Its way to hot to even think around here so we decided to go to the mall and play last week.
Ramsey got brave and wanted to fly. She LOVED it!
so excited :)
I mean seriously.. i would be terrified!
Then we rode the carousel three times and did a little shopping, well not really this mall has no good stores anymore or maybe i am too old for the choices but it was air conditioned so it was perfect :)
Reese and i just took it all in
Ramsey has been taking lots of pictures with my phone
Ramsey is so silly and has grown up so much lately it seems. She has been talking about Evie a lot more and on a daily basis says " i love Evie momma". Last week Jonathan was out of town a bunch and we would skype with him some. One night when he called Ramsey just started immediately crying and saying i love my daddy over and over. She left the room, we finished talking then she came back crying more and said but i love Evie momma so i sat on the floor with her and she just cried on my shoulder. She has never done that before. I asked her if she wanted to look at some pictures or videos of her and she said pictures so we sat behind the couch where our albums are and i opened one and it opened to their 18 mth pics
this picture
She laid her head in the album and just cried on this picture. I was completely crushed and just cried with her. I don't know what made her do that. We are wondering if maybe now that she is older and understanding more, that she is able to understand what her emotions are and what she is feeling. Ever since then she will just come up to me and say i love evie momma then she says she loves Jesus and the other night she said she wanted Maddie to come back to her house.
I think we are for sure approaching a different stage and will be dealing with some harder issues with her and i want to make sure i do it right for her. When Evie died she was too young for counseling but i wonder if she would benefit now? If any of you read this and have dealt with this let me know your thoughts. I don't want to be missing something. Jonathan found a great article that has helped us and if you are dealing with a similar situation you might find it helpful as well.
She is so brave! I would be terrified. I will pray for her little heart. It must be terrible as a mama to watch go through grief.
ReplyDeleteI am earning my Master's degree in Christian Counseling right now. I have a bachelor of arts in Psychology and Sociology. I think it would be extremely beneficial for sweet Ramsey to go to play therapy. Since she is so young she would require this type of counseling where a licensed play therapist would interact with her through play. Children naturally express themselves through play and usually open up far more than when you just ask them a question...sometimes its a leading question, sometimes they don't understand the question. My son went through major changes in his life this past year and I put him in play therapy, he LOVES it and it has been a saving grace for our family. I pray that God leads you to the right choice for your sweet family. :) I think helping Ramsey now as a child will prevent the pain and emotions she is feeling currently to turn into something negative in the future as she grows if its not properly dealt with. God Bless!
ReplyDeletePraying for peace for your sweet family and for precious Ramsey. You are such strong woman.
ReplyDeleteI will be praying for sweet Ramsey.
ReplyDeletehere's my take, from a similar sort of btdt way.
ReplyDeletein 2007, our 2nd daughter died during birth, i was 41 weeks pregnant. our first daughter was 25 months. she had come to every single appt, etc with us, she already was so in love with her sister. she is also very sensitive and precocious (I have friends who have had losses with almost exactly the same sitch, and their children didn't seem to be affected as much). It was awful on her. she cried a lot, we all cried together, that first year esp. we grieved deeply as a family, and i was truly surprised how much a 2yr old could grieve. however then something even more surprising happened. our lives moved on, we healed, still grieved, still missed Catriana, still longed for her, but the wound, it scabbed over, it wasn't as fresh, it was a different type of grief (more the type that would jump up and slap in the face out of nowhere, instead of aching so ridiculously much every single day, if that makes sense). Our oldest, Mairi, would go through these periods of almost "regrieving", it felt like. And the thing is, in a sense, she was. As cognitively, she continued to grow, she had to continue to process the loss anew, reviewing it, and healing in a fresh way, because she understood more. This happened until about the age of 6-last year-she is 7.5 now-and she still will take out her catti book, scrapbook, or even sometimes catti's ashes, and cry and miss her so much. it's much better than it used to be, but i think the main thing is, as a child experiences a devastating loss so young (esp one with a twin and a living sister, how much more deeply is that grieved!), they have to reprocess and regrieve. and it's not a bad thing (except it is, because grief and loss sucks, and imo the hardest part of loss is watching our living children grieve and not being able to heal their pain), but it's normal. i never thought my daughter needed therapy, because we were able to meet her needs. we were comfortable talking with her about what happened, why it happened, and how awful and sad it was-very open, and it hurt us so terribly to have to watch her through this process, but imo it just is what it is. grief, with hope, is not a bad thing (except...it is...and it sucks...) but allowing your child the freedom to feel sorrow and sadness is heartbreaking but not wrong, and i don't necessarily think it means they need counseling. if they started to act out, or it was excessive or you felt like you weren't at a place to be able to talk through things with her, then maybe yes. that all being said, obviously you have a far different, deeper situation than i do, and good quality (christian!) therapy can never really be a bad thing...but i just want to reassure you that i don't think this is weird or wrong or anything that R is doing this-it seems very similar to the reprocessing as the cognitive ability develops that i saw in my own daughter-and she is one of the sweetest, most compassionate, loving, caring children you will ever meet-the loss of her sister created this in her, walking the path of loss and grief so young-but i know God is going to do amazing things with this in her life, to touch other people.
Oh Alicia - this made me cry. I am praying for sweet Ramsey as she struggles to figure all of this out and am praying for you and jonathan as you try to answer her questions. I know when Emi wants to talk about Jack and why he is like he is, it just brings back all of those feelings of sadness and I feel like I am reliving it all over again. I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you. I do think counseling might help - all of the support groups we have been involved with have really pushed sibling therapy.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog - that little Reese it just adorable and Ramsey is just gorgeous!
Oh my goodness, Alicia. I read this aloud to my husband and we both just cried. Can't imagine how hard that day must have been.
ReplyDeleteYes- we both think that counseling- even something specific for twins- would help R with her thoughts and emotions. My MIL says there is a group called Twinless Twins- I don't know anything about it but I thought I'd pass it along.
Much love,
Ari
I think it's very tender for Ramsey to remember her and miss her but must be so heartbreaking at the same time. I'll praying yall continually know how to handle it with wisdom and grace. Yall are amazing parents! We all miss our sweet Evie angel!
ReplyDelete