Family Photo, Sally

This is a photo of a new photo that hangs on our wall of our perfectly imperfect little family. It only arrived this week and it captures my husband and I, our almost two year old son Angus and our brand new baby daughter Juliet Lily. Looks pretty good on the surface and we're all so happy, but someone is missing. Someone will always be missing.

Sally

tuesdayshope

Photo Sunday: The End.

 












The End.
Julie Cozens.

about the piece.
Solid footing ends,
my innocence ends.
Grieving takes over,
Like water, heavy.
Life continues on
And on, always on.

The next picture doesn't say anything about falling.

 :::

The End of a Season... The End of a Mum.
Amy McCarter.

about the photograph.
This photo was taken in Liam's garden during the first snow of the season.
December 4, 2010

:::

The End of the Road.
Sally.

about the piece.
This was as the sun was setting on New Year's Eve, 2008. The last day of the year she was born. The last day we were able to grieve in her birth and death year. The year that was the end of our innocence and naivety. It felt like the end of the road for us, as I was not sure how I could possibly keep putting one foot in front of the other in a brand new year. But it also felt like a new beginning, as we were desperate to to put the year behind us and try and move forward in to a new year that would hopefully include more happier times. And it did. -Sally

Spring, Sally

Spring.

Sally.

Photograph.

:::

about this piece.

I saw ladybugs everywhere I went for weeks after she died. It was early spring and it seemed every time I turned a corner, there was another one. Then suddenly, they went away. This was taken a few weeks ago at the start of spring here in the southern hemisphere. It had been two years since I'd last laid eyes on one. I don't think they are a sign or Hope visiting me or anything like that, but when I do see one, I appreciate their beauty and I of course think of her. I hope I don't have to wait that long again. -Sally

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her son Angus, born alive and screaming. Sally maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

By Candlelight, Sally.

By Candlelight.
Sally.
Photography.

:::

about this piece.
I lit candles for all the babies I was remembering on October 15 this year. I had 157 names and I thought of each family left behind with each candle I lit. There was a real sense of peace in my household for the hour the candles burnt. Though we had to eventually blow them all out, the babies they represented will never be forgotten. -Sally

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her son Angus, born alive and screaming one year ago today (Happy birthday, Angus). Sally maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Footprints, Sally.

Footprints.
Sally.
Photograph.

:::

about this piece.
This picture was taken on our Hawaiian holiday, six months after we lost Hope. It is the holiday you take when you don't get to take your baby home. Pretty shitty consolation prize. Though she isn't with us physically, we feel she is never far away, as evidenced by these footprints between us on the beach in Waikiki one night. -Sally


about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope Angel, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Hope and Sky, Sally and Skytimes

 
















Hope and Sky

Two babies, here so briefly, then lost
Leaving empty arms and broken hearts in their wake

Two babies, one boy, one girl
Countless dreams and plans go unfullfilled

Two babies, one would be three, the other two
August 19 is a heavy day

Two babies, born on opposite sides of the globe
Their grieving mothers connect with words

Two babies, both precious and so wanted
We see them in the sky and in turn they give us hope

Two babies, one is mine, one is yours
Both gone too soon

Two babies, Hope and Sky
Forever loved, forever missed

:::

about the piece.
Sally describes this piece, "Skytimes and I worked together on these pieces for Hope and Sky's birthday. She's done the collage, I wrote the poem, but we worked together to tweak them both. I couldn't possibly have let August 19 pass by, without celebrating both of our babies. I was so glad to have found Skytimes and to learn that August 19 was shared by another precious baby."


about the contributors.
Skytimes is a graphic artist and designer. Her son Sky died on August, 14th, 2007 and was born sleeping 5 days later on August, 19th 2007, at 33 weeks. She maintains a blog at Skytimes.

Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope. 

Remembering Hope on her second birthday and remembering Sky on his third birthday.

My Two Babies, Sally

My Two Babies.
Sally.
Photograph.

:::

about this piece.
Sally talks about her photograph, "Hope was stillborn, so we never got to take her home from hospital. When her younger brother Angus was born 15 months later, all of a sudden we were ready to bring him home and we couldn't quite believe our luck. We never thought the day would come. I'd thought during the pregnancy that if Angus was lucky enough to make it, that we would take him home via the cemetery to meet his sister. Seemed the right thing to do. We don't go to the cemetery often, but on this occasion, I didn't feel right just getting in the car and heading straight home, so off to visit Hope we went. I took two pictures while there. One with Angus in focus and one with Hope. These are the only pictures I'll ever have of my two babies together. It is sad. But it is my reality."

