Some days are just hard. Harder than others out of nowhere and for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes my reality becomes very apparent, and the sadness of it all brings the every familiar lump in my throat and warm tears to my eyes. I still miss my baby girl. When will it not hurt so badly?
My body and my mind can recall the most intense physical pain I felt in my chest and shoulders and neck while I was in the hospital after Isabella died. I cried so hard until it physically hurt. My muscles cramped and ached and were so tense until they told me STOP, we can’t bare the weight of this any longer. I couldn’t keep breathing and shaking that uncontrollably simultaneously.
I had never given much thought to my physical condition and my limitations after a cesarean which I knew was how she would have to enter the world. I had only been thinking about finally meeting the little girl we’d looked forward to meeting for 38 weeks. But I was in a great deal of pain after surgery, couldn’t sit up initially, couldn’t rock my girl or even dress her in clothes or wrap her up in her blanket. I just held her close and watched the life leave her body. That’s all that mattered in those three short hours. Just holding her- letting her daddy hold her.
Every special occasion is heavier than I anticipate it will be. In the back of my mind, somewhere I know it is coming. The anticipation of the grief and remembering and sorrow are often worse than the day itself, manifesting in headaches or tummy aches or just plain melancholy indifference. Fathers Day. She should be here, and she’s not.
Camille had questions Monday morning before we left for daycare, and we ended up just holding each other and crying. I don’t want to overwhelm my kids with the burden of death and dying but I want to be completely honest with them. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to make them sad and upset. It is Sad and it is Upsetting and I can not protect them from that. But I can hold them, and we can cry together. And I let Camille take one of Isabella’s “loveys” to daycare to sleep with at nap time.
The pain of losing someone you love is universal; the emptiness, loneliness, the feeling that life will never be the same again- it is inevitable. Death will come for us all.
But I never wanted it to be this way, and I guess that is how we all feel, when facing down our biggest fear, our worst nightmare. How did this happen, and why now?
I’m grateful to know such an overwhelming LOVE. I am not grateful that this is the path that is mine; mother to a dead daughter. Living each day wondering what life would be like with her with us today. Right now.
There will continue to be days like Monday. Where we talk, where we remember, where we cry. I wish we could have known her more, held her longer, experienced living a life together.
I’m learning to release. To let go. I want to be a conduit of energy and light. I want to feel my feelings, be honest with myself and others, but not always believe the intensity of my emotions. Stopping. Breathing. Being Still.
The crashing waves of grief- fierce at times as the heaviness pushes me under, then soft, gentle, and soothing.
Thank you, Stefani. I have too many words, too many emotions to write at this moment. I am going to breathe. 💙