The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

This is a blog about parenting, parenting in grief, and the journey through it all.   I am a nurse, wife and mother of four girls.  I have very recently lost my 19-year-old daughter due to her mental illness.  Though at first I saw my loss of my daughter as some sort of parenting failure, I know that not to be true.  So here I’d like to share parenting thoughts and my journey through the grief process in the hope that it will help other parents and possibly also those going through the death of a child or loved one.

“Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.” -William Shakespeare

I love this picture of two of my girls.  They are 20 months apart.   I used to have issues with piercings and tattoos.  I made them wait until they were legally old enough.  I talked to them about putting it on their wall and staring at the image for a good 6 months to a year to see if they grew tired of it.   I talked to the girls about how we wanted them to be safe, about the diseases you can get if the place of business was not reputable.  The girls began hiding the piercings, afraid of the parental wrath.  Before my daughter passed away and especially since then, the realization that the more you make a huge deal of it the more enticing it became.  It is also clear that in the grand scheme of life, what does the tattoo or piercing really matter.  If they have a scar from a decision to pierce their eyebrow at forty it was their choice not yours.  If they have a Bart Simson tattoo at fifty, and you know who you are B. I won’t rat you out, so be it.  It was their choice and if they learn to talk to you openly about their choices versus it becoming a bone of contention you might thank me.   My friend has a saying, “is it a salvation issue?” If not move on.