Written by Sarah, mum of Jasper, for Still Aware.

Over the last couple of months, I have had conversations with many people who advised me that they read my blogs (I didn’t know so many did)! It has been interesting and enlightening to find out the reasons as to why these different people read my blogs – a real eye-opener, so to speak! There were a variety of reasons and I would like to share these conversations and reasons with you, to show you how something as simple as writing a blog can be someone else’s light for their journey and how the impact that your words can have on someone else’s life.

One lady told me that she started to read my blogs to gain a better understanding as to the journey of baby loss. Personally, she had never experienced it herself and she had no one close to her that had ever experienced it either. So, she reads my blogs as a way for her to learn about the journey that someone faces after losing a baby, as well as being able to gain a better understanding as to how it affects the rest of your life and how deep the loss truly is. Writing a blog is one of the many ways that we are able to help baby loss become less of a taboo subject in society and a way that we can help those who have never experienced it to gain a better understanding of what a truly terrible loss it is.

The second lady I spoke to told me that she started reading my blogs to gain more gratitude and appreciation towards her own child. Again, she had never personally experienced the loss of a baby before, she has a healthy child. However, she reads my blogs when she is struggling, when she is finding life a little difficult and when her child is pushing her to her limits. Reading my blogs then seems to refocus her – to remind her that no matter how hard her day or week has been, that she is lucky that she has her child alive and healthy with her, it reminds her of what is important and gives her a little bit of strength to keep pushing through the hard times (because at the end of the day she knows how lucky she is to have her child).

Another person has just started to read my blogs because they are facing baby loss themselves – in a different way to what I did. This person has experienced several miscarriages – so she started to read my blogs to feel like her thoughts and feeling (and emotions) were valid and to feel like she could relate to someone else at the time. She told me that one of the hardest parts of her journey so far is that there are so many people around her that will not discuss her losses with her and she feels like it is such a taboo subject in society.

To be honest, some people may read my blogs to be nosey and don’t really take much away from them at all. Others read my blogs because they have experienced baby loss themselves and are just genuinely interested in my journey and reading about my feelings, thoughts and emotions. I guess my point with this blog is that there is so much that we can do that can affect people in different ways. It can make a difference in a variety of ways (you can make a difference to someone else’s life in a variety of ways). It is amazing what something as simple as writing a blog can do.

From hearing this feedback from these different people, it really made me think about the important messages behind their stories, unfortunately there seemed to be some reoccurring messages. It made me realise that whilst society has come so far, the subjects around baby loss and miscarriage are still such taboo topics in our culture. Because of this, people experiencing it feel like they aren’t able to speak about their losses or their angels. They also feel like they can’t talk about it because it makes people feel uncomfortable. When someone said this to me, it made me so sad and angry. People only feel uncomfortable because they haven’t experienced it themselves and therefore, they are scared of what they don’t know, of what they don’t understand. I stopped caring about what other people thought a long time ago- I do what I need to do to cope with my loss. If I want to talk or write about our son I do, and I really don’t care what anyone else thinks. You should never judge someone’s journey if you have never walked the same journey.

Unfortunately, if people can’t relate to what you are talking about then they generally don’t want to talk to you about it at all and don’t want to hear you talking about it (yes, this is a very selfish way of life), but it is unfortunately how society is these days. I would encourage anyone experiencing (or that have experienced) loss in any form to speak up about it – society can’t change and develop if we are all too scared to talk about our personal journeys and our personal losses. We need to keep talking about it so that it can educate those around us – exactly like what my blogs are doing for some of my readers.

The feedback from these ladies made me realise that my blogs can be like a light on someone else’s journey – sometimes someone might read it because they just need to feel like they can relate to someone else out there, they need to feel like their emotions and feelings are valid and real and they need to feel a little less alone in the world for just a few moments. If me being brave enough to share my journey, my thoughts and my feelings can be someone else’s light in a difficult time then that is more then I ever thought I would be able to achieve by writing them.

It interested me greatly to know that one of the ladies reads my blogs not only because they are interested but because it helps to remind them of how lucky they are. It was interesting to know this because it helped me to realise that sharing my thoughts and feelings can also make people out there more gracious for what they have and instead of taking something so simple for granted, it makes them realise how truly lucky they are. This interested me greatly because since the loss of our son I realise how many people out there do not really appreciate their children and they don’t realise how lucky they are to be able to live each day with their child/children by their side.

At the end of the day I never intended for my blogs to do any of these things above – I just did them to be able to do something extra to honour our son’s memory and to help his memory and legacy carry on. It really amazes me the variety of readers and the reasoning as to why they are reading my blogs – what they mean to them. I guess my point to this blog is to try to encourage those out there who have experienced baby loss of any kind to speak up and write a blog – it helps to carry on someone’s memory but it also helps in many other ways – it can provide support to someone in a dark time – it can help society understand more around the subject so that it isn’t such a taboo topic, but more than anything it can act as a guiding light – a small glimmer of light that someone can use on their current journey. By writing about how my blogs impact other people and the ways that it happens I hope that it inspires some others out there to start writing them as well. We can’t expect change in society if we aren’t willing to work together.

So be a light for someone else’s journey and start writing your blogs!!! Let your journey mean something to someone else.