I Carry Your Heart

This post is dedicated to my sweet Alex, who's third Angel Birthday is tomorrow, October 4. 

Right after I had lost Olivia earlier this year, someone told me that every mother carries fragments of the DNA of their children in their blood for the rest of her life. Apparently, as a fetus develops, some of those cells cross through the placenta and are carried around in the mother for years.  

We literally carry them in our hearts.

Which reminded me of one of my favorite poems from E.E Cummings, I Carry Your Heart.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

We carry all of our children in our hearts, whether they're here on Earth with us or watching over us from Heaven. But I feel this especially hits home to my three Angels. 

"The root of the root, and the bud of the bud, and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide."

Life. New life- the root of the root, the bud of the bud. 

I will never forget Alex, Henry or Olivia any more than I'll forget my living children Ella and Kevin. I'll carry them all in my heart for the rest of my life. It's actually quite comforting to me that I'm carrying around their DNA, it makes me feel as if it's proof that they really existed. 

Three years ago, my life changed in a way I never thought possible. I haven't been the same since then. Losing Alex feels like the starting point of a lot of chaos and heart break in our lives. We lost Henry 16 months later, and 12 months after that we lost Olivia. 

I've heard other loss moms say that people comment on how different they seem, "She's just not the same anymore!" as if that's a bad thing.

I'm definitely not the same person I was before. There are times when I know I'm not the fun-loving person I once was. And I know that sometimes people miss that person. But I don't. 

This experience has showed me a lot about who I really am. It's led me to my faith, to my friends, and strangely, even to a greater self-confidence. 

I'm not the same person I used to be, but I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be. 

I will carry their heart in my heart forever. I will never be without it. Wherever I go, they go.