[For little Elza]

This is the ultimate rift-keeper-upper with my mom ever. I am angry and hurt. Elza Jean's headstone has been at my mom's storage for 2 years. I was gone for two years, out of state. Then I went back to my hometown for a year, last year. I asked my brother to lay the cement twice, ex-dh to lay the cement, and mentioned it at least twice to my mom that I wanted to put the headstone up. Nobody cared. Nobody wanted to help, and single-parenting two babies under the age of 1.5, I wasn't about to lay cement on the weekends after a full-time job. So, needless to say, I did not have the headstone set.

This is very personal to me. It is a part of my grieving process for my baby. This is the sadness that I feel... that I was only a mother to her for four days on earth. There are only certain things that I could and can do as her mother. I had told ex-dh when we were going to dress her at the funeral home, "I don't care what anything costs. There is never going to be a prom dress. There is never going to be a wedding to pay for, or college. This is all we can do. We can only be her mother and father on this earth for four days." It is painful. I think I got to do the following:
1. Feel her grow and predict about her personality for 9 months.
2. Feel her slip away
3. Give birth to her
4. Hold her
5. Let her go
6. Dress her and choose her funeral things
7. Watch over her for two days and one night
8. Say goodbye
9. Drive to the gravesite, place her in the ground, and bury her
10.

#10 is blank, because that is what my mom took away. The last thing I could do was buy and set the headstone. She sent me a video text, in the middle of my workday, during my lunch break, of her and my uncle and her husband setting the cement on my child's headstone.

I called her. I told her that she hurt me and that I wasn't handling it very well, and that it was not her decision to make.

She told me I have no reason to be upset. I divorced her as a mother a long time ago, so she doesn't know what to say to me, and that there is cultural protocol that has to be followed.

So I asked, "I lived there for a year, why didn't anyone help me or ask me to do it then? Why did you wait until I was gone before you decided to set the headstone on the grave of my child?"

I told her that it wasn't her place to make that decision and not tell me, that it was not okay to call me in the middle of pouring cement and mention they are setting the stone.

I am angry and sad. I wanted it a different way, and it was apart of my healing and closure process. And she took it away. I am so sad. ex-dh sucks too.

[For little Elza]

Oh yeah, her reply was that she couldn't talk to me and that she would write me a letter.

[KR258]

I am so sorry 's

[Tracey with 6]

I really feel for you I do, but is it possible she thought she was doing the right thing? be,ieve me I'm not saying she is in the right I have very little relationship with my mother but by sending the video call maybe she thought she was doing it for you and to try and help you??

[mcmama]

I'm not a headstone person - can you have it removed by the cemetery so that you can do it properly? is that possible?

[angelic_ky]

[Samual]

Couldn't you have arranged for the cemetery owners to do it? Thats what happens here you aren't allowed to put a headstone up yourself. Maybe she thought she was doing you a favour as it had been at her house for so long.

[DivasMomma]

(((HUGS)))

im so sorry...hopefully you can find a new way to get your #10 back

[For little Elza]

Thanks for all of your hugs, they help. The cemetery is a private, family cemetery, and owned by the families within who belong to my grandparents' church. So, everyone is responsible for their own graves and markers.

There was a marker there. It was a wooden, painted cross that ex-dh did for her. I will think of a new way to get my #10 back, that was a helpful suggestion.

I know that "life is for the living" and I treasure all my real, waking moments with my 3 living daughters. It is just that my mom has totally failed to support me through the death of my child. At the funeral she had stopped talking to me because at the wake service, she put some angels in Elza's casket. And I took them out and placed them off to the side because the casket was so small, I didn't want anything inside except the 2 things that her dad and I had put there. I put the angels right next to the casket on the outside. My mom got mad. Someone spilled a drink after the funeral service and I asked her if she knew where a mop was, and she ignored me. Then, she gave all the information for an obituary to the funeral home, and gave them permission to print an obituary. Which, might have been fine, except she excluded all of ex-dh's family.

So, where do I start in the 1000 ways my mom has overstepped her boundaries and then passively-aggressively punished me for having my own plan, thought, or idea?

I just think she knew it would hurt me, but did it anyway.

But the focus has to stay on Elza and my letting go and grieving process for her. Managing my grief so that I can raise my family, through everything. Thanks for being here everyone.

[DK615617]

I am sorry that your mom was so insensative to your feelings. I am sure she didn't mean to hurt you. Sometimes people hurt you when they try to help.