Stop to Smell the Roses
I went oustside, a number of the rose bushes are in bloom at the moment. They are beautiful and fragrant. I bent to smell the roses.
While I was inhaling their fragrance, I thought how often we are so preoccupied with trivial matters in our lives that we do not focus on what really is important. Our families, the people we love and the things we do to nurture ourselves and our creativity.

I am guilty of this myself, I have said many times that there are more important things in life than money and quibbles about insignificant matters. After the deaths of my sons. I have come to believe that life is too short for trivial pursuits. I try to make the most of every day and make sure that I tell the people I love, that I love them, everyday.

Take time to appreciate the small things in life and stop to smell the roses.

For me writing is beneficial, it helps me to remember my boys, but also to heal the pain of the losses. You don't have to be able to write brilliantly or grammatically correct to express yourself. It is much about the process as it is about the end product. Whether it is something to share or something that is kept private and close to the heart, it is all important. It helps to release the feelings of pain and grief that will continue to build inside. These thoughts must be released and ho better than writing. Whether you choose to keep a journal of your experiences, write letters to the loved ones you have lost, stories or poetry.

I have chosen to share my story in the hope of helping others cope with their experience of loss. I don't profess to know all the answers. I sometimes wish I did, then perhaps I wouldn't be in this situation. All I can say is take heart - you are not alone.

To me the rose is a symbol of life, its beauty, uniqueness - its blooms - but also the sorrow and painfulness -its thorns

I keep roses as reminders of the short lives of our sons that have died. It is every parents worst nightmare to have to face the death of their own child. The death of a child during pregnancy or after birth is a devastating loss. The loss is compounded by the loss of dreams and the future. All the plans that had been made for the family you were to become.
The death of a baby by miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death, does not hold the same regard in society as the death of an older child or adult whose life and memory is permitted. With these tiny lives the memories are often limited to the pregnancy. The most wonderful thing a person can do is remember of acknowledge these precious lives lost, to us.

Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones says "We have lived; our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history ..." This is what has prompted me to write. I have always written, although now I am more passionate about it. I have lived, the things that have happened to me are important, as are the people in my life - those living and those that live in my memory. This is my history.