I have typed so many posts yet never posted them. I have written things that aren’t wrapped in a pretty bow or sugar-coated to make them sound less messy. There have been words that come from sadness, anger, resentment, and hurt. They come from living with this traumatic loss and the unavoidable waves of grief. I know those feelings are expected. Still, I never post them. Maybe because I am ashamed, that what I feel isn’t positive and isn’t encouraging. Maybe being ripped open front and center for everyone to see (although too often people ignore) is draining.
And, maybe I fear it isn't what people want to hear.
But what I feel is real and is what I face daily.
My feelings change on any given moment of any given day. Depending on the grief and depending on the level of triggers I encounter.
Nothing about this is easy. Not a single solitary thing.
I can pretend, I can have good days, I can add distractions, I can try to escape, I can compartmentalize. But, none of that removes the fact that this trauma, this loss, this grief- exists.
I want my life to be different. Have you ever wished that? I had never genuinely wished that before the loss of our daughter. I have wondered for so many hours why this had to happen and why our baby is gone.
It feels like ages ago that we lost her, and at the same time, the wound is as tender and the memories as vivid as if it just happened yesterday. Grief is strange like that. You get drowned in a sea of stillness and yet the time somehow slips through your hands as you grasp on hoping it slows. For a grieving parent, every day that passes is one day further from the day they met or held or were with their baby. Time feels like a curse, in that regard.
As much as I wish I could get a redo on this part of my life and somehow make the outcome different, I can’t. And as much as I wish I could make this grief concise and graceful to make everyone else, including myself, comfortable, I can’t.
This grief is unpredictable. It is laughing one minute and crying the next. It means crying when you’re alone, a lot. It means wiping your eyes and then going to face people right after with a smile and acting like nothing happened. It means crying so much that you can’t breath and your eyes are raw and red. I get lost in memories we had, and also memories that we will never have with our daughter. I get terribly saddened and jealous of other pregnant women and new parents who get to have a healthy baby to keep, when my story ended so tragically. I get hurt by people who respond in less than empathetic ways to this pain, and by people who don’t say much of anything (and sometimes nothing) at all. I get frustrated when I desperately pour my heart out to people, and they try to tell me to see some non-existent silver lining to losing my child, or shoot me unhelpful platitudes or cliches. I feel let down when people don’t acknowledge or even remember important milestones and tough dates on their own. I get angry by my own changes and inability to feel or fully be myself. I rarely can be fully present or even think straight. I forget everything. I laugh and sometimes feel okay. A lot of times, though, I feel guilty. I do have good days. I will have really good ones followed by really bad ones. I spend a lot of time wondering how people perceive my processing. I also spend a lot of time trying to downplay my feelings, to allow others to believe I am doing better than I am. I want to plan every weekend to run away and escape, but when the weekend comes, I feel anxious and want to back out to be alone. I force myself to power through and fake as often as I can. I frequently feel forgotten and unseen. I think about my daughter constantly. I have days at work where I am so overcome that I can only get one thing done on my to-do list. I self-blame my body for being the reason our daughter did not make it full-term. That fact is hard to live with. I get angry that this grief has such a hold on me. I wish so badly I could feel like myself. I get angry that this happened to my husband and I. Why us? I have days where I am truly ‘up’ and I have days where I have never felt so down. My anxiety has never been worse, and my happy face for others gets better by the day. My grief is invariably misunderstood and that leaves me feeling incredibly alone more often than not.
And that, in all its uncensored glory, is grief. And even those are just a small clip of the range of emotions and thoughts I have grown accustomed to over the past few months.
It isn’t pretty. And it certainly isn’t the alternative, joyful reality I had both expected and wanted.
But, it’s what I have been left with. And I wouldn’t ever want my fear of vulnerability leaving any other grieving parents to feel more alone than they already do.
So, if this is you, please know: I feel all of it, too. I am also very broken. You're not alone.