Maeve Day: Today Maeve Gave Out Tiny Teddy Chocolates in My Office

I haven't been on the blog for a while - I've been quite active on the FB page of the same name as this blog, and really I need to look into how to post to this page from my phone, as it's hard to get PC time to regularly update this place lately, and I do really want to.

I have had people doing acts of kindness and even people getting in touch who have received them. I have their lovely words and pictures and I will post them here, I have just let life get a bit too busy and I need to carve out some admin time to come here and post - after all, that was the point.

So I'm sorry about that.

Apologies to one side, important as they are - something more important presses in - today is the 16th of October. It is another Maeve Day.

I had planned to give out Lindt teddy bear chocolates at work, to leave them on desks with cards. And just as I was doing this I rememberd we have a pregnant lady here. That stopped me in my tracks. Would it be fair to ambush her with a sweet and then hit her with a card about baby loss, albeit with good intentions? Was it ok to do this? I wanted to make people smile, to tell them about Maeve...ideally if they cried it would be in a happy/sad way, not in a 'suddenly fearful for my baby' way :-S

As it happens she was next in the office after me, so I decided to ask her if it would be ok to give out chocolate bears in memory of Mave. She immediately said it would be fine, that it was a lovely idea and that she knew someone who had also lost a baby.

So it all worked out ok.

Today I will be thinking of Maeve and her family - I do that on and off all the time but particularly I shall think of them today xxx

(Posted by Ila Sirrah)

Maeve Day, August 2015 - Today Maeve bought 10 pre-pay Ice creams & heard from a little girl called Florence & her mummy!

[Picture taken by me today at Clarence Park, St Albans, Herts]

Today is a Maeve Day - of course for her family every day brings thoughts of Maeve but the 16th of every month is another month of Maeve's absence marked. Today is also Jess's birthday, which must make for a particularly bitter-sweet remembrance.

I had tried to buy pre-pay coffees at my local cafe, but it was mysteriously shut. I thought about lurking by the pay machine in a local car park but we had promised to take the kids to the park and so that's what we did. I made sure I had at least 10 of Maeve's cards in my wallet. I had to meet my family in the park as I had a few chores to do before I could join them. On the way to the park I had been worrying and worrying what I would do about the cards - I didn't want to let the day go by without doing something. I actually said out loud to Maeve 

'Ok kid, if you see an opportunity to do something you give me a nudge, alright?' 

and then got on with the afternoon.

We played at the park, helped and cheered middle child as she valiantly ploughed up and down the park's pathways, trying to peddle her bike, small son kicked balls, been chased and tickled, pushed on the swings and eldest girl had run, jumped, cartwheeled and monkey-barrred to within an inch of (my) sanity. The only solution was, apparently, ice cream. We got chatting to the man selling the ice cream and he joined us watching and yelling supportive comments to our courageous junior cyclist. He seemed like a super nice guy, so I told him about Maeve and asked him if I could pre-pay for 10 ice creams and would he give them out as he saw fit and give the cards away too, please? He was a bit non-plussed at first but quickly became game to the cause. By the time we were leaving he let me know that people were very suspicious of free ice cream at first but once they got over the initial weirdness, were only too happy to accept them! He had given away 9 and seemed confident that he could give away the last one by the end of the day. I thanked him and asked if I could come back again next month. He said he'd be there again next week! So he enjoyed it too!

I felt that it had all gone rather well - much better than I anticipated...but I wondered if anyone would act on the cards. I tried not to dwell on it - getting people involved would be awesome but really, it's the remembrance of Maeve through small kind acts that is important. I had a stern word with myself about keeping to the point and thought no more about it...UNTIL...

I received this email via this blog's email account (shared with the author's kind permission:)

[Florence Clarke, aged 8 months Copyright Felicity Clarke - reprinted her with her permission]

"Dear Maeve,

Today my mummy let me have my first taste of an ice lolly and all because of you. She never normally lets me have sugar but she said this was a very special ice lolly gift from you to me and so it was such a treat ! So lovely and cool and sweet on a warm afternoon and so nice on my sore gums where I am growing new teeth !

We were walking through the park with our friends and stopped at an ice cream van when the kind gentleman serving there passed us your card and ice lollies. My mummy was so touched by your card and the kind gesture that she had to take a few moments to compose herself. She loves me so much you see that she knows just how much your mummy must be hurting and she is so very sorry. She thinks the idea of spreading acts of kindness in your memory is just wonderful and inspirational.
 