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Hope's Garden, Sally

Hope's Garden.
Sally.
Photography.

:::

about the piece.
Sally describes her photograph, "After Hope died, we had more time to ourselves than we knew what to do with. We were both on parental leave to care for the baby who never came home with us. So instead of taking care of the baby who didn't make it, we took care of our barren garden, which we had never really laid a finger on until that point. We'd been in the house only just a year and we had meant to tidy up the garden, but then watching my big belly grown got in the way and we never made the time. We figured if we had any time after the baby arrived, we might do some gardening. Oh how we dreamed of the days of taking our little baby in to the garden with us to watch and help.

"I spent much of my spare time in the months after Hope died in the garden. We dug things up, planted new things, landscaped, put vegetables and herbs in pots and the garden became the thing we nurtured and watched grow in place of our daughter.
And given that she died at the end of winter (here in the southern hemisphere) it was a perfect time to do it through the spring and summer months. It also saved me from getting outside and seeing all the happy people out there carrying their lovely, living babies around.

"Every day we were in the garden, it seemed I would see a ladybug. I saw them in my car, and at the garden supply shop when I was buying new plants. They were everywhere.

"Then one day, taking a few pics of the new garden and the "Hope" stone that we placed in the middle of it, we saw this - a ladybug crawling across it.
These were taken in late December 2008, and I'm not sure I have seen a ladybug since. For all those months I felt like they were a sign from her, but now they're gone. And it is just another small thing to be sad about."

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

First flower, last flower, Sally

First flower, last flower.
Sally.
Photography.


:::

about this piece.
"After Hope died, as is often the way with a tragedy, bunches and bunches of flowers started arriving on our doorstep. We asked for no flowers at the funeral, yet more people brought more flowers. By about the second week after her death, we had about 30 bunches of flowers in our home and pretty much no space left to store them. They were on top of the book shelf, tv and fridge - everywhere.

"The very first bunch to arrive was a simple bunch of Singapore orchids, just like I carried on my wedding day. They were sent by close friends and were here waiting for us when we arrived home from hospital the day after she was born - empty handed and totally bereft.

"As the weeks went by, the flowers all died, obviously. Mum, who was here every day in those first weeks, would remove the dead flowers from the bunches and salvage the living ones and re-form them in to new bunches. But the Singapore orchids just kept lasting and lasting and lasting.

"Day by day, another one of them would drop off, and the last one to finally fall was on December 7, 2008 - almost four months since Hope was born. Here is the picture I took of it on that day. The first flowers to arrive, and the last to go."

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Touching Hope, Sally

Touching Hope.
Sally.
Photograph.

:::

about the piece.
Sally describes the photograph, "This is a picture I took just a few weeks after I had Hope. Not long after she was born, I had my favourite photo of her made in to a canvas print for my wall and when it first arrived, I couldn't stop touching it. I was like that with all photos of Hope initially. I would just run my fingers over them and try to remember running my fingers over her soft, cool face. Especially my lap top screen, which I had a photo of her as my screensaver on.

"It seemed so pathetic and sad to be touching photos, touching my laptop screen, touching a canvas print to try and remember how it felt to touch her, but that was all I had and all I still have. Just one of my many, slightly crazy, grief behaviours that only other grieving mothers and fathers will ever understand. I guess it is like sniffing their clothes and blankets, trying to still drink them in when the smell has clearly already long faded.

"I guess I just thought for a website that is for and about dead babies, we don't always see a lot of the dead babies themselves. So this is my photo, Touching Hope."

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Always Hope, Sally

Always Hope
by Sally

watching tv,
reading the paper,
walking the dog,
hope

eating my breakfast,
conversation with a clueless friend,
watering the garden,
hope

having a shower,
buying meat at the butcher,
singing in the car,
hope

running a marathon (if I could),
feeding my boy,
dinner with friends,
hope

a nap on the couch,
reading a blog,
doing the laundry,
hope

feeling happy,
feeling sad,
feeling empty,
hope

staring at the wall,
staring at nothing,
staring at everything,
hope

staring
dozing
walking
eating
writing
reading
cleaning
standing
laying
talking
jumping
loving
living

hope.

she's just always there.

:::

about the poem.
In Sally's words, "I wrote this poem after realising that every single thing I do in my life now, I am thinking about my lost daughter, and it seems even more profound now that my living son is in my life. It doesn't always have to be obvious like looking at her photo, writing about her, going through her memory box - she is just always on my mind and heavy on my heart. Every thing I do, every decision I make, every step I take is coloured by her absence. I miss her."

about the poet.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.