Day 6: BOOKS!

Books are one of the best things in my life!  I love books!  I love reading!!
Reading has been such a good friend to me in grief.  I can read to escape.  I can read to feel better.  I can read to learn.  I can read to connect.  I can read to travel.  I can read to do just about anything I want to do, whenever I want to do it!
The night that we got home from the hospital, the very day that I delivered Jackson, I started rereading Harry Potter.  Oh HP, my long time friend.  I can read and reread this series and never get sick of it.  Harry allowed me to escape that first week.  When I stopped reading, I cried and cried.  When I started reading again, I was in a different world.  A world of magic and adventure, a world that was a million miles away and in another dimension than my own.  I needed that.  I soaked it in.  I needed a place to go so that the pain didn't overcome me and kill me.  It took me only 7 days to get through all seven books.  Then I moved on.  I read new things, I reread old things, I read and read.
These are just a few of the books that I got through this summer.  These books were my friends and my entertainment and my sanity.  These books wiped some of my tears...

Day 6 of #captureyourgrief is books.  What have books done for me?  Everything.  What books helped me?  All of them did.  Each one gave me something that I needed at the time.  I didn't want to read all about grief, so I mixed it up a lot.  I did read Heaven is for Real, that is one that the hospital gave us and I found a lot of hope in that one.  I also am always reading through Empty Cradle, Broken Heart.  That one is hard to read all at once, because some of the stuff I can relate to, and other things I can't.  Everyone grieves differently and there is no wrong way, but it's good for me to read all of the stories because it opens my mind and my heart even more.  Another great one is Rare Bird, that one I've blogged about and was so hard to read, but so so good.

There are many more books on grieving and pregnancy/baby/child loss that I want to read, but I try to space them out.  The heart can only handle so much sad.  The point is, books can be very helpful when you are hurt or sad or going through loss, if only to allow you some respite from your own heart and mind.  There is a book out there for everything that you are going through, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, it doesn't even have to be related to your situation!  I reread Eat, Pray, Love and that was the first book that made me laugh again!  I love E. Gilbert's crazy adventures and life changing experiences., she gave me hope.

Books are one of my favorite things in the whole world, and I consider many of the characters I read about my actual friends.  I can't thank authors and books and characters enough for helping me through my tough time.  It may seem silly, but I don't care.  Books are part of the reason I am who I am today, even more so now after our loss...they had a part in saving me these past few months.  And they will continue to have a part in my life until I die, shaping me and helping me and changing me with each one I read.

Thank you, dear books!

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are." Mason Cooley.