I don't know if I'll ever post this, but I need to write it out.
I read a blog post today from a special friend of mine. She lost her first baby just two weeks before his due date. He was stillborn.
Ever since I met her, I was touched by her solid faith in the midst of such an insane level of anxiety that comes with pregnancy after loss. She keeps a blog with stories from her life, cute things her boys do and say, and occasional reminders of the one waiting for them in the afterlife.
She writes about how her three living boys are 'rainbow babies' - joy that comes amidst storm clouds of despair. They are beautiful boys.
Daniel was to be our 'rainbow baby'. We had already lost Aubrey, and no one anticipated a second infant death. It was next to unheard of. Some people get rainbows. Some people have to wait. I try not to be bitter. I'm not always successful.
I've been reading a lot about grief lately - it seems to pop up everywhere. A TED talk from a woman whose young husband died of cancer. A TED blog post from the same woman. Articles shared by various article-sharing sites. Everyone talks about how it never gets better. You never move on. The pain never leaves. The wound never heals.
It's all true.
In my post a few weeks after Daniel died, I shared an article about grief. In part, the author compares grief to a piano that is suddenly dropped into the middle of our lives. It isn't going away, so we have to learn how to incorporate it into our daily life.
I find myself running from thoughts about children. I don't want to be with my friends who have children. Some days I do, and seeing their little faces brings me healing. Other days, I can't bear the thought of seeing them. Sometimes I wonder, am I crazy?
No, I am grieving. I stop and look at the calendar once in a while, lift up my view from focusing on trivial things to avoid looking loss in the face, and I realize that it has barely been three months since Daniel passed. Three months! That's it?! It feels like a lifetime. The days are heavy and long.
I'm back in school now, pursing a master's degree. It feels fake. This can't be my life. Why would I go back to school? I have children...
Some people give a reaction of relief - as if they are thinking oh, good! She's moving on. She'll be just fine now.
What they can't realize is how important grief is to my soul. I like it down here. Down here is where the echos of my children's lives are the loudest; down here is where I feel most whole inside. Up there, on the surface, going to school and seeing Davis off to work and cooking dinner and sleeping, that is all so shallow, so fragile. but down here, in my low-lit, deep den I feel security. I feel comfort. I feel like I have children - like they're really not that far away.
So if some days I don't want to come out, don't show up at social events, or don't seem truly present if I do show up, don't feel like you have to fix me. I just need to spend some more time in my quiet place with my family.
I read a blog post today from a special friend of mine. She lost her first baby just two weeks before his due date. He was stillborn.
Ever since I met her, I was touched by her solid faith in the midst of such an insane level of anxiety that comes with pregnancy after loss. She keeps a blog with stories from her life, cute things her boys do and say, and occasional reminders of the one waiting for them in the afterlife.
She writes about how her three living boys are 'rainbow babies' - joy that comes amidst storm clouds of despair. They are beautiful boys.
Daniel was to be our 'rainbow baby'. We had already lost Aubrey, and no one anticipated a second infant death. It was next to unheard of. Some people get rainbows. Some people have to wait. I try not to be bitter. I'm not always successful.
I've been reading a lot about grief lately - it seems to pop up everywhere. A TED talk from a woman whose young husband died of cancer. A TED blog post from the same woman. Articles shared by various article-sharing sites. Everyone talks about how it never gets better. You never move on. The pain never leaves. The wound never heals.
It's all true.
In my post a few weeks after Daniel died, I shared an article about grief. In part, the author compares grief to a piano that is suddenly dropped into the middle of our lives. It isn't going away, so we have to learn how to incorporate it into our daily life.
I find myself running from thoughts about children. I don't want to be with my friends who have children. Some days I do, and seeing their little faces brings me healing. Other days, I can't bear the thought of seeing them. Sometimes I wonder, am I crazy?
No, I am grieving. I stop and look at the calendar once in a while, lift up my view from focusing on trivial things to avoid looking loss in the face, and I realize that it has barely been three months since Daniel passed. Three months! That's it?! It feels like a lifetime. The days are heavy and long.
I'm back in school now, pursing a master's degree. It feels fake. This can't be my life. Why would I go back to school? I have children...
Some people give a reaction of relief - as if they are thinking oh, good! She's moving on. She'll be just fine now.
What they can't realize is how important grief is to my soul. I like it down here. Down here is where the echos of my children's lives are the loudest; down here is where I feel most whole inside. Up there, on the surface, going to school and seeing Davis off to work and cooking dinner and sleeping, that is all so shallow, so fragile. but down here, in my low-lit, deep den I feel security. I feel comfort. I feel like I have children - like they're really not that far away.
So if some days I don't want to come out, don't show up at social events, or don't seem truly present if I do show up, don't feel like you have to fix me. I just need to spend some more time in my quiet place with my family.
