Nolan Eason

At 1:03AM on Friday, March 30, 2012 my first child was born - a son. We named him Nolan Eason. 21" long, 5lb 3oz. He was beautiful and perfect in every way, except that he was stillborn. As we searched for answers to his untimely death, we also searched for comfort. This blog was created as a way of working through my sorrow by trying to find something beautiful in the world each day. Hopefully, along the way it will help others to heal as well.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Day 9: Family

Capture Your Grief Day 9: Family

On the surface my family appears to consist of myself, my husband Marshall, our 2 1/2 year old son Ronan, our dog JoJo and our cat Lucy. I still get asked often if Ronan is our only child, although far less often than when he was an infant. I used to loathe being asked if he was our first or our only. I just didn't know what to say. To complete strangers that I would never see again I learned it was easier to just say yes and be on my way. With people I was bound to spend more time with and get to know better, I tried to learn the best way to say no without becoming the elephant in the room. It took some time before I could say no, we had another son who would have been 3. In fact, it is probably just within the last year that I have been able to answer this and not get choked up inside. 

To all my family and friends, they are made well aware of my two sons. They know both of their names and know how deeply we were affected by Nolan's death. But we might just be somewhat of an anomaly. I also now quite a few parents that have also lost children and never talk about them. I had many of these women reach out to me when I lost Nolan and tell me. Women I had know for years and years and yet never knew this secret of theirs. Everyone grieves differently and for some those cannot bare to talk about their loss and some couldn't even bare to name or hold their baby. For us that wasn't an option. Perhaps my husband could have done without taking photos but for me I wanted to be able to remember Nolan. We have beautiful keepsakes up in our house to remind us of him - his urn, a beautiful photo of a sunset with his name written in the sand, a photo of his feet, a heart with his name and birth weight and a Molly Bear (weighted bear that weighs his birthweight). 

My son Ronan already knows he has a big brother and his name was Nolan. Sure he's too young to understand it all, but we talk about Nolan frequently to him and celebrate Nolan's birthday every year. Nolan has a stocking we hang every Christmas and an ornament we put on the tree. For our family, we will always be a family with two boys - one on earth and one in Heaven.


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