Franchesca Cox writes:
On May 5, 2009 we welcomed our precious gift, Jenna Belle, our firstborn into this world. God allowed her to grace our lives for 13 beautiful days. My hope is to honor her life as she has forever changed my world. Faced with indescribable grief that I will never understand, I have to believe that my greatest loss was and still is her greatest gain. Living without my Jenna has changed me to the very core. I am managing to gain some ground through my artistic side, which I felt I lost when she died. This is all in her memory. Most days it is just plain hard, but I am learning to see that God is so big that He can make something beautiful out of something tragic.
One of the cruelest factors in grief is loneliness. Two weeks after Jenna died, most people stopped coming by and their lives naturally moved on. That’s when it became clear that this was my burden, my journey, my daughter. Of course, life had not moved on for me; I was still stuck in that moment that she died and went to Heaven. It felt like drowning and not being able to scream for help. That’s exactly it. When she died and I began to feel the loneliness of this grief settling in my soul, all I wanted to do was spare someone else from feeling forgotten or shunned in a time of great loss.
Today, a few baby steps into this grief journey, I rest thankful to have been her mother. But the pain is there everyday and everywhere I go. Part of me never wants it to go away. It’s a part of her that lives in me.
I offer the story of my greatest loss so that a grieving, baby lost mama will know that she is not alone.
While most people don’t know how to confront the harsh reality that babies die, I am living proof that they do. There is a part of me that died with Jenna, rearranging everything I stood for making me somebody new.
This blog, Handprints from Heaven, offers the story of an angel and the journey of a mother who is depending on the grace of God that is sufficient, because He said so. Offering support to families who have lost children.
Click here to Request a Hope Collage and order a Memory Box.
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More stories available on the OC Walk To Remember blog.