Death on the Inside

I talk about my "Awesome Mama's Group" often, so I won't explain to you again, who they are.  As a group, we suffered a major loss last week.  We had a death from inside our close knit group.  It is so hard to believe.  She was my age, celebrated her 30th birthday just a month before me.  Melissa fought a very brave battle with Cancer.  She is truly inspirational.  She chose not to go into great detail with us about her treatment, cause she just wanted to be a mom when she was with us (on line).  I feel like we were her "normal", cancer free zone.  Melissa's battle started lass May with treatment after her diagnosis. 

We have all been sharing our feelings about her passing.  Here are the thoughts I shared with my mama's last night, I thought my feelings would make a good blog entry:

I've been thinking about Melissa a lot too. But I think more about her as in where she is now.  I picture her smiling down on her lil ones. I picture her laughing, and skipping in green fields of flowers, rays of sunshine catching her hair. Her cheeks rosy with the glow of perfect health. I picture her nuzzling Mackenzie close, i can almost imagine the scent of a freshly bathed baby, wrapped in a white towel, all snuggled up in her arms. 

Sometimes I feel like my experience has almost desensitised me from death. Or maybe I've come to understand not what I/we on earth have lost, but what that individual has gained. Some could say I have romanticised death through my visions of heaven...

For me it's the way my brain has learnt to function through the emotional, pretty much physical pain, of loosing a child.

Don't get me wrong, I hurt for Will (Melissa's husband) and their young ones, but I also believe that Melissa is with us all. It still breaks my heart to know how many experiences the kids won't physically have their mom here for,  just as it breaks my heart knowing how much Mackenzie is not with our family for so many momentous occasions.  At the same time, my belief in heaven helps the pain subside, knowing that both Melissa and Mackenzie our with their families everyday. It's just harder to see them.