Why do "We" keep this club exclusive

     Today, is two months since my Makenna died. My Makenna Jo went to heaven. I want to be selfish and say she was mine - but she was a gift to everyone. I was just lucky enough to carry her in my belly for forty weeks and one day, to hold her in my arms for nine months and eighteen days, and hold her happy little toothy grin in my heart forever.  Yet, she was also a grandaughter, a neice, a great grand daughter, a friend, and a sister. However, I am held in my own category of grief. People look at me and wonder how I live - I look at the world and wonder how I could choose not to.  I am viewed as a suffering, hurt, sad, heartbroken mother - to often people don't see that I have those emotions because I got to love, kiss, hug, feed, care for, and call Makenna "mine" for the time she had here.  So often, they think their grief comes second to mine, her Daddy's and her Sisters. But, she was theirs too - as they were her's. Grief is grief, loss is loss and it's not an exclusive level of loss depending on "whose" she was.
  Just because I am her Mommy, I am put into a club that no ones wants to be in. One, that I fear I will exclude those who loved her from because they don't "know how I feel." Well, I don't know how they feel. Why don't "they" have a club or a label. Why do I feel like I will be defined by so many by the death of my daughter? While I don't want her to be forgetten, while this pain is the worse I have ever felt, I will not choose to be defined by what happens to me. I choose to be defined by how I grow and continue to impact this world positively. 
 If there is any "club" to come frome tragedy, it involves everyone who loved her, who saw her smile, who heard he melodic voice (as a very good friend put it, in the key of pterodactyl), who got open mouth kisses, and got to put her to bed at night - the people with whom she was blessed and who were blessed by her. We will miss her, we'll laugh, we'll cry. There will be moments of hurt, anger, and blame. There will be moments of hope, love, and forgiveness. Grief is grief, and this club isn't exclusive. I don't want it to be. Grief is both a celebration and a depression - both of which need to be shared by friends and family, combated, celebrated and accepted.
It brings a smile to my face knowing how many she blessed in her life, it brings a sorrowful burden knowing the pain her absence creates in so many that I love, and brings me hope that one day we will all be together in heaven and on earth when it's renewed.  There are thing in life that are endured, things that are accepted, things that are fought for, and things that are celebrated. Each has it's own place, each allows us to grow and redefine our life daily. Every life experience leads us to our life's purpose.