So many exciting things are happening. Growth. Skill. Renewed delight. A pause, a reflection, a momentary spark of joy.
I still think of our little girl daily. Wondering how we’d be growing as a family, how a one-year old would change our rising and meal times and travel plans. While I tried desperately to love her while we had our time with her, more that one person has told me I had to have been grieving her loss for all those months. Anticipating her short life and dreading saying goodbye so soon.
It was traumatic. It was always right underneath the surface the thought of her being here, but really not. Grief. Trauma. Coping.
All words I never wanted to be so accustom with. In the past year I’ve delve down deep into books and podcasts and websites and my own mental work — seeking, no longer answers, but ways to dig in and grow. Rooting down and rising up.
I’ve been purposeful in writing my story, telling about Isabella’s diagnosis and life to get it out. To process. To move through it. It’s all part of the healing, and I think it’s helped other heals along the way, though that was never my intention, but par to the beauty of being human. Of being broken and honest about that.
It’s hard to not just replay the day of her birth and the three hours of her life, it’s hard to not stay stuck in grief just to stay close to her memory. The weight of that sorrow and sadness feels like evidence of all we lost and how much we loved. BUT, staying there doesn’t help me. Just because I’m able to get out of bed and celebrate with my other children or not cry all afternoon long doesn’t mean I love Isabella any less or miss her any less.
I’m able to pray again.
I’m able to sing again.
I’ve started doing yoga again.
And all these things I thought would never be a part of my life after my daughter died. They just couldn’t be, not in a world where I had hurt so badly and lost so much. There was no way I thought I could enjoy what I enjoyed before because I was blindsided by the unthinkable.
I still cry when I remember all the events that surrounded that day. The incision in my belly still aches over a year later. I still get really angry and have to stop, and breathe, and close my eyes. But I can talk to God now. And lift my hands in worship. And step on my yoga mat to move my body… and it’s been more than enough.
I think Isabella has changed us all, our family. She’s not here, but she’s shown me so much about myself. My whys and beliefs and what I truly value. And I know this will be true for a long time to come. Seeing the evidence of beauty from brokenness.
I don’t believe God took my daughter. I don’t believe it was his perfect will or he needed another angel or He was punishing me. But He didn’t heal her. And that was always how her story would be. And while I don’t understand it, we live in a broken world with sickness, loss, pain and death.
Thank God for the HOPE we find in Him.
“For in Him we live and move and have our being” Acts 17:28