What They Never Told Me



Grief is really hard work. They warned me it would be. I have experienced it before, but I wasn't prepared for the depth I would feel it.  Ironic how I felt I loved her to nearly an equal depth, but just a little more.  I would have given my life to let her live.  

"Time heals all wounds."   I have wanted to believe that was true.  It has been two years, and I can honestly say that my wounds still feel gaped open, exposed, and desperately trying to do that healing thing.   For two years I have been trying to pick up the ashes and pieces of my broken heart and life in order to fashion them in to something resembling "healed."  But each time I take a step back the pieces fall apart again - like they are put together with cheap glue.  And I don't think I will ever feel complete in this life.  Not that I can't find happiness, but a piece of me went with her that day.  And I can only live my best with it still missing.     

Nobody prepares you for the secondary losses that trickle down into your life as time passes.  Friendships and relationships that once sustained me, my confidence in my ability to succeed, the identity of who I was becoming as my belly grew her body, and my energized health faded as my grief grew.  I didn't ask for it. I didn't prepare fore it, and yes I am very grateful to have been her mom and for all the experiences she and I shared.  Would I want to go back and change the last two years? Every. Single. Day.  I can't tell you my life is better than it was 2 years ago.  

When you lose a baby, you lose the "first" everything and our world is a constant reminder of all that you have been robbed of.  Yes. ROBBED.  The word bereaved comes from an Old English word "reave" meaning plunder, rob, or steal by force.  It literally means to be deprived through profound absence.  Nothing has been more profound than her absence.  Time doesn't fix it.  

I didn't go on an extended vacation after she passed away.  I got sick.  Really sick.  I had to go back to a job I could wait to leave (and had already left) because we had medical bills and debts to pay for.  I was thrown in to court to fight to KEEP custody of my living child.  I had to work on regaining my health and shedding extra baby weight without a child to nurse or to snuggle with at the end of a hard day.

I miss so much more than my sweet baby girl. I miss all that I lost when she had to leave.

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