Today is June 30th. Nine and a half months past my loss. Isla has been gone nearly as long as she was with us. This is so sad to me. It’s like she’s even more gone now. Even further away from us, from me. I’ve been blessed(?) to be part of a loss web board that is filled with beautiful, eloquent women who sadly are suffering losses similar to my own. I am finding as time goes by, I am able to see some beauty in things, and see beyond my pain. I can’t explain it very well right now, there are many distractions around me and I’m not alone, which I prefer to be when I blog, but I wanted to put this out there anyway. Here is what a fellow bereaved mom, Amy, had to say that just blew my mind:
“I came to a huge realization a couple weeks ago when recognizing both the beautiful/soft side of grief as well as the raw/painful side of grief. By allowing both these sides of grief into myself, by acknowledging I have both within me, I found peace with my grief. It felt good not to battle grief anymore. I no longer felt dread or fear towards my grief. My grief, in all it’s forms, is within me, a part of who I am now. I also think by feeling and acknowledging the soft side of grief, it allows me to have “good” days without the guilt.”
I really don’t even know how to articulate how exactly this describes where I desperately want to be. I see hints of the possibility for this kind of clarity and acceptance, and ability to integrate the loss into my life in a meaningful way, but it’s fleeting, and unpredictable. I realize that Amy may well not always feel this way, and that grief-bursts still wrack her soul, but the fact that it’s there at all gives me hope. Hope that I one day will not dread and fear my grief so much. That I won’t spend so much time and energy trying to outrun it, only to have it catch up with me in bed, when my mind and body are captive, and cannot run anymore. I want to be able to embrace my loss, and accept that the pain I feel in my heart is my daughter, and it is okay, even good, to feel this. Feel her. Know her. Be with her. Love her. I just want to be able to get to a place where I can do these things without the crushing, searing pain of loss. I imagine this is something that comes with time, healing and insight, but I eagerly anticipate it just the same.
A friend of mine (another bereaved mom, who lost her newborn daughter) gave me a poem that is strikingly accurate in terms of my grief journey. It is written to a bereaved mother, mourning the loss of her daughter. I will add it here when I get it out of my car. The poem’s similarity to my own grief experience knocked the wind out of me. The fear of facing grief, the dread in dealing with another grief-burst. Feeling fearful of a ‘good’ day, as it means a bad one is just around the next corner, waiting to pounce unexpectedly.
It’s been some time since I blogged, but I think of my blog all. the. time. I think part of the reason I write so infrequently is due to the fact that blogging about Isla is facing her, facing what happened to me, reliving it all again, and hurting. It is hard for me to accept (though I know it intellectually) that facing it all cannot make it worse. In fact, I usually feel better afterwards. Yet somehow, by avoiding, and distracting myself with inane pastimes instead gives the illusion of happiness. I am still so scared of the power of my grief, the strength in my emotions. When I grieve Isla actively, when it pours out of me, I am not in control, and the pain is deep and black. When I refuse to wade into it, I am in control, and that feels safe and predictable; nothing like grief at all.
I am working towards finding a place where I can have the happiness, but also have the sadness, and be okay with it. I’m obviously not there yet, but I think it’s coming.
