My love for Rosie is the same as my living children

On the 24th of May 2022 Rosie Liliane Wyers entered our world silently.

Rosie was perfect.

She looked almost identical to my oldest son. She was exactly how I imagined our baby girl to look.

Only loss parents would understand the feeling of having those moments with your baby. You want time and the world to stop but it can’t. Eventually you have to say the hardest goodbye of your life.

I never understood the world of grief before and the pain of losing Rosie, especially so close to Mother’s Day, made it in even harder to shut the world of grief out.

Grief continues to take me by surprise. Recently, I was so triggered by a friend’s birth photo that it felt like someone had just told me my baby had died again. The waves can still hit hard, but I can feel myself get stronger as I let the waves pass. The magnitude of the loss actually comes clearer and greater as time and all the milestones pass. Time doesn’t heal a grief like this, you just learn how to manage it one day at a time.

After following some posts on loss pages, last year, I discovered there was an International Bereaved Mother’s Day, which honours mothers who have lost a child and is usually held a week before Mother’s Day.

This year I would like to celebrate Mother’s Day on International Bereaved Mother’s Day instead, which is on Sunday 5 May.

May is a hard month

I am a nurse and when I got my roster, I actually felt happy when I saw that I was rostered on Mother’s Day as it can just be so hard. Last year, I was relieved my in-laws were away, so I avoided a large family get together on Mother’s Day.

I feel like since I have had Eli (my rainbow baby after Rosie) people don’t realise how hard days like that can be for my Tim and me.

May is a hard month for us we have Mother’s Day, my birthday then Rosie’s birthday. The thought of her second birthday makes me so emotional. We will celebrate her like we did last year with a big family dinner and cake that I will make with the boys. I wish I could see what she would look like as a toddler and how she would be playing with her brother’s. I feel peace in feeling her presence around us.

Like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and special days like Christmas can also be difficult for us.

People think you get better. You don’t - this is a lifelong thing we live with; time does not heal wounds like this. Some family and friends don’t seem to understand how we would like her included. People say we have three kids; I feel like I want to explode, if you know about Rosie you know we have four kids.

My love for Rosie

My love for Rosie is the same as my living children so honouring her helps me channel that love as I do not have her to hold.

For Mother’s Day 2023, Tim bought me a necklace with ‘KARE’ acknowledging all our baby’s initials. This year I got some updated family photos done with Rosie included in the photos. I struggle with photos of the family that don’t capture Rosie, so this means the world to me. The beach is our family spot so we will go down and take the boys for a play and write her name in the sand. We include her in everything we do as much as we can.

Also, in late 2023 and in honour of Rosie, I joined Red Nose as a volunteer for their Peer Support Line to help other families facing this heartbreak. I have found this to be a productive way to help process and understand my own grief while helping others.

One of the things that Red Nose does and that I really appreciate, is that they do ‘In loving memory…’ tiles for social media and I’m looking forward to seeing Rosie’s name written and honoured by others in the loss community. It also gives our families a way to honour her too.

To request your own Remembrance tile visit: rednose.org.au/news/request-your-mothers-day-remembering-with-love-graphic-tile

Tile submissions close 5pm Wednesday May 8, 2024

You can view Mother’s Day Remembering with Love tiles by visiting our photo albums on our Red Nose Grief and Loss Facebook page.

Last reviewed: 8/5/24