![\"Bella](\"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/dream-lens-sony-a7sII-florals4-1-of-1.jpg\")
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I used to hate February, after all, my son died in February, and my father died in February. The shortest month of the year and I had to hold my breath just to get through it.<\/p>\n
But the cold and damp of winter pairs well with grief, the drab grey exterior matching the turmoil of grief\u2019s interior. \u00a0And although winter felt fitting for grief, spring felt like a betrayal. My heart can summon up that spring over 25 years ago where sadness and anger rocked with me on the front porch swing as I scribbled my sorrow in tear stained journals.<\/p>\n
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Spring was just another reminder of how life goes on, the burst of nature in tiny details were one more nudge to remind me that I was the only one sitting still. Tears stung my eyes as I listened to the worlds chatter while I sat unable to move. Birds singing, flowers blooming, even the green of the grass played a role in my sadness.<\/p>\n
This year, for the first time, I did a pay it forward to acknowledge Ryan\u2019s death. Pay it forward has always been about celebrating Ryan\u2019s birth, but this year I realized that actually it has always been about remembering Ryan. He has been gone for 5 times the years that he lived; yet there are days when I can still hear his giggles like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n
Ryan was a sweet, silly, shy little boy that loved coloring, memory games and Nintendo. We watched Aladdin, Jungle book and Fern Gully so often I can still, to this day, sing all the songs of each movie.<\/p>\n
He made us laugh with silly songs he made up; he made us smile with his caring nature and the stories shared by his preschool teacher of how his calming influence helped his schoolmates.<\/p>\n
For years, he and I were a team when shopping. We would search the grocery isles patiently looking for any of the items we needed. Once Chelsea learned to talk, she became our voice and stopped anyone walking by, speaking for us all. \u00a0After losing Ryan, everything was painful, and on most days, even the rows of cereal at the grocery store were too much to bear.<\/p>\n
Loss doesn\u2019t go away, time doesn\u2019t make it better, the only thing time does is teach us how to live with the emptiness, and that is a troubled path to navigate.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know today what it would be like to have my son as a grown man, I only know of that 5-year-old child. Memories take the helm on this roller coaster of life and loss, like the flicker of a candle both illuminating and destructive.<\/p>\n
I write about Ryan, my grief and the sorting of these mixed up emotions to help myself, hopefully help others, and maybe even inspire someone who is grieving on their front porch swing witnessing the arrival of spring.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While searching for a reason to go on after losing their five-year old son Ryan, she discovered that giving back could actually save her. Tina Zarlenga is married with two grown children and her first grandchild, sharing stories of inspiration and hope, as well as her journey through grief with emotional essays of life on her website\u00a0\u00a0Unraveling My Heart the Write Way<\/a> and through a campaign to pay it forward for Ryan she uncovered JOY. Published essays can be found in Bella Grace Magazine,<\/a> The Compassionate Friends, as well as many online communities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used to hate February, after all, my son died in February, and my father died in February. The shortest month of the year and I had to hold my breath just to get through it. But the cold and damp of winter pairs well with grief, the drab grey exterior matching the turmoil of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellagracemagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}