The Clouds That Stopped The Rainbow: A Journey Through Grief · 7:53am Nov 19th, 2018
“It has been said time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind protecting it’s sanity covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it’s never gone.” –Rose Kennedy
Hey guys. Thanks for reading this.
The Clouds That Stopped The Rainbow was so difficult to write. Losing a child is the worst grief anyone can go through, and unfortunately I have been there. Though not quite in the same way. As an ABDL mommy, My first baby girl left me suddenly, no word, no warning, just gone. And It messed me up. For good. And it was by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
Losing a child leaves an invisible scar on your soul. At first the wound is visible, bright red for everyone who sees you. They know something is wrong, and they see it in your eyes. They hold you upright and help you grieve. In the first minutes, hours, days, weeks, months after losing them, people will be there to support you. But eventually they expect you to move on, because they have. They do not understand that the grief of losing your baby can sometimes root you to one spot. Sometimes you just can’t move on, no matter how much you would like to.
This is the fact of life for someone who has lost their biological child. But for a caregiver who has lost their AB/DL child, the wound can sometimes be even worse. When your child is born of you, you lose a part of yourself. The same goes for when you lose your AB/DL child, only sometimes it can be worse. Why? It’s simple: Because you chose each other. The two of you saw one another, and decided to make a commitment to one another, to find out who you were together. You trusted one another with the most intimate sides to yourselves. You grew in love and joy, and you cared for one another.
But somewhere along the line, things got twisted. Something happened that you couldn’t have seen coming. Suddenly your little one distances themselves from you, and you’re desperately trying to close that gap and reach them. Slowly they start building up their defenses, and they make a wall to block you completely out of their lives before you can even see it coming. Your left wondering what in the hell you did wrong, what made them leave, and what you could have done to stop it. But even more than that, you are left having lost a large chunk of who you are. When a part of your identity is based on being a parent, you don’t know how to deal with it when that part of you is suddenly taken away.
You become your grief. You suddenly don’t know how to get through the day without crying. You find yourself brooding over old memories when you’re at work, and crying when you hear the song you sang your baby on the radio. You spend hours ruminating over the last days before they left, wondering what you did to make them hate you so much, and you keep telling yourself that you failed them. The old parts of you, ones that had joy and hobbies and smiles, seem to fade, and you are left to answer one vital question: Who am I?
You will never be who you were before your child left. I can tell you that right now. The scars that this kind of abandonment leaves on your soul will never really heal. They will fade, but the wounds will remain a part of you forever. They will effect your ability to trust people. They will make you cautious to love. They will make you feel trapped in sadness with no way out. And you know what? That’s okay. It doesn’t make you weak or a coward. It just makes you human.
Don’t try and stuff your feelings up inside of yourself. If you do you’ll only be destroying yourself. Instead, find your own way of dealing with it. You don’t have to go and see a therapist or a counselor if you don’t want to. I started a grief journal and made some recordings for my last baby girl to try and deal with my feelings. Just make sure you do something so that you don’t have any regrets later on. Deal with it while it’s fresh. Write a letter, make a video, send a card, hold a mock funeral, but don’t let it fester inside of you. It will only break you.
This feeling of abandonment can make you wary of trying to find another baby. I am the first one to tell you that that is absolutely true. The first time I lost my baby girl I was terrified of putting myself out there. It’s inevitable. When we fall sometimes we don’t want to get back up. But if we stay down we may never get to experience the joys that come with getting up. If you never try, you’ll never know. The scariest thing you will ever do is put yourself out there. But if you found someone once, You can do it again.
We only regret the things we don’t do in this life. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to grieve the loss of your baby even after you get a new one. You aren’t trying to replace your first baby- no one will ever take their place. You’re taking a leap of faith and opening your heart to someone new. It’s terrifying, and incredibly difficult, but the rewards outweigh the risks.
For those of you who are grieving, please know that you are not alone. If you are struggling, or you need help or someone to talk to you, there are options available to you. If you’re afraid to talk to someone in person (like a therapist or counselor) about your feelings because this situation is so unique, then try chatting with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or call them at 1-800-273-8255. You can be happy again someday, and there is absolutely hope for you. And someday you are going to make someone incredibly happy.
You are still a parent, no matter what else happens. And you are enough, just the way you are.
Thank you for reading.
I'm sorry to hear that some foals die or in the case of abdl community leave the mommy that truly cares for them. I can say personally that I am a abdl filly without a mommy even though me and my marefriend consider each other as the others mommy. It's just not the same and if I had a mommy that cared for me I would never leave.
This situation reminds me of how my soon-tobe ex-wife went from wanting to try to keep our relationship going to jumping right into flat out saying she doesn't love me anymore and, almost as quickly, got herself into another relationship.
My wife, to whom I gave my all, is now gone. So much of my self-worth I put into being a good husband. However I couldn't make her love me anymore and, even months later as the divorce papers go through, I still feel such a loneliness as many parts of my heart are filled with empty spaces.
Grieving is definitely important and, truly, your advice is top-notch. Not many advocate the way you have through your writing. You should be proud to be a voice for those who may not feel they have the courage to reach out. It really just takes one of us to reach one of them to keep hope alive. Hope is strong and friendship is, no pun intended, magic.