She said a prayer for you Maeve and your family and told me she will plan something nice for someone else in your memory next month on the 16th. 

Sleep peacefully. 

Florence Clarke (8 months)St Albans"

It was so lovely to receive  this! I can't hardly wait to deliver some cards to Florence's family, as they are planning to use them on the 16th September! 

If you would like some cards to give out with small kindnesses email now to themaeveeffect@yahoo.co.uk - I am fulfilling 3 requests tomorrow before I go on holiday for a week and would be happy to send out more :-D

Happy Maeve Day guys xxx

Maeve Day - The Escalator - By Jess McCormack (Originally posted on A Bed for my Heart)

Many people don't want to think about what it might be like to live with the loss of a child. That's understandable, I guess, in a way... Perhaps that is why so many people avoid the subject and are keen for those living with this kind of loss to 'get over it' and 'move on'. Perhaps if people could take a minute to imagine what it might be like, or listen to someone who is living with this kind of grief, they would be kinder and more patient with bereaved parents.

This is a post Maeve's mum, Jess, wrote for the site A Bed for My Heart back in April 2015, you can find the original post here.

I won't say too much about it - I think Jess speaks for herself far more eloquently than I ever could.

I hope that when you have read it you will see why I'm so keen to get people saying Maeve's name - I want to help Jess as she struggles to walk up that escalator...

"Sometimes living with grief is described as like being on a roller coaster. But a roller coaster has both ups and downs, highs and lows, excitement, anticipation, that moment when everything stands still and then a terrifying, exhilarating rush. For me grief is more like a treadmill and I am stuck facing the wrong direction. Or an escalator, a crazy long one like on the London Underground, where you bravely step on without being able to see where it ends. My escalator is moving down, and down, and down, but I am trying to go up, climbing and climbing, but getting nowhere.

I can see a glimpse of where I want to go, I can sense the light, the happiness, the freedom. But I climb and climb and never seem to move up. I climb until I am exhausted, my legs beginning to feel numb, my lungs burning, my head too tired to keep looking up at where I want to go. I am still in the same place, in spite of all the work, all the effort to move up. But I can’t stop climbing. Because if I stop, the escalator will quickly send me downwards, back to where I started. I can’t look back, I can’t think about what is behind me because it was too dark, too painful.

 . . .

I don’t know how I got through it. I don’t remember when the sobbing stopped, the involuntary, desperate crying that came from the depths of my soul and felt like it would never end. I was so afraid, because the world I thought I knew was suddenly ripped away from me and replaced by a world in which anything could happen, the worst thing imaginable, even though I played by the rules. I dare not even glance down to briefly remember how that felt, because it might make me lose my balance and fall backwards into the darkness. But to keep looking up is taking all that I have. I wish I could stop, stand still and just hold my girls, one in my arms and the other forever in my memory. But grief doesn’t stop, it keeps trying to move me down and down and down.

 . . .

Sometimes I feel so alone, like I am the only person on the escalator.  And then suddenly someone is beside me, holding out their hand, climbing with me, keeping pace, saying “Maeve, Maeve, Maeve”, reminding me why I need to keep going, helping me to believe I will one day reach fresh air, bright, clean light. Sometimes I am surrounded by so many people, the warmest of hugs, holding me so tight that I can stop climbing for a while, while others do the work for me.

 . . .

I know I have come far from those dark days in the raw depths of early grief. It has been a hard, hard climb, with many stumbles, shins crashing onto metal, bruised and scarred. But I got up again and again and I am still climbing.

. . .

I stop to take a breath, I close my eyes, and in my mind, I am holding my baby girl. I remember how it felt to kiss her soft cheeks, how she fit perfectly in my arms, where she was meant to be forever, not just for a day. I want to stay in that moment, but I’ve stopped for too long, I am starting to go down. I need to climb again, but it’s so hard. I could just stop, let the escalator carry me down into the darkness, to a place where there’s nothing, where it won’t hurt any more. Or I could put one foot in front of the other, just one step, just one will lift me up, away from the dark. One step and then another, not further from Maeve, but towards a future with her in it, not in the way she should have been, but in beauty, in memory, in love. And so I climb, for Maeve, because of Maeve, because I owe it to my baby girl not to give up."