to grieve. I miscarried Rose between Jeremiah and Julia. It was super duper awful, and I mourned for about a year. When I say mourn, I mean I don't remember most of that year. I closed up myself and cried and slept. I think that's how not to grieve. 

I don't think there's one right way to grieve though. I think grieving is a process, and everybody does it different. It takes different amounts of time for different people. 

Anyway, back to Rose. I wasn't very far along with her, but I was obviously pregnant. She was quite active. Now I wonder if she was active because she was sick. Whatever. The point is I had bonded. I was devastated when I found out I lost her. People said mean, rude things to help me feel better. I got all the best "Christian" answers. It super sucked. It hurt so much that when I prayed I could only say, "Ouch, God, it hurts." That's all I could get out. The things that helped were hugs and "I love yous." I closed myself off to others, so I couldn't  be hurt more. Through this experience I gained my philosophy on friendship and my philosophy on grieving. I didn't realize I had a philosophy on grieving until recently. 

My philosophy on grieving is that you need people. You need to get your thoughts out...like blogging or just writing a journal. I recommend seeing a counselor. They help you see that you are not insane. They help you get your thoughts out which makes it easier to work through things. Now you know why I do the things I do. I didn't do these things with Rose, and I didn't leave the devastated portion or grieving for almost a year. I don't recommend that. I'm not magically grieving "bravely." I've grieved a very painful, debilitating way, and I don't want to do it that way again. I'm fighting to not neglect my kids. I'm fighting to not lose a year or more of my life. I want to remember. I don't want to miss a thing (I am singing that song from Armaggedon). 

 I have so many other things to say, but I think this is for now. The last blog took a lot out of me. I like to control things, so I want to control when I feel pain. If you are going to take off a bandaid, then do it fast. (I don't really do that in real life ) So I ripped that bandaid off, and it hurt WAY more than I expected. 

I choose joy by not grieving the old way. I choose joy by actually being slightly greatful that I lost Rose, so I could grieve the loss of Tony better.        JOY