Theo my sweet boy,

Eli, Jayden, Landon, Knox, Calvin, Heartly, Levon, Luca, Sam, Tiago, Skyla, Halyn, Camilla, Grace, Scanlon, Isaac, Ember, Watson, Poppy, Benedict, Grace, Lauren, Larkin, Paige, Angelica, Lakelyn, Clara are some the sweetest angel friends you are blessed to have. To hear their names is like music to my ears.

Wow! What a week we just had. I had no idea your friends would be so incredible and their Moms would become some of my most favourite people. These ladies are generous with love, gifts, and their talents. These women are all individually so different and every single one of them have qualities that make me smile just thinking of them.

To spend a week with you, surrounded by these women and their babies was an experience I am having trouble to articulate. It was one week of my life where I was guaranteed to be understood, heard, valued, and had the ability to be open without having to consider how it will be perceived. There were no stupid comments, no one with an expectation to be over the loss, and there was no well intended comments that hurt. There was an abundance of love, there were hearts that feel what we feel, there were people who listen and are comfortable with our grief, there were more hugs, tears and laughter in the week than ever in my life.

Women are powerful, strong, and have an endless amount of love for each other. 28 women gathered for five days and the common thread was a lost child and profound heartache. We came from different parts of the world, with different stories, journeys and life experiences, and yet our hearts were broken in the same way. Our hearts carry the same weight, are broken in ways that can never be mended and yet have space to hold for others and a willingness along with pure desire to hold that space for a fellow grieving Mom.

There is something powerful to look into a Mother’s eyes who has a heart mirrored to yours and see her pain and realize how similar it truly is to yours. Without words she feels you and knows exactly what you would say if words were needed.

During this week I knew you were there just as all the Moms knew your friends were with them. I know healing happened for each of us. The signs were always there, from green orbs showing up in pictures, an eagle circling us on more than one occasion, and many other more personal ways you all showed us individually that you were present.

We are all home now and our safety net is gone, many of us are back in the real world where people don’t understand, a place people feel entitled to an opinion about our grief. Anyone who thinks our grief is over or should be shortly, is living a very sad life without capacity to love deeply, and for them I feel sorry. I will pray for them, pray that one day their capacity to love grows and when they eventually love to a deep depth they may at that time have compassion and an understanding on how the heart works but until then I will give them grace because they are ignorant and simply don’t know what they don’t know.

So Theo and my ladies, my sisters in-loss, the woman who get it and make my heart sing, together we are strong and for all the whispers we hear and don’t acknowledge, the comments that sting, and all the other typical bad behaviour because of you I brush it off and know that is about their lack of compassion and nothing to do with us. After being in such a safe environment the reality of the real world seems to sting just that much more as we haven’t fully put our armor back on.

Theodore, please tell your friends how deeply they are loved by me. I feel so blessed to have shared this one on one time with you. Spending time with these ladies was a gift from God for which I will be forever grateful.

Thank you,

Your forever grateful Mommy