Setting the record straight

Although I've spent the last couple weeks keeping a low blogger profile, allowing the dust settle from the comment explosion over my Britney post, I've also spent some of that time really thinking about some of the comments left in response to that post.

There were more comments that followed on the heels of the original ones by "Britney," but I deleted them because they were absolutely atrocious. As I read the words of hate boiling over from that anonymous commenter, I just couldn't fathom that a mother who claimed to have also lost her baby could be so brutal and unsupportive of another mother in mourning.

What shocked me the most about the comments was the implication that the size of a mourning mother's grief is relative to the time she had with her baby. I certainly can't speak for anyone else's grief or losses but my own, but I would never presume that my feelings were more or less justified than someone whose baby was miscarried at nine weeks or born still or who died at a few weeks of age. It's a devastating loss, regardless of the circumstances, and making the comparison of "my grief is bigger than yours" is just reprehensible.

I only know my own personal grief over losing Ryan, which is far worse than any of my other losses combined, but the fact that I only "knew" him for 40 weeks and two days doesn't lessen my bond with him or my love for him ... nor should it. Ryan was conceived out of the enormous amount of love my husband and I share for one another, and his life will always be the beautiful tie that binds our hearts and souls together.

That pure love - and unending sadness over his absence - doesn't wane because we only had mere hours together instead of the decades that most parents share with their children. We love our son as much as any parent can love their child, living or not, so our love can't be minimized or dismissed simply because our time together was cut terribly short by tragically unforeseen circumstances.