Letting Go, Letting In

In a larger, more sweeping way, we sometimes need to do this in our lives. I can offer only my personal story on this in order to explain it. My story isn't your story. The details are not the same for any of us. But this is my personal path with this more sweeping version of the "cleaning house" exercise.

Since my son died in 1999, my husband and I have worked hard to build something meaningful and worthwhile at KotaPress. We've worked more that double time twice over between us day in and day out, and we really don't have things like pay checks to show for it. We do have our sanity. We do have the awesome support of others who walk this path of grief and healing and understand the long term need for support. We do have this grass roots movement-- it's a little like hospice was 20 years ago, when providing long term care for families facing the end of a loved one's life was considered weird, novel, odd-- only we are providing support (which is not yet recognized by our society as something worth while) for the beginning of life/end of life and all it's consequences. (Side note: Sure Hallmark can make cards about the death of your pet, but gawd forbid we should acknowledge the stillbirth of a child!) By helping other parents find ways to survive after the deaths of their children, we are of course helping ourselves to find ways to survive since the death of our son. It is awesome and meaningful work. Neither of us wishes to do any other kind of work in this life time.

But that decision has consequences. It's very difficult to keep a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house on this kind of work. It's very difficult for family and friends who walk the traditional paths of "real jobs" with "real paychecks" to understand this choice. It's very difficult for anyone who hasn't lost a child sudden to an unexpected death to understand the choice to fight for a kind of work that is meaningful but doesn't exactly build a retirement fund. People you love come to think you are "unstable" "irresponsible" and maybe even "in need of help so

